WEBVTT - Michael Strickland 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Steps podcast. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:17.000 My guest today is founder and chairman of Bandit Lights, 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:22.040 Michael Strickler, but he also is a driving force behind 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:28.360 a new organization called the Entertainment Association. Michael, what is that? Bob? 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:30.760 Thank you very much for having me and thanks for 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.960 asking the question. Uh. Many people know me and know 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:35.600 who I am now because the last two and a 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.960 half years I've worked with Congress to affect change and 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:42.680 get financing basically for our industry. But what is the 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:47.280 Entertainment Association? Probably the most important thing that we will 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.199 do that we need to do as an industry. And 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:53.800 here's why. What I discovered first and foremost in the 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.160 last two and a half years UH in Congress is 0:00:57.280 --> 0:01:02.000 that this industry holistically has no voice. Two and a 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:04.919 half years ago when I began my journey and last 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.199 week when I'm still in my journey, what you hear 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.880 every day is go away. You have no voice, because 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.440 what did we as an industry do when the pandemic began? 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:20.880 The Restaurant Association WIN is one, the Airline Association WIN 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:23.520 is one. All of the other industries that you would 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.679 think of automotive. They went is one one voice you 0:01:26.720 --> 0:01:32.280 didn't have in the restaurant situation, the waiters fighting, the cooks, fighting, 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:36.480 the clean up people fighting the suppliers. What did entertainment do? 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:41.080 We went in a thousand canoes. They all went in battleships. 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.039 We went in a thousand canoes. There were so many 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.360 voices that the senators and the representatives did not even 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.560 want to deal with us. So that brought me to 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:53.960 the moment that I realized, we've got to have a 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.120 unified front, just like all these other industries do. And 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:01.800 it's it's much bigger than just music. Anyone that needs 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:06.360 to gather a crowd to our no living would qualify 0:02:06.440 --> 0:02:12.760 as being in the entertainment association. And that's basketball, baseball, football, ballet, hopie, 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:18.480 Indian dancing, children's UH Dance ensemble, you name it, anyone 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:22.680 that needs a crowd. When the country shut down, they 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:27.040 had no voice. And as I went through my endeavors, 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:30.280 UH it was really the small people that got hurt 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:35.600 the most. All of the cultural organizations around the United 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:40.000 States that promoted regional or or or in some cases 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:45.000 even national UH dance troops and and cultural things, they 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.880 had absolutely no voice, and we've got to correct that 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:55.079 because their bottom line, there's just no voice before Congress 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:59.400 other than a thousand voices, and the thousand voices before 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.640 Congress do not get heard. Okay, let's go back to 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:08.359 the beginning. It's March. Obviously your company is affected by 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.680 the shutdown. How do you get involved in this whole 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:16.680 money from the government lobbying voice thing? Another great question, Bob. 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.000 I've got a degree in business and degree in law. 0:03:20.560 --> 0:03:23.560 Started in the show business at age twelve, but along 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:28.320 the way, I've done a number of things Politically. I 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.160 ran the Chamber of Commerce here in Knoxville for four years. 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:33.880 I'm on the board of directors at the local hospital. 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.840 UH lobbied for the university at the state and the 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.760 federal level, and I know a lot of politicians. So 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.520 I had this weird background that never came into play, 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.960 and I used to wonder, why do I have this 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:49.800 weird background. Well, on March thirteenth, which was a Friday, 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:53.000 Friday thirteen, that was the day that Live Nation a 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.360 g n C double a NFL, all of those people 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.840 said we're done, you know, two weeks to flatten the curve. 