Episode 49
Conversations, Confessions & Cow Testicles
This is the final episode of season one of onefjef: a compilation of clips, conversations, connection, confessions, and moments that somehow led me from Columbus, Ohio to Mexico City. I still can’t believe I made 49 of these.
Please show some support for the podcast and get access to some extra content by subscribing to the Patreon page: http://www.patreon.com/onefjef
Instagram: @onefjefpod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onefjefpod
TikTok: @onefjefpodcast
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@onefjef
Email: onefjefpod@gmail.com
You can also call the podcast and leave a voicemail at 1-669-241-5882 and I will probably play it on the air.
Thank you for listening, please do it again, 49 times.
Onefjef is produced, edited & hosted by Jef Taylor.
Transcript
Yankee doodle went to down, riding on a pony, like a bird in the
Speaker:sky, and going like a whale, me.
Speaker:Very good, Jeffrey.
Speaker:This is episode 49 of onefjef.
Speaker:49 is a number with strange range.
Speaker:It's the square of 7, which gives it a mystical reputation in
Speaker:numerology, since 7 is often tied to introspection, luck, and spirituality.
Speaker:In the United States, 49 instantly evokes the Gold Rush era 49ers.
Speaker:The thousands of prospectors who rushed to California in 1849, chasing gold and
Speaker:usually finding disappointment instead.
Speaker:In many spiritual traditions, cycles of 49 days are associated with
Speaker:transition, rebirth or mourning, especially in some Buddhist practices.
Speaker:And psychologically, 49 has that peculiar unfinished feeling
Speaker:because it sits one step below 50.
Speaker:Close enough to feel significant, but just off round enough to feel slightly uneasy.
Speaker:Can you believe it?
Speaker:49 episodes of this podcast.
Speaker:If you can believe it, then I will be surprised for both of us.
Speaker:I will be amazed, surprised, and bewildered.
Speaker:All of us listening, because I cannot believe that this is episode 49 of
Speaker:this Here podcast that I began a little less than a year ago today.
Speaker:As I've been editing this compilation episode, which is what
Speaker:you're about to hear, it's been quite the trip down memory lane.
Speaker:The things this podcast has brought into my life are immeasurable.
Speaker:It's, it's really amazing, and I'm not even sure I'd be living in
Speaker:Mexico City right now if it wasn't for this podcast, to be honest.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean the podcast kind of flipped a switch, and um, I started finally,
Speaker:well not finally, but I started living, living in earnest, doing all the things.
Speaker:Not worrying so much, although I do still worry quite a bit about things,
Speaker:but don't we all, don't we all, I appreciate all of you, my listeners, new
Speaker:and old, young and old, Mexican, German, American, Canadian, Icelandic, whatever.
Speaker:I love and appreciate you all.
Speaker:There are quite a few podcasts out there these days, and I can't tell you how
Speaker:meaningful it is to me that you yourself choose out of all those podcasts out
Speaker:there, you choose this one to listen to.
Speaker:So as I said, this episode is just a compilation of clips from the
Speaker:last 48 episodes of this podcast.
Speaker:Some short, some long.
Speaker:Some funny, some poignant, so on and so on.
Speaker:I would love to make a list for you so that if you're a new listener and
Speaker:you're listening to this compilation and you're like, Oh, that sounds
Speaker:like an interesting episode.
Speaker:Which one is that?
Speaker:But I, I, I didn't, I'm not doing that.
Speaker:I'm sorry, but.
Speaker:If you really want to know where a clip came from, and you
Speaker:want to hear that episode, just email me, onefjefpod at gmail.
Speaker:com, or, better yet, call me, 1 669 241 5882.
Speaker:That was a good one.
Speaker:That was a good one.
Speaker:I don't care what you think.
Speaker:Yes, give me a call or email me.
Speaker:I'll tell you exactly what episode everything is from.
Speaker:You can hear it right from the source, as it were.
Speaker:In addition to being episode 49, this is also the last
Speaker:episode of season 1 of onefjef.
Speaker:I did not know at all when I was going to change seasons with podcasts.
Speaker:It seems very arbitrary.
Speaker:Nobody seems to have, there's no rule.
Speaker:For a while, I thought I'll just do season 1 the entire time,
Speaker:but then I moved to Mexico.
Speaker:So, it seems like a perfect time to, you know, roll over the old clock, whatever
Speaker:they say, you know, turn the page of the calendar, whatever, whatever metaphor
Speaker:you want to use, and start season two.
Speaker:And start season two with a new focus, which is going to be, as I've
Speaker:said, about being an expat here.
Speaker:In Mexico City, I'll be talking to expats.
Speaker:I already have talked to some.
Speaker:I'll be talking myself as I always do and I'll be doing other things, you know,
Speaker:maybe some interpretive dance, which you won't be able to see because this
Speaker:is an audio podcast But you never know.
Speaker:Maybe there'll even be some video at some point.
Speaker:It wouldn't that be exciting?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes, it would be exciting.
Speaker:Anyway, I will stop rambling now But wow, it's uh, yeah,
Speaker:it's something else, isn't it?
Speaker:I know this isn't as meaningful for you as it is for me, because I'm the one
Speaker:who's made every single one of these episodes, but I'm kind of impressed
Speaker:with myself, so hopefully you can be impressed with me with me, right?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:As always, thank you for listening.
Speaker:Thank you for being here.
Speaker:Here's my dear friend, Chris Casey and I from the first, well, second episode,
Speaker:but the first real episode of onefjef.
Speaker:So this is the podcast.
Speaker:This is it.
Speaker:This is it right here.
Speaker:This is, this is it.
Speaker:We're doing it.
Speaker:I'm, I'm, I'm doing it.
Speaker:You're doing it.
Speaker:We're, we're, we're, we're on the podcast.
Speaker:I'm, I'm thrilled to be on it.
Speaker:And, um, It really feels like, uh, it's been a long time coming, this podcast.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:I've been thinking about this for years.
Speaker:And, uh, then I learned how to do it at my last job, which will go unnamed.
Speaker:And, uh, thought, hey, I've got this equipment.
Speaker:It's not hard anymore.
Speaker:Here's an easy way to make a million bucks.
Speaker:Am I right?
Speaker:Yeah, it's very easy, famously easy to make a million dollars.
Speaker:Yeah, I think a couple months is all you need.
Speaker:One or two months I think is pretty much the standard I've read.
Speaker:I think the best strategy is to record like two or three episodes,
Speaker:then let six or seven months go by.
Speaker:That's the plan.
Speaker:Then you do an update apologizing for why there's been a gap, and then another
Speaker:year goes by, and then That is my plan.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Did you ever kill anybody?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Had an opportunity to do that.
Speaker:What does that mean?
Speaker:There's only one guy that I know for sure that I drew my M68 red
Speaker:dot sight on and dropped him.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Everything else was kind of Maybe I hit somebody, maybe I didn't.
Speaker:Maybe we hit somebody.
Speaker:And how was, I mean, did that shake you up at all?
Speaker:Or did you just like think that was part of the job?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:We It ended up landing on a crew that was trying to prep an IED site.
Speaker:They were being kind of brazen.
Speaker:They were digging a hole in broad daylight and we just happened to be passing by.
Speaker:And so my lead vehicle reports back to me and says, Hey, I think I've got
Speaker:guys on the side of the road digging.
Speaker:I'm like, okay, well go up, speed up and try to detain him.
Speaker:Car takes off.
Speaker:He takes off after the car, shoots it up with a machine gun.
Speaker:Uh, the two other guys.
Speaker:They see that Humvee, so they run the opposite way, which
Speaker:just happens to be right at me.
Speaker:And so between me and my gunner, we, uh, took the other, those two guys down.
Speaker:War is such a strange thing, if you really break it down, because
Speaker:these are just people thinking they're doing the right thing.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:You're thinking that you're doing the right thing, and
Speaker:it's just I never hated them.
Speaker:I gotta be honest, I was never angry at anybody for trying to kill me.
Speaker:Because nobody, everybody's just doing their quote unquote job,
Speaker:and like, everybody's got, yeah.
Speaker:It's just such an interesting dynamic, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, I mean, it's like you think back to, what, was it World War I, where
Speaker:they The, the Christmas Eve or whatever, when they all got together and hung out
Speaker:soccer matches and Right, right, right.
