Latest / World Ablaze with George Fontes / 63 - Aaron Deshotel - Host of I Had To Say It

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63 - Aaron Deshotel - Host of I Had To Say It · World Ablaze with George Fontes

• 0:00
  You are listening to a Fonts Media Network production.
• 0:11
  Hello, World of Blaze listeners.
• 0:13
  In this episode, I welcome Aaron Deshotel.
• 0:17
  He is a chef and the host of the I Had to Say It podcast.
• 0:23
  Aaron and I had a great discussion about life,
• 0:26
  working in the events and service industry, podcasting, and being a Gen Xer.
• 0:32
  Aaron has a no bullshit approach that he applies to various topics on his podcast,
• 0:38
  especially when it comes to current events and politics.
• 0:42
  As I said earlier, Aaron and I had a great conversation that I think that you're going to really enjoy.
• 0:50
  Anyway, as we were riffing earlier, thanks for coming on, Aaron.
• 0:53
  Aaron, Des Hotel, is that correct?
• 0:55
  That is correct, sir.
• 0:56
  All right.
• 0:57
  So you, I've come across on X a few times because you interact with Whiskey Hell quite a bit.
• 1:04
  Good guys.
• 1:04
  Yeah, I interact with them as well for sure.
• 1:06
  And they are good guys.
• 1:08
  But it got me to listening to your podcast.
• 1:11
  And I'm like, this guy at times could literally be almost my twin.
• 1:16
  And I love your no bullshit approach.
• 1:20
  Like the way you just go after it.
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  You call things for what it is.
• 1:24
  And how you see it.
• 1:25
  you're not afraid to speak your mind.
• 1:26
  And I was like,
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  I got to talk to you.
• 1:28
  I mean,
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  this is,
• 1:29
  this is,
• 1:30
  uh,
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  we need more of it.
• 1:32
  We need more of it.
• 1:32
  Yeah.
• 1:33
  I,
• 1:33
  I,
• 1:33
  I'm inclined to agree with you on that one.
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  And thank you.
• 1:36
  I appreciate that.
• 1:36
  And,
• 1:37
  uh,
• 1:37
  actually I,
• 1:38
  I did,
• 1:39
  you know,
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  I've gone through it.
• 1:40
  I've been listening to your show too.
• 1:41
  And I was like,
• 1:41
  yeah,
• 1:41
  you know what?
• 1:42
  This is going to work.
• 1:43
  I,
• 1:43
  this is somebody I can talk to.
• 1:46
  Um,
• 1:46
  you know,
• 1:46
  and it's one of those things.
• 1:47
  It's like,
• 1:48
  I feel like we're roughly pretty close to the same age too.
• 1:53
  So that might have something to do with it.
• 1:55
  Yeah.
• 1:55
  I believe we are.
• 1:56
  I picked that up because, oh, geez.
• 1:59
  Now my brain just, I was just, the episode I was listening to last night, actually, I was driving home.
• 2:05
  It was a guest spot.
• 2:06
  You guys started out the episode smoking cigars.
• 2:09
  Oh, with Ryan, Ryan McBeth.
• 2:11
  Ryan, thank you.
• 2:12
  Yes.
• 2:13
  Yes.
• 2:13
  And I was like, I'm like, at some point in there, you guys mentioned, he said he's getting ready to turn 50.
• 2:18
  And you said you're catching up to him.
• 2:20
  I'm like, I'm a couple of years out myself.
• 2:21
  So I'm roughly in the same ballpark.
• 2:25
  Yeah, we are.
• 2:26
  Actually, you know what?
• 2:27
  I just realized, Aaron, I mentioned your podcast, but your podcast is I Had to Say It.
• 2:33
  And I have to say what your podcast is.
• 2:35
  So the title is I Had to Say It.
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  And first, before we move on, Aaron, I'm just going to tell everybody right now.
• 2:40
  If you listen to me, you got to listen to Aaron.
• 2:43
  I think you're going to like it.
• 2:45
  I think Aaron comes off like a rapid fire.
• 2:48
  I have a hard time keeping up with you sometimes because you just spit it out, man.
• 2:50
  but you're on point the whole time, which is crazy.
• 2:53
  I appreciate that.
• 2:56
  The funny thing is, occasionally I'll get people that I start interacting,
• 3:00
  whether it's over a Zoom call like this or a Teams meeting or in person or in real life,
• 3:05
  and people are like, you know, I thought that might be just a lot of editing,
• 3:10
  but you really are like this.
• 3:12
  And I'm like, when I get rolling, I can be.
• 3:15
  I am very verbose.
• 3:18
  I'm very comfortable speaking my mind, obviously.
• 3:23
  That's the other thing.
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  I got a lot of people that have heard the podcast and been like, I don't know how you could do that.
• 3:29
  And like, I haven't, ever since I launched the show, I haven't really like, I haven't been one of the people like, oh, I have to maintain anonymity.
• 3:38
  This could come back and bite me in the ass.
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  I've had a lot of people like, dude, you can't say that.
• 3:43
  I'm like, yeah, I can actually.
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  at the end of the day, I still believe that we'd be a lot better off if people were more forthright
• 3:53
  and more honest. Being artificially fake, being, well, artificially fake is, that's redundant.
• 4:00
  Being artificially polite, being, I mean, there's a time and a place for decorum and proper manners.
• 4:06
  And like, I was raised very strictly, you know, this is appropriate. This is not. I,
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  contrary to the image I portray in a lot of ways through my show, I'm actually very good at
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  dealing with situations where you have to be proper and well-behaved and well-mannered.
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  And I won't lean on a table because at one point I did that in front of my grandmother and she
• 4:29
  cracked me in the elbow with a soup spoon. So, I mean, I do know how to be proper and prim and
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  and professional when it's required.
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  But on the other side of the coin,
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  I do believe that a lot of this falsehood
• 4:45
  that we put forward due to societal pressures and people,
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  oh, well, that hurts my feelings and I'm offended.
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  Well, at the end of the day,
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  maybe you need to be offended
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  because people lying to each other
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  and equivocating because they're afraid of social stigma.
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  They're afraid of the backlash.
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  They're afraid of somebody getting bent out of shape.
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  they're they're indulging the proclivities of people to be like my feelings and my my my values
• 5:11
  are more important than yours so you can't say these things because i'm going to get butthurt
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  about it and i'm going to throw a fit and we've allowed it to get to the point where you don't
• 5:21
  know what you're actually dealing with and that pisses me off more than anything else because
• 5:25
  in a lot of ways i am a very like what you see is what you get no bullshit no equivocation
• 5:32
  you know exactly where you stand with me if i like you i mean i'm still gonna talk crap about
• 5:38
  you because that's i think that's just our generation you talk shit about your friends
• 5:41
  yeah that's that's normal to me i i don't believe that you would be like oh well no that's my best
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  friend i would never say anything about my bestie man i will say six mean things about my best friend
• 5:53
  to his face three more to his wife and he will come right back and make fun of my hairline which
• 6:00
  as you can see, non-existent. The listeners can't see it. I have a very shiny head and I forgot to
• 6:06
  put my hat on. So it's glaring into the camera. That's because thanks to some wonderful genetics,
• 6:13
  every man on my mom's side of the family has that George Costanza toilet bowl haircut.
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  George Costanza.
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  And I'm not rocking that look. I'm not a fryer tuck. I'm not doing the fringe. So I'm clean
• 6:24
  shaven. I'm thankful I have a good shaped head, which despite all the childhood trauma
• 6:29
  of being Gen X and not wearing a helmet to ride a bicycle and running into trees and playing
• 6:35
  football and all that other stuff. I still came out with a good shaped head. So count my blessings.
• 6:39
  Well, don't worry. I'm hiding my baldness under my hat as well.
• 6:42
  Well, like I said, I usually try to just to be polite and not have the gleam in the camera,
• 6:46
  but I forgot my dad.
• 6:47
  Listen, the challenges of a bald man, I swear, people do not get it. They just don't get it.
• 6:52
  Oh, they really don't. And unfortunately, again, family trait, I've been shaving my head for 20
• 6:58
  frigging years at this point, you know? And, and when I was younger, particularly when I was like
• 7:04
  in my early twenties, um, just a little background information. I'm, I'm a chef, right? That's just,
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  I've been working in the service industry, culinary industry for almost 30 years at this point.
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  Uh, started when I was a teenager, just doubled down and went into it like hardcore in my early
• 7:21
  twenties. I also was, uh, really like in my more so in my twenties than my teens, I really got into
• 7:30
  like, you know, weightlifting, weight training, fighting. I would bounce on the weekends just
• 7:37
  cause I was like, Oh gee, it's not enough that I work 14 hours a day. I need to do something at
• 7:42
  night too, to keep myself out of trouble. So I would bounce at night. And so you get this big
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  kind of grumpy, kind of chiseled bald guy walking around who happens to be pasty white
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  because he never sees the sun because during the day he's in a kitchen and at night he's
• 7:55
  in a bar.
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  And a lot of people would make assumptions about my demeanor, people I associated with
• 8:02
  who I was.
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  And they'd be like, hmm, big bald white guy that he's racist as shit.
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  And I'm like, if you look at my friend's group of people I grew up with, I mean, and again,
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  I think this is really our generation was kind of one of those like, we didn't care about dumb shit.
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  It was, if you were cool, we'd hang out with you.
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  If you weren't cool, we'd make you cry.
• 8:24
  Yeah.
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  I mean, you're right on.
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  That's the truth.
• 8:27
  That's how I grew up.
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  That's how I grew up.
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  It's like, dude, we like doing X, Y, and Z.
• 8:33
  You like doing that too?
• 8:34
  Okay, come along.
• 8:35
  Yeah, so I'm going to make fun of your glasses.
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  I'm going to make fun of your haircut.
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  I'm going to make fun of your waistline, but I'm not.
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  The other crap we can't, and you know, let's, I've never cared, but a lot of people make
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  assumptions about me.
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  Cause like I said, big bald white dude, you must be like, no, I've, I've got, I've gotten
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  that too.
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  Yeah.
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  I've gotten that too, Aaron.
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  And you know what?
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  I just learned, just be yourself, man.
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  If you're a good person, people eventually see it.
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  And if they don't, honestly, they didn't need to be in your life.
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  Yeah, exactly.
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  I mean, that's, that's just bottom line.
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  Really.
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  That's, I completely agree with you.
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  It's, I mean, I, I, and I want a lot of people over just by being my, me.
• 9:11
  I mean, I am boisterous.
• 9:15
  I am loud.
• 9:16
  I am opinionated, which again, everything you'll hear.
• 9:20
  If you listen to my podcast, that's maybe a little bit of amplification just for effect,
• 9:26
  but that's really how I am pretty much across the board.
• 9:30
  Again, like I said, I can turn it off if, if the need situation arises.
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  If I'm talking to somebody that's like way more important than I am, if I'm dealing with clients, customers, patrons, my boss, HR.
• 9:43
  Well, actually, no, I shouldn't say that because I'm absolutely horrible to our HR lady.
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  But fortunately, she's pretty cool because she gives it right back.
• 9:52
  I mean.
• 9:53
  She's old school then too, right?
• 9:55
  Oh, yeah, very much so.
• 9:56
  She's just like, you know, you can't say that.
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  That's completely inappropriate.
• 10:01
  I said, you're smiling.
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  I'm not in trouble.
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  And I'll walk away.
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  Oh, man.
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  Aaron, I got to ask you, man, because I think a lot of us independent podcasters, we got in this for other reasons.
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  Why did you start getting behind a mic and pressing record?
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  What led to that?
• 10:17
  COVID.
• 10:20
  That's the short form answer of it.
• 10:21
  I have been honestly kicking around the idea of launching a podcast since like 2013, 2014, like the early days before people.
• 10:33
  before it was actually popular yeah and i was doing it because like i said i'm a chef that's
• 10:39
  that's what i've been that's my chosen career path that's the life path i took but um my in my
• 10:47
  developmental years i was really into computers i was one of those like mid 90s text-based 28 8
• 10:56
  dial-up internet geeks. The funny thing was in my situation, and I was also on the football team
• 11:04
  and like I said, weight training, and I wasn't like a track person. I throw the heavies. I wasn't
• 11:11
  a runner, but I also happened to be like honors classes, geeky. I was in band. I was in yearbook,
• 11:21
  but on the other hand, I was like, go ahead and say something. Give me shit about it. I want you
• 11:25
  too. So I, but so I was really into like the internet pretty much from the time it started
• 11:31
  being a thing. So I was aware of podcasts just via that. And I was kind of like, this is kind
• 11:38
  of cool. You know, you put out these little like pseudo radio shows and I was actually kind of
• 11:44
  looking at going into broadcasting when I first graduated from high school. That's a bit of an
• 11:49
  exaggeration too. When I first graduated from high school originally, I was actually, the first time
• 11:54
  I went to college, I was going to be a finance major in pre-law and then be a financial lawyer,
• 12:02
  which I realized really quickly that family-oriented life path that my forebears decided was what Aaron
• 12:11
  should do with his life was not what I wanted to do. So I kind of walked away from that.
• 12:16
  But at the same time, it was like I was debating going into broadcasting before I decided,
• 12:23
  you know what i've been working in kitchens all this time i think i'm gonna run with that i think
• 12:27
  i'd make a good chef and uh so i was thinking about doing radio and then i was like well this
• 12:32
  podcasting thing's kind of cool and uh i have like a lot of my friends particularly in my early to
• 12:38
  mid-20s which you know that's we're back at that timetable all these guys were like you know dude
• 12:44
  you tell great stories you should be you should do this you should do that and then you start
• 12:49
  podcasting starts becoming a thing.
• 12:51
  And they're like, dude, you should start a podcast.
• 12:53
  You'd kill it.
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  You could just get down there and crack jokes and da da da da da And I like yeah it I don have the time Cause at that point I was starting to get into like just got married dealing with a family
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  Like, I don't have time to sit down and record shit.
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  I don't have time to tell stories into a microphone
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  and then try and make it sound good and edit it
• 13:15
  and clean all that up.
• 13:16
  Cause I, like I said,
• 13:17
  since I had kind of looked at going into broadcasting,
• 13:19
  I was slightly aware of the process.
• 13:22
  I mean, not super well educated on it,
• 13:25
  but enough to be aware that it was more work than I had time to commit to it.
• 13:28
  You know, I had a kid to raise.
• 13:30
  I had a wife to keep from lighting me on fire in my sleep.
• 13:35
  You know, I was busy.
• 13:37
  And then, like I said, after kicking the idea around for a few years,
• 13:44
  and it came up actually on my Facebook memories the other day,
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  I made a post like three years before I actually started the show.
• 13:51
  Like, hey, what would you guys think if I started doing this?
