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What's up everybody? Welcome to a new episode of the All Things Croatia podcast.
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I'm your host, Stanko Zovak. Born and raised in Los Angeles, I'm now living in Zagreb and studying the Croatian language.
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In this series, I'll be talking with people both in the homeland and around the globe who have connections to Croatia.
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We'll hear from business owners, returning the osbora, influencers, musicians and artists, athletes, and the biggest Croatian celebrities that will return my calls.
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But enough about me. Either Moldavia, and let's get started.
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Alright everybody, welcome to the first episode of the Croatia Week podcast. You guys are in for a real treat. This should be a fun one.
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Our guest today is George Dulcich. George is from Los Angeles and recently quit his job and came out to Zagreb to do a Croatian language program that's offered by the Croatian government.
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And we're going to talk about that, some other Croatian related hobbies. George, thanks for coming on the podcast.
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Thanks for having me on, Stanko. I appreciate it.
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Yeah, of course. And I have to be honest with you guys, I do know George. We are good friends actually. We went to high school together and we both are currently attending this program.
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So that would be cool for you guys to get the dual perspective of that.
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Me and George were roommates here in Zagreb. We attended the program.
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Unfortunately, we had a great time though aside from having to live with each other for about 10 months.
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But George recently just went back to Los Angeles and I'm still here finishing up the semester. George, why don't you tell us a little bit about this program, where you found it and what it is?
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Yeah, so basically it's a Croatian language program for people with Croatian roots.
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I think I originally found it, or I think you found it on total Croatian news or maybe it was even Croatian week. And this was at the beginning of corona when I just moved back from New York because of the pandemic and everything.
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Things were kind of looking bleak and life wasn't that fun. And you had mentioned this language program for people with Croatian roots and we started to look into it a little bit more.
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And it seemed really cool because you get a scholarship for Croatian language classes.
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You get put up in a dorm and then also get a food stipend. So it seemed like you could just seamlessly just start living in Croatia without too many hassles.
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And that's something that I always really wanted to do because my Croatian identity has always been really important to me.
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So when I had the opportunity to live in Croatia and apply for this program, it was kind of a no-brainer on my end.
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Yeah, me and George both, you know, when we met in high school, we were very connected to our Croatian identity.
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And that's sort of what sparked our friendship initially and it built from there.
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And this was always a dream of ours to come out to Croatia and to learn the Croatian language because, you know, we really never learned it growing up,
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even though we do have the Croatian roots minor from Herzegovina, from Veljátsi. George, you want to talk about yours a little bit?
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Yeah, so my dad's parents were born on the island of Var and then they came to America to come to Central California where they were grape growers.
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And there was a pretty big Croatian community out there. Actually, a lot of people from Var moved to that same area where the grape growers.
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So you can see, if you keep an eye out, you look on grape packaging and you'll notice Croatian names and stuff like that.
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So that's my dad's side. And then my mom's side, both of her parents were born in Los Angeles, but they're both 100% Croatian.
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So their parents were born in Croatia. So my maternal grandfather's parents are from Herzegovina, Klobuk, so near you.
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And then my mom's mom's parents are from Konovali, just south of Dupetrovnik near the airport.
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And you got the whole family tree going over here.
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Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of cousins out there. So that was probably the coolest part of being in Croatia, connecting with all of them.
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I've known a decent amount of them beforehand because I've been to Croatia before and also they would come out and visit us here in America.
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So there was already a familiarity with everyone, but being there for 10 months, obviously, got a lot closer.
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Yeah, definitely a cool experience for us. Let's talk about the program a little more. So it's called Croaticum.
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We found out about it. We applied. You had to put in some paperwork proving that you have Croatian roots.
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There's an option to put what's it called when people write the letters for you.
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What can I think of the word? Recommendation.
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Recommendation letters. You had a couple of those.
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What college did you go to again?
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I graduated, I swear. I'm just losing my English over here. That's the problem.
