Ethan Giffin of Groove Commerce joins Nestor to discuss his new book on modern ecommerce and taking a lane down the old school world of his DJ Opie music and love of Yacht Rock Revue at Pizza John’s in Essex on the Maryland Crab Cake Tour. We waited far too long to have this old friend on the show to discuss business, making money on the web and Hall and Oates.

Ethan Giffin, founder of Groove Commerce, discussed his new book “Closing the Digital Revenue Gap,” which addresses 10 revenue blind spots in e-commerce. Groove Commerce, celebrating its 19th anniversary, helps mid-market manufacturers and distributors build e-commerce systems. Ethan shared his passion for yacht rock, including hiring the Yacht Rock Review band for his company’s fifth anniversary. He also discussed his DJing career, focusing on nonprofit events. The conversation touched on personal anecdotes, including Ethan’s son’s memorable experience at GBMC and his son’s love for baseball.

• [ ] Provide free copies of the book ‘Closing the Digital Revenue Gap’ to listeners by making them available via the B2B ecomm book website (offer referenced and link provided), and fulfill requests from listeners who request a free copy.
• [ ] Plan and develop an idea for Groove Commerce’s 20th anniversary celebration (consider event format and activities following the 19th birthday reference).
• [ ] Load and catalog Nestor Aparicio’s past interview transcripts into an AI retrieval-augmented-generation (RAG) system to create a searchable ‘Nest AI’ knowledge base from archival interviews and tapes.

Ethan Giffin’s Introduction and Personal Background

• Nestor Aparicio introduces Ethan Giffin, a long-time friend and business associate, and mentions Ethan’s new book on modern ecommerce.
• Ethan shares his background, including his work with Groove Commerce and his role in helping mid-market manufacturers and distributors sell online.
• Nestor and Ethan discuss their shared love for music, including classic rock, Southern rock, and yacht rock.
• Ethan mentions his involvement with DJing and his passion for yacht rock, sharing stories about his experiences with the genre.

Groove Commerce and Ethan’s Career Journey

• Ethan explains the origins of Groove Commerce, which he founded after working at Arrow Tech for eight years.
• Nestor recalls their first meeting around 2007-2008 when Ethan was helping him build WNST.net.
• Ethan describes the services Groove Commerce offers, including architecting e-commerce systems and connecting them to accounting and finance systems.
• They discuss the evolution of e-commerce and the importance of private buyer portals for manufacturers and distributors.

Ethan’s Love for Yacht Rock and Groove Commerce’s 19th Anniversary

• Ethan shares his personal connection to yacht rock, including his uncle’s influence and his love for bands like Steely Dan and Captain and Tennille.
• Nestor and Ethan reminisce about a yacht rock event Ethan organized for Groove Commerce’s fifth anniversary, featuring the Yacht Rock Review band.
• Ethan talks about the band’s impact and their continued involvement in his life events, including his wedding and birthday parties.
• They discuss the growth of Groove Commerce and Ethan’s plans for the company’s 20th anniversary.

Ethan’s Book and Digital Transformation in E-commerce

• Ethan introduces his new book, “Closing the Digital Revenue Gap,” which focuses on 10 revenue blind spots in e-commerce.
• He explains the importance of digital transformation and the creation of private buyer portals for manufacturers and distributors.
• Nestor and Ethan discuss the challenges and opportunities in modernizing e-commerce systems.
• Ethan mentions the availability of his book on Amazon and offers a free copy to listeners who are interested.

Ethan’s DJing Career and Nonprofit Work

• Ethan shares his side gig as DJ Opie, focusing on yacht rock and working with nonprofit organizations.
• He discusses his involvement with various events and the importance of good production and DJing.
• Nestor and Ethan talk about their shared love for music and the impact of DJing on events.
• Ethan mentions his work with nonprofit organizations and his efforts to improve event experiences through better DJing and production.

Personal Stories and Connections

• Nestor and Ethan share personal stories, including their experiences with concerts, music, and family.
• Ethan recounts a story about his son’s visit to the GBMC emergency room and the positive experience they had.
• They discuss their connections to Hagerstown and their experiences with local businesses and events.
• Nestor and Ethan talk about their shared love for Baltimore and their involvement in the local community.

Final Thoughts and Future Plans

• Nestor and Ethan discuss their future plans, including Ethan’s upcoming book and his continued work with Groove Commerce.
• They talk about the importance of digital transformation and the role of AI in modernizing businesses.
• Ethan shares his excitement about the potential of AI to help manufacturers and distributors make better decisions.
• Nestor and Ethan wrap up the conversation, expressing their appreciation for each other and their shared interests.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Groove Commerce, digital revenue gap, ecommerce systems, private buyer portals, digital transformation, yacht rock, DJ Opie, Hagerstown, Maryland lottery, GBMC, AI in business, modernization, manufacturing, distribution, nonprofit organizations.

