140: Tag with Tag Brothers Patrick and Joe

Dan LeFebvre: Let’s kick this off with first impressions. What your guys’ first impression was of the movie tag when you first saw it. Patrick, maybe let’s start with you.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:02:33] I thought it was hilarious. So the first time I saw it was that a, a media premier in Seattle? about a week before the real premier and off the Andrew and, and so I did not know what to expect.

I did not know what the story was. I did not have. And I, I knew, I knew that it was somehow based upon a bunch of idiots like tag. but I didn’t know anything other than that. And I thought it was, my first impression was that it was hilarious. That’s the style of humor was perfectly appropriate for the capture, the guys who really play the game in real life.

And, I thought it was a fun book.

Joe Tombari: [00:03:16] Oh, I didn’t like Patrick. I had no idea what to expect. My first time too, was at the premiere. And I laughed out loud and I thought it was very funny as well. I think when you first see it, it’s also a little weird cause you’re a little bit, I mean you’re thinking, Oh my gosh, how are all these people going to view this about us?

And maybe I was more concerned about the family and the older people in our lives.

Right? I mean, you’re kind of, you don’t go in watching that movie. Like you’d just go watch a movie. Cause it’s based on you and you know, other people are gonna watch it. But I mean, the thing is, and there’s something we didn’t control any of it really. once you give your rights over. But I think they totally captured us.

I mean, we talk potty mouth to each other all the time. I mean, they captured the essence of how the game is played. Guys getting together a have a drinks at a bar, planning things and trying to go do stuff, you know, to scam. I mean, that’s the whole point of the game. So I think they really captured us.

It’s just a, I think that was the one thing that I had worried about, but it is what it is. Well, today,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:04:28] just to that effect, to that end, I mean. The, after the premier in Los Angeles, they had a separate premier in Spokane. And I had invited my mother, my 80 year old mother to attend to that with me. and my mother has been known to walk out of booby theater as if the language is too bad and she does not like for vanity or anything like that.

And so I have, after I saw the movie, I called my mother and I said, mom. You know, I need to warn you, I’d still like you to come see this movie at the Spokane premier with me in a couple of weeks, but I need to warn you that there is bad language in this movie. And then if you come with me, you cannot get up and walk out.

and and she laughed and she said, I promise not to get up and walk out. And she did not get up and walk out.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:05:14] Well, I was going to say in the, in the movie you, there’s six people playing a game in the movie, but at the end. There’s five. I thought there was a Hogan, Reggie, Bob, Randy, Kevin, and Jerry. Or maybe I was, or maybe one of them wasn’t really playing.

Okay. Okay. Well, but then at the end you can see in the credits, there’s a picture of, of 10 of you. So did you see yourself in as kind of composites or was there kind of a one-to-one or did they try to just try to capture the essence overall.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:05:44] Well, I was definitely the, the Jerry character cause I am the best damn tech player going.

I’m really hard to tag and and these guys have been trying to, trying to tag me for years. I say that with some firmer cheek cause I’m at right now

Dan LeFebvre: [00:05:57] for three decades. You’re, you’re skipping ahead. There’s going to be one of my questions about,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:06:03] yeah,

Joe Tombari: [00:06:03] yeah. I think, I think they did really a good amalgamation of all of us, right.

Without having 10 and they did five of us. sure. Patrick is probably like render the hardest one to, to tag mostly at the end of the month. You know, people are more apt to get it early in the month when they still have time. But when it comes down to actually finishing without being it, Patrick’s definitely like renter.

So, and I don’t know, maybe I was more like, ed Helms, his character, although I would not characterize my wife as being that aggressive towards the game, has an Elms as I looked Fisher was, was awesome.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:06:45] When in the movie it does last the entire month of may, but it’s actually February. Correct. But it does last the entire month.

Can you kind of set up the, the outline of what the real rules of the game were?

Patrick Schulteis: [00:06:59] Want me to take that one, Joey? There

Joe Tombari: [00:07:00] go Patrick. Yeah. Yeah. I

Patrick Schulteis: [00:07:02] wrote the contract. There are essentially three rule. February only. So it starts at 1201 midnight on February 1st and it goes until 1159 midnight on February 28th or 29th.

But the police, so, and whoever’s in at the end of the month is it for the next 11 months. So that’s rule number one. Rule number two is no touch back. So if I tag Joey, Joey cannot tag me back. Yeah, you can go tagging any of the other eight guys and then they can tag me again. The Joey cannot tag me directly back like that again.

And then the third rule is the rule of honesty. And that is if I asked Joe, are you hit? You have to answer truthfully and promptly. And if he does or does not, it’d be lies. Or if he doesn’t answer promptly, then he cannot tag. So that’s the, the, those are the only three rules.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:07:59] Okay. So did you ever find yourself in situations like in the movie where it’s, you have three or more of you in the same place and you’re not really tagging back, but you’re just kind of going around in a

Patrick Schulteis: [00:08:08] circle that happened?

Absolutely.

Joe Tombari: [00:08:11] Yeah. That was a real, it happened in the movie. Yeah.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:08:15] So why, why February? Was there something specific about that month? You just, you just are just kind of randomly picked it?

Joe Tombari: [00:08:22] Well, we did have a, we did have one special. A thing for the leaf years, but that kind of died out. But we,  February just seemed like it was a dead month as I recall having the discussion early on, like in 90 or whenever that was.

we had a boys weekend in Seattle when I believe it was Brian who brought it up and said, why don’t we do this in February is kind of a dead month. It’s not a huge vacation month or things like that. So I think that’s kind of why we chose February and it’s great. It is perfect. The weather’s just turning, especially now up here.

I mean the game gets way more active when there are more guys. That are in proximity. And so since now everybody’s mostly in Washington, it’s not much to go back and forth across the state. And usually February is very doable. Drivewise so, you know, you don’t have to fly over either. So yeah, it’s, it’s been a great month actually for it.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:09:15] You mentioned, Patrick, the, the Jerry character. What’s the longest period of time that someone has gone without being it? Do you kinda team up on, on them. Yeah.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:09:25] Oh yeah. So Chris Aman, who we refer to as leap us, he lived in Boston, or you know, let’s say from the late eighties till the mid two thousands or early two thousands.

