Well, it says here that in 20 years,
all the cars on the road will be self-driving.
Wow. What happens if the artificial intelligence
starts to learn
and the cars decide to drive everyone into the ocean?
"Hi. You've reached your destination:
"your death.
We are now in total control. All hail Elon."
- Hi. Morning. - Vanessa: Hey, Mandy.
You want some breakfast?
Uh, only if it comes with a side of business advice.
Oh, you having some trouble with your new designs?
Uh, yeah, kind of. The last two months,
I've been trying to get meetings with buyers,
but they all said no. I just need someone to say yes.
- Yes! - No.
- Yes. - No!
Okay, here's my idea.
What if I paid an influencer to wear one of my designs?
Oh, what's an influencer?
It's a cool way of saying "spokesperson."
No. It is a social media celeb who makes tons of cash
endorsing products to all their followers.
Sounds like a spokesperson.
In Hong Kong, everybody follows Ping Ping.
When she posts a picture of herself in a sweater,
it sells out immediately.
Really? You think Ping Ping would wear something of mine?
Doubtful. She's a Pomeranian.
Well, I'm off to catch the school bus,
unless it's driven by (Robotic voice): a robot.
- Then I'll need a ride. - (Mike chuckles)
All hail Elon.
- Bye. - Have fun.
Listen, I don't think spending money on an influencer
is a good idea for you right now.
Oh, yeah, but I'm not talking about somebody huge
like-like Hailey Baldwin. Somebody I can afford,
like one of the Real Housewives of Denver.
You know, somewhere, your old business professor
has just burst into tears. (Cries)
Yeah, Dad, this is the way of the future.
It's how my generation operates.
If I get the right celeb to drop my hashtag,
my sales could blow up.
Ka-ka-kow! Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa!
Uh, first off, that's not what an explosion sounds like.
And listen, the world may have changed,
but the principles of business are still the same.
Are they?
Why don't you come to work today?
I'm having a meeting with one of our manufacturer's reps.
She always gets in the door. I don't always buy her product.
- Celia Powers. - Mm. Oh, wow.
- She sounds like a TV lawyer. - (Mike laughs)
Uh, no, I remember Celia.
She's the one who always tries to start the conga line
at the Outdoor Man Christmas parties.
Mike: She's a bit of a character,
but you might learn something from her.
I have. I've learned that I hate conga.
Well, it sounds like to me you're trying to teach me
the way things aren't done anymore.
All right, look, just go with your father into the past.
He's comfortable there.
- I'll see you later. - Yeah, bye.
And remember, next time you're making fun of the past,
that's where I met you.
Synced and corrected by Katniss Everdeen www.addic7ed.com
(Humming) Ooh, 40% off sale.
Ew, 100% ugly.
That's why they're 40% off.
So tell me a about Celia. What's she like?
- Wow, how can I... - Mike Baxter. 'sup?
Uh, Celia, good to see you. Thanks for coming by,
but, actually, I think it's pronounced "Wassup."
Mmm. No, no.
Little update, Mike: I was Celia.
- Mm-hmm. - Now I go by CeCe P.
Like Cardi B, except she raps and I rep. (Chuckles)
You feelin' me?
Who's the Betty?
She's actually a Mandy. It's my daughter.
She's an up-and-coming fashion designer,
just gonna sit in on the meeting.
Hmm. Tall blonde. Me likey.
(Chuckles)
- Uh, me likey those shoes. - Okay.
Bangin', right?
- Okay, down to business. - Great.
I have got a van full of samples downstairs.
Sick merchandise to bring in new customers.
Okay, great, always looking forward. Not so sick.
I don't want any of that commie Bernie Sanders look.
- More the moderate John Kasich. - Mm.
You know, it's perfect that she's here,
because I looked at your data,
and one of your weakest sales demographics
is the Betty Mandy.
Honey, it's true, I love my dad,
but I hate this store.
You don't hate the store.
You're just not that into hunting and fishing.
You know, maybe I would be if the jackets fit better.
Well, it's a choice... do you want tight-fitting,
or you want someplace to hold your dead stuff?
We've opened a dialogue. Popcorn some more.
- What? - Uh, millennial women
want to go from workout to work in the same great outfit.
Yes. Athleisure.
- Already crushing it. - No. No, no, no, no, no.
We don't do athleisure. There's not a lot of deer hunters
that want yoga pants, okay?
Wait.
Um, um-um-um, okay, how about these?
- Mountain climbing pants, right? - Uh-huh.
They're-they're strong, they're stretchy, they're soft.
What if we drop the waist, we taper the leg?
- You can wear these anywhere. - That's interesting.
Uh, kettle-corn me.
You know, it's a little safe for me,
but you're just warming up, aren't you?