• 13:54
  And here's a list of names.
• 13:56
  You guys should vote on the names of what you think would be a good name for a podcast by Aaron.
• 14:00
  And this was right around the time, like Rogan was really starting to take off and all that stuff.
• 14:04
  So like 2018-ish.
• 14:07
  And so, again, I got some responses.
• 14:12
  One of the names was actually pretty close to I had to say it, which was, it was one of the contenders was, it has to be said.
• 14:20
  And I was like, it's almost, but not right.
• 14:24
  and uh so yeah so i i've been kicking it around for like i said forever basically and then
• 14:30
  covid happened and i got laid off because like i said culinary industry 2020 pretty much
• 14:36
  put my line of work into the icu i mean none of us had jobs and um i can relate i'll get into that
• 14:46
  later but i can relate to that but um yeah so 2020 rolled around and i was actually very fortunate
• 14:52
  because the company I was working for at the time,
• 14:56
  it's a big national contract company,
• 15:01
  multiple divisions,
• 15:03
  literally thousands and thousands of employees.
• 15:06
  A lot of them got,
• 15:07
  a lot of, including some of my coworkers from my unit,
• 15:12
  all got laid off.
• 15:14
  And then a small percentage of the staff
• 15:16
  was furloughed instead of laid off.
• 15:18
  So I was one of the people that got furloughed.
• 15:21
  And thankfully for my situation, it worked out fantastically because the timing was perfect.
• 15:28
  I didn't get furloughed until March of 2020.
• 15:34
  So the initial burst of COVID where everybody else was getting shut down, I managed to avoid because I had actually been farmed out from my facility to another facility to help them implement a catering program.
• 15:46
  and then I was the uh the general manager at that facility was going to be going on maternity leave
• 15:53
  so the plan was I would take over the facility when she went on maternity leave after I set up
• 15:58
  their new catering program for them and um and that that facility was involved in producing
• 16:05
  producing like hand sanitizers and stuff when there was a huge demand for all that
• 16:11
  actually an alcohol bottling facility but they switched several of their production lines over
• 16:16
  a hand sanitizer. Yeah. Even a lot of distillers did that during that time so they can stay
• 16:21
  relevant in the float and pay their bills. Yeah. And that's exactly, this company was
• 16:27
  bottling for those distillers. So they would take the, you know, the big vats and break it down into
• 16:33
  gallon bottles. And yeah, it was an interesting time in my life. And so I thought I was going to
• 16:40
  be okay. So at what point during all this, like, did you just have time on your hands and you're
• 16:45
  like, I just could, I'm going to finally just start this.
• 16:49
  Is that how that came about?
• 16:51
  Honestly, it wasn't even that.
• 16:53
  It was, like I said, I got furloughed.
• 16:55
  So all of a sudden I went from having somewhere to beat every day.
• 16:58
  And the thing is the company I was working for had a thing where I still had to get up
• 17:02
  in the morning and log into this app that they put together to check and see if any of
• 17:07
  the facilities within 25 miles of my home account needed people for that day.
• 17:13
  And if they did, as a furloughed employee, I had to say, I am available for work because as a furloughed employee, they kept my benefits active.
• 17:24
  And so I didn't have to worry about my insurance and all that stuff.
• 17:30
  So I had insurance the entire time, which was perfect because my wife actually went in for knee surgery the day after I got furloughed.
• 17:38
  And they told me it was going to be two to three weeks.
• 17:40
  I was like, this is great.
• 17:41
  I can take two to three weeks off, stay home with my wife, take care of her while she's recuperating, and then go back to work and everything will be fine.
• 17:51
  And it turned into like nine months.
• 17:53
  So after like five or six weeks of sitting around the house, getting up at 4.30 in the morning every day, logging into this app to go, yep, everybody within 25 miles of my unit still closed because we were all in the same division and everybody was furloughed.
• 18:09
  So all of those units were closed.
• 18:11
  So I knew nobody was working.
• 18:12
  So nobody was going to need me, but I still had to get up and log in.
• 18:15
  So it showed that I logged in and I would get up in the morning and then like let the
• 18:19
  dog out and drink a cup of coffee.
• 18:21
  And I was just sitting there like doing nothing, watching the news, watching TV, going stir
• 18:27
  crazy because I didn't have anybody to talk to other than my wife.
• 18:30
  And we kind of ran out of things to talk about because all we did was sit around and stare
• 18:33
  at each other all day.
• 18:35
  So I was like, I need to do something.
• 18:38
  This is driving me crazy.
• 18:39
  and I was kind of hemming and hawing.
• 18:42
  And I go from being out interacting with people every day
• 18:46
  to seeing just, like I said, just my wife.
• 18:49
  And occasionally my kid would come by the house,
• 18:51
  but by that point he had actually moved out.
• 18:54
  So yeah, it was very frustrating.
• 18:59
  And then I was apparently driving her crazy
• 19:01
  because she went online and got me an early birthday present
• 19:05
  and bought me a microphone
• 19:06
  and a little sound card adapter thing to plug into my computer.
• 19:10
  And she was like, here, you need to use this.
• 19:13
  You know that podcast you've been talking about?
• 19:14
  You need to start that podcast because you need to talk to somebody other than me
• 19:17
  because you're driving me freaking nuts.
• 19:20
  And I was like, okay, I love you.
• 19:27
  I mean, yeah, well, what do you say to that?
• 19:29
  Like, okay, yes, dear.
• 19:32
  Yeah, right.
• 19:34
  It's like, you're driving me crazy.
• 19:35
  Go talk to this mic.
• 19:37
  Exactly.
• 19:37
  Go talk to random people on the internet and leave me the hell alone.
• 19:42
  Take your ranting, crazy, complaining ass in the other room.
• 19:47
  Close the door so I don't have to hear it.
• 19:49
  It's almost like saying, tell someone who gives a damn.
• 19:51
  Yeah, it was a really nice way of her telling me to go tell somebody that gives a damn.
• 19:56
  And what can I say?
• 19:58
  I don't blame her.
• 20:02
  She was not wrong.
• 20:03
  I really did need to just start venting my spleen a little bit because that's the other thing about working in the service industry.
• 20:10
  I'm used to being around a lot of people when I'm not in the customer-facing side of things that it's a different environment.
• 20:17
  I mean, I know most people at least touch in the service industry briefly when they're younger or whatever.
• 20:24
  But when you get around a bunch of career culinary people like lifers, people who have made this their thing, there's something wrong with us.
• 20:32
  I say that all the time.
• 20:33
  I worked at a culinary school for years and I would tell like the incoming
• 20:37
  freshman classes,
• 20:38
  like if there's something wrong with you before you signed up for these
• 20:43
  classes,
• 20:44
  there will be something wrong with you by the time you get that diploma.
• 20:47
  Well,
• 20:47
  I say that.
• 20:50
  Okay.
• 20:51
  What's funny.
• 20:51
  This is where the relation comes into what you said earlier,
• 20:54
  because I am in the events industry to my company.
• 20:57
  That's what I do is event production.
• 20:59
  And we're the guys that do all the hanging speakers,
• 21:01
  the lights, the stages. We do that. We do drapes,
• 21:03
  chandeliers. We do all kinds of crazy stuff, man.
• 21:06
  Actually, I know exactly what you're saying
• 21:08
  because I worked with a lot of you guys.
• 21:10
  Exactly. We do some of the same corporate events.
• 21:11
  I was a catering specialist years.
• 21:14
  So that was
• 21:15
  with the company I was working for.
• 21:17
  That was literally my job title was catering specialist.
• 21:20
  Well, what I was going to say is I feel
• 21:22
  like the events industry
• 21:24
  in general, call service events,
• 21:25
  whatever, it's literally
• 21:27
  sometimes I feel like it's just made up of a bunch of
• 21:29
  misfits who said, no, I don't want to adhere to society.
• 21:33
  I don't want to do it your way.
• 21:36
  It feels that way.
• 21:38
  There's a lot of, like, there's something wrong with us.
• 21:41
  Yeah, a little bit.
• 21:42
  We're looking when everybody else is playing.
• 21:44
  We're out here and we just, we shall not conform.
• 21:48
  It's a truth.
• 21:51
  No, it is.
• 21:52
  One of the things I found, I mean, it's kind of funny.
• 21:55
  I'm actually, at this point in my life, I've managed to avoid a lot of the
• 21:59
  the less
• 22:01
  pleasant stereotypes,
• 22:05
  I guess,
• 22:06
  of the service industry.
• 22:07
  You know,
• 22:08
  I didn't develop
• 22:08
  any kind of major drug habits.
• 22:10
  I didn't,
• 22:11
  I mean,
• 22:12
  like,
• 22:12
  after you get to a certain point
• 22:13
  as a chef,
• 22:14
  you either have gone
• 22:15
  one of two routes
• 22:15
  and you're either like
• 22:16
  a full-blown alcoholic
• 22:17
  or you're a recovery alcoholic.
• 22:21
  It's a lifestyle though, right?
• 22:23
  It's hard.
• 22:24
  The late nights,
• 22:25
  like crazy long nights,
• 22:27
  the long hours,
• 22:28
  the hours are insane.
• 22:29
  and then by the time you get home,
• 22:32
  everyone's asleep or there's no one around,
• 22:35
  so it's just you.
• 22:37
  It's a hard life to live, man,
• 22:38
  because same thing on our side.
• 22:41
  When we do what we do,
• 22:42
  I'm not lying to you,
• 22:44
  and we're literally working 18 hours a day.
• 22:46
  Sometimes we pull our 24-hour shifts
• 22:48
  where you don't get any sleep.
• 22:50
  You're dealing with shady promoters
• 22:52
  that can't even go out of the way
• 22:53
  to budget enough to get you a hotel room
• 22:54
  or even union labor
• 22:56
  when it's supposed to be a union house,
• 22:58
  and all of a sudden,
• 22:58
  And oh yeah, you know what?
• 22:59
  They're off.
• 23:00
  It's just you two guys have to do the whole thing.
• 23:01
  It's like, really?
• 23:02
  And you know, we've been through the whole thing too.
• 23:04
  And it's like when you said, you know, when your industry got shut down, I mean, that was us.
• 23:08
  We all of a sudden, hey, COVID's here.
• 23:10
  You can't do anything.
• 23:12
  Well, what do I do about all these bills here to keep my business open?
• 23:15
  Not our problem.
• 23:16
  You got to stop the spread.
• 23:18
  Okay.
• 23:19
  So now what?
• 23:21
  Yeah, I empathize.
• 23:24
  I feel your pain, brother.
• 23:25
  it's uh and like i said i working as i did like i said on the catering side of special events
• 23:32
  things i've seen the work you're talking about i i respect the hell out of it i've seen set up and
• 23:37
  teardowns that you know and sometimes i was working in facilities sometimes i was working in
• 23:42
  stuff where like with you know some of my jobs i was doing things like with colleges or with
• 23:48
  city officials where it's like we're setting up for 25 000 people to be at this function
• 23:54
  yep me you you guys are heroes i i got i i i can coordinate my brigade and we'll have you know
• 24:01
  50 000 sandwiches and you know 100 000 sides done before the doors open but you know
• 24:08
  that that's just you know preparation and repetition you guys are doing all the the
• 24:13
  brutal stuff oh yeah but you know i i feel like if you're in events and you're in service man
• 24:18
  there's a camaraderie regardless doesn't matter if you're if you're a chef you're an av guy it
• 24:22
  doesn't matter we're all going through the same crap we're all we're all taking shit we're all
• 24:27
  getting talked down to we're all having these crazy expectations put on us all because client
• 24:33
  x can't afford to pay for four days that we need to set up and do our jobs all has to be done in
• 24:39
  two oh and by the way you got to get everything out after the event when does the event end oh
• 24:43
  two in the morning oh okay yep and we got something else going on at 9 30 exactly yeah
• 24:49
  yeah i i yeah no we're you're talking my language i get it i i uh i have definitely i've been there
• 24:59
  i feel your pain it's uh there's something special about us i'll say i'll say that i'll just say we're
• 25:05
  different yeah the difference a good word for it we're a little different uh so did you so so how
• 25:12
  And we thrive on it, which is just...
• 25:16
  Well, you know, we actually do.
• 25:19
  Somehow it feeds us.
• 25:20
  I don't understand it.
• 25:21
  But I'll be honest, Aaron.
• 25:23
  As I've done this for so many years, and I've owned my business going on 27 years, I'm kind of getting tired, man.
• 25:30
  I really am.
• 25:31
  But until I could find the exit strategy, I'm still in it.
• 25:35
  And it's not like I hate doing it.
• 25:37
  It's just I think I'm just physically getting worn down.
• 25:39
  After a while, there's so much that your body can do, and you're just like, ugh.
• 25:41
  Yeah. It's getting hard to stay up till two in the morning, man. It's like, I can't be driving.
• 25:46
  I can't be driving back to the shop at two, 2 AM and getting home at, you know, at eight in the
• 25:50
  morning, you know, a lot of those nights are kind of, I think a lot of those days are getting behind
• 25:53
  me but and I sure you probably feel the same way A lot of a lot of times now I mean you have to I be honest I kind of I code Did you What is it For my industry Oh okay For being a chef I should say I found the cheat code I went into
• 26:09
  corporate services a few years back, right before COVID hit. I got a corporate services job
• 26:18
  Monday through Friday with very minimal exceptions. The downside was I had to be at work at 445 in
• 26:24
  the morning. The upside was I was home by like three. Yeah. So yeah, that's nice. That's nice.
• 26:31
  And I had weekends and I, and you know, it was, you know what, that's the, that's the thing a lot
• 26:36
  of people don't understand about us. Like, like you got into corporate services, you got that
• 26:39
  schedule, but before then, like I missed every holiday, every birthday, every celebration, like
• 26:44
  the, but people don't understand about guys like us is when you're celebrating, the reason you have
• 26:49
  all these amenities is because we're working that day.
• 26:53
  Oh, without a doubt.
• 26:54
  And then I don't know how it is for you, but I found the backside of that on my coin was
• 27:00
  on the rare, rare, rare occasion where I wasn't humping on one of those days, I would get
• 27:09
  some jackass family member like, hey, you're a chef.
• 27:12
  You want to help?
• 27:14
  Well, you know, we're having a hundred people over at my house for the 4th of July.
• 27:18
  You want to come over and barbecue?