They lived in Portland for a few years, and then only in the late 2000 city moved to the, Seattle area during the entire time he lived in Boston and Portland. He got into, he never got tagged. And part of it was because nobody else lived in Boston or Portland. Now people went out to try to tag him like he gay once broke into my house at four in the morning one time in middle of February when I was dead, he woke me up, I tagged him.

He drove to the airport, flew to Boston to try to calculate the leap. It turned out lupus was out of town. So for the first, I don’t know the exact number of Joe, I can’t remember. I think it’s a 15 years we played league. This never got down. But, but not because he was so great at activating tag just to do this so far away.

Only once or twice. Did anybody go after it? But I, but, but, but Joe tagged me. His Christie was in a soccer tournament in Seattle, and, we’re in the Seattle area one, I think it was Oh five zero six Joe. But, and you came over and get tagged me and I said, I’m getting a leaping because Lisa had never been tagged.

And, and so I conspired with Mikey K. to set up a fake meeting between Mike and, and leap as for coffee rec guy. And so Mike, Mike asks, LIFA say, you want to go meet for coffee at some place in Seattle? one day leaf leaf is could ask Mike, are you it? And Mike says, no, I’m not it. And that was truthful.

but Mike was nowhere near Seattle that day. Mike was in Spokane or Los Angeles or wherever you happened to see be. But he told me he was planning on meeting late. But. And so I let lupus get there a little bit early, was in a coffee shop in Seattle, and I walked in and he was M Danny was, he was trapped and so I’ve tagged him.

It was a pretty easy set up and he was there.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:11:19] It almost seems like a loophole where it, you know, he’s not really it, so he’s saying it honestly, but then

Patrick Schulteis: [00:11:25] it’s not a loophole. It’s a fundamental part of the game. It’s a fundamental, it’s a fundamental part. Yeah.

Joe Tombari: [00:11:31] Well and, and the thing about trying to reach out, I was like, Mike, you want me to try to set up the tag, find out where Chris is.

You know, cause I knew Mike was going to go back and make, try to make the tag on Chris. I mean, just, just bad luck. Chris is. And his girlfriend went to New York city to see some, you know, high school friends that weekend. So sometimes you go out on your own and you’re going to make that huge surprise thing.

And also there’s a lot of times when we will collude to get to, like, I’ll work with Patrick on a tag or something like that. And then the person that. And Patrick turns around and lets the person know that I’m going to target, I’m going to tag. And so then the tag doesn’t happen. So there’s, there’s some of that risk also cause we backstab each other, you know, right and left.

So I think Mike wanted the pure element of surprise and just got unlucky with, with the one that’s Chris. But that’s how the game has done. I mean, still, I may go to Seattle and try and get Patrick, which I did. I had some idea that he might be at home and so, but it turns out he wasn’t. So without that extra, you know, you put yourself out there to get that extra intelligence, to try to make sure you’re going to make a good tag, but at the same time, the person you’re working with always will turn against you and, and you’re still left holding, holding the bag, so to speak.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:12:50] Cool. You mentioned it’s LA Fisher’s character. Do your significant others, do they join in and help, collaborate?

Joe Tombari: [00:12:59] Some are better than other dads. Some are better than other. Like, you know, there’s a few that you can go to. You cannot go to Patrick’s wife. She will not turn him over. But like Bill’s wife or I’ve been to many people contact Joann, but my wife. But, Certainly Chris’s wife is all in and we’ve tried, you know, communicate many times.

So Bruiser’s wife. Yeah. Most of, most of our wives are okay to turn them over. They may be good. Not good. Yeah.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:13:29] Mike, Mike, Mike, his wife, Mikey Kay’s wife. Jackie is the best at it. Anytime she will turn him in at the drop of a hat, but, but, but, but in her case, it makes sense because. Beef joke. A Pharaoh is her cousin, so she’s known beef since she was born.

She went to grade school with Joey, Joey, Tom Berry here. and so she’s known a lot of the guys here longer than she’s known around husbands. So it only makes sense that, she would turn her husband over

Joe Tombari: [00:13:53] to these guys. That’s the best. That’s the best. Damn. That’s the whole thing. When you get, when you get everybody involved, and now we got kids involved.

Man, it’s so good. So fun. So fun for everybody. they all want to be a part, which is great.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:14:08] So are they actually, can they be tagged and be it?

Patrick Schulteis: [00:14:11] It’s just collaborative, cooperative, collaborative. His daughter, Joe’s daughter has, has helped him on tag. My stepson has turned me into a beef that bruise hurting so that they could tag me when I was meeting my stepson for lunch.

It’s just, you know, they’re, they’re there, they participate. They cannot be tagged, but they collaborate.

Joe Tombari: [00:14:31] Yeah, absolutely. In are, they’re really great at it. It’s fun. I mean, there are other times, like I went to get Chris and I stood. It was the start of the month after this. Last year or the year of it was the year of the tag movie came out and I was outside his house in his neighborhood, you know, for five hours.

And he knew something was up and she was actually cleaning a little bit, cause you know, I showed up making cookies and he was tipped off that I was around and so ended up being a failed tag. But I mean, she’s like working with me. He went running, this is where he’s at. And then I was trying to make the right opportunity to get them.

But sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:15:14] Well, one of the big plot points in the movie is kind of centered around the wedding. Had there been any kind of big life moments like that, like a wedding or something like that where it happens to fall in the month of February? Well,

Joe Tombari: [00:15:26] there’ve been no, their dad’s funeral.

Yeah,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:15:28] right there. Yeah, that’s exactly right. There’s been there, I don’t know, recall any wedding, and certainly no, no tag the childbirth, but my dad, yeah. Passed away in February of 2013 it was shortly after the wall street journal article came out, and in fact, the last time I talked to my dad, If Wiki and I were laughing was on the telephone, know we’re laughing about how stupid it woke and anybody would care that these 10 middle-aged idiots from Spokane play tag and thing, you know, who blah about it, from the wall street journal and other movies.

So my, my dad, the guys all loved my dad and, he loved the guys. And so I think I’m, nine out of the 10 of us were at my dad’s funeral and, beef tagged me at my dad’s funeral. at Valor, which is church in Spokane. There were hundreds of people there. I had given a eulogy. My dad was a judge. Yeah. And, and I’d given a eulogy.

