Episode 3
Kosher Meat, Recovery & Mindful Bathing with Jason Wachtelhausen
I sit down with artist, musician, butcher, and writer Jason Wachtelhausen to talk about kosher meat, the strange power of mindful bathing, and what it takes to quit heroin and rebuild a life. We get into Todos Santos, daily rituals, addiction, and the ways small acts of care can pull you back toward yourself. It’s a conversation about recovery, craft, and the quiet discipline it takes to stay alive in your own body.
Follow Jason on Instagram at @dogmuseum_
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Onefjef is produced, edited, and hosted by Jef Taylor.
Transcript
Hey, Jeff, it's me.
Speaker A:I think I was inspired by your podcast to talk to you, but I'm on my way to an event, so.
Speaker B:This is the next best thing.
Speaker A:Maybe.
Speaker A:Anyway, I finally listened to your second episode of your podcast and I thought it was interesting.
Speaker A:That Chris Casey guy is a real hoot and quite into the mind body energy situation, which I've been thinking a little bit about and I can tell you more about that soon.
Speaker A:Anyway, what I wanted to tell you is you're my first friend ever to tell me that you love me, and you mentioned that in the podcast and that's something I always think about and tell people.
Speaker A:So I thought it was cool to hear you talk about it.
Speaker B:Love you.
Speaker A:Bye.
Speaker A:This is the third episode of 1F, Jeff.
Speaker A:The number three is the first odd prime number.
Speaker A:Many cultures consider it a symbol of harmony and balance.
Speaker A:It also appears frequently in nature, such as in the structure of triangles.
Speaker A:About a month or two ago, I was hanging out at a local bar right down the street from me here in Columbus, Ohio, called Dick's Den.
Speaker B:Dick's Den is this iconic little dive bar in Columbus that's known for its live jazz and bluegrass.
Speaker A:It's got really cozy wood paneled interior.
Speaker B:And a great selection of drinks.
Speaker A:There's a neon sign in the window of Dick's Den that says wine.
Speaker A:Why not?
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:Today's guest is Jason Wachtelhausen.
Speaker A:Unze hoity gagast is Jason Wachtelhausen.
Speaker A:I was standing out in the patio talking to a friend of mine when I turned around and saw this guy dressed like a rock star smoking a cigarette.
Speaker A:So I said, where'd you come from?
Speaker A:And he's like, from work, man.
Speaker A:I'm a butcher.
Speaker A:And I was like, oh, my uncle was a butcher.
Speaker A:So we got to talking and.
Speaker A:And I quickly realized that I'd stumbled upon one of the more interesting humans here in Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker A:Jason Wachtlehausen is a writer and artist based in Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker A:He's contributed to magazines like Wired and Ready Made.
Speaker A:He's a whole animal butcher and he's also a musician.
Speaker A:I feel like I could do four or five podcasts with Jason and he'd still have more to tell.
Speaker A:But I'm grateful that he was willing to sit down and share some of his story with me and with you.
Speaker A:Again, I hope that you enjoy listening to this as much as I've enjoyed making it.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening.
Speaker A:Thank you for being here.
Speaker A:Here's Jason.
Speaker A:How was that concert last night?
Speaker A:Was it good?
Speaker B:It was Great.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, it was definitely a good show.
Speaker A:Are they like, old punk rockers?
Speaker B:They're up there with the very oldest.
Speaker B:They are, you know, icons, you know, originators of the punk sound.
Speaker A:How old are they now?
Speaker B:Older than me.
Speaker A:So, Jason, what's your last name?
Speaker A:I don't even know your last name.
Speaker B:My full name is Jason Norvane Voctelhausen.
Speaker B:My father's from Germany.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And my mom's from Jamaica.
Speaker A:Oh, interesting.
Speaker B:My father grew up here, you know, since he was a baby in the United States.
Speaker B:And he loved black culture.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:He was very interested in it and impressed by it or something like that.
Speaker B:And my mom was just like a Jamaican hippie chick, and somehow they got together and now everyone thinks I'm Dominican when they look at me.
Speaker A:I didn't think you were Dominican.
Speaker A:I had no idea.
Speaker B:Well, in New York.
Speaker A:Everyone does in New York, for sure.
Speaker A:Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker A:So you were born in New York?
Speaker B:No, I was born in Philadelphia.
Speaker A:Brothers or sisters?
Speaker B:Yes, I had five foster brothers and sisters.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:And my brother.
Speaker B:Brother.
Speaker B:Your real brother and I. Yeah.
Speaker B:My father ended up in the Navy and during Vietnam.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:A bunch of weird there I won't get into, but there's some bar that, when they were in port or whatever you call it, and my mom was like a bar chick around there, played pool and.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Drank beers, costumes.
Speaker B:And I remember when her telling me the story, and she said, jason, you know, that first night when I met him, it was the most magical night of my life.
Speaker B:It was so wonderful.
Speaker B:And then I felt like I wrecked everything because I fucked him.
Speaker B:I knew I shouldn't have done that because guys, you know, they're never going to come back.
Speaker B:And then the next time he came back around, he did come back, and they ended up being in love.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:How long were they married?
Speaker A:Were they married forever?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Well, until my father died.
Speaker B:They both wanted to have kids and they tried for forever to have children, and it just wasn't working.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And with doctors several times, and the doctor said, you know, you.
Speaker B:There's nothing wrong with you.
Speaker B:With either of you.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's just, you know, not happening.
Speaker B:Whatever.
Speaker B:So just keep trying.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:But eventually they took in some foster kids and were raising them as their children, and they actually wanted to adopt those kids, but the father wouldn't allow them to be adopted because he didn't want his kids being raised by a white guy.
Speaker A:Oh, interesting.
Speaker A:Different times.
Speaker A:Different times, yeah.
Speaker B:So then all of a sudden, out of the blue, my mom gets pregnant with Me.
Speaker B:And one year and six months to the day later, she gives birth to my brother.
Speaker B:June 16th and December 16th.
Speaker B:So with the five foster kids and the two of us, it had been a really long time since they'd been on a date.
Speaker B:One night Ray Charles was playing at this dinner theater.
Speaker B:They both loved Ray Charles.
Speaker A:Sure, who doesn't, right?
Speaker B:So they said, fuck it, we're gonna get a babysitter to watch the kids that we're go.
Speaker B:It's this girl who's babysitted satisfied.
Speaker B:And she was incredibly mean.
Speaker B:And as soon as they leave, she starts putting on makeup and it's like, you kids better be good.
Speaker B:I'll be back in about five hours or something like that.
Speaker B:As she's walking out, her older brother, they lived right in the house next door.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Is like coming out and confronts her about it and she's adamant and she leaves.
Speaker B:And he decides he's going to take over for her and stay.
Speaker B:Anyway, that night the twins were playing with matches and they were burning little pieces of paper and they were hiding the paper inside this cracker box that they'd eaten the whole thing of.
Speaker B:And we were pretty poor at the time, right?
Speaker B:That was a big deal.
Speaker B:And they hid all the evidence under my parents bed.
Speaker B:And the box started to burn, right.
Speaker B:And anyway, the house caught on fire.
Speaker B:The find the fire was like, you know, like caught the next two row houses on fire as well.
Speaker B:And I mean it was.
Speaker B:We lost everything.
Speaker B:Everything.
Speaker B:I remember this so clearly.
Speaker B:I like remember the dream I was having.
Speaker B:I was asleep on the couch downstairs right by the front door.
Speaker B:And this sort of looked like an alien or something like that.
Speaker B:It was a fireman picked me up off the couch, took me outside, sat me on the sidewalk and ran back inside.
Speaker B:And I was like.
Speaker B:I don't know if you remember.
Speaker B:Time Bandits.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Okay, so that in the end, the very end of the film when the guy's kids parents blow up and all the fire trucks are going by.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:It feels so much like exactly like how I thought I was in my footy pajamas and everything like that.
Speaker B:And I had no idea what was going on.
Speaker B:And I saw we had this white Toyota hatchback and like skidded around the corner and like, you know, you could hear it and everything, like show on tv.
Speaker B:I felt like.
Speaker B:And it like screeched to a halt.
Speaker B:And before it was even totally stopped, my mom's door opened and she like jumped out of the car and boom, just like straight landed on the concrete, completely passed out.
Speaker B:My dad jumped out of the car and ran straight towards the door and almost got like, in a physical altercation with this fireman that was there trying to get into the house.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And as that was going on, the dude babysitter came out of the house and literally his sweater, his hair stuff was smoking.
Speaker B:And he had my little brother.