• 27:19
  no yeah you're like i do that every day as a matter of fact i don't you remember when we were
• 27:26
  kids and i used to shove your head in the fucking toilet guess what's happening again if i come to
• 27:30
  your house oh you know what's crazy one of those blue pucks in there too i want i want the water
• 27:36
  to look like grandma's house you know what's crazy is uh my original pathway um there was two but
• 27:45
  originally, I actually wanted to be a chef and I wanted to go to the San Francisco Culinary
• 27:50
  Institute. And the only reason that never happened is I couldn't get the finances to do it. And then
• 27:56
  I veered into other directions because like you said, you were in band. I don't know. What
• 28:00
  instrument did you pay? Let's see. Primary instrument. I played trumpet in the actual
• 28:05
  school band. I also played guitar, keyboards, harmonica. Awesome. Everybody in my family
• 28:12
  plays at least two instruments oh nice man it's a family thing yes i was a i was a drummer and then
• 28:18
  so i i got out of that and progressed into music and then you know got into being a sound engineer
• 28:25
  recording studios all etc and then just kind of just went that direction and then one day i was
• 28:29
  just like yeah you know i'm playing all over the place in this band we're traveling you know playing
• 28:33
  at the whiskey the you know you name all these big clubs we're starting to get our name out there
• 28:36
  and i'm just like but but until we make it it's not happening and it's costing me to do these gigs
• 28:42
  and I can go on the weekend, provide some services,
• 28:44
  make some actual money.
• 28:45
  And then I just abandoned that and just got into production,
• 28:48
  providing production.
• 28:51
  I'm kind of funny that happens sometimes.
• 28:54
  You know what's funny is almost everybody I know
• 28:56
  who became an engineer, almost everybody who became
• 28:58
  a sound engineer or a production owner was a drummer.
• 29:02
  It's a weird thing.
• 29:02
  I don't know why, but it just seems to,
• 29:04
  there's something about that trait that attracts us
• 29:07
  to this crazy lifestyle.
• 29:10
  Now that you've mentioned it.
• 29:11
  Yeah.
• 29:12
  I'm thinking about a few of the drummers I know.
• 29:16
  Yeah, no, that actually...
• 29:18
  Is it track?
• 29:19
  It tracks.
• 29:21
  Hey, so when you started the show though, man,
• 29:24
  so you started venting,
• 29:25
  and how'd you feel about just venting in the mic
• 29:28
  and just talking into the ether?
• 29:29
  It's like, did you expect anybody to listen to you
• 29:32
  or anyone to catch on to the show?
• 29:34
  Or were you just saying, fuck it, I'm just going to talk?
• 29:37
  If I'm being completely honest, no.
• 29:39
  I'm still surprised people listen.
• 29:40
  And that's, you know, I, maybe it's, you know, some underlying, you know, personal issues where I just, I, I, but I still am like kind of surprised when I'll be just bullshitting with one of my online friends and, and Bill says, oh yeah, you know, when you said this the other day, I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot.
• 29:59
  we met because you said you listened to my podcast.
• 30:02
  I forgot about that.
• 30:03
  And I've definitely made some,
• 30:06
  some for people I've never actually met in the real world.
• 30:09
  I've made some pretty good friends because of the show.
• 30:12
  Just again,
• 30:14
  and with the whole COVID thing and like a lot of people decided to start
• 30:17
  podcasts because they didn't have anything else going on and they didn't have
• 30:21
  any way to talk to their friends.
• 30:23
  So yeah,
• 30:23
  I feel,
• 30:24
  I feel like a lot of people who've been doing it as long as we have,
• 30:28
  well,
• 30:28
  you've been doing it a little longer than I have for sure.
• 30:29
  but that we all,
• 30:31
  we all kind of started based out of that frustration during that,
• 30:34
  that pandemic time.
• 30:36
  Right.
• 30:36
  And,
• 30:36
  and was like,
• 30:37
  well,
• 30:38
  you know what?
• 30:38
  I realized I do have an opinion and,
• 30:40
  and I felt like to me,
• 30:42
  I don't know if he felt this way because I felt like,
• 30:45
  look,
• 30:46
  I'm hearing this jackass talk all this crap and get in offering his opinion.
• 30:50
  And I'm,
• 30:51
  and I'm thinking if this guy is famous in doing this,
• 30:53
  why can't I just offer my two cents on,
• 30:55
  on,
• 30:55
  on the subject?
• 30:56
  You know,
• 30:57
  why not?
• 30:57
  Why not me?
• 30:58
  And that's why I started doing it.
• 31:00
  I was like, you know, I got some stuff to say too.
• 31:01
  And I always felt like a lot of people, you know, like the talking heads that are in my space, like you're kind of in the same thing.
• 31:07
  You do like the news and politics thing a lot, like news commentary politics.
• 31:10
  I don't think that's your entire show.
• 31:13
  I know you talk about other things, but.
• 31:15
  Yeah, it really wasn't.
• 31:16
  That wasn't the original intention.
• 31:18
  Yeah.
• 31:19
  It seems to be what's at the forefront of my ire every time I sit down in front of the mic.
• 31:24
  Kind of gravitated that way, huh?
• 31:25
  yeah it just it was a natural progression kind of thing well i found a lot of these talking heads
• 31:30
  were just really to me living on the surface man you know they're just very surface level not really
• 31:35
  getting deep about anything and uh just feeding their pocketbook like i i just felt they're saying
• 31:41
  things because they know it's getting a certain reaction that certain reaction is feeding their
• 31:45
  bank account and yeah and i i wanted to go deeper and then when i heard you it's like you it's you
• 31:50
  seem very similar except you you know you're not afraid to go oh that's bullshit no this is what
• 31:55
  what it is this is exactly how it is and i heard i heard your show a few times to where you even
• 32:01
  you even mentioned like at one time not to get too polarizing or you know rah rah team whatever but
• 32:07
  you lean more democrat and now you're kind of i mean i think you're more center but you're you're
• 32:12
  just not afraid to call people out on their shit and sometimes you lean a little more right but
• 32:16
  you know how do you feel about this whole right versus left bullshit to be honest i i think it's
• 32:22
  fucking retarded yeah to be really honest um and yes i still say fucking retarded but hey bring
• 32:28
  retard back yeah exactly we're taking it back that's right i mean you know it's it's it's like
• 32:35
  the meme says retard is not what you say to people with legitimate medical conditions and handicaps
• 32:40
  retard is what you say to your friends when they're being fucking retarded uh yeah yeah it's
• 32:45
  it's just the way it is but you're you're i mean i'm gonna say you're right i am definitely
• 32:50
  more centrist. And honestly, I always have been. It's just in my younger days, I was more left
• 32:59
  leaning central based on the standards of the time. Most of my core philosophical beliefs have
• 33:06
  not changed much. I mean, you have to change a little bit because if you're not changing and
• 33:11
  growing, you're dead, whether you're actually in the ground or not. You're not living if you're
• 33:17
  not evolving no i agree with that so yeah some of my stances and beliefs have changed but like
• 33:22
  i've always i'm a gun guy i've always been a gun guy even when i was considered more liberal
• 33:28
  because i don't care if you're gay straights bi poly any of that shit i i i don't care
• 33:38
  it never bothered me i've got gay friends i have i have i have a friend who i just refer to as a
• 33:45
  massive whore because he, by his definition, he's polyamorous.
• 33:50
  I'm like, dude, you'll fuck anything that holds still long enough.
• 33:52
  That's not polyamorous.
• 33:53
  That's non-discerning.
• 33:55
  You're just overly horny.
• 33:56
  Exactly.
• 33:56
  I'm like, you're horny.
• 33:58
  You're not, you're, you're, you're not some, you know, unique snowflake of a
• 34:02
  fucking character.
• 34:03
  You're just really hornied up.
• 34:06
  And, you know, and I, and he's still my friend.
• 34:09
  I'm not, you know, it's not a matter of judgment.
• 34:11
  Like you're a bad person because you like humping.
• 34:14
  No.
• 34:14
  I mean, I get it.
• 34:16
  I question some of his choices.
• 34:19
  Like, you know, just have a little self-respect.
• 34:22
  Like, really?
• 34:22
  That's ew.
• 34:24
  But, I mean, if he's happy and whatever he's hopping on is happy, you know, I don't care.
• 34:30
  It doesn't impact me.
• 34:30
  He's not touching my junk, so I don't care, right?
• 34:34
  That used to be considered a very liberal stance.
• 34:36
  Like, oh, my God, you're not going to judge that guy for liking another guy.
• 34:39
  I don't know.
• 34:40
  They make each other happy, and they're both adults.
• 34:42
  Who freaking cares?
• 34:44
  You know what, Aaron?
• 34:45
  Isn't it crazy how that became something that was akin to politics when in fact it's really
• 34:49
  like our generation, I think.
• 34:50
  You're a Gen X.
• 34:51
  We're tailing a Gen X.
• 34:52
  Yeah.
• 34:53
  When we grew up, that's literally just what our generation thought.
• 34:57
  It's like, who cares?
• 34:58
  And I get so tired of waking up, looking at posts on X or at the news.
• 35:03
  It's a little different now that Trump got elected, but it's still there to where this
• 35:08
  this whole sexual preference slash identification,
• 35:13
  warfare bullshit.
• 35:14
  It's like everybody thinks that people like you and I,
• 35:18
  like today they're considering us MAGA hard,
• 35:20
  right?
• 35:20
  Right.
• 35:21
  You people,
• 35:21
  I must be,
• 35:23
  I must be MAGA because that's our label now.
• 35:25
  Right.
• 35:26
  And they think people like us are waking up every day going,
• 35:28
  fuck that gay guy.
• 35:30
  Who am I going to mess with today?
• 35:32
  Who am I going to go yell at today?
• 35:33
  And in reality is like,
• 35:35
  I,
• 35:35
  people just don't realize that we don't care.
• 35:37
  We just don't care.
• 35:39
  If that's your preference in your life, great.
• 35:41
  If it makes you happy, man, just don't push it on me.
• 35:44
  It's fine.
• 35:45
  You do you.
• 35:47
  But it doesn't mean we can't be friends.
• 35:50
  Yeah, it doesn't mean we can't be friends, except for the problem is you don't want to be my friend because I don't care.
• 35:56
  And you equate me not giving a shit with me somehow judging you and not validating you.
• 36:03
  and I say, I can get a little soapboxy here for a second
• 36:07
  because I was actually just thinking about this the other day.
• 36:10
  Again, because the post I saw on X
• 36:11
  and it was one of those things where I read it
• 36:13
  and I started to type out a reply
• 36:16
  and I realized even though I,
• 36:19
  yes, I'm one of those people I pay for X
• 36:20
  because I believe not even necessarily that I was like,
• 36:24
  yeah, here, I'm going to be a big Elon fanboy.
• 36:26
  I did it because I do believe
• 36:28
  it's a better platform for free speech.
• 36:30
  It's not perfect.
• 36:31
  None of them are.
• 36:32
  there are biases there are still you know algorithms you can definitely create an echo
• 36:36
  chamber if you're not careful oh yeah but i also wanted the extra character limit i got tired of
• 36:43
  having to do like here's my post one of question mark and having to go on and on and on so i was
• 36:49
  like you know what to me it's worth the extra eight dollars to not be able to have to make
• 36:52
  multiple posts to get my point across not that anybody ever clicks the read more when i type
• 36:56
  stuff. I guarantee they don't because nobody cares, but I started to type up a response to
• 37:03
  this post I saw. And it was one of those, like, you know, a week after Trump was inaugurated and
• 37:09
  they're, oh my God, they're going to take all our rights. They took away the other identities
• 37:13
  on our passport form. And I went, you know what? I have a thought that you're not going to like,
• 37:20
  let me start. And I was like, okay, first off, this person is probably going to get 9,000 replies
• 37:25
  applies to this. So the odds of anyone that actually needs to read this, reading it become
• 37:29
  infinitesimal. And also I was like, this is a whole lot to do with my thumbs because I, this is, I,
• 37:37
  I'm still of that mindset. And I think this is more of an, our generation thing where it's like,
• 37:41
  I'm still sitting there going in the back of my mind, I hear a voice going, nothing worth reading
• 37:45
  has ever been written using only your thumbs. And I know that's no longer true, but I mean,
• 37:51
  I spent years talking shit about everybody who texted on a regular basis.
• 37:56
  I'm like, you know what?
• 37:56
  I have a phone in my hand.
• 37:58
  Yeah.
• 37:58
  You want to tell me something?
• 38:00
  Take the three seconds.
• 38:01
  Call me.
• 38:01
  Say, here's what I got to say.
• 38:02
  And then hang the fuck up.
• 38:03
  I don't care.
• 38:04
  We don't have to have a conversation.
• 38:05
  Just tell me.
• 38:06
  I'm not going to sit here.
• 38:07
  And, you know, again, going back to like, you know, when we had just nine buttons on our phone and yet one, one, one, one, one, three, three.
• 38:14
  Yeah.
• 38:14
  I hated that.
• 38:15
  I hated that.
• 38:17
  Yeah.
• 38:18
  Yeah, the precursor to what we have now that's considered text,
• 38:20
  the generations after us have no idea the struggle, to be quite honest.
• 38:25
  They don't understand why we hated texting when it first came out.
• 38:28
  Yeah, there was a legitimate reason.
• 38:31
  My kid brother had a two-way pager.
• 38:34
  And to me, that was the dumbest thing on the planet
• 38:36
  because the only other people who could use that
• 38:38
  were other people with two-way pagers.
• 38:39
  Exactly.
• 38:40
  I'm like, this makes no sense.
• 38:44
  You're thumb talking again.
• 38:46
  Yeah.
• 38:47
  So, so your post, you decided, did you, did you post a response or you just decided it wasn't worth it?
• 38:52
  Because again, it just got way too long winded where I was just like, you know what?
• 38:55
  I don feel like typing this whole thing out but I had a thought and it actually very pertinent to what we talking about here right now Because like you said with our generation we didn care we didn judge anybody for being orientedly different or identifying
• 39:09
  different we didn't care i mean i have a friend who in 1997 was cross-dressing on a regular basis
• 39:17
  good dude gay as the day is long liked wearing dresses i didn't give a shit i'd see him walking
• 39:25
  down the street i didn't oh my god that dude's in a dress i'd be like what's up steve you know
• 39:29
  nothing i don't care yeah who cares it's irrelevant it makes him happy it doesn't hurt anybody he's
• 39:35
  not you know walking around with his junk hanging out he's not embarrassing anybody who cares he's
• 39:40
  he likes a dress i i don't care but and to us that was normal you know that that was and that
• 39:49
  was a lot of progress from like our parents' generation where, and the kids nowadays don't
• 39:55
  get it. Grandma and grandpa were judgy as fuck kids. I hate to tell you that. Yes. But we were
• 40:03
  not so much. It was just like, I don't care. It doesn't impact me. It doesn't directly affect my
• 40:07
  life. It doesn't hit my bottom line. I don't care. And at some point, I mean, cause that is
• 40:14
  realistically, that's acceptance.