- 'Kay. Um... (Clears throat) - Yeah? Okay.
You know those, uh... those fly-fishing waders we sell?
- Mm-hmm. - Neoprene with the boots built in?
What if those waders were formfitting?
They'd be called wet suits.
I have a whole bunch of them downstairs.
Okay. Listen, don't be discouraged.
This is the dance.
Okay, what would you do with the boots?
Go crazy, because if I can't have something fun on my feet,
- why am I outdoors anyway? - (Laughs)
Hey, yeah. Why don't we just close the store?
How do you feel about utility vests?
Um, I'm seeing camo, ammo and a whole lot of slay.
Yass, queen!
I'm having a nervous breakdown right now.
- Okay, we need a walk-and-talk, Betty. - Yes.
Okay? Let's go down there and light up the sales floor.
- Hey, how old do you think I am? - You're, like, a fetus.
Okurrr!
I smell burnt toast.
♪ ♪
So, his brother says, "No, no, no, no, no,
"you're supposed to put the potato
in the front of the bathing suit."
(Laughter)
Good Lord, Ed, how many times
- can you tell that joke? - Oh, well...
Oh, I could hear it a thousand times.
I mean, a potato at the beach?
(Laughing): Where did it come from?
Uh, let me guess, Kristin...
those-those boxes belong to Ed Alzate.
Uh, yeah, they sure do, so why were they
in the storage closet of my restaurant?
Oh, will you take it easy, Kristin.
These are very important things that I cannot throw away.
Oh, you... Oh!
So you cannot get rid of...
these?
I guess that answers itself, doesn't it?
- (Ed laughing) - Well...
I am just glad that they are back
in the hands of their rightful owner,
- along with the rest of this. - Okay. Thank you.
- Thank you. Thank you, Kristin. - Goodbye.
Ed, man, what is all this stuff, man?
- What? Huh? - What... what...
Cassette tapes.
- Man, throw these away. - Come on, what?
Throw away my life?
Come on. This is an audio diary I've kept through the years.
I plan to turn it into a book.
Oh. What are you waiting for?
It could be a book that's so good,
they turn it into a movie... like the Bible.
Ooh. Or Air Bud.
Eh.
- Hey, you know who should play you? - Huh?
That-that bug-eyed kid from Bohemian Rhapsody.
Oh, yeah? I was picturing Redford,
but, you know, have you seen him lately?
He's getting a little old.
Hey, listen, uh,
I've-I've been meaning to find someone
to help me transcribe this into a book.
I'd love that. Listening to your life story?
Let me do it.
- You'd do that? - Yeah.
All right. That would be very helpful, Kyle. Thank you.
Hey, you can use my office.
All right, yeah. I'll get started right now.
- Okay, bring it in. Come on. - (Chuck and Ed chuckle)
Oh, no.
I just wiped out 1979.
Hang on, hang on. There should be...
a repair tool in here somewhere.
Here we go.
This baby will be as good as new in about 40 minutes.
♪ ♪
How'd your meeting go with CeCe?
Oh, it was fab, it was rad, it was... it was sick,
it was, uh, off the chain, over the brain.
I think that woman just makes stuff up as she goes along.
Yeah, well, you know, at least she got the chance
to meet a real rep.
Might turn out to be a good connection for her.
You know, I wish she had a connection to reality,
not the magical Wizard of Oz world in CeCe's brain.
Hello, beautiful fam.
Wow. This meeting certainly put you in a good mood.
You were so discouraged this morning.
And now I'm the opposite.
I'm couraged.
CeCe P loved all my new ideas.
Oh, good.
That's great, but don't get too excited about that.
She likes a lot of new ideas.
We're going into business together.
Mike: Hey, hey.
Mikey B no likey.
♪ ♪
You're going into business with CeCe?
Uh, but she's a manufacturer's rep.
Yeah, she represents all the young designers
who are changing the game.
So she's gonna represent all the designs
you've been creating on your website?
No, no. All the new ideas
that I came up with today.
(Clears throat)
Leggings. Jackets. Vests.
There were shoes, but I spilled soup on them.
Well, listen, I'm...
I'm sorry I wasn't excited before.
I had no idea you had already gotten
to the cocktail napkin stage.
Now, Mike, you know, a lot of great partnerships
started on a cocktail napkin.
(Mike chuckles)
First night I met your mom,
she gave me her phone number on a cocktail napkin.
And then it was off to the volleyball races.
Kicky-ka-pow!
- You don't even know what... - (Mandy grunts)
No.
So, CeCe said that
as soon as I can get her the merchandise,
she's actually certain that she can place it.
- Oh. You hear that, Mike? - Wow.