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:02.160 When that happened, I picked the phone up and I 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:05.160 called Marcia Blackburn, who was one of my two senators 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:08.080 who I've known for forty years. And I also called 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.680 Lamar Alexander, by other senator, and I said, what do 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:13.520 we do? Help us? Help us, you know, we we 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:18.520 need some help politically. Uh, And so we began the 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:22.559 conversation Lamar when I called him, you know, we spoke 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:24.159 a bit, and then I called him back on Sunday 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.640 and he was with Stephen manuch In, the Secretary of 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:31.039 Treasury at the time, and Lamar put the cell phone 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:34.159 on speaker and I explained to manuch In what was 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:37.800 going on. And he said, well, surely you have contracts 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:39.599 and I said, well, you know, yes we do, but 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.440 so what And he goes, well, surely these people are 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:44.920 gonna pay you. And I said that's not the way 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:47.560 it works now now, Manute and I don't know what 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:49.360 you know about him, but he was in the movie 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:51.320 business and he made a lot of huge movies you 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:52.880 can google. And he made a whole bunch of those 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.520 action thrillers in the eighties and early nineties, so he 0:04:55.600 --> 0:05:00.000 understands entertainment. And I said, Stephen, you don't get paid 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:02.320 and he goes, we'll sue them, and I said, the 0:05:02.320 --> 0:05:04.719 first time you sue somebody is the last time you 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.400 worked with him in in show business. And I think 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.240 he knew that. And his comment when I got through 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:14.360 explaining how our industry works was he paused a moment 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:19.520 and said, what a stupid business. You know. That was 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:22.240 kind of how it started. So they began introducing me 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:24.680 to other people. Now I knew some other people at 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.440 the time. Okay, let's let's just go back for a second. 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:31.640 Your two senators, how do you literally know them? You 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:35.080 get a call back, you gotta pick up right away. Yeah, 0:05:35.120 --> 0:05:38.680 I've got their cell phone numbers. I knew Marcia before 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:43.560 she was in politics, and her first job was running 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:47.680 the State of Tennessee's Tape and Film Commission, which promotes 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:51.279 movies and television within the state. And uh, I was 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.120 on the that board, and I worked with her and 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:57.240 set up a Knoxville Tape and Film Commission. So we 0:05:57.279 --> 0:05:59.280 worked hand in hand in her first what you would 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.479 call political job, and then from there she became a 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.479 state representative in the state senator and then the US 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.880 representative in the U. S Senator. So we go back 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:11.520 forty five years. Lamar Alexander is actually from this area. 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.560 And uh, you know, he's been in federal government forty 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:20.039 five years. But along his journey, uh, he was the 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:24.120 president of the University of Tennessee. He was the secretary 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.160 of Education. You know, he did a lot of different things. 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:29.360 So I knew him locally as he grew up. And 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:31.640 you know, I had both their cell numbers, and they're 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:37.160 what you would consider friends. Okay, So Minutan says, it's 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:42.560 a stupid business. What happens next? I told him there 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:47.080 are stupid things about it, and Marcia and and uh, 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:52.599 Lamar immediately began helping me with introductions. And one person 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:56.960 led to another. And uh, in my life, I have 0:06:57.080 --> 0:06:59.799 had the good fortune to meet a lot of people 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:04.160 which have led me to other interesting people. Uh. Jimmy Haslam, 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.000 who owns the Cleveland Browns, is a good friend of mine. 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:12.800 His family owns Pilot Flying J the truck stops. That's 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:16.840 the sixth largest private company in the United States. So 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:19.960 I called up Jimmy, and Jimmy introduced me to Rob Portman, 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:25.800 the senator from Ohio, h Barry Switzer, the Oklahoma football coach, 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:28.120 and the Dallas Cowboy coach, dear dear friend of mine 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:30.680 for years and years and years. So I called up Switzer. 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:34.640 He introduces me to the Arkansas UH and the Oklahoma 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:38.640 senators UH and and so on and so forth. I 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.440 would call people. I knew that that new people who 0:07:41.480 --> 0:07:44.480 would introduced me to people, And suddenly I'm talking to 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.360 senators and representatives all over the United States and we're 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:53.920 gathering steam and UH. Eventually that led me to UH 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:58.040 Senator Todd Young from Indiana, and the Senator Young had 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:01.600 written a bill along with Senator Gold from Colorado called 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:04.920 the Restart Act. And if you trail back in history, 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:07.880 and I'm not sure if you're aware, but but the 0:08:07.920 --> 0:08:12.160 Restart Act, we an entertainment launched a really impressive thing 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:15.800 back in two thousands, which we called regular Restart. We 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:19.280 lit two thousand, eight hundred buildings in the United States 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:21.840 at the same time on the same night, and it 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:26.360 ranged from uh Niagara Falls to the Empire State Building 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.760 to the Seattle Space Needle, to half of the buildings 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.319 in Las Vegas, UH, to stadiums all over the United States. 