Kid’s Shows with Cowboy Jack

This is episode number 190 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Greg Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad that you could join us for another live episode of The Homeowner Show here in The Homeowner Show studios. How you doing, Kev?

I am a homeowner again.

Did you close today?

I closed yesterday.

Yesterday?

Yesterday. But I mean, I don't live in my house yet. Yeah, you got nothing. We got a 2-week leaseback going on, but it's fine. We are—

So in 2 weeks you can move into the new casa? Yes.

So we're probably going to, uh, to give it just, uh, maybe a week because I guess, uh, we're good.

We're gonna You got some stuff to do.

A couple of things to do, and plus it's just timeframe and all that kind of stuff. But yeah.

Have your kids gotten attached to the confined quarters?

Oh yeah, they, they've, they've kind of surpassed their whatever weirdness they had.

And, uh, they like each other again.

Yeah, they've, they've basically figured out, okay, oh, I get a new bed.

It's not an option to kill you, so I have to figure out how to live with you.

Well, my son did tell me one time that he Really could not wait to get my baseball cards, and he said, "It's not that I want you to die, right? But I do want those baseball cards," and I told him he can't have them until I die.

So, so funny you should mention that. My kids have really gotten into Pawn Stars. Oh, are you familiar with that show on the History Channel?

Yeah.

So it's a really fun show. Like, people bring in like weird stuff, and like they'll offer to buy it.

Ba ba ba ba.

So, like, my kids have now gotten in this habit of, like, hey, Dad, what do you think that's worth? And it's like, no, it doesn't matter what it's worth. It doesn't belong to you. That's right. It's mine.

That's right.

And they're like, but what do you think I could get for it?

Exactly.

We're not pawning the stuff in the house.

My, my son's got to the point where he's just asking me, like, so how much did you pay for the house? How much did you pay for your excursion, Dad? How much, how much was the, Whataburger that we just bought.

He's got a running total on you, Bubba. He's taking out of—

yeah. And it's funny because like, has he invested in any term life insurance?

I hope so, because he's gonna need it, my goodness, after, after this home purchase. That's right.

Yes, that's exactly right.

What do you get? You get the house. You get the house. That's it.

That's it. Yep. So that's, that's all that's going on with me right now, which it's just kind of a big like weight. That's not— it wasn't like heavy, but it was just— I mean, closing on a house is just one of those things. It's a lot of work.

Absolutely.

And so it's done. Excited about that. But what's up with you?

What's up with me? I have an official Homeowner Show PSA.

Okay.

That I need to make.

Bring it.

So here's, here's the thing. Well, let's cue the music because this is important.

Okay, I'm ready.

Guys, Sunday. Sunday is coming.

It's coming.

Do you know what it is?

I hope so.

Sunday is Mother's Day.

Yes.

And if you are listening to this live right now, it is the final countdown.

You have—

To get a gift. If you're listening to this now, when the show comes out on audio on Tuesday—

It's too late. It's too late.

Way too late.

You failed. Yep.

Get a Mother's Day gift. Get one for your wife.

Yes.

Get one for your mom.

Yes.

Now is the time.

It is.

Flowers.

And any other moms that you know. Yes.

Just get them a gift.

All of them.

The time is now.

Yeah.

You have tomorrow, basically.

Yeah.

For them to not know what's going on.

Yeah, because Amazon is always—

You can't get it here in time.

That's right.

You have to go to the store. It is the final moment where you can achieve marital bliss. For the next year. For the next year. It all depends on this Sunday.

That's right. So Sunday, Sunday.

Now's the time. So PSA over.

Well done.

Thank you.

I am. I am more impressed with you than I ever been.

That is the most preparation I've ever done for the show.

Y'all, I know that's true. I know that's true for sure.

So there you go. But like again, like if you're listening to the podcast. on Tuesday when it comes out.

Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, we tried.

We did all we could.

You should have followed us and listened to the live episode on Facebook or YouTube. So there you go. Your marriage could have been better, but now you've got '23 to look forward to. Subscribe to the show now and we'll prepare you next year.

There you go. So good luck. Good luck.

And, you know, send us a message. We might be able to help counsel you through '22.

Yeah, I mean, but that costs money. Like, we don't do that for free.

What, the counseling?

Yes.

Well, it'll be— it'll be free, but it's not good advice.

Well, you get one or the other. Good, good, not free advice or bad free advice. That's right. It's your choice.

You'll get plenty of bad free advice from us. Send us a message, we'll respond to it. But like, I don't recommend that you do anything that we say.

Except to go get your mother a gift.

Yeah.

That was the one. So that you avoid all of this.

That's the one free one.

Yeah.

That's good.

Yeah.

So we got a cool episode tonight.

Yes, we do.

We've been, we've been hyping it up on the socials.

Yeah.

We got Cowboy Jack in the house.

Cowboy Jack.

What's going on, Cowboy Jack?

Not much, guys. How's it going?

Very good, man. Thank you for joining us in the studio.

Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Absolutely. So the, Man, we're excited to have you on. Like, why don't you let— I mean, like, I think a lot of people who are joining us on the show tonight probably already know what you do, but why don't you go ahead and just like let everybody know what it is that you bring to the table?

All right, so, um, yeah, like, I'm Cowboy Jack. My real name is John, by the way. Wow. You can— I'm cool if you call me just John.

Oh, cool.

But not Johnny?

Yeah, I mean, Cowboy John doesn't sound very cool, so I, I go by Cowboy Jack. So, uh, we make a weekly educational show for kids. That's basically what it is. Uh, we're on YouTube and YouTube Kids, and basically the whole premise of the show is that we go around different places all over the state of Texas and we try to show kids either, you know, it, it could be something fun like a, you know, a children's museum or a play place, something like that. But if it is one of those type places, we bring in an educational element to it. Like, so throughout we'll find different letters that spell something, or we'll learn about different dinosaurs that we find, something like that. And then sometimes we go to really

amazing places or really cool experiences. Like, one of my all-time favorite ones is one that we actually recorded with a pediatric dentist's office. And to me, that's really cool because we bring value to both the child and the parent.

Yeah.

Because that first visit to a dentist's office can be pretty— it's pretty stressful. So The dentist that we visited.

Yeah, yeah, the people sticking their giant hands in your mouth.

Thank you, thank you. So the dentist we filmed with is actually my big brother in real life.

Oh, nice.

He owns Georgetown, or he's— he's— he has a partner as well, but they own Georgetown Pediatric Dentistry in Georgetown, Texas.

He now owes us $10, by the way.

Oh yeah, okay. I think he takes checks.

Okay, we have a rule about name dropping.

Sorry, we do it all the time. Just to make people think we know people.

But anyways, one of the things that we learned about the show that we make through making that is that we have the ability to give kids an experience and a comfort level with something that's usually uncomfortable and also help the parents with— that's a huge icebreaker. Like, if you're going to take your kid to the dentist for the first time, you could show them our show where we go and we explain every step of the way what's going to happen next, why they're doing this. what the tool they're using and all that. And it just helps the kid have a better experience and ultimately helps the parent have a better experience. Yeah.

So, wow, that, that's, that's really cool. I mean, I, I, we, we tried to do our very best to make that first experience with our kids as good as it could be, and we failed. But it was because we chose a really poor dentist.

Well, you didn't have the Cowboy Jack Show.

Exactly.

That's true.

How are we supposed to know?

That's what we're doing.

We're having to educate people about the education that you provide, which is awesome.

I have the distinct advantage of I am Cowboy Jack.

So it's true.

My son watches my show and he actually just had his first dental visit this week and he did fantastic. Nice. Pretty nervous about that going into it, but he did great. He did great.

It's like, does my show actually work?