• 40:16
  That's not, you know,
• 40:18
  when you're foregoing judgment
• 40:20
  because it doesn't directly impact
• 40:22
  your life, that is pretty much the definition
• 40:24
  of accepting something.
• 40:26
  Acceptance stopped being enough.
• 40:28
  And that's when we started to lose the narrative.
• 40:31
  I think our generation
• 40:32
  didn't care because
• 40:34
  we were kind of the generation where the,
• 40:36
  we didn't, well, let's just be honest, parents
• 40:38
  weren't that involved.
• 40:41
  It was more like,
• 40:42
  we were all we're like hey come back when the sun goes down right and it was it used to lights
• 40:47
  around yeah yeah right it used to be that way and so we had to interact and find others to connect
• 40:54
  with and get to know people so i think that's probably where that attitude came from because
• 40:58
  we actually interacted with each other and and we realized like yeah we're all human we're all
• 41:04
  this we're all similar like we're all people who are just trying to live our best lives okay exactly
• 41:09
  yeah um i'm gonna i'm gonna touch on something about x though uh because the the thing about x
• 41:15
  i've noticed is every all right everybody everybody is a professional um everybody's
• 41:25
  an author an author to figure on every single fucking subject and i read some of these things
• 41:30
  and and i do a lot of research on my show i do i i will do some deep dives and when i when i see a
• 41:36
  post, I'm like, that's not right or exactly right. And the thing I hate about X is like,
• 41:43
  I know I could, like you probably just went through, I know I can respond, but this platform
• 41:48
  is not necessarily the place to be able to respond and get your point across because there's so much
• 41:54
  more to it. Like it involves an actual conversation. And when I've tried to engage people to get into
• 42:01
  a debate or at least have an open conversation, their response is, I'm going to block you and
• 42:05
  run away. Like they don't even want to deal with you. I found out recently when they changed how
• 42:10
  the block feature works, I found out there are several people I've never interacted with ever
• 42:17
  that have blocked me. And, you know, because I go to, you know, follow a link on a post from
• 42:22
  somebody else that made a comment and then it's like, oh, here, let me go check out this person's
• 42:26
  profile and see more about them before I either lay into them really hard, or maybe I'm actually
• 42:30
  interested in their perspective. This account has blocked you. You cannot interact with their posts.
• 42:35
  you can still see their post.
• 42:36
  I'm like,
• 42:36
  fuck me running.
• 42:38
  Okay.
• 42:38
  Yeah.
• 42:39
  What did I have for this person?
• 42:40
  Yeah.
• 42:41
  Or,
• 42:41
  or,
• 42:41
  or I'm not gonna get too big in this
• 42:43
  because honestly,
• 42:44
  there's a lot of communities
• 42:45
  that talk about this BS,
• 42:46
  but,
• 42:46
  or you'll,
• 42:48
  or you'll find out later,
• 42:49
  like it's not outright,
• 42:50
  but you can,
• 42:51
  you can tell when you've been muted
• 42:52
  by larger accounts.
• 42:53
  So like,
• 42:54
  for example,
• 42:55
  I could put a post that maybe
• 42:56
  has a couple of hundred.
• 42:57
  I've done some that have
• 42:58
  a few thousand responses
• 42:59
  and then I could respond to,
• 43:02
  I'll just,
• 43:02
  I don't even give a shit
• 43:03
  what they could do to me.
• 43:04
  Like Gunther Eagle,
• 43:05
  men, for example, when I, when I, when I first responded to him, I would get some decent
• 43:09
  traction.
• 43:09
  And then all of a sudden, I don't know what I said, but now if I'd make a response, I'll
• 43:13
  get like five, five impressions, maybe 20.
• 43:16
  And it's like, it doesn't make sense.
• 43:18
  And basically what I'm trying to get at is a people's instant gratification, need for
• 43:22
  instant gratification and, and affirmation of their thoughts, just, just to look like
• 43:27
  the authority or the hero, I think is a real problem in today's society.
• 43:31
  Nobody wants to be challenged.
• 43:32
  Nobody wants to have the conversations.
• 43:34
  And even when you present the facts and data, they still are in disbelief.
• 43:39
  They're still in disbelief.
• 43:40
  It doesn't fit the pre-drawn conclusion they've come into the conversation with.
• 43:47
  So it must be wrong, or you must be lying, or your information must be false.
• 43:51
  Or you're just a, you know, insert topic of the, like, you're the phobe, you're the ist, you're the it, you're the whatever.
• 43:59
  Yeah.
• 43:59
  Because, I mean, God forbid you come to the table with facts and I agree with you.
• 44:05
  Conversation is a lost art these days.
• 44:07
  We've lost the ability to disagree with people without, I mean, people are so tied up in the, like, these notions of this is who I am.
• 44:16
  This defines who I am.
• 44:17
  This is what I am.
• 44:18
  That anyone that holds a differing opinion or a different thought is seen as an attack as opposed to just somebody that sees things differently.
• 44:25
  and since people view this as an attack on their personhood,
• 44:30
  I feel like they've lost the ability to not even necessarily be objective,
• 44:34
  but to hear dissenting and discerning opinions because, again,
• 44:39
  they're taking it as a personal attack on them.
• 44:42
  Well, you don't agree with me, so you must hate me.
• 44:44
  It's like, and I don't know how we got to this point where it's,
• 44:49
  because to me, that's an utterly ridiculous way of looking at life,
• 44:52
  and that's probably why I'm a lot happier
• 44:55
  than a lot of younger people are.
• 44:57
  I've seen polls like
• 44:58
  people in the 21 to
• 45:01
  27 age bracket are all miserable
• 45:03
  and I'm like, that's because they get
• 45:04
  butthurt by the dumbest shit.
• 45:08
  I agree
• 45:09
  with you.
• 45:10
  You can not like me
• 45:13
  or what I say all you want.
• 45:14
  At the end of the day, since I'm not
• 45:17
  sleeping with you and you don't sign my paychecks,
• 45:19
  it doesn't matter.
• 45:20
  Right.
• 45:23
  And like I said, that's just why I'm happier than most people in their 20s.
• 45:28
  It's not because I'm in my 40s and I've finally managed to amass wealth and happiness because I promise you I haven't.
• 45:35
  The other thing, I picked an industry where it's really hard.
• 45:38
  I mean, you can do okay.
• 45:39
  You can be comfortable, but it's really hard to get to that point where you're like, yeah, I'm good now.
• 45:44
  And it's hard work unless you become one of these rock star chefs who happen to break out and get all the glory.
• 45:51
  I've met a few of those guys.
• 45:54
  Oh, I have some stories.
• 45:57
  Oh, really?
• 45:58
  Well, I mean, a couple of them I could probably get sued if I brought them up.
• 46:05
  Of course.
• 46:06
  You work with them?
• 46:07
  You guys sign NDAs and all that?
• 46:09
  Oh, yeah.
• 46:10
  Well, I've actually, most of the name chefs I've met have actually been pretty cool guys when you get them outside of that public persona.
• 46:22
  That's good.
• 46:23
  I've run into, I've interacted with some of these guys just through big events, things like that.
• 46:29
  It's never been like, hey, I'm Aaron and you're here to work with me and it's going to be cool.
• 46:33
  It's more like, oh, no, you're here as this celebrity face, and I'm just a grunt, but how you treat me is going to tell me all I need to know about what kind of a person you are.
• 46:43
  Absolutely, man.
• 46:44
  I've always appreciated any famous person who never forgot their roots, and they can connect with you.
• 46:50
  Oh, yeah.
• 46:50
  Okay, so I got a couple stories done, because I'll name these people.
• 46:56
  So I remember when I did, so we provided production for The Misfits one year.
• 47:02
  and Jerry only.
• 47:05
  And I remember that guy's,
• 47:07
  that base stack was ridiculous.
• 47:08
  I didn't have to put it in the PA.
• 47:10
  I'm not going to lie.
• 47:11
  And so fast forward,
• 47:13
  this is what happened.
• 47:14
  So this was like,
• 47:16
  I'm going to say maybe a year and a half.
• 47:18
  I meet this guy.
• 47:19
  I'm just a production guy.
• 47:19
  Like they see these,
• 47:20
  they see me all the time.
• 47:22
  Guys like me, right?
• 47:23
  Here today, gone tomorrow, whatever,
• 47:24
  move on to the next show.
• 47:26
  And so I'm working with him.
• 47:27
  And somehow I do not know how,
• 47:30
  but he remembered me.
• 47:30
  so I go to you ever heard of NAMM yeah okay so NAMM over in Anaheim's like the the big musical
• 47:38
  instrument conference show all the manufacturers so I go there and I'm walking and I got my passes
• 47:45
  and my dad's with me he's a musician so he was he was with me and we're walking and checking stuff
• 47:49
  out and all of a sudden I just hear someone yelling my name I'm like who the hell knows I'm
• 47:52
  here I'm looking around and it's Jerry only he was at a booth um and he saw me and he's like hey
• 47:58
  I'm like
• 47:59
  how does this guy even fucking remember me
• 48:02
  and then I go over and he goes come here
• 48:04
  he kept waving over I'm like hey how
• 48:06
  you doing man he goes
• 48:07
  Modesto because I live in Modesto California
• 48:10
  I go yeah and he go how do you
• 48:12
  remember that he goes get over here and he
• 48:14
  kicks these guys out that he was talking to and he puts
• 48:16
  his arm around him he takes this picture I'm like holy shit
• 48:18
  that was really cool man
• 48:20
  and there's some guys who are like that
• 48:21
  another guy was like that was
• 48:23
  Ronnie James Dio same thing
• 48:25
  I've actually heard that before
• 48:27
  that he was a really cool guy.
• 48:29
  One interaction,
• 48:30
  vague interaction,
• 48:31
  by the way,
• 48:31
  not like I got close
• 48:32
  and personal with the guy,
• 48:34
  but somehow remembered my face
• 48:35
  and was kind of like
• 48:36
  the same way.
• 48:38
  And there was a few other
• 48:39
  guys like that.
• 48:40
  So that totally changed
• 48:41
  my perception
• 48:42
  of some of these guys.
• 48:43
  But there are the ones
• 48:44
  that are complete assholes, man.
• 48:45
  And they just,
• 48:47
  they let the fame
• 48:48
  get to their head.
• 48:50
  But it's good to hear
• 48:51
  that you had that experience
• 48:52
  with some of these chefs
• 48:53
  to where they're like offline.
• 48:54
  They're like,
• 48:54
  yeah, you know,
• 48:55
  I get it.
• 48:56
  You know,
• 48:56
  they were just,
• 48:57
  regular people it's like uh in chicago every year they got the national restaurant show um
• 49:03
  national restaurant association has this big show fills up the convention center it's like four days
• 49:09
  and it's i haven't been to it in several years just because i whether it was like i couldn't get
• 49:16
  the time off work or just like the passes kept getting more and more expensive and i was like
• 49:20
  if work's not going to pay for this i'm not freaking going because it's it's an industry show
• 49:24
  it's you know new products new companies existing products existing companies food vendors to bring
• 49:30
  out you know new product like now but for for your industry and um it and so it's and it's a big thing
• 49:37
  and like back in the early to mid 2000s it was an entirely different creature it started changing
• 49:42
  just because the society shifts and stuff like that but like in when i was in culinary school
• 49:47
  and a young man i i it was like every single booth had some sort of liquor at it i mean it
• 49:54
  was really leaning into that side of the service industry it was i mean there were there there were
• 49:58
  lectures there were there were conferences there were breakout sessions teaching sessions there
• 50:03
  competitions ice ice carving competitions stuff like that the uh ice carving team from my culinary
• 50:10
  school was there competing one year and i and uh like my school had a booth there um and i i worked
• 50:17
  the booth one year just so i could go to the show for free and then i hung out of the booth for like
• 50:22
  45 minutes and then I spent like three hours walking around the show doing shots at every
• 50:25
  booth.
• 50:26
  So, and yeah, good times, you know, and, and, and I had a driver that day because one of
• 50:32
  the, one of the, one of the instructors drove the bus from the school to the, to the, to
• 50:36
  the conference center.
• 50:37
  So, so we, you know, I was like, yeah, I don't have to be, I don't have to behave.
• 50:42
  I'm as long as I'm not falling down, I'm straight.
• 50:44
  And, uh, right.
• 50:47
  And, you know, it was a good time.
• 50:48
  Like there'd be, you know, like pan manufacturers, knife manufacturers.
• 50:51
  I got a $900 set of chef's knives for like 175 bucks because I went on the last day of the convention and just offered the guy money for the display.
• 51:03
  I'm like, look, I know what you're doing.
• 51:05
  You're going to sell all this shit so you don't have to pack it up.
• 51:07
  Yes.
• 51:08
  That's exactly what happens at these trade shows.
• 51:10
  Yeah.
• 51:11
  So I love the trade shows because I would always go on the last day of the show and just clean house.
• 51:17
  I would leave with the bed of my pickup truck full of shit.
• 51:22
  And I'd be out maybe a couple hundred bucks.
• 51:25
  But I'd be walking out with display pieces of kitchen gadgets and cases of sample products and packages of individually packed fruit snacks.
• 51:38
  It's a new flavor of fruit snack we're going to be bringing to market.
• 51:40
  I've got 600 of these in the back of my truck on the last day of the show.
• 51:44
  so some poor bastard didn't have to load
• 51:46
  him up did you ever see any
• 51:48
  celebrity personalities
• 51:50
  go to some of these vendors and just kind of
• 51:52
  like get stuff for free
• 51:54
  just by throwing their name around
• 51:56
  they would show up
• 51:57
  like I'm here endorsing this
• 52:00
  you're on a fucking
• 52:02
  show on the WB why are you
• 52:04
  You're at a food show.
• 52:05
  You know what?
• 52:06
  I don't care.
• 52:06
  How are you doing?
• 52:07
  Nice to meet you.
• 52:09
  And I've done that multiple times because, again, part of it's just me being me.
• 52:16
  But I don't get starstruck very often.
• 52:19
  I've met a couple of people where I'm just like, holy shit, this is awesome.
• 52:22
  You know, for the most part, I'm just like, dude, you take a crap first thing in the morning just like all of us.
• 52:30
  Exactly, man.
• 52:31
  Everybody poops.
• 52:32
  Exactly.
• 52:33
  Yeah, I agree with you.
• 52:34
  So I just, hey, how you doing?
• 52:36
  And honestly, I've probably gotten a lot better reaction out of most of the people I've interacted with that are celebrities because I don't treat them like, I'm not here to kiss your ass.
• 52:47
  Hey, how you doing?
• 52:47
  You're a human being just like me.
• 52:49
  I'm not going to tell you you're special.
• 52:51
  I'm going to treat you equivalent to how you treat me.