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SPEAKERS

Ethan Giffin, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore. Positive. That sound you hear in the background is the sound another happy customer here. We’re Peter John’s in Essex. We’re back river neck road. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I have the Maryland treasures collection for the Maryland lottery here. Also our friends at GBMC put this out on the road. I had an exam. I literally got my blood work back, like an hour before I came to Pizza John’s and the French rising gravy that I gosh, I wanted it so bad. I I didn’t. I just had cheese pizza. It’s low fat cheese.

Ethan Giffin  00:36

No prostate exam,

Nestor Aparicio  00:37

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not yet. I was colonoscopy. Was last year. This was just checkup. I’m 57 dude, you know. So I have boardwalks. I have bridges, that’s the bay bridges. I have the Blackwater motif with crustaceans and herons, as well as the acetate courses. Also our friends at foreign and Dermer. They are the comfort guys, keeping me comfortable with all things HVAC, little hot, little cold. But more than that, also the plumbing part of keeping the I had a leak earlier in the month they came saved my life. Thank you for that. The comfort guys, all right, this guy’s kept me comfortable at various concerts on both sides of the eastern shore. He is a yacht rocker of high magnitude. I cannot believe I’ve been on the radio 35 years and known this guy probably 15 years, and never put him on the air with me, but he’s now a published author. Ethan Giffin is here. He has been my friend for a long time at groove commerce. We were business associates many years ago closing the digital revenue gap, 10 revenue blind spots that are costing you more than you think. This could be a business segment, isn’t it? I thought we was gonna eat pizza. Gonna eat pizza and talk about DJ

Ethan Giffin  01:44

Opie. We can do it all. We can, you know, I’m multi versatile. So, you know, I wanted you to have a copy of this. You gave me a signed copy of your book, and so I wanted to return the favor and and bring

Nestor Aparicio  01:54

my book had

Ethan Giffin  01:54

a happy ending, though. What about this thing? What is this happy ending? Be making more money here, though, right? Yeah, it’ll help you make more money. If you’re a manufacturer, distributor, it’ll help you make

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Nestor Aparicio  02:03

more money. All right, first things first, Ethan’s my dude. We’ve been to rock concerts together, classic rock, Southern rock. He jams some EDM from time to time. He’s a purveyor of disco. In the 80s, he once created a disco stage inside of his company and invited me there many years ago. Tell me what group commerce is a start with that, and I’ll get to your Hagerstown background, your rock and roll soul and your yacht rock like sort of angle. And John Allen’s here from stone horses to his order pizza, because he’s from Essex. He knows where the counter is here. Pizza giant, this ain’t his first rodeo in Essex. And I know you guys got a Hagerstown thing going on, because first thing you said is, I’m from Hagerstown, kicks country, and you have no idea who you were talking to there.

Ethan Giffin  02:53

I do. I do. But you know, we’ve never met before. We had never met before.

Nestor Aparicio  02:57

Well, you know,

Ethan Giffin  02:58

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so I like to throw kicks out right on my.

Nestor Aparicio  03:00

John Allen, is it friggin Essex royalty? No one is. You know, I mean, being this close to the seagull, there’s no way I don’t have so I have Essex royalty here, and I consider you, along with Emily Keller, to be Hagerstown Royal.

Ethan Giffin  03:13

Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s you’ve had a grumpy stone

Nestor Aparicio  03:15

out

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Nestor Aparicio  03:16

having I’ve had a lot of

Ethan Giffin  03:17

crumpets. Don’t tell everybody

Nestor Aparicio  03:18

what’s unique about crumpy stone. Just to prove that you’re from hagers

Ethan Giffin  03:21

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Ah, well, they’re handmade. They’re delicious. You know, they make them fresh every night.

Nestor Aparicio  03:24

And if you want them at eight in the morning, you can’t have them.

Ethan Giffin  03:27

No,

Nestor Aparicio  03:27

you

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Nestor Aparicio  03:27

have to go at night.

Ethan Giffin  03:28

You got to go at night. You got to go in the alley. Shout out to the crumpy family.