Yeah. It was, that was the true litmus test, right? Yeah. No doubt.

Well, so, I guess the other question I'd like to ask John, is how did you become Cowboy Jack? What did that derive from?

Yeah, that's a great question because, I mean, truth be told, like, I was the youngest in my family growing up. I wasn't around a lot of young kids. And so, like, when somebody would be like, hey, you wanna hold my baby? Absolutely not. I'm gonna break this thing. Keep it away from me.

Yeah.

And that's just the persona I've had my whole life. And then when I had kids, It just like, it immediately changes you. I mean, you know, right? So like now somebody's like, hey, could you hold my—

absolutely.

Give me that baby. Right.

I've been waiting for you to ask.

But no, I mean, I have a regular job. I'm a normal guy. I have a wife and 2 kids. And when our son was— he's about 3 or so when the pandemic hit. And my normal job, I travel all around the country. I'm starting to do more of that now, finally. But for a long time, all that was completely shut off because of what was going on in the world. And so I was working remotely from home, having to do Zoom meetings and all that kind of stuff. And so we used the television as a babysitter. And my son, Caden, Cowboy Caden, he got—

Has he made an appearance on the show yet?

He's been on 3 now.

3 episodes.

In that case, that's $10 more. We're doing quite well on this episode.

Do you have a He's got a tally sheet. That's good.

Carry on.

So, uh, he got hooked on some shows that just were not, uh, you know, they're educational, they're fun, you know, whatever, but they're really mega produced. They're very theatrical. And then a lot— so, so often these days, the kids' characters, they talk in a goofy voice the whole time, right? And so he fell in love with this guy. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the guy. I don't have anything against him. But he just did like, hey kids. And so Caden's learning how to enunciate words and stuff. He starts to copy that guy. And I was just like, man, where's the Captain Kangaroo? Where's the Mr. Rogers of today? Because kids like the

reality aspect of shows. Just like, I mean, the kids follow our interests.

Yeah, absolutely.

We're all watching reality style shows. And so kids want that. And we literally, like, the closest thing was like Coyote Peterson. That's a, you know, he's not exactly what I want my son watching all day, but a lot of his stuff is really fun for kids too. So I just wanted something like, you know, a mix of Mr. Rogers and Captain Kangaroo. We, uh, sorry, and I'm rambling a lot about this.

Oh, that's good.

Carry on.

This is great.

So we had bought a really good GoPro camera, uh, for the sake of recording our Christmas that year because Caden was finally old enough. He was going to be like opening presents in a fun way and everything. And, uh, I just told my wife, I was like, I can't take much more of this. Why don't you just, you know, his favorite TV show, I mean, his favorite movie right now is Toy Story. He loves Woody. He loves cowboys. You know, I've got this stuff. I didn't have the vest, but I had everything. I don't, I don't normally wear a vest. Okay. Nothing against people that wear vests, I guess.

Yeah.

It's just not my thing.

Well, it's, it's not necessarily the cultural normative thing, even in Texas.

Yeah.

To wear a leather vest.

Right.

Well, I gotta say, if I could get away with it, I would wear one every day.

I'm not saying I wouldn't.

No, you wouldn't.

This thing is a portable heat stroke waiting to happen. You have no idea how hot this thing is.

Well, see, that's the thing. That's why I don't, is because it gets so hot here. But like, if it was cool enough, yeah. Oh yeah, I enjoy wearing them when like, when it's just sort of a little brisk outside.

Yeah, it's nice.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So anyways, we just— I dressed up like this and we went out to the pond in our neighborhood down in Spring and filmed an episode about fishing and showed it to Caden and he loved it. So we showed it to some friends' kids and they loved it. And, you know, next thing you know, we're making a show.

Yeah.

Wow. And so did you guys, did you guys have any experience in like television or editing or any of that kind of stuff? Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

Just kind of had to figure it out as you went.

Learning by fire. We actually learned by watching YouTube videos.

Oh, really?

Nice. Yeah.

The new university system.

Yeah.

I mean, it really is.

I mean, but hey, I feel like I can edit with the best of them now.

Yeah.

And my wife is actually the pro. I'm a I taught her how to do it and now she does it a million times better. So she's the brains of the operation.

Nice.

Yeah.

So how, how are you filming things?

So now, I mean, we still literally use a GoPro camera. It's got some modifications on it, but the GoPro camera is actually like, when you look at cameras available on the marketplace, it has the best frames per second quality. And so we use that because it's an action style show where, I mean, I'm a slow moving guy. I'm not real action, but, uh, You know, we move around quite a bit and that camera keeps up with us really well. It's handheld. I mean, it's the size of a business card.

Sure.

And my wife chases me around and films me and we put out 4K quality. So I, I don't have any need to, to go to something.

So do you like use a gimbal? Like a gimbal?

You don't have to. Oh, GoPro has inbuilt, built-in stabilization.

Nice.

That's one of my big arguments about moving to a, you know, DSLR camera or something like that is because We don't have to use a gimbal, right?

Okay.

Yeah, for those that don't know, a gimbal is one of those things that looks like you're like hanging like a floating—

yeah, it's like a blob in the air.

I mean, like, it basically makes the camera real smooth as you move it around.

Yeah, it keeps it at a constant. You can do a lot of things with a gimbal, but, but if you're, if you're moving around, it keeps, it keeps whatever— yeah, is focused on in frame.

Most people are more familiar with them off of drones because that's how drones get such smooth footage, is they all have— I mean, like the good ones have really nice gimbals on them. Right. Yeah. So, man, like, one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about, and mostly because I know that it, like, it fires up Kevin.

Are you gonna talk about microwaves or sinks as appliances?

No, we can talk about microwaves. I like— everyone knows how much I hate microwaves. Okay. But no, like, one of the big things in the news right now is Disney.

Sure.

Yeah.

You know, everything going on with them, and there's a lot of stuff going on with them. One of the big things that came out with them recently is one of their producers came out and said, yeah, I'm sneaking— I'm sneaking stuff in here because I wanna expose the kids to it.

Yep. Yeah.

Like, that— that video was exposed to people. And that regardless of whether or not you think that that's right or that's wrong, here's someone trying to be sneaky with something— with kids' content.

Yeah.

And that makes people upset. And— and I— I—

I—

I know that a lot of people struggle with, I want the TV to be able to be a safe space for my kids. But I can't— now I can't trust the content that's being put out. And so here you come along and it's like, well, I'm just gonna create this really good content that I don't— and I've watched your stuff. Like, you don't have any agenda. You're just like, I wanna teach kids about this.

Yeah.

I wanna teach kids about this. And it's nothing that's, like, political or, you know, sociological. I mean, like, it's just like, how to go to the dentist, how to have good table manners, here's a really cool park. I mean, like, stuff like what Mr. Rogers would do.

Exactly. I mean, we try to keep it— I mean, and we do keep it 1,000% agenda-free. I mean, you know, I, I could talk a lot about Disney and that whole scenario, um, but, you know, do your own research. There's a lot of— I mean, there's a lot of information. That's a real thing, right? It is.

Yep.

And, uh, we're both—

and Craig and I are both Disney fans, but I'll tell you, we're becoming less Disney fans because— I mean, which is weird for both of us to say because we love everything that Disney has been, but what they're winding up becoming has been frustrating recently.

And it's not that I— like, I don't want to shelter my children in any way, and I'm not against— you know, it's hard to talk about. Like, it's hard for me to to put it to words without sounding like a horrible person, because I'm not a horrible person. Um, but there's some things that need to be said there. Like, um, you know, I'm not against any— anybody's anything that they want to be, right? You know, if you're a guy that identifies as a cat and wants to love goldfish, like, that's fine with me. Go love your goldfish, fish man, right? I don't care. But the thing about it is I don't want that pushed. Like, I just feel like the reference to sexuality in any way, shape, or form should be completely

obscured from children's content.

