Speaker 1: Hello, Hey, how's it going? Hey?
Speaker 2: What's up? Man? What's your name?
Speaker 1: Oh? Gary?
Speaker 2: Gary? Gary? Gary? Gary? I think, Uh, I think I'm
Speaker 2: gonna just call you.
Speaker 3: I think I feel like I should just call everyone
Speaker 3: caller because I forget everyone's names and it's supposed to
Speaker 3: be anonymous anyway, you know, some I'll just call you
Speaker 3: a caller from now on, maybe unless I changed my
Speaker 3: mind at some point. Whenever I feel like it, call her.
Speaker 2: What's up? What'd you want to talk about today?
Speaker 1: Oh? Nothing's just been trying to call you for fucking
Speaker 1: years now.
Speaker 2: Oh cool? Cool? Okay? How long how long have you
Speaker 2: been doing? Thank you man? I appreciate that. How long
Speaker 2: have you been listening to the show for?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 5: Fuck?
Speaker 1: How long have you been around? Since you've been on
Speaker 1: a public U? Public Reddit or whatever it was?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Five years? Crazy shit, the years start coming. D you
Speaker 3: have a whole ass kid?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Since U I started listening to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how's that going?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 1: It's going. Uh, it's tough. It's fun having the kid.
Speaker 1: It's just everything comes with it, like, he's great.
Speaker 2: What inspired you to want to have a kid?
Speaker 1: Uh, you know, not fear pulling out?
Speaker 2: I guess Oh it was an accident.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: How'd you feel when you found out that, uh uh,
Speaker 3: you were gonna have a kid? Was it like, were
Speaker 3: you considering like, oh shit, let's maybe not do this,
Speaker 3: or was it like, all right, well, let's just do it.
Speaker 1: No, I was scared of shit, but it wasn't. I
Speaker 1: was prepared to do whatever she decided.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, do you? I mean I guess looking now,
Speaker 2: how how old is your kid now?
Speaker 1: He's about two and six months or so.
Speaker 3: Okay, So comparing how you feel now to how you
Speaker 3: felt when you were scared of shit? How do you
Speaker 3: compare those two feelings? So it was the fear warranted
Speaker 3: or are you like, all right, I'm over that fear.
Speaker 1: It was definitely warranted. Like you know, your life changes.
Speaker 1: You fucking can't do a lot of things that you
Speaker 1: used to be able to do. But I guess I'm
Speaker 1: resigned at this point, but also happy because I love them.
Speaker 2: What sorts of things could you not? Can you not
Speaker 2: do anymore that you that you thought you wanted to
Speaker 2: do or that you do want to do?
Speaker 1: I guess just do whatever I wanted pretty much like
Speaker 1: I'm not you know, I don't have to carry a
Speaker 1: baby with me.
Speaker 3: Well, I guess if if we're gonna get specific, I mean,
Speaker 3: is there anything specifically that you wanted to do that
Speaker 3: you can't do?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Play video games whenever I want? Yes, true, he requires
Speaker 1: a lot of attention.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's true. Well you can you Are you able
Speaker 2: to play video games while he's in the room?
Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah, except for he likes He always wants my attention,
Speaker 1: you know, and I have feel guilty if I don't
Speaker 1: give it to him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good, that's good.
Speaker 3: I guess when you're how old two and a half?
Speaker 3: How old do kids start playing video games at? I'm
Speaker 3: trying to remember when I got my Game Boy Advance?
Speaker 2: Are you in? Are you in Nintendo?
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, I would say four or five?
Speaker 2: Four or five?
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, So I guess in a couple of years,
Speaker 3: you guys can start playing games together.
Speaker 1: Super Smash Brothers, Mario.
Speaker 2: Kart Yoh yeah, yeah, yeah, dude. I remember when I was.
Speaker 3: Got Let's see, the GameCube came out in two thousand
Speaker 3: and one, so I was like three or four or five,
Speaker 3: and I remember the GameCube came out and I was
Speaker 3: a little too young to be able to like understand
Speaker 3: the controls of Super Mario Sunshine. So I just sat
Speaker 3: and I watched my dad play and that was really nice.
