(car door slams)
(engine revs)
- I haven't tried to be anybody that I'm not.
People look at me and say,
what's a white guy doing with low riders?
You just got to be you, work really hard
and you have to figure out what you really want out of life
and what you want, and just go for it.
It'll happen.
You know, you may strike out a couple times,
but you'll eventually get there
if you work hard enough at it.
(inspiring music)
(scenic low rider drive)
My name is Michael Grey.
My dad was a police officer,
and my mom worked in the grocery business.
They're both very hard workers.
Yeah.
My dad was a car guy.
Growing up, I would say at least,
once a year he would come home with something new,
never a new car but new to us.
You're little, dad's the hero.
So whatever dad's into you're into.
I mean, this car's a big piece of my family.
We built this shop behind the house
like a shrine to the car.
I mean, this car will never leave my possession.
I'll have this thing forever.
It's a 1960 Impala, it was a nice car when I got it
great driver, so wanted to take it to the next level.
It didn't have any suspension in it,
it's pretty much a stock car, but it's in pretty good shape.
So, took it to my friend John Kennedy at Bowtie Connection
and we ripped the frame out,
took it to Home Use they wrapped the frame.
And Big Frank did the hydraulics system in it.
And it's just the perfect car,
it's exactly the vision I had for it when we built it.
Had it about seven years now I guess,
and its been real good to me.
I kept it pretty traditional,
there's a lot of different styles of low riders.
You got the lifestyle guide
with just incredible paint, just awesome cars.
I wanted to built something really traditional.
The engine's all stock,
just got a little bit of chrome on it.
Pinstriping, no murals or anything like that.
Course in California you have to have Zenith wheels right,
you have the whole Dayton, Zenith thing.
But in the west coast, got to have Zenith.
(hydraulics action)
You saw the movie Mcfarland?
That's kind of like the town I grew up in,
Durham, California, just a little bit
about 20 miles out of Chico, and it's a farming community.
We had one gas station, one grocery store,
one hardware store and just tons of farming.
So, I spent my summers working in the orchards
and the bean fields.
What I did mostly was those big 20 foot sprinkler pipes,
(sprinkler locking noises)
onto the next one.
That's what we did in the bean fields,
it's all muddy.
And we'd change a whole field all the way across
in the morning,
go home, take a nap and then you'd come back
and then you'd move them over again
cause you had to move them two times,
sometimes even three a day.
It's a lot of work.
I think it gave me a really strong work ethic.
There's a lot of work and the guys are counting on you.
I mean you're all moving pipe,
if somebody's slacking that's not cool
and they'll call you out in a second
and so you had to keep up with everyone
and that was a lot of work
and I knew I needed to get a good education
and get a job that paid well.
It taught me I didn't want to do that the rest of my life.
One day, one of the guys showed me his Polaroid,
back then that was the thing right?
You don't have the phone
but the Polaroid of this low rider
that he had just finished building
and it was incredible.
So after work, went over and checked it out in his garage
and I was just in aww.
You know, someday I'm going to have one of those.
But now I'm a high school kid not making much money
and so we got Volkswagens.
So me and a bunch of my friends,
that was kind of the thing back then.
You had the cow bugs and then you had the mini truckers.
Ever since high school, I've been tearing apart the cars
and lowering them in the garage
and kind of got into that.
And never could afford an Impala or, the real cars
but did that for years
and then got to a point in my life where you can't really
go to school full-time and work and build cars.
Anyone who builds cars knows there's a
strong financial commitment that goes along with that.
I kind of put cars on the side,
senior year of high school we had an accounting class.
A lot of people were really struggling with it
and I liked it, it was easy for me
so I thought well this is it,
this is what I can do.
So I was president of the Accounting Society at Chico State
and I invited the CFO from Harris to
come speak to our group.
He's just a really cool guy and said
"I want to come work for you."
And he said, "Great, come see me when you graduate."
So, I graduated, showed up in his office with my diploma
and I think he kind of didn't really remember who I was.
And, gave me a job the next day.
(Jazzy music)
I'm the chief financial officer for Caesar's Palace.
I've been in this role at Caesar's for about eight years,
I've been with the company around 23-24 years.
Right away, I wanted to go to casinos,
that's always been an attraction for me.
My grandpa was always a big gambler,
he lived in LA and he'd always go to Vegas
and come up to Reno and Tahoe
and just kind of been in my family as well.
It's a fun industry,
everything that you can think of happens under a casino.
You've got retail, you've got shows, you got gambling,
you have awesome food and beverage, you got hotels.
There's just so much going on,
and you get to meet some really cool people.
My colleagues, they spend their Sundays
at the country club playing golf
which is fun, I like to play golf too
but my passion is the low riders.
Couple years ago I bumped into one of the
colleagues at work, one of the presidents of the casino
and I had my wife beater and my hat
and I said "Hi!," and she kind of looked at me weird
she said "Hi," and I said "Eileen, it's Michael"
she's all "Woah! I didn't even recognize you."
It was pretty funny,
cause I don't really fit the mold of my job
but I'm me and I'm true to who I am.
(heavenly music)
Perfect day is to load the family up in a car,
head down to the park.
When you're there with all your friends, your family's there
everyone's barbecuing, sit and look at the cars go by.
Everyone who's into low riding,
it's very much an inclusive culture of
"Hey come look at my car, come look what I did to it."
And we just love to share stories of each other,
"Look at this part, I've been trying to find this forever.
"I got it, put it on my car."
That's what it's all about.
When you have a vision for a car,
and you go get the rusty pile of crap
that you start with
and turn it into this beautiful work of art,
there's a lot of dedication there.
You have to have a really clear version of what you want to do
and the dedication to see it through
and a lot of hard work to earn the money to make it happen.
I have a genuine passion for my job,
so if you don't have the genuine love
and passion for what you do,
you're never going to be successful.
It's a dedication, you have to know what you want to do
and go for it.
My son tells me things that he wants to be,
just crazy things and I said you can do it.
Whatever you want to do, I mean,
I believe that with every bone in my body.
You just figure out what you want to do
and make sure that's what you really have passion for
and really do want, you'll get there.
You just have to stay focused and make it happen.
Nobody's going to do it for you.
Make sure that that's something that's going to make you happy.
My name is Michael Grey,
I'm the chief financial officer at Caesar's Palace
and I'm a low rider role model.
(piano note)
(soft violin music)