Anything children.

My thing— so I'll say this and then I'll shut up about it because I could talk all night about this. Um, there is such a precious tiny amount of time that kids get to be kids, and then about 12 to 13 years old, the world starts hitting you like a freight train and it never stops. And I don't mean that in a bad way. You grow up and, you know, things change, but you get responsibilities and everything. Under that, like, 12-year-old mark, you're, you're free of all of that stuff. That's your, your time to be young. Just be a kid. Show up and have fun. That's all that's expected of you. And I feel like as a parent, I want to, you know, protect that innocence with every bit of my being. And that's, that's what I'm

about.

Yeah.

And, and, like, I think I, I get that from what you're doing with your content too, because, like, you're not wanting to have even like a hint for the parents that might allow their children to watch it to ever fear that you're going to say something wonky.

Yeah. I mean, like, my thing is like, so, you know, you've heard the old— and I'm not crazy about where the verbiage comes from, but it's true. You know, it takes a village, right? And some people have a big village. Some people have a very small village. I want to be a part of that village so I can give parents a break to wash dishes or do laundry, pay bills, or sit on their butts. I mean, it's exhausting being a parent. I mean, you guys know you need that time to just stare at the cell phone and mindlessly scroll for 30 minutes. Just give me 30 minutes. And I want Cowboy Jack to be— you don't have to be concerned about what's on there because it's just kids being kids. That's it.

Yeah.

And part of the reason I wanted to have you on is I know that you've I mean, like, your, your show is massive. I mean, like, like, like, I'm not like blowing smoke at you. Like, for— I mean, like, you, you have a really big following on there, but you've had some struggles getting support for the show.

Yeah.

Not, not because the people that follow your show aren't supportive, but like some of the channels through which you could, you know, make it a— make a living off of it. have been shut down?

Yeah. Like, I mean, we have a, you know, our platform is YouTube. And the reason our platform is YouTube, because there's, you know, it's literally the largest search engine in the world. You can't ignore YouTube. It's a fantastic place.

Right.

But, like, you know, we average right now we're at, like, 4.1 million views a month and 290,000 hours a month. We just hit a million watch hours. That's the equivalent of if somebody started watching our show right now and kept it showing, kept it going for almost 115 years straight.

Sheesh.

That's insane. It's crazy to me. Right? So something generating that amount, that amount of traffic and that amount of watch time is a significant amount of revenue. Like, it's life-changing revenue. It's life-changing for us. I mean, it's life-changing for anybody.

Right.

You know, it's, it's upwards of, of a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. It's significant. But we've been banned from the partner program on YouTube. So, you know, we're trying—

Without any— no reason given?

Well, I mean, initially they gave us the, the reason of invalid click activity, and we've filed thousands of appeals. There's no explanation as to what invalid click activity means. They have their website that says, sorry, you're, you're banned for life. Go click on this link and watch a video about it that basically says, sorry, you're banned.

It literally says you're banned for life?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh my God.

And not only just me, it's, it's me and my immediate family, which makes it that much more fun, right?

Wow. Oh my gosh.

Um, no, but we're, we're trying to work through that. It's frustrating because this is truly like, I feel like the passion of our lives.

Like, right.

Put so much effort into it and we absolutely love making it. Um, but, you know, well, uh, I don't know. I could, I could talk a lot about that too.

Let me ask you this. I mean, I'm sorry to like try and like problem solved live. But like, have you guys tried setting up like a, like a clip channel?

What do you mean by that?

So like, sometimes I, I know some other guys that have had trouble with their monetization being shut down, and so what they'll do is they'll go through and set up a, a separate channel where it's just clips of the line of the whole show, where it's like little bitty clips that then have link backs to like the whole show.

Okay.

You know what I'm talking about? Have you seen anything like that?

Yeah. We— and I had somebody way smarter than me, a guy that manages, you know, some, some channels with upwards of, you know, 5, 7, 10 million subscribers.

Right.

Because our subscriber count isn't really representative of, of our traffic.

Yeah.

Because we're kids content, you know, on YouTube Kids, that, that subscribe button is teeny tiny.

Yeah.

And, you know, we don't expect kiddos to, to hit that like they would on a normal channel.

It's not their It's not their subscription anyway, right?

It's, it's, yeah, it's through the parents. So, but, you know, I've worked with a guy that manages those channels for, you know, A-list celebrity type folks and trying to, you know, work, work magic to get it to happen. And we just continually hit roadblocks. That's crazy, man. It's, you know, it's frustrating.

But, I mean, like, honestly, like, like, I've watched your content. I think Kevin's watched your content. Yeah.

You have.

I mean, I can't think of a single reason why it would be demonetized or shut down.

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of—

I almost said the word.

Yeah, don't say the word. So, I mean, I am a cowboy. I got my hat here with me tonight. Hey, kids, don't laugh at my hair. Kids aren't supposed to be watching. That's a thing we do on the show. But there's a million different things it could be. I mean, We made an episode. I mean, there's a lot of ideals that I do have that are evident in the show. Just like anytime you see a first responder, whether that be EMS, police, fire, all those guys, you tell them, hey, thanks for doing what you do.

Right.

Because that's how I was raised. And I feel like that sentiment has been lost over the years. There's a lot of turmoil in that world and whatever, but You can think whatever you want to think, but when something bad happens, who do you call?

Right.

And so whenever you see those guys that are putting themselves on the line, we always make sure to say thanks. And so we've said that a few times on the show, so it could be that. I got a lot of hate mail over my episode we made with Montgomery County Precinct 3 Sheriff's Office.

Really?

Yeah.

And that—

why?

Or did they give a specific reason, or were they just being like—

My favorite email I got about it was, it was a lady that said, you should not be supporting police officers, you should be promoting therapists instead. And this was when I was— we were still pretty small, and I didn't really know, like, I was going to be kind of a public figure in this. So I said what I felt, and I said, I'm sorry you feel that way. If someone ever breaks in your house, I hope they can get a therapist there for you very quickly.

That's good.

You know, that was— I mean, that's— but now I tone my responses back. I always try to be— and that's one thing we— I do pride myself on. If somebody asks me a question, I answer them. Like, I stay up late at night on Facebook. My wife will tell you, she— we argue about that a lot. I spend way too much time on social media responding to people. I want to be—

Accessible.

Accessible. And that's like a cool thing about— like, I can't tell you how many birthday shoutouts we do. Like, that's my favorite part of the thing because like I can actually make a kid happy with something I say. That's awesome.

Yeah, why wouldn't you do that? Yeah, it takes 3 seconds.

I mean, the hardest part is making sure I got a shirt clean in the vest. That's it, you know.

That's good.

Well, so, uh, yeah, which by the way, if Wrangler is listening, we need to, we need to hook this, this dude up.

Guys, everything I wear is Wrangler. I mean, the vest isn't though. They don't make a vest. Yeah, but the shirt, the jeans, we gotta, we gotta hook them up.

There's absolutely no reason you shouldn't get paid by Wrangler at least.

Come on, Wrangler.

Sponsor at least at like some free clothes.

Is there a brand of boots you're wearing every time?

I'm wearing Ariat boots.

Oh, good for you.

You know, because the Ariat brand I find are the most comfortable for your feet, especially when you're doing an action-style show.

Preach.

And they're breathable.

Yes.

With this unbelievable mesh on the side. So I always support Ariat.

Wink.

I'm wearing a pair right now, if I don't mind saying so.

all of the pairs that I wear are Ariat. I've got—

are they over?

