Russ: This is the BusinessMakers show heard on the radio and seen online at TheBusinessMakers.com. This is that show about the innovators and the entrepreneurs.

John: That's right. These are the folks that are making it happen. That's why we do this show. Other countries of course have their entrepreneurial class, but no other country has the dynamics going like we do here.

Russ: That's right. Making it happen.

John: The innovation is stunning.

Russ: Yeah. You bet. Here's a shout-out to the EO Houston guys. That's the Entrepreneurial Organization of Houston, a group of people that think exactly like we do and actually go out and make it happen.

John: That's right.

Russ: In fact here's another shout-out.

John: You're full of shout-outs today.

Russ: It's a new dimension to this show.

John: When do I get a shout-out?

Russ: Well you can just kind of shout back after.

John: Okay. All right.

Russ: This is a shout-out to our new show, the EnergyMakers show.

John: Ah, yes. Yes.

Russ: I've got a couple of episodes out there now you've got to go check out at www.theenergymakers.com. Our good associate friend, partner, host Paul Dickerson, there's an interview out there right now with David Crane the CEO of NRG and John Hoffmeister the head of Citizens for Affordable Energy. That's right, it's time for the BusinessMakers school of business, not your business as usual school.

John: No, that's for sure. I don't think anyone has really ever graduated from this school. I looked at our records.

Russ: We have no graduates.

John: We have perpetual students here. When I was in college we used to have guys at the frat house that would never graduate. They'd always stick around for an extra football season.

Russ: Well I think that's the kind of students we have. Plus we never even check to see if they're turning in their homework.

John: There is no homework. Can't even take attendance.

Russ: No. What we ought to do is just all of a sudden one day issue a final examination, put it out there, and if you pass it you get the diploma.

John: You get a free ticket to our next mixer, which we need to - we had a very successful mixer at The Tasting Room. We've got to have another one.

Russ: That's right. We need to party more. Absolutely. All right, and we kick off the school of business each week with the quote of the day and boy, I'm just really liking this guy Robert Heinlein, U.S. science fiction author from 1907 to 1988. He's got some good quotes. I love this one. Here it goes. "Of course the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you. If you don't play, you can't win."

John: That's right. If it's rigged, so what? Everything else is rigged. Life itself is rigged.

Russ: Exactly. It's not fair.

John: You only get like 80 years.

Russ: That's right, if you're lucky.

John: The world's been around for a billion. That's not fair. Billions of years, you only get 80? That's rigged, man.

Russ: It is. That brings us to this week in business history. So what happened right here at the very end of July, beginning of August in business history?

John: Okay. This week in business history, 1693, now that's the date that most experts ascribe to the invention of champagne, Dom Perignon.

Russ: Well let's open a bottle.

John: 1693.

Russ: 1693. Woo. Cool.

John: Okay. All right. This week in business history in 1790 it's the first census of the United States conducted August 2nd. It showed that almost 4 million people were living in the U.S. of which about 700,000 of them were slaves. The largest cities were New York with 33,000 inhabitants. Think about that. Okay. Five states were not included: Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Virginia for whatever reason.

Russ: The total was everything except those five states. That's what happened. Right.

John: Now this week in business history in 1794 the whiskey rebellion begins.

Russ: Oh my goodness.

John: In western Pennsylvania where I used to live. It happened during George Washington's presidency. The government decided to tax whiskey in order to pay off the national debt.

Russ: So it was actually a tax rebellion. That was back when I guess the national debt could be paid off by just taxing whiskey.

John: Whiskey. Right.

Russ: I don't think that'll do it these days.

John: Of course the distillers and all these people in western Pennsylvania didn't like it, so what happened was troops were sent to western Pennsylvania, federal troops, and George Washington actually led the troops. First time in history, only time in history where the President of the United States physically led troops into a conflict and there was never any violence. Poor farmers saw 20,000 federal troops with George Washington coming at ‘em, I mean they decided okay, we'll pay the tax.

Russ: But whiskey is you know serious stuff. That's probably why the President had to go down there, right?

John: Right. I think he wanted to have some of it too.

Russ: That's probably true.

John: Free whiskey. Okay, this week in business history in 1873 the test-drive for the world's first cable car. Now there's a guy named Andrew Smith Halliday, born in London, immigrated to the U.S. during the gold rush and he helped rig some contraptions by using wire rope to build these suspension bridges so they could move materials back and forth over these gullies and ditches and everything. He thought that would be a good way to move freight across canyons so he graduated to canyons and then he thought this would be a good way to haul humans going up and down the hills of San Francisco. So there you go.

Russ: Neat story.