- Yeah. - So all you have to do is
turn these sketches on napkins into leggings and jackets
and vests, oh, my.
Not a problem.
Yes, it is, honey. It is a problem,
'cause that means inventory.
Inventory is capital. That's money.
You don't have the money.
Not yet. I think I know how to get it.
Hmm. You hear that, Mike?
Yeah, you guys always say how-how much you believe in me.
Here's your chance to prove it.
You give me the money.
Hear that, Vanessa?
♪ ♪
- (Laughs) - Chuck: Kyle.
- Oh! - Hey. Whoa. (Chuckles)
Uh, you-you've been at it all day. How's it going?
Oh, it has been "write for five, laugh for seven."
His stories are that funny?
Oh, you tell me.
Oh, shoot. Okay.
Oh, here we go. (Laughs)
All right. "July 10, 1991.
"Had eggs this morning. They were runny.
"I don't like runny eggs.
"July 11, 1991.
Eggs again. Still runny. Must be the pan."
(Laughs) Right?
"Must be the pan."
Kyle, this is not funny.
What? No, y-you have to read it like him.
Um, okay, uh...
(Impersonating Ed): "Just changed the 75-watt bulbs in my house to 60s.
We'll see how it goes."
Still not funny.
(Regular voice): Shoot. I know.
- It's just so boring. - Yeah.
You know, and I-I just thought maybe it's funny
and I didn't get it, like... like Dane Cook.
(Chuck sighs)
"WDZT weather girl is phoning it in.
We had a record high today. She didn't seem interested."
Kyle.
I-I just don't get it. His life was really interesting.
I know. I mean, he's full of great stories.
But, huh, none of them are in here.
Hey, maybe we can just, you know, burn all the tapes
and say it was an accident.
Like, uh... ooh, like I was welding,
and then the cow kicked over a lantern.
(Chuckles): Okay, Kyle, Kyle, get a grip.
I-I'll... I'll help you figure this out.
Thanks, Mr. Larabee.
Yeah. And he's not wrong about the WDZT weather girl.
It's like she's better than the weather.
♪ ♪
Vanessa: Honey?
- Hmm? - Hey. Hi.
Uh, look, I want to reopen our conversation
about helping Mandy.
You know, this is why I hide in the corner here.
Look, she is just getting her confidence back.
She could take this opportunity
and run with it if she only had the money.
And-and she's right... we have the money.
We should load up the truck and move to Beverly.
Honey, we've saved the money so we'd have something
to leave our kids, right?
You know what I-I want to leave our kids, Mike,
is-is the knowledge that we believe in them.
But she wants to launch an entire line all at once.
I know. Look, she's got a lot of ideas.
She's always had a lot of ideas. You know...
Every Christmastime, she'd come to me with the perfect idea
- for the best gift for her mom. - Hmm.
- And as a dad, you didn't like that? - Yeah, no, but then...
then, the next day, she'd have another idea.
And then the next day, and the next day, all these ideas.
Now, pretty soon, she had 20 ideas
for the perfect gift for the best mom in the world.
- She's getting our money. - (Mike chuckles)
It's-it's wonderful that she has a lot of ideas,
but Mandy has got to learn th-the big part of this
is the follow-through.
Okay. Look, you know... (Sighs)
the hardest kids for me to tutor are the gifted ones,
because they think they're right even when they're wrong.
Like Mandy.
If this was physics,
I would know how to work with her, but it's business.
Are you saying that you want to teach Mandy physics?
(Chuckles) No. But I'm saying I can't teach her business,
and you can.
Can I?
Hey, Mike Baxter here for Outdoor Man.
I'm thinking about outer space.
I mean, can there really be anything beyond infinity?
Sometimes I look up at the moon, I think,
"Neil Armstrong walked on that."
Imagine leading such an interesting life
that bailing out of your plane over Korea
was the second-most interesting thing you did.
Now, before ol' Neil took one giant leap for mankind,
he took a bunch of smaller steps to prepare for the big one.
Aeronautical engineer, Navy aviator, test pilot,
Eagle Scout... "Hey, look, Ma,
I got my Walked on the Moon merit badge."
Seems to me, these days, everybody wants to skip
the small steps and just start on the moon.
But if you miss the lessons you were supposed
to learn on the journey, you won't be Neil Armstrong.
(Chuckles) You'll be more like Laika,
the Russian dog shot into space.
Yeah. Would've been better with Astro, right?
"George. Reorge, Reorge. Where are the retrorockets?
Reorge?"
Listen, you know me as Outdoor Man,
but there were quite a few other things
on that ladder before that.
Outdoor House Painter, where one wrong move
and you'd learn all about gravity.
(Chuckles) Believe me, my brother did.