I've got, like, 3 other pair that are Justin's, and I don't wear them because they're not comfortable.

Well, let me say this. My wife, like, did not grow up country.

Oh, no.

Right? She has— she has evolved over the years, the 16 years that we have been happily married. And she is an Ariat junkie.

Oh, yeah.

Like, she— she'll come in every once in a while, and she's like, I found another pair online.

I'm thinking that might wind up— now that we have some land, I'm thinking that my wife is gonna wind up with some too, and I'm loving it.

She's like, they don't even fit the kids, but they will eventually. I'm gonna go ahead and get them.

They're just so comfortable. Yeah, man.

Well, did you— are you, are you aware of, of the— who developed Ariat?

No, I'm not.

It was, it was something. Are you?

No, I'm not. No, I don't know the story.

So, uh, it was, it was a female lady that she, uh, worked for Reebok, but she rode horses. And she was like, they're, you know, it's so frustrating because—

That makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, she was like, every, you know, I just hated getting, you know, coming home and having to put on my boots after wearing Reeboks, you know, every day. They were so comfortable. And then, you know, I get on my horse and it's just, these are horrible. And so she developed Ariat to be a boot that you could run in. Like, that's, that's really kind of how that came about.

Let me say this as a horse person.

Uh-huh.

All the other boots suck. Yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm not like being like hyperbolic. I mean, like, at all. Like, no other boot makes a good riding heel, and horse people out there know exactly what I'm— and yes, I know that there are like custom boot makers out there that do that, but like, as far as like commercial boot makers, everyone else sucks. Like, no one makes a good riding heel anymore, and they're all like— and everything else is like in the dressing on the side that you're supposed to tuck your pants into, and I hate those. Yeah, like, there's no point to that to me whatsoever. I'm not looking to like wear a show boot.

Who cares about the neck?

I need to stay in the saddle unless it breathes, right?

Yeah, unless it breathes. Wink.

I have my boots tucked in right now.

Yeah, I can see.

It's for the show.

It's for the show.

It's part of the costume.

If that's your thing, man, like, but like Like, if that's the only point of the boot, yeah, like, I'm out.

It's not, it's not my everyday thing. It's when I'm Cowboy Jack, you know. Sometimes I'll forget, like, I will— we'll be driving somewhere, like, we, we've filmed a lot, like, in College Station, and I'll go ahead and tuck my boots in before we leave the house, and we stop to get gas or, you know, a drink or something, and, uh, I'll get out not remembering that my boots are tucked in. Then I'll have these guys out in, you know, like, Caldwell, Texas, like, looking at me like Boy, I'm like, dude, I don't— I'm making a kids show, okay? Don't judge, right?

I'm trying to be funny. Is it working?

Look, I'm not trying to look extra country. I know this isn't country. It's for the kids.

He's going, hey, you got pearl snaps on too.

Yeah, that would be an interesting show. Yeah, Cowboy Jack gets in a scrap and—

yeah, I'll let you in on a little secret. Cowboy Jack's not the best fighter. Victory fall hard, you know.

Oh man. Well, I, I would say though, if you're looking for a pair of boots, don't even try anything else. Right, right.

So there are, there are— I mean, like, people will go to Justin's, Twisted X. I mean, like, there's other brands out there. Yeah, like, whatever fits your foot. But like, man, like, if you're riding, I, I can't I mean, and then for like comfort, I'm the same way.

Yeah, I mean, I wear my boots a lot when— if I'm not wearing shorts, a lot of times I'm wearing boots, and it's because my Ariats are so comfortable.

Yeah, I know. Yeah.

They just are, for sure.

So we kind of went off the rails a little bit.

So Reebok, that's really cool.

Exactly.

I like this.

We need to get this lady's name. I want to talk to her.

Okay.

You're gonna set that up?

I'm gonna look up her name right now.

You're gonna look up her name. Okay.

Yeah.

Ask another question. Ask it.

You brought it up.

Well, that's all I got, though. I got nothing else.

All right. So what has been like— I know you just did a crazy episode with Life Flight, but what have been some of your favorite episodes this— and how many have you done so far?

Oh, I mean, we try to stick to putting one out every single week. And we, we hit the year anniversary back in March. Um, I mean, of course we did miss a few weeks at Christmas and Thanksgiving.

You've got around 50 episodes out?

I think we have about 60 now. Oh really?

Okay.

Uh, my absolute favorites would be obviously The Dentist. Uh, we shot one with ESD 11. If you don't know who that is, that's Emergency Services District. It's the, uh, the ambulances and the paramedics for Harris County District 11.

Okay, so one of the EMTs that you visited that day actually sent me a message today. It was like, hey, you're having him on the show? He was at our station.

Which one was it? Was it—

Her name's Anna.

Oh yeah, yeah, I saw that. I saw that. So that was— that, I mean, that episode was unreal because like I said, that was cool because we're teaching kids, you know, they see ambulances a lot, right? And they never get a chance to take a close look at them unless they go to like a Touch-a-Truck. But if your kids are like my kids, you wait in line forever to touch a truck to go inside there, and then the second it's their turn, they lock up.

Yep.

And won't go inside. So we take a look at all the, you know, the tools and equipment they have inside the ambulance. And then, but, but we also meet the paramedics and talk about what they do every day so that if a kid does have to encounter paramedics, and, you know, God forbid, but a lot of kids will, and, uh, so that it— they can focus on what hurts on them, not the scary things going around them because it's actually not scary.

Right.

So that was a really cool one. That was, that was an impactful episode, and its, its views are reflective of that. Um, we actually, like, I try to do everything in Texas, but we went to, uh, Florida to, uh, the Destin area, Miramar Beach.

Yeah.

Okay.

As a family. And, uh, we recorded a sandcastle lesson with Sandcastle Rockstars over there.

Oh, that's cool.

And that was the first one that my son was in, and he was like 3 at the time, and he just killed it, man. He was on fire, and I love it. That episode just hit a million views today.

Oh my gosh.

That one was a lot of fun.

And Destin's pretty.

Yeah, man. Look, don't get me wrong, nowhere better in the world than Texas.

Sure.

But if you want to go play in the sand, uh-huh, it's hard to beat. Yeah.

Oh yeah, that, that kind of Okaloosa Island, Destin area is some of the best beaches in the world.

Oh man, they're amazing.

Unreal.

Yeah, so I grew up around Cocoa Beach, which is on the Atlantic side.

Okay.

And so when we, we moved to Texas, I think I was like 12 or 13 or something, and we were going to a church and the youth group was like, hey, we're gonna go to the beach this weekend. And I was like, yes, thank you, finally. So they took us down to Galveston and I was like, this is horrible.

Yeah, why are we playing in the mud?

This is not a beach, right? This is a sad brown water.

Yeah.

And like, I get it, like Galveston's nice, don't get me wrong. Like, I, I've come to appreciate it. Yeah, I don't want to dog on Galveston, but like coming from where I was at to this, everyone was like all hyped up to go to the beach.

And really, I mean, it's just different because I mean the sand is different over there. And also the, you know, the way the Mississippi flows into the Gulf around New Orleans and the currents literally just bring it right to us.

I mean, it's like the armpit of the ocean.

But the water— I'm not saying the water's dirty, it's just muddy.

It is what it is. I mean, it's, it's just the way the currents work and the way it kind of wraps around that Texas-Mexico border area. Yeah, it just does what it does. Yeah.

So, so are you, are you a master sandcastle builder now?

I am. I'm certified in 7 states now. No, we— well, we had a great time with it.

How big of—

We didn't go crazy with it. We kept it basic so that kids could try to recreate it.

Okay.

Uh, when they go down there, and it was cool because we had a lot of folks, you know, try to recreate what we did. We made some towers and stairs and stuff.