Speaker:Stuff like that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, which they stopped obviously after that because Right.
Speaker:God forbid, we, they were like, oh, you can't start seeing
Speaker:the enemy as a human being.
Speaker:I mean, I guess that's true in a way.
Speaker:I mean, that would make it harder if you just played soccer with
Speaker:somebody to start mm-hmm . Yeah.
Speaker:I set off with the intention of it being a, um, six month, um, cycle ride.
Speaker:Basically, I'd saved South America as a big trip.
Speaker:Uh, so I looked at, um, I was working offshore at the time and, um, I
Speaker:was looking at it and I thought, well, there's no train routes.
Speaker:It'll all be by buses, which I didn't really fancy.
Speaker:And then I thought about a motorbike, uh, but I've got no real history of
Speaker:riding motorbike or maintaining one.
Speaker:And I thought that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Speaker:So, uh, I basically trialed a fold up bike in Burma for three weeks.
Speaker:I've been flown into Bangkok and bought one.
Speaker:Uh, and, uh, yeah, I was like, this is doable.
Speaker:So then, um, it was just going to be a six month cycle trip, uh, back to Australia.
Speaker:Uh, but by the time I got there, I thought I'd just as well cycle around Australia
Speaker:whilst I've got the, uh, the visa, uh, and then during those two years, uh,
Speaker:I was like, yeah, Japan might be nice.
Speaker:Uh, and then I, Southeast Asia, uh, Northern India.
Speaker:Uh, Kazakhstan.
Speaker:You've done all these, you've biked across all these countries, all these places.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Did you train before you started this whole adventure,
Speaker:or did you just start doing it?
Speaker:Yeah, I, um, I wasn't much of a cyclist, um, uh, and probably even
Speaker:when I'm not cycling around the world, I, cycling's not something I,
Speaker:um, think, oh, I'll get on the bike.
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:Um, so.
Speaker:I just find it the best way to travel.
Speaker:If you truly get into a relationship with a tree, if you tend to the tree, if you
Speaker:sit with a tree, if you meditate with this one tree over and over and over every
Speaker:single day, it truly is such a teacher.
Speaker:It starts, stuff starts happening.
Speaker:Like it starts like giving you gifts, like.
Speaker:Weird fucking shit starts happening.
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:And do you have a tree that you do this with?
Speaker:I do.
Speaker:I have one that's it's so it's the tree that's right outside my bedroom window.
Speaker:So it like protects my bedroom.
Speaker:It's right over my bedroom and I feed it water and I also feed it.
Speaker:So I use my menstrual blood and feed it menstrual blood every month.
Speaker:And, um, so that's a whole thing.
Speaker:So, because the menstrual blood has.
Speaker:Like vitamins and minerals and stuff in it that is good for
Speaker:plants, but then it's also your DNA.
Speaker:And so the plant is like knowing your DNA and is like, you know, um, and then
Speaker:the animals that come to that tree and like the squirrels and the birds and
Speaker:like the life that lives in that tree.
Speaker:And that tree will like, give me little gifts, like a pine cone from that tree
Speaker:fell just like on my front doorstep and it protects my bedroom, you know,
Speaker:and I just hang out and you can have.
Speaker:I mean, you can get as weird as you want to get with it.
Speaker:You can have conversations with it.
Speaker:You can ask it its name.
Speaker:You can like hang out fully with the tree.
Speaker:You can fuck it.
Speaker:You could fuck a tree.
Speaker:I do kiss it.
Speaker:Have you?
Speaker:You've never fucked a tree, though, have you?
Speaker:I've never fucked a tree.
Speaker:Because that'd be great content if you had, this whole I do kiss it.
Speaker:It's a real tree hugger to the next degree.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:I just, I couldn't do it because I don't have any menstrual blood, though.
Speaker:I would have to like check a check off on it or something.
Speaker:I use spit, too.
Speaker:If I don't have anything else to offer, I'll just.
Speaker:Use my spit, I'll spit on the tree.
Speaker:But you do it respectfully, like at the base.
Speaker:You're not spitting on the tree . Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:It's not a disrespectful thing because a tree's language, if
Speaker:you think about it, is water.
Speaker:Mm-hmm . Is soil is nutrients.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so speaking in its language is like, this is what I have to offer you
Speaker:is the water for my, it's like dune.
Speaker:I had a big weight fall on my foot when I was four years old.
Speaker:Huh.
Speaker:And crushed one of my toes.
Speaker:And my mom didn't know what to do, you know, so she just picked me up and she
Speaker:laid her hand on my foot and she prayed for it and it just went back to normal.
Speaker:No kidding.
Speaker:Just immediately.
Speaker:Yeah, the pain went away, the color came back.
Speaker:And do you attribute this to divine power?
Speaker:Intervention of some sort?
Speaker:That's a great question and I've thought about that a ton because as I've had
Speaker:to kind of change the context, reframe it, I really think that What allowed it
Speaker:was what we could call as a poetic term of faith, you know, and the power that
Speaker:belief Can, I don't know how else to say it, like shift reality essentially.
Speaker:No, I get it.
Speaker:I mean there, there's, there's validity to the power of prayer.
Speaker:I don't think it's just prayer though.
Speaker:I think it's just energy being, you know.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:I have some arthritis in my toe.
Speaker:I wonder if your mom could feed you.
Speaker:You know, what's funny is, is She was a pastor in one of the biggest churches
Speaker:here in Columbus for a long time.
Speaker:And now she is a witch.
Speaker:I mean, it's, it's a path.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Again, it's just discovering this relationship with energy
Speaker:or the universe or whatever you
Speaker:What made you move to Vegas?
Speaker:I found my mother murdered in her home.
Speaker:No kidding?
Speaker:Two days after her 61st birthday.
Speaker:Jesus Christ!
Speaker:What do you know?
Speaker:Did they find out why?
Speaker:What were the Yeah, I took her to dinner for her 61st birthday,
Speaker:April 12th, uh, April 22nd, 2012.
Speaker:I found her April 25th, 2012, and covered up with her comforter in the hallway.
Speaker:She was asleep in her bed, in a completely random cold case for eight years.
Speaker:Um, and you know, I don't care where you live in the world, the safest
Speaker:place in the world is supposed to be in your bed in your home.
Speaker:Right, so they say, yeah.
Speaker:And, uh, we, there was no forced injury.
Speaker:We think he got in through a gas bedroom window.
Speaker:At the time of the murder, 22 year old black kid.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Rape, sir. Beats her to death and rapes her again post mortem.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And didn't they steal anything?
Speaker:The money out of her purse.
Speaker:Right, right, right.
Speaker:Little shit, little knick knack thing.
Speaker:God, that's But the, the detective seemed to think it was sexually motivated.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I'm sorry to hear that, man.
Speaker:That's a, that's a nuts story.
Speaker:Unbelievable.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Literally un fucking believable.
Speaker:Yeah, no kidding, dude.
Speaker:Especially when there's no, no You know, thank God for science and DNA.
Speaker:Because they were never gonna get them.
Speaker:There was no phone calls, emails, text messages.
Speaker:They didn't, they were strangers.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And those are always the hardest murders to solve.
Speaker:Sure, but now they solved it.
Speaker:There's a guy in prison?
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Oh good, well that's something anyway.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker:but thank God.
Speaker:You know, he left his DNA, he left his semen and his blood, and that was enough.
Speaker:Dude, but I thought he was going to get away with it, too.
Speaker:Oh, he, he did get away with it for eight years.
Speaker:Thanks, man.
Speaker:Hey, enjoy your, uh, trip, Jef.
Speaker:Yeah, man, thanks so much, man.
Speaker:Good luck to you, my friend.
Speaker:Patricia said she wanted to take me to have these tacos.
Speaker:It's like a taco stand that just focused, I guess, on the head of the animal.
Speaker:Beef.
Speaker:Beef head, the cow head.
Speaker:Um, so yeah, it had all the different parts from the head.
Speaker:I'm not sure if there was a nose or whatever, but, uh Well, nose?
Speaker:I'm not sure.
Speaker:Yeah, I don't think anybody wants the nose.
Speaker:But, yeah, the brain.