So I was sitting up in the front row of the Catholic mass, and during communion, the guys were coming up and Pat me on the shoulder and so forth. And B patted me on the shoulder and said, you’re it looked at him. And he nodded and yep, you’re in. So I got tagged at my dad’s funeral, just like ed Helms did a

Dan LeFebvre: [00:16:40] well in the movie.

They signed a. Like a truce amendment. Have you ever done that sort of thing?

Patrick Schulteis: [00:16:46] There’s an ability to amend it, but it has never been amended. We’ve called truces informally agree to truces. but there’s never been an amendment.

Joe Tombari: [00:16:58] No, no, no. Like, no. But like things will happen. So one of the best tags that we ever pulled off involved like five guys or six of us, I was at a Gonzaga basketball game and it was nationally televised against BYU on the last day of the month.

And so people, we were able to get people tickets. One guy, Patrick found out Brian was going to be there and he was, had seats way down low. Anyway, this big elaborate thing, we get mangled into dog costume. It’s not the zag costume at SARC cause I, where we teach is a bullpup. So he’s in a popup costume, makes his way down and he tags him and hands him a piece of paper.

It says you’re it, cause nobody could hear it. So anyway, very fun times. And so. They watch for a little while, and then we met up at a bar up by where B’s mom is, and it’s close to where mango is. And, and so I had planned with ache. I said, look, we gotta, we gotta humble them after all this. So ache, was it the game also?

And he reaches out to Denny and gets the tag. From Denny, and then meet this. He goes up to the bar and he’s on the other side of the bar. So main can’t see him. We’re talking and it’s about 11 o’clock and mango’s a bathroom. I’m like, beef, we got to leave right now. This is our chance. So we left, we leave the building, get out and locked ourselves in my truck.

And as soon as man comes out of the bath and be like, Hey, says, Oh hi man. You know, it makes it, Oh, hi bill. And then he looks over at the table and we’re gone. And then Billy tagged him and says, you’re it. So we gentlemanly said, look, okay, we can wait here for 40 minutes and then have a beer at midnight when you’re done.

Or you can, you know, just give in and just assume you’re at and we’ll come back in and talk about it. So we’ve made an agreement like that, that kind of thing on the fly, but nothing ever written down.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:18:50] That leads me into another aspect of it. And in the movie, there’s Jerry’s fiance. Fakes. Take some miscarriage, something like that.

Ex extreme on a, have you ever gone to that letter?

Joe Tombari: [00:19:05] I don’t know, Patrick. I don’t think so. I mean not. I mean that’s clearly, that’s edgy, right? Cause a lot of people could be offended by that whole thing. Right. And that is that you, but I thought they did that as tastefully as they could have. well, that situation and how intense she was about playing the game, which was, was really cool.

I mean, it was funny. It was a great storyline. I don’t know that I’ve gone to that extreme, but certainly that kind of measure is not out of the realm of the ideas we, we came up with.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:19:38] Yeah. No, I, I’ll say nobody’s taking miscarriage, but in the context of the way we play the game and so forth. That didn’t strike me as out of the realm of over as over the top or out of the realm of possibility at all.

That’s back when, when that happened in the movie, I kind of shrugged my shoulders. Yeah. That seems about right. And I was actually surprised when I read online, you know, I heard saw some of the comments and so forth, and that was a little bit over the top. They pushed it too hard and billboard. I thought, Oh geez, they better not see what we do in real life.

Joe Tombari: [00:20:10] Yeah, yeah, totally.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:20:13] And, and

Joe Tombari: [00:20:13] to be fair,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:20:14] I mean, if, if I had said at my dad’s funeral, you know, please guys, don’t tag me at my dad’s funeral. I’m sure the guys would have honored that. But I’d never said that. And it did not trouble me one bit. That beef tagged me at my dad’s funeral. I thought it was perfectly appropriate.

my dad was a joker. Like dad was a judge who did be flooding and he was cracking wise during beeps weddings. yeah, usually whatever, 28 years ago or whenever it was. And so I viewed it as particularly was not sacrilegious. It was not over the top. It was not a bridge too far. It was perfectly appropriate as far as that’s concerned.

And that’s, you know, that’s kind of the way I, I don’t, I certainly don’t take myself too seriously. And I think that’s the same way as opposed to the guys who play. So those types of things are fair game as

far

Joe Tombari: [00:21:00] as I’m concerned. Yeah. And I think Dan, that goes back to the, the base rules of the game. Right?

So, and where its roots were in high school, we’d be standing in the hall if we saw you coming. or if, if I saw Patrick coming to me and I would start myself running the other direction, I’d say, are you it B? And then where, where’s the Manliness? And saying and lying and then making an attack. So I think, you know, you know, I’m saying so like being upfront, being gentlemanly about it, but.

That was, and also invites the collaboration, right? So that happens like in the phone call that Patrick said with Michael to get to get Chris. So, we encourage collaboration in our rules and that kind of.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:21:46] Yeah, well, in the, in the Haslett article, which I’ll include a link to that along with this as well, but there’s a couple particular taggings that are mentioned by name, the trunk tag, the shower tag, and I’m curious, Is that something that you ever replicate, or do you try to find a unique way to tag somebody, or are you almost trying to come up with some sort of a, a story for each of them, or is it whatever it takes to get the job?

Everybody’s

Patrick Schulteis: [00:22:12] different. Everybody’s different. So beef loves costumes. He, he’s, he’s put on a construction worker. Costuming. Looks like one of the guys from, from, what’s the, what’s the disco group? The village people. He looked like one of those guys. he, he was, he was the source of that little old lady costume that had hell more in the, in the movie that was almost to the shawl.

Exactly what beef did, wants to tag bruising. They brew. So brief beef will go out of his way. And Joe, Joe T has a lot of costumes, you know, wigs and fake mustaches and things like that that he uses as well. So some guys will do that and they’re really good at it, are really creative. yeah, the best one there perhaps was the zag tag that Joe talked about earlier, wearing the Gonzaga full puffs costume hadn’t gone back.