Okay.

It was fun. I'm trying to think of, you know, some of our other favorites.

Did you say you went to the aquarium place over on Beltway 8?

Interactive— Houston Interactive Aquarium. Yeah.

Did you guys do an episode there?

Yeah, we did. That one was ridiculously cool. Yeah, the views aren't as good. I think it's a function of I love making animal episodes, like I love animals. They're fun to film with. Like, I had a lemur sitting on my cowboy hat on that one. It was unreal.

Dude, the lemur experience there is crazy.

Yeah. Like, I can't believe that you can just go in there with some lemurs.

Like, sit down and hang out with them.

And they were cool. Like, I was petting one like a cat while one was climbing on my head. Like, it was, it was one of the coolest. Like—

But 2 fingers.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. That is exactly right. You've been there. Yes.

Um, and did you finally go, Kev?

No, I didn't go. I just saw pictures.

You saw— okay, you saw our stuff. But I see—

I was sitting there going, why is Craig's wife being so weird with the 2-finger thing?

Yeah, that's a thing.

It's weird, but it is.

Apparently if you go full pet on them, it's, it's too much stimulus.

It's like aggressive.

And they, uh, they can bite. They have teeth, you know.

Um, well, yeah, those ones—

I mean, those ones are well handled, you know, they're well taken care of, well handled. So, um, but that, that episode was ridiculous. But like, I love making animal episodes, but our animal episodes don't do as well.

That's weird.

And I think it's just because there's so much animal content out there for kids, probably, that, you know, they can— they'd rather see us, you know, uh, jump in a helicopter or something like that.

Sure.

So that brings me, I guess, to my next question is, where do you come up with your content ideas?

We, we literally— I mean, a lot of it comes from our fan base now that we're, you know, we're growing and everything. Um, like, we just filmed one, um, with Memorial Hermann Life Flight.

Nice.

That was actually a fan's kiddos were watching the show. I mean, he's— so the flight nurse that we filmed with, his children watch the show.

Oh.

And his wife had messaged me real early on and said, hey, my husband is a flight nurse for Memorial Hermann Life Flight, and that'd be awesome if you did an episode with her. And we were like, yeah, that would be awesome, let's do it. And we just got busy and forgot about it. And I think they tried a few people there and it didn't go anywhere. Well, I actually ran out. I didn't know I ran into her, but I ran into somebody at the Montgomery County Fair that stopped me and was like, hey, you're Cowboy Jack. And I wasn't in costume, so I was like, this is the coolest thing ever. But she was like, my

husband's a flight nurse and I want to get you out there. And she made it happen.

That's awesome.

So we get ideas from our fan base. We get a lot of ideas from my son. Yeah. You know what he's into. He likes, you know, right now he likes really fast cars. So I'm trying to think of some fast cars. We got close some fast cars recently. But, um, it's just, it's stuff that I know my kid and his friends will be interested in. And of course, like, we get a ton of people— like, we're at that point now where people reach out to us and say, hey, we have this, would you want to come film?

Yeah.

And most of the time it's really cool stuff. We've had some, some strange ones come, like, you know, hey, do you want to come film our tattoo shop? Ah, not that I'm— I'm not against a tattoo shop, but I just— it's not good content for kids, right?

Yeah.

Um, there's not just a ton of kids lining up in tattoo shop.

In 12 years you can get one of these.

But like we did, like we did, but I, I had a piercing place reach out to me and I thought, you know, we might want to revisit that because that's something that, you know, every little girl wants her ears pierced and it's a scary experience. Maybe we could help them with that. That's— I forgot about that. Thanks for making me think of that.

Would you get your ears pierced for the show?

No, I would not.

Okay.

Um, I would watch somebody do it. I don't have anything against having ears pierced. I just— not my thing.

Let's talk about your piercing for just a moment. So my daughter has her ears pierced.

How old is she?

She is 9, but she got them pierced when she was 5 or 6.

Okay.

Um, she went, did the whole experience at the little girl boutique place.

And you didn't do it yourself?

No. Um, but interestingly enough, so she's also into American Girl dolls, right? Okay, so Which one? Oh, she's got one or two of them.

I don't know.

Okay.

She's got Blair, I know. And, you know, she, she wants the new one. The new one's actually kind of cool. Um, she's got like a ski outfit.

Um, anyway, so the new gal has a ski outfit.

Yes.

Okay. So anyway, make sure I'm tracking right.

Doesn't really matter. We went to the American Girl doll store in Houston recently just because she wanted to.

That's a thing.

Oh my goodness, it's a thing.

Um, they have like a whole store, dude.

Yes, I think they just put one in The Woodlands actually too.

Did they really? Did they really?

I think so.

Well, that's good information. But, um, we went to the one—

I just drove way too far.

Yeah, exactly. We went— when we were in New York, we went to the one there and it's like 3 stories. It's unbelievably huge and massive and they've got all these things. Anyway, one of the things you can do at these American Girl doll stores is you can get your doll's hair done. Like, you can— okay, they'll do different, different styles. And, you know, you can actually— some places you can get your hair done like your girl, all those sorts of things. Well, one of the things they can also do is pierce the American Girl doll's ears, and they can pierce your ears there as well.

That's cool.

And I'm sitting here going It is a whole— like, now the American Girl dolls actually have like dolls that are, that are little bitty because your American Girl doll is basically like you, and you're carrying around your American Girl doll, so she has to carry around her American Girl doll as well. It's like this whole— it's a, it's a whole big massive huge thing. It's honestly— here's the thing, I kind of love it. I'm not gonna lie.

I got—

it's pretty awesome.

The first thought that came to my head is this is extremely misleading.

Why is that?

Because I would imagine any little girl that goes in there and the lady who's piercing the ears goes, well, who wants to go first? She's gonna go, well, let the dog go first. Well, that didn't seem to hurt.

Exactly.

She didn't scream at all.

Yeah.

She really took that like a champ.

And then she goes in, she's like, Holy!

It's just, it's one of those. It's, it's a, it's kind of a deal.

And then it becomes a really big problem because now she doesn't trust the doll.

Oh yeah, doll resentment. I think that's a real thing, right?

It is now.

You know, my main takeaway from this is that I have so much to learn. I'm new to the girl world.

Yeah, I was gonna say, you, I was just about to ask. So you've got, you've got your son, uh, and, and he likes a bunch of things, obviously, right? Because he's Active Boy. We have Active Boys as well. Yes. And, um, and you have Active Girl too. Yes. I don't have Active Girl, but I do have a girl. Um, but I'm kind of curious, like, the girl content, is that, is that something that you feel like you've done well with, or is it something that you feel like you need to do better about? I'm just kind of curious.

No, I mean, I don't know. So, like, you know, everything that we've done is kind of, you know, I think it would interest Both boys and girls.

Yeah, sure.

And that's the way I try to keep it is that it's relevant to, you know, both boys and girls. But like me as a parent, I am brand new to the girl world. I have a 1.5-year-old daughter and I'm, thank you. I'm one of 4 sons. So my girl experience is nothing.

Yeah. Oh, just wait.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like the most awesome thing right now. Like girls are awesome.

My big stress that my wife has been talking about recently is like, we need to buy more rompers for And rompers for me as a dad are home run because I don't have to worry if the pants and the shorts or the shirt match.

Yes.

That's right.

It's a full outfit. I, I said, let's go online. Let's see if we can find her some rompers.

That's right.

I like this.

It's amazing.

Yeah.

Love you, babe. Love you, babe.

No, the, the rompers are great because if you end up with a little girl like mine, you're lucky if she's wearing anything at all.

Nice.

Well, because you can put it on. But it might come off very quickly.

It might come off.