• 52:54
  I agree.
• 52:55
  I found that when you just treat people equally like people, I think they appreciate that because, full disclosure, I had a situation.
• 53:04
  sales rep company for many years now in the musical instrument professional AV industry.
• 53:09
  So I was a rep. I had a rep company. And for many years, I had to go to NAMM. I haven't been there
• 53:15
  since 2007, thank God. But I was a PV rep. I was an Orange Amp rep. I mean, I had so many lines
• 53:23
  that we represented. And I remember that I got to know some people, got their cell phone numbers.
• 53:30
  we stayed connected and and they were just down to earth man really cool but i got a funny story
• 53:37
  the reason i asked you about the vendor thing is because i remember it now because you're talking
• 53:42
  about you know hey at the last day of show everybody just they don't want to take their
• 53:45
  shit home right they don't want to pack it up yeah it's for shipping so i went to uh i went to
• 53:50
  this booth uh i don't even know if they're still around they're factory metals they made like these
• 53:53
  they're kind of like symbols more like um sound effect stuff made out of metal that you would hit
• 53:57
  with your stick and i was at the booth and the guy was talking to me and he was gonna give me a
• 54:03
  couple of things for free and i had to buy a few things we just hit it off and then all of a sudden
• 54:08
  this is great i never forgot this carmine carmine apiece or carmen apathy however you say his name
• 54:12
  do you know who he is so he's uh he was a drummer for a blue oyster cult for a while he played with
• 54:17
  osby osborne on that bark at the moon album all that yeah and uh his brother's vinnie apathy who
• 54:22
  play for sabbath and dio and so carmen apiece comes over right next to me and i'm talking to
• 54:29
  the owner of this company and carmen just stands there with his entourage he's like chewing his gum
• 54:34
  and he's looking at these things he's picking it up and he's he's pulling the whole i'm a rockstar
• 54:39
  persona and the owner keeps looking at him and and he looks at his staff behind him like hey uh go
• 54:44
  talk to him and the whole time they're trying to talk to him and give him the pitch he's just he's
• 54:48
  just like tapping it it's all looking around and and then um he started asking them like well you
• 54:55
  know what would uh so how well so what would it take to um for me to get a set of these like
• 55:00
  whatever and they start pitching price to him right and check this out he looks at me he looks
• 55:06
  at the owner he turns he has sunglasses he grabs the he grabs his uh bridge of his glasses pulls
• 55:11
  them down and just looks down at the guy and just stands there and the owner looks at me he looks at
• 55:16
  Carmine Apice and he just goes
• 55:18
  just take what you want
• 55:21
  I was like
• 55:23
  what the fuck
• 55:24
  he just pulled that on that move on
• 55:26
  the owner came
• 55:28
  whatever we have just go ahead take it
• 55:30
  just take it
• 55:31
  I've actually seen stuff kind of like that
• 55:35
  with maybe some of the smaller companies
• 55:37
  at the restaurant shows
• 55:39
  but the thing about the restaurant shows
• 55:40
  you got to figure you're getting like these big
• 55:42
  national producers
• 55:43
  who also have like
• 55:46
  industry lock, you know? I mean, you're not going to the McCain's food booth and impressing them
• 55:54
  into giving you some free shit just because of your name. Because literally 90% of the like
• 56:00
  potato products in the country are coming from this factory. So it's a little harder to get those
• 56:06
  guys, you know, because they already have contracts with their celebrity endorsements.
• 56:10
  They don't, you're not just gonna come and be like, Hey, look how important I am. Give me free
• 56:13
  shit oh i saw it all the time and then it didn't even matter who you were i mean when you're a
• 56:17
  rock star you're a rock star it was it was it was that's also a little different that's more
• 56:21
  practical because you know no no celebrity chef is coming in and walking out with like a 2 000
• 56:27
  pound mixer on a freaking dolly at the show it was there's not a lot of stuff you can conveniently
• 56:32
  you know because that that's where the real money in that stuff is at those shows is
• 56:36
  equipment it's absolutely it's not it i mean all the other products and pitches and all that other
• 56:42
  stuff. And you get a little, you know, like there was, you know, people that make, you know, glow
• 56:46
  in the dark ice filled shot glasses. And, you know, I mean, all, all kinds of random crap,
• 56:50
  but you know, at the end of the day, the ovens, the, I mean, yes, the small wares are nice,
• 56:56
  but it's like, like I said, I got, I got a thousand dollars set of knives for a couple
• 57:01
  hundred bucks and, and it, you know, yeah, maybe they would have given them away to some
• 57:07
  celebrity chef for free.
• 57:09
  But at the end of the day,
• 57:11
  that guy doesn't need it.
• 57:12
  He's got a knife contract
• 57:13
  and he gets all the free shit
• 57:14
  he wants already.
• 57:16
  Yeah.
• 57:17
  Well, it's just crazy.
• 57:18
  I mean, it kind of also,
• 57:20
  it also hits on,
• 57:22
  like I've heard you talk
• 57:23
  about this on your show,
• 57:24
  how society values,
• 57:26
  like how they value
• 57:27
  certain individuals,
• 57:28
  you know, for just.
• 57:30
  Just for existence.
• 57:31
  Yeah, exactly.
• 57:33
  I'm not a fan of that either.
• 57:35
  Isn't that crazy?
• 57:36
  It actually goes to one of those negative influence type situations where I did have a slight run-in with a celebrity chef who, like I said, for the sake of not naming names.
• 57:50
  Yeah, you don't have to.
• 57:52
  Tell us the story, though.
• 57:53
  Well, no, I'm just like, it's one of those things that's like, it makes me sound like I'm being kind of petty because it's like, dude, who the fuck are you to cop this attitude with this guy?
• 58:03
  but the thing is i'm me and i would have copped the same attitude for the circumstances at hand
• 58:10
  with any other person and i'm not gonna i'm not this guy doesn't get a pass for being famous
• 58:15
  and and objectively i don't like to tell the story and say who it was because he might have
• 58:22
  just been having a bad fucking day you know because it wasn't it wasn't like an arrogance
• 58:27
  pompous like do you know who i am kind of situation it was just kind of being a prick
• 58:32
  and under the circumstances um it was we were we were working a a like it was a it was a concert
• 58:40
  slash cookout slash guinness record attempt of breaking a world record for the world's biggest
• 58:47
  barbecue right wow yeah it was at the stadium where the bears play in chicago and like the
• 58:54
  literally the entire infield was all these separate barbecue companies all cooking at the
• 58:59
  same time, all making, you know, different flavors of barbecue. And so there was literally hundreds of
• 59:05
  restaurants there with portable barbecue stations. And I was working at one of the barbecue stations
• 59:09
  and a certain celebrity chef, I was running to go get some stuff from, from another, um, like the
• 59:16
  guy I was coordinating with who owned the place ran out of like buns and he worked something out
• 59:24
  with another guy down like halfway down the freaking stadium and he was like you know i take
• 59:29
  him these four gallons of sauce and he bring back you know five flats of buns from him and so i'm
• 59:35
  i'm running through the freaking stadium with you know four gallons of fucking barbecue sauce which
• 59:40
  is it's not light i mean like a where i was like a five gallon pail of barbecue sauce which is like
• 59:47
  I don't know 50 some pounds so I'm running with this pail and I happen to run into this guy
• 59:54
  and I didn't even actually run into him it was like one of those close calls we're like oh Jesus
• 59:59
  and I'm watch where the fuck you're going man I was like excuse the fuck out of me I'm like
• 1:00:08
  maybe if you weren't walking backwards you wouldn't have run I wouldn't have had to fucking
• 1:00:12
  veer to get away from you well dude you should be watching where you're going you shouldn't be
• 1:00:15
  running through all these people it's a fucking crowd of people and i'm like like look i know who
• 1:00:21
  you are that's not gonna temper my my opinion of this at all maybe you should watch where the
• 1:00:26
  fuck you're walking well whatever dude i don't even need to hear this shit from some punk kid
• 1:00:32
  and i'm like all right you you you take that attitude and you run with it and you know i'm
• 1:00:38
  it's not like i'm gonna be like dude i don't watch your cooking show anyway because you don't
• 1:00:43
  fucking care. Right. You get the same check from the food channel, whether I tune in or not. So.
• 1:00:48
  Hmm. I think I know who you're talking about. I got a good idea. But, um, yeah. So, and that was,
• 1:00:55
  but on the other hand, like I said, I've met some, I've met some chefs that are really cool. Like
• 1:01:00
  I met some names like, you know, like, uh, Paul Prudhomme was like, you know, big, big time,
• 1:01:06
  well-known chef had one of the original cooking shows on TV, you know, uh, just the nicest
• 1:01:12
  this fricking guy you'd ever want to meet. Just real. I mean, I met him a couple of years before
• 1:01:17
  he passed, just down to earth, fantastic guy. And I met him at the food show and he was there and he
• 1:01:23
  was working a booth and signing his cookbooks and stuff. And that's not where I met him. I met him
• 1:01:29
  like he was coming back from the bathroom, going back to his booth. And I just ran into him and he
• 1:01:34
  was in one of those little mobility scooters because he wasn't getting around real good at
• 1:01:37
  the end of his life. And I was just like, oh, hey, chef, I don't want to bother you. I don't
• 1:01:41
  want to keep you just want to say you know i've got all your cookbooks love i watched your show
• 1:01:45
  growing up when i was a kid i you know you're fantastic thank you i love i love what you do
• 1:01:49
  and i want to talk to this guy for like 40 minutes before he went back to his booth
• 1:01:54
  and i was just like what a nice guy very cool but i mean the funny thing is most of my actual
• 1:02:01
  real horror stories are interactions with like celebrities from like not in the industry you know
• 1:02:07
  for every, because meeting guys that are in my industry, we all kind of, with a few exceptions,
• 1:02:15
  we're all cut from the same cloth in a lot of ways. You know, we've all got a certain degree
• 1:02:20
  of respect for anybody that's been in the trenches. You know who my worst interactions
• 1:02:24
  were with was not necessarily celebrities because with a certain celebrity, you kind of expect,
• 1:02:30
  you know, that kind of treatment. So, so, so I've learned to like, eh, whatever.
• 1:02:34
  the worst ones for me were the,
• 1:02:38
  the CEOs of the large corporations.
• 1:02:40
  Cause you know,
• 1:02:41
  when we do the events and they think they're just like the ungodly do
• 1:02:46
  whatever the fuck I want rock stars.
• 1:02:48
  And it's just like,
• 1:02:49
  okay,
• 1:02:49
  when I'm getting,
• 1:02:51
  yeah,
• 1:02:51
  how do I say this?
• 1:02:53
  I'm this isn't who the company is,
• 1:02:55
  but let's just,
• 1:02:55
  I'm just going to say,
• 1:02:56
  let's just say Samsung,
• 1:02:58
  for example,
• 1:02:59
  just because it's a big name.
• 1:03:01
  People know not saying this was what actually happened by the way,
• 1:03:04
  but let's just say,
• 1:03:04
  like CEO for Samsung,
• 1:03:05
  like,
• 1:03:06
  uh,
• 1:03:07
  who the fuck's this,
• 1:03:07
  this guy shit.
• 1:03:08
  He'll try to put a mic on me.
• 1:03:09
  This fucking guy,
• 1:03:10
  he's a piece of shit.
• 1:03:11
  Like,
• 1:03:11
  I don't need to talk to you,
• 1:03:12
  like waves you away and then calls their assistant.
• 1:03:15
  And it wasn't Samsung weather.
• 1:03:16
  I'm just using that name.
• 1:03:17
  So,
• 1:03:17
  so just to give people an idea of like,
• 1:03:20
  okay,
• 1:03:20
  you're dealing with these large corporations.
• 1:03:21
  CEOs think that they're,
• 1:03:23
  you know,
• 1:03:23
  they're gods because everybody bows down before them at the company.
• 1:03:26
  But it's like,
• 1:03:26
  bro,
• 1:03:27
  outside of that,
• 1:03:27
  you're nothing.
• 1:03:29
  I hate to tell you that,
• 1:03:30
  but like,
• 1:03:30
  you're not.
• 1:03:32
  Exactly.
• 1:03:32
  I mean,
• 1:03:32
  you're,
• 1:03:33
  you're,
• 1:03:33
  you're not a world builder.
• 1:03:34
  You're not,
• 1:03:35
  you're not a rock star.
• 1:03:37
  You're,
• 1:03:37
  you're a suit.
• 1:03:39
  But yeah,
• 1:03:39
  I've,
• 1:03:39
  that's been my,
• 1:03:40
  my,
• 1:03:40
  my more negative interactions have been from those types of people.
• 1:03:43
  Then,
• 1:03:44
  you know,
• 1:03:45
  actual musicians.
• 1:03:46
  I worked,
• 1:03:47
  I worked in downtown Chicago as at a private club for several years.
• 1:03:52
  And it was,
• 1:03:53
  it was,
• 1:03:54
  it was two sets of people.
• 1:03:55
  It was old money.
• 1:03:57
  And and like you know like the dailies had memberships there you know I mean everybody knows Richard Daly and Mayor Daly And I mean that even people that are not from the Midwest I find are familiar with that particular name because the but I digress
• 1:04:13
  But then we had, there was, so there were the old money guys.
• 1:04:16
  And then there were like day traders because we were right in the heart of the financial district.
• 1:04:21
  And a lot of our, a lot of our members were stock market guys.
• 1:04:24
  And, and we had two degrees of stock market guys.
• 1:04:27
  We had the guys that had like literal fuck you money.
• 1:04:31
  And then we had the guys that were like coked out and scraping to get by and wanted to feel more important than they were because they were paying, you know, $1,200 a month to belong to this club.
• 1:04:39
  Yeah.
• 1:04:40
  Those guys, like, and none of them were bossed here.
• 1:04:43
  None of them were, you know, oh, I run the trading house.
• 1:04:46
  I own the trading house.
• 1:04:47
  No, they were just floor guys.
• 1:04:50
  Some of the most arrogant pricks I ever had to deal with.
• 1:04:53
  I had one guy, literally the only time he ever came into the dining room at the club was on days where there were member events and everything was free.
• 1:05:02
  So I was, and he would come in and then he would talk shit about the food.
• 1:05:05
  He would make three or four trips through the buffet line or whatever the case was, or order, you know, four or five plates of whatever was on special that day that was the free member item.
• 1:05:14
  And then talk shit the entire time he was stuffing his face.
• 1:05:17
  Oh, the chef here's a piece of shit.
• 1:05:19
  The food here's crap.
• 1:05:20
  I'm like, well, you don't have a problem shoveling down your gullet all fucking day.
• 1:05:23
  Yeah, right.