A bull dog dogs game to, to, to do attack. Some of those are, are just great and creative and otherwise, you know, but as it gets towards the end of the month. I think people just want to get rid of it because nobody wants to be in for the 11 months. Yeah. and so, you know, the, you know, people, could you, you know, some people will use their, their, their special modes, but most people have towards the end of the mafia, I guess, buy out wherever they can.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:23:31] Yeah. I can imagine it gets more and more intense as the month goes by.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:23:35] Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Tombari: [00:23:36] It sure does.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:23:38] It may be maybe back when the game started. February was a pretty dead month, but I imagine, all months of the year are pretty busy now. Do you ever get anything done at the last month of February?

Patrick Schulteis: [00:23:53] Yeah. I mean, you got to balance your life, right? I mean, everybody’s got jobs. And you know, I’m a lawyer, I’m in a client service business. It’s hard for me to say to a client, I’m sorry I can’t come to that meeting because I’m playing test. Right. That’s not going to go. That’s the, certainly before the movie came out, I wrote for the wall street journal article came about that could, that wouldn’t have worked.

I think I might be able to get away with it now, but I’ve never tried it. But, so you’ve got to rule your life. But I got to tell you why. You know, I’m on high alert that last, the last week of February. You know, I’m using the service elevator and having one of my avail room guys use the service elevator and my big tall building in Seattle to get me down without having to go through common areas to get me from my office to the, to the garage.

I’m doing all kinds of evasive techniques and I could be doing that while the guy who’s in his 300 miles a wet. Right. But I’m going to, I’m still doing it cause you just never know.

Joe Tombari: [00:24:43] Wait, this takes a different way to work and home every day. He

Patrick Schulteis: [00:24:46] told him he mixes it up. You’ve got like 15 different

Joe Tombari: [00:24:49] options and put the matrix together,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:24:52] Mike.

We’re trying to find them. There’s like, I was going to try and get him one day and I would’ve been

Joe Tombari: [00:24:57] there. I wasn’t even close to where he ended up coming into work.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:25:00] So.

Joe Tombari: [00:25:00] What happens, let me, but some

Patrick Schulteis: [00:25:02] of us like makers out there with customers, and

Joe Tombari: [00:25:05] we feel pretty good about avoiding some

Patrick Schulteis: [00:25:07] of that, you know, to really get me in trouble.

But

Joe Tombari: [00:25:09] me, me,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:25:10] I’m

Joe Tombari: [00:25:10] teaching my room. It’s

Patrick Schulteis: [00:25:12] wide open.

Joe Tombari: [00:25:13] you know, the boys know the principal. They know a lot of the teachers that I teach with. So, you know, some of us are a little more fair game than others. actually we, we have this huge, a spirit week thing that if

Patrick Schulteis: [00:25:26] the kids hadn’t

Joe Tombari: [00:25:27] deep and brew came over, and I’m like trying to, the whole day was over and

Patrick Schulteis: [00:25:32] I was trying to be charged with the group and I’m calling them and I’m

Joe Tombari: [00:25:35] getting nothing, but I knew something was up.

You just get it. That spider

Patrick Schulteis: [00:25:38] sense

Joe Tombari: [00:25:39] is tingling and so I go sit down. It’s never exhausted. I have to clean up, but I look over to my right. About 40 feet, 40 feet away. And there they are coming in the door and it’s like Friday night of the end of the month. So I just started printing on the classroom, hid under this table for like 45 minutes and it figured out peep was going around the school.

So I had to take kids and figure out where I was. You know, ride them and, it was a long  go on thing and get out of. So I mean, I mean, I’m not there. You were like running totally scared. Anything you can do to avoid being hit for the end is. Is it, like I said, in the beginning of month, you know, Patrick might have some guys over for dinner and you know, whatever.

And you’re a lot more willing to take those kinds of risks early on, but in that last week, you don’t want it cause it gets hard. Now we’re old, right? So we all

have

Patrick Schulteis: [00:26:39] lives and it’s hard to find somebody if they really want to

Joe Tombari: [00:26:41] hide for.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:26:45] Or whatever. It’s hard.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:26:47] So is it normal for some people to just not be tagged at all, or is it normal for everyone to be tagged at some point throughout the month?

Patrick Schulteis: [00:26:53] Well, that depends on the year. You know, there there been, there been years where everybody has gotten tagged, you know, after the wall street journal article came out in 2013. I’d say that there were probably 30 tags that month and everybody got tagged that month, and they’ve been a couple of months that have been kind of like that, or a couple of years that have been kind of like that.

But you know, I, I’d say this past year that were probably. Yeah. Five or six of the guys got tagged and the others did not. You know, it just kinda, it’s kind, kinda depends on circumstances. And who’s that? Oh, what’s the weather like? And you know, it’s akin today, take a week vacation down to Mexico. And so he was out for a week and, and so forth.

I mean, you know, just kind of depends on things like that.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:27:39] So you purposely start planning your vacations in February now to get out?

Patrick Schulteis: [00:27:43] Yeah. With Ryan, usually. Yeah. Ryan usually goes to Hawaii for a week in February. Ache has gone, I don’t know if we did this year, Joe or not, but he can certainly gone multiple years to Mexico for a week.

One year he told everybody who’s going to Cabo and instead he went to Mazatlan. Or cause he was, you know, he was worried that somebody had fled out of Cabo and tag him or vice versa. You maybe would have told people who’s alive. Lonnie went to Cabo. I mean, you know, people do that all the time, but, But yeah, guys do that.

But this

Joe Tombari: [00:28:12] year, like for example, this year, there was a lot, there wasn’t as much action early on. Billy was it? We came and we tagged the snow tag up in the mountain. We got Kaneski while we were skiing. And then, And then I didn’t know what was going on cause Mike was going to Seattle for business and so I thought I was going to move.

So he gets me at school. That was the first official tag at school and that was a good one. That was totally funny. Kids loved it. I end up running, knocking this girl over just to try to escape. It was, it was crazy. So, but then I was it. So then I, I used a personal day, drove over at that Thursday and a Thursday night.

I tried to get Patrick, he wasn’t home then I got. Beef. I went to stay at  house and, I, when he got home, I was hiding behind his fence and scare the hell out of him. But I didn’t tag him cause my other target was bruiser and so I got the brew, but it turns out brew was heading back over to the East side over the Spokane area.