Speaker 1: Oh that's nice. Yeah, I want to be there playing
Speaker 1: with him because my dad left when I was two,
Speaker 1: so I didn't get to really experience that. Well it
Speaker 1: must yeah it was. It was it nice for you.
Speaker 1: It was a real good bonding moment.
Speaker 2: It was, man, it was.
Speaker 3: That's something I've been thinking a lot lately about kids
Speaker 3: and whatnot. I mean, I still I feel like I
Speaker 3: got a few solid amount more years before I gotta
Speaker 3: figure that shit out.
Speaker 1: But like, m yeah, people have kids when they're like
Speaker 1: forty five. I mean you got time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well how old are you?
Speaker 1: Thirty two?
Speaker 2: Cool man? Cool? Yeah? So do you did you ever
Speaker 2: rekindle with your dad?
Speaker 1: Uh? He lives way far away, kind of just avoid him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: be honest, that might be more on me than him.
Speaker 3: Do you feel like, but do you feel like what
Speaker 3: happened with your dad is kind of like informs your
Speaker 3: relationship with your own kid?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Because I didn't get to see my kid for
Speaker 1: two weeks or I guess a week and a half
Speaker 1: this week and last week, so I'm I'm I felt
Speaker 1: like I missed a lot, you know, mmm, and that
Speaker 1: kind of that kind of weighs on me.
Speaker 2: What why did you miss the week?
Speaker 1: Just you know, personal shit and work and the baby mama.
Speaker 2: Are you and the baby mama cool?
Speaker 1: Well? I thought we were, but yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Goes okay, So do you are you guys don't live together?
Speaker 1: No, No, we haven't lived together for about months, But
Speaker 1: it's all right. I just uh, I just fear he's
Speaker 1: not gonna have I'm not gonna be able to spend
Speaker 1: enough time with him. M What have you been?
Speaker 2: Uh? What have you been up to in those seven months?
Speaker 1: I'm working and figuring out what I'm gonna do because
Speaker 1: it's uh, we were together for like eight years and
Speaker 1: now I have this like kind of freedom and uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know what the fuck to do with myself.
Speaker 2: Ooh interesting, tell me? Can I do you want to
Speaker 2: talk about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can talk about it. What I got? Uh
Speaker 1: I got it means you got what I got? Plans?
Speaker 2: Yeah, hit me with the plans.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about, uh, not selling my house but renting
Speaker 1: it out, maybe living in a van and then just
Speaker 1: on the weekends when I have the kid, staying with
Speaker 1: the mother. You know, and just kind of living my life.
Speaker 3: Would you drive the van around or would you do
Speaker 3: or like, would you go on like driving across the
Speaker 3: country or just live out of the van with a
Speaker 3: van parked, live out of the.
Speaker 1: Van and take like a lower paying job, less stressful,
Speaker 1: more time with the kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's what I was thinking. That's cool. What
Speaker 2: do you do now?
Speaker 1: Electrical work?
Speaker 2: Is that a lot of stress?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it can be, it has, it stays and the
Speaker 1: traveling sucks, but not too bad.
Speaker 3: So you're gonna downsize to a van, get a lower
Speaker 3: paying job that's less stressful, and then just chill and
Speaker 3: spend more time with your kid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just family in general. I guess I.
Speaker 2: Like that idea. I like that idea. I think that's cool.
Speaker 1: I like it too. But pulling the triggers hard why.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know. I guess just because for
Speaker 1: so long I just did whatever I needed too or
Speaker 1: whatever everybody else wanted to do. And now I got freedom,
Speaker 1: you know, except for the kid. But he's not locking
Speaker 1: me down on anything, you know, I want to do
Speaker 1: stuff with him.
Speaker 2: Is this something that you've been wanting to do for
Speaker 2: a while? Moving to a Van.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so, but I knew I could never
Speaker 1: do it because I had, you know, the girl and
Speaker 1: the kid, and I was like, well that dreams a crapshoot.
Speaker 1: So I'll just you know, live my life, go to
Speaker 1: work and be happy and die. But now I got freedom.
Speaker 2: Are you excited about having freedom?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm going to talk about therapist here.
Speaker 1: Shortly figure that out. I guess.