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:35.360 And then you move into little towns and we had 0:08:35.400 --> 0:08:38.440 people in the same night all over America donating their time, 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:42.000 their equipment, and then we had a live webcast that 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:44.200 the cameras you know, we switched from this city to 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:46.840 that city, to the next city to bring attention to 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.480 the fact that this industry needed the Restart Act past. 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:54.120 Now you may say, what's restarting? Why did you back 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:57.320 at Well, I spent February, March, April, May, June, July 0:08:57.600 --> 0:09:01.559 all the way through to December being the driving force 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.360 behind Restart. There were ninety two out of a hundred 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:09.079 Senators that signed on to restart. There were three hundred 0:09:09.360 --> 0:09:14.560 ninety House members that signed on to restart, and restart 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:18.360 was not for our industry. Restart simply said any small 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:22.240 business which has less than five hundred employees and suffered 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.920 a twenty five percent reduction and income in any one 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:33.120 quarter in would get from the government forty five percent 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:37.840 of their two thousand nineteen income. The only exclusions were 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.400 you couldn't be in the adult entertainment industry and you 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.520 couldn't be publicly traded. So this was a broad based 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:48.040 bill that that would help all of American business. And 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.520 I'm sure Bob that that you noticed as this went on, 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.680 you had restaurants in trouble, and I mean a lot 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.280 of businesses were in trouble. We'll restart was going to 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.920 be the vehicle. So the day that I go first 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:06.040 testify before the Senate December, uh, I'm giving my spiel 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:08.200 and and and it was a two and a half 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:13.600 hour Senate testimony and Q and A. Everybody said, Yep, 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:16.439 we're gonna pass it. We're gonna pass it. And long behold, 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:18.640 they didn't pass it. And to this day, no one 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:22.719 can give me why other than uh, Todd Young had 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.800 kind of backed off of it in November. To this day, 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:31.800 I don't know why. And his girl. Every senator, senators 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:37.240 and representatives are are the entertainers. Uh, their staff are 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.880 the songwriters. Their staff hands them a sheet before they 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.680 go into a meeting or before they go into an event, 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:45.839 and you know, it's a one pager that gives them 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:49.480 the high points. And unless they're invested in it, they 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:51.080 kind of get the high points and go in and 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:53.560 do the spiel and then they move on. Most people 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:57.160 don't understand that the average senator and or representative have 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:02.000 between eight hundred and four red bills that they're dealing with, 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.520 So how much attention can they give anyone. Uh. I 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:09.199 believe that Senator Young was all in on this bill, 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:11.520 and I think that he was at some point, but 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:15.080 he had a girl that that was his chief songwriter, 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.000 if you will, well, she left at the end of 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.760 November and went to work for Rob Portman. And what 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:22.720 I didn't know at the time was when she left, 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:24.600 the bill left. If you know what I mean, this, 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.160 this was the person. This was the engine that drove 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:32.439 it all. So when when she disappeared, her name was 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:36.760 Anne Gordon. When when Anne disappeared, the engine disappeared. There 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:39.360 were two engines to that bill. One was me and 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.439 the other was Anne. I didn't even know she'd left. 