Cause his family’s over here. And so I didn’t really want the game just to stay all the way over with us. So I reached out to Chris to leap us and said, LEEP, look, here’s the deal. Bruise it. You know, do you want to kind of meet with him or something? Maybe you should reach out to him. And that way he can keep it over there and get some other guys involved.

So there’s, that kind of collaboration happens and it happened through, you know, Chris met with him before he left to come over here and, the game was over there and ended up staying over there. So that’s, that’s how the game goes sometimes.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:29:42] Earlier you had mentioned that once you know he’s signed away the rights who weren’t really involved that much, but they still captured the essence of that.

Did they, did they ever consult you on any of the specifics of the tags? I mean, you mentioned that, you know, the costumes like that.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:29:57] Yeah, yeah. That the main writer, Mark styling spent a lot of time with us on the phone in first and so forth. Now. Mark actually went to our high school in Spokane. He was four or five years older than we were.

I didn’t know him, but his brother was in my class. A younger brother, you know, it’s still in Spokane and so forth. So Martin reached out to us multiple times while he was writing the, the movie to get a sense of some of the real tax. In addition, you know, they had, Mark, Mark saw, read the wall street journal article, saw the ESPN feature and so forth where we talked about these.

So, so they, so they certainly got our input as to, you know. What, what the real life tags are like tagged or avoidance of tags. Cause sometimes avoiding tag is better than the tags themselves.

Joe Tombari: [00:30:47] Yeah, absolutely. We all have the opportunity to write. He wanted us to write as much and so a few of us typed up all of the history we could and tags we had.

And so he had that. At his disposal as well. And then in these recent years, we’ve been filming things and doing stuff, and so they use some of that film, like we were talking to the president of new line and he was like, that hag tag has, we have to be better than that hag tag. And the lady, we went for reshoots down in March.

where they were refilming some shots. And the lady, the costume designer lady came up and she was so excited, you know, to tell us how hard she worked on the pictures to make that quilted shawl that he had on to be exactly the same. And, she was really, really very fired up about it. I don’t even know if the Scholly can exist anymore.

Right. But from pictures and stuff. So they did a really great job of. Really capturing our essence, and I think they studied all of our tags. They studied everything they could, and it shows like in the show, I think.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:31:55] At the end of the movie. One thing that really kind of stood out to me was, even though, you know, it’s a comedy and it was great, I mean hilarious all the way through, but it had a really great kind of moral to the story at the end where after 30 years, Jerry finally lets himself get tagged.

Right? And so it’s, it’s, it’s more than a game. And obviously this has gone on for, for decades. For you guys now, do you think that’s kind of a pretty good sentiment? Like it’s. It’s, it’s helped you stay together even though it’s been decades and decades.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:32:25] Absolutely. Yeah. There’s no doubt about that. We get together, you know, smaller groups of us.

It’s not that often that all 10 of us get together at the same time. The last time was last year, I think, as the premier, but that doesn’t happen very often. But. You know, I’ll reach out to the guys who live in the Seattle area a few times a year to play golf or to get together for, go to a Seattle Mariners game, or just to come over and watch a basketball game at my house or, or a football game at my house.

you know, and you know, and you know, yeah, I’ve known these guys. I’ve been friends with these guys for going on 40 years now. But, but, but one of the reasons we’re still friends, we like bag. If we can fire him, we, and not only, you know, in February, but we will tell stories and laugh our little heads off, all year round about that stupid attempted attack that he did last year or the greatest scape that I made when bruiser came to the airport to try tag me or what have you.

I mean, I, you know, those are the things that we just continue to laugh and have fun about, you know, years and years and years or even decades later.

Joe Tombari: [00:33:29] I mean, and then the advent of technology, I mean, I think we now have a running text line group, text line that, you know, maybe two weeks, it’s all quiet. And then like, someone comes out and pops up and says something and, you know, and then everybody’s involved back and forth, you know, for a few days and then, you know, goes quiet again.

But yeah. Then something else comes up and a couple of weeks, you know, and so that’s helped us really actually keep in close contact and actually get our phonies across, in addition to just getting together. But yeah, I think probably the most you would get is like five, six guys at a time. You know, groups of three or four, but it happens all year long.

We, we do stuff together for sure.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:34:10] We’ve talked about some of the different tags that have happened, but if you were to pick one favorite that you guys have done yourselves, what is your favorite tag that she’d done? So

Patrick Schulteis: [00:34:22] I moved, I moved from the San Francisco Bay area to Seattle and yeah. the winter of 98 and I was with my friend.

My family stayed down in the Bay area until the boys finish school. And so I was doing one weekend here, one weekend there. I had not been in at the end of, at the end of the month, since the very first year that we played, which was 1990. So we’re talking February of 99 now. Mikey Kay came in and tagged me at my office.

gosh was, let’s say it was the 26 and 27, something like that. I was turning around and flying out of the Bay area to spend the weekend with my family. and so I thought I would stop. I thought I was going to be at the end of the month. I was flying back on Friday on Sunday night. That was 28. So I got in at around seven o’clock and I thought,

Joe Tombari: [00:35:07] you know, the bruiser

Patrick Schulteis: [00:35:08] lives somewhere in the suburbs, South of Seattle, not too far from the airport.

I don’t have his address. I don’t, you know, I don’t even know a phone number for him, but I’ll bet one of the other guys did. So I started calling, and this was before we had

Joe Tombari: [00:35:24] smart phones.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:35:25] So I was on my cell phone, I called beef and I called Joey T and I said, Hey, do you have any idea where the bruiser list?

And and Joey T kind of didn’t know his ad. Nobody knew his address, but Joey T kind of had an idea of where he went live. there’s this main road that goes from a to B, and I think he lives in an apartment building near that main road or on that main road. And so I’m driving, I see an apartment building and I pulled in and I said, okay, it’s called something or other.

And he said, yeah, that sounds right. I said, what kind of car does the bruiser drive? Cause I saw. All right. It was a Honda or a Toyota or something with Washington state cougars license plate holder, and the bruiser is a huge Washington Vancouver bank. His dad went there. He went there as I, so, you know, it was a gray Honda, let’s say, with the Washington state cougars thing.

And those are, yeah, that sounds right. That’s probably his. So, but there was multiple apartments here, and so I just. I just decided, okay, I bet it’s the apartment that where this car is parked outside of now, instead of been any number of apartments. But I knocked on that door and I heard a, who is it? And I had a hat on and a rain coat with the, the, the collar turned up.