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But yeah, put some recommendation letters. Not too difficult to paperwork. And we got in and we both decided to quit our jobs there on the spot the day, the morning of the announcement that we heard we got in.
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We quit our jobs that same day and then what, a week later, two weeks later, we decided, two weeks later, we came out here to Croatia, to Zagreb and George.
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If you could talk a little bit about how big of a decision that was for you. I mean, you quit your job, you left everything behind to come out to do this language program. Why?
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Yeah, I mean, like I said, it was a really important thing in my heart to do something like this.
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I've always really felt connected to my Croatian heritage. So yeah, it was a big decision to obviously leave and quit a job in the middle of the pandemic.
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But it was like, I never really faltered in my decision making. I knew that it was what I wanted to do and that I was making the right decision.
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So there was no hesitancy or feelings of regret right after I was really happy that I was able to do that.
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And my family was really supportive too. Everyone thought it was a super cool opportunity.
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So it was just all in all, really positive experience. And I'm happy that I ended up making that decision for sure.
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But I can understand how some people might look from the outside and kind of think that you're crazy for quitting your job and moving to Croatia to just take a class.
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But for me, it was really important.
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Yeah, that's pretty much the same for me. I felt the same exact way. And I mean, I really enjoyed the program.
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I know you did too. And I'll let you talk about that in a little bit. But basically what the program is, is you come out here to, there's a couple different cities.
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It's Zagreb, Split, Rijeka or Osiek. Those four cities where they have this program in one of the universities there in those cities.
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And you go to class every day, you know, five days a week, a two hour, 15 minute class taking Croatian language. They set you up in a dorm.
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We're here in Svieto Nasilje, a student dorm for the University of Zagreb.
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And you know, you get a discounted meals at the menza, the cafeteria they have here for students.
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What else? I mean, they've got an office where they'll help you with paperwork and, you know, getting your citizenship and George went through them and got his citizenship fast-tracked and just got that recently.
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Congrats, by the way.
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Thank you. Thank you.
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And I'm currently working with them to get mine pushed through.
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But yeah, it's sort of a all-inclusive, you know, heritage program. There's also, they offer other classes you can take at the same time, also included in the Stipendia scholarship.
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But right now, because of Corona, they're not offering those. So unfortunately, we weren't able to take like the history classes or the history of language or Croatian culture class.
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There's a couple of those, some cool ones that, you know, I'm definitely interested in taking next semester if those open back up.
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But yeah, George, if you want to talk about your experience a little bit and, you know, how you felt the program was.
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Yeah, so you kind of touched up on the basics, but classes are really cool and, you know, Croatian is a very, Croatian language is really difficult and it's kind of daunting to take on.
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But they do a great job of making it easy for beginners. So I didn't really know much Croatian beforehand. My dad speaks and my mom claims that she can understand a little bit.
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So just because of that, there wasn't, you know, we weren't talking at home.
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So I never really got too much of a language besides words here and there. But I had always heard how difficult it is of a language to learn.
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So, you know, I knew that if I was ever going to take on that task, it was probably best to really go all in on it and move to Croatia and do something like this program.
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So that's why I found out about this program. It was kind of like a dream come true.
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But yeah, like you said, you have the classes for two hours a day. We both started in the beginner lesson level, which is a one.
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And they kind of just started from the beginning with, you know, took a case by case because Croatian has the pathage which makes the language really difficult.
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But they took us case by case and didn't throw too much of it at each time. And, you know, I remember that first week just thinking like it was so hard with all the endings changing.
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And I was thinking like, oh, God, I'm never going to learn this language. It's just going to be too hard.
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By the end of the 10 months, because we did that first semester last spring, then we did a summer school and split.
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And then we did this fall semester right now. And I'm pretty happy with the level of my speaking abilities.
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And I learned a lot. So it definitely, the program is 100% worth it. The teachers do a good job. It's really interactive.
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We did presentations and speaking exercises. It's not just like you learn learning from the book and hearing lectures, like you're actually doing it.
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And then additionally, just the aspect of living in Croatia, you learn just as much outside of the classroom than you do inside, which is really cool.