Speaker B:Jesus Christ was like, you know, no years old.
Speaker A:Right, Right.
Speaker B:And I always think about if that girl had stayed.
Speaker A:Was this in Philly?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:So what'd your parents do?
Speaker A:Your dad was in the war.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:He continued to work for the government for the rest of his life.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker B:And your mom, she ran a daycare out of the house.
Speaker A:Sounds like she loved for years.
Speaker B:She was amazing, right?
Speaker B:Really amazing kids.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And she spanked one of them on the legs because she pulled a knife on someone on the school bus.
Speaker A:The kid did.
Speaker B:The kid, right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And the kid called the cops.
Speaker A:Mm.
Speaker A:Can't do that.
Speaker B:My mom's not allowed loud around kids anymore, basically.
Speaker A:So do you guys get along?
Speaker A:You get along with your parents?
Speaker B:My dad was the best friend I've had in my life.
Speaker A:No kidding.
Speaker B:I mean, I love that.
Speaker B:Ever.
Speaker B:Hands down.
Speaker B:Like, it was weird.
Speaker B:Like, my mom and my little brother are just exactly the same.
Speaker B:Like, the exact same type of people.
Speaker B:They're both, like, explosive tempers and, like, full of love and just fat and, like, wonder if a big balloon can float you up.
Speaker B:Like, they do have a lot of weird, fat, weird stuff.
Speaker A:Do you get along with them or not?
Speaker B:Get along famously.
Speaker B:I mean, like, we.
Speaker B:I mean, it's that sort of, like, opposites attract thing.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:You know, I could totally understand, like, why my dad loved my mom and why I understand why I love my brother so much.
Speaker B:I mean, he's like the total flip side of what I would be.
Speaker A:Where's your brother now?
Speaker A:Is he.
Speaker A:Is he around here or is he.
Speaker B:He's in Vermont.
Speaker A:Vermont.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:When you were a kid, what do you think you were going to do when you got older?
Speaker A:Did you have any idea?
Speaker B:Go to mit.
Speaker A:Oh, really?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That was since I was a little kid.
Speaker B:That was what I wanted to do.
Speaker A:To do what?
Speaker A:Did you have a goal after that?
Speaker A:Or was it just particle physics?
Speaker A:No shit.
Speaker B:Really interested in, like, the idea of cern, like that that was, like, actually going to happen and they were deciding where it was going to be built and everything like that.
Speaker B:That was in, like 84 or something like that.
Speaker B:And like, I was so, like, up.
Speaker A:To date on and stuff.
Speaker B:And then I went to Canada and went to school there.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:School in Canada was like, something like in that summer.
Speaker B:It's like by the end of the summer, you just couldn't wait for school to start again.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:It was so perfectly administered and so many sensible decisions that you don't see here.
Speaker B:It was amazing.
Speaker B:It was one of the best chapters of my entire life.
Speaker B:And I moved back to the United States, ended up going to four different high schools.
Speaker B:Dropped out when I was in 11th grade.
Speaker B:I've never been so hurt.
Speaker B:And like, when I lived in Canada, yeah.
Speaker B:Like everyone else in the entire world until recently, I thought, like, oh, my God, I'm going back to America, the coolest country in the world, where everything's perfect.
Speaker B:Imagine how good school is going to be there.
Speaker B:And it was the best, biggest letdown.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:I've ever experienced.
Speaker B:I wish that I would have stuck it out and knew, obviously, what I know now that you do that for the piece of paper and.
Speaker B:But learning, you know, in your own personal knowledge is something you take on yourself as a pastime or whatever the hell you want to call it.
Speaker A:Perspective's tricky.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So you drop out of high school and then what do you.
Speaker A:What do you end up doing?
Speaker A:What do you end up doing after you drop out?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:While I was trying to figure that out, I moved into a Krishna temple in Berkeley.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:For about half a year or something like that.
Speaker B:And I've always been interested in religion.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And I'm not interested in following one.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:I don't believe.
Speaker B:I do believe in God.
Speaker B:I do not believe in the idea of religion.
Speaker A:My spirituality.
Speaker A:Not sure.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:But I find that, like, television commercials, religion is like something that, by studying it, it gives me a lot of insight into human beings in general.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And so I've always been really interested in it for that reason.
Speaker B:And I went there, and the guy who ran the place was called Hari Balas.
Speaker B:Awesome guy.
Speaker B:I told him that was, you know, I'm not planning on becoming a devotee of this religion or anything like that, but I'd love to live here and I'll, you know, take it seriously, work with you guys and just see what you, you know.
Speaker A:Sure, whatever.
Speaker B:And he was super open to it.
Speaker B:And so it was a wonderful experience.
Speaker A:This is in the 90s, right?
Speaker B:Earliest, early 90s.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But I tell you, it was in California.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:I was surprised to find that even within kind of like a religious context or whatever these people were still, it was more important to them what other people thought of them than what they were actually doing with.
Speaker A:And you think this is a California specific thing.
Speaker A:I feel like that happens everywhere.
Speaker B:It happens everywhere.
Speaker B:But man, I tell you, it's.
Speaker B:I've experienced more of it in California than anywhere else.
Speaker A:Interesting, interesting.
Speaker A:Did you become a follower or did you just kind of like, how did that.
Speaker B:You know, we'd wake up sometime, I don't know, between like 3:30 and 5 in the morning and do a bathing ritual.
Speaker B:And people always tried to get there on time because the later you were, the colder the water was for your 5am bathing ritual.
Speaker A:What the bathing ritual is it just you take a bath or.
Speaker B:So I think like a lot of religions, there's a lot of ritualistic that happens here.
Speaker B:There's not much to it other than getting cleaned up.
Speaker A:But are you bathing yourself?
Speaker B:But if you're doing it with the intent of, you know, like whatever.
Speaker A:Like a mindful bathing.
Speaker B:Yes, that's a good way of putting it.
Speaker B:Mindful bathing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:We would make prashadam, which was dinner.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:But again, there's a fancy word for it, ritual, but it's not just the word.
Speaker B:This, you know, basically this, you put your full intent into making it whatever, as close to divine as possible.
Speaker B:And if you offer the food to a God, they'll eat it.
Speaker B:But because they're on a different plane, the food remains.
Speaker B:But now it's blessed and it's become pram, not dinner.
Speaker B:Krishnas throughout the world aren't all what most people expect here.
Speaker B:And the ones in the west coast, for the most part, aren't the same as what you guys have experienced out here.
Speaker A:I mean.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, that's the thing with religion.
Speaker A:Every single.
Speaker A:Even Christianity has got 18,000 different kinds.
Speaker A:And everybody's like, my kind's the right kind and your kind is the dumb kind.
Speaker A:Heathen.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So it's funny that that actually happens with the Krishnas as well, though they're probably not calling each other heathens, right?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:They're calling each other whatever it is.
Speaker B:It's just their word for heathen.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:You know, it's all I remember when.
Speaker A:I was in college, the Krishnas was where you can go and get the vegan, pre.
Speaker A:Vegan dinner.
Speaker A:That was a big thing.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:We used to go and feed the bums in people's park and before we ate.
Speaker B:Okay, that was cool.
Speaker B:And that's, that's.
Speaker B:That's where I learned to love cooking.
Speaker A:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:So you leave the Krishna thing Any particular reason?
Speaker A:Just got tired of it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, I was.
Speaker B:I was 16, 17.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Time.
Speaker B:I was just itching to move on.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:Someplace.
Speaker A:I get that.
Speaker B:I don't know exactly where I went from there.
Speaker B:I went up to Sacramento for a while.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker B:And then up to Santa Rosa.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Like Northern California.
Speaker B:And spent a lot of time drinking on a railroad track up there with some wonderful people like you.
Speaker A:Were we run the rails or just drinking on the tracks?
Speaker B:Just drinking on the tracks.
Speaker A:And the train comes.
Speaker A:You get off the tracks?
Speaker A:Of course, then you.
Speaker A:Why on the tracks?
Speaker A:Was that just a place people drank?
Speaker B:It's a classic place to drink.
Speaker A:I mean, I've never drank on the railroad tracks.
Speaker A:I feel like I never walked over to the tracks.
Speaker A:I've walked on the tracks.
Speaker A:I've just never drank on them.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Groups of people there drinking?
Speaker A:Not that I've ever seen.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:But, you know, maybe that's a different time.
Speaker B:Maybe.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:There's a lot of YouTube videos now of, like, people, you.
Speaker A:That you can learn how to actually ride the rails and, like, sneak onto a train and ride all the way to.