Nestor Aparicio  03:32

I took John there. John down the grumpy alley. We’ll talk about this when he gets his let’s talk

Ethan Giffin  03:37

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about it. But

Nestor Aparicio  03:38

you’re Hagerstown guy, and you worked for Steve bashati, former colleague, you had a whole background,

Nestor Aparicio  03:42

yep,

Ethan Giffin  03:42

yep, yep. So, you know, I’ve been in Baltimore since 1999 so relocated to work at Arrow tech, and had a magnificent eight years at Arrow tech. And then after that, I formed an agency called groove commerce, and we help mid market manufacturers and distributors that want to sell online, basically. So we help them architect e commerce systems, and then help them build them, connect them to their accounting and finance systems in their warehouse. And

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Nestor Aparicio  04:10

you were doing this really early on. Yeah, when I met you, you were doing this, and I was trying to build wnst.net and you were an aer and friend, he’s listened to the show and all very complimentary my Super Bowl coverage, because he’s a listener. But I remember getting together with you down in Canton, when you were in the incubator down there, and I was getting my first website built by our two I probably about 2007 2008 right? And I met you, and I thought, here’s this bright guy doing this online thing, but you were doing stores, and I’m like, What am I gonna sell? A W, N, S, T, hat, a shirt. You’re like, well, you could do that. We could do we could set you up for that. And I’m like, but my business was, I was a digital newspaper media. I was in a different line of work than you, different but I knew a lot of people that used you and became vendors of yours or partners of yours, and HubSpot and all these other things that you turn me on. To years ago, but I didn’t, I didn’t see that like my wife would buy shoes online without trying them all. I never saw that part of the internet. You saw the commerce part of the internet early on. Am I right saying that

Ethan Giffin  05:13

that’s

Nestor Aparicio  05:15

absolutely.

Ethan Giffin  05:17

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We have helped many organizations sell hundreds of millions of dollars of product through their websites. In fact, I don’t know what day this is going to air, but may 2 will be our 19th birthday for groove. So it’s a huge it’s a huge thing. So, you know, I’m starting to think about what I’m going to do for the 20th anniversary. I think you may have been at the fifth anniversary for was that the disco that was the yacht rock review live at,

Nestor Aparicio  05:44

oh, I was at that event,

Ethan Giffin  05:45

so I thought that

Nestor Aparicio  05:47

was related to your wedding or your

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Ethan Giffin  05:48

No, no, no, no, no. That was a work event, roofs, fifth birthday. That

Nestor Aparicio  05:51

was too much fun for work.

Nestor Aparicio  05:52

That

Ethan Giffin  05:53

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was way too much fun. We can get into

Nestor Aparicio  05:54

the story.

Nestor Aparicio  05:55

Last yesterday, I’m walking through Camden Yards and somebody had an Oreo yacht rock hat. Yeah? And I’m thinking, Man, how much money you could have made had you seen the yacht rock movement. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  06:05

you

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Ethan Giffin  06:05

know what? I always saw it, but I never wanted to monetize it. It’s so funny. It’s something yacht rock has been ever since I’ve been a little little kid. My grew up. My uncle, who’s, you know, only about 13 years older than me, worked at a record store. He worked on W, A, r, x radio out in Hagerstown, rock and roll. He would bring all these records and promos. And you know, when I was eight, 910, years old, he’s given me Steely Dan records. He’s given me, you know, Captain and steel reo, Speedwagon, all of these things. And so I have such an immense love for music. I never wanted to cross the streams and try to monetize that, because it’s so kind of, if you’ve seen me at a yacht rock show or at a hall and oats show, you know, it’s like, pure joy for me. And I didn’t want to somehow, like, like, turn that into a money factor. I wanted to keep that very close, you know, to my joy. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  06:59

he hired yacht rock review, when nobody had ever heard of them, you flew them all up from Atlanta, and you’re like, this wasn’t cheap. So you flew them all up for your fifth anniversary, and we all got together, and they’ve turned out to be this the seminal yacht rock band. Yeah, I had NICK Yes Pisani on last year when they played downtown. My wife’s like, they’re playing two nights at Dewey at the bottle, and the night that they’re playing in New York, and Nick had invited me because I couldn’t get tickets. Like, couldn’t get tickets. Last year, they’re playing that pier 17 in New York. Thomas Dolby said it’s like one of

Ethan Giffin  07:28

the greatest I want to go to that. So I want to

Nestor Aparicio  07:30

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go to Ocean City at Mako that night. It’s all because I can’t do it.

Ethan Giffin  07:33

Yeah. So that story is just amazing. I had found them. I had fallen in love. There was this yacht rock kind of web series of short videos that were that a group out in California had made for this channel, 101, and was all funny stories about how the creation of yacht rock happened. And then at that time, there was this band in Atlanta that took it up as a joke. And so I started following them on YouTube. And as I was coming up on grooves fifth birthday, I had emailed them and say, Hey, I know you guys play in Atlanta. I see you guys sometimes make it to DC and New York. Do you ever like, are you ever going to be up this way? And it just so happens they were driving from Atlanta to New York City the same week as grooves fifth birthday. And so what they said to me was like, Listen, if you put us up for two or three nights in Baltimore in the middle of those gigs, right? Like, we will do your event.