Speaker:Yeah, we didn't have any brain, I don't think.
Speaker:And eyes.
Speaker:Oof, yeah, no.
Speaker:Ear.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What's her favorite part of the cow head?
Speaker:Is that favorite part for you?
Speaker:Um, chicks.
Speaker:I am more, I am not like an big, like a very normal person in right,
Speaker:in head Tacos not big on the head.
Speaker:Yes, I am, but not the normal parts, not the very, see, I
Speaker:don't like the brain or eye.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't, I don't wanna do that.
Speaker:Did they chop up the eye or is it just like looking right at
Speaker:you in the taco, in the tortilla?
Speaker:No, because it's not.
Speaker:The I, I is pretty like just the nerve.
Speaker:Oh, okay, so you don't have like a taco with like eyes staring at you.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:No, yeah, that'd be terrifying.
Speaker:You cannot eat that part.
Speaker:Right, but the tongue that you gave me was literally just, uh, a tortilla with just
Speaker:a, just a tongue just sitting right there.
Speaker:No questions about what that was.
Speaker:Yeah, I believe that they cook it, but it was really just, it was shocking because
Speaker:It's because in Mexico City they do it that way, but in other parts they chop it.
Speaker:That would be helpful if they chopped it, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, so you don't realize if any of you are, like, eating, like, eye tacos.
Speaker:Yeah, that would have been helpful for me.
Speaker:I think in the other one that was mixed, you have a little bit of
Speaker:everything, but you didn't realize what, which part you was eating.
Speaker:Yeah, I took a bite of the tongue and yeah, not my favorite
Speaker:thing, but I appreciate that.
Speaker:I think it were not the best Not the best tongue?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:You can try again.
Speaker:No, no.
Speaker:Um, well, I don't know that I And even if you find machitos,
Speaker:it will be Yeah, what's machitos?
Speaker:The balls of the cow.
Speaker:Oh, I don't want to, no.
Speaker:Absolutely not.
Speaker:I'm not eating testicles.
Speaker:Have you eaten those?
Speaker:No, but what do you prefer?
Speaker:To eat that, or to eat Hmm Crickets.
Speaker:I'd absolutely eat cricket over testicles.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:For real.
Speaker:I would eat a frog over testicles.
Speaker:It would take a lot, a snake.
Speaker:I would eat that over testicles.
Speaker:Uh, yeah, probably that as well.
Speaker:Over testicles?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't want to eat cow balls.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I mean, you would eat testicles?
Speaker:Yes, for sure.
Speaker:With all the options that I said before.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:You'd go with the testicles.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Well, I'd like to know how they are.
Speaker:But I prefer that, the, um, like the chicken legs that we saw.
Speaker:Like the chicken feet.
Speaker:I don't know, maybe.
Speaker:With the nails.
Speaker:Well, I don't think you eat the nails.
Speaker:Yes, I don't know how they do it, but yeah, they take the nails off and
Speaker:sometimes they do it with salsa picante.
Speaker:I would hope so.
Speaker:And with lemon and salt.
Speaker:Yeah, you gotta add.
Speaker:Like the mango, but with chicken feet.
Speaker:Yeah, I think you prefer?
Speaker:Yeah, chicken feet, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean you'd really have to spice the balls up a lot and
Speaker:make them look as little if they didn't look like testicles at all.
Speaker:You never have tried it.
Speaker:Either have you, either have you.
Speaker:But is it texture, the texture is different.
Speaker:It's the knowledge of what I'm eating that's the problem.
Speaker:But if we're talking about a penis that would be a whole different game.
Speaker:So every time that you are eating chicken you are imagining the chicken.
Speaker:What do you mean, imagine?
Speaker:So, yeah, it's like, sometimes it's more about the texture than the taste, rather
Speaker:than, yes, what it specifically is.
Speaker:Okay, how about you?
Speaker:Would you eat a duck vagina?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:See?
Speaker:Because I don't love duck.
Speaker:Okay, how about a cow vagina?
Speaker:Isn't, they don't have, they know that you eat a vagina.
Speaker:But if they, some, some places do.
Speaker:They eat duck vaginas in China.
Speaker:Tell me.
Speaker:They sell duck vaginas in Chinatown.
Speaker:They absolutely do.
Speaker:Show me.
Speaker:I mean, I can't do it right now, but next time I come, I'll bring some duck vaginas.
Speaker:I think they might take them in customs, but Okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I went to the penis museum, and blue whales, I think it
Speaker:is, have enormous penises.
Speaker:Enormous.
Speaker:Intimidating.
Speaker:They also have a, like a cast, you know, like a clay cast or
Speaker:whatever, of Jimi Hendrix's penis.
Speaker:And yeah, yeah, that's um, also intimidating, but not even close
Speaker:to the whale, because that, whew!
Speaker:You'd have to wear special pants.
Speaker:Is what I'm saying.
Speaker:Another one's in love with the Empire State Building and she goes to New York,
Speaker:goes to the Empire State Building and she puts her body up against it and
Speaker:starts like humping it and a cop comes up and is like, I'm sorry, ma'am, you
Speaker:can't, you can't, you can't do that.
Speaker:What do you mean?
Speaker:You don't.
Speaker:Stop people from humping walls in New York City.
Speaker:I thought they'd do shit like that.
Speaker:All what?
Speaker:I mean, this happens, this is what happens in the movie.
Speaker:I'm, I'm the documentary.
Speaker:Oh, I, so I'm just telling you right, what the reality was.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's bullshit.
Speaker:They should have let her finish.
Speaker:Uh, I don't know what the law is about that particularly, but you pumping walls.
Speaker:In New York City, like, you know, crackheads be humping walls.
Speaker:Let them finish.
Speaker:Yeah, I could kind of see it, but I could also see, like, the cops who
Speaker:are working by one of the biggest tourist attractions in the entire city.
Speaker:Yeah, you're scaring the kids, man.
Speaker:Don't want a woman humping the building.
Speaker:Stop fucking the building.
Speaker:Please don't, please don't fuck the building.
Speaker:We'd have to write it down, but There's something very, like, not romantic,
Speaker:but, like, kind of epic about falling in love with, like, an iconic Like
Speaker:building or structure like a Ferris wheel or an Empire State Building.
Speaker:Like, that makes me want to write a movie about something like that.
Speaker:Yeah, but there's love of the thing and then there's like wanting to fuck it.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, totally.
Speaker:And that's, I, I think that the, uh, the Chrysler building
Speaker:is a very attractive building.
Speaker:I think it's a great building, but the, the distance from
Speaker:here to me wanting to fuck it.
Speaker:It's, it's quite a hike.
Speaker:I really enjoyed working in hospitals and hanging out with doctors because
Speaker:they seem to be uninhibited sexually.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:And we talked about, like, why are you so uninhibited compared
Speaker:to the normal Spanish person?
Speaker:And generally their take was when you're around death, you lose sexual inhibition
Speaker:because there's something about Sex that's very, it's about life, right?
Speaker:Eros is life force, and so when you're around death, there's an
Speaker:impulse to Cultivate the life for us.
Speaker:How did you find out that these doctors were like sexually, um, like open?
Speaker:By having sex with them.
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:Fair enough.
Speaker:At least some of them.
Speaker:When you're our age, your culture was way cooler than when we are our age.
Speaker:How's, how's that?
Speaker:Like the social media, like.
Speaker:Basically, social media is like, how, how quickly can we spread dumb ideas?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so, like, the dumbest ideas become like, oh my god, this is
Speaker:the most funny thing in the world.
Speaker:I feel like social media is kind of killing our culture, because it then
Speaker:gets passed down to a lot of younger kids, and there's not like a, do
Speaker:you know, you know brain rot, right?
Speaker:We don't have to spend very much time talking about it, but it's just
Speaker:like, that's the kind of like, how quickly can dumb ideas spread, and
Speaker:somehow people think it's funny, even though it's not funny at all.
Speaker:What is unk status?
Speaker:When you're like Older than someone like I go to ballet with these girls
Speaker:that are going into freshman year They're like, wait, how old are you?
Speaker:And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna be a junior.
Speaker:They're like, wow, you've like reached on status I was like on status.
Speaker:I thought you had to be like 20 to be like, you know what the rules
Speaker:of the terminology were No, I mean Teen Gen Z slang is so stupid.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What do you got?