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:45.880 So here I am before send it, testified and pushing 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:49.480 this darn thing, and you know, the heart's gone out 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:52.480 of it on the on the Senator side, and it 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:55.480 just laid there and died. And and at that point 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.319 in time, I was also in a parallel fashion working 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.560 to make sure it's what started out to save our stages, 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:05.000 uh and ended up being called s v o G 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:10.120 Shuttered venues, operators, grants got passed, And in my testimony 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.120 I pushed for both of those. And the analogy that 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:18.040 I used was that s v O G UH was 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.440 needed and was landing on the beach in Omaha, but 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.600 we needed to get to Paris. So once we landed 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:26.240 with s v O G and taking care of the 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.120 venues and the venue related people, we then had to 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:30.840 go up the cliff into Paris. And how did we 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:35.120 do that? We did that with restart and when I 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:38.280 left that that that that evening, I knew we had 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:40.520 gotten both of them passed, and in fact, they told 0:12:40.520 --> 0:12:43.120 me we had, and I've got the congressional record. It 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:45.320 tells you in there that they're going to be passed. 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.360 But then it didn't pass. So then I shifted all 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:52.520 my attention to save our stages, s v O G. 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:59.120 And that's that's how it begun. Okay, save our stages. Uh. 0:12:59.200 --> 0:13:01.480 I'm not taking any money from that. I don't own 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.360 a venue. But it seemed like at first the money 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:09.320 wasn't available, and then if you weren't early, you didn't 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:12.880 get any money. What was going on there? There was 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.920 a whole lot of steps and missteps from the beginning 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:22.480 in execution, which led to UH misunderstanding Again. I became 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.080 the voice for all of live entertainment, and I ended 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:28.960 up with an email chain at one point three million people, 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:33.400 and that I still have it. That email chain included 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.600 not only traditional live show people, music people, if you will. 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.240 But I ended up advising the Screen Actors Guild, the 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:43.240 Director's Guild, the Producers Guild, the Broadway League, the National 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:47.840 Association of Broadcasters, International Association of Venue Managers and own 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:52.680 and international associations, Affairs and Expositions, the rodeo people. I mean, 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.280 it just got bigger and bigger, the air show people, 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.960 and every day I got another group that that that 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:01.040 looped in and I put all of the names into 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.760 my email things. So I became the go to guy. 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:08.360 And when that bill started, they excluded UH. The first 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.400 thing that happened was the SBA came out with UH 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:14.080 frequently asked questions. And at this time a lady named 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:18.079 Barb Carson was running the s B, A lovely lady, 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:23.080 very cooperative, UH, a lot of help. So I guided 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.240 them through the fact that why are you excluding fairs? 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:28.080 Because there was this big push that if you didn't 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:30.960 have any venue and if you didn't sell tickets, you 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:35.240 couldn't have any money. And and and the frequently asked 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:39.560 questions that first came out pointedly said that fairs, rodeos 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.600 and festivals couldn't participate. I had a whole bunch of 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:46.960 festival people that I talked to, include including Danny Wimmer 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:49.200 and all of his people at d w P, great people, 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.400 uh and and and uh, Gene Cassidy up at I 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:55.680 f E, a lot of great people. Well, we worked 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.640 really hard for about three months, and we got him 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:03.920 over the hump. And so they slowly said okay, okay, fairs, 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.440 fares can come in, Okay, rodeos can come in, and 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:11.440 then eventually, okay, festivals can come in. So so in 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.560 the first three, four or five months we got those 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:17.080 people in. But the only exclusions, and you have to 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.880 read the law were adult entertainment and publicly traded companies. 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.120 And all of a sudden, these frequently asked questions just 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.920 just started putting boxes that weren't there in the law. 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.520 They just weren't there. So I began to point out 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:34.840 to them, that's not what the law says. Well, Barb 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:40.280 Carson left and Isabella Gusman came in. And Isabella Gusman 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.040 had a very strict and narrow view of this law, 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:47.040 based on a lot of conversations that she had had 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:52.360 with other people, And there were those who believed that 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:57.400 that the money in the program UH wouldn't cover anybody 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:01.160 outside of the initial round, and people think it was. 