Nestor Aparicio  08:26

You’re financing their trip,

Ethan Giffin  08:28

finance part of the trip. And, you know, I think I gave them $5,000 which, you know, like, I shouldn’t even say, on the radio at the time, and and then they absolutely tore down Little Havana people come up to me to this day and say, What was that band? And I’m like, well, well, now they play

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Nestor Aparicio  08:46

well, when I had Nick on the show last year, I obviously mentioned you, but he remembered that night, oh, you know, going into South Baltimore and plugging his band in from Atlanta. You were one of the first true believers in them. Look, you’re one of the first guys that call Baltimore. Like, I guess we could play there, right? Private part, like they weren’t that band. Now, if you call them five grand, you might not get Nick on the phone. You’re not even getting a cameo from Nick. You’re

Nestor Aparicio  09:12

not

Ethan Giffin  09:12

getting a guitar pick. They are great friends of ours, of my wife, Christina, and I’s, and they have been a part of so many of my life events just randomly, like lining up with these things. They randomly lined up with grooves fifth birthday. They randomly played in Baltimore, right after we had gotten engaged in Mexico. We got back on a Wednesday, and they played on a Friday, and that was our engagement party on my 50th birthday. They were playing on my birthday. They played on my 51st birthday here in Baltimore, you know. And it was like they played our wedding, which, of course, we hired them to do. And so, you know, they’ve randomly lined up to all these life events with me. I sometimes joke that I see them more than my family, like on my birthday. Well, I gotta

Nestor Aparicio  09:57

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see him this year, one of my wife’s favorite bands, too, for sure.

Ethan Giffin  10:00

Absolutely they, if you have not seen the yacht rock review, and you love Steely Dan Hall and Oates, you know Michael McDonald, Doobie Brothers, and you know anything from that era, they are better than the original artists at this point in there

Nestor Aparicio  10:14

open

Nestor Aparicio  10:14

for train up Philly two years ago too. So Ethan Giffin is here, purveyor and wannabe manager of yacht rock view. But he is the the author of closing the digital revenue gap, 10 revenue blind spots that are costing you more than you think. Trusted Advisor to manufacturers, distributors and W NST Baltimore positive. He runs groups so book and a time. It’s funny being a digital guy writing a book. This is a book online. The books on tape, you know, you got your clone voicing it. What’s

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Ethan Giffin  10:44

going on? Yeah, it’s, you know, I would say what’s old is new, right? I think people are looking for analog experiences. And I’ve been doing this like, quite frankly, I’ve had groove almost 20 years at this point, and I’ve been doing it for many years before that. And so it was time to start putting down a lot of the stories of the people that I’ve met on the road. And the book is, is basically 10 stories of of manufacturing and distribution companies that are having challenges, and it’s why that challenge is hard, and some things to think about if you’re in that challenge. And so all of it’s based around, you know, one of the big one of the big areas in E commerce is our organizations are creating private buyer portals, and so these aren’t like nordstrom.com or target.com These are actually private e commerce stores for their customers to come in and buy their parts and products from them and see their pricing terms, their price book, The warehouse availability, see their shopping list of the things that they they order. Many companies are only approved to order certain products, you know, from different manufacturers and distributors, you know, based upon contract agreements. And so what we’re doing is building private buyer portals for these organizations that want their customers to come in and be able to buy from them at 10 o’clock at night or on a Sunday morning, or, I really like to say, you know, on the toilet, if they if they want, sure, while they’re on their phone. And so, you know, that is, that is the topic of the book. And so it felt like the right time to do this. I actually wrote a 300 page book. This book is a compact book that you can finish on an airplane ride. But I actually wrote a 300 page book, and people like, it’s too long, and I so I probably have two more books behind this of material that that I can, that I can put out. And so I was excited to do it, and it’s available on Amazon. And also, you know, if any listener is curious about it, yeah, I’m happy to give them a free copy. You know, go to B to B, E comm book, calm and get a free copy. So happy to do that. So if

Nestor Aparicio  12:46

you own a business, this is important for you. If you own a business that sells things on the internet,

Ethan Giffin  12:50

yeah, or if you’re, if you’re a, if you’re a business that distributes or makes things, and you’re trying to figure out, hey, my customers are saying, why can’t you be more like Amazon? This book is for you, right? So these are

Nestor Aparicio  13:04

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modernization,

Ethan Giffin  13:05

modernization transformation. We call it technically the consultant speak for that is called digital transformation, right?