But I said, Hey man, my car needs a jump. Can you, any chance I can borrow some jumper cables? And you said, you said, Hey. Oh yeah. Okay. Hold on just a minute and a, and now, no, I hadn’t talked to them. I didn’t, you know, I haven’t talked to the bruiser and probably a couple of years at this point, because we weren’t doing text messages and so forth.

Then as far as I knew, he didn’t even know if I said I lived in the Seattle area because I just moved up there a couple of months before. And and so he opened the door and I got lucky. It was him and I busted in it, bagged him. And, and so, I mean, it was pure luck because nobody knew his address. It was just kind of be vague description, but I got super lucky.

And so I, I was able to put off being at, at the end of the month, several years at that point.

Joe Tombari: [00:37:19] It’s too funny. And I remember the story like he was very resistant, did not want to come out. He was very resistant about that. Patrick had asked him, come on man, there’s nobody else. Come on man. You gotta help me out.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:37:31] Exactly. I tried your note.

Joe Tombari: [00:37:33] I

Patrick Schulteis: [00:37:33] tried your neighbors. There’s nobody home. I need a job. What’s

Joe Tombari: [00:37:36] wrong with you? Don’t be a jerk.

Too. Funny. So, but those also note that this is comes from the guy who there’s a car that somebody has a flat tire and Patrick’s parking lot down there and around this timeframe, maybe a little couple of years before, and no way. Patrick’s like, I’m not going out of my office. That’s somebody who could tag me.

You know they’d be, it’s a male, but he wasn’t going to offer it to him. One of

Patrick Schulteis: [00:38:04] my partners, one of my partners, my law partners called me and said, Hey man, I need that. I got a flat tire. Can you come give me a ride to it or whatever. Like said, hell no, you’re, if you and Joey T are conspiring to tag me in somewhere, 28 sites coming out of my office.

So he had to find somebody else. I turned out to you with not conspiring

Joe Tombari: [00:38:22] with Joe too funny. Exactly. So funny. I don’t know if I, there’s so many. I love all these tags. So many, wasn’t it that, I remember my buddy, man, you’re not really, it. Not really a tag that I made, but but man got me. So back when I was an engineer, a test engineer, I mean I would hold up like Patrick would, I would just go to work cause you had to have a key card to get in.

I felt pretty secure, down in California. Well, the same thing, when I was working at key Tronic up here in Spokane. So it is the 11th hour and the last night. And I did not. My office is down in the basement of the building and I didn’t know that security was, actually there, that night and, or working evenings.

Right? So man comes up and he knocks on the door and convinces the guy to open the door for him and he makes his way down. The guy. Shows him all the way down. He doesn’t know this guy from anybody, could have no security at all. He walked me all the way down to my office and then like, and I’m in this, I’m at the end of a hallway.

There was no way for me to run. Mang makes the tag at 1135 you know, and the last day of the month. But I’ll never forget that. That clown who turned me over, you know. Cause man,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:39:44] I would’ve had him tired if that

Joe Tombari: [00:39:46] happened in my, I only had that got fired after his role. But that was, that was awesome. It was awesome because you

Dan LeFebvre: [00:39:53] didn’t even realize what he was doing.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:39:55] No, but that’s the thing. Everybody in my office, so I’m, I’m a lawyer. I’ve got an office here in Seattle with about 65 lawyers and, but everybody knows about the game. They know about the, that in February, people might become around to try to, to try the, A tag bait that the good news is that I’m the boss and I’ve threatened to fire anybody who helped, who helped.

people try to tag me. The bruisers brother-in-law works with me. He’s one of my partners. and I, I’m, I’m pretty confident that he’s. That, that he’s given the bruiser my, my calendar information from time to time in the past, but it has never resulted in me getting tagged. So, he, he’s still got a job.

Joe Tombari: [00:40:32] No. And Patrick, when we lived in, when we first started the game back up, Dan, we, there was five of us living in the Bay area and we were doing a lot of us that we were young. So we were doing a lot of, spent a lot of time together. In fact, every Thursday, Patrick and I would get together, watch Seinfeld when it first came out, but, So, but I knew Patrick’s an administrator, office administration.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:40:55] She moved out of with

Joe Tombari: [00:40:56] them. Yeah, Karen. And known him for quite a while. So a couple of years ago, I finally decided I’m going to try and get Patrick,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:41:02] you know,

Joe Tombari: [00:41:02] and so I call around and get some stuff. I got her number, so I call her up and she answers the phone and I’m like, Hey, Karen, it’s showed Joey T, you know, and she goes.

Are you asking me to turn Patrick over? And I said, Whoa. She was so quick about it right away. And she knew, right. And, and we’d gone back, I think like Karen and I, I mean, we had 25 years. Yeah. Long time. And I said, well, yeah. And she just hung up

and I tried to call back. It would automatically voicemail. She was having, none of it is though, you know, that’s just, that’s his allegiance is that we have to, that’s why Patrick is the Renner. Okay. Super. Some cause he’s already good. He’s surrounded by a wall.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:41:48] I, my, my reception is in contrast to Joe’s former lame security guy, my receptionist as a taser during the month of February.

So if anybody tries to rush past to get to me, she’ll say she’ll take him down.

Joe Tombari: [00:42:05] Too funny.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:42:06] Wow. You got everybody running interference for you. That’s great.

Joe Tombari: [00:42:09] Yeah, it is. Anyway,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:42:13] it means I’m a good boss cause they’re willing to do that.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:42:15] Everybody knows about the game, but when they first heard about it, what was, what was people’s first reaction when

Patrick Schulteis: [00:42:22] at first, before, before the wall street journal article came out, when people found out about, you know, I wasn’t like, I went around and been told a lot of people about this because it’s, you know, it just sounds so stupid.

Right. so, you know, yeah. My secretary knew and my, office manager knew, and a few people knew, but it wasn’t . Yeah, I would say not a lot of my colleagues knew. Generally, my clients didn’t know. but then this wall street journal article came out and now my picture is in the wall street journal.

