Latest / STEVE 8 / More answers for Alexis

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More answers for Alexis · STEVE 8

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um What am I doing?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am uh It's Friday night, man.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: Friday night.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh there's a song about that, I'm sure.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the feelings right.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's Friday night.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Oh what a night.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh what a night.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Is that it?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, it is.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: That is one of them.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the feelings.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the feelings, right.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking of a different one like um it doesn't matter what I was thinking.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, um, so um, yeah, so Alexis, hang on.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm it's windy here.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: So Alexis, so um she's I guess you have more answers for her.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I felt a little bad because you know, honestly, like these these college students, they come and they say, Oh, and then I as over the years, too many times I would say okay to talk to them because I felt bad.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And they'd say, Oh, how did you get here?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what did you do?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, oh my God.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I started this restaurant, I was 35.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: I traveled the world in my 20s.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I lived on I lived with homeless people on the streets uh in Atlanta.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I opened a restaurant, I lived in a trailer, I opened a little restaurant when I was 20, a pizza place.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's hard to like just summarize how I got to where I am right in easily, and it just gets a little, it just it it's it's like uh I get tired of hearing myself talking, you know.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but then later I I realized later that you were being serious, like you were kind of serious, like you were actually running into somebody.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: You actually ran into somebody who actually cared about like what's the story, you know.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, all right.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's inspirational.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, um it's an inspirational story, you know.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: The idea that you might find yourself somewhere at a certain part of your life and think, like, where does this, how does this get me anywhere?
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um what's the what's the I mean I I've only heard um snippets of it.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: What's the story?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I lived with homeless people in Atlanta.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: What's that?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: What was that?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so I I I I did I I like I did some traveling in my 20s.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up going to uh I ended up driving cross-country uh with a buddy, and then we went down to Mexico, and then I had met some girls.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: We had met two girls traveling cross-country from Germany.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We I ended up flying over to Amsterdam and then meeting up with one of the the girls in Germany.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, then we went to to Czechoslovakia at the time, uh, which is now I it's not called that.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then we and then I went to Switzerland and uh met met and then I fell in love with a girl in Switzerland, and then I ended up working in France at a at a at a bed and breakfast, and the guy that was my boss was this Rastafari, who, because you're supposed to join the military in France, and if you don't, you've got to do some sort of other service.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And his service was to run this uh this uh youth hostel.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And and so he was really cool, and I got to know him, and then he wanted to go to Jamaica, so he came to Florida, we went to Jamaica together, and um one of the things that happened in Jamaica is I kind of realized that I just that's kind of where my eyes were opened to like poverty.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: And what age are you now?
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, 25.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, maybe.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, you know, like uh and and I I had been to I had been to Thailand uh in my travels uh after Switzerland.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I went to Thailand.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I went to uh then I came home, then I went to Jamaica, and I was like, uh wow, there's poor people.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then I felt I just felt compelled, like I'd always been interested in uh homeless the homeless.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like wasn't sure.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like I always felt bad because I had things and homeless people didn't have things, and I felt like you know, I don't know.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: I just felt guilty.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I just just just so you know, because Sadie, Sadie, she would say they're technically houseless.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: But what if that's a new word?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's a new word.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I'm I'm old school.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: You get to use the old word, that's fine.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I went to this, I decided I I I got rid of I sold my van that I had, and I was I was just like, I'm gonna go to Atlanta and I'm gonna go work at this is this homeless shelter.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm and so I went to the homeless shelter and I knocked on the door and they didn't let me in.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, Oh, you can't come in now, it's too late, or whatever.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Okay, and I didn't tell them, like, hey, I'm coming, like, I'm the guy that's supposed to work here, you know.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm here to work.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I just said, Okay, well, I'm gonna hang out with homeless people.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then I lay down, guys like, hey, if you go across the street, that Captain D's, you can get a piece of cardboard, you know, use it as something to lay on, maybe as a blanket.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Went and got some cardboard.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next day, you know, we were allowed to feed them, but we weren't allowed.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I went to go sit down, and they're like, Oh, you can't sit down with them.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I I just and then and then when we walked around town to look at homeless people, they were taking us around town and they're pointing out homeless people like digging in dumpsters.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: But it was all very it was all like looking at the people instead of like interacting with people.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So then I said, I'm not gonna do this.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I just said, fuck that, I'm just gonna live with these homeless people, and and and I just decided to go to the soup kitchens, play basketball, uh, put make a hooch in the woods.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he called it, a little hooch in the woods in Atlanta.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I spent a summer uh, you know, with these a lot of Vietnam vets and people, and we played cards and we and there and there and there what what I witnessed was not a lot of like you know, drug abuse and stuff.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was guys that you know they just didn't fit into society.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: They were trying to, you know, digging up, digging up, uh, digging up, working a yard here and there to make a little cash.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like they were they were just and if they got a little more one guy, Rudolph Cash, man, he he like was digging up these ladies' palm trees all day, and he made 80 bucks, right?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And what does he do?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: He goes buys chicken for all of us, everybody, yeah.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: He goes buys fried chicken for everybody, yep.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And you're just like, man, these guys, like it was a big community, the homeless people.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: They were looking out for you.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like I didn't see drugs, I wasn't seeing like people shooting up.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a long time ago, but at the same time, you know, it was people that have mental illness, and there, you know, there's drinking and stuff going on, but it was no some alcoholics, but I didn't see you know, right.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: What I saw was just nice people and and everything.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So uh that was uh I don't know, that was a big that was a big thing for me to learn.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And part of it was I just wanted to, I just wanted, I just felt like it was a Christian thing to do.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like Christ said, give away everything you have and follow me.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I want to see what that's about.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I did it, and I felt like, okay, if I can learn to live with nothing, then then my life is gonna be fine.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like I don't need to, you know, that was that was my that was kind of my goal.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Learn to live with as little as possible so that you're not like I'm I don't have great the best expectations.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of that, at the end of that that time, it was time I I was offered a job back in Florida.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna go, I I just felt like okay, this this is time for me to move on.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt this very clear, like a message almost from above, you know, like okay, you've done this, now go do whatever you want to do.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just kind of gave me the freedom to go off and be like, okay, like I can I can pursue capitalism now if I want to.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can.