• 1:05:24
  And at one point, because he was extremely fucking drunk, and one of the other members was also very drunk.
• 1:05:32
  And the other member kept saying, I don't want to drink anymore.
• 1:05:34
  And he kept trying to force drinks on the guy.
• 1:05:37
  And the bartender was kind of like, I don't know what to do.
• 1:05:39
  I don't know what to do.
• 1:05:40
  What do I do about this guy?
• 1:05:41
  And I said, you know what?
• 1:05:43
  I'm the manager on duty right now.
• 1:05:44
  He's fucking cut off.
• 1:05:45
  He's done.
• 1:05:46
  Don't serve him anymore.
• 1:05:47
  And he's like, who do you think you are?
• 1:05:49
  I said, I think I'm the manager on duty.
• 1:05:50
  I think if you really have a problem with it, look up what they call dram shop laws and understand that I am doing my legal duty by refusing you any further service.
• 1:05:59
  You are inebriated beyond the point of being reasonably accountable for your actions.
• 1:06:04
  And subsequently, if you had any problems from this, I could find myself liable if we continue to serve you and we're not going to.
• 1:06:12
  He's like, well, fuck you, you fucking prick.
• 1:06:14
  I don't know who you think you are, but you're fucking done.
• 1:06:16
  You are so done.
• 1:06:17
  I'm going to have your fucking job.
• 1:06:19
  and I sat there
• 1:06:22
  and I'm,
• 1:06:23
  okay,
• 1:06:24
  get it all out.
• 1:06:25
  Yeah.
• 1:06:26
  Come on.
• 1:06:27
  Tell me I'm a worthless
• 1:06:28
  piece of shit.
• 1:06:29
  Tell me how much I suck.
• 1:06:32
  Tell everybody
• 1:06:32
  what a shitty chef I am
• 1:06:34
  and how far things
• 1:06:35
  have gone downhill
• 1:06:36
  since I took over this place.
• 1:06:38
  Go on.
• 1:06:38
  Come on.
• 1:06:39
  And I mean,
• 1:06:41
  the guy hated me
• 1:06:41
  to begin with
• 1:06:42
  for other reasons
• 1:06:44
  because when he tried
• 1:06:45
  acting like he had clout,
• 1:06:46
  I just...
• 1:06:47
  You weren't feeding the fire.
• 1:06:49
  Or he just, yeah.
• 1:06:50
  No, not at all.
• 1:06:51
  Like he would do things like,
• 1:06:52
  occasionally he would wind up on TV
• 1:06:54
  because he would try to get interviews.
• 1:06:57
  Like, oh no, I know financial stuff.
• 1:06:59
  I'm important.
• 1:07:00
  And this is when a lot of stuff was going on
• 1:07:01
  where like trading houses were getting shut down
• 1:07:04
  and people were losing their jobs.
• 1:07:07
  And there were massive layoffs
• 1:07:09
  in several of these trading houses
• 1:07:10
  because there was a big scandal going on.
• 1:07:12
  And he wasn't one of the people that was affected by it,
• 1:07:15
  but he was still trying to,
• 1:07:16
  like he got the local news to come in
• 1:07:18
  And he shows up with like a camera crew and he's like, I need to set up in the dining room.
• 1:07:22
  And I said, did you clear this with anybody?
• 1:07:25
  Well, no, but I told them we're going to set up here because that's the best background.
• 1:07:30
  I said, we open for lunch in 25 minutes.
• 1:07:34
  The staff is resetting the room right now.
• 1:07:36
  You didn't arrange this.
• 1:07:37
  You didn't talk to anybody about it.
• 1:07:39
  You don't have authorization to do it.
• 1:07:40
  So you're going to take that camera crew and I'll put you in one of the small conference rooms.
• 1:07:44
  You're not setting up in the dining room.
• 1:07:46
  well I told them this is where I said I don't
• 1:07:49
  fucking care yeah he can't
• 1:07:51
  interrupt your business like that that's stupid
• 1:07:53
  inconvenience to other members
• 1:07:55
  let's
• 1:07:56
  well look let's let's circle
• 1:07:59
  back a little bit let's
• 1:08:01
  get back into what your show does here
• 1:08:03
  okay and the rant and the
• 1:08:05
  raven and I like it it's great well as
• 1:08:07
  you can see it's it's just kind of natural for
• 1:08:09
  me it's okay
• 1:08:10
  so so
• 1:08:12
  I heard you at one of your more
• 1:08:14
  recent shows when you talked about how you were a democrat now you let you lean more a little more
• 1:08:19
  right even though you and i already established we're not really we're just this is just gen x
• 1:08:23
  it's just who we are like we are yeah yeah exactly so um that that being said how do you feel about
• 1:08:31
  the administration now trump i mean i know i voted for him i did you i think you did i did
• 1:08:38
  vote for him i actually uh are you getting what you what you thought he would he would do like
• 1:08:43
  is he coming through in his promises you think?
• 1:08:45
  I think he's delivering a lot more than,
• 1:08:47
  than he,
• 1:08:48
  than I expected.
• 1:08:50
  He's definitely trying to,
• 1:08:51
  to stick to what he said he was going to do.
• 1:08:54
  I mean,
• 1:08:54
  he's getting fought tooth and nail.
• 1:08:55
  Big contrast from like 2016,
• 1:08:58
  right from his first turn.
• 1:08:59
  Huge contrast.
• 1:09:00
  It was like,
• 1:09:00
  he was trying to figure it out and then he was just led the wrong way.
• 1:09:04
  I was going to say is he's,
• 1:09:05
  he's,
• 1:09:06
  he didn't get where he is in the world by not learning.
• 1:09:10
  And he made a lot of mistakes on that first run through.
• 1:09:13
  and I'm not going to lie.
• 1:09:14
  I talked shit pretty much consistently from 2016.
• 1:09:18
  Well,
• 1:09:18
  actually from 2015 before the election was over,
• 1:09:22
  like from the announcement of like,
• 1:09:24
  these are the candidates.
• 1:09:25
  And,
• 1:09:26
  and I,
• 1:09:27
  and I,
• 1:09:28
  I've never,
• 1:09:29
  ever for a single second,
• 1:09:31
  been a fan of Hillary Clinton.
• 1:09:33
  Nope.
• 1:09:34
  Not at all.
• 1:09:35
  And so there was like literally no way and fuck I was going to be voting for
• 1:09:40
  her.
• 1:09:41
  but at the same time i was looking at donald trump as the guy from the apprentice yeah i think
• 1:09:47
  everybody was out of here yeah i like and when the election was called and they declared him
• 1:09:52
  the winner i put a post on facebook that said i have a lot of thoughts and feelings on the matter
• 1:09:57
  i'm not going to get too deeply into it but we ran an unlikable unelectable candidate and we ran a
• 1:10:02
  guy from reality tv and frankly this country got what it deserved for because neither one of them
• 1:10:07
  was the right pick. And I actually, I still stand by what I said at the time. Now to give the man
• 1:10:14
  his credit, like I said, I think, and I've been watching him in the intervening time since his
• 1:10:19
  presidency. He did a lot of things I didn't agree with. He did some things I did. I didn't agree
• 1:10:24
  with a lot of his cabinet picks. I didn't agree with a lot of the way he handled things. I thought
• 1:10:28
  he surrounded himself with people that were not going to help forward the agenda he ran on.
• 1:10:33
  and it is what it is.
• 1:10:36
  But he learned from his mistakes
• 1:10:38
  and he's been good for that.
• 1:10:40
  People want to talk shit like,
• 1:10:41
  oh, he's filed bankruptcy this many times.
• 1:10:44
  And he said in an interview,
• 1:10:45
  he says, that makes me smart.
• 1:10:46
  I'm using the laws that are on the books
• 1:10:49
  to my benefit.
• 1:10:50
  If you don't do that, you're an idiot.
• 1:10:53
  And that's kind of,
• 1:10:55
  I feel like how the second term is going to go.
• 1:10:58
  I think it's early in the game
• 1:11:00
  to make any calls about it.
• 1:11:01
  He's only been in office for three weeks.
• 1:11:03
  Exactly.
• 1:11:04
  Yeah.
• 1:11:04
  You know, it's too early to say, but I like the indicators.
• 1:11:08
  I voted for him not because of him.
• 1:11:12
  I mean, but more because of the people he brought to him, the people he was bringing to the table appealed to me a lot more than just him by himself.
• 1:11:24
  And I do believe in like an America first stance.
• 1:11:28
  We can't take, I've said it a million times, I think at this point, we can't take care of the rest of the world when we don't handle our own shit first.
• 1:11:36
  And that's from a national standpoint all the way down to individuals.
• 1:11:40
  You can't help someone else if you're busy falling on your own fucking face.
• 1:11:45
  If you don't take care of getting your own house in order first, you can't help anybody else.
• 1:11:49
  I can't understand why people are offended by the sentiment of America first or how MAGA became, like, just what MAGA stands for, like, make America great again, how that became something negative.
• 1:12:02
  Yeah, I don't get it either.
• 1:12:04
  It's like, why is it a bad thing to want to see the country you live in, the country whose well-being is directly impacting your life, be successful?
• 1:12:15
  Why is it bad to prioritize us?
• 1:12:18
  us. I think as far as politicians
• 1:12:20
  go, I mean, just
• 1:12:21
  the takedown of what's going on with
• 1:12:24
  USAID in and of itself
• 1:12:26
  probably speaks volumes as to why people are not
• 1:12:28
  liking it. The American First sentiment
• 1:12:30
  is really about them first, right?
• 1:12:33
  Yeah. I mean,
• 1:12:33
  what do you think of that?
• 1:12:35
  What do you think of that?
• 1:12:37
  I think it's people that they shut down USAID.
• 1:12:40
  Now, how are they going to teach Palestinian
• 1:12:42
  goat farmers to use the right pronouns
• 1:12:44
  when they're throwing people off our roofs?
• 1:12:47
  Right.
• 1:12:47
  I mean, they're spending literally millions and millions of dollars on programs for people who don't want them to teach them things they don't give a shit about or to enforce values that they don't align with.
• 1:13:05
  We need this to spread the LGBTQIA message in Tanzania.
• 1:13:10
  So we need to put together a musical with a puppet with AIDS.
• 1:13:15
  What?
• 1:13:15
  I mean, if you look at that, if you're not realizing that that is all just literally just money laundering.
• 1:13:23
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:13:23
  No, it's none of it's above board.
• 1:13:27
  Oh, hell no.
• 1:13:28
  Hell no.
• 1:13:29
  It's crazy.
• 1:13:30
  Well, and the thing that kills me is it's like this is what they chose to launder it as.
• 1:13:36
  I mean, color me crazy, but if I'm going to be laundering money in the tens of millions of dollars, I'm going to at least try and make it sound believable.
• 1:13:49
  This is for tech innovation research on a new form of battery, and we need to explore new mineral rights.
• 1:13:56
  That sounds like something that might cost $10 million.
• 1:13:59
  dollars well 10 million dollars to teach pronouns to people who have a gender oriented language
• 1:14:06
  doesn't make sense and before and before this whole doge report i remember uh a couple years ago
• 1:14:14
  i brought this i'm i'm gonna be off on the number but i believe it was um the administration back
• 1:14:21
  then i was doing some digging way before where we are now that that the government was going to a lot
• 1:14:27
  like 7 million to Pakistan for gender studies.
• 1:14:32
  Yes.
• 1:14:33
  Stuff like that is like,
• 1:14:35
  why?
• 1:14:36
  It makes no sense.
• 1:14:38
  Things like that would come up in the,
• 1:14:40
  well,
• 1:14:40
  I actually,
• 1:14:41
  I stopped digging several years ago because I was infuriating myself to
• 1:14:47
  like the point where my blood pressure was getting messed up.
• 1:14:49
  Well,
• 1:14:50
  it's our tax dollars,
• 1:14:51
  man.
• 1:14:51
  I'm looking at our tax dollars.
• 1:14:52
  And more importantly,
• 1:14:53
  I'm some schmuck from Illinois.
• 1:14:55
  Well,
• 1:14:56
  I mean,
• 1:14:56
  I'm technically,
• 1:14:56
  I'm from Wisconsin, but that's a whole other conversation.
• 1:15:00
  I've lived here for 20 years.
• 1:15:01
  I still don't claim this fucking state.
• 1:15:03
  But ultimately, you know, I'm some schmuck from the Midwest that has a show with tens
• 1:15:08
  of listeners and a bad attitude.
• 1:15:11
  Why am I looking into these things I can't do anything about?
• 1:15:14
  I don't have the, and again, this may be a defeatist attitude.
• 1:15:17
  This might be part of the problem is that I think about things this way, where it's like,
• 1:15:21
  and I was like, and I'm like, why are we studying the effect of cocaine on dolphins?
• 1:15:26
  Right.
• 1:15:27
  For starters, they probably appreciate it.
• 1:15:31
  And second off, no.
• 1:15:37
  No.
• 1:15:38
  I mean, we're giving dolphins blow.
• 1:15:39
  They're already probably smarter than us because when's the last time you saw a dolphin with a checkbook?
• 1:15:44
  I mean, they're intelligent creatures and they don't have bills.
• 1:15:48
  Yeah.
• 1:15:49
  My wife tells me the same stuff sometimes.
• 1:15:52
  She goes well what the point of everything you do I mean what do you sometimes she say what are you doing about it And I like point taken I get it Like what am I individually doing about it There only so much I can do as
• 1:16:06
  an individual. I think the reason I do this and the reason it's important, like people like you
• 1:16:10
  do this, because you never know who is going to receive the message. You know, that's kind of what
• 1:16:16
  I tell myself is somebody might hear this. And there's, and if enough of us are hearing this,
• 1:16:21
  this message.
• 1:16:22
  And,
• 1:16:23
  and I think at some point,
• 1:16:26
  look,
• 1:16:26
  we already seen it with the elections.
• 1:16:27
  It's obvious people were fed up.
• 1:16:29
  They knew that everything that was going on was bullshit and Trump got the
• 1:16:33
  vote.
• 1:16:34
  And it wasn't,
• 1:16:36
  it wasn't,
• 1:16:36
  it wasn't by a small margin,
• 1:16:37
  by the way,
• 1:16:37
  it was,
• 1:16:38
  it was,
• 1:16:38
  it was huge.
• 1:16:39
  The country wanted a shift and they wanted to change.
• 1:16:42
  And a lot of that came from not legacy media,
• 1:16:47
  but independent media,
• 1:16:48
  right?
• 1:16:48
  Like podcasting all of a sudden became even bigger in influencing,
• 1:16:51
  what was going on with the election,
• 1:16:54
  you know, just because
• 1:16:54
  podcasters in general aren't afraid to call it
• 1:16:57
  how it is. Like, they just, they're just
• 1:16:59
  going to say whatever's on their mind, most of them.