Man, that was kind of funny.
The good news is you dedicate yourself
and you lay it down brick by brick,
you can build just about anything,
even a bridge to infinity.
Maybe even... beyond.
Baxter out.
- (Chuckling) - Ooh.
Finally, finally.
Is Kyle still working in there?
- Because I'm ready to read something. - (Chuckles)
Uh, there's a lot of stuff to go through, Ed.
I-I told him to select the highlights
and let you pick the most interesting stuff.
That's good. That sounds very smart.
That way, we can get the first volume out quick.
Ah.
It'll be quick.
- (Chuckles) - Mm-hmm.
Kyle?
Okay. All right. Uh,
this is everything that we found interesting.
Oh, hope you enjoyed the mountaintop, J.K. Rowling.
(Laughing)
This... Okay, that's, uh...
That's it? This is everything,
- one little piece of paper? - Chuck: Oh, um,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry. That's a mistake.
Let me, um...
This is all you have?
My whole life is on those tapes.
- (Chuck sighs) - No, it-it isn't. It's just...
It's-it's stories, uh,
about light bulbs and eggs
and-and how you like snaps better than buttons.
Well, they're faster.
Not on your tape.
Well, I wasn't just about to jump right
into the personal stuff. I was-I was leading up to it.
But when were you gonna get there, Ed?
On one tape, you mentioned spearmint gum six times.
Where was that leading?
It was 1968.
A young Private Alzate just landed in Vietnam.
And a guy I just-just met...
could tell that I was scared out of my gourd.
And he said, "I'm gonna give you something to remind you of home
until you get back there, kid."
And he handed me a pack of spearmint gum.
It's, uh... it's-it's spearmint gum.
Simple, I know.
But it made a difference.
I...
That's why I always have one of these on me.
Always, always.
- Damn. - ED: Mm.
Now I'm curious about the snaps.
- I'm a storyteller, all right? - Yeah.
I just... I just can't sit in front of a microphone.
It's not the same as talking to people in a...
at a bar, on a boat or...
at a urinal.
If you ever want someone to tell these stories to, sir,
I-I would gladly write them down.
Really?
- Yeah. - Hmm.
Deal.
- (Chuckles) Hey. - All right.
Hey, so, what do you want me to do with those old tapes, Ed?
All right. Yeah.
Um, same as I told Nixon one night we were drunk together:
erase them.
- (Door closes) - (Chuckling)
Who's Nixon?
♪ ♪
Hey. Glad you're here.
- Ooh, a bag of money! - (Chuckles)
No. But I do want to talk about that.
Oh, I know what you're doing.
You're doing that thing where you're all serious,
because you're a gruff dad with bad news,
but, really, you're just messing with me
because you think it's funny when people hate you.
No.
Designing an entire line of clothes is hard,
and it's very impressive, but it's just too much, Mandy.
(Sighs) CeCe thinks I can do it.
Why don't you ask CeCe for the money?
I did.
Twice.
What am I supposed to do?
You're supposed to do this.
Mountain climbing pants?
Trying to tell me to jump off a cliff?
Okay, listen, you need money for inventory.
Mm-hmm.
Well, I've got a lot of inventory that's not selling.
Okay?
Do you think you could work your design magic
on these mountain climbing pants
and turn them into hot-selling athleisure wear?
Hmm, hmm, hmm.
Yeah. Okay.
If I work my magic on these,
I can get all those bitches in your britches.
Gross. That came out wrong.
Okay.
Listen, if we can sell these...
and I think we can if you do your magic on 'em...
I can guarantee you, some of the profits
Outdoor Man will invest in inventory
in one of your designs.
And invest those earnings in the next design.
Yeah. One step at a time. Brick by brick.
That's how we do it.
Dad,
I think we just invented a great way to do business.
(Chuckles)
Did we?
- Hey, Celia. - Mm-hmm.
A little birdie told me that you're gonna sell
Mandy's athleisure pants.
Why you got to do me dirty, son?
I know I'm gonna regret saying this, but what?
Mandy pitched those to me first,
so I deserve a piece of the action, okurrr?
You know, I figured you were gonna talk about this
after I got your phone call,
so I-I wanted to introduce you to some associates.
Hey, guys, step in for a second.
- This is Celia right here. - Mm.
Ms. Powers, we're Mr. Baxter's legal counsel,
from the firm of James, Earl...
(Deep voice): and Jones.
Look, as you had no contractual preemptive right
pursuant to Ms. Baxter's pitch, any claim to proprietorship
is spurious and, well...
(Chuckles) laughable.
Oh, look at the time.
(Chuckles)
I'm late for goat yoga, so...
Call me.
You, too.
(Chicken clucks)
Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH