My Grillz Maker - Alligator Jesus

Daniel sits down with David Tamargo AKA Alligator Jesus, the jeweler and grill-maker to the stars, to talk art, diamonds, and all things Miami.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So pull your lip. So, uh, all right, that's it,
But no I need to bite down for any drool
you might have.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Pasha show. Hey guys, it's Daniel Tosh and welcome to
another episode of Toss Show, the most peaceful podcast out there.
Can we get some light rain? Yeah, that sounds good.

(00:41):
How about rain on a metal roof with an occasional thunder? Oh,
this is peaceful. Can we add, as INSI some random
animal noises? How about some ocean in the background. Oh,
this episode is getting more and more zen by the second.

(01:03):
How about some wind chimes? We had some wind chimes
there too. Good? Good, just some soft piano in addition,
it's a little overwhelming. I'm sure what else? What else
would help this show?

Speaker 1 (01:19):
A big train?

Speaker 2 (01:20):
A train? Eddie?

Speaker 1 (01:23):
So peaceful.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
How are you doing today, Eddie?

Speaker 1 (01:24):
I'm doing great.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
You're getting excited for Fourth of July?

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Oh, you know it.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Where are you taking the family this year? Griswold?

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Well, I think this year we're gonna spend it at
the beach near the house.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
No, it's boring the beach. Yeah. Now, I don't know
if I need to tell people where Eddie lives. But
he lives in South Bay here in Los Angeles. And
when I talk about South Bay, I'm not talking about
Palace Verdes or Torrents. I'm not even talking about El Segondo.
I'm talking strictly Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach. I don't

(01:57):
even care about Rodondo Beach. Now on fourth of July,
it's just nonsense. Girls from age thirteen to fifty five
dressed like complete hors and they walk up and down
the strand and that's the sidewalk that runs on the beach.

(02:17):
And then there's these you know, these million dollar homes
that are just one right after another, and they you know,
they run between ten million to twenty five million. That's
about the price range of most of those strand homes
now on fourth of July. For whatever reason, when I

(02:39):
used to live in South Bay, you can just randomly
go into people's houses that day. You just every house
has just opened up and debauchery is going on. It's
just a party. Just serve an alcohol. And that's what
I recall Fourth of July. So that's what you're gonna
do with your family, huh.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
I'm gonna take him down to some of those big
old houses and.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
M well, that sounds nice. You grilling this weekend.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
I would be grilling.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, how often do you grill? Grilled?

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Last night I grilled like three times a week.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
You're a three time a week griller. I'm a once
a week griller. The other day, my wife made me grill,
and I was. She did all the prep work, but
then she hands me so many things like it was,
you know, eggplant, and she wanted this this bread grilled.
And there was shrimp, and there was chicken thighs. Every

(03:30):
single thing she gave me had a different increment of
time that it needed to be grilled. And then and
the sheer number when you give me shrimp to grill
and just give them loose and then and then vegetables
and they're just loose, They're not on a skewer. Now
I'm spending I'm burning every hair on my hand. It's

(03:52):
just in there way too long. It's like, oh, it
just needs two minutes each side. Oh great, there's three
hundred of them. I mean, if you're looking, you ain't cooking.
I know that. Oh I find it painful. There's a
lot of grilling, a lot of flipping. I was. I
was annoyed, and then then She's like, oh, well, you

(04:12):
know what, you could have done the egg plant a
little longer. Nobody wants to eat that ship anyway. It
tastes like mush. Are you a.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Gas grill guy, yep, get a webber.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
You got a webber.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Got a blackstone to also flat top.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
I'm pretty sure I have a Viking. I have a wolf.
I have a wolf. I don't even know it's a wolf.
It's got red knobs. I love it. She works right away.
I've never used the rotisserie thing in it. And it's
got a seer thing I've I've never used the seer
thing either. There's a lot of a lot it does

(04:49):
that I don't use. There's a there's lights inside of it.
Don't use those either. I'm always shocked that they work.
Seems like it seems like that'd be too hot for light.
I really just set it to medium high for anything,
no matter what I'm cooking. Sometimes when I do chicken wings,
I do the high heat on one section and then

(05:13):
just set them on the other side where there's no heat,
and just you know, it takes thirty forty five minutes.
That's as fancy as I get. Oh you know, I
also do something with a baked potato that I think
is pretty good. You take a baked potato. This is
how I grill my baked potatoes. And I take a
fork and I stab it a million times all around.

(05:35):
And that's dangerous because a potato is dense. And then
I smother it with olive oil, tons and tons of
olive oil. And then I double or triple wrap it
in aluminum foil and I grill it for about an
hour hour fifteen and basically, if done right, it comes

(06:00):
out like a twice baked potato. It's almost like mashed
potatoes when you open it up. That's fun. Well, all
this grill talk is misleading because today's episode is about grills. Enjoy. Pasha,

(06:26):
my guest today, believes that the key to a beautiful
smile is to have the words baller written in diamonds
on your teeth. He's the grill maker to the stars.
Please welcome, Alligator Jesus. Thank you. Do you want me
to call you alligator Jesus at all time?

Speaker 1 (06:41):
I mean that's what my mom calls me, So she.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Calls you alligator Jesus. Never even shortens it.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
She shortens it the gator.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Oh there she's the gator. Yeah, but who gave you
the name alligator Jesus.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
And not me? It was everybody that was teasing me.
So if you see that line right there, there's a
little scar. I still have a pin in my wrist
from wrestling an alligator.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
When I was younger, I used to I used to
catch alligators and mess with them too.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's molesting. It's like a
restable fence in Florida what not.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
When I was doing it. When I was doing it,
we're like yanking them out a pond off the golf course. Yeah, yeah,
like throwing them in the river, and the country club
guy would give us fifty bucks for getting rid of
them exactly.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
You know, it's like a thing that in Florida. It's
very normal as Florida guys, we know, yeah, yeah, Florida,
you know whatever. But I went with Native Americans. I
went with Makasuki Indians on an airboat and we sought
out a very gargantuan, big ass alligator uh huh. And
the guy jumped into the water and hugged the thing
and taped up its mouth so I could do a

(07:41):
photo op thing. And they were pretty rude to the gator.
They were kicking it and they were really freaking mean
to it, and I just had had enough and I
wanted to let it go. But they were like, all right,
you let it go because they weren't gonna untape it
untape it. And I'm like, well it'll starve. Yeah, so
what was there a response like now I'm going to

(08:02):
let it go. All right, go for it. And it
broke my wrists in the process of trying to let
it go. I mean, it's a pissed off like a
big ass skater. I don't know how big of a
gator you ever.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
No, no mind. The ones I messed with were in
the three to six foot max.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Nah, this was like over twelve feet. This is a
big ass game. This is a big boy, and yeah,
it it, you know, hold on to it. It broke
my wrist and this thing swelled up. I was I
was twenty three because under twenty five I still had
my mother's health insurance.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
Okay, so that's where alligator Jesus came from there, because
you should be dead.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
They they made fun of me because I was trying
to save the gator like some sort of alligator Jesus
and it was just a max sense.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
I like it. No, I'm happy with it.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Born in Miami, Born and raised in Miami, are you.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Percent born in Havana. My dad on a technicality born
in New York, but Cuban, And yeah, we're raised in Miami.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
My three brothers and I Miami's very different now, Oh yeah,
absolutely crazy different. I I live there in the mid
late nineties.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
Oh cool, So you saw it. Our Bosel came in
the early two thousands, like two thousand and one or two,
and that really did a big change of the ecosystem
down there, because of course that brought all the tension
and the money and the people to invest in South Florida,
because now all of a sudden, everybody from around the
world saw the economic possibilities of South Florida, as they

(09:25):
did time and time again, you know, in history of it.
Everyone would just come in from somewhere else see the
magic of that South Florida ground and say I can
do something and build something from here.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
And all the ass out me.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Of course.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah. Did you were you a Canes fan?

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yeah? Definitely?

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Were you still a Canes fan?

Speaker 1 (09:45):
I mean, I don't follow any sports ball. These days,
athletes will hit me up and be like, oh, do
you watch our games?

Speaker 2 (09:51):
I'm like, not really, you don't care at all about sports. Nah,
I like it. Now, you went to FIU. Yes, you're
the only person I know that went to FYU.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Really, history of the world, there's some I mean, there's
a lot of artists and people are coming out of
FIU that are making some notable changes in the world.
That's pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Did you ever want to go to UF Never? I
mean neither.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
No, it wasn't my Stee's.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
My wife, horror, whole family, all gators.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Oh my gosh, they do that whole thing beyond the
anything chops.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
Yeah, I guess it's better than the other racist hands.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Yeah, the seminoles, definitely. I mean, hopefully they cut that out.

Speaker 2 (10:23):
Yeah. You studied at FIUEH Jewelry Design.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, I did well. They had a small metals metalsmithing program, okay,
and I got into that because I had to get
out of photography, which was my main thing, because of
an allergy to the chemistry. By the time I was
turning eighteen, I started to notice these like rashes on
my hands, and by the time I turned twenty, my
hands would just literally go like this, and I'd have
to go outside, get fresh air, run my hands under

(10:49):
cold water to like get dexterity back in my fingertips
because the saturation to all that chemistry was really messing
me up.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
So let's let's talk about your right. When did you
move from Miami to Los Angeles?

Speaker 1 (11:02):
It was twenty eleven I started coming out here, and
then twenty twelve, January fourth, twenty twelve was a day
I moved here officially and landed in Culver City and
said this is where I'm gonna going to live.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
When did you get to jewelry? Because you didn't.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Immediately once I moved here, I was in the art
world and the jewelry was my hobby.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
And who shoved you in the right direction?

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Uh Murakami to Kasha Markami. He's the one who I
came out here working with him, and.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
He was like he had already seen your jewelry before.
You know.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
It's a funny story, it's all. I was a curator
and art director at a museum. On a lunch break
and I'm walking down South Beach on Washington Boulevard. There's
a pawnshop next to a nightclub as there is, and
I looked and I did a double take, and like,
that's a fucking Murakami in the window there. And it
was a gold sunflower eyes like the sunflower with a
smiley face inside of a skull that was completely covered

(11:56):
in diamonds, and it was a ring, but it was
blatantly a Shei Murakami artwork. I recognized it, and I
went into the pawn shop asked him if I could
see it, and the guy was kind of like, Ah,
this fucking thing. You know, I've had it in my
window in the store in Miami Downtown and no one's
looked at it for two and a half years. Here
you go, you want it six thousand dollars? I was like,

(12:17):
are you kidding me? We just sold Murkami prints for
like twenty grand at the gallery that I was working
with in LA.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
Were you question or were you positive you knew what
you were doing there?

Speaker 1 (12:27):
It was signed on the inside, it had like the monogram,
it had a serial number, it had the carrot. Wait,
this was as legit as it could be, So you know,
I put a deposit down six hundred bucks. It's like
all my money at the time, and I went upstairs
and called Kai Kaikiki, his organization in Long Island City,
and they were very dismissive of me, and they're like,

(12:48):
you know, why are you calling us about this thing?

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
But then yeah, Miami Beach detective was at my door
the next day asking questions about me. So we went
over the pawn shop and it turned out the thing
had been stolen from Murkami years before at art Basel. Huh.
And it was like a story that Murkamy and his
people really wanted just to go away. They didn't want
this thing to resurface. They whatever, I guess insurance had

(13:12):
been paid out, so then this thing kind of popping
up again was a problem for them.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
I did get was it dangerous? Were you ever in danger?

Speaker 1 (13:18):
No? But I did go to Kai Kaikiki and they
were very much like, oh, thank you for coming up,
Please leave. They were like not wanting to address this situation.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
Did you get paid out at all? No?

Speaker 1 (13:29):
I did not get paid out. But it did open
a lot of doors, like you know, doors opening. Okay,
that's pretty cool. Murkami blew the doors off the hinges
for me, you know, Mr Kami and this whole situation
got the attention because it was international art news of
a collector out here. Galleries out here, museums out here,
an institutions started to taking notice of this kid who

(13:50):
did something great. Murkami publicly called me at a at
an event. Ah, this is David Tamago, most honest man
in America and like called everyone to stand up in
give me a listen.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
I was trying to buy it, to sell that shit,
Absolutely no, But what would have been worth.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
You know, over seven figures or something now, but six
figures back then?

Speaker 2 (14:11):
I love it, love it.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Art world is whatever you can get, I know, so
seven is what I'm calling. But it's really up there.
And to get back to your question about when I
started really being out here, Jesus twenty seventeen Gagosian Gallery.
I think it was his show in March, maybe in
twenty eighteen, but I'd already been doing my jewelry more
and more. MURKAMMI had his big solo show that they

(14:33):
always do around the Oscars Gagosian and Mr Kami sees
me and he just blined it for me, grabbed me
out of the crowd and he's like, oh, David, how
are you mister Tomago soh and blah blah blah, so
good to see you, glad, glad, thank you here. And
I'm like, mind you, this has been years I haven't
seen him.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
And he's an impression and he yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
He pulls me over and introduces me and says, oh,
for real, Ben Baller, this is David Tomargo, best jeweler
in America. And I'm like, uh what and Baller and
he's like, yeah, your Godzilla ring was amazing this and that.
Like I'd shown him a piece back in twenty thirteen
that I made like in twenty ten, so I'd been

(15:14):
doing jewelry all the time, and he was telling me
all those times, stop curating, stop working in art, don't
work in film. Do your jewelry. That's what you're really
passionate about. That's what you're great because.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
You did do everything out here in La. Yeah, you're
like wanting to do film all of it.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
People like me, we are just resourceful that Miami hustle,
were like always figuring out how to get things done.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
I mean, you're let's be clear, you're not to knock
the wonderful people Miami. Your hustle is not necessarily some
people Miami a little less, a little less hustle. Yeah. Yeah,
there's some people that I kind of would like to
push a little harder.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Like, Hey, there's definitely a thing called Cuban time.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
You know, I'm well aware of Cuban I've lived on
Cuban time. I've been to a Miami Heat game where
there's no one at the basketball until the middle of
the second quarter. Do you believe in ghosts?

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Oh interesting, Aligator Jesus believes in ghosts.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
You know. I went to the Quad Cities and I
had like close encounters with ghosts and stuff. And if
it weren't for like those kind of situations, I was
put in there. Like I'm a scientific brain kind of guy.
I can't explain those things.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
Is a drug related at all? Not at all.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
I'm sober as hell. You know, I've never been a
drug you never, not even casually.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
What about hallucinogenics, natural.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Like a mushroom? Sure, like microdose seems very common right now. Yeah,
But like I was at Bernie Man a couple of
years ago and I wanted to do a point five
gram and somebody's like, oh, here, take this chocolate. It's
half a gram.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
I can't trust their math.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
And then of course it's oh my bad, that's five
grams and you know I was floating. Now's the harshest,
craziest drug trip I've ever had.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
And is that the story where you ended up having
to take off?

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that is that story. You heard that?

Speaker 3 (17:02):
All right?

Speaker 2 (17:02):
Just go on, who calls that needs an emergency grill
while you're on five grams of mushroom?

Speaker 1 (17:10):
She's the only one in the world that I would
say I would allow to have a grills emergency. And
it's Madonna, okay, and she needed me in New York
like tomorrow. So then that's the situation where I say,
I just laugh because I'm at the center of burning
Man itself. I'm at the Man when I got the
wild service. It just came okay into my phone, and
I'm like, am I hallucinating this? Her executive assistant says,

(17:33):
Madonna needs me in New York tomorrow? Well, you can
have me if you get me from here. And I
just took a selfie at the Man, huh, And she
figured it out.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
You know, So you took a private jet to New York,
a helicopter.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, it was all that shit. Like, you know, Bernie
Man has everything you need. If you need it, it's there.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
And you know, if you need to get off the playa,
there's a helicopter. They'll take you to Reno, Reno, you
can catch a PJ from there. I went to La,
grabbed my tools, got a red eye to New York.
That was the most efficient thing.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Am I supposed to say? PJ?

Speaker 1 (18:02):
I mean, that's God damn it.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
That sounds better. That sounds better.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
You get to a level and you just start taking
more comfortable means of travel.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
Uh huh. I just like that. I just like the
term PJ. I just never said PJTE start saying PJ.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Well, do you call it soda not pop?

Speaker 2 (18:18):
Right?

Speaker 1 (18:19):
You grew up in the South.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
I think I call it soda.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yeah, I mean that. It just depends on where you
grew up.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Where you grew up. If you call a private jet
of PG, all right, you grew up with it. I
did not grow up with it. Was grills always going
to be a specialty or.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
No, not at all. It was definitely not something I
was interested in doing because I had made grills in Miami,
but grills back then were very much street culture.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
And street cultures doesn't pay the bills.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Does not and and those kind of clientele definitely they
bring things from the street, that attitude, that swagger, and
then that aggressiveness and threatening attitude when it comes down
to pay.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
That's always fun.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
And there's a very competitive nature Miami for grills. Like
people are always saying I can do it cheaper. But
like that cheaper person, they're either cheating the carrot, which
is like if you're paying for fourteen carrot, they're giving
like eleven carrot or twelve carrot. Ok, and they're putting
more alloy, so you're not getting exactly what you're paying for. Yeah,
of course you're getting it cheaper. They're not honest businessmen

(19:19):
like me. Everything that I do, I can put my
name on it because I'm casting it myself. I put
the actual diamonds. But I hear about New York jewelers
and other places where these big rappers. In fact, there's
a very famous rapper here who his entourage gave me
a broken piece of jewelry to a say which has
melted down the gold extracted diamonds and they want to

(19:40):
make something else with it. And they had paid a
substantial amount of money, six figures for this necklace, and
it was in pieces. And it turns out once we
sayed it, it was like nine carrots, not fourteen. And
the diamonds. I actually gave him the diamonds to look
at the diamonds and he was like, nah, these are vvs.
It's which stands for very very slight inclusions, which you

(20:01):
should not have any perceptible things inside the diamond in
perfections in it. And I gave him one of the
diamonds to look at with the loop and he's like, well,
it's all that stuff inside the diamond. I'm like, those
are inclusions. These are I these are included diamonds. These
are trash. Like this famous jeweler that he spent all
this money getting this jewelry piece from.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
May accuse you of line or no.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
No, because I literally made sure that he was with
me throughout the process.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
I like to you almost do that now, you can't
like take stuff away from me.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
No, no, No, There's a lot of stuff like that.
You hear about, like, oh, if you take something to
get resize, make sure they do it in front of
you and stuff.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
But I don't. I never do it. My wife's ring them.
I was like, just go clean it. Yeah, I don't
wonder what are you gonna do? Are you gonna swap it?

Speaker 1 (20:43):
But yeah, I mean that's a definite thing in jury.
So grills weren't really my thing because the clientele are
very thuggish back in Miami, and it wasn't until I
got here in.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
La Or we have a classier thug.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
No.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
I was very.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
Ingrained in the in the rave community and the after hours.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
Did you go to raves to Yeah? But you didn't.
You were never like into ecstasy or anything.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
I was always known as like, oh, alligator's there, but
he's partying drug free And people will always say, I
don't know how you do it, and they're like jaw
jacking from cocaine and whatever else they're doing. And I've
never I have never done cocaine in my life. Ever,
that's all going to change right now. I've seen how
it destroys people's lives.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
All right, So you're cleaning, you're straight, and you're in.
But the rave world was what kind.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Of absolutely and that community that plur peace, love, unity
and respect. That principle in the rave community is definitely
a really cool concept in any community. It mirrors that
of the Juggler community, which is what I really came from.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
That's what I forgot all about it. You could you
forget one of the one of the first things you
did was you did you create their website? What did
you was making websites for insane clown possible?

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yes, for people that don't know what is woop woop?
A jugglo is a fan of and a loyal per
part of the community.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Did they pay you in fago?

Speaker 1 (22:10):
They paid me in something better, good clout.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Let's get let's get back to I want to get
to grills again because the pandemic, oddly enough, yeah, made
your business skyrocket.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Did you see that article Flomp magazine wrote about me. No,
it was called the Pandemic Hustle, and they documented how
I sat on my hands for about two weeks, and
then I was like, I can't handle not doing anything.
I watched Tiger King and I'm like, that's it. I
gotta get out of the house and do something with myself.
So I decided to finish up all the orders that

(22:45):
I had pending, and I started a drive up service
where people would drive up to my house. They'd crack
their window open, and I would be in full ppe gloves.
I had extended gloves, I had a a painting suit
mask all the nine and I would take their impression
through the cracked car window and then take that impression,

(23:08):
drop it into a bag of bleach and tell them
drive off, vemo me and I'll make your grills and
you can come and pick it up the same way.
In a week. And of course, edd money started to
kick in and people started to get all those paychecks
coming in for unemployment.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Huh, that's so many people, so many people. When did
you decide, Hey, this is too much. I got to
get this out of my house.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
So I was making the I do everything in downtown
in the Jury District, right, That's where I produce it
and fabricate and everything. And I was so busy making
stuff that I could stop. I had to stop doing
it at the house. So I had people just driving
up to me in downtown. And it was when someone
tried to mug me, and literally I don't know if

(23:52):
they're trying to mug me or it was just a
crazy guy with a knife walking up to me while
I was making an impression with someone from a car.
Someone screamed alligator to look out, and there was a
guy maybe three steps behind me, creeping up behind me
with a knife, and you know, I just ducked and
ran and the guys ran after him, but he was

(24:13):
coming at me, probably to rob me, and I was like,
holy shit, late.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
Did you have anything on you?

Speaker 1 (24:17):
At the time, I had jewelry on me. I just
come downstairs and I had my backpack with me. And
this is like around the times of the riots. So
you know, there's an air of like rebellion in LA.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
And people in the downtown district, especially the jewelry district,
people are known to not flaunt anything that they know.
The richest person down there is walking around with just
a paper bag.

Speaker 1 (24:43):
A paper bag and a black T shirt, no chain on.
You turn around, you see somebody with a knife. You're like,
oh shit, I got to get off the street. I'm
no longer street level. That same day, got a little studio.
It was probably about twice the size of this little
space of a brag. It was bigger, no, but it
was very small. It was just like a small space
during COVID. I didn't need a big operation, and I

(25:05):
was just like, I gotta get off you yourself.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, where are you at now with people that are
helping you.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
I've got my one production manager, huh, and he runs
point eight things. Takes things from point A to B.
Like I'll do the wax up, it goes to casting.
Casting is a totally separate operation. My friend's company, they're efficient.
If I get it to them by two pm, it's
ready the next day. They have options. If I get
it to them by one pm, it can be ready

(25:32):
at seven pm.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Back then, you were making a grill, You'd make an impression,
you'd make the grill, and they'd get it the next week.
And that's a very fast turnaround compared to normal grills
that people get custom made take three months. Three months.
And now where are you at? It's same day, same day.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah, we're operating like it will charge you a little
bit more because it is a stress. You know, we've
got to like everything has to flow flawlessly and accurately.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
I can't even get the same day dry cleaning. Is
wearing a grill bad for your teeth?

Speaker 1 (26:03):
No, not at all.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
I mean you got to do Dennis recommend it if.

Speaker 1 (26:06):
People wear retainers.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Uh huh.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
The same problems with the retainers. You gotta clean it
every day. If you drink something, you got to rent
it out.

Speaker 2 (26:13):
Do you sleep in it?

Speaker 1 (26:14):
No?

Speaker 2 (26:15):
Do you do you wear a grill every day your
life when you're working or no?

Speaker 1 (26:18):
Yeah, this is my everyday. Look like I didn't get
dressed up for this or anything. I'm just like, thanks,
gonna cruise through the day looking like that.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Uh huh. What about going through TSA.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
It's a pain and ass because the dental algine is
like a powder, so they always want to test it. Lately,
because I travel so much and I keep going to
a lot of the same cities, the TSA know who
I am, so it's pretty cool. Now, like I get
spotted or you know with why I start working with
Madonna going through TSA, New York. Oh, you're a Madonna's jeweler,

(26:47):
So that's really cool. I get spotted with that because
she was on the Falon Show just like talking about
her grills.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
And I mean, yeah, I don't I'm I don't know
what's going on with her.

Speaker 1 (26:59):
Donna's awesome, man, I mean, yes, the concept Now she's
got four decades of yeah, yeah, being a real pop icon.
I mean there's very few pop stars that are like
Madonna level, Michael Jackson level, like and she she Michael Jackson.
Now we got a Taylor Swift Beyonce.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
Even is Taylor going to ever rock a grill? You know?

Speaker 1 (27:21):
I see her people watching my stories. It's never the
actual artist that reaches out first. It's always the people
on the peripheral.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
When they're that big, do they want shit for free?

Speaker 1 (27:30):
There are people like that.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
But what's a grill called? What's a bottom end grill cost?
And what's the cadillac of all grills called? What's my rain?

Speaker 1 (27:39):
I just made a grill. We finished it last week.
It was two hundred and twenty five thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Is that both top and bottom?

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Is it always top and bottom?

Speaker 1 (27:48):
That's what looks best like? Having that symmetry is always something.
And if you get like a single tooth over here,
you should get another tooth over here because your bite,
imagine you do have a layer of metal a little tooth.
So if your bite, I'm always about making sure that
your bite is comfortable. I don't want your jaw to
be like all we Yeah, So you have the grill
makers that there you look like robot teeth because they're

(28:10):
all very straight. You see that as well with like veneers.
When they're done poorly, it just looks.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
Like bad veneers. It's hard to look at people.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
It's hard to look at them, And same with the
bad grills. So I'm always about following your natural.

Speaker 2 (28:22):
You scratching the inside of your lips with them?

Speaker 1 (28:24):
No, no, never. There are certain textures that people want,
like diamond dust. It's very low cost, sparkly finished, but
it feels like sandpaper. We don't do that because we
tell people it cuts your lip up.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
What percentage ballpark it for me? Your your clientele is
white getting grills.

Speaker 1 (28:42):
Of Caucasian people.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Hm? Uh maybe fifty Caucasian grills. Yeah, it's becoming more mainstream.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Yeah, it's it's like mainstream. I will I do I
We did do this number. We looked at all of
our orders from twenty to twenty three, and we realize
that on average, our customers are women over thirty five.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
That's the average. Yeah, huh what about jacked up teeth?
Do you ever go like, oh, this is that we
can't we can't deal with this.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
I had someone recently came in and he wanted a
top six, but he only had three teeth they could
hang on to.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
I was then making an additional three teeth that were
false and that that's something that we can easily do
for people, which is a great feeling when people are
telling me, like, yeah, I never smile anymore because I'm
missing some teeth for whatever reason. People can miss teeth
for any number of things. I've got two implants, yeah
in the back, and I'm sure it took like a
couple months for the implant that in your mouth. Absolutely

(29:43):
not the way, so imagine in the interim. We offer
this for people because it's affordable enough, like two hundred
dollars a tooth in gold. You can have this bridge
in gold that makes it look like you're not missing anything.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Can you eat with grills in your mouth?

Speaker 1 (29:56):
I don't recommend it, you could, uh huh. I mean
it's easier when you have a full grill then if
you have just a couple cap here and there, and
if you have any fangs like that makes it a
little different. It's the most popular thing for sure for
us because a lot of people in the subculture communities
and the nightlife, they they like that darkness to it,
that that you know, vampires are always popular.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
What percentage of your business is grills versus other jewelry,
I'd say.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
Fifty percent because we're doing a lot more like engagement
rings and big chains and a lot of like custom
jewelry for people these days.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Fake diamonds versus real diamonds or whatever versus created. What's this,
I'll say this.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Lebron James has publicly said he wears c z. Everything
that he wears. All that jewelry is cubics or Conian,
which is like very much worthless. It's like, okay, ten
cents for thousands of stones. But the work, but the
craftsmanship that it isn't every free. It isn't free. There
he's paying all in the labor. It doesn't matter whether

(30:59):
you're putting diamonds lab diamonds or natural diamonds.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Lab diamonds, that's the word I was looking for. Lab
diamonds are still very expensive. Still no, not that they're not.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
Pennies, not pennies for sure, But there's different qualities and
different grades of lab diamonds. You can get moist nite,
which is on the lower spectrum. Then there's two different
kinds of lab diamonds that are named after the process
of how they're made, and then there's natural diamonds.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
And that's where you get to the conflict diamonds.

Speaker 1 (31:27):
Well, I mean you don't find that anymore. No, no
one's I mean unless you're I mean, are you buying
jewelry from a back alley?

Speaker 2 (31:33):
I have no idea, but I mean there's got to be.
There's only so many diamonds in the world, right.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
What happens these days people have mixed parcels where like
if you're buying in bulk, like ten thousand one millimeter stones,
which like in my grills, I have like little tiny
one millimeter diamonds, right, they're all around the opals. If
you're buying ten thousand, and it's a thousand dollars per
thousand of them, So it's ten thousand dollars for this bag.
And the person I'm buying from, if it's not some valued,

(32:01):
trusted person with a great reputation, and I'm trying to
just find the cheapest deal out there, I'm probably going
to find somebody who's going to sell it to me
for seven thousand dollars or six thousand dollars. And what
they've done is they've taken out four thousand of the
natural diamonds, or just fifty percent is natural and then
fifty percent is lab diamond and they've kind of mixed
parcels because to the naked eye, unless you're starting to

(32:24):
put those diamonds into a spectrometer to read the light
passing through it and everything, and that's a whole process
all in itself. It can't be checked once it's in
the jewelry.

Speaker 2 (32:33):
It's just like a drug dealer. Yeah, give them us
dirty drum.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah, exactly, it's like cocaine. I guess if you cut
it with stuff that looks a similar way. You see
that in the movies where they're in labs cutting stuff.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Well, I've seen it in person. I mean, are you
doing mostly lab diamonds?

Speaker 1 (32:49):
Or I always tell everybody, tell me your budget. I
don't have any prices, tell me your budget, and then
we'll design something towards your budget because some people they
only have five hundred bucks. And then especially I guess
what has made me most popular with artistic clients and
artists that are producing content and producing like either even
if it's tiktoks, or if it's artists that are making

(33:13):
music videos and album covers and performing and everything. I
want them to not feel like, oh man, I can't
afford that Johnny Dang two hundred thousand dollars chain. What
they don't know is like, all right, that Johnny Dang
two hundred thousand dollars chain, one hundred thousand dollars goes
to Johnny Dang. That leaves one hundred thousand for the
materials and the labor costs. Well, he's getting that made

(33:34):
like very cheaply with either his in house labor or
overseas with even cheaper labor. So that might be a
fifty thousand dollars materials and labor chain. One hundred and
fifty thousand dollars of.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
That thing is like, yeah, cut that middleman out.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
You got to cut that middleman out, or I just
tell them, like, you know, you could get a fifty
thousand dollars chain, which is very easily attainable from someone
like me. And you know, if it's if you don't
have the two hundred thousand dollars and the Johnny Dang
stamp of like I got it from Johnny Dang, which
says a lot in the community of rap. But you

(34:09):
want to have that, look, you can get one made
in silver with cz that looks just as good. And
mind you, if people like the Kardashians are no longer
really wearing fancy jewelry because of what happened to Kim
in Paris, where they broke in and were robbing her
of Oliver jewelry, celebrities are more and more switching to
lab diamonds or even silver and ceaz.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
You're still gonna get robbed, whether they tell you it's
fake or not. You just got at that part.

Speaker 1 (34:34):
I love Bad Baby, where she was on record saying
I can't wait for the day someone tries to steal
something from me. I'm just gonna give it to them.
Let the stupid asses like take it and it's not
worth anything.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Chad Johnson, a pro football player, o chosinko he was.
He always bragged about never buying real diamonds.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
It's you can spend your money on better investments than that.
I mean, the only thing that has a resale value
is the natural diamonds. The labs don't. No one wants
to pay.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Oh they don't resell interesting Your company, your office space?
Kind of insurance do you have to pay?

Speaker 1 (35:08):
I'm getting even new assurance now because it's like, is
it crazy? No, it's not horrible.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
I mean, what's the most diamonds you've ever had in your.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
We don't keep a lot of inventory, if any in
the studio.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
What about you ever let people borrow jewelry?

Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, you know, go was over my head. But a
friend of mine came over and yesterday it was like, hey,
so and so rapper and so so rapper and I'm like, oh,
this rapper from Wu Tang and that one needs some
change here. Just take this. They're brass and glass. Uh huh.
But you know, Bad Bunny, Megan, the Stallion, Lil nas X,
all these people, they're not always buying this stuff. They're

(35:45):
renting it or they're borrowing it from jewelers. And there's
plenty of stuff being rented from Beverly Hills. But you know,
you'll see the same design over and over and over again.
When we make low cost rentable stuff. It has really
cool design involved in it, and it looks good and
it makes the artists feel like, oh, I'm getting something
unique because it came from alligator Jesus. And they know

(36:09):
that if it's something that's really unique and really custom,
I'm not just going to loan it out to a
bunch of people. I don't want Ice Spice to borrow
the same chain that Doja Cat or you know, those
two women should have their own identity and they shouldn't
be wearing the same thing publicly.

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Do you think you'd ever become mainstream enough that you
would have your own line that like at Christmas? Like
the Zales that the Alligator Jesus' is new blank forever
pennant grill necklace at Zales. Every kiss begins with Alligator
Jesus grills at Kay, these are things. Do you strive

(36:45):
for that type of mainstream success?

Speaker 3 (36:47):
Nah?

Speaker 1 (36:48):
No, Now if it's not fun, I'm not going to
do it. And I love Look we're here for a
very short time, and I want it to be.

Speaker 2 (36:56):
Well you because you're on the street with diamonds, people
are coming at you with fucking Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
I want to have fun doing this, and sure maybe
i'll I don't have kids, but I'll leave like a
legacy to my kids, and who cares after I'm gone
what they do with my my my legacy. Yeah, I
at least had fun doing it, But it's very much
all about me interacting with people. And I still love
making art alligator.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
The alligator has in your logos two heads. Where'd you
come up? What's the significance behind that?

Speaker 1 (37:27):
There are decisions in your life every day that we
make that could lead you in one direction or another,
and the having the two heads about it, it's like
at least the acknowledgment or the awareness of that every
decision you make in your life could lead you down
a path.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Okay, anybody that's on my show, I always give them
something from my house that I don't want anymore. This
I'm giving you this from my house. But I it's
not that I don't want it anymore. My wife's aunt,
Travis Blanton. She is an artist in veera Oh cool,

(38:01):
does ceramics, So you guess give them a wine stopper.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
That is fresh as hell. You know, I should have
named my company million dollars and people will give me
a million dollars.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah, no, I'm getting instead. I like this, though, now
she has to send me another one. How big is
your community? How many people are actually making grills for
this specific clientele?

Speaker 1 (38:22):
It's worldwide?

Speaker 2 (38:23):
There, I understood, but I mean, but is there is
there hundreds of jewelers or is there less yee.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
There's about one hundred of it top at the top.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Yeah, it's not competitive.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
There is. There's definitely people that feel like it's competitive
and their loss because I make a much better friend
than a competitor, because I mean, first of all, you're
only competing with yourself in what you do.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
Clip rings? You ever make one of those?

Speaker 1 (38:48):
We have?

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Do I need? Do I need to get an impression?
Or can you just ballpark it?

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Speaking about clip impressions, I brought everything to make your
dental impressions.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
Oh god? But does this Is this the same type
of impression that you do with the dentist when you
when you're like get fitted for something, because those things
make me gag.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
You've only done it in the US because I don't
use the US stuff. In fact, the US stuff is
not even legal in the EU because of all the
chemicals and weird shit.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
They will pull out a filling that make chests.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
No, not this stuff. Okay, So I import my dental
augenate from Denmark. It's color changing, so it's not like
in your mouth for like twenty minutes or whatever.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
How long is it in my mouth?

Speaker 1 (39:30):
For thirty seconds to forty five seconds? It's really quick,
and it's it's the most accurate impression.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
I'm paying for my grill. No you're not, Yeah, I am.
I support the artist. Sorry, that's cool, you lungs. It's cheap.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
I give me whatever you want.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
I have to tell you my budget, my budget for
my grill. What's that? Three? Three hundred thousand is my budget?

Speaker 1 (39:52):
You'd break them. You know, it's wild because there's some
jewelers that like throw these weird numbers out there. I'm like,
how did hell do you get that number? I told
you before about the Johnny Dang where it's like one
hundred thousand goes to the artists. Like you know, I
just did a project for Adidas and my take home Congratulate,
thank you, and it was like a quarter million project,

(40:13):
and like, you know, oh shit, I won't shouldn't say this,
but like you know my take home.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
I like telling people what things cost.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
I just put all the money into making the thing
you took it off. I put everything into it. I
was just like, I'd rather this thing to be like
really cool and awesome and give this as a gift
to the city of la for people to see this thing,
and you know whatever, it's Adidas, Like, my name attached
to Adidas is a cool things, a big deal. It's
a big deal and that'll that'll turn into things later

(40:39):
or maybe I'll do a partnership with them later. But
it's just for me more important to make the art.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
Oh no, this will be the best way in the
world to like have me killed. You're like, you're like, oh, yeah,
I just put this in your mouth and then all
of a sudden.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
It's just done, foaming mouth and it's.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Just like you can't travel with that, though, can you? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (41:02):
I do.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
They don't. That's the stuff though that they it's.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Earth, so it's a nert so they I mean people
travel with protein powder two.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
So right, But anytime you have your own cans that
don't have labels on it, that sends off some flags
over there at TSA. Do I need to sign my
name to this so that you remember whose mouth it is?