• 1:17:01
  I mean, we do have some corporately
• 1:17:03
  controlled podcasters out there, but
• 1:17:05
  for the most part, it's still kind of the Wild West.
• 1:17:08
  And in a lot of ways, that's very true.
• 1:17:09
  Plus, occasionally you get people
• 1:17:11
  like, you know, like me. I'm not
• 1:17:13
  monetized. I mean,
• 1:17:15
  some of the, it's kind of funny, I still
• 1:17:17
  every once in a while get like a little
• 1:17:19
  little notice from Spotify, like you have $11. Thanks. Because for a while I was running and I
• 1:17:26
  was like, okay, you know, but at the same time I was like, this isn't worth it. And it, because I
• 1:17:32
  would like listen to my own episodes just to, which is ironic because I hate doing it. I hate
• 1:17:38
  listening to my own episodes, but I wanted to make sure they were like uploading right. And, you know,
• 1:17:44
  Yeah.
• 1:17:45
  And posting properly.
• 1:17:46
  Because there were a few episodes I had where it was like, yeah, somebody would DM me at like, because I set them up to new episodes post at 7 a.m. Central time.
• 1:17:58
  So I would be like in the gym before I went to work.
• 1:18:03
  And I'd get a DM from somebody like, bro, the entire episode's static.
• 1:18:07
  Oh.
• 1:18:09
  Fuck.
• 1:18:10
  Or, you know, the sound file got corrupted.
• 1:18:13
  Yeah, I've had that happen on Spotify before.
• 1:18:16
  And I just feel like, oh, shit.
• 1:18:18
  Well, I can't fix it until I get home from work tonight.
• 1:18:21
  So, sorry.
• 1:18:23
  Yeah.
• 1:18:24
  So, I was listening to my own episodes.
• 1:18:27
  I just actually started posting them a little earlier so I could listen to them before I left for the gym.
• 1:18:32
  And I started realizing these random ads are just breaking up the flow.
• 1:18:38
  It bothers me.
• 1:18:40
  And the payout's not worth it to me.
• 1:18:42
  So I'm like, eh.
• 1:18:43
  So I just, I just stopped running them, but I did run them for like six months or whatever.
• 1:18:49
  And for, for whatever reason, the old episodes still get plays.
• 1:18:53
  So, I mean, I don't know if it's like new people finding me and going through the back
• 1:18:56
  catalog or just randomly, somebody's randomly picking up episodes.
• 1:18:59
  But so every once in a while I get that little, like your Spotify balance is $8.
• 1:19:06
  You're all thanks.
• 1:19:07
  Thanks a bunch.
• 1:19:08
  That's the thing is like,
• 1:19:09
  I cashed it out the last time it got to be like 45 bucks or something.
• 1:19:13
  And I was like, okay, cash that out.
• 1:19:14
  I'm done running ads.
• 1:19:15
  I don't.
• 1:19:16
  And then like I said, every now and then like, oh, hey, guess what?
• 1:19:19
  You're back up to $7.
• 1:19:20
  Well, I think it's important you bring this up because there's been a shift.
• 1:19:24
  Like people are trusting independent media personalities more,
• 1:19:29
  more and more, whether it's guys like you and me, or, you know,
• 1:19:34
  people who are more established in terms of their popularity,
• 1:19:36
  regardless
• 1:19:38
  I always try to support
• 1:19:41
  the independent community especially in
• 1:19:43
  podcasting because we're the people who give
• 1:19:45
  a shit enough to
• 1:19:46
  dive a little deeper and dig
• 1:19:49
  up the shit that most people
• 1:19:51
  don't because they don't want to kick the hornet's nest
• 1:19:52
  we're just like we got nothing to lose we're not
• 1:19:55
  beholden to anybody we're just going to come out and say it and present
• 1:19:57
  the information
• 1:19:57
  and mainstream media can't
• 1:20:01
  understand why they're losing
• 1:20:03
  the trust of the public because they're not doing
• 1:20:05
  what we're doing.
• 1:20:06
  They're not being actual journalists.
• 1:20:07
  Not that I'm claiming to be one,
• 1:20:08
  by the way.
• 1:20:09
  It's just,
• 1:20:09
  we're not,
• 1:20:10
  we're not,
• 1:20:10
  we're not afraid to like say,
• 1:20:12
  look what I found.
• 1:20:13
  And regardless of what you say,
• 1:20:15
  here's,
• 1:20:16
  here's the data to back it up.
• 1:20:18
  And here's,
• 1:20:18
  here's the,
• 1:20:19
  here's the web links and here's the books.
• 1:20:21
  And if you don't believe me,
• 1:20:22
  go ahead and prove me wrong.
• 1:20:24
  Here's,
• 1:20:24
  here's my sources.
• 1:20:25
  Find something better.
• 1:20:26
  Find something more accurate.
• 1:20:28
  Yeah.
• 1:20:29
  And I,
• 1:20:30
  I,
• 1:20:30
  that's one of those things too.
• 1:20:31
  And again,
• 1:20:32
  you mentioned earlier,
• 1:20:33
  whiskey hell.
• 1:20:33
  Yeah.
• 1:20:34
  And those guys are phenomenal when it comes to running down things, getting their information, getting their facts together.
• 1:20:41
  Fitz and McShane are, like I said, they're good dudes.
• 1:20:44
  Yep.
• 1:20:45
  And they're on their due diligence.
• 1:20:48
  And if they're wrong about something, they will retract it.
• 1:20:52
  They will admit they were wrong, which is another thing that legacy media doesn't do.
• 1:20:57
  True.
• 1:20:58
  They doubled and like there's a gal I went to high school with and I'm not sure if she's still there, but for a while she was an editor at the New York Times.
• 1:21:09
  Doesn't speak to me for multiple reasons, but when I found out what she was doing for a living through a like just a Facebook group, there was like a bunch of us that went to high school together and she made some comments in there.
• 1:21:25
  And I was just like, you know what?
• 1:21:29
  No, I can't.
• 1:21:30
  I can't let this slide and da-da-da.
• 1:21:32
  So I just gave her both barrels and basically called her out and said pretty much exactly what we're saying around.
• 1:21:41
  Now, there's a reason nobody trusts you people anymore.
• 1:21:43
  I'm sorry you wasted your career and your life by going into a dying media.
• 1:21:48
  But I have no sympathy for you because you people are the reason that it's dying.
• 1:21:53
  You stopped being journalists.
• 1:21:54
  you started being shills and that's what you got coming.
• 1:21:57
  Well, absolutely.
• 1:21:58
  Yeah.
• 1:21:58
  But the funny thing was, she goes, so you're still an asshole then.
• 1:22:02
  I was like, yeah.
• 1:22:03
  Yeah.
• 1:22:04
  Yeah, I am.
• 1:22:05
  Yeah.
• 1:22:06
  Yes, I am.
• 1:22:07
  I'm sorry.
• 1:22:08
  Well, no, I'm not.
• 1:22:09
  But I mean, yeah, no, I'm the exact same prick I was back in the 90s.
• 1:22:15
  Well, in the point you're making earlier about, you know, you took the ads out of your show
• 1:22:21
  because you're like, I don't want to interrupt the flow of my conversation and information.
• 1:22:25
  And when you're talking about, hey, I'm doing all of this work.
• 1:22:29
  And guess what?
• 1:22:30
  I got $8 for my efforts.
• 1:22:32
  I don't think people realize that guys like us, like the independents, we're not making
• 1:22:37
  a living off of this.
• 1:22:38
  We're doing this because we want to do it.
• 1:22:39
  And we're trying to present.
• 1:22:41
  I lose money on this every month.
• 1:22:42
  Yeah.
• 1:22:42
  We're trying to present the case of, no, no, this isn't right.
• 1:22:48
  This is why it's not right.
• 1:22:51
  Like we're not just saying this is bullshit and walking away.
• 1:22:53
  We're saying this is bullshit because,
• 1:22:55
  and this is how I came to this conclusion.
• 1:22:58
  So I,
• 1:22:59
  I totally believe that what you're doing,
• 1:23:02
  you know,
• 1:23:03
  like we'll bring up whiskey hell guys like them.
• 1:23:05
  Even,
• 1:23:06
  even a friend curving who has this week explained,
• 1:23:09
  we're,
• 1:23:10
  we're,
• 1:23:10
  we're kind of just doing the deep dive stuff or,
• 1:23:12
  or at least not accepting what's on the surface and just presenting it.
• 1:23:16
  And I think that's why people are trusting independence like us more.
• 1:23:20
  And even those who aren't independent, like even Joe Rogan got very popular because he wasn't afraid to talk.
• 1:23:25
  I think what his strength was wasn't necessarily his stance on things as a person.
• 1:23:29
  It was, I think his strength was, I'll talk to anyone and just have the conversation and see where this goes.
• 1:23:37
  He actually has conversations with people and he will learn and change.
• 1:23:43
  Yeah.
• 1:23:44
  And I've learned a lot by doing this.
• 1:23:46
  I don't know if you feel that way, but being forced to, first off, come into this with opinion and being forced to correct that after you've done your research.
• 1:23:57
  And then while you're doing it, I get to talk to many people like you and other experts.
• 1:24:02
  And it's like, oh, I'm smarter for it.
• 1:24:04
  It's forcing me to learn.
• 1:24:06
  It's forcing me to become a better person in terms of how I take in information and view things.
• 1:24:10
  And so I think it's really, really important that you keep doing what you're doing because, you know, while people just might hear it as a rant, you're also presenting a lot of really important opinions and facts.
• 1:24:22
  And it's kind of like a rapid fire, like, okay, here's the fire hose, open your freaking ears and I'm going to just open the spigot and here you go.
• 1:24:30
  Yeah.
• 1:24:31
  But that's not a bad thing, you know, and I like it.
• 1:24:35
  And I think a lot of people need to come around to just accepting that, look, your way of
• 1:24:41
  life and how you look at things isn't the only way to do it.
• 1:24:43
  And you need to broaden your horizons and take in other viewpoints, opinions, and even
• 1:24:47
  especially those that are backed by data.
• 1:24:50
  And then take that in and then maybe you might find that, hey, I'm looking at this the wrong
• 1:24:54
  way.
• 1:24:55
  I think that might be one of the problems we have with the US at this moment is we got
• 1:25:00
  to get back to that.
• 1:25:00
  We got to get back to being objective and hearing other people out and,
• 1:25:04
  and not just being so like, you know, here's my pom poms.
• 1:25:07
  I got to cheer for my team and no, I don't care what you say. No, I, I,
• 1:25:10
  I like, I like team X regardless. It doesn't matter. And that,
• 1:25:13
  that's just stupid.
• 1:25:14
  Your side's wrong. You guys suck and we're awesome. I mean, no,
• 1:25:19
  that's boring. That's yeah, it is.
• 1:25:22
  That's the other thing too, is I think somewhere as a society,
• 1:25:25
  we lost that we lost the appreciation for like,
• 1:25:30
  development, for growth, for learning a new thing. People got complacent. They're just like,
• 1:25:36
  no, I like this. This is what it is. And this is how it has to stay because this is familiar.
• 1:25:41
  This is comfortable. This is safe. And it can be kind of scary going out there and hearing a
• 1:25:46
  different opinion or learning somebody else's beliefs or somebody else's thoughts. But like I
• 1:25:54
  said, I mean, you kind of need to do it because if you don't, your stagnation is death. I mean,
• 1:25:59
  I keep coming back to that.
• 1:26:00
  Maybe it's just because we're getting older and getting a little morose.
• 1:26:05
  But you got to keep moving or you die.
• 1:26:12
  And that's not just a, I mean, yes, societally, culturally, individually.
• 1:26:19
  But even people, if you look at old people like Congress, when you get past a certain point, you stop moving, you stop acting.
• 1:26:29
  you stop learning, growing, changing, keeping your mental wits about you, keeping your physical
• 1:26:34
  body in motion. I mean, you literally, you start to deteriorate and you'll see that with,
• 1:26:41
  and again, maybe I'm overly focused on these things recently just because of
• 1:26:45
  things that are going on. And, you know, you know, my parents are getting older and,
• 1:26:49
  and I think about these things in terms of them. And it's like, for being older people,
• 1:26:54
  my parents and like my wife's parents are still pretty active, you know, and they're keeping,
• 1:26:59
  busy and keeping, keeping their minds sharp. And cause I mean, I remember when I was a kid and
• 1:27:05
  seeing people and hearing, Oh, like that guy's, you know, 65 and like the guy looks like walking
• 1:27:10
  death. Oh my God. That's changed a bit now, huh? Yeah. My, my parents are, you know, in the late
• 1:27:16
  sixties and, uh, wait, got a math now. Okay. Early seventies. My parents are in their early
• 1:27:23
  seventies and, um, you know, and there's like my mom and my stepdad just got back from a cruise
• 1:27:29
  to Alaska and you know they they went hiking in the freaking wilderness in Alaska and and my my dad
• 1:27:35
  lives in like Bufu northern Wisconsin in like a unabomber shed in the middle of nowhere and like
• 1:27:43
  he just cut down a whole damn tree last week I mean damn but that's now granted but I stand by
• 1:27:50
  the statement that I think my father is probably one of the hardest people I've ever met in my life
• 1:27:53
  I mean he a great dude he a wonderful human being he like actually this kind of like biker hippie guy from the you know like from the sixties or he a for real hippie And but you know he also this big tatted up biker who looks intimidating as hell but
• 1:28:09
  you know, he likes to go out and garden and play with his dog.
• 1:28:12
  And I mean, he's just the most guy until he's not.
• 1:28:17
  And then it's like my brother and I used to joke when we were kids, like, you know,
• 1:28:23
  I don't know, but if he ever has to go in a home, you're doing it.
• 1:28:27
  And I'm like, the fuck I am.
• 1:28:29
  We're paying somebody to put him in a home.
• 1:28:31
  I'm not getting involved in that shit at all.
• 1:28:33
  I'm terrified of that old fart.
• 1:28:36
  Man, everything you said is a great example.
• 1:28:38
  I'm still terrified of him.
• 1:28:40
  Yeah, everything he just said is a great example of what you said earlier about, you know,
• 1:28:45
  stopping and not continue to grow and stopping leads to death because it does.
• 1:28:51
  and it translates literally in the physical aspect.
• 1:28:57
  Like you said, when you stop moving, your body deteriorates.
• 1:28:59
  It's not being used.
• 1:29:00
  Very akin to anybody who has a desk job for a living.
• 1:29:03
  You see them get into their mid-40s and they're already starting to fall apart
• 1:29:07
  because they're not using their body.