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.840 There are two thoughts. One, most people, including the senators, 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:08.520 thought that this money was for everybody. Why is that 0:16:08.880 --> 0:16:11.680 because the message was broadcasting Give it to the venues 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:14.560 and it will trickle down to everybody. Well, that's simply 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:18.360 not true. The venues didn't open forever and ever. But 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.320 but it wasn't just for venues. If you go read UH, 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:26.400 Save our Stages, it's pointedly for for independent venues. In 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:28.680 other words, Live Nation and A G had nothing to 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:32.000 do with this, absolutely nothing to do with it. So 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:38.480 it's for independent venues, managers, agents, and promoters. So those 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:40.720 people were included. If you were not in one of 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:43.320 those four groups, you were on the outside looking at 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:45.800 And that goes to your question. So there was a 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.320 whole lot of confusion, which which you know, led to 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:53.440 me counseling people, sending people copies of the lead of 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:58.400 the law, UH, doing notes and whatnot. And we never 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.840 really changed Isabella good Usman's mind. You know, she she 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.399 never relented. And and then the darned software crashed, and 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:08.240 this happened, and that happened, you know, and it took 0:17:08.280 --> 0:17:10.520 four or five months to open up. And then when 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.880 it did open up, the initial ask was for fourteen 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.400 million dollars. Well, after I testified and I told him 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:20.520 in my testimony, take care of all of us, they 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:23.679 put sixteen point to five million and by billion in 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:28.080 the excuse me, and uh again it's in the congressional record. 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:30.840 My name is in there, and it says after my testimony, 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.800 they put another two point five billion in. Well, fast 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:37.480 forward to when it shuttered about a year ago. It 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:41.359 shuttered with about four billion dollars in it, and then 0:17:41.440 --> 0:17:43.879 they gave some second rounds and they did this and 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.000 they did that, and it ended up with guess what, 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:49.960 two billion sitting there. And that two billion is still 0:17:49.960 --> 0:17:53.160 sitting there. That's the money that was for the other people, 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:56.520 which should have included radio and television and and you know, 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:00.520 people supporting service, people like myself. Uh. But but it 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.480 was never open to those people. And and and that 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:07.800 is why I wrote another bill called the Music Act, 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.480 which stands from music under severe income crisis. You have 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.479 to have a good an acronym. And uh, we dropped 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.080 that over a year ago with bipartisan support, and it 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:21.440 just hasn't gotten passed yet. We couldn't get it into 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:25.479 the omnibus bill because Rand Paul wouldn't let it come 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.719 out of the Small Business Committee because Rand Paul wants 0:18:28.840 --> 0:18:32.320 all money claud back. And but he's now not on 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:38.640 the Small Business Committee, and uh, we're reintroducing it and 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.399 we hope to get it passed in Q one of 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:45.480 this year. And I don't know what you know about legislation, 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.240 but the big thing that stops any legislation is funding. 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:51.320 What they call pay for us. When you have a bill, 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:53.960 you're technically supposed to have a pay for This doesn't 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.080 need to pay for Why there's there's two point two 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.959 billion dollars sitting in sb o G just sitting there. Now, 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:04.680 what are we fighting. We're fighting reallocation, in other words, 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:07.439 take that money away from us and give it to 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:10.879 save the whales or whatever the cause may be. So 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:14.600 for the better part of a year, I've been fighting 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:17.560 to make sure that that money a doesn't get reallocated 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:20.240 and be that we passed the Music Act and get 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.840 that money to the people in the entertainment industry that 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:34.240 have been left behind. So everybody who qualified and who 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.879 applied ended up getting money. Over the hoops you had 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.639 to jump through rough how did it play out? Practically? 