Speaker 2: Have you talked to your therapist about this before?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 1: Kind of? But there's there's always new developments in my
Speaker 1: life that I gotta talk to her. M I don't
Speaker 1: know if she helps her not be honest.
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 1: I guess because you don't really see the benefits of it.
Speaker 1: But it's just nice to talk to somebody. Maybe I can.
Speaker 2: I ask you, like.
Speaker 3: In the in looking for help or looking for benefits,
Speaker 3: if you were to picture or imagine what that help
Speaker 3: or benefit might look like, what would what would that be?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think that's my problem because that's what she
Speaker 1: keeps asking me. It's like, what do you want? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have no fucking clue.
Speaker 2: Well, you want to live an event?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean from talking to you for two seconds,
Speaker 3: you sound like you want to spend more time with
Speaker 3: your family and you want to be less stressed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah I've been. I've been a lot less
Speaker 1: stressed and pretty happy. Uh from something you said, so you, uh,
Speaker 1: you got somebody into Pokemon a long time ago and
Speaker 1: they went broke, right, So I did the same thing
Speaker 1: with Magic the Gathering. So I went pretty broke, but
Speaker 1: I was already broke, so but it more broke. And
Speaker 1: so that was that was because of the Pokemon thing.
Speaker 1: You need to find something you like to do, go
Speaker 1: do it. So I took that advice. And then after
Speaker 1: I got over being broke, you had another call where
Speaker 1: you were like, oh, you can't kill yourself, you got
Speaker 1: to do this. Yeah. So I've been playing every Monday,
Speaker 1: so I can't kill myself because I gotta go play
Speaker 1: Magic on Monday.
Speaker 2: Great, I'm extreme. I'm extremely happy to hear that you
Speaker 2: you're not gonna kill yourself because you have Magic tournaments
Speaker 2: on Mondays. That's uh, that's good. Do you still play
Speaker 2: in them?
Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah. They're more casual though, because it's the casual
Speaker 1: format where you can just go to a bar. Yeah
Speaker 1: kind of nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah you need some ship? Well yeah, bro you need
Speaker 2: to have something. I think.
Speaker 3: I think one of the things I've learned is you
Speaker 3: need to have a place where you can go where
Speaker 3: it's that. It's that, it's cheers, dude, it's where everybody
Speaker 3: knows your name.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you gotta have you gotta have that place.
Speaker 3: Where you go and you know everyone, and and you
Speaker 3: leave and you say goodbye to a bunch of people.
Speaker 2: You gotta have that place.
Speaker 3: And if you don't have that place, you gotta it
Speaker 3: takes it takes a little bit of time and energy
Speaker 3: to develop it, but you gotta have it.
Speaker 2: It's it's like a key to.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, anxiety inducing. But I probably only did it
Speaker 1: because of your podcast.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm happy to hear that. I'm happy to hear that.
Speaker 3: So do you have a you have a nice community
Speaker 3: of folks in the Magic Universe that you hang out with.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's much better than like the game store
Speaker 1: because it's at a bar, so it's kind of like
Speaker 1: more socially adjusted people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, sure, Ah, that's wonderful. I'm super happy to
Speaker 3: hear that the podcast, Uh inspired you to do that? Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, especially as like we're getting I think one thing,
Speaker 3: one reason I'm optimistic about society is. I do think
Speaker 3: that as we get I think there is a pendulum
Speaker 3: shift that like, as we get more and more sucked
Speaker 3: into our digital universe, there's going to be more and
Speaker 3: more demand for like in person shit people to be
Speaker 3: more and more like, oh wait, I actually want to
Speaker 3: be out and about and in the universe and not
Speaker 3: on fucking uh discord and uh right it all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The more I socialize, the more I figure out
Speaker 1: I'm very terminally online because I'll say some shit that's
Speaker 1: like a quote from a meme or something, and I
Speaker 1: just get a blank fucking stare and I'm like, fuck,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm an idiot.
Speaker 2: You're not an idiot. You're not.
Speaker 3: I don't think you're an idiot, but I think that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: you can become more terminally online. But it's great because
Speaker 3: there are places where weird nerdy people hang out and socialize,
Speaker 3: you know, and you don't have to feel like a
Speaker 3: crazy person.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The community at this bar is great. I love it.