Yeah, exactly.

But like, you're not— like, when it does come off, you're like, they're not going, where's the pants? Where's the shirt?

Where's— that's right.

It's one thing.

One thing. I mean, but of course you then you got to find the diaper too.

You're like, uh-oh, things are about to happen.

This could go real bad. This could be real bad.

Oh man. Well, so let's see, we've talked about how you got things started, favorite episodes. What else? Like, what?

No, no, I want to go back to the— like, did you get to actually ride in the helicopter?

No, we didn't. There was like— so I didn't know this, but the helipad in the Texas Medical Center at Memorial Hermann is one of the— I mean, it's a level 1 trauma center, right? It's actually the busiest civilian helipad in the world.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah, so like every couple minutes we were hearing a horn. We had to, you know, move out of the way because there's something coming in.

Slow down, Houston.

It was, it was really— but what they do is amazing. I mean, and it's not just like, you know, horrible accident, guy coming in, horrible, you know, gunshot wound coming in. It's not all that too, right? They do a lot of stuff like they, they move blood very quickly when it's necessary.

Oh, and organs.

And organs. I mean, we didn't talk about organs, but I think they do that. I mean, just And like, if they have critical transport, like if somebody needs to go from Hospital X to Hospital Y that's in a critical state, you know, you don't want them to get stuck in traffic for a while. So for sure. And they, I mean, they have to move specialty equipment around from hospital to hospital and helicopter's the easiest way.

That's one of the things that I, I think is, is kind of interesting about our, like Craig and I do this podcast, right? And we talk to contractors. I promise you, I am so much smarter than I used to be. I'm talking to all these people that are really, really smart in their field. Oh yeah, I'm sure you're finding a lot of that to be true as well.

So like my big aha moment that I had from making the show, and y'all, everybody I asked this already knows, so maybe I was just living in la-la land. I had no idea that fire trucks hold water in them.

Oh, okay. Like they actually had like a tank in them?

You both knew that, didn't you?

Well, not all of them do. I don't think all of them hold water.

No, not, not all of them, but the majority. So it's like a swimming pool on wheels.

Yeah.

I had no idea that. So like, for me, like, all this stuff we're doing is legitimately fun. Like, yeah, at 37, I've found a cool way to express my natural curiosity and goofiness, you know.

Well, so if you really want to explore it and like, like own a piece of it, There's a fire truck for sale just down the road here. I'm not kidding. Have you ever seen a fire truck for sale?

I didn't know this was a plug for your fire truck.

Your Craigslist, Kevin.

I was about to say, and I've seen it and it's fantastic. Boy, if you want to talk about beautiful red paint, I'll tell you what.

Have you seen it? No, no. If you're, if you're heading into Montgomery on 105, just passes the subdivision that we just Moved out of. Okay. On the left, there's like this little there's this little place that has random things. They got boats and ATVs, and they get some cars every once in a while.

Oh, is it the place on the left?

Yes, right there on the left. I know what you're talking about.

They have all kinds of weird stuff in there.

They do. And there is a fire truck right there. And I'm sitting here going, anybody can own a fire truck? Like, how cool is that? I mean, like, can that help with your insurance? Can you be like, look?

If there's a fire station, we're carrying water.

The fire station is in my look yard.

You're triggering me, man, because you know that we had that bad fire here a few years back. Yeah. That was not caused by me.

No, but but hey, but but look, I feel some resist some.

The air just changed in here. It's kind of weird.

Got hotter, really.

Yeah, it did.

Weirdly hotter. Like a fire.

Ironically hotter. I was I was getting I was getting the hands in the air.

I I I I.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Well, explain it to the 50 firemen on the, on the property right now.

But here's the deal.

Uh-huh.

You can now own a problem solver. Yeah.

So I actually watched a show recently where a guy bought an old fire truck and then he had it restored. And I saw the price tag on getting it restored. Oh, I'm out.

I can't imagine.

I'm out.

This one actually looks like it's in really good shape.

I think he paid like $30,000 just for the fire truck and then it cost him like another $27,000 just to like restore it to like working order. Those things are expensive. See, the thing is, there's so many like moving parts and like, like the water tank, like you got to have a pump and you got to have like a lot of, a lot of pumps, a lot of gauges, a lot of devices and instruments.

Yeah.

And then, and then realize how like complicated like that system is in order to like put out fires.

And then you have this fully restored fire truck that you've spent all this money on.

What are you gonna do with it?

What do you—

well, see, that's the thing is like, and I'm like, I need one fire.

I'm like, why? Somebody come on.

They have Uh, fire— someone decided to get rid of this fire truck, which means it's probably not working well.

Yeah.

Or something. I don't know.

Actually, let me back up here because this is, this is actually valuable information for homeowners that now that I'm—

Let us be the judge of that.

Getting over the PTSD of my fire at the property. So we ended up with fire trucks in the pasture, pumping water out of the trucks, putting the fire out. And so when I— and I'd gotten a phone call like, hey, there's a fire on your property. And I was like, oh my gosh, my house is gone. Like, yeah, I rushed home and all— it's just, it's brush fire, brush fire in the pasture. None of the buildings were affected. I, I think the back side of the pool house got a little bit of charring on it, but it's no big deal. So like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm on the four-wheeler, I'm rolling around going like, hey, what's going on? Can I help? What do you need?

Like, I'm the property owner. like, help.

Yeah.

And I'm like, hey guys, there's, there's a fire hydrant right there at the front of the property. I mean, like, could— why aren't you using that? And they're like, oh, we tried to, it doesn't have enough water pressure.

What?

Yeah. And like, they installed that fire hydrant right after we bought this property. So it was like around 7 years ago.

I mean, aren't those things like supposed to be tested and monitored and all of that?

Yes, and like we actually got a reduction in like our homeowner's insurance because we had a fire hydrant out front. That's what I'm talking about. And so I was, I was really mad. Yeah, I was like, okay, so, so this thing does nothing, right? It's literally like lawn ornament that provides me with no protection. Um, just a big giant metal thing in my yard.

Thanks.

So how do you find out if your fire hydrant is worth anything?

You get a fire.

Well, that's not a good way.

No.

I, I would, I would prefer another option. What's option B, Craig?

I don't know.

I mean, I, I, I've opened one up before. I don't recommend it. No.

Well, they said like, they were like, water came out of it, but like, you know, it just wasn't enough pressure to get anything.

And I would think they could connect that to the truck though and then use the booster pumps on the truck. I mean, I'm not a fireman. I don't know. I'm a cowboy who's been with a fireman who knows all these things. Yeah.

Interesting. So anyway, ask my brother-in-law who is a fireman. I will ask him why or how do you know?

How do you know?

Like, why? Or anyway, there's lots of questions.

I mean, like, if you had one in your front yard, I think you would have the expectation, like, if there was a fire, I could potentially expect for water to come out of that thing.

Sure. That would be rational.

To help put out the fire quickly.

Right.

There has to be some sort of, you know, the firemen, right? I'm sure you can ask them for an inspection of some kind or something. There has to be.

Or like maybe like put a flag on it.

A flag?

Falsy hydrant.

This is a red flag fire hydrant. This is an orange flag fire hydrant. So they all mean something different.

But also, if you didn't know, I mean, like you, you can petition your homeowner's insurance to get a reduction in your rate if you have a fire hydrant. Yeah, like within so many feet of your house, right? So it's, you know—

Well, I mean, that's one of the things that whenever— that's one of the reasons beyond a lot of things that your insurance needs to know how close the closest fire station is for that very reason. So yeah, it just is the way it is. So anyway, now I will ask my question. Is there anything we haven't talked about that you're like, man, we should really talk about that?

Um, Yeah, put me on the spot.