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.359 Great question, and and know everybody that that that should 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:48.520 have qualified didn't get money. And here's why the hoops 0:19:48.560 --> 0:19:53.560 were incredible. Uh, the things that they made everyone do. 0:19:54.320 --> 0:20:00.000 We're we're studying Lee stupid. Uh. And probably what exacerbated 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.560 did it was the s b A had never administered 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:06.280 a program like that, it's not what they do. So 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:11.040 they just basically brought people a step above manpower in 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.080 to be reviewers. What you you know, because you're in 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:18.000 the entertainment industry. Very few people understand how the entertainment 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.960 industry works. So now you've got these reviewers looking at 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.879 this data, reading these answers. It might as well have 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.960 been nuclear physics. And then they had to make value 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:33.240 judgments Okay, this person does or this person doesn't. And 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:38.560 so so the reviewers had absolutely, absolutely no ability. Even 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:42.560 myself to this day, people in this town think that 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.760 that bandit Lights does all the Rocks shows in Knoxville, 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:47.920 and that's how it works. Well, it's not how it works. 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.520 You sign a contract with an artist and follow them 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.520 and trying to explain this industry to anyone would take 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:58.000 a month. So you have all these great people that 0:20:58.080 --> 0:21:01.199 had no knowledge of the industry grading the papers, if 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:03.520 you will. It would be like me grading a nuclear 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.840 physics test. I wouldn't have a clue. And there was 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:11.960 no one answer because the answers were esoteric. And uh 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:15.520 So there were promoters that didn't get money. There were 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.560 managers that didn't get money. There were venues that didn't 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:23.280 get money because they weren't skilled enough to execute this 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:26.840 monolithic set of paperwork. And they are still out there, 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:30.359 and these are people I'm still fighting for. Uh. The 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.879 bulk of them did. But the odd thing was the 0:21:33.960 --> 0:21:39.400 only qualification was that your entity lost at least in 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:44.439 any one quarter. In well, I think everybody lost at 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:48.040 least in one quarter. But then when you take a 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:53.679 really small entity, uh that has no ability uh to 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:57.720 to do this this very sophisticated paperwork, when you get 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.120 to that moment, that poor entity didn't fill it outright 0:22:01.119 --> 0:22:03.840 and didn't get any money. So fast forward to today, 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:06.719 I'm trying to get it reopen, not only for the 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:09.800 people that were flatly denied the money, but but for 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:12.639 the promoters and the managers and the agents and the 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:16.280 business managers. A lot of business managers didn't get any money. 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.480 How do you think they felt? Uh, most of the 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:23.200 TV people didn't, most of the movie people didn't. Wedding 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:28.800 planners didn't. Uh. All of the ethnic organizations across America 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:33.359 that I spoke about didn't. Uh. Just a lot of 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.520 folks didn't. But but but even if it were open 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:41.680 to them to answer your question, the paperwork was so 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:48.000 onerous that that it kicked most people out. Okay, assuming 0:22:48.040 --> 0:22:51.000 you got money, was it a loan or a grant? 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:55.159 It was a loan that could be turned into a grant. 0:22:55.480 --> 0:23:00.760 There was a uh for each of the categories you revenue, 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:04.040 a promoter, a manager, or an agent. There was a 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:06.679 list of things that you could and couldn't spend the 0:23:06.720 --> 0:23:11.359 money on. And UH that wasn't really the tough part, 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:15.199 because it was pretty pretty broad. At the end of 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:19.920 the day, I think almost everybody, if not everybody, that 0:23:19.960 --> 0:23:23.239 got alone did convert it to a grant because they 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:27.160 were so very very forgiving. And what you could spend 0:23:27.160 --> 0:23:30.359 it for. You couldn't spend it for political contributions. Uh. 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:32.800 You couldn't buy real estate with it you couldn't pay 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:36.040 off a pre existing loan. Uh. And that was really 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:39.720 about it. Other than that, you could do about anything. Okay. 0:23:39.760 --> 0:23:43.000 The obvious question is it bend at Lates get money? No, 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:48.479 we we did not. Uh. The when this all began, 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:52.800 think about think about a war. Now, bear in mind, 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:54.639 I was never mean, I was never nasty. I was 0:23:54.800 --> 0:23:58.560 I was always polite. But but you know, in a 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:02.520 wartime situation, who do they shoot at first? The guy 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:06.280 carrying the flag. You know, that's certainly back in the 0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:09.080 you know, back in the old days, that the guy 0:24:09.119 --> 0:24:12.159 carrying the flag and battle got shot first. How was 0:24:12.200 --> 0:24:14.760 the guy carrying the flag? I was a guy that 0:24:14.880 --> 0:24:16.680