Nestor Aparicio  13:12

I’ve been trying that for 20 years. Hope it’s working

Ethan Giffin  13:14

industry 4.0 which is kind of, it’s they, they call industry 4.0 kind of the next industrial revolution that’s being brought on by AI internet. Do

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Nestor Aparicio  13:28

we

Ethan Giffin  13:29

have to do a shot every time

Nestor Aparicio  13:30

we say,

Nestor Aparicio  13:30

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Oh, I just, I want you. I haven’t. Dude, you haven’t. You got like, kids and a wife and a band and a book and like you and I don’t hang out, drink beer and go to shows together anymore, although we should, we

Ethan Giffin  13:43

should. We should

Nestor Aparicio  13:44

DJ opening late at night like, like John shaking his ass after I’ve been to bed like, you can’t come on at 11 o’clock at the auto bar and expect me on a Friday night. To me, I just can’t do it.

Ethan Giffin  13:53

No, in quite honest, I

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Nestor Aparicio  13:55

need a matinee. Springsteen came on at 730 last week. That helps.

Ethan Giffin  13:58

Listen, I would much rather start at eight o’clock. Then I went to start at 11 O’clock these days. So, and

Nestor Aparicio  14:04

when

Nestor Aparicio  14:05

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you’re DJ Opie and you wear white, and you have that at, you know, at these fancy schmancy joints, spinning all that hipster stuff, yeah, what are you spending?

Ethan Giffin  14:13

Well, I’m playing, quite honestly, a lot of people are having me in to play yacht rock, okay, and so kind of my side gig has been so what, what I’m really focused on with my DJing actually, is being a part of nonprofit organizations, getting involved with the board or the event board,

Nestor Aparicio  14:32

and then work in the

Ethan Giffin  14:33

room, and then work in the room, and being the DJ

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Nestor Aparicio  14:36

gets you through the party, bringing

Ethan Giffin  14:37

all the production. I just got tired of going to events with bad DJs and like poor production. And this is my way to contribute back to these organizations. I

Nestor Aparicio  14:47

want to start an organization just to hire you.

Nestor Aparicio  14:49

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If I

Nestor Aparicio  14:51

make it a nonprofit, you work free, right?

Ethan Giffin  14:53

But, and, yeah, so, yeah, absolutely,

Nestor Aparicio  14:54

once you get a slice of pizza, John’s pizza, you’re gonna work for pizza. I’ll tell you that right now.

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Ethan Giffin  14:58

Go down here. To pizza, John’s. I feel like, don’t do

Nestor Aparicio  15:01

that. I’m gonna get John over here to do the Essex accent. John Allen’s gonna join us from stone horses a little bit. Ethan giffins been my friend. They’re both my friends through music. You and I’ve talked a lot about music here, you know, I guess through all this and why? Now, on the book, I mean, obviously a marketing side of things i i saw, I was kidding around here. So I think the Oreo game couple would you the true is sweet. I won’t tell anybody you were sneaking the cupcakes out to me.

Nestor Aparicio  15:23

That

Ethan Giffin  15:23

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was actually a really enjoyable experience. By the way. It’s a good scene. Yeah. So our company, we had our our managers in town for an all hands. And so we were, we normally sit in the bleachers. I’ll be very honest with you, we normally, and

Nestor Aparicio  15:36

you push

Ethan Giffin  15:36

it out. We and, and the ticket guy said, Hey, listen, we’ve got this opportunity, you know, we haven’t sold all the memberships yet. We can, we can do this. And it’s like, all inclusive, right? And it’s not like, you know, it we have a mix of of our team and and so it was, it was everything from, you know, beer and wine, you know, they had crab cakes the night before. They had prime rib, you know. So it

Nestor Aparicio  16:02

was

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Nestor Aparicio  16:02

a nice afternoon. I saw you nice. It

Ethan Giffin  16:04

was a really nice afternoon. That’s the seats are great up there. You know, I’m six three, right? Built like a middle linebacker, right? So the seats are wider. They’ve got mesh. It’s like that. I think the truest Lounge is a great experience. I think that we could talk about the Orioles, and they’ve got to, we got to work on more on the on field aspect of the Orioles. But I think what Rubenstein has been doing to the stadium, I think, is a great look overall for the city.

Nestor Aparicio  16:29

Yeah, I spent the afternoon there, and I, you know, my wife hadn’t been down yet, so she had her observations about the scoreboard and different changes and all that stuff. But local guy, he’s a Hagerstown guy, Ethan Gibbons, been my friend for a long time into music, into rock and roll and DJs as moonlights, as they would say. So for groove commerce, people call you for what now? Yeah,

Ethan Giffin  16:49

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so what they call us for is to help them with this digital transformation. There we’re helping them create buyer portals and systems to be able to to connect with their customers. Oh, we’ve got some.