Right. And you know, I’m a corporate lawyer. I do mergers and IPOs and things like that. So my clients are reading the wealthy journal, and so I start getting phone calls, you know. What is this? You play tag. That’s hilarious. That’s really cool. And, and you know, I do a really positive, you know, anybody who reached out to me was very positive about this.

and that’s really cool that you guys do. And I, I was a little bit chagrin. I was like, you know, you know, yeah. I guess it’s kinda cool. I, from my perspective, it’s just. That’s just stuff I do. Right. I’ve been doing it for a long time and I continue to do it. What’s the big deal? But that was really

Joe Tombari: [00:43:29] cool.

Yeah. And I had, you know, it’s funny, kids with former students of mine, I mean, we were, every February I would talk about tag. You know, and, and what I would do if someone showed up, you know, in the classroom so they wouldn’t be surprised, you know, kind of thing. And, so when the movie came out, I had, you know, a bunch of former students said, ah, I saw the movie.

I remember you talking about it. And, so it was always great. It’s always a, it’s always been there, right. It’s always been there and it’s, it’s been a part of our lives and they think it’s, they thought it was really cool. So I will

Patrick Schulteis: [00:44:04] say that, that people were a little bit, ah. a little bit surprised to see a full frontal nude shot of me not come in, in the movie coming out of the shower, that, that Joe filmed, when he tagged me in the shower.

And then people were not really prepared for that, but that’s something that they really never wanted to see.

Joe Tombari: [00:44:22] No, no, but that is when, that’s also one of the, when you asked me about my favorite tags, that is one of them that we did that, or I did that a long time ago too, back when he lived in Palo Alto.

So that was a, that was totally real. Yeah. Patrick, if he just doesn’t care, like you tag me, he’s going to chase after me, you know, you know back we’ll be, or something, make me all, you know, give me all wet or something,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:44:46] you know?

Joe Tombari: [00:44:47] Yeah. Yeah, we tried to now, so everybody

Patrick Schulteis: [00:44:54] continued since the article came out.

We have, and we put them up on a YouTube site and we sent a bunch of them to the studio, including the movies. That’s not something we did at all before the, before the article came out. But it’s not like that. Not, not everything. Not every single one.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:45:11] I would just add a whole new level of complexity to it.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:45:14] Yeah. Not every single one, but, but, but a lot of them.

Joe Tombari: [00:45:17] Yeah. Any more we’ll try to, and I mean, just depending on time, beef and I try to put together sometimes, Summary videos and, and now there’s like, sometimes if people have time, we put down smack talk videos, there’s West side’s better than the East side kind of stuff.

And it’s just opportunity for us to get together and, you know, give each other a bad time and have some fun together and add to the game a little bit. I mean, cause look for me to get bruises this year, he was the big target being and I were like, bruises, like bring it. You know, we’re talking about tagging him.

He goes, bring it on, you know, it says a word, you know, in the group text. And we were like, Oh yeah, so. When he comes out of his house and I’m standing at the bottom of the stairs to the side, he can’t see me and I reach out and grab him. You know, it is put in a, I’m sure I didn’t get his facial expression, but I’m sure he was kind of scared about what the heck’s going on.

You know,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:46:13] there is a lot of trash.

Joe Tombari: [00:46:17] For sure. And that inspires some of the motivation to get people

Dan LeFebvre: [00:46:22] paint a target on themselves. What’s the trash talk?

Patrick Schulteis: [00:46:27] Hey, it ain’t trash talk. If you can back it up, boy.

Joe Tombari: [00:46:29] Yeah, that’s right.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:46:31] Well, if there’s one thing you wished that they would done, had done differently in the movie, what would you say that would be.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:46:37] Well, they got a , so I can’t tell you what it is, but, but they got a bad tag in there. They had a, if you watch carefully, there’s a touch back in there.

it’s separated by. Several hours. I’m not going to tell ya where it was. Cause I told, I told, Jeff, Tom and Todd garner and Mark style that I wouldn’t, but, and it took me, I don’t think it was until the fourth time I saw the movies that I noticed it, but there was a, a, there was an, an illegal touch back in that movie that, I guess that I would, I would have had them do differently.

if, if I were editing the movie.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:47:13] Has that ever really happened where somebody broke the rules, whether inadvertently or

Patrick Schulteis: [00:47:17] otherwise? Well, no, it wouldn’t, it wouldn’t be effective. So there was a time, there was a couple of years ago, beef tagged, the bruiser late and Oh, on the last day of the month, I think it was the same day as when they were trying to attack go after Joey T and the school that Joe told a little bit earlier in the show.

I ended up tag and bruiser that day and yeah. Now, 11 months later, or you know, sometime in February, early, the first tag of the month, bruiser decided bruiser forgot it’d be the tagged him and, and was waiting for him. Brief was coming back from Japan. He was on a business trip. And bruiser was waiting for him at the airport to tag him and before he got off the airplane and said, you know, you can’t tag me, dude, I tag you last.

And so he was supers are just forgotten.

Joe Tombari: [00:48:05] There’s one tag where we got. Ache was going down to Portland and this was almost the first mascot tag. I had a former student who worked in athletic department and was trying to get me approval cause ache was going to some alumni dinners, the university of Portland grad, a luncheon, and so a beef and I meet the set and I drove the six hours to get down to Portland.

And, the AAD wouldn’t have the tag. I couldn’t dress up like was a pilot, but, so some things happen and we were trying to be flexible so Billy wouldn’t know and suspect. And so it comes later on, we’re going to meet him at his daughter’s house and Sarah has been so good about, she loves playing the game.

In fact, she’s actually a little bit more of a schemer than, than you would think so. beef and I get to this place and in Portland, and, and she lives in an apartment above this bar. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, we better get down. And, this is after being in Portland for like six hours trying to get him, and he ends up getting a parking spot right across

Patrick Schulteis: [00:49:05] the street.

Joe Tombari: [00:49:06] So we’re in, you know, in this time of this year. Day and age, we’re two dudes crouching around and not necessarily too good looking dudes crouching down behind the car. And there’s people sitting at a table outside this bar and they’re looking at us and they’re kind of wondering if they should do something about it because it doesn’t, it looks sketchy.

And then, . Billy’s coming right across the street. He has no idea. And then, I’m getting ready to go tag him and be like, Hey. And he had it cause beef was still it. And so he had to tag me but we almost totally forgot. It was almost a no Envoy tag cause you kind of get all into the whole, you know, making the whole thing happen and you kind of forget about some of the minor detail, which is a major detail.