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And because in the class, you're learning the standard Croatian, like kind of by the book. But as you know, Croatian, like there's so many different dialects, depending on what region you're in.
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There's so much slang. So you pick up on a lot of that stuff when you're outside of the classroom. So it's a good combination of being in the classroom and then actually living the Croatian lifestyle day to day.
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Yeah. And there is a lot of slang here, especially in Zagreb. I mean, I don't even know so much about the other places, but just from our 10 months here in Zagreb, I can tell you there's a lot of slang.
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And a lot of the words that they're using here aren't the ones that I learned in the classroom. So definitely you have to supplement your learning.
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But I mean, you're here, you're living here in the city. So I mean, it's not like that's something that's difficult.
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And that's one of the benefits of being able to come here in person and be a part of this program.
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You know, another thing that's cool is like seeing people that are in your same situation, but like from all across the world and, you know, all kinds of different people with Croatian roots.
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I mean, there's a lot of people from South America. We had some people in our class from Japan, from Korea, other parts of Europe, just all over.
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And it's really interesting. And like the ages are widespread. You know, I have some, I think the youngest person I've met in the program is 18. And the oldest is maybe, there's like 40 something.
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So it's, I mean, it's not just, you know, people our age, and it's really cool to see all these different people coming back to try and, you know, discover their roots and learn the Croatian language and take advantage of this opportunity.
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Yeah. I'm trying to think, are there any, are there any other aspects of the program or, you know, your 10 months here in Zagreb, you want to talk about, you know, what was some of your favorite parts?
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I mean, the summer, I think for me was, and the classes are great and everything, but you can't beat the Croatian summer. That's probably that was my favorite part so far in these last 10 months.
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Yeah, summer, summer was amazing. Obviously, Croatia is, I think, probably the best place in the world to spend summer vacation.
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So we did summer school and split, and that was not a part of the scholarship. We just did that on our own, just because we knew we were going to have to fill our time some way in the summer, and we wanted to keep improving.
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So that was through the University of Split. That was kind of a, actually it wasn't that much of a smaller class, but it was a, you know, we kind of jumped up a level to make it work.
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So we stayed there and split for three weeks, and that was a lot of fun and learned a lot that way as well. And, you know, they speak a little different in Split too.
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So it was nice to hear some, or see some of those differences live going from Zagreb to Split.
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And then during the summer, you know, when that was over, stayed with family on Hoar.
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We went to Klobu, went to Konaveli, saw all sides of the family, stayed a little bit in Makoska with you, and then some of our friends from Los Angeles, we have a, you know, the Croatian Church in Los Angeles, St. Anthony, and a lot of friends there, those guys were visiting.
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So it was nice to see them in Makoska. And the summer just, it's so great and relaxing. And we were lucky that we were there during a Euro Cup year. So we got to experience that.
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And I think it was, yeah, it was the Spain game we were watching in Split in the fan zone.
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And that was amazing to watch that come back. And unfortunately, we didn't finish the job in that game. But we did get to watch Croatia live in Plyud for the Croatia Russia game to qualify for the World Cup.
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And it was a torrential downpour, but it was a truly unforgettable experience. So I think that was probably one of the coolest things I did in Croatia because Croatian Nogomeda is so important to me.
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And I've been following it closely since the 2006 World Cup. And I spend a lot of time just reading about the players and any news.
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So being able to watch a live game was a bucket list item for me.
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Yeah, that was super cool. That's got to be up there. Top couple moments for me here in Croatia so far.
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Yeah, the weight win.
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Tell the story about the trash bags.
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So we're going down to Split. We're taking a blah blah car, which is basically like an organized hitchhiking.
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And as we're going through Zadar, it's pretty sunny. And I've been hearing that there's going to be rain.
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So I was like, oh, we should be fine. Like it's sunny over here. And then as we get closer to Split, it starts raining. I'm like, oh, okay, this isn't great.
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And then, you know, we're walking around the stadium and the rain is really starting to come down now.
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And our jackets are getting wet and it didn't really seem like there was going to be too much break in the rain.
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And, you know, the stadium has two covered ends. So we were hoping that our seats were going to be under the covering.
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But unfortunately, when you buy the cheapest tickets, they don't often give you the best seating.
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So we were on the north end with no cover. So we were pretty prepared to get soaked for the game.
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And then, you know, but we see people putting on these ponchos or parkas or plastic ponchos. So we're like, okay, we should probably buy one of those.
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So we go and ask someone like, hey, where do you buy those? And they're like, the whole city's been sold out for like three days. What are you guys doing?
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Like, what do you expect? And I think right around then, you know, your jacket was pretty soaked.
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But you wanted you were wearing your truly should Jersey under so you wanted to you were like, oh, I want people to see that I'm wearing a correlation jersey.
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So you take off your soak jacket and your shirt and you put on your jacket underneath on your bare skin, your soak jacket and put your jersey on over the top.
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And then right after that, I see a guy with giant trash bags and I ask him if we could borrow them.
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Or if we can have somebody's like, yeah, here you go. So then we put on these giant trash bags poke holes through and then you ended up just putting on a soaking wet jacket on your bare skin.
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So you can have people see your jersey, but then you covered up your jersey with a giant trash bag.
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Giant blue trash bag can't see anything. Yeah, yeah, it barely helps.
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That's real size. Yeah, it was a huge one. We got soaked still the entire game. It almost didn't even help.
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And then yeah, and then we just sat in the north end and it was like, if anyone watched that game, you saw in the second half how sloppy it got and how soaked the the field was.
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And that was basically the same as us. Like we were just soaked to the bone.
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But shout out to Alan Kresic and Split, who took care of us after the game. He was our host during summer and he gave us some prosciutto in Sierra after and dried our clothes.
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So if you're ever going to go sit through a rainy game, make sure you have someone to take care of you after.
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Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, shout out to Alan. Great guy. Thank you, Alan.
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Let's get into the football a little, the Nogomet and soccer as we call it in the States and maybe Canada. Not too sure about that.
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How excited are you for this World Cup?
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I'm really excited. It should be a good one. It kind of seems like things are coming together again.
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You know, we always kind of have shaky qualifying campaigns, but we were able to put it together at the end and put on some impressive performances and figure out some pieces like you finally, finally integrating guys like
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Borna Sosa and Yosco Clarill, some of those younger guys with a ton of potential and we were kind of just waiting for them to get their shot and then they got it towards the end of qualifying and put on incredible performances.
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So having those young players with a ton of potential, they're only going to get better from now until the World Cup.
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And if you are following, like, not just those two players, but they've like, they're playing in the Bundesliga and they're like some of the best players in the league in defense.
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So those are important and those are important positions for us. So I'm really excited about that.
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And of course, Luca, he's still, I mean, what is he, 30, 37 now or he's turning 37, might even be turning 38. And he's still the main guy at Real Madrid, which is absolutely incredible.
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If you look at some of those other Real Madrid, Spanish League, midfield legends like Chavi, Iniesta, Zidane, none of them were doing what Madrić is doing at his age.
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So we're still going to have him pulling all the strings, Matej Ković, Prozović, we're going to have, I think, the best midfield in the world.
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So we just got to make sure we can put together the pieces up top to hopefully, Kramaric can figure it out and poke some goals in for us.
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Because I think we can have another really big, deep run. It's a little unfortunate that the World Cup is going to be in winter because it's going to be too hot and Qatar.
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So it'll be a little different vibe, I guess. But I'm still expecting, we should have put on a show.
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For us fans, you mean? Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah. But I mean, it's also the winter World Cup will be interesting for the players too, because it's going to be put in the middle of their club season.
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And I think the window for the World Cup is a little bit shorter now. So they're going to be coming off games from playing in their club and looking forward to their next club games, because it's all sandwiched in there.
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So it'll be an interesting dynamic and hopefully there's no injuries that are going on, because we're going to have a really talented roster to go out there and compete.
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Yeah, I agree. Absolutely. Yeah, everything right now is sort of unprecedented, it seems. So I mean, you just have to take it in stride and do the best with what's going on.
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What do you think is the biggest? Sorry, go ahead.
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I was just going to say, hopefully, goalkeeper steps up too. I think we have some talented guys. So we just need someone to take that by the reins and really command from the back.
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Yeah, what's the deal with that? We still don't have a solid first string yet?
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It was looking like it was going to be Lovakovic, but he kind of got shaky at the end.
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So Ivo Gutterbitch, who plays in France right now, he finished the campaign and he wasn't really tested too much in those last two games.
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So we didn't see too much, but he's playing well in France and then, I forget the fellow's name, but he's a goalkeeper from Osiak.
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He was playing, we played Slovakia and Rozovic had that last minute goal.
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This goalkeeper from Osiak had a lot of big saves, but he was hurt to finish up the qualifying. So we kind of have three guys that, if they're playing on top of their game, they can be great, but the consistency just needs to be there.
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Yeah. What do you think is going to be the biggest difference between this year's squad and the World Cup squad of 2018?
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Well, since that 2018 World Cup run, we still haven't found a replacement for Mario Manjukic. His presence up top is just, you can't really replace it.
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And Andre Kramerich is super talented as a striker and he puts in a ton of goals for Hoppenheim, but it just kind of seems like he's not meshing super well with our style of play.
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Because, you know, we got Petr Ciccio throwing crosses and that was perfect for a target man like Super Mario.
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We're just kind of missing that and no one has necessarily stepped up. We tried putting in Bruno Petkovich, but he's not the same type of player.
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So I still think we need to hopefully find someone to step up at the top at Striker. But I mean, if you look across the board, you could say that we're more talented right now than 2018.
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You know, definitely at positions like left back with Borna Sosa. I mean, he's just, he's a, I know he kind of had that Germany thing going on where he was thinking of switching allegiances, but we're really lucky that we ended up keeping him because he's a World Cup class player out of position of need.
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And, um, Josco Guardiola is an elite center back, modern center back who can do just about anything. So, you know, I love Lovren and Vita, but he can, this guy, he's young, but he can do a little bit more and is a little more has more weapons in the arsenal.
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So, and then of course the midfields only got better. I mean, we lose Racketitch, but Kovacic is playing world class, Porozovich is playing world class, Mulderich is playing world class.
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So I don't think we'll miss a beat over there.
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Yeah, I mean, we definitely have a great new class of players.
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Kovacic, Yostaputrovic on the right back. He's, he's stepped in great for Shime, but it's all go being hurt for basically since the World Cup. I really like him as well. So, yeah, good things are definitely to come.
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I really just hope we can, you know, some, like you said, the qualifiers, we seem to play kind of shaky in those, but I hope we can just sort of, you know, start off strong and then keep it that way the whole time.
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Yeah.
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But definitely, yeah, should be really exciting this winter.
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What is at the end of this year?
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December or something?
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Yeah, I think it may be like the end of November into like mid December or something like that. So Zagreb will be having its advent stuff. So I think that could be a really cool dynamic with the World Cup and the advent going on.
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That would be a fun trip for any Croatian, not just, I mean, any Croatian, but just any tourist in general that I think that would be really cool because those watch parties in Turgbani, Yelicic, they're a lot of fun.
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Yeah, those are super cool. Everyone's lighting flares and they got the little concerts going and everyone packed in the square. Yeah, that's a lot of fun.
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Let's move a little to some of the other Croatian hobbies or some of the other hobbies that you're involved in.
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Let me set the theme here by saying how when we first came to Croatia, me and you, we reached out to Croatia week and this is how I got in contact with the people here at Croatia week.
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Because, you know, we wanted to tell our story about the program and we're here in Croatia and we did and then we filmed a YouTube video that got for us kind of popular.
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In reality, it was only like 5000 views or something.
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Something like that. Maybe it has 6000.