I know, just wait.

I don't know.

I mean, there's more coming.

There's more.

I don't know. I'm gonna need y'all to ask me questions. I don't— I can't think of anything that we haven't covered. I mean, we've covered a lot of things. You know, the one thing that I try to encourage— I mean, just you guys try to encourage too, I'm sure— is, you know, whenever you're watching content that you enjoy, whether it be on YouTube or a podcast, anything, hit that subscribe button because that, that really does help.

Yeah. Um, it doesn't cost you anything either.

Yeah. I mean, like, you know, so, so Cowboy Jack doesn't make money off of the show, but the more people look at that when I'm, when, like, when I'm trying to film somewhere, they say, okay, well, what's his stats?

Right.

And they look at my subscriber count, they look at, you know, and I have to tell them, hey, here's my views, here's my watch hours. And that'll blow them away. But my subscriber count isn't representative of what we do because it's content for kids. I think we already talked about that, right? But, um, you know, any kind of content that you're enjoying and, and, you know, patronizing and watching and, and liking it, make sure to hit that subscribe button because it helps creators in such a crazy way.

Yeah, I mean, because if you want that content to continue— yeah, I mean, you know, Craig and I, we've talked about this this earlier. We don't, we don't make as much off this show nearly as we—

as people think that we do.

Yeah. That's a good way to put that. We really do it because we like to.

Yeah.

And a lot of people— and, you know, literally, we've been out here almost 200 episodes because we want to do this. And a lot of content creators do that, but there comes a point for a lot of them at which you have to weigh the cost. And, and both the dollar cost, but also the time and the commitment and the All of the things, right? So if you want that content to continue, you really do need to support them. And one of the best ways you can support them is just show other people that you're willing to support them, which would allow them to want to sponsor it. There's lots of different ways, but you just clicking the subscribe button makes a

huge difference.

Yeah. And I mean, there's no— you can't put a value on word of mouth. So like, if you really enjoy something, or your kids really enjoy something, or even, you know, your mom enjoys something, it's a gardening show. Talk about it. Talk about, you know, sure, this is— I mean, we're in the world of, you know, we're all 3 guys that enjoy creating content.

Yeah.

And we're putting our heart and soul into it. I mean, I see all your equipment here makes my equipment look like Mickey Mouse. I mean, I envy you that you sit still and have a microphone right here that sounds great, but like, I fight audio on the daily, right? And, uh, but like, we put our hearts and heart and souls into this, and so at some point, you know, you do expect like you do work, you, you know, reap some benefit from it. That's, that's the hard part for us. But like, you know, when people ask me, well, if you're not getting paid, why do you keep going? Well, it's because we get those messages from moms and dads. And yeah, one—

okay, you could— I—

you asked me if we could talk about something that we hadn't covered.

Sure.

One thing that happened to us that I never expected in a million years, and I have no background in whatsoever, is our content is really useful to these special needs and learning disability communities.

Interesting.

Like, I don't have it. I don't have a child that's on the spectrum or, you know, any learning disabilities or anything like that. I mean, we of course are— yeah, but, um, you know, since we started the show, just because— I mean, this is the voice that Cowboy Jack uses on the show.

Sure.

Right? So it's, it's just my normal voice. And, you know, I try to be energetic sometimes, but I'm a pretty slow-moving fella. I don't move around too quick. And so what we've found is like, you know, the, the spectrum community, the, the communities of parents and teachers and, and caregivers and all those that are, that are dealing with, uh, autism and kids on the spectrum, they find the show incredibly useful. Um, Team Awesomeness is an online academy that's about to— it's in the process of starting up. Uh, Lynn, the, uh, the director of that, and her son are starting this academy, this online learning academy for, uh, actually autistic adults and, and autistic kids too. But the focus is, is, you know, kids on the spectrum and, and adults on the spectrum. And they reached out and say, you know, can we

use your content on it? You want to use my content? Like, yeah, that's awesome. That's what it's there for. It just— it's, it's— that's a huge— like, because I, you know, I've always had a big heart for that community. It's obviously, you know, raising kids is already hard enough.

Yeah.

But you throw in, you know, some challenging situations into that, it gets even harder. And so the fact that our show can play a helpful role in that just blows me away.

Yeah.

And like, we've had— oh man, I got— can I tell you something else too?

Sure, please.

I got to talk— I got to brag about Cowboy Carter. Like, I don't know if y'all follow us enough to know what that is, but, um, so like when we first got started, I had these really sweet people up in Athens, Texas reach out and say like, oh my God, we— our grandson loves your content and, uh, he's having a birthday. Could you make him a birthday shout out? And so we did. His name was Carter. He's about, uh, my son's age, a year younger, I believe.

Yeah.

And so, uh, we did that and we've stayed in touch with them just because they're ridiculously cool people. One side of the family, the grandparents, have a, uh, a place that, that's a bakery Okay. Sweet shop there outside of Athens. And then the other folks have this awesome piece of property. And I just, I like, I know this whole family. Like, I know the parents, the grandparents on both sides. Like, it's, they're cream of the earth type people. And, uh, we've stayed in touch and she reached out to me, the, uh, Gigi, uh, Shelley.

Hi.

Um, she reached out to me back in like September, October timeframe and said, hey, Carter's not feeling too good. Could you make him a get well, uh, video? And so, of course, we did. And then right around Thanksgiving, she said, well, Carter's been diagnosed with diffused B-cell lymphoma. Oh, my goodness. So this little cowboy had cancer.

Wow.

And we literally got to be there every— I mean, not physically be there. I mean, he was battling cancer during the time of the pandemic.

Wow.

He really didn't get to see anybody, but sending him videos and stuff and getting to interact with him and we FaceTimed with him. I just got to talk to him. I think it's been about 2 weeks ago now. Shelly, uh, his Gigi FaceTimed me, and me and Cowboy Cade and my son FaceTimed with Cowboy Carter, and he's, he's cancer-free now.

So like, oh, praise God.

To me, man, it's, it's— that was incredible. And like, we need to hurry up. Like, they've offered to let us come up and like film a fishing thing with him. And to me, like, that's gonna be so cool because this— like, we've made 2 fishing episodes. I never catch anything. Like, that's not the focus of it. That's not the point. Like, I know how to catch fish. You know, I don't like to brag, but at one time I did hold the state record. No big deal.

Okay, I think I held the state record too for the longest without fishing, but that's fine.

I held a ridiculous state record.

They—

when I was in college, they opened up catch and release records for the first time in the state, and I was the first person to submit a longnose gar. So by default, I had the record until somebody out— went out and caught a real fish. But, uh, Anyways, I'm so excited to go up and, and fish with him. Now we've kind of like— it's a little bit too hot outside, but we still need to do it. But, uh, man, those, those folks are just the cream of the earth, and we connect with those type of people. And that's why, like, you know, people, you know, are you gonna keep doing it? Well, yeah, I have

to. Yeah, like, I'm—

it makes a difference.

I feel like I'm— I mean, I, I'm making a difference, and I've connected with these kids, and I just like, you know, like somebody, uh, Elizabeth Harvey, one of my fans that lives in San Marcos, I talked to her a lot. She's really cool. She— forget where I'm going with this. Oh yeah, so I posted that we filmed with Life Flight and she commented. I remember her comment specifically because she was like, one day one of your fans is gonna grow up to save lives working on Life Flight. Oh yeah. And I was like, dude, that would be the coolest thing. And I don't know how I'd ever connect those dots, but I'm gonna pretend like it's gonna happen.

Well, there's eventually— there's gonna be some kid I mean, years down the road, who's gonna reach out to you and say, you know, because you did this, X, Y, and Z. Yeah, I'm, you know, I am who I am today because of that. I, I have no doubt that that's gonna happen.