Speaker A:Yeah, like.
Speaker A:Like a legit hobo.
Speaker B:Done some hoboing.
Speaker A:Oh, no shit.
Speaker B:Before.
Speaker A:We'll get to that.
Speaker B:Anyway, I eventually ended up back in Ohio.
Speaker B:I came back to Columbus.
Speaker A:Okay, but you had family here still.
Speaker B:Yes, my mom and my brother were still here.
Speaker A:Okay, so you were in Ohio before.
Speaker B:After Toronto, we moved to Marion while we were having a house built in the fancy new suburb of Gahanna.
Speaker B:We had one of, like, the first eight houses.
Speaker B:So I lived in this, like, fully developed development.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker B:No one else in it.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:For a while.
Speaker B:And my mom was.
Speaker B:She went crazy after my dad died.
Speaker B:I mean, they were really, really in love.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And what's your dad die of?
Speaker B:Mysterious circumstances.
Speaker A:What do you think?
Speaker B:I think I don't think about it that much.
Speaker A:All right, fair enough.
Speaker B:That much.
Speaker B:But I will say this.
Speaker B:I did have an offer from a married couple that have put out this UFO magazine since, like, the 60s or something like that.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And they said that they would pay for me to go and do some research into how my dad died.
Speaker A:Oh, really?
Speaker A:They think that he might have been abducted by an alien.
Speaker A:That's awesome.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, maybe he's in a better place.
Speaker A:Maybe he's up there.
Speaker A:Maybe he's flying around the.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know who the knows, man.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Your mom might find him yet.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, I imagine they'll bump into each other again.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think everybody Does, Right.
Speaker A:I. I don't know.
Speaker B:I hope not everybody.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, I think.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Anyway, so you're back in Ohio between.
Speaker B:Going to New York every other, you know, month and.
Speaker B:And living in Columbus and it being the 90s and being in a band that played at stashes all the time.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:I didn't know.
Speaker A:How'd you get in the band?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:I've been.
Speaker B:I've basically been kind of a punk rocker my whole life.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Anyway, between all that stuff, I became Guide on Heroin.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And I was a heroin addict for a few years.
Speaker A:How old were you when you got introduced to.
Speaker A:To the heroin?
Speaker B:19.
Speaker B:20.
Speaker A:19.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:Okay, maybe 18.
Speaker B:19.
Speaker A:Do you remember who introduced you to it or.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:William Burroughs.
Speaker A:I mean, but so I sought it out.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker A:Oh, so you're reading Burroughs books and you're like, I don't try something.
Speaker B:Everyone I idolized was a heroin addict.
Speaker A:Sure, sure.
Speaker A:That's how I got into weed.
Speaker A:But, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:I just didn't take the further step.
Speaker A:So you found somebody.
Speaker A:You could just find somebody who would.
Speaker B:Was at that time.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:In that rock and roll scene in Columbus, Ohio, it was pretty easy.
Speaker A:And did you do it by yourself or did you do it with all the time?
Speaker B:I.
Speaker A:No, but the first time.
Speaker A:We're talking about, like, the first time you get it from somebody.
Speaker A:Do you remember?
Speaker B:Yeah, the fairy volcano.
Speaker B:Let's see.
Speaker B:The very first time I ever did it, I think the very first time I did it, I was probably by myself.
Speaker B:And then usually after that I was with my girlfriend who'd eventually become my first wife.
Speaker A:Okay, so you get this heroin, it's what, black tar?
Speaker A:Or was it like.
Speaker B:Okay, that's what I was gonna say.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:The first time.
Speaker B:I really remember coming alive from the experience and having the first time being like, oh, am I gonna be a heroin addict?
Speaker B:Feeling was.
Speaker B:I was visiting some friends in San Francisco, my ex wife and I, and they got this black tar stuff and used an eyedropper method where you heated up and put it in the eyedropper and drop that in your nose.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And pretty fucking fun.
Speaker A:I mean, better than shooting it up needles, like.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:No, not.
Speaker B:No, it's not.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, better in my.
Speaker A:In my mind because I'm terrified of needles.
Speaker A:But yeah, yeah, I can understand that.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:It's all.
Speaker B:Any way you're doing it.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:You know what?
Speaker B:I've.
Speaker B:I have friends to this day who are people that every once in a While three, four times a year, they'll do heroin shoot up.
Speaker B:Most of them.
Speaker B:Sniff it if they're going to do it now.
Speaker B:But if you can be that kind of person, I highly recommend heroin.
Speaker A:Sure, sure.
Speaker A:If you can be that fun.
Speaker A:If you can be that kind of person is the thing.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I've been.
Speaker B:I've quit smoking.
Speaker B:I've quit everything in my life, including heroin, without ever going to any kind of program or anything like that.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker B:I've quit everything.
Speaker B:But heroin is the only one that ever.
Speaker B:I'm still scared of that.
Speaker A:Cause.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like.
Speaker B:Yeah, like, oh, I would still, like, love to get high on heroin again.
Speaker B:And I would if I knew I could do it without any repercussion.
Speaker B:Repercussions.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:I don't feel that way about pcp.
Speaker A:Oh.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:There's another one we can dig into.
Speaker A:So what does that look like?
Speaker A:Like, is it.
Speaker A:You're good for a while, like you're using it and you're.
Speaker A:You think you're.
Speaker A:You're kind of okay, and then you realize at a certain point it's using you or something to this effect.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Yeah, whatever.
Speaker B:You could slap whatever kind of cliche in there you want.
Speaker A:Right, Right.
Speaker B:Gonna be basically true.
Speaker A:Calling me out on that.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, yeah, it's gonna be true.
Speaker B:I mean, they're all.
Speaker B:That's really.
Speaker B:Is.
Speaker B:That's all there is to it, you know, it's nothing.
Speaker B:You know, eventually the lights all go out.
Speaker B:Eventually you take something from a friend that you know you shouldn't have.
Speaker B:And I've never, ever in my life been a thief on any level.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:And that's something that, you know, I never outright stole somebody's guitar and sold it or something like that, but I certainly did things where I know I was taking advantage that I'll never forgive.
Speaker A:Myself for just to get the drug.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:How often were you using when you were, like, in the throat?
Speaker A:How much.
Speaker A:How much did you use?
Speaker B:Three times a day.
Speaker A:Huh.
Speaker A:How'd you get off the heroin you were on a couple of years, you said.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So this one.
Speaker A:Was there.
Speaker A:Was there a moment that.
Speaker B:Yes, there was a moment.
Speaker A:Of course there was always a moment.
Speaker A:Yeah, there was.
Speaker B:Well, things were getting bad generally, you know, in a lot of ways.
Speaker B:And I wasn't very fun, cool person anymore.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:Just a lot of my friends were hurt and upset.
Speaker A:Eventually the drug ends up controlling you.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Another cliche.
Speaker B:But it's.
Speaker B:It's true.
Speaker B:That's what happens.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:This guy who was one of my best friends growing up, who went lit, his father went crazy, and when we were young and the same thing happened to John, my friend.
Speaker A:What happened?
Speaker B:He.
Speaker B:I went crazy.
Speaker B:And I mean crazy like stopped using electricity.
Speaker B:Didn't believe in money anymore.
Speaker B:And his landlord wasn't super cool with either one of those things.
Speaker A:The money one, I think, is probably the one that's the difficult one for the landlord.
Speaker A:Electricity, whatever.
Speaker A:But the landlord's gonna.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:He moved back in with his mom, started making his own chocolate bars.
Speaker A:Have a hobby.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:The last time I heard anything about him, his sister, who was never super fond of me, gave me a call to let me know that he had stolen his mom's car in Florida.
Speaker B:And the last thing they heard was he was driving to New York to kill me.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So this guy, right before he went crazy and wanted to kill me, called my mom and my brother, who had relocated to Missouri, because he was, like, worried about you.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker B:Like, he's fucked up.
Speaker B:It's like.
Speaker A:Because he wasn't him anymore, which is ironic because he ended up going crazy himself and trying to kill you.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker A:I mean, life's a long road.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But the moral.
Speaker B:That one's obvious.
Speaker B:Do drugs.
Speaker A:Is that the moral?
Speaker A:Let me think about that.
Speaker A:I'll leave that to the listeners to decide what the moral of that one is.
Speaker B:My mom and my brother.
Speaker B:Exactly what my mom, my brother would do.
Speaker B:They didn't say anything, and they drove from Missouri to my house 10 minutes after they got off the phone with John.
Speaker A:Because they had no idea.
Speaker B:Nah.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:They showed up and my brother came in with a.