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We'll call it.
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We'll run that.
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But it had like 13,000 on Instagram too, I think.
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So when you combine that is basically it's like a million, a million views about Steepin Mjölicic and we were interviewing people on the streets and you know that got put on Croatia week too.
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And you know, that's sort of how we started the relationship there with Croatia week.
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But with the videos we were making, the video was sort of a part of another corporation that we've been involved in not really a corporation.
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It's just me, George and another friend called DoghouseTV.
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Corporation is the right word.
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Yeah, it could be an S corp, is that what they call it?
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I'm not sure.
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But yeah, tell us a little about Doghouse and you know how we started that and where we went with that.
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So DoghouseTV was basically our sketch comedy channel on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
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And you know, we've always really loved comedy, me and you and our other buddy Tyler.
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So, you know, we have our notes app and we just put down ideas and it was the pandemic.
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So we kind of just figured, let's start acting on these ideas that we have and put together some content.
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And that was, you know, when things are really blowing up, like TikTok was huge and it was just seemed like a good time to, you know, try and actually follow up on these ideas that we have.
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So we had our friend Mackie Alvarez shout out to her, make a logo for us. And that basically launched DoghouseTV and, you know, started out doing weekly sketches, comedy sketches, premiere, and they would premiere every Wednesday.
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And it was basically just minute videos of these sketch ideas that we had, but it was a lot of fun and we put a lot of effort into it, producing them.
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You know, we'd meet Tyler's usually and film them and, you know, have some friends join in and they were pretty well received.
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So it was just a really good fun experience and Tyler is actually half correlation to so it ended up being three correlation guys making these videos.
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He actually came out to split with us in the summer. And before he came, we thought like, oh, we're going to film a bunch more videos while we're here and put out some more content.
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And then we ended up just being at the beach all day for what the two weeks that he was here didn't film anything.
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Tyler actually still owes me some money from that trip. Yes, me too. Actually, we should repo that soon.
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Yeah. Thanks for reminding me. Yeah, those dollars will transfer well into the Kuna.
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But that doghouse sort of stemmed and then ended up, you know, turning into something more, which is your comedy.
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I won't say career. I won't call it a career because it's definitely not that. No, don't don't don't call it that.
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Your comedy aspirations that tell us a little bit about, you know, your stand up and what you're doing right now and how you started doing that.
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Yeah, so sort of the same idea as doghouse. I'd always liked the idea of stand up and so it was always something I wanted to do.
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And when I moved to New York in 2019, I decided to kind of just play around in that space because New York is obviously known for its comedy.
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So I took a comedy class stand up comedy class at the comedy seller.
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And I really enjoyed it and I had two showcases through that.
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So I got to perform and it went it went well. So it made me eager to keep doing it.
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So I started doing open mics and stuff in New York and some other shows and it was a ton of fun.
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And unfortunately, that kind of got cut short by the pandemic.
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So I moved back to LA and there really weren't a ton of opportunities to stand up at the time because of the pandemic, obviously.
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And at the end, before we moved to Croatia, me and you, we found some outdoor mics to go to and practicing a bit.
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Then move to Croatia, of course. And again, there aren't a ton of opportunities in Croatia to do stand up either.
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They have some stuff, but it's all in Croatian and I didn't think that my set would translate well.
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I didn't try to pursue anything, but the writing stayed and I kept on writing jokes and writing ideas and going over stuff in my head.
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So now that I've been back here in LA, I've been doing open mics and doing stuff and shows.
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It was really something I really missed in Croatia.
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And one of the reasons I wanted to come back was to keep pursuing this, as you called it, aspiration.
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Yeah, I mean, we did see some open mics in Croatia, in Zagreb.
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Maybe just in Zagreb, we saw a couple, but there weren't really any that we found in English.
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I mean, maybe we didn't look hard enough, but I guess that was sort of the problem that you were having and, you know, I thought it was better to go back to LA to work on that.