Speaker:Give me some of this Have you heard of the Italian brain rot?
Speaker:I've heard of brain rot, but not the Italian version.
Speaker:Okay, there's like, there's that, do you know, like six, seven?
Speaker:What does it mean, the Italian brain rot?
Speaker:Well, there's a lot of Italian brain rot.
Speaker:Don't want to play one on the mic.
Speaker:Oh, is it just a type of video?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, play it on the mic.
Speaker:Here we go.
Speaker:This is gonna be really good.
Speaker:All right, I mean, I'm excited for sure.
Speaker:Is there a French brain rod or just just Italian?
Speaker:No, it's just Italian.
Speaker:All right,
Speaker:cap.
Speaker:I have no idea what's going on there.
Speaker:I despise, I hate playing my saxophone alone.
Speaker:Like in front of people.
Speaker:It's my worst.
Speaker:It's genuinely my worst fear.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Um, but like You know taking a test in math.
Speaker:I don't care.
Speaker:Why do you think the saxophone thing is such a big fear?
Speaker:I don't know cuz like I are you good at it?
Speaker:I'm fine.
Speaker:It's like moderate, you know but I don't know it is just my
Speaker:worst fear and I remember my My middle school band director.
Speaker:I was sitting down.
Speaker:I was doing this test And I was like, but he would make us play
Speaker:in front of the whole class.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Like the whole class.
Speaker:It was like 50 kids.
Speaker:Yeah And I broke down in tears playing like I was sobbing.
Speaker:I was crying.
Speaker:It was not good.
Speaker:Yeah, I somehow finished the test I'm not really sure how my friends were like
Speaker:comforting me, but like the whole class is comforting me, which is nice But also bad.
Speaker:Yeah, anyway, so he he's like Mia stay after class.
Speaker:I need to talk to you So I'm like, okay, this is just getting worse.
Speaker:Yeah, and he comes up to me.
Speaker:He's like, hey, you know, I got nervous When I was a kid, you know,
Speaker:playing too, so like, don't worry, but I wouldn't get as worried as you.
Speaker:And then he kind of just sent me off to class.
Speaker:I was like great speech.
Speaker:What'd you say?
Speaker:Thanks for the pep talk.
Speaker:Yes Okay Slowly we developed the philosophy that like quantity begets
Speaker:quality where if we said no to an idea then it would stifle us and then we
Speaker:We wouldn't know where to go next.
Speaker:And so the answer was say yes to every idea in front of us Write the song
Speaker:about whatever whoever just shouts out a random topic like pickle sandwich,
Speaker:you know Tom was eating was cutting up pickles and putting them in bread and I
Speaker:was like one of us said like We should do a song called pickle sandwich and
Speaker:then as soon as he was done eating it We recorded it, you know, and what what
Speaker:we find was like As soon as we're done pickle sandwich we got through that one
Speaker:and then a new idea is going to present itself and if we're doing 35 songs in a
Speaker:weekend there's going to be some far out wacky weird stuff that people don't like
Speaker:but A few times throughout the weekend, we just accidentally would write, like,
Speaker:what we considered to be, like, really good, interesting, compelling, uh, works.
Speaker:And, you know, we loved all of it, but we're also aware of the fact
Speaker:that, like, people might only like a few of them, but still, it was not
Speaker:a waste of a weekend by any means.
Speaker:Did you know that the poop stuff was gonna blow up like it did?
Speaker:I mean, I, I highly suspected it would, I didn't, I didn't have, like, another
Speaker:thing people say is like, what kind of like market research do you do?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like, I don't even know how to do market research, like, my market
Speaker:research is, uh, oh, wouldn't it be funny if I did X, Y, or Z, and then,
Speaker:then I do it, and sometimes, uh, it goes over well, sometimes it doesn't.
Speaker:Me and my friends had a WhatsApp.
Speaker:And we were, plug your ears, listeners, we were sending our farts to each other.
Speaker:Alex, there's nothing embarrassing about this at all.
Speaker:This is, uh, one of, one of the funniest things that I've ever, I
Speaker:still think about how, how genius this whole thing was, but keep it going.
Speaker:I was, uh, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we, uh, like, yeah, we're recording and sending our farts around.
Speaker:We're doing it for quite a while.
Speaker:And, uh, how long were you doing it before?
Speaker:How long, how long did this go for?
Speaker:Uh, we ultimately did it for an entire calendar year.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:How many, so you got what?
Speaker:365. Farts are every day.
Speaker:Well, it wasn't every day.
Speaker:Sometimes there would be a cluster and then maybe we could go by and
Speaker:it would be sort of sad and silent and things would perk up again.
Speaker:Who started it?
Speaker:Was it you or the other person?
Speaker:The actual, you know, the initial fart.
Speaker:That's a great question.
Speaker:I'd have to go back and look.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:That's, that's, that's one for the, uh.
Speaker:And you don't remember.
Speaker:That's interesting.
Speaker:I would be proud if I was the one who was, I would know.
Speaker:I'd be like, yeah, I was the one who did the first.
Speaker:Well, you know, yeah.
Speaker:Fart humor has been a part of my life, uh, you know.
Speaker:Forever.
Speaker:So, oh, never goes away.
Speaker:When did it?
Speaker:Never goes away.
Speaker:So anyway, we had this, this collection and we were, um, uh, the pandemic hit.
Speaker:We were all sitting around fucking, and right around the time, the pandemic,
Speaker:it was like the perfect storm.
Speaker:If you know, we all remember NFTs and Crypto.
Speaker:It's because everybody was in front of their computer all day long.
Speaker:And so something as stupid as NFTs, it was like the perfect.
Speaker:Yeah, um, the circumstances for them to take off, it was my idea.
Speaker:I'm going to go, if the other guys who helped out are listening, I'm sorry.
Speaker:I was my idea to turn it into an NFT.
Speaker:We, the original thought was like, just as just a send up.
Speaker:And so we ended up making, using OpenSea, which is sort of like the
Speaker:eBay of NFTs, you know, we made, we made these, I found like a web 1.
Speaker:0 gift generator and made a bunch of really ugly, stupid looking gifts
Speaker:that just said the word fart and then a random number that I picked.
Speaker:Like.
Speaker:Part number 2041.
Speaker:How many were there, do you know how many farts there were?
Speaker:In total, I don't, but we don't, we didn't, we sold a random amount, so
Speaker:we're also trying to sort of like Make fun of the scarcity, the artificial
Speaker:scarcity that was a big part of NFTs, 10 or 1 of 20 unique, blah blah blah.
Speaker:So we had these sort of random, exclusive seeming numbers, um, and made a website.
Speaker:And then what we did is we posted to Reddit that like,
Speaker:hey, like I'm selling farts.
Speaker:And then we bought upvotes.
Speaker:So it put it to the front of the NFT subreddit, and then somebody bought one.
Speaker:Somebody bought a fucking NFT.
Speaker:We were like, I can't believe it happened.
Speaker:How much did they buy it for?
Speaker:Uh, at the time, it was around 85.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Of Ethereum.
Speaker:So it wasn't, um, cash.
Speaker:It was crypto.
Speaker:It was real crypto in my wallet.
Speaker:And, uh, and then we activated our network, so to speak.
Speaker:And I had a friend who had a friend who had a friend who's
Speaker:an editor at the New York Post.
Speaker:And this is exactly the kind of shit they were looking for.
Speaker:I think the reason it took off was because everybody hated this
Speaker:NFT thing but couldn't quite put their finger on why, couldn't quite
Speaker:articulate why, you know what I mean?
Speaker:And it was just like, all right, this, this is it.
Speaker:So like, and especially conservative media, because it feels like sort
Speaker:of an elitist sort of endeavor, this like art elite crossover.
Speaker:And I think the New York Post and the Fox News is of the world,
Speaker:like, just fucking love it.
Speaker:So they.
Speaker:They ran with it, and uh, and it went crazy.
Speaker:It was the most viral I've ever gone.
Speaker:We were getting hit up, you know, I was on Kiss FM in Canada, I was
Speaker:on Irish Radio, Tim Heidecker.
Speaker:Now, as you know, people will buy anything.
Speaker:The latest craze for so called non fungible tokens involves people
Speaker:paying huge amounts of money for what are basically fancy gifts.
Speaker:So Alex Ramirez Malice has taken this idea one stage further by selling a
Speaker:year's worth of audio recordings of farts.
Speaker:Alex joins us now on Newstalk.
Speaker:Good afternoon, Alex.
Speaker:Good afternoon, thanks for having me.
Speaker:Uh, no, so, uh, just so people know, are these just your own farts, Alex, or or or
Speaker:a group of farts from different people?
Speaker:That's a great question.
Speaker:So it's a collection of a year's worth of farts that were compiled
Speaker:by five different artists.
Speaker:For those of you who aren't aware, the contest was the first
Speaker:person to actually just email the podcast at onefjefpod at gmail.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:You'd be surprised how long it took, but Um, can you just walk us through
Speaker:the process there from like maybe you heard it a couple times on the podcast
Speaker:and then From there to the decision and then of the actual writing the
Speaker:email or in this case you recorded an audio message Which will play as well.
Speaker:Yeah, um, thanks for asking.
Speaker:Uh, you know
Speaker:destiny comes knocking once and Maybe you're a little distracted, hungry, tired,
Speaker:or just preoccupied with something else, and then destiny comes knocking again.
Speaker:And you might be on the subway or engaged in some other activity, or
Speaker:maybe it doesn't occur to you, but then destiny comes knocking a third time.
Speaker:And, uh, it was in that third time that you mentioned the contest that I, um, I
Speaker:remember I was walking down the street, uh, I had just purchased a 6 coffee,
Speaker:and, um, I thought, you know what?
Speaker:I need a prize.
Speaker:And so I, yeah, I recorded a message, I sent it in, and, uh, Yeah, the
Speaker:rest is, I mean, the rest is, you know, you know, the rest, you know,
Speaker:I started like doing this thing with my friends in California for their
Speaker:birthdays where I would, uh, write them.
Speaker:First I was just writing like little poems and then they turned, they got longer
Speaker:and longer and then they became more like they've morphed into these recordings
Speaker:that I'll make that are sometimes songs.
Speaker:Sometimes they're like mostly raps, like really ridiculous.
Speaker:Uh, lengthy of sort of avant garde raps, you know, and they've become really
Speaker:enjoyable for me to make, but also it's strange how, just to sort of clock what
Speaker:I expect as far as, as far as a response.
Speaker:And also what I get as far as a response, like if I'll send it, like
Speaker:I'll notice like, oh, these two guys, they didn't, they didn't like laugh,
Speaker:respond, they didn't hit the ha ha emoji back or like, oh, they didn't,
Speaker:they didn't comment or anything.
Speaker:Like one guy I am, or the biggest one was my manager for his 50th birthday.
Speaker:I was like, I had just kind of started to do this and I was
Speaker:like, do I do this for him?
Speaker:He's not really like an old friend, like all these people from California are.
Speaker:I don't know that he really deserves this.
Speaker:Like that his friendship with me really fits in the same world.
Speaker:But I was like, fuck it, I'll do it.
Speaker:And so I did it for him.
Speaker:And it was, again, I do it during the course of a day.
Speaker:So I let it entirely occupy me for a full day.
Speaker:But by the time that day's over.
Speaker:I have to make a recording and send it off and then let it go.
Speaker:And so I did this for him and it was a bit, it was a bit, it's
Speaker:like two, three minutes long, this big rap about him for his 50th
Speaker:birthday and he didn't say anything.
Speaker:Didn't respond at all.
Speaker:And I was so fucking mad.
Speaker:I was so fucking mad.
Speaker:I even later brought it up at one point.
Speaker:I was like, did you like get that?
Speaker:You know, like blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:Like, did you receive it even?
Speaker:He was like, oh yeah.
Speaker:And he just sort of like blew it off.
Speaker:Like, yeah, no, I got it.
Speaker:And I was like, well, why wouldn't you say, you know what I mean?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Like this, no, I, I totally, this gift giving thing is, is a strange, our
Speaker:relationship to our creative stuff.
Speaker:So this, this is like things that I'm blatantly not doing for pay.
Speaker:There's no pay coming, but still, there's an expectation of, of some
Speaker:kind of acknowledgement of, you know.
Speaker:People don't, I think, some people don't know how to
Speaker:respond to artistic expression.
Speaker:Um, you know, I, I think.
Speaker:That's a part of it, maybe.
Speaker:Is it because it's too intimate?
Speaker:Possibly, yeah.
Speaker:I think there's a, there's, there's probably levels there.
Speaker:But I, but then again, I have like people like, oh, I made a
Speaker:video, you know, just for random.
Speaker:I was out camping in the woods.
Speaker:I made this video of like the stars, these time lapses.
Speaker:It's very cool.
Speaker:I'm very proud of it.
Speaker:It was the first creative thing I'd done in a long time and I
Speaker:sent it out to a bunch of people and like, you know, 90 percent of
Speaker:them, you know, no response at all.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Nothing.
Speaker:I was up for all these directing jobs, these horrible movies,
Speaker:and I wasn't getting them.
Speaker:But there was one movie, and I was rea at that point I was like, I
Speaker:don't think I can do this anymore.
Speaker:This is just really hard.
Speaker:This is brutal.
Speaker:And, you know, I had two kids at that point, and I was
Speaker:trying to just make a living.
Speaker:And they sent me a script that was a teen movie that Working Title Films was making.
Speaker:And I was like, you know, I think I can fix this one, even though
Speaker:it was, it was a weird story.
Speaker:It was about, um, a girl in Malibu who gets into trouble and gets sent
Speaker:to a boarding school in England.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:But the ace in the hole that I had was that the White's brothers had
Speaker:just made this movie for, they just made about a boy for working title.
Speaker:And they called the head.
Speaker:The head producer at Working Title and said, hey, you
Speaker:should hire John to do this.
Speaker:And I just, I interviewed really well for that movie.
Speaker:It's all who you know.
Speaker:And it's also, yeah, it is all you know.
Speaker:But at that point, I also flew myself out to LA to meet with them in a room.
Speaker:I knew that that was the only way I was going to get the job.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And not do it over the phone.
Speaker:It was before Zoom, obviously.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And somehow I got that job.
Speaker:And it was a big deal, you know, and that one that was crazy because we needed to
Speaker:discover somebody It was we needed like the 16 year old girl and I met every Young
Speaker:actress in Hollywood in a room with them.
Speaker:Like it was just crazy And we were trying to decide who to hire and just
Speaker:like long story short Like what ended up happening was we had narrowed down to a
Speaker:couple of actresses that were gonna be in it And we were scanning locations.
Speaker:We were we were probably Three months out from shooting the movie and we were gonna
Speaker:hire somebody to be in it We were gonna be in London for a year doing post because of
Speaker:the tax credits So got my kid Or at least Alex was old enough to go to school in
Speaker:London and the movie fell apart and that was just that was And they did it in the
Speaker:worst way possible When I got the job, it was so hard to get the job I was told this
Speaker:is a go movie and it turns out that the head of the studio hadn't really approved
Speaker:it So they told me they said you need to go out there and convince her You're gonna
Speaker:make this movie and I put together a whole like it was before like pitch decks, but
Speaker:I write pitch deck It's all those things and they called me right when I was about
Speaker:to get on the plane or like a few hours before I was About to get in a plane.
Speaker:They were like don't get on the plane got invited out onto the warp tour In 2005
Speaker:that's big to basically be merch people.
Speaker:Oh Okay.
Speaker:So this is this is the reality of it, right?
Speaker:It's we weren't We're a very well known band.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:We just happened to make the right friends at the right time that were like,
Speaker:Hey, come out, uh, help us sell CDs.
Speaker:And we're like, okay, can we bring our gear?
Speaker:And they're like, sure, if you want to haul it around, I'm not going
Speaker:to play it, but yeah, so we did.
Speaker:And the very first day that we were there, we played on a stage.
Speaker:Right outside of the main gates like the the parking lot stage.
Speaker:We played that stage a handful of times But we also we were up at 6 a.
Speaker:m.
Speaker:Every day.
Speaker:We were selling CDs in the lines We were helping, uh, we
Speaker:were helping set up stages.