Speaker B:Like blackjack or whatever, ready to knock me out if he had to.
Speaker B:They didn't know if I'd be crazed, like, trying to find.
Speaker B:Yeah, you guys are right.
Speaker B:I gotta do it.
Speaker B:I. I gotta do it.
Speaker B:I probably would have done it myself if I had the cash.
Speaker B:I need about 200 bucks.
Speaker B:That'll get me enough heroin to.
Speaker B:For.
Speaker B:To get us to Missouri, and then I won't have any when we get there.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:So let's do it.
Speaker B:Just left everything in the house.
Speaker B:My mom got me some heroin and.
Speaker A:Tearing up a little bit, actually.
Speaker B:We drove out there, and I didn't sleep for, like, 11 days.
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was bad.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Everything is.
Speaker A:I've seen the movies, but there's.
Speaker B:There's really no explanation for.
Speaker B:I mean, you cannot describ it to someone who hasn't gone through it.
Speaker B:It's It's a weird kind of hell, but on the 11th day, I was laying on the floor and I was reading this book.
Speaker B:It was like some old hard boiled detective novel.
Speaker A:Right, Right.
Speaker B:Kind of novel.
Speaker B:And all of a sudden I noticed the book was on my chest and I was like, oh, my God.
Speaker B:I just fell asleep and I looked at the clock and I'd been asleep for like 45 minutes.
Speaker B:And I have never been so happy in my life.
Speaker B:I was like, that meant like, I'm beating it.
Speaker B:This is like really happening.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:I'm not going to feel like that forever.
Speaker A:You're actually.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Sleeping.
Speaker B:And I was really like overflowing with a kind of joy.
Speaker B:And the phone rang at that exact minute and I picked it up and it was my friend Jasper.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, my God, Jasper.
Speaker B:You're not going to believe it.
Speaker B:I just was sleeping.
Speaker B:It's the greatest day of my life.
Speaker B:And Jasper was like, yeah, Mike Dean killed J hit last night.
Speaker B:And that was the guy, right.
Speaker B:Talking about earlier.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So you quit the heroin.
Speaker A:Good job.
Speaker A:You're in Missouri forever.
Speaker A:For how long were you in Missouri?
Speaker B:Oh, no, I mean, I quit the heroin forever.
Speaker A:Forever.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I like.
Speaker B:And I literally at one point tried it again to make sure I was like, not addicted to it.
Speaker A:Really.
Speaker A:It's a ballsy.
Speaker B:The reason.
Speaker B:And I just sniffed it, but.
Speaker B:And I had a blast.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:The next day, I didn't feel like any like going back or whatever, but I knew if I did it, I was like, that.
Speaker B:That one time will be enough.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, good for you.
Speaker B:Missouri did change my life.
Speaker B:Not just getting off heroin, but I got a job in a chicken factory.
Speaker A:Okay, okay.
Speaker B:The first chicken factory I ever worked in was called Petagene.
Speaker A:Like a butcher?
Speaker A:Kind of like.
Speaker A:What do they call it?
Speaker A:Slaughterhouse.
Speaker B:As.
Speaker B:As an actual butcher.
Speaker B:Now I realize how far that is, but yes, yeah, right.
Speaker B:Slaughtering and breaking down meat, basically.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:But yeah, I got a job at a chicken plant peeling tenders.
Speaker B:My thumbnails turned black and fell off and the work was insane and I felt like I deserved it or something like that, kind of.
Speaker A:And how old are you?
Speaker B:19, I think.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And at some point there, I can't remember if it was before this or after that, but at some point in California, I married my girlfriend.
Speaker A:All right, so.
Speaker B:And she was there, you know, she had gotten off heroin.
Speaker A:She came with you to get off the heroin with you.
Speaker A:Oh, okay.
Speaker A:That's an interesting part.
Speaker A:She was on it.
Speaker A:She goes, did you get her on heroin.
Speaker B:It kind of just happened organically.
Speaker B:I was.
Speaker B:I was never like, hey, you are married.
Speaker A:You are married.
Speaker A:You kind of got to do this, you know?
Speaker A:I mean.
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker B:We did.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Those couples.
Speaker B:She was just a heroin addict type of person.
Speaker B:Regardless, she ended up staying on it and doing a lot of up things, but whatever, right?
Speaker B:But the chicken factory, man, that.
Speaker B:That was amazing.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker B:And it's amazing to me that I could handle it.
Speaker B:But I moved on from there to a larger chicken factory in Buffalo, Missouri.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And then I moved on to the Granddaddy turkey factory in Springfield.
Speaker A:Your career's taken off.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And by.
Speaker B:At that point, I was drinking two bottles of gin a day.
Speaker A:Oh.
Speaker B:To.
Speaker B:To fit in, I guess.
Speaker A:There was a lot of drinking going on at the chicken factory.
Speaker B:Yeah, there was.
Speaker B:Missouri also is like, I've been a lot of places.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:And I never really thought you could actually hate a place, especially one is so beautiful as Missouri.
Speaker B:But there's something wrong with it there.
Speaker B:It's like it makes people into weird, bitter, pinched up husks of people.
Speaker A:Interesting.
Speaker A:Oh, I never heard that.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, I know a few people from Missouri.
Speaker A:They don't.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm sure there's exceptions, but.
Speaker A:Yeah, if you stay, I guess these people left.
Speaker B:There are people in St. Louis and stuff like that.
Speaker B:Yeah, it really.
Speaker B:I guess what I'm talking about is the Ozarks and that Southern.
Speaker A:Right, right, right, right.
Speaker B:Part of it.
Speaker B:I've never seen, like, this level of, like, willful ignorance and just, you know, like, girls had like, genital warts down to their ankles until you explain to them that, like, you could just go to the doctor and they just never knew.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's seriously sad.
Speaker A:Right, Right, right.
Speaker A:That's truly a little bit of.
Speaker A:A little bit of like, sex education or something.
Speaker A:Down to your ankles, though.
Speaker A:That's got to be a long.
Speaker A:I've never heard of that before.
Speaker B:The specific girl I'm thinking of was one of the smartest people I met in Missouri, and she's the one who.
Speaker A:Has the genital warts down to the.
Speaker B:Ankles that she had.
Speaker B:Had them, you know, she.
Speaker B:They had.
Speaker B:That had happened to her and because she just didn't know, like she said that.
Speaker B:I had no idea.
Speaker A:So smart in some ways, not smart in other ways.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Well, ignorant.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Smart, but ignorant.
Speaker B:You know, you can't put the facts together, I guess if you don't have the facts, no matter how smart you are.
Speaker A:I mean, I'd be like, why the fuck are there warts all over my pussy?
Speaker A:But she was.
Speaker B:She just thought like everyone else there does.
Speaker B:There's something wrong with her specifically.
Speaker A:A lot of genital warts in Missouri then.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like, is it like.
Speaker B:Of course.
Speaker A:Duh.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:They used to have on the license plate the genital wart state, I think, you know, they.
Speaker A:Also.
Speaker B:Right around the corner from where we lived was Max Creek.
Speaker B:Awesome softball team.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker B:But the highest incest ranked in the country.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:Dead.
Speaker B:Seriously.
Speaker B:Basically, the town is a family, and they got busted because there's a police station there or something like that.
Speaker B:They changed a federal law because These guys, like, 98 of the income for the entire town was coming from the speed trap that they set up.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:There's a lot of these in Ohio, too.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, this was.
Speaker B:I don't know exactly how that scam works or whatever, but it was the entire town, and they were all related and they had a great softball team.
Speaker A:So this episode, sponsored by the state of Missouri.
Speaker A:Go for the incest, stay for the genital warts.
Speaker B:Anyway, the whole thing that happened there was I started working on Saturdays doing that job where I'd hook the freshly dead turkeys and they'd spray out.
Speaker B:I'd.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Onto my neck or chin, usually.
Speaker B:But I was doing it because this guy had a white blazer that he would sell me pretty cheap.
Speaker B:And my wife's birthday was coming up.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, so cool.
Speaker B:It'll be perfect, you know?
Speaker B:And I did it, you know, work through the whole summer or whatever the hell it was, and got the car and everything and brought it home on her birthday and drove it home from work or whatever.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And she walked out of the house, and I was, like.
Speaker B:Handed her the keys, and she was like, oh, my God, this is so perfect because I'm leaving you.
Speaker B:And literally left that night.
Speaker B:Took the car, took the car, took my dog.
Speaker A:Jesus Christ, dude.
Speaker A:I would, like.
Speaker A:Did you ever think, you can't have it if you're leaving me?
Speaker A:This is not like.
Speaker B:That's not something I would think.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:I mean, I love things, like, I like having around, but I don't really care about things when something like that happens.
Speaker B:I was.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:All right, fair enough.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But pissed off about it now.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Hindsight.
Speaker A:Hindsight.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So as a result of that, I decided that Missouri just had too many bad memories for me.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:Like the genital warts and the gay.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:Time to go.
Speaker B:Moved from Missouri to Minneapolis.
Speaker B:Moved in with a couple of old friends from here, from Columbus.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:I continued working in meat and I ended up managing a Whole Foods meat department for a while.
Speaker B: nited States until, you know,: Speaker B:Super famous place.
Speaker B:We, like Prince's wife, shop there all the time.
Speaker B:Tiny Tim in his last days was like one of my main, main kind of clients.
Speaker B:We, yeah, discuss his diet a lot.
Speaker B:And his wife continued, you know, coming in after he died and everything.
Speaker A:That's crazy.
Speaker B:Lord Dern would come in.
Speaker B:I remember Fugazi came in one time.
Speaker B:That was pretty awesome.
Speaker B:So, yeah, people like.
Speaker B:It was a pretty famous place.
Speaker A:There's a scene, Minnesota, whatever.
Speaker B:I got a girlfriend who worked there named Sarah, and she had studied Spanish stuff, culture and language her entire life.
Speaker B:And she wanted to go to Guatemala.
Speaker B:And we decided, okay, let's do that.
Speaker B:So we saved up for why not a while, and we put away maybe ten grand or something like that.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:So we flew.
Speaker B:It was the first time I'd had money again in a while.
Speaker B:And we flew my mom out to Isla Mujeres, which is a little island off the coast of, okay.
Speaker B:Cancun.
Speaker B:Cancun.
Speaker B:It's not a Cancun type place.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It used to be wonderful.
Speaker B:I don't know what it's like now.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:We partied there with her for an unforgettable week.
Speaker B:And then from there we just started.
Speaker B:Sarah and I just started traveling south and ended up going through, you know, the rest of Mexico, through Belize.
Speaker B:And then from Punta Gorda, Belize, we took a boat to Livingston, Guatemala.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:It's probably where like 90 of the black population of Guatemala lives.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And spent about six months there.
Speaker B:And then from there we moved to Guatemala City for a while.
Speaker B:And then from there we went to Todo Santos.
Speaker B: ala, way up in the mountains,: Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And it was.
Speaker B:It was like living in Indiana Jones.
Speaker B:I don't even know where you would begin there.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's a thing they have there called the Cajarial, which is this box of papers and stuff like that that allegedly came over with the conquistadors.
Speaker B:But there's, like, stuff written on skin and all this, like, weird stuff.
Speaker B:And it's very, very selective about who gets to see it, that people have tried to steal it back the United States a bunch of times.
Speaker B:The Smithsonian allegedly has had people there basically trying to take this thing.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:I got to see that.
Speaker B:Which was a real honor.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker B:And like, all of these meetings and stuff like that would happen in, like, a dirt floor wooden shack with a fire in it, you know, on a chilly night, drinking aguardiente and bonado or whatever with these guys.
Speaker B:It was super magical living there.
Speaker B:There's a famous horse race that happens there every year that basically all the men go to the coast.
Speaker B:I have no idea what they do.
Speaker B:I never made it to the coast.
Speaker B:But they go to the coast and work.
Speaker B:That's what everyone says.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:You know, my husband's at the coast working.
Speaker B:Come in.
Speaker B:But they come back in November for the Day of the Dead celebration.
Speaker B:And that's their huge holiday.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So there's like three celebrations right.
Speaker B:In a row.
Speaker B:And one of them is this horse race.
Speaker B:And the horse race is 100 yards or something like that, but it's back and forth.
Speaker B:And each time you get to the finish line, you have to drink a shot of Quetzalteka and you go back and do the same thing.
Speaker B:The year I was there was the first time no one died during the race, but there were some serious, serious injuries.
Speaker A:So they're on the horse drinking while they're on the horse.
Speaker B:Or they.
Speaker B:They go cross the finish line and drink, turn around, go back across the finish line.
Speaker A:But they sit on the horse the whole time.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:They never have the horse.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:In fact, most of them tie themselves to the horse and.
Speaker B:Which is one of the things that's resulted in a lot that would do it.
Speaker B:The death and stuff like that.
Speaker B:They use a rooster for their riding crop.
Speaker B:They tie the rooster's legs to their wrist so the rooster is tied to him.
Speaker B:A live rooster.
Speaker B:And that's what they used.
Speaker B:And they spend all the money that they've made at the coast or doing whatever.
Speaker B:Every family buys a cow that's like mandatory and that's parted up and whatever for feasts right over the course of that week.
Speaker B:And then the guys all have.
Speaker B:The tailors there are famous.
Speaker B:They're most famous for this fabric that they make there.
Speaker B:The guys have these insanely elaborate sort of conquistador disco outfits made sure.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And that's it.
Speaker B:And everyone's broke again.
Speaker B:And all the men go back to the coast.
Speaker A:Huh?
Speaker A:And that's life.
Speaker B:They do it all again.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I was A coordinator for a school they had up there called El Proyecto Linguistico de Espanol.
Speaker B:Imam.
Speaker B:See, they've never had a written language up there.
Speaker B:Mom is the name of the language.
Speaker B:They've never had a written.
Speaker A:So it's like tribal peoples.
Speaker B:They're indigenous people, right?
Speaker A:Indigenous, yeah.
Speaker B:You know, none of the existing alphabets work for some of the intricacies of the language.
Speaker A:Sure it is.
Speaker B:It's a weird one.
Speaker B:I remember means, may I have a cigarette?
Speaker A:Well, you got that one down.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And they accepted you as if, like you.
Speaker A:You were accepted in their friend groups and whatever.
Speaker B:Or I'm just not an idiot and I understand how people work.
Speaker B:So, yeah, they accepted me really well.
Speaker B:But there was an incident very shortly after I left, within a month after I left, where a couple of Japanese tourists were killed like 10 minutes after getting off the bus.
Speaker B:They had gotten.
Speaker B:They had made so many mistakes that they had.
Speaker B:There was like a mob riot and they killed this Jesus Christ woman and her husband.
Speaker B:And basically the whole thing started because the woman got off the bus and immediately saw like some little kid around, was like, oh, he's so cute, and picked him up.
Speaker B:And the biggest fear they have of Americans especially, but anyone foreign, right, is that you're there to steal their children's organs.
Speaker B:Don't.
Speaker B:I don't know where that came from.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They believe it totally.
Speaker B:And this, like, foreign looking person jumped off and grabbed a kid immediately, and they just exploded.
Speaker B:They both ended up dead.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Hey.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Are you still with the woman at this time?
Speaker B:Oh, no.
Speaker B:She met some guy and I remember the guy had a moped too.
Speaker B:It was pretty cool, sweet.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:Yeah, he scooted her out of town.
Speaker A:And scooted her out of town.
Speaker B:I left the school, met a kind of a big group of people.
Speaker B:We traveled around to the rest of Central America mostly and had some amazing adventures.
Speaker A:Good times.
Speaker B:Lots of fun, man.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Lots of fun.
Speaker B:Then along the way, I acquired this dog that was a Dogo Argentino, which is.
Speaker B:I don't know if you know them or not, but they're big dogs, okay?
Speaker B:They're like all white, super short hair.
Speaker B:People always mix them up with pit bulls.
Speaker B:I was in the way, way Tanango, this town.
Speaker B:I walked by a pet shop and they had a litter, and there was this one that was like, looked like a little rat, like, laying all splayed out by himself.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, what's gonna happen to that one?
Speaker B:And the guy was like, I'll probably drown him.
Speaker B:And I was like, oh, I'll take him then.
Speaker B:And he was like, all right, 7,000 quetzales, which is 13.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And I was like, it.
Speaker B:Okay, right.
Speaker B:So I bought him.
Speaker B:And he was so little.
Speaker B:We used to.
Speaker B:I used to carry him in a bag for a long time.
Speaker B:He would fit in that bag.
Speaker B:And we started hitchhiking and we hitchhiked from San Jose, Costa Rica, to Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:Yeah, it was pretty awesome.
Speaker A:With dog.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:What was the dog's name?
Speaker B:Clavo.
Speaker B:And everyone always made a joke about that because they use a lot of diminutives and demonstratives and the way they speak there.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker B:And so everyone always said, oh, right now he's a club.
Speaker B:Like just a little clavo.
Speaker B:But clavo means nail.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:But it's also slang for problem.
Speaker B:And they were like, you know, eventually he's going to become a clavo.
Speaker A:That's a good name.
Speaker B:And a clavone, like a huge problem.
Speaker A:Right, right, right.
Speaker B:It happened.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Well, it's a good name in that case.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:He was a great dog.
Speaker A:So you get to Phoenix.
Speaker B:It's a Phoenix.
Speaker B:Go to California.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:My grandmother dies in Ohio, in Marion, Ohio.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And drive back for that funeral.
Speaker B:Stay here for about six months.
Speaker B:Go to New York.
Speaker B:Really at this point, like, it's very culture shock being back in the United States at all.
Speaker A:And you were gone for what, two, three years?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And New York was just overload.
Speaker B:And I went from there.
Speaker B:I texted a friend or called a friend who had crashed on my couch in Minneapolis for about a year.
Speaker B:I was like, I gotta get out of New York.
Speaker B:My friend lived in Vermont.
Speaker B:I went up there to stay with him.
Speaker B:And if they're.
Speaker B:If you're ever coming back from Guatemala and feel culture shocked, Vermont is really.
Speaker A:You know, I think Vermont's good for a lot of different kind of things.
Speaker A:I think it's just a chill place to.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:There's some soul.
Speaker B:Killingly awful things about it, I think as well.
Speaker B:But it's mostly.
Speaker A:You say that about almost anywhere.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah.
Speaker B:Staying in Vermont for a while.
Speaker B:Opened up a record store.
Speaker B:My little brother flew out to help me run it.
Speaker B:Fell in love with Vermont.
Speaker B:He still lives there now and met this girl, had a real textbook affair.
Speaker B:Her husband was like a super rich dude and stuff like that.
Speaker B:And eventually she left him and we got married.
Speaker A:How long did it take for like.
Speaker A:So she's cheating on her husband for a while, but how long did it take?
Speaker A:From the beginning of the Affair to the.
Speaker A:Leaving the guy.
Speaker B:Well, when we started, I think we kind of like meeting, like, if this is still going on in two years, we gotta get together.
Speaker B:And then it became a year and a half, and then a year, I think it was about eight months.
Speaker A:And the husband never knew we got together.
Speaker B:Never knew until I drove her up to Montreal, because he was at their Montreal house at the time and.
Speaker B:Or he was coming back there from some overseas trip.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:So she.
Speaker B:We went back to Montreal day before.
Speaker B:I helped her pack all her shit up, and then I went and sat in a bar while she waited for him to come home.
Speaker B:And she was like, believe in you.
Speaker B:Came down, met me at the bar and threw all her shit in the car and left.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:And stayed together for 22 years.
Speaker B:Something like that.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:No shit.
Speaker B:No, no, no.
Speaker B:Sorry.
Speaker B:Longer than that.
Speaker B:Longer than that, because my daughter's 22 now, so.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:And when she got pregnant, I didn't want my kid to be raised in Vermont, and I did want my kid to be raised in New York.
Speaker B:We ended up in Washington Heights, which is probably about as tough as you're gonna get in New York.
Speaker B:Manhattan, anyway.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Still.
Speaker B:Still, yeah.
Speaker A:It's cleaned up quite a bit.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, before I got there, that's what they shoot cops up there.
Speaker A:Era, Even Harlem's, like, cleaned up quite a bit.
Speaker B:Right before I left New York, I was in Harlem, right on 110th and 2nd Avenue.
Speaker A:Oh, I was right.
Speaker A:I think we talked about this.
Speaker A:I was right near there.
Speaker A:I was on.
Speaker A:In East Harlem at.
Speaker A:What was it, 116th between second and first.
Speaker A:And second.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I remember they were calling it Spaja.
Speaker A:They were trying to rebrand Spanish Harlem into spaja back then.
Speaker A:It didn't take.
Speaker A:It didn't take.
Speaker A:No, no.
Speaker A:There was a spaja cafe near us, which was just like, what are you doing?
Speaker A:What are you doing?
Speaker A:Spa.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So you're raising the kid in.
Speaker A:In Washington Heights.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I, you know, I got rid of the record store.
Speaker B:My wife is a medical professional.
Speaker B:She, you know, her career was really moving forward.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:I sold the record store and I spent.
Speaker B:I said, I'm gonna spend the first two years of our daughter's life with her every single day.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And I did.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:For two years, man.
Speaker B:We would.
Speaker B:Every single day, like, while she was learning how to talk and everything would just walk around New York City.
Speaker B:We'd go to Central park every day.
Speaker B:We'd go to.
Speaker B:You know, took her to the mad.
Speaker B:Never, like, all that it's awesome kind of stuff.
Speaker B:And she's a very sophisticated young woman.
Speaker B:Great palette.
Speaker B:She loves to eat, and she loves to cook.
Speaker B:Tons of fun.
Speaker A:She's still in New York.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Right on.
Speaker B:I continued butchering during this whole time, getting better and better and better.
Speaker B:And in New York, I ended up working in a place called Harlem Shamble, which at the time was arguably one of the three best butcher shops in the country.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And, you know, we had a lot of press and stuff like that.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:A lot of interviews and used to speak at, you know, school events all the time, things like that.
Speaker A:It was.
Speaker B:It was wonderful.
Speaker B:Like, finally, like, dealing.
Speaker B:I mean, we bought cows.
Speaker B:That was it.
Speaker B:That's how the shop worked.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Bought cows, we took them apart.
Speaker B:We aged everything.
Speaker B:It was one of the greatest honors in my life.
Speaker A:It's also cool that, like, this thing that kind of started as a fluke, in a way in Minneapolis, kind of came full circle into.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Well, I just became so obsessed with the anatomy of the animal and learning it and just how the insights you can get, you know, like, your muscles are exactly the same as a cows, except for your collarbone.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:A whale's the same.
Speaker B:You know, I can take apart any mammal now.
Speaker B:And I understand the way, you know, that all of it functions together, and it's just fascinating.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I was good at it.
Speaker B:I really, really enjoyed it.
Speaker A:Interesting that your.
Speaker A:Your ex wife's also in, like, the medical field, which is kind of a weird connection in a way.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I always refer to myself now when I'm in pain.
Speaker B:I'm always thinking, my eye round hurts or my flat iron's killing me.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:Like, you start seeing all those cuts and everything.
Speaker A:Rump roast is sore today.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:How long were you in there for?
Speaker A:10 years, 15 years.
Speaker B:We moved there when Lila was less than one.
Speaker B:I moved away seven months ago or whatever.
Speaker A:Oh, seven months ago.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So we were there for 20, I think, 21 years total.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:A lot of changes in those 21 years.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And obviously, I mean, I worked with a gallery during the time I was there.
Speaker B:I was in a great band called as Falcon while I was there and got to do, you know, a million amazing shows.
Speaker B:And one of the other things I always wanted to do was I went and learned kosher butchering in Crown Heights in a totally Hasidic, you know, neighborhood.
Speaker B:And it was an amazing experience.
Speaker B:I definitely came away from it feeling that, you know, kosher meat is basically exactly as dumb and wasteful as I Thought it was, but the process is still fascinating.
Speaker B:And the one thing that I respect them for being able to do more than anything else, because almost no one else can do this anymore.
Speaker B:Like, they hone their knives to a sharpness that is something you've never experienced in your life.
Speaker B:Because if the cow flinches and you have to kill it by cutting its throat, and if the cow flinches at all, if the cow knows it's dying, you throw it away.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:They throw it away just to say it just.
Speaker B:You don't touch it.
Speaker A:And do they throw away a lot of cows?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And you know what I would do?
Speaker B:Buy them for $1 as long as I could transport them.
Speaker A:For sure.
Speaker B:They'd sell them to me for $1 and I'd take them to the other shop and either give it to all the guys or like use it for lessons or, you know, that's fucking.
Speaker A:It makes me a little angry.
Speaker A:You know, do your kosher thing.
Speaker A:But you're just wasting life, really.
Speaker A:You're just tossing away.
Speaker B:Well, it's not like there's a shitload of food to go around for everybody either.
Speaker B:And every cow that they.
Speaker B:That they touch, they throw away all of the good part.
Speaker B:No, there's no tenderloin.
Speaker B:There's no, you know, all that stuff from them.
Speaker A:What do they.
Speaker A:What are they?
Speaker A:What do they even eat?
Speaker B:The shoulder.
Speaker A:That's it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Interesting.
Speaker B:Well, more than anything, it was just an amazing experience to like be with all these guys that were big, like members of the community.
Speaker B:To see how the community functioned in general was fascinating.
Speaker B:The whole thing is set up to keep people and money completely within the community.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And it works.
Speaker A:Is it like this Hasidic community or.
Speaker A:Yeah, okay.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Giant hats and Right ropes and all that.
Speaker B:Everything.
Speaker A:I mean, they also, like, use more social services than almost any population in the city.
Speaker A:Like, there's a good and a bad side to the whole thing.
Speaker A:But, like, the stories that I hear about the drain on social services and so forth and welfare, I mean, there's.
Speaker B:A lot fall more into the bad category for me because as well as a lot of it works, it's so non inclusive or whatever, you know, Insular.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:Yeah, it just turns it into something that's kind of ugly.
Speaker B:But it is a thing that if the world thought like that, things would be like.
Speaker B:If the world thought like that in terms of being a community, the way they view themselves as a community, you know, it would be amazing.
Speaker B:It could work.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Cause it's not really based on just taking advantage of people or anything like that.
Speaker B:It's certainly take advantage of a good.
Speaker A:Deal and you can't really leave.
Speaker A:I mean, there's a lot of downsides to that community.
Speaker A:But certainly I hear you on the community community part.
Speaker B:Your drunken brother always has a job there.
Speaker B:Doesn't matter.
Speaker B:And they know that they just gonna bounce him from this person to this person and he's gonna end up stealing something from there and they're gonna bounce from this person and.
Speaker A:But guaranteed, always going to have a.
Speaker B:Place, always have it, always have a place to go.
Speaker B:And it just kind of works out mathematically.
Speaker A:They also like reproduce at a higher rate than almost any population in the country.
Speaker A:Like, that's like their whole thing is.
Speaker B:To just to keep having babies, vaccinating.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, they've gone.
Speaker A:I mean, I've heard stories of them, like going out in New York and going to cities like upstate and like reproducing to a degree and then eventually just taking over the whole town of the city council and stuff.
Speaker A:Like that's the thing.
Speaker A:It's a complicated.
Speaker B:Seems like a lot of people are like catching on to the have a bunch of babies idea and use them to take over.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Well, they're doing it real well.
Speaker A:They're doing it real well.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:But I was there for the beef and it was.
Speaker B:That experience was cool.
Speaker A:Is there a story or a memory like that was like the most fucked up or whatever story that you.
Speaker A:That you.
Speaker A:In the time.
Speaker A:Your time in New York, one of.
Speaker B:The crazier ones that just comes to mind.
Speaker B:And this probably isn't anywhere near the craziest, but my wife, she is incredible at her job and for some reason, like, she really cared about working with gay populations, poor people, immigrants, things like that, and really has dedicated her life to it and just done amazing work.
Speaker B:But our house in Washington heights for about 10 years was the hospital for people that were going to get deported if they went to the hospital.
Speaker A:Jesus.
Speaker B:And we had a chick die there one night and literally just seen it revived her.
Speaker B:She's gotten coke and heroin mixed up or something like that.
Speaker B:And she left in the morning, like, still didn't even know where she was.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Or whatever.
Speaker B:But finally when we felt comfortable saying take her the fuck out of here.
Speaker B:And two days later I came home from work and there's this black box sitting in front of the door.
Speaker B:It was a big giant tiramisu with a note from it said, thanks for saving my life.
Speaker A:I guess tiramisu is as good a price for that as anything.
Speaker A:Why not?
Speaker B:That was the best.
Speaker A:I wonder if she thought about it and was like, well, what's a good gift for somebody who actually saved my life?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker A:How long was she.
Speaker A:How was she now?
Speaker B:I mean, she was like, just.
Speaker B:Her heart stopped or something.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker B:But it was.
Speaker A:Wow, that's nuts.
Speaker B:It was scary.
Speaker B:I mean, because they was the one that we almost were like, we.
Speaker B:We gotta call the ambulance.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:At this point.
Speaker A:But then she would have been deported.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Of course, they had a.
Speaker B:A scam where.
Speaker B:When this used to mean something.
Speaker B:I don't know if it means anything in the government anymore, but where they would marry people.
Speaker B:Like, they had the whole thing where.
Speaker B:Like, marrying people to gain citizenship.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Start the process, whatever.
Speaker B:And like, you know, Carolina's been married to three or four people, you know.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:You got to stay married for a few years.
Speaker A:Right, right.
Speaker A:And they come and check and everything.
Speaker A:There was a whole Gerard Depardieu movie about that called Green Card.
Speaker A:It was awful.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But anyway, that's my film reference.
Speaker A:Throwing it in there for you.
Speaker B:That just reminded me of something, actually.
Speaker B:That chick Sarah that I went to Guatemala with.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Super smart.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:But if she didn't remember something, she would always come up with, like, the most ridiculous cliches.
Speaker B:And we were.
Speaker B:When we were living in Guatemala City, we went to the movies almost every single day.
Speaker B:It was 25 cents.
Speaker A:Sweet.
Speaker B:It's another good way of trying to learn Spanish.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker B:And we were trying to remember Gerard Depardieu's name.
Speaker B:And I've never forgotten her saying, like, I know it's something like Jean Paul Bordeaux.
Speaker A:Like, John Paul Bordeaux.
Speaker A:Well, I mean, the French part's in there.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think he got canceled, too, because he sexually.
Speaker A:Something with, you know.
Speaker B:People are weird, man.
Speaker A:I mean, you dig.
Speaker A:You dig enough into anybody's thing, I think you can find some darkness.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah, I suppose that's true.
Speaker A:You know, everybody's got dirt in their past.
Speaker B:People are pretty weird, man.
Speaker A:There's a lot of people.
Speaker B:Stuff that people do that are like, that's how you got in trouble or weird.
Speaker A:But, I mean, existing on its own is pretty weird.
Speaker A:And the older I get, the more the existence part of the whole thing that we're even here becomes more of a trip to me.
Speaker A:Like, the more I realize what actually is happening, I'm more blown away by the fact that it's happening at all, if that makes sense.
Speaker B:Certainly.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, how strange it is to be anything at all in this entire weird universe that we've ended up.
Speaker A:Not to get too esoteric, but, like.
Speaker B:Do you ever listen to Neutral Milk Hotel?
Speaker A:Dude, that's where I came.
Speaker A:That's the lines from there.
Speaker B:Yeah, the lines from there.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Big fan.
Speaker B:So there's a book about them.
Speaker B:I'm in it.
Speaker A:No, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I've got a copy of the house.
Speaker A:Like 33 and a third.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Because we.
Speaker B:We spent a lot of time together.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:For a while.
Speaker B:And just talk about interesting guys, man.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I saw Jeff Magnum at Bam.
Speaker A:Years ago.
Speaker A:I cried.
Speaker A:I cried.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Dude, Love their.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:That's their great stuff.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I remember when I first heard that album.
Speaker A:A friend of mine played it for me and I was like, what the fuck is this fucking nonsense noise?
Speaker A:And then I listened to it again.
Speaker A:I was like, all right, there's something more.
Speaker A:It took a while to get it.
Speaker A:And then once you get it, I was like, oh, all right.
Speaker A:I see what's happening here.
Speaker A:There's.
Speaker A:There's magic and joy within magic.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker A:And just joy.
Speaker A:So what went wrong in New York?
Speaker A:So you with the wife for 20, 22 years.
Speaker A:20 years, whatever it is.
Speaker A:And is that why you left New York, Jess?
Speaker B:And my.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:My wife had been talking about it for a while.
Speaker B:I mean, she.
Speaker B:Certainly not a very faithful person.
Speaker A:Ah, okay.
Speaker B:You know, but whatever.
Speaker B:We both love or.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:Since, you know, who doesn't?
Speaker B:We felt like, you know, Lila was grown up, our daughter, and we did a rad job.
Speaker B:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:We raised like an amazing kid.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And are both, in some ways, contributing to the world in a way that we both feel, you know, happy with.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And realize, you know, we're just still young enough to just have a whole nother life, and we're still great, great friends, you know, And I can't imagine ever being a time that we don't spend some time together.
Speaker A:So it was just like a mutual.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Thing.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's just kind of beautiful, actually.
Speaker B:Different adventures.
Speaker A:And that's why you left New York, or.
Speaker B:Well, no, that was.
Speaker B:Okay, so that was about a few years before I left, actually.
Speaker B:We were separated in the city together for, Yeah.
Speaker B:I guess three years or something like that.
Speaker B:And we still.