Nestor Aparicio  17:02

I think John ordered meat sauce. Is that? Did you order meat sauce? Just straight meat sauce. That’s what you did. What are you from Eastwood? What’s wrong with you? So now the pizza

Ethan Giffin  17:11

smells great, by the way.

Nestor Aparicio  17:12

Should I take a break closing the digital revenue gap is the book Ethan’s not for everybody, but he is when he’s DJing, not everybody owns a business is

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Ethan Giffin  17:19

gonna nobody level. Everybody loves

Nestor Aparicio  17:22

I love you. I have you out. I haven’t had you on the show yet.

Nestor Aparicio  17:25

I’m

Ethan Giffin  17:25

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excited to be here, quite honestly.

Nestor Aparicio  17:28

Well, I want to talk music. When John gets done, moving on his, his, you better not have covid. Dog, I’m telling you right now. Dog, I’m gonna have to change out the spit guards on this. He’s a mess. So you came in and you said to me to see him, oh, Hagerstown. And you guys had a Hagerstown moment. John’s like, yeah, my band played out there, and we’re doing this and that, and crumpy’s Donuts. He and I went to the theater in Hagerstown. Is it with the Maryland the

Ethan Giffin  17:53

Maryland theater? Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  17:55

we saw a meatloaf tribute band that night, and I dragged him out there, and his band was playing. What’s the name of that joint up there?

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Ethan Giffin  18:03

Pub city vinyl hub.

Nestor Aparicio  18:04

Easy, easy, easy, pub city vinyl. So his band was playing up there. So we went up, made a whole night of it, and he didn’t know about krumpies. He didn’t know about seven o’clock.

Ethan Giffin  18:13

Oh, yeah, crumpy’s is so good. Yeah, Hagerstown is. They did a great job of remodeling

Nestor Aparicio  18:17

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the ballpark’s new

Ethan Giffin  18:19

ballpark’s new I have not been up to any of that. Quite honestly, I’ve been, I’ve been in Baltimore at this point.

Nestor Aparicio  18:23

You go to sons games, or you

Ethan Giffin  18:24

were kids. I did. In fact, I remember Blue Jays, right? No, they were Orioles. So we had, when I was a kid, they were Orioles. And during the World Series, like Ron and so I remember being, think it was eight or nine years old and and it was fantastic. And at that time, they would have the Orioles come up and do an exhibition game with the suns, right? So Rick Dempsey and all these guys

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Nestor Aparicio  18:50

like all that, they

Ethan Giffin  18:51

would all be up there. And then Jim Palmer came up to rehab when he was injured, and that was all the height of his underwear ads. And so the women of Hagerstown were like, going nuts and throwing their panties on the Hagerstown and still are

Nestor Aparicio  19:06

chicken wings at this case,

Ethan Giffin  19:07

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chicken wings, yeah.

Nestor Aparicio  19:09

How can a man be 80 years old? Never had a

Ethan Giffin  19:11

child? No, I don’t know. Not

Nestor Aparicio  19:12

even by accident.

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Ethan Giffin  19:13

I don’t know. You know, I got a great Jim Palmer story, like he was my next door neighbor, and so my wife was very, very pregnant at the time, and I’m like, walking up, and I see this man rubbing my wife’s belly. And I’m like, Who is rubbing, like, touching my wife? And as I get closer, I realize it’s Jim. And I’m like, I don’t think I can punch Jim Palmer, you know, for rubbing my wife,

Nestor Aparicio  19:42

that’s a

Nestor Aparicio  19:42

sigh, young that’s a Hall of Fame hand.

Nestor Aparicio  19:45

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Yeah,

Ethan Giffin  19:45

it was great. And, you know, and

Nestor Aparicio  19:47

how old your child now,

Ethan Giffin  19:48

he is eight, so

8

Nestor Aparicio  19:49

got a good right arm? Or no,

Ethan Giffin  19:51

yeah, he does. He’s loving baseball, and he’s loving, loving Towson rec league baseball. So you

Nestor Aparicio  19:56

got to play in baseball, not lacrosse.

Ethan Giffin  19:58

8

Well, he’s doing both, but he’s. Really taken to baseball. So he was anti sports for a few years, and has really, really taken to baseball. And it’s really been great for me. And it’s, well, it’s fantastic for him, but it’s, it’s, I love watching him. Last night, he was playing catcher for the first time.