Speaker:We were just carrying shit.
Speaker:We're just being useful.
Speaker:But you're networking and meeting people and Right, exactly.
Speaker:And just wanting to be a part of it and contribute to this huge thing.
Speaker:Like for me, that life I was living that summer I had made it.
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:And we went from can we bring our stuff, sure, but you're focusing on selling
Speaker:CDs, to, um, by the end of it we were in a tour bus and we were the, uh, the
Speaker:everyday main act at the MySpace We lived on five dollar per diems per member.
Speaker:We lived on the Wendy's value menu, right?
Speaker:Our tour bus would stop at a Flying J with an attached Wendy's and We would
Speaker:get out and file with guys that I had I remember my career was two people
Speaker:in front of me in line at a Flying J He's a singer for a band called MXPX.
Speaker:Like I had a poster of them on my wall, like all these bands Like huge bands.
Speaker:I was surrounded by it day.
Speaker:I was just like flying day part of that crowd.
Speaker:They were just in line.
Speaker:Wendy's.
Speaker:Wendy's Rock and roll.
Speaker:And guess what?
Speaker:Spoiler alert, 90% of these bands had a $5 per meal budget.
Speaker:If you could experience Pure Bliss, would you, a, would you be willing to
Speaker:abandon your personality completely?
Speaker:I don't know what pure bliss, um, entails.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's besides the point.
Speaker:I mean, just if in theory there is a thing such pure blis, I
Speaker:would like to know Exactly.
Speaker:Course you can't know.
Speaker:You can't know what it feels like.
Speaker:It's, but it's, but if I blis, what if I, what if I abandoned my personality
Speaker:for this and I'm disappointed by it?
Speaker:I'm like, uh, wouldn't, not that great.
Speaker:You wouldn't be, your personality is the part of you that's getting disappointed.
Speaker:Oh, I see.
Speaker:Um, would it be permanent?
Speaker:I mean, you could, I guess you could get your personality back, but I
Speaker:think once you experience pure bliss, you're probably not going to want
Speaker:your personality back, I would hope.
Speaker:My mom got me some heroin.
Speaker:Oh, goodness.
Speaker:And I'm tearing up a little bit, actually.
Speaker:We drove out there, and I didn't sleep for like 11 days.
Speaker:It was, it was Bad.
Speaker:There's really no explanation for it.
Speaker:I mean, you cannot describe it to someone who hasn't gone through it.
Speaker:It's, it's a weird kind of hell.
Speaker:But On the 11th day, I was laying on the floor and I was reading
Speaker:this and all of a sudden I noticed the book was on my chest and I was
Speaker:like, Oh my God, I just fell asleep.
Speaker:And I looked at the clock and I'd been asleep for like 45 minutes and I
Speaker:have never been so happy in my life.
Speaker:I was like, that meant like, I'm beating it.
Speaker:This is like really happening right now.
Speaker:Like I'm not going to feel like that forever actually.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I was really like overflowing with a kind of joy.
Speaker:He had just discovered what it meant to say olive juice, what
Speaker:it meant to mouth olive juice.
Speaker:What does that mean to someone?
Speaker:So if you mouth, like if I, and for the audience I just mouth all juice.
Speaker:That just Right.
Speaker:Thank you for the, thank you for that.
Speaker:It's no, no video.
Speaker:So thank you for and, um.
Speaker:Yeah, from across the room, that looks like you're saying
Speaker:I love you to someone, right?
Speaker:So he actually oversaw like the gym or the recess lunch period and all of the
Speaker:girls are, you know, were always, all the kids really, boys and girls, were always
Speaker:surrounding him wanting to talk to him.
Speaker:Like he was just a charming teacher.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:A cool charming teacher.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And we had just discovered this olive juice thing.
Speaker:And so of course we like all ran over to tell him like.
Speaker:Mr. Collar, what do you think I'm saying to you right now?
Speaker:Right, you know like and Then it was within a day or two from that
Speaker:encounter that He would catch me from across the room like looking at me I
Speaker:was looking at him and he would mouth olive juice to me and I was like, you
Speaker:know, my God did what did he just say?
Speaker:Did he just do that for me?
Speaker:And I think I ran over and I asked him, I go, did you just mouth olive juice to me?
Speaker:And he goes, yeah, but let's just shorten it to olive.
Speaker:That way when I mouth it to you people won't know or think that
Speaker:I'm saying that I love you.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And that's where it begins.
Speaker:It wasn't because I had some sense of duty.
Speaker:It was because there was nobody else to show up in the courtroom that day.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so I show up in the courtroom and then it's like, well, are you willing
Speaker:to And I had just been in South Africa meeting African children that our
Speaker:women sing to from the prison program, thinking that I might try to adopt
Speaker:one of these children from hospice care, but that wasn't going to happen
Speaker:because of the South African government, the way they look at people like me.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And then I get back and then there's this African child who came here from Liberia
Speaker:when he was three years old Yeah, sitting in the courtroom next to me that I only
Speaker:knew his first name I didn't really know a whole lot about him and this magistrate
Speaker:on my birthday Asking me will I say yes to taking this kid into my home and I
Speaker:had this moment where I was like, okay I didn't really believe all of the stories
Speaker:that I was taught about religion and God when I was growing up, but I do believe
Speaker:in moments and I'm in a moment on my birthday, just having returned from
Speaker:South Africa where I was thinking about adopting an African child that fell apart.
Speaker:I cried for five days and now I'm in a courtroom on my freaking birthday.
Speaker:I keep going back to that point and there is a 16 year old
Speaker:African child sitting next to me.
Speaker:And the judge is saying he needs a place to live, and I was like, okay.
Speaker:And I literally brought him home, and I was like, not that day.
Speaker:It was, it still took another 30 days.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:He walks in the door and I was like, okay, listen, I don't know how to cook.
Speaker:I don't know what we're going to fucking do.
Speaker:I don't know how I'm going to feed you.
Speaker:I mean, we're just gonna have to go to like restaurants and stuff
Speaker:because I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker:And then his best friend who was kind of navigating the foster system You
Speaker:know, started kind of coming in and then all my friends who had kids were
Speaker:like, two are so much easier than one.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:You know, so suddenly there's two, there's three of us and, you know, we
Speaker:make it through meals and then they start putting weight on and I'm like,
Speaker:okay, so I guess I'm figuring this out, you know, they're not starving.
Speaker:Um, and then, you know, they overload the washing machine and they break
Speaker:the dishwasher and, you know, all this stuff starts happening.
Speaker:That's teenage life.
Speaker:Teaching them how to drive and forcing them out of bed.
Speaker:And then all of a sudden it was just like, oh, this is, this is normal.
Speaker:This is life.
Speaker:This is what it was supposed to be.
Speaker:And yes, of course, I literally remember life before they were there.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:But I don't really remember who I was before they were there.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Because I didn't really understand who I was till they came along.
Speaker:Meaning, Everything was about work prior to that.
Speaker:I know that, but I don't really remember that in a way because they
Speaker:kind of brought this other side to me that was kind of all lurking there,
Speaker:I guess, lurking in the background.
Speaker:And when it stepped in to take over the spot that it was supposed to
Speaker:occupy, That was when I kind of knew.
Speaker:Oh, yeah, I've come.
Speaker:I now know who I am.
Speaker:I'm at the Trump store in Branson, Missouri, and it is something else indeed.
Speaker:I've never seen so many Trump things in my entire life.
Speaker:There's an animatronic Trump out front.
Speaker:Many, many hats.
Speaker:One of the hats said, I'll be voting for Barron.
Speaker:That's fun.
Speaker:Another one said Gulf of America, and another one just said titties, but in a
Speaker:red white and like an American flag font.
Speaker:Like, not a font, but like it's a American flag vibe.
Speaker:So I guess it's okay to say titties.
Speaker:I really want to interview the guy who's the purveyor of the store,
Speaker:but I also don't want to do that.
Speaker:All right, so I just went to the Jesus store.
Speaker:I think it's called Everything Jesus.
Speaker:And, um, honestly, the similarities between that and
Speaker:the Trump store are striking.
Speaker:The vibe is strikingly similar.
Speaker:So that's fun.
Speaker:Hello everyone, it's Fefri.
Speaker:Do you remember me?