Speaker B:There's certain parties that we do every year that we continued getting together to do the parties and stuff like that, and got together with the woman I'm with now, Frankie.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker B:Tons of fun.
Speaker B:The Exact opposite of Jess.
Speaker B:And we were trying to decide if we wanted to sign another lease and we'd been thinking about going to Vegas and eventually I was like, you know, she's never seen America at all.
Speaker B:She's like in Russia until she was 10 or so.
Speaker A:She's Russian?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And I was like, you know, it's kind of sucks a lot, but if there's any place where it's kind of cool, it's Columbus, Ohio.
Speaker B:And I think it'd be super awesome to go back there and see what's going on after 30 years away.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And then we got the very first apartment I ever had in my life when I was 16 years old.
Speaker A:We moved back, back into it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And so when that happened, it felt like, well, circle of life.
Speaker B:This is really supposed to be happening or something.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:How's it been?
Speaker B:It's wonderful, I'd say.
Speaker B:I mean, I've really enjoyed it.
Speaker B:I've been to some cool shows.
Speaker B:I've bumped into a lot of old people.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker B:Bumped into some kids that like knew me like in a legendary way.
Speaker B:Like they were in sixth grade when I was in high school kind of thing.
Speaker B:They're like 40 year old men.
Speaker A:Like who.
Speaker B:Oh my God, you did whatever stupid thing we did.
Speaker A:Do you think you'll be in Columbus for a while or what are you thinking?
Speaker A:You don't know?
Speaker B:I can imagine being here for five years.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I've been here six years.
Speaker A:I'm starting to get a little stir crazy.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I never imagined I'd come back to Ohio and it just kind of happened and.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I'm getting a little bit antsy.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:Nothing is a crisis here.
Speaker A:No, no.
Speaker B:Everything is a crisis in New York.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:No, I get that for sure.
Speaker A:And I kind of miss.
Speaker A:Part of me misses the crisis thing a little bit.
Speaker A:Life is very easy here and I feel like my neuroses is just.
Speaker A:It kind of thrives a little bit with a little bit of chaos.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:100.
Speaker B:I know what you mean.
Speaker B:I'm missing it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:The reason why I say five years is I can't imagine myself being away from New York for more than five years.
Speaker A:Oh, you want to go back to New York?
Speaker B:It's the greatest city on earth.
Speaker B:Just if you live there non stop and never ever leave, it's.
Speaker A:Well, you turn into a fucking psychopath.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's just not.
Speaker B:It's not a good thing.
Speaker B:And there the city is.
Speaker B:I always feel like if you're not going to the Museums.
Speaker B:You're not taking advantage of all the amazing things that the city has to offer.
Speaker B:Then why in the.
Speaker B:Are you paying the rent?
Speaker A:That's the thing I couldn't afford to go.
Speaker A:To take advantage.
Speaker A:I mean, when I was living there, I realized towards the end, I was there for 10 years.
Speaker A:I realized, like, I can't really even afford to do most of the things that New York offers because it was too fucking expensive.
Speaker A:Like, I wasn't making.
Speaker B:That's the thing about New York.
Speaker B:I fucking.
Speaker B:For 10, 12 years, I never paid for a show.
Speaker B:I never paid for a drink.
Speaker B:And New York works like that in a way that.
Speaker B:Like this people are totally foreign to the idea of.
Speaker B:Like, I work in a photocopier place so I can get you cheap photocopies if you can give me a deal on beef or whatever.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's how everything is done.
Speaker A:Yeah, I never got.
Speaker A:I was working in the editing industry and I never really felt that there was a.
Speaker A:There was never a.
Speaker A:You know, not that I didn't get jobs from friends and so forth and so on, but it was always just kind of a feast or famine thing.
Speaker A:And yeah, it just got exhausting.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:So before we go, I have one last question.
Speaker A:What do you think happens after we die, when this is all over?
Speaker B:That question.
Speaker B:To have that question is the most obvious thing in the world.
Speaker A:It is for people, for sure.
Speaker B:In general, you understand why that question has always been here.
Speaker B:And I feel like some of the greatest minds, probably that have lived on earth have devoted a lot of their time into trying to puzzle that out.
Speaker B:And I think that that is one of the saddest, dumbest wastes of time that has ever happened.
Speaker B:Because everyone has the answer.
Speaker B:You don't know.
Speaker B:You're not allowed to know.
Speaker B:You're not gonna know.
Speaker B:And you wait and find out.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:But I'm not saying we.
Speaker A:There's any knowledge of it.
Speaker A:I'm asking for a hypothesis.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:Why would I have one?
Speaker B:That's the whole thing, is not knowing.
Speaker B:People are so uncomfortable with saying that the answer to something sometimes is, I don't know.
Speaker A:Particularly that question, though.
Speaker A:I mean, I think that there's a lot of questions that saying I don't know two is different.
Speaker A:But, like, this is why a lot of religions exist.
Speaker A:Because, like, people are uncomfortable with the idea of not knowing what happens.
Speaker A:So you have to have a story.
Speaker B:Not all.
Speaker B:They're also uncomfortable with themselves in a way that won't allow them to believe their own feelings.
Speaker B:So they fucking fall for some dumb ass religion where you're allowing someone else to dictate what you think about Kevin and God and everything.
Speaker A:That is how you cut your meat.
Speaker B:So obvious, childish and ridiculous.
Speaker B:It's just like foot stamping anger to be like, I want to know.
Speaker B:It's just I can't wait to find out.
Speaker A:So how do you really feel about it?
Speaker B:I'm serious.
Speaker B:I've been thinking about this since I was in.
Speaker B:Before kindergarten.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:I cannot wait to die.
Speaker B:But I'm really also excited to have the chance to be alive.
Speaker B:Like, everything that happens is because for some reason I got this chance.
Speaker B:And hopefully after I die, I'll find out a little bit more about all that.
Speaker B:I really hope so, for sure.
Speaker B:In my heart, I believe there's something.
Speaker A:No, I really do.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker A:I don't know and I don't consciousness.
Speaker B:Is so complicated to make a hypothesis about that.
Speaker A:Fair enough.
Speaker A:Where are you, though, spiritually?
Speaker A:Like, where's your spirituality lie these days?
Speaker B:You know, I've picked up bits and pieces from everything.
Speaker B:You know, I still find mantras are very helpful for me, which is something that's big in Hindu faith and everything like that.
Speaker B:Those are just little things that, again, that help me kind of get along with living my spirituality begins and ends pretty much with.
Speaker B:Pretty much with.
Speaker B:I really think there's something.
Speaker B:I really believe that.
Speaker B:But there's facts and there's beliefs and like so many people get confused and think their beliefs are facts.
Speaker B:That's when it never works.
Speaker A:Where we ended up in the world we're in right now.
Speaker B:And the more complex the belief, I think the more problematic it is if you think of it as a.
Speaker B:As a fact.
Speaker B:So religion obviously has.
Speaker B:Is very complicated and complex, causes a million problems.
Speaker B:And I feel pretty comfortable with like, yeah, I think something's gonna happen.
Speaker B:I'm not sure, but I can't wait to find out.
Speaker B:And that's as far as I'll allow myself to even think down those lines.
Speaker A:Jason, thanks so much for doing this, man.
Speaker A:Yeah, no problem.
Speaker B:Nice time.
Speaker A:Yeah, dude.
Speaker A:Thanks, man.
Speaker A:And there you go.
Speaker A:A little piece of the fascinating life of Jason Wachtelhausen.
Speaker A:You can follow Jason on Instagram Ogmuseum.
Speaker A:That's D O G M U S E U m. You can follow me on Instagram @1f jeff and you can email the podcast@1fjeffpodmail.com and I also hope you will, like, rate, review, and subscribe on whatever platform you happen to be consuming this on.
Speaker A:And again, thank you for listening.
Speaker A:I hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker A:If you did enjoy it, I hope you listen to it again just a little bit louder.
Speaker A:Perhaps in a different environment, maybe in the car this time, maybe washing dishes.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:You pick.
Speaker A:If you do listen to it in your car, I recommend you turn it up very loud and roll the windows down just so everybody else can hear.
Speaker A:If somebody says to you, what are you listening to?
Speaker A:You say, what?
Speaker A:And then they yell again, what are you listening to?
Speaker A:And then you say, what?
Speaker A:Then they say, turn it, turn it down.
Speaker A:So you pause it.
Speaker A:And they say, what are you listening to?
Speaker A:And you say, oh, I'm listening to one F. Jeff.
Speaker B:Very good, Jeffrey.