• 1:29:11
  It's a very true statement that plays out in the real world,
• 1:29:14
  not just a theoretical statement.
• 1:29:17
  And that's the thing is people don't actually make that equation.
• 1:29:20
  Like even the ones who acknowledge like, okay, I have a desk job, so I have to go to the gym after work or I have to go to the gym before work.
• 1:29:26
  Right.
• 1:29:27
  I have to move.
• 1:29:28
  I have to stay physically active to stay healthy.
• 1:29:31
  You have to do that with your mentality too.
• 1:29:33
  Yes, I agree with you.
• 1:29:34
  People take that for granted.
• 1:29:36
  They're like, they don't, I mean, you know, yeah, we have brain teasers and puzzles and things like that.
• 1:29:43
  But that's not the only aspect of mental exercise.
• 1:29:48
  I mean, like I'm, I'm a, not as much as I used to be, but I'm, I've always been a pretty
• 1:29:53
  voracious reader.
• 1:29:55
  I mean, I, I'll knock out a 600 page book in a couple of days.
• 1:29:59
  That was me.
• 1:30:00
  Yeah, definitely.
• 1:30:02
  I love reading.
• 1:30:02
  Yeah.
• 1:30:03
  I mean, I fall asleep now.
• 1:30:04
  I'm not going to lie.
• 1:30:06
  No, no, I was going to say, that's the problem is I still love reading.
• 1:30:09
  It just takes me a lot longer to do it.
• 1:30:11
  You know, it's like, and part of that might just be the, like the getting old and the physicality of the last, you know, 25 years catching up with me where it's like, yeah, it used to be, I would run on four to five hours of sleep.
• 1:30:27
  Yeah.
• 1:30:28
  Pretty much every day, you know?
• 1:30:29
  And then like, if I got sick, I would crash for like 20 some hours.
• 1:30:34
  And then the first time that happened, actually, it was kind of funny.
• 1:30:37
  Right after my wife and I got married, I got sick for the first time where after we had
• 1:30:42
  been living, because I never used to get sick very frequently.
• 1:30:45
  And the first time I got like legitimately sick was after we got married.
• 1:30:50
  We'd been living together for like two years and I'd never like even really gotten a fever
• 1:30:54
  or anything.
• 1:30:55
  And then I got legitimately sick one day and I was like at work and I was dead on my feet
• 1:31:00
  basically.
• 1:31:01
  And my boss called my wife and was like, you need to come get him.
• 1:31:04
  I'm not letting him drive home.
• 1:31:06
  He's, he's wobbling on his feet.
• 1:31:08
  And my wife's like, he's not drunk or, you know, that's what she goes to.
• 1:31:14
  She's like, he's fine.
• 1:31:14
  He's, he hasn't been drinking or anything.
• 1:31:16
  What's going on?
• 1:31:17
  Is he, it's like, no, I think he's sick.
• 1:31:20
  Like he's, he's very pale and he doesn't look good.
• 1:31:23
  And my wife came and picked me up and, and drove me home.
• 1:31:27
  And I, by the time I got home, I took my temperature.
• 1:31:30
  I had like 103 degree fever and I was just really not doing well.
• 1:31:36
  So I drank a half a gallon of Gatorade and laid down on the couch,
• 1:31:41
  rolled up in a blanket and went to sleep.
• 1:31:43
  I don't remember.
• 1:31:44
  I don't remember any of this, but she told me so.
• 1:31:48
  Like 13 hours later, like the next morning,
• 1:31:52
  she couldn't get me to wake up and she was starting to freak out.
• 1:31:56
  Like I was still breathing.
• 1:31:57
  I was just snoring peacefully in my sleep on the couch.
• 1:32:00
  Hadn't moved all night.
• 1:32:02
  That basically comatose.
• 1:32:04
  And my mom happened to call because it was right before Thanksgiving.
• 1:32:06
  It was like two days before Thanksgiving.
• 1:32:08
  And my mom called that just, you know, Hey, how's it going?
• 1:32:10
  Blah, blah, blah.
• 1:32:11
  And she's like, I'm really kind of worried.
• 1:32:12
  I can't get Aaron to wake up.
• 1:32:13
  And my mom said, did he get sick?
• 1:32:17
  And she goes, well, yeah, he was running a fever yesterday.
• 1:32:19
  And my mom's like, was it around 102.8?
• 1:32:23
  She's like, it was almost 103.
• 1:32:25
  And she's like, how long has he been asleep?
• 1:32:29
  And my wife tells him, well, he went to sleep as soon as he got home from work.
• 1:32:34
  It was like four o'clock.
• 1:32:35
  And I went to check on him at seven and he's still asleep.
• 1:32:38
  And my mom does the math.
• 1:32:40
  And she's like, okay, so that's like 15 hours.
• 1:32:43
  He's going to wake up around noon.
• 1:32:45
  He's going to be really hungry and he's going to be dehydrated.
• 1:32:49
  And she says, if he doesn't wake up by one o'clock, then you can call the hospital and
• 1:32:54
  call an ambulance.
• 1:32:55
  if he doesn't wake up by like one.
• 1:32:57
  And sure as hell, about 11.15,
• 1:32:59
  I popped up off the couch like,
• 1:33:01
  we got any food?
• 1:33:04
  Make breakfast?
• 1:33:05
  And she's just looking at me like,
• 1:33:07
  what the hell's wrong with you?
• 1:33:08
  I'm like, what are you talking about?
• 1:33:09
  I'm fine.
• 1:33:10
  I feel great.
• 1:33:11
  My feet are broke.
• 1:33:12
  I'm good.
• 1:33:14
  I'm hungry and I'm thirsty.
• 1:33:15
  And I like,
• 1:33:17
  we get bottled the five gallon jugs of water here
• 1:33:22
  because the water where we live is shit.
• 1:33:25
  And it's very full of heavy metals and shit.
• 1:33:28
  So I pay for water.
• 1:33:30
  And so I went to the little water cooler thing
• 1:33:32
  and I filled up like a 64 ounce mug that I have.
• 1:33:35
  And I drank two of them right off the bat.
• 1:33:37
  So I literally drank a gallon of water
• 1:33:39
  as soon as I got up.
• 1:33:40
  You just sweat it all out.
• 1:33:41
  Because it was all wrapped up in the blanket.
• 1:33:44
  Yeah.
• 1:33:45
  And my wife's looking at me.
• 1:33:46
  She's like, your mom was right.
• 1:33:48
  I was like, when did you talk to my mom?
• 1:33:51
  And she's like, well, she called this morning
• 1:33:52
  and I told her I couldn't wake you up.
• 1:33:54
  And she said, if it's been less than 20 hours, I shouldn't be freaking out because that's
• 1:34:00
  what you do when you get sick.
• 1:34:02
  And apparently your father does the same thing.
• 1:34:04
  And I'm like, oh yeah, I've only seen dad get sick twice in like my entire life.
• 1:34:08
  But yes, that's what happens.
• 1:34:09
  We go, we go, we go to sleep.
• 1:34:11
  We go into a coma for like a day and then we're fine.
• 1:34:13
  Huh?
• 1:34:14
  And so, yeah, that just totally freaked her out.
• 1:34:18
  That's crazy.
• 1:34:19
  I forgot where I was going.
• 1:34:20
  I forgot the point of that story.
• 1:34:21
  I don't know.
• 1:34:22
  I've got a little sidetracked.
• 1:34:25
  Yeah, I tend to do that.
• 1:34:28
  That's okay.
• 1:34:29
  It's all good, man.
• 1:34:31
  Well, let me see.
• 1:34:32
  Shoot, it's been over an hour and a half.
• 1:34:37
  Yeah, I tend to do that too, by the way.
• 1:34:39
  I should have warned you.
• 1:34:40
  No, no, I'm fine with it.
• 1:34:41
  I'm good.
• 1:34:42
  I was just going to say, I want to keep going, but let's, I think you and I should stay in
• 1:34:47
  touch and probably do this again down the road if you're cool with it.
• 1:34:51
  Oh, definitely, dude.
• 1:34:52
  this has been fun.
• 1:34:52
  This is a,
• 1:34:53
  this is a good talk.
• 1:34:54
  Yeah.
• 1:34:55
  Look,
• 1:34:55
  there's nothing wrong with just being yourself and just riffing.
• 1:34:58
  And,
• 1:34:58
  you know,
• 1:34:59
  I think,
• 1:35:00
  I think this was great.
• 1:35:01
  It was good for,
• 1:35:02
  I think it was good,
• 1:35:03
  good for you.
• 1:35:03
  And I wanted to introduce you to my audience and I like what you do,
• 1:35:06
  man.
• 1:35:06
  I love,
• 1:35:07
  I love your rants.
• 1:35:08
  You never want to come on my show too.
• 1:35:09
  I mean,
• 1:35:09
  I'll do it.
• 1:35:10
  I'm good.
• 1:35:10
  I'm,
• 1:35:11
  I'm,
• 1:35:11
  I'm,
• 1:35:11
  I want to get back.
• 1:35:12
  I did guests for a while and then I could just kind of got away from it
• 1:35:15
  just because I,
• 1:35:15
  every time I tried booking something,
• 1:35:17
  somebody,
• 1:35:17
  you know,
• 1:35:17
  something came up,
• 1:35:22
  I just kind of got out of it for a little while because I was like, you know, I mean, the guest episodes are fun and I like doing them.
• 1:35:28
  My audience, I mean, my listeners listen to the guest episodes too and sometimes they find new stuff.
• 1:35:34
  But on the other hand, I was also, for a while, I got kind of paranoid about it because like, it was like during the big pod fade where, you know, a lot of the COVID podcasters stopped COVIDing or stopped podcasting because all of a sudden they went back to having lives.
• 1:35:48
  and it was like for a while it was like every time i had a guest on the show died like three
• 1:35:54
  weeks later and i'm like people were just overwhelmed with it maybe i'm the problem
• 1:36:00
  these people come and talk to me and then they realize they don't want to do this shit no more
• 1:36:05
  oh man hey uh tell everybody uh where they can find you uh all that information real quick
• 1:36:15
  before we sign off and let's see, I can be found on any and all of these podcast platforms by
• 1:36:21
  putting in, I had to say it and you look for a screaming gorilla with a microphone and
• 1:36:25
  that is the right show. Otherwise you can go to, I had to say it podcast.com. And there is a show
• 1:36:30
  there with, there's a links to, you know, other, other shows I've interacted with the guests,
• 1:36:36
  people that I podcasts, I like things I recommend. It's, I mean, really it's, it, it's just kind of
• 1:36:43
  my own little thing where it's like, it's a landing platform. It's got ways to contact me.
• 1:36:47
  It's got, like I said, but I see it more as like, here's a bunch of other shit you guys should check
• 1:36:52
  out because I think it's cool. And I think you'll think it's cool too. I mean, it really is kind of
• 1:36:56
  my little like, hi friends, look at this stuff. Cause I look at my shiny rocks, you know, it's,
• 1:37:02
  it's, it's things I found that I think are cool and I want to share with other people.
• 1:37:06
  And so that's really what's at the website. I mean, yes, you can find me, but more, more so
• 1:37:11
  you're going to find a bunch of shit.
• 1:37:12
  I think it's really cool.
• 1:37:12
  Other podcasts,
• 1:37:13
  other shows,
• 1:37:14
  you know,
• 1:37:16
  I mean,
• 1:37:16
  there's the links to the usual stuff like the buy me a coffee and the
• 1:37:19
  Patreon and which I I'm,
• 1:37:21
  I'm kind of excited.
• 1:37:22
  I did the math the other day.
• 1:37:23
  If I can get four more Patreon subscribers,
• 1:37:25
  my Patreon will be a break even,
• 1:37:27
  which will be awesome.
• 1:37:28
  Cause I'm like,
• 1:37:30
  you know,
• 1:37:30
  I,
• 1:37:31
  but on the other hand,
• 1:37:32
  I feel bad.
• 1:37:33
  Like I don't want to take money from anybody.
• 1:37:35
  If you want to,
• 1:37:35
  that's great.
• 1:37:36
  Cause like I said,
• 1:37:37
  I'm not,
• 1:37:39
  I'm using the Royal you,
• 1:37:40
  not the specific you.
• 1:37:42
  But...
• 1:37:42
  Oh, no, no.
• 1:37:43
  I was going to say,
• 1:37:44
  I look at it this way.
• 1:37:46
  I think people should hear your show.
• 1:37:48
  I like how you support
• 1:37:50
  other independent podcasts
• 1:37:51
  because when you go to your site,
• 1:37:52
  you do list some independent people
• 1:37:53
  that you recommend,
• 1:37:55
  which is great.
• 1:37:55
  Although I do need to update it
• 1:37:57
  because like I said,
• 1:37:57
  there's a bunch more
• 1:37:58
  of those kiss-to-death people on there.
• 1:38:00
  I need to move from the active section
• 1:38:01
  to the inactive section.
• 1:38:03
  It's just...
• 1:38:04
  It's hard for me to keep up with it
• 1:38:05
  because honestly,
• 1:38:07
  and half the time,
• 1:38:08
  I forget the website exists.
• 1:38:09
  well i mean i'm gonna say it's not that i don't update it it's just it's like
• 1:38:13
  i update like oh here's new stuff i don't go you know what i need to i need to prune some of these
• 1:38:19
  people because that part is like sad and i don't want to think about it i'm like no shiny new rocks
• 1:38:24
  well as as in when you're independent you don't have a staff to do all this so it's like you got
• 1:38:28
  to find time in your day to do all these updates and like you said edits and whatever but oh my
• 1:38:33
  boss keeps getting mad at me when i do this stuff at work so i'm gonna encourage everybody to listen
• 1:38:38
  to you and I'm going to say it. I'm going to say, listen to Aaron's podcast. Listen, I had to say
• 1:38:44
  it. And if you like them by all means, buy him a fucking coffee. Just, just, just give him a little
• 1:38:48
  something for his efforts. So listen, man, thanks. I'm going to have to, I'm not to end it. I think
• 1:38:54
  you and I both need a break after a long day here and appreciate it. And yeah, I'll stay in touch
• 1:38:58
  and I'll go, I'll definitely be on your show. Not a problem, man. Let's, let's, let's connect after
• 1:39:01
  this. Yeah, for sure. We'll set something up. We'll have some more ranty ranty and some fun times.
• 1:39:07
  All right. Thank you, Aaron. Appreciate it, my friend.
• 1:39:10
  Well, as always, thanks for listening. And don't forget to follow, share, subscribe,
• 1:39:16
  and turn on notifications for World of Blaze. Find us on our website at www.worldofblazepodcast.com.
• 1:39:26
  And don't forget to follow me on X at Fonce of Blaze.
• 1:39:37
  you