Speaker:Uh, from Christmas.
Speaker:It was many years ago.
Speaker:But, Jef played it on this podcast, uh, for Christmas this year.
Speaker:And people seemed to love it.
Speaker:So he's very busy packing for He's going to Where is he going?
Speaker:He told me where he was going, but I forgot.
Speaker:It's, uh, oh, it's the weather!
Speaker:No, we'll do the weather later.
Speaker:Jef called me.
Speaker:He said, Fafri, hello, Fafri.
Speaker:Are you eating a candy cane?
Speaker:And I say, yes, of course I'm eating a candy cane.
Speaker:He said, well, take it out of your mouth.
Speaker:Listen to this.
Speaker:And he said, I am very busy because I am moving to Where is he, say?
Speaker:Anyway, he was moving, and he said, Fefri, I need your help.
Speaker:I need you to do the podcast this week.
Speaker:And I took the candy cane out of me mouth and I said, All right,
Speaker:and then he hung up and he didn't he didn't tell me what to do.
Speaker:He just said Do the podcast so I don't know
Speaker:It's been many years.
Speaker:I've gotten older.
Speaker:You've gotten older too and we've all There's still the sound effects
Speaker:So look at, ah, oh, there's a, oh, there's a ship coming in, everyone.
Speaker:There's a ship.
Speaker:Look out, look out.
Speaker:I wonder what, is it bringing candy canes?
Speaker:Nope.
Speaker:There, there's a candy cane.
Speaker:Remember the candy cane song, everyone.
Speaker:The one thing that hasn't changed about me, Fefri, is
Speaker:that I still love candy canes.
Speaker:I love them so much.
Speaker:Did you read the article in the Times about the happiness study, the longest
Speaker:happiness study that's ever been done?
Speaker:Oh, I think I did.
Speaker:The Harvard, uh.
Speaker:I don't know what school.
Speaker:I think they're Harvard students.
Speaker:What it was, but it was like 50 years or something.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I mean, essentially it was the stuff that was like other people.
Speaker:It was like doing things for other people, being with other people, talking to other
Speaker:people, interacting with other people.
Speaker:These are the things that generally bring us happiness.
Speaker:Isn't that baffling?
Speaker:Why is it in a time of ultimate freedom and material abundance that
Speaker:we do that less than ever before?
Speaker:Is there just some, something broken with the human software?
Speaker:I just saw on the side of the highway, two giant, looked like, um, windshield
Speaker:washer fluid jugs, full of, uh, I mean, I can only assume it was urine.
Speaker:So, just on the side of the road there.
Speaker:I, I mean, I understand your inclination to put the jugs of urine, I mean, get
Speaker:them out of your car or truck or whatever as quickly as possible, but like, you
Speaker:were clearly holding them for a while.
Speaker:I mean.
Speaker:Like you have two, two jugs.
Speaker:So there was one jug that was full and you, you drove around
Speaker:with that for quite some time.
Speaker:And then you filled up the other jug and that's when you decided, No, we
Speaker:can't drive around with this, with two bottles, two jugs, two windshield
Speaker:washer fluid jugs of urine in my car.
Speaker:I'm just gonna stop right here on the side of the highway and put them
Speaker:nicely on the side of the highway for somebody else to clean up.
Speaker:And then I went and had dinner at this pizza place, pizza
Speaker:slash brewery or something.
Speaker:It was good.
Speaker:And, uh, I was sitting next to this guy at the bar and I start talking to him.
Speaker:And this guy, like, he was about my age, I think.
Speaker:He just moved here six months ago from Mexico.
Speaker:He lived in Mexico for, he lived in Escondido for 13 years doing
Speaker:some sort of real estate thing.
Speaker:My mom and I, uh, own and operate 12 beachfront homes.
Speaker:That's nice.
Speaker:Which is great, but right now there's no rentals because people
Speaker:are afraid to cross the border.
Speaker:While he was living in Escondido, like, he was apparently abducted by the cartel
Speaker:or some cartel adjacent, you know, thugs.
Speaker:And, um, held for ransom.
Speaker:Before I moved here, I was kidnapped by the cartel.
Speaker:Were you really?
Speaker:And I was tortured.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:And they took me for a hundred grand and three of my homes.
Speaker:Okay, tell me the story.
Speaker:So, and they kidnapped my stepson too, and that's, that's what
Speaker:made me cough up the money.
Speaker:When they touched him, I was like, that's it, they're done here.
Speaker:Um, and then when I left, I exposed them all.
Speaker:Normally, you know, I would think that this kind of story is, isn't true.
Speaker:But it also turns out he's a very, very hardcore Christian.
Speaker:Why'd you end up in Salida?
Speaker:Um, I'm a Christian missionary.
Speaker:I met, um, yeah, I met a woman, uh, named Valerie whose sister works here.
Speaker:Cindy.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:Who's awesome.
Speaker:She's a fucking rock star.
Speaker:Yeah, Cindy's awesome.
Speaker:So anyway, uh, I met her, um, in Mexico doing Christian missionary trip.
Speaker:Well, not missionary trips, but like outreach with the church.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:And like mostly helping people with, um, drug addiction, uh, people trying
Speaker:to stop doing prostitution, Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, mental health issues.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm a psychologist.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So, and a Christian counselor as well.
Speaker:Which surprised me because he'd been swearing up a storm and drinking
Speaker:like a fish, which I, you know, I'm sure, you know, there's Christians
Speaker:who do these things and, but it was.
Speaker:It was surprising in a way.
Speaker:We had an interesting conversation, but at one point he did say that he doesn't
Speaker:wear a helmet when he rides his bike.
Speaker:I said something, oh, we were talking about skiing.
Speaker:And I said, it's nobody wore helmets back then.
Speaker:It's so crazy to me to think back when I used to ski when I was a kid.
Speaker:I'm not gonna wear a helmet now.
Speaker:You should wear a helmet, dude.
Speaker:Why?
Speaker:Because it's like so dangerous.
Speaker:You'd be able to die all the time.
Speaker:Yeah, right.
Speaker:I used to ride motorcycles and about 500 and 1, 000 with no helmet on.
Speaker:That seems reckless.
Speaker:Um, yeah, but I finished.
Speaker:Yeah, you didn't die, but I mean, you know, I'm just saying.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:Even in the army when they handed me a Kevlar, I wouldn't wear that shit.
Speaker:Why not?
Speaker:Because I believe that if God wants to take me out, then
Speaker:that's what's going to happen.
Speaker:God's steering the ship.
Speaker:So, if God's going to take him, God's going to take him whether he's
Speaker:wearing a helmet or not, I guess?
Speaker:That's what it sounded like.
Speaker:Which seems like flawed reasoning to me, but, you know, much of
Speaker:Christianity does rely on some semblance of flawed reasoning, doesn't it?
Speaker:My grandmother was kidnapped by German soldiers from the Ukraine
Speaker:when she was pregnant with my mother.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And, uh, she was born in Bergen Belsen.
Speaker:And my grandmother made amazing sugar cookies, and that's why
Speaker:Hitler moved them to Hamburg.
Speaker:No kidding.
Speaker:So my, my grandmother made sugar cookies for Hitler.
Speaker:People understand, um, that, uh, you know, you only speak Mpoko.
Speaker:But, uh, it was, uh, evident when I, um, ordered the, um, breakfast the other
Speaker:day and all I heard was, uh, fritter and up until then I'd had chicken fritters,
Speaker:so I thought this, yeah, for breakfast.
Speaker:And, uh, I ended up with a quarter of a, um, fried guinea pig.
Speaker:And I was like, yeah.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But they eat a lot of guinea pig down there.
Speaker:They love it.
Speaker:Did you try it?
Speaker:How was it?
Speaker:Well, I had to.
Speaker:It was basically what I ordered that breakfast.
Speaker:Yeah, there's not a lot of meat on it, surprisingly.
Speaker:Right, right, right.
Speaker:I think, um, probably much the same as trying to eat a parrot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Was it good?
Speaker:Uh, no.
Speaker:Every time that I went to Ohio, it was a nightmare in customs,
Speaker:uh, immigration, because Mexicans don't go there for tourists.
Speaker:It's not a place that you usually go for.
Speaker:Ah!