Nestor Aparicio  20:15

Two

Nestor Aparicio  20:15

extra tickets yesterday. I should have text

Ethan Giffin  20:17

you and your kid. I wish I weren’t

8

Nestor Aparicio  20:20

the truest club, but they were still good seats.

Ethan Giffin  20:22

And I tried to, like I was going to try to take him out of school yesterday early and take him to the game, but I just had another

Nestor Aparicio  20:29

I took my wife out of work early, took him to the game

Ethan Giffin  20:32

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that I couldn’t get out

Nestor Aparicio  20:33

curious wellness says we got to get seats for you dad. Wendy, thank you. You know back everybody taking good care of me. So I went to the ballpark. Ethan Giffin is here. I want to hold you over to have a Hagerstown moment, because you met John. You’re like, hey, looks like he’s in a band. And then you’re like, hey, kicks. So we’re gonna tell some Steve Whiteman stories. Yeah, we are. We’re down here in Essex. We’re at Pizza, John’s. John’s band’s getting together. Anytime I get him near the seagull, I’m all for it. Which Maryland treasure? Is it for you? Are you you board walk? Are you Bay bridges with a lot of hope? Are you mollusks and errands and birds, or are you ponies of the Assateague? Which one

Nestor Aparicio  21:11

I

Ethan Giffin  21:11

think, you know, I was always a big fan of the Dutch bar, so I’m gonna say the OC down on the board down

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Nestor Aparicio  21:17

at a board walk on down Ocean’s calling it. Calling down there. It bums me out that I’m not gonna go with you to New York that night to see yacht rock at Pearson.

Ethan Giffin  21:26

I’ve got to convince my wife to do it. I think, I don’t think I’ll have a problem convincing her to go to New York. But it’s

Nestor Aparicio  21:32

midweek. It’ll be summer night. Yeah, Thursday night up

Ethan Giffin  21:35

8

in August and so, yeah, so we will be turning it around from Dewey Beach. We’re going to be at the Dewey Beach show.

Nestor Aparicio  21:43

I’ll be a figures island the night that you’re shaking your hiney, I don’t Pier 17 looking at the Brooklyn Bridge. You’ll have better pizza than I will.

Ethan Giffin  21:51

Maybe

Nestor Aparicio  21:51

I’ll be an Ocean City. Never been a two goes guy. All right. Ethan Gibbs gonna hang out. He is from groove commerce. He is now an author. In addition to being a DJ Opie, the book is closing the digital revenue gap if you run businesses, if is there anybody in the city that runs a business that you don’t know, like, seriously,

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Ethan Giffin  22:10

well, that’s a lot. It’s interestingly enough, most of our clients, actually, all of our clients, are outside of the Maryland area. So

Nestor Aparicio  22:17

I got to open a digital business and get rich. You gotta teach me how to do that before I go to John the AI thing. I just wanted to ask you about that, because I’m gonna John and I have an AI thing going on. I’m gonna talk to him about it in a minute, probably on the air. AI in your business, I would think it’s, like, huge, right? It’s

Ethan Giffin  22:34

huge.

Nestor Aparicio  22:34

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And

Nestor Aparicio  22:35

whoever can get there first, it’s a pot of gold, right? Yeah,

Ethan Giffin  22:37

I think, you know, from from our point of view, you know, I’m not a believer that, like people are all going to lose their jobs tomorrow, right? I do believe that there is going to be, you know, a continued evolution of that. But AI has been one of the most powerful things that has helped, that has helped our clients like move forward in ways that they couldn’t do it before. So, you know, if you’re a if you’re a manufacturer, and you’ve got, you know, 5000 SKUs or 1000 SKUs that you create, you know, it helps us to get the catalog and shape for the public all the things, helps us to analyze big data, and it’s just been incredibly impactful. Helps

Nestor Aparicio  23:15

you make better decisions.

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Ethan Giffin  23:16

Makes better decisions.

Nestor Aparicio  23:17

It really does. I mean, I that would be my have a lot of people that look like I caught a fart, you know, and I’m pretty far left. I mean, I’m left to Bernie Sanders on most issues that aren’t like, like death penalty, which I’m probably right of Donald Trump some days on that one. But like, I see people really turn their art farts, people that are creative, like me, I’m a creative person. I’m not saying no to that. I’m saying, Damn, get on board and help me. Help me. Be great. And AI has been a tool I have used for five months. I thought I was going to use it for my process. I haven’t figured that out yet. And you’re that guy that I could never get to the process side, but the art and the creative side, oh, my god, well,

Ethan Giffin  24:02

you know, and I think I actually said this at one point, but I would be taking all your, you know, 40 years of tapes, 30 years of tapes of all these interviews and things, and I would be loading those transcripts into AI and creating, you know, what they call, basically, a rag system, where you’ve created Your own

Nestor Aparicio  24:20

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large language model,

Ethan Giffin  24:21

you know, your own database of, you know, Nest AI, right, where all of that were even for

Nestor Aparicio  24:27

your

Ethan Giffin  24:27

hanging out. Just keep going, get me rich. But just just even being able to catalog your body of work and have that in a in a way that you could go back and search against that and find what you’re looking for is fascinating.