Speaker 1: That's uh much better than any game store I've been to.
Speaker 2: Wow, why are the game stores weird?
Speaker 1: They're a lot more competitive they Uh, it's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you're here, or like I really like playing
Speaker 1: with you. It's more like when win this game and
Speaker 1: go on to the next one and shake hands but
Speaker 1: not talk to the person at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah playing.
Speaker 3: I play in melee tournaments and sometimes actually shout out.
Speaker 3: There's this bar in uh Manhattan called os They run
Speaker 3: Melee Wednesday, and I go. I go like once a
Speaker 3: month something like that, and uh, eighty percent of the
Speaker 3: time when I like have a match with someone, they're
Speaker 3: we're just sitting down and chatting and it's cool and whatever.
Speaker 2: But then like twenty percent of the twenty percent of the.
Speaker 3: Time I could tell they were like fucking into it
Speaker 3: and they were like and like like I'll like I'll win,
Speaker 3: and they like are all fucking sad, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh man, come on, we're just having fun playing the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had one guy get up on me and
Speaker 1: get mad, and I'm like, shit that that it just
Speaker 1: feels bad. Yeah, And that's that's how I feel every
Speaker 1: time at the game store. But at the bar, it's
Speaker 1: just like it's always just fun. Nobody cares if they lose.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they also have smash tournaments at that bar too,
Speaker 1: that's cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like I feel that way with uh,
Speaker 3: I feel that way with I mean those have been
Speaker 3: my like two big hobbies for my life is uh
Speaker 3: a stand up and the smash Bros. And I feel
Speaker 3: like I feel like I stand up to Like a
Speaker 3: lot of people in stand up are like also very competitive,
Speaker 3: but it's like, bro, I don't know a lot of
Speaker 3: this ship. It's like at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: we're all just at the end of the day, we're
Speaker 3: all just trying to get out of the house, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they seem more like uh critical then, like because
Speaker 1: they're trying to help you out, but they just come
Speaker 1: off as an asshole. Maybe that's for stand up.
Speaker 3: Or well, nah mean mainly just just may may I
Speaker 3: think mainly just people being like this person's sir, this
Speaker 3: is lame or whatever.
Speaker 2: Fuck. It's like, we're just trying to get out of
Speaker 2: the house.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 2: But anyway, what's your name? Gary?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Gary? Yeah, Gary, Gary Gary, Gary?
Speaker 3: All right, So you're fucking you got your magic tournament
Speaker 3: that you're not killing yourself for.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 3: You're gonna try to take a lower paying job to
Speaker 3: have less stress, live out of a van.
Speaker 1: Yeah, be with Kid Moore. Yeah, stop drinking too, Stop
Speaker 1: drinking it just yeah, it just sucks because all the
Speaker 1: stuff at the bars, so you know, alcohol is always there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What inspired you to quit drinking?
Speaker 1: I think a long time ago. I like when I
Speaker 1: was twenty seven, I was fucking drinking and playing Rocket
Speaker 1: League every night and I was getting plastered. And uh,
Speaker 1: one one birthday, I drink almost a whole fifth by
Speaker 1: myself playing Rocket League and I felt like it almost
Speaker 1: killed me mm hmm, and I was like, I need
Speaker 1: to stop doing this. I'm too old.
Speaker 2: M was that your rock bottom?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 1: No, my rock bottom was right out of high school.
Speaker 1: Uh shit, eating mick chickens and drinking four locos.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: That living in the car.
Speaker 2: Yeah that sounds fun for a day.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah it Uh it wasn't great.
Speaker 2: How long you've been off alcohol for?
Speaker 1: Oh I'm not off. I just uh, I just cut
Speaker 1: back a lot, and I'm trying to not drink, but
Speaker 1: going to the bar all the time, especially with the
Speaker 1: family drinking too.
Speaker 2: The family.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like my whole anytime we go for a birthday
Speaker 1: or anything like that, it's oh what bar are we
Speaker 1: going to?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 2: Well, oh do you have a lot of family where
Speaker 2: you live.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, nice.
Speaker 2: Now are you close with them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm pretty close. Yeah, definitely with the mother.