John: This week in business history in 1875 the first roller skating rink opens in London. I'll bet that was a pretty big hit.

Russ: Well I bet it was. Man. I remember when I was young in small town Texas. They didn't have roller skating rinks, but a portable roller skating rink would come to town in the summertime.

John: Did people bring the rink or did it just show up?

Russ: It was like a business and they'd put down this wooden floor and then it had a tent.

John: A tent?

Russ: Yeah, so in case it rained you could keep skating, and they had like 200-300 pairs of roller skates.

John: Do you remember roller derby?

Russ: Oh yeah.

John: Joan Weston the blonde Amazon.

Russ: Oh yeah. Wasn't she with the Bay Area Bombers?

John: The Bay Area Bombers. Yeah. They had a rink.

Russ: Yeah they did. There's still some roller derby deals floating around.

John: I know they made a movie about roller derby a couple years ago. It didn't get very far.

Russ: I always thought that they should actually turn that into a real genuine sport and really play it instead of it being like WWF where it's show business.

John: I think you're right. I think they should be bigger rinks. I think they should put them in football stadiums.

Russ: Yeah. Let ‘em really get going.

John: This week in business history in 1900 the Firestone Tire and Rubber company was founded by Harvey Firestone. He supplied pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled transportation.

Russ: Adding rubber to some of those wheels and wagons and stuff would be like -

John: Plus they were pneumatic and filled with air and -

Russ: Kind of like a hydro glide.

John: A hydro glide. Yes. Okay, this week in business history in 1941 the first jeep is produced. It's the oldest off-road vehicle or SUV in the world. It was an army vehicle. I drove one when I was in the army a few times. They're very unsafe the army versions. They're a high center of gravity.

Russ: Well there were no doors, no seatbelts, it turned over easy.

John: No, no seatbelts.

Russ: Besides that they were pretty safe.

John: Yeah. They had headlights. All right. This week in business history in 1956 Elvis Presley releases the song "Hound Dog", which is his big hit.

Russ: Big mega hit.

John: Then in 1960 this week in business history Chubby Checker introduces "The Twist."

Russ: Oh wow.

John: And the song climbs to the top of the charts.

Russ: That was considered to be kind of a suggestive, controversial dance too at the time.

John: Oh yeah.

Russ: Today I think you can do it in church.

John: Almost. Yeah.

Russ: Matter of fact you do that at your church, right?

John: I do that all the time. Yeah. I go to the contemporary service. Okay, now this week in business history in 1965 Joanne Rowling, also known as JK Rowling, the author and creator of the Harry Potter book series is born near Bristol, England.

Russ: Okay, so she's 46, seems to be getting close to being successful.

John: Yeah. I think she's gonna make it. Right. Man. Jeez. She must write these books in a coffee shop or something. She's almost destitute and all this. Now the series is closing, the movie series, but you know Arthur Conan Doyle tried to kill off - and I don't know the movie. I don't know whether Harry survives Deathly Hollows or not, but Arthur Conan Doyle tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes and just couldn't do it. Kept coming back. His life was threatened. This week in business history in 1972 the first article exposing the Watergate scandal was published in the Washington Post. Woodard and Bernstein really, really changed journalism.

Russ: To the good would you say?

John: Sometimes, not all the time. I would say not most of the time. This hacking scandal I think probably has its nexus in this.

Russ: Yeah. Well '72, man, I was tuned in. I just really was starting to enter the real world of a career and so you had more time and stuff and man, that was unbelievable the way that that whole phenomena went. The Senate investigative meetings hosted by Sam Irvin.

John: Yeah, Sam Irvin that old country lawyer.

Russ: Yeah, and it was televised and whoo. It's pretty big.

John: It ended the Nixon administration.

Russ: Absolutely.

John: This week in business history in 1981 MTV makes its maiden broadcast. MTV was initially a good idea and the programming was decent, but now it's just a disgusting program.

Russ: What happened? Did showing rock videos become unpopular and nobody watched it and that's why they changed?

John: I don't know. What happens is these rock stars are trying to outdo each other and I think they kind of crossed a line eventually especially with the rap artists and Lady Gaga and all these others. They're just trying to see how far they can go.

Russ: Yeah, but I mean they were always that way, but why isn't there a market right now for a broadcast station that just shows music videos regardless of if they're bad or good?

John: And the programming on MTV, I mean you hardly ever see that anymore.

Russ: I know, it's not. It's like people living with each other that don't really like each other and fighting and stuff.

John: Yeah right, kind of like roller derby. Maybe that's what they ought to do.

Russ: Maybe they should.