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But tell us, you were telling me the other day a couple of weeks ago about your idea to come back in the summer and in Makarska, Makarska, or where do you say, or Split, somewhere anywhere on the coast where there's tourists.
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You know, maybe you can find some English stand up shows, open mic shows, and you can do some stuff there for your vacationing.
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I was just thinking, you know, of course Croatia is one of the biggest tourist destinations in the world.
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So I was thinking if you really did want to build out comedy in Croatia, I think it would make sense to start on the coast during the summer, because there's a bunch of tourists and a lot of people from all over the world.
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So you can do like a set that would work in America and do it there, because it's not, you know, you wouldn't be expected to just do it in Croatian, because everyone speaks English in the summer.
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So I was thinking if you go to one of those big tourist destinations like Split or Gorovoir or Makarska or Dubrovnik and you started to build something out there, I think it could catch fire quickly, at least in the summer months and then who knows what happens after.
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Yeah, maybe it can grow from there, but yeah, I think you're right. It's got to start in the summer. And if there's anyone listening, that can help us.
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I mean, or wants to put this on or help put this on or be a part of it, you know, reach out to us.
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Yeah, I mean, there's a ton. There's like Yacht Week and people coming in and out of Croatia daily. So there's a lot of cool things. I think you could do it around and there's the, what's that, festival or music festival and Split, I think it's ultra.
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So there's like a lot of events like that. So there's definitely a way to do it.
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Yeah, definitely a possibility. And hopefully this summer we can get that going. I don't think we'll bring back the two man comedy set again, because that didn't work the first time we tried that.
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It hit and set. I had flappers.
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Flappers in Burbank, California. The set that we never seen before.
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The first time I ever did stand up. And that was like 20, that was 2019, I think.
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Yeah.
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Thanksgiving.
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Yeah, that was rough.
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But we're a lot better now.
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Yeah, yeah, just don't test this. Actually, speaking of testing you, I warned you, I would ask you this. You said you're quite the impressionist. Can you give us a couple of your impressions?
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Okay.
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Yeah, this one. I'm Gilbert Gottfried.
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You know, you know how everyone just says their name.
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Hey, who was that? Who was that impression?
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That was Bob Saget.
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Oh, I was so sorry.
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Too soon, too soon. Come on.
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Alright, do you have one more?
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I was actually trying to say Jon Stamos, but then I said Bob Saget. I'm sorry.
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Too soon. That's not right. I'll have to edit that out. Give me the Christopher Walken. I've heard a lot about this, and I haven't heard this in about two weeks since you left, so.
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Yeah, the girls really like this one in college.
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Hey! You know, mother always said,
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pancakes are best for breakfast.
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Wow.
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There's a little Jerry Seinfeld B movie in there.
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There's something that should be there.
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I need to work on getting that out.
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There's some wrong ingredient.
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Alright, well, let's move on from the comedy.
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I'm not an impressionist.
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Yeah, I force this on you.
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I'll edit those out. Don't worry.
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I want to talk about one last hobby of yours that of ours, I should say, that we both did here in Zagreb and we both did in LA.
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And you're doing again back in LA. Let's talk about the boxing.
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I mean, we were both boxing before we came out here with Chris. What's his last name? I don't even know his last name.
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Chris Camerano.
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Yeah, with Chris over in Pasadena. We're boxing with him. We got really interested following Steve Mielicic and boxers.
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We got interested in MMA and boxing. Decided to take it up.
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And then we came out to Zagreb and we were looking for a place and we found a great place at 300 in Zagreb.
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And I'm still training there right now. George was training there these last 10 months with me until he just went back recently.
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Tell me a little bit why you like boxing and why you like training.
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Yeah, I love boxing. It's a ton of fun. It's a great workout.
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I think mostly, I mean, yeah. I love watching Steve Mielicicic.
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I think after he beat Cormier the third time, that was like two Augusts ago. And then we started boxing shortly after that, thinking that, you know, when Steve Ater tires, we can pick up where he left off.
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So we still have a little bit of time.