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Nestor Aparicio  24:40

See, I’m using part of that right now in the transcript, part of what I do to better create content, and that’s all I’m going to say about it, because I have a fun story for John. John Allen is here from stone horses. He is put the band back together. Child’s Play will be playing down in Columbia on the 30th of the month, in time for my wife’s birthday. Um. It. They’re doing a nice plaza with available parking, you know, putting the band back together. So it’s gonna be a lot of fun. John’s gonna be here talking about stone horses and the new song and video and free shows. He’s playing Danny Ocean next weekend, and I’m glad he’s not sick. Must be feeling pretty damn good. He’s over there in his third slice of pizza right now. We’re pizza Johns and Essex all brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery conjunction with G Maryland lottery conjunction with G, P, M, C, I got my medical. I got my blood report back this morning, I got spanked by my doctor. So I wanted a cheese steak with double provolone. I wanted french fries and gravy to split with you. Of course,

Ethan Giffin  25:36

just do it.

Nestor Aparicio  25:38

I have refrained. I’m going with the salad and the oil into vinegar. You know, get fat shamed by my dog. I’m just kidding. I

Ethan Giffin  25:45

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mean, it looks like you got great metabolism.

Nestor Aparicio  25:47

I thought I was healthy, and then they then I gave my blood. Now I’m a mess, so I’m gonna try to organize here. It

Ethan Giffin  25:54

my, you know, mice

Nestor Aparicio  25:56

was all listed as preventative and not emergency oriented, but it was, it began with the word unfortunately for my doctor, and it told me that I needed to make some lifestyle. So my lifestyle changed today. Was, damn it. I can’t have any crinkle cut fries or gravy. It has six what’s going on here, man, John’s gonna disown me if I don’t order some John’s over there eating that pizza, God, he’s gonna be halfway

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Ethan Giffin  26:23

killing it. He’s killing it. He’s killing it. Let me tell you about GBMC. Well, you know, when I asked my eight year old, like, What’s the best thing that’s that’s ever happened to you, he’ll be like the night he spent at the GBMC emergency room. I’m like, he is crazy. I’m like, my son must be crazy. You know, a little bit of backstory. My son was with my mother. Was watching my son. He slipped on a on a like a T shirt on the floor. Was running around, slipped and fell and hit his forehead on on the doorknob.

Nestor Aparicio  26:56

Okay, so

Nestor Aparicio  26:57

he

Ethan Giffin  26:57

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really sliced himself open, and he laid there like a trooper while they stitched his forehead back up. But it’s just so bizarre, like he was probably five,

Nestor Aparicio  27:08

and he remembers, well, it’s a vivid experience, very

Ethan Giffin  27:10

vivid. And you remember that that’s one of the best things that he’s ever done. You know? You know, I found that great crazy.

Nestor Aparicio  27:19

You’re either a really bad dad or He’s a strange kid.

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Nestor Aparicio  27:22

Well, no, no,

Nestor Aparicio  27:23

it’s the best thing he’s ever done.

Ethan Giffin  27:24

Yeah, you

Nestor Aparicio  27:25

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take

Nestor Aparicio  27:25

into a ball game.

Ethan Giffin  27:25

Blame me. He’s been to enough been to enough stuff, and we are equally surprised, but they took fantastic care of him there. Had a wonderful experience, and as very kind of scared parents of what was going pimping was great. Listen,

Nestor Aparicio  27:39

you know, I love you. GBMC, but I am not going to say, I will say that the woman who stuck me and gave me the needle, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as 90 it was my wife. Asked me how it went. I’m like, Well, I’m traumatized, but it didn’t hurt. It was like a really small pinch. So I’ve had mosquito bites that have been more problematic than that needle by a lot. Actually, I feel pretty good today. So good that I I might get a couple of French fries. Not a lot of French fries. Ethan Giffen is here. John Allen is here from stone horses and Charm City devils and SR 71 and on behalf of my original OGS Child’s Play, put the band back together later on in the month. And I always mess up all the band names, and he makes fun of me. We’re back for more at peach, Johnson, Essex, Hagerstown, Dundalk in Eastwood. All coming together. Stay with us. We’re Baltimore positive.