John: Start a roller derby league on TV. This week in business history, in 1996 the Macarena begins its reign atop the U.S. pop charts.

Russ: Now that's interesting that that still stays in your history lesson, but it's the kind of thing that might just kind of evaporate at some point.

John: I don't know. I think the "Macarena" will raise its ugly head periodically when you least expect it, you know? It's kind of like a vampire or something.

Russ: That wraps up today's history lesson. That's a good one, "Macarena" to champagne to the "Macarena."

John: With a little roller derby that we added. Wasn't part of the lesson, but we had to talk about it.

Russ: All right, and that brings us to the jargon challenge.

John: Yes. You know the word and I don't.

Russ: Right, our vocabulary lesson.

John: Tension. There's a lot of tension in this segment.

Russ: We've been doing this all the time where John just doesn't ever get -

John: Well first I knew the word. We would discuss it, and then we decided to make it more intriguing where I did not know it.

Russ: I thought we signed a contract.

John: Well we did but -

Russ: We made that up too?

John: No. We signed the contract, but at first though we just talked about the word.

Russ: Okay. All right. If you haven't been able to figure it out from this exchange, the way it works I choose a word, keep it from John. I say the word here and John tries to guess the meaning. Please no wagering.

John: Yeah. Avoid where prohibited by law.

Russ: All right. Here's today's word.

John: Okay.

Russ: Heteroflexible.

John: Heteroflexible? Boy, all kinds of things are racing in my mind on this one.

Russ: I'm sure.

John: Heteroflexible. Well hetero means you're not gay.

Russ: That's right.

John: It's the opposite of being gay is hetero.

Russ: It means that you like people of the opposite sex when it comes to sex.

John: Yeah, right, or - yeah, basically that, or when you get married or whatever. So heteroflexible means hey, you're willing to try out new things. You're flexible.

Russ: Meaning the other -

John: Yeah. You're willing to go get -

Russ: Hold your calls, ladies and gentlemen.

John: - go gay just to find out what it's like.

Russ: We've got a winner.

John: There you go.

Russ: That's it. Now you're right and I don't wanna diminish the fact that you won today, but -

John: "But." Here comes the big "but."

Russ: Well it's just some more discussion about heteroflexible. Could there also be a homoflexible?

John: Right. I think so.

Russ: So it would be a homosexual person who every once in a while says "hey."

John: Well you know there are groups out there that attempt to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals and they have some degree of success, although they never get any publicity for it.

Russ: I think there's also a group out there trying to convert heterosexuals to homosexuals.

John: Oh yeah. They're permeating our society.

Russ: But if there is such a thing as a heteroflexible there should also be a homoflexible.

John: Right. Yeah.

Russ: But in my day we just called that a bisexual.

John: Bisexual. Right.

Russ: I guess it's more complicated than that now.

John: Everything is more complicated. If you want government funding it's gonna be complicated.

Russ: I guess bisexual implied that you were like 50/50, but heteroflexible means you're probably 70 percent heterosexual, 30 percent, and homoflexible - you got that? We should put up a Venn diagram for this.

John: You know we do need thoroughly diagrammed with a blue dot over the private parts.

Russ: Right. Exactly. All right, and that brings us to dumb moments. Do you have a dumb moment?

John: This is a dumb moment airline, dumb moment of a customer of an airline story. This happened I guess several years ago, I'm not really sure. This was on the CNN Fortune Magazine website. They have dumb moments on there, you can look it up. Sky West Airlines had to apologize to a passenger named James Whipple after he was barred from using the plane's restroom during a short one-hour flight from Boise, Idaho to Salt Lake City, I guess just to get up and come down, and what happens, he says he had two really big beers before takeoff and he had to go to the bathroom. Well they wouldn't let him go in the bathroom so he urinated into his airsickness bag and was questioned by airport police upon landing.

Russ: You know -

John: You'd think if you're gonna drink two beers you could relieve yourself before.

Russ: I've been on many flights before, they were getting ready to land and they do the fasten seatbelt and you're in turbulence and somebody gets up to go and I always like to watch, okay, what's gonna happen here? What's the rules? Generally speaking they let them go. I mean it might not be safe, but it might not be safe if they don't let him go either for other people, right?

John: Yeah.

Russ: So, airlines, you gotta let us go when we need to go.

John: Look, when you gotta go you gotta go. You can't plan it.

Russ: That's right. That's exactly right.

John: That's one of nature's things.

Russ: That's right. All right. Before we wrap up today's school of business it's time for the very popular PKF Texas entrepreneur's playbook.

John: Here's Greg. He's always on time. I love that.

Russ: On the piano.

John: Here we go, a one and a two and a -