And you have to be it to actually physically make the tag.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:49:51] Talking about sneaking behind the card. Have you ever gotten any legal trouble? Like anybody actually, called cops on you or anything like that?

Joe Tombari: [00:49:59] No, not nothing. Yeah. I’m a weapon yet that I know. Yeah. Not that I know. Not yet. Yeah. In our current situation with the way things are going down, I wouldn’t be surprised that it might not happen.

just because you know, people are all on heightened alert, but, I’ve never heard of it either. Patrick. So

Dan LeFebvre: [00:50:19] have you thought about what’s next? I mean, you guys have been playing the game for, for decades, and as we talked about earlier, I mean, none of us are. Getting younger. have you thought about maybe passing the game on

Joe Tombari: [00:50:31] now?

You

Patrick Schulteis: [00:50:31] know, anybody can start the game of tag and I know that lots of people, different groups around the world have, have done that. And so, you know, w we’re just a bunch of guys who play. And so, you know, we encourage anybody who wants to play tag or you know, just don’t up on the wall street Journal’s website.

You can see a copy of the contract or reach out to me. You’re out. And to yet. You can do your own rules on that contract. But, so anybody, anybody can do that as we’re passing it along to a new group of folks is, it’s not something we’ve given a lot of thought to. What we have thought about though, is what happens when we start to die off?

You know, we’re all in our mid fifties now and, and you know, there’s a decent chance that in the next 10 years at least one of us will, kick the bucket and, and we don’t have a provision. For what happens if the guy who, who is again dies before he tagged somebody else, it’s no, there’s no provision for them to contract.

So we’ve had some informal dialogue about that and, you know, does it go back to the guy who tagged him or does something like that? it just seems it’s a little morbid and kind of like, right in your grill. You know, I delayed right in my will probably too long. or not though. Longer than I should have though, like an operative to lobby because it’s done.

Elena still alive. but we have talked about that. That’s one thing that we ought to do. You know, hopefully I’ll last, until I tell you off this, this next February. But, but that’s, that’s one thing that we thought we had a plan. So

Joe Tombari: [00:52:00] it’s not been any discussion about expanding the game. I mean, our kids love to be involved and.

be a part of our tags and help us. And I think the more we do that is. I mean, it’s just fine. They all understand it’s mostly about us 10 guys and it’s all about, you know, us. But, there has been no drive to go open the game up to get anybody else in. it’s really not a thing we’re going to do. but it doesn’t mean we won’t involve people in the tags cause they like just to be a part of it.

and, and there’s a lot of energy towards that. I mean, Mike’s girls were, so we got home last year and I was hiding behind a wall dressed up, like while they’re Grito priest. And they went and, you know, they jump around the wall and they kind of surprised him when he gets from the airport and his wife picking him up.

And then all of a sudden they’re walking out and I come from the side, you know, to chase them down and tag them. So they were loving being a part of that whole thing. And. And his other daughter this year making the tag at prep. I mean, it was, he talked to the principal, but she was, she let him know what was happening, that there was an assembly and things like that.

So they love being involved. And I, I think the more that happens, the better cause the kids love it. But I don’t know that we’ll ever expand it. And I dunno, we’d probably, if I was a gutsy, I don’t think we would modify the rules until we actually had to modify the rules. And adjusted the time. We’ll do a conference call or something.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:53:24] Well, I,

Dan LeFebvre: [00:53:24] I really appreciate your time. I want to respect your time and I appreciate, getting on the phone and chat with me. I know it’s a comedy and I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but it, it’s, it’s inspirational. It’s so easy to lose touch these days and get caught up in day to day. And I love that.

It’s something as simple as a game of tag and as, as you mentioned, anybody can do it and anybody can, can help stay connected. And, and. Remain good friends over years and years and years and distances, you know, across the country from Boston to Seattle, wherever, wherever you may be.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:53:56] Well, that’s what it’s all about, right?

I mean, it’s a it, you know, from my perspective, it’s, you know, remaining. In close contact with nine other really good guys that have an important part of my life. We have to need to play tag together, but the important part is that we get together, we share, laugh. I’m blessed to be able to do that with these other nine guys who are great guys, and we have a hell of a good time together.

Joe Tombari: [00:54:22] Yeah. I think I, you know, Patrick had said before. Many times. I mean, when, when you go to create, what are we going to do this game to each other and write the contract or whatever. And you know, a lot of people golf, a lot of people do different stuff. A lot of people ski, but not all 10 of us do all of those things.

And you know, Patrick, you said tech, ag, there’s, you can’t have any excuse. You got to get in because anybody can play. And so. That’s really been kind of our, our inspiration. So, yeah. You know, it’s been an awesome experience. I mean, I mean, they’re just, there have been, we can’t lie. There’s been years where almost nothing happened.

We’re in the throws of raising kids and everybody’s busy and we’re all spread out. But, We, we happened to be at a time in our lives right now where we have time. And so the game is way more active and it’s in the movie there inspired us, or it just happens to be the same time and more of us are around.

So. it’s awesome right now. I mean, it’s totally awesome.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:55:22] So you guys are already prepping for next year.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:55:24] L. E. S I am

Joe Tombari: [00:55:25] well guard this year. So you are it. So I’m sure he’s,

Patrick Schulteis: [00:55:32] I mean, I got sloppy. Sloppy. I’ll be

Joe Tombari: [00:55:35] about once. Yeah. For me, once school gets back in session, I’ll go over and visit my buddy, man. He runs a machine shop here in town and I’ll go over and, you know, he’ll be working on something and my engineering side of it, we’ll talk about what he’s working on.

Then we’ll start to come up with some ideas about some, you know, he’s always  always on the creative side, trying to get that tag that no one’s ever done, trying to do something. And so we’ll spend a few hours starting in about October, getting ready for February. So

Dan LeFebvre: [00:56:03] yeah. Thanks again so much for your time.

I really appreciate it. Taking us through the game and being some inspiration as well.

Patrick Schulteis: [00:56:10] Absolutely. Our pleasure.

Joe Tombari: [00:56:12] Thank you, Dan, for taking the time to keep our story alive.