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But mostly just like, I don't know, working out kind of sucks. I hate running. So I like doing something other than that, like doing some sort of sport, whether it's basketball or nulgom, it's fun too.
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But boxing, you kind of just need gloves and can jump in there. You don't need teammates and stuff or put together a squad. You can just find someone, a trainer, or you don't even need a trainer.
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You can just start hitting the bag. So it's kind of a low barrier of entry, but it's a really good workout and it's a lot of fun.
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Sparring is cool too. So boxing, you know, growing up, it was never something I thought I would do, but picking up during the pandemic and falling through with that in Croatia and coach Ruda at Tristo is amazing.
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It has a really good setup over there. So it just kind of furthered that love for boxing.
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Yeah, shout out to our trainer, Ruda, great guy, great people in general over at Tristo, a really good group that we're working with.
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Boxing was a lot of fun. What do you think of this YouTube boxing though? Are you a fan of this new phase that everyone's into?
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Yeah, I think it's cool getting a lot of eyes on boxing. I like more what Jake Paul, I think, is doing it pretty, is doing it right.
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You know, he's actually fighting fighters like Ben Askren and Tyron Woodley.
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So I think I like the way he's doing it. I don't necessarily like the stuff that his brother Logan Paul is doing with those like exhibitions with Floyd. I mean, I didn't watch that, but it kind of just seemed a little hacky and kind of a money grab.
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And it wasn't an actual competition that they were going out there, winner and loser.
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He was saying he wanted to do something with Mike Tyson, so I'm not as interested in that. But you know, someone like Jake goes in there and Jake Paul actually goes in there and really cares about it, which it seems like he does and puts on real competitions against guys who also want to put him on his butt.
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I think it's good for the sport. So I have no problem with it. It's entertaining. It can be exciting. So I think it's good.
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You know, I have to say you're probably one of the select few that are a Jake Paul fan.
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I mean, I don't know how I miss like, I like, I don't know, because I do want to see him lose too. But I like, I also like it when he wins too, because then it just keeps everything building up until he does lose.
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I don't know. Like I wanted Tyron Woodley to knock him out both times I both times they fought. But then after I was like, oh, I'm kind of happy Jake won. So I don't know. And I guess that's his whole thing. He wants people to stay engaged.
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So he's doing something right. And I'm falling for it.
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Yeah, I mean, it is entertaining. And I wouldn't mind myself if you know, maybe here in Croatia, something happened, maybe a charity event. And one of the influencers here asked me to, you know, box them. That would be really cool.
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I'd be doing the same thing. I think you would need a I think you would need a charity event in your name after you try to do a boxing.
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Well, I'm trying to stick to the 12 and under division. So I might be okay.
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Yeah, I mean, even then corrosion is a tall.
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That's true. Yeah. Yeah, I always felt like I was a good height back in the US and here I'm always looking up.
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Yeah, what are you like five nine?
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Six, six one.
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Okay, six five on a good day.
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Well, let me we're about to wrap things up here. I want to ask you one thing that I've been asking everyone so far, which truth be told I have recorded a couple other podcasts but this is going to be the first one release or so I'm told.
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But you guys can pretend I didn't say that.
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Let me ask you Karlosco or or just go.
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I like them both but I think more often than not I always asked Karlosco first if they if they have that.
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You know, the it's hard for me to say, oh, so a lot of times I'll just get a car.
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I'll just be Karlosco. Just for that reason. Or I'll call the. My uncle told me the Julia. So I've been saying that I feel pretty cool and then they say something about it.
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You always like to be Pometon and say those little things.
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Yeah, I like to spice it up a little bit but then butcher all the rest.
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Yeah, of course. Well, George, I think that's all the time we have here for today. But you know, thanks a bunch for coming on. It was good talking with you. I got some laughs, you know, especially when you were doing those impressions.
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Jesus Christ.
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I don't know if I'm going to remind me to edit those out. But yeah, thanks again for coming on and I hope everyone that's going to be listening enjoyed it.
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Yeah, thanks.
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I appreciate it.
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Thank you.