Yeah.

You know, and it could be years just because you, you're not that old in Cowboy Jack yet. I mean, it takes time for these kids to grow up.

And see, you opened up a can of worms because you, you asked me if there's anything we, we didn't talk about, and I like worms. I went, I went, uh, I went for a minute, and now I've got all these things. But this, this came up recently in a conversation I was having with a future shoot. I won't tell you what it is because I have to keep a secret. But, um, we try to feature a lot of skilled trades on the show.

Okay.

And that's, that's, you know, y'all talk a lot about skilled trades.

Yeah.

I mean, all the contractors and all the work and specialty stuff that's, that's going on as a homeowner. Um, I like to talk about and showcase skilled trades because when you're growing up you know, you, you have exposure to like, you know, police, firemen, teachers, you know, what mom and dad do and stuff like that. But you don't get to see some of these other, um, you know, lines of work, right? And, and there's so much in the world that says everybody should go to college, and there's so many kids that, you know, that doesn't fit what they want to do.

Yeah, it doesn't fit their personality.

Sure.

And truth be told, if this world doesn't spark some more interest in some skilled trades, uh, you know, we're all gonna have crumbling roofs and— And you are—

Blocked toilets.

You're pushing a button for Craig over here. It's a good button that needs to be pushed.

Absolutely.

But we agree. Yeah, very much so.

I think there's a ton of people that agree. Yeah, like, it's just like, you know, kids always assume, okay, well, you graduate high school, you got to go to college. Well, that's— you can go out and be a pipeline welder and make, you know, Buku's of money. Crazy amounts of money.

And you got, you got people like my brother-in-law who's a firefighter right now. Uh, he made a 33 on his ACT when he was a sophomore in high school. Super smart dude. And went to, uh, went to college and, and was horrible at it because he didn't go to class.

Yeah.

And he didn't go to class because he, he could read the book and go in and make 100 on the test. It was not challenging for him. It was not interesting to him. And he immediately went out and became an, uh, electrician. Did that for years, and now he's doing— he's a firefighter. He's one of the smartest people I know. It just— college isn't for everyone, and it shouldn't be billed for everyone, right?

And I mean, it's not cheap. It costs a ton of money. Yeah. And so if you're not actually, like, driven— that's just like when, you know, there's a lot of people that, that, uh, push their kids into, like, uh, club sports and stuff.

Yeah.

And I think that's great. I mean, you know, do, do whatever is right for your family. But, like, for me, if my son doesn't show an incredible God-given talent that he truly enjoys doing, like, if the joy's not behind it, I'm not gonna push him to play club baseball because then he'll end up resenting it.

Yeah.

If he's naturally good at it, that's one thing. Let's do the club baseball. Let's do all that, those things. But I don't know why I'm talking about that.

No, I think that's actually— I mean, I'll tell you, I was actually having that conversation with somebody the other day. Because like we've never pushed our kids into sports.

Yeah.

And like, I played a ton of sports when I was a kid. I played them all the way up through high school. You know, probably could have played some smaller colleges. It wasn't that great, but did a lot of work in that area. And like, I— my wife and I are just kind of like, if they're interested in it, like, we'll let them pursue it.

Yeah.

But other than that, like, I'm not like, why take away from my family time? Like, where I'm spending my entire Saturday, probably most of my Sunday, a lot of weeknights, like, where we're just not having dinner together.

Yeah.

You know?

Well, that's— I mean, like, we've got some friends, Summer and Dore, that, that have a son, Sebastian, and he is an incredible ballplayer, and he gets genuine joy. Like, you can see it on his face. I have no doubt that that kid lives and dies for, for baseball.

Yeah.

And that's, and that's how they live.

That's great.

They're taking them all over the place and, you know, batting practice at this time and hitting practice at this. I mean, Yeah. But that's what brings the kid joy, and he's truly natural at it. So why not?

Yeah.

Do that.

Knock yourself out.

Yeah.

Play as much baseball as you want.

Yeah. But like, I went, I went to a small private school, and so I could go play any—

You got to do everything, right?

Yeah. Like, it was, okay, it's basketball season, let me remember how I shoot a hoop, or let me, let me go play football. And we could do all that because it was such a small school, right? Um, but had I gone to like a public school, you know, I probably wouldn't have made a single team at all. You know, I played, I played football for forever because I was— I'm a, you know, I'm 6'1 and, you know, fairly big, big guy, but I never enjoyed the sport. Right.

Yeah.

And then finally when I switched high schools my— before my junior year, and I had also, you know, hurt my neck pretty significantly, I was like, I'm done with football.

Yeah.

You know who goes and sits in all the bleachers at the football games? The girls. So, um, I can go hang out with the girls. Everybody else is out there getting their heads knocked around.

That's good.

It's exactly the reason I took aerobic kickboxing in college.

Yeah, that's a good one. Nice.

I was—

the ratio was like 1 to 50.

Uh-huh. And you were the one.

Those are good odds.

How's your kicks?

They're not so great. But I can take— I can take somebody to dinner like nobody's business.

Yeah, he can take a kick. He knows how to take a kick. All right. Well, here's the thing. With all of our first-time guests, and I say that with sincerity because I expect this is probably gonna happen again sometime down the road. So with all of our first-time guests, we have to do something very, very special. It's the thing that everybody that listens to our podcast is most waiting for and looking forward to. Everybody still listening, they're waiting for this moment, right?

Absolutely.

And this is the Final Four.

The Final Four.

That's right. These are the final 4 questions we ask each and every one of our guests.

I'm so glad it's the Final Four.

Yes.

No, I was worried that you were gonna like make me, I don't know, hold a live chicken or something. I didn't know where we were going with this.

Well, there's no chickens here. If we were at your mom's house, we could get some chickens. Yeah, we could get them. We just don't have them.

I say do that for the next new guy.

Okay. Okay. Okay.

I don't know if we could have a chicken in the studio.

Here's— I don't know. There used to be chickens in the studio.

That's true.

For those of you that don't know, the studio used to be a chicken coop.

There you go.

Nice.

Exactly. We're speaking of, before we get to the Final Four real quick, my son wants chickens now. Nice. And our realtor, Brandy, who's awesome, She gave us a gift whenever we closed yesterday.

Right.

It is an egg gathering apron. This says Hackett's Fresh Farm Eggs.

That's awesome.

You know, Cowboy Jack made an episode with Chicken Girl.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Chicken Girl's an elementary teacher out of Dripping Springs, Texas. And she wrote this book called Chicken Girl, which is actually about her life.

Okay.

And Every copy of her book, she donates some of the proceeds to Coops for Troops, which is a vet. It's an it's a nonprofit organization that that helps veterans, you know, set up their first chicken coops to where they're self-sufficient.

That's so really cool.

Chicken Girl. Chicken Girl. The book is on Amazon. Check it out.

Okay. Yeah.

We need Chicken Girl. Can we link that up in the show notes?

Yes. Okay.

Yeah. Absolutely. Mainly because I want to know what it is because I'm not kidding that like it. It's— it was her, her comment was, and now you have to get chickens so you can get the eggs.

That's right.

That you can put in the apron.

Did you, did you say her name?

Yeah. Her name is Bonnie Trebet Rosario.

Okay. So if you search by that name and—

If you search Chicken Girl, Chicken Girl on Amazon, Chicken Girl Bonnie Trebet Rosario, it'll pop up.

Okay. It does the, does the book sales actually go towards the nonprofit as well?

Yes, it does.

Okay. Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah. And you, I mean, or you can search YouTube for Cowboy Jack Chicken Girl.

There you go.

And you can— okay.

We're gonna do that.