Speaker:I wanted to To visit Ohio.
Speaker:I wonder, Ohio is so attractive to me.
Speaker:Let's go to Ohio for holidays.
Speaker:All right, Patricia, that's enough.
Speaker:But I know that some people, mainly in your podcast, they love to live
Speaker:in Columbus and they love Ohio.
Speaker:Well, it's good for them.
Speaker:I can say my experience is not a mistake that I will be like, wow.
Speaker:But yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker:I I would say at this point that if you come to Ohio, I'll show you a great
Speaker:time in Ohio, but I honestly don't know that, that I actually, I mean.
Speaker:Ohio's not a popular state.
Speaker:Last night we had a musical chairs competition, and just for, you
Speaker:know, funsies, as we were, like the night before we were discussing
Speaker:the logistics of the musical chair competition, I looked up on ChatGPT.
Speaker:All I wrote was musical chairs.
Speaker:And Chachapiti's response was Musical chairs is basically the most polite
Speaker:way humans have found to recreate the feeling of societal collapse.
Speaker:You've got a bunch of people circling around limited resources to the
Speaker:rhythm of an external force they can't control, pretending they're
Speaker:chill, until suddenly music stops.
Speaker:Everyone panics.
Speaker:Shoves, and someone ends up sitting on the floor wondering how it all went wrong.
Speaker:It's capitalism with fewer lawsuits.
Speaker:And again, the prompt was just musical chairs.
Speaker:We really just wanted the rules musical chairs.
Speaker:Not that there's rules, it's pretty clear, it's an easy game.
Speaker:But I wanted to see what AI would say about what the rules of the Instead
Speaker:I got a treatise on the nature of capitalism and societal collapse.
Speaker:Which again, I appreciated it.
Speaker:I think it's great.
Speaker:It's poetry.
Speaker:And it's true.
Speaker:People want to talk, you know, people want to, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:And, and that's just, it gives another good excuse.
Speaker:If you really think about it to actually have a longer conversation in the real
Speaker:world, you would just, you know, disappear in the phone, disappear in awkward moment
Speaker:or a pause where, uh, I'm going to go now.
Speaker:No, let's just stay in this awkwardness.
Speaker:It is awkward.
Speaker:It is uncomfortable.
Speaker:Nobody likes pauses, you know?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:But you also don't want to over chat it.
Speaker:And right now, even just sitting here and reflecting on it's like, yeah,
Speaker:it's, you know, I will remember this.
Speaker:Oh, good to know.
Speaker:See?
Speaker:I will, you know, maybe like in 10 years, I'm going to be having
Speaker:like a manual announcer, you know, but, but I will remember this one
Speaker:because this is a new experience.
Speaker:Oh, well, I'm glad.
Speaker:And this is not a type of experience of like, well, you know, I'm not being
Speaker:I'm just being a human with all my flaws and, you know, all
Speaker:my stuff, just like you are.
Speaker:That's what I want the thing to be, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And there you go.
Speaker:Those are some of the highlights.
Speaker:And low lights and mid lights of season one of one F Jeff,
Speaker:I hope you enjoyed that.
Speaker:My only regret is that I didn't have time to like go through everything
Speaker:with like a comb because I'm sure that I missed moments that were great.
Speaker:But you know, we only have so much time in this life and we need to
Speaker:decide how much time we're going to, um, give to everything we do.
Speaker:And in this case, I gave.
Speaker:A lot of time editing this episode, but I'd like to have a team
Speaker:because I'm the one who's judging.
Speaker:Maybe there's stuff that you would like better, but again, the show is mine.
Speaker:So of course the opinions are all mine.
Speaker:Anyway, I hope you enjoyed listening to that and uh,
Speaker:going down memory lane with me.
Speaker:If there's any clips in there that you particularly liked and wanted to hear the
Speaker:full episode of, just let me know and I will let you know what episode it's from.
Speaker:I'll even send you a link to that episode.
Speaker:How about that?
Speaker:Boom!
Speaker:Please do like, rate, subscribe, and review.
Speaker:These things help me, uh, in some way that I'm not entirely clear upon,
Speaker:but I have been told that this is something that I'm supposed to say.
Speaker:And a podcast outro.
Speaker:And if you have not been following my Instagram and or TikTok pages, you
Speaker:should be because I've been releasing videos on those, uh, of me talking.
Speaker:So you'll be able to see me.
Speaker:You can follow me on Instagram at onefjefpod, and you can follow me
Speaker:on TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok, TikTok,
Speaker:TikTok, TikTok, Like the clock.
Speaker:It's at onefjefpodcast, because onefjefpod was taken.
Speaker:By who, I don't know, but I will find out and I will make them
Speaker:regret choosing that username.
Speaker:Okay, so follow me on both of those things and follow me anywhere else.
Speaker:If you're on the internet and you stumble across some stumble across
Speaker:some social media that's from the podcast, just follow it immediately.
Speaker:Like it, follow it, send it to all your friends.
Speaker:You know what else you should send to your friends?
Speaker:Send this episode to three people that you know.
Speaker:Just three or two.
Speaker:I'll settle for one, but it'll be disappointing to me.
Speaker:So please try for three.
Speaker:Do it right now.
Speaker:Send it to three people that you like or that you don't like.
Speaker:Spread the word about this podcast because that's how things like this grow.
Speaker:Why did I say grow like that?
Speaker:I have no idea.
Speaker:And also, I know you've been waiting for it.
Speaker:Patreon subscribers, thank you so much for supporting the podcast
Speaker:through the entire first season.
Speaker:I truly appreciate.
Speaker:Your support and your commitment and your love and your, you
Speaker:know, lack of body odor.
Speaker:I don't know what else.
Speaker:I appreciate all of it.
Speaker:I think you're great people.
Speaker:I hope that you feel good about your support for the podcast.
Speaker:I hope that you Are proud to have supported this podcast and I hope that
Speaker:you will maybe increase your donation for season two if you're so inclined.
Speaker:If not, it's totally fine.
Speaker:I feel sleazy even asking you to gimme more money.
Speaker:And if you are not a patron subscriber, join the elite, the elite.
Speaker:Onefjef, Patreon family.
Speaker:If you know, you know, patreon.
Speaker:com slash onefjef.
Speaker:Go there, sign up for as little as 5 a month.
Speaker:That's about 100 pesos.
Speaker:You can get some extra content.
Speaker:I don't, there's a bunch of random stuff on there at this point.
Speaker:You'll get early access to some episodes.
Speaker:You'll get some photos.
Speaker:You'll get some episodes that nobody else gets to hear, but
Speaker:most of all, you'll get the.
Speaker:Satisfaction of knowing you're supporting an independent podcast that
Speaker:I am giving to you for free, gratis.
Speaker:Gratis?
Speaker:Si.
Speaker:For no money, you're not paying anything for this.
Speaker:Have you noticed that?
Speaker:I hope you have, because it's true.
Speaker:But if you'd like to pay money for it, and you feel guilty about
Speaker:not paying money for it, patreon.
Speaker:com slash onefjef, even if you don't feel guilty.
Speaker:You can even donate 25 a month, and then you'll be, like, the elite of the elite.
Speaker:And if you want to be the king of the elite, you can donate.
Speaker:100 a month, and then you'll get a crown of some sort.
Speaker:I don't know what I, I, you know, I'll try to get a crown made if you do that.
Speaker:And I'm going to end this final episode of season one of onefjef
Speaker:with a poem called Meditations in an Emergency by Cameron Awkward Rich.
Speaker:I wake up and it breaks my heart.
Speaker:I draw the blinds and the thrill of rain breaks my heart.
Speaker:I go outside, I ride the train, walk among the buildings, men in
Speaker:Monday suits, the flight of doves.
Speaker:The city of tents beneath the underpass, the huddled mass, old women hawking roses
Speaker:and children, all of them break my heart.
Speaker:There's a dream I have in which I love the world.
Speaker:I run from end to end like fingers through her hair.
Speaker:There are no borders, only wind.
Speaker:Like you, I was born.
Speaker:Like you, I was raised in the institution of dreaming.
Speaker:Hand on my heart.
Speaker:Hand on my stupid heart.
Speaker:I'll see you next week.
Speaker:Very good, Jeffrey.