Speaker 1 (41:22):
You know, I have an order for him.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
I'll fill out it. Oh god, damn it, you got
an order for him. Look at this. This thing is
official as fuck. How many grills a day are you
doing now? At least five every day of your life? Yeah,
in somebody's mouth.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
You know, my assistant is doing for me now, because
it's like right now while I'm here. We had some appointments,
you know, we changed the time, so I had some
appointments I had already arranged, so I was like, oh whatever,
still come my My assistant's able.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
To get the look at all these up charges.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
It looks like you get your tires rotated.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Cutout. Do I want fangs? No? I do not want fangs.
I'm just gonna let you go willy nill and do
whatever you want.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Would you like a top or bottom grill?

Speaker 2 (42:09):
I think a top top teeth? Yeah, yeah, I mean
I gag. Just if I hold a pen in my.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
Mouth, you'll be fine, So pull your lip. Uh, all right,
that's it. Don Can you see how it's pink. It's
color changing, so as soon as it's as white as
the spatula, it'll be ready.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
M h mm hmmm.

Speaker 1 (42:40):
For any drool you might have, that's great.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
The only thing that slows it down is if it's
too cold. And it is so freaking cold in here,
But care about that, say, ah ah mm hmn't so bad,
No it wasn't you know? There's a dentist here in
la Connolly, Thomas Connolly, and he's in Beverly Hills and
he does the He's an actual dentist, so he'll remove

(43:15):
teeth and put like new teeth. He did post Malons
where he has magnets implanted into the platinum teeth so
that the grills will magnetically hold on.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Oh interesting, so.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
That's really cool. He started with the baby where he
put magnets in the back teeth so the grills just
go thunk and hold on. They don't cause any If ten.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Posts gets older, and if his kid does good in school,
he could take his report card and stick it to it.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
He could do that now, man Posty. I'm looking forward
to seeing him at the gove Ball.

Speaker 2 (43:45):
It's a gove ball. Yeah, good got Alligator, jeez, you're
just you're you're doing all the cool shit. Yeah, you
hang out with all the cool people. I appreciate you
being on the show, and thank you for making my
first and last grill.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
I got your impressions. Whenever you need another one.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Oh right, so I threw that one time. That's it.
That's great, pusha. I want to thank Alligator Jesus hooking
me up. I look different, right, you like that? Uh,

(44:23):
my first grill. What do you think you look different?
Got yourself a little top pony, little man bun looking
all Jason Momoa up in this motherfucker. Yeah, look at us.
All of a sudden, I got a little more street
cred mm killing it man killing it? Hey, Shaul, I

(44:45):
tell them what happened there. Day, guys, another great story, Carl,
you want to hear it or no, we do it.
Let's do it. My son and a friend over, they
were playing in the pool. I was swimming with them.
They were both physically attacking me. Then my wife she's like, ah,
your daughter wants to get in. So you know, when
you're fighting off two five year olds in a pool,

(45:06):
it's nothing better than having to hold a one year
old the whole time. So that's what I'm doing anyway. Yeah,
that part of the story doesn't matter. Then we take
my one year old is done, she wants out, take
her out, take her swim diaper off. She's walking around.
My wife's going to get a diaper, and then she

(45:26):
poops right in the living room. The doors are open
up to the pool area. She poops in the living
room on the rug, and they're like two very dark
very dry, she's not getting enough water. I guess round.
They coming out really round, like just slightly smaller than
a baseball, bigger than a golf ball. Okay, there's two

(45:48):
of them. Boom boom, gonna be a very easy pickup
and clean. My wife immediately steps in one barefoot steps in,
It goes between her toes. She starts freaking out. Then
she's like walking on her heel to go get something
to pick it up. I go, don't go pick it up,
go clean your foot off. Clean your foot off first,
then we'll pick up these these two balls. All right. Well,

(46:10):
then she goes and cleans her foot. Then she comes
back and she goes, guys, bad news. There's only one left. Yeah,
you got anything to say for yourself? You ate another nugget?
Just coprophasiat it just boom gone. Just ran in said, oh,

(46:33):
here's here's an unattended turd. I'll take that. Why'd you
eat it? I had to brush your teeth. Meanwhile, with
my son's friend and his mom are just watching this
whole thing, like what is happening in your house? And
I'm like, this is what we do. We step in
poop dogs eat it. We all laugh at each other.

(46:57):
Good times. All right, thanks for watching the Goat? Is
this the season? Finality is available now? Good job everybody.
What a great show. I can't wait for a Emmy season.
Do you think we'll get nominated?

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Do you think we'll win? Probably? Right? Those things are
all political and we've got everything on our show. We've
got all the races, the sexes. It's a slam dunk.
We're gonna win. Boys wear pink. Check out our clothing
line for toddlers. Also got some tour dates coming up Hawaii.

(47:39):
Second show added in Honolulu. Go ahead and come to
that show. That'll be fun. And what else. One of
my son's bedtime stories reminder if you're just listening to
his nonsense. If you're watching on YouTube, it is subtitled
see you next week.

Speaker 3 (48:01):
Once upon the time theyd the riddle lions, all they
wanted to do it whoa but Anie time they would
they sound like the freak freak Eddie time they would did.
I wanted to mount, so they ate a bit of

(48:22):
won And then they tried to woo woa a louder
a lion and they twigged it so fine, like feet
feet freak. So they ate more Liians, more Daddy wires,

(48:43):
and then they and then they tried to rule, and
then time too, and they were so happy the end