Speaker 2: That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Do you have a
Speaker 2: lot of friends.
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 1: Most of them are online? And then you know, I
Speaker 1: got the people who all know my name and I
Speaker 1: know their name, and we may sometimes go to people's
Speaker 1: houses and play magic. But I don't know if they're
Speaker 1: friends yet. I don't. I wouldn't say they would call
Speaker 1: me a friend.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious about this.
Speaker 3: Uh, and yeah, you know you should talk to a
Speaker 3: real therapist about this, But I'm just I'm curious. As
Speaker 3: I'm talking to you, is like, you're you got all
Speaker 3: you got your You've got all this well rounded stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, you got a plan, You're cutting down on drinking,
Speaker 3: You're you know, you're on an upward trajectory, making friends,
Speaker 3: hang out with family.
Speaker 2: What when you say you're.
Speaker 3: What was the thing you were gonna talk to your
Speaker 3: therapist about, like trying to find like trying to figure
Speaker 3: out what the fuck to do?
Speaker 1: Well? She always asked me, what I what do I
Speaker 1: want out of those therapy sessions? And I don't know
Speaker 1: what the fuck to tell her.
Speaker 3: But you said that you you said before that you
Speaker 3: were like, I'm gonna I gotta talk to my therapists
Speaker 3: about like what the fuck am I gonna do?
Speaker 1: Uh Yeah, but then that's not her job to tell
Speaker 1: me what I'm gonna do. So it's like, I think
Speaker 1: I'm expecting something from a therapist that I'm never gonna get.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's possible, that's possible. But I mean in terms
Speaker 3: of figuring out what you're gonna do, because you're already
Speaker 3: doing a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. The last two weeks when I think you
Speaker 1: can see my kid though, I was a little depressed
Speaker 1: and I didn't really do anything though, and I was
Speaker 1: it felt bad. So I was kind of forced myself
Speaker 1: to go to magic and I feel a lot better. Now.
Speaker 3: Where is your Uh do you have a nice enough
Speaker 3: relationship with the baby mama that you guys can like,
Speaker 3: you know, fucking co parent the kid.
Speaker 1: I thought we did.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It sucks, Yeah it does, but shit happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah, life is crazy.
Speaker 1: That says crazy. Yeah, Gary, it's.
Speaker 2: Been nice talking to you. Is there is there.
Speaker 3: I know you said you've been trying to call in
Speaker 3: for a while. Uh, is there any thing. I guess
Speaker 3: while we're still on the phone, is there anything else
Speaker 3: that you wanted.
Speaker 2: To say or talk about before we go?
Speaker 1: I don't mean down to Ashville alle Yeah, I've.
Speaker 3: Heard things about Ashville. I've heard cool things about Ashville.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't go downtown, go on Heywood Road.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: I you know I'm not touring this year. I might
Speaker 3: next year. I got to think of something to tour.
Speaker 3: I got to come up with some shit. I'm laser
Speaker 3: focused on trying to make YouTube videos this year and
Speaker 3: spend less time touring so I can work on my
Speaker 3: videos and you know, do the podcast and shit. But
Speaker 3: if I tour again in twenty twenty six, I'll put Nashville.
Speaker 3: I'll put Asheville on there. I've heard a lot of
Speaker 3: good things about Ashville.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're small, but we got we got people who
Speaker 1: would want to see you. We've got tons of breweries
Speaker 1: and bars and everything.
Speaker 3: That sounds like a fun ass time. Well, is there
Speaker 3: anything else you want to say at all before? I
Speaker 3: guess that was the thing, But anything else before we
Speaker 3: actually go this.
Speaker 1: Now there's nothing knocking around in my head.
Speaker 2: Cool, good luck, Gary, take care man?
Speaker 1: Yeah, YouTube get I like that.
Speaker 2: Guy that goes cool. Yeah, I'm happy.
Speaker 3: I'm stoked that, uh the podcast inspired him to go
Speaker 3: out and do shit. I'm a big fan of going
Speaker 3: out and do shit, doing shit. I'm a big fan
Speaker 3: of avoiding thoughts. I think, I don't know everyone's so
Speaker 3: everyone's wired very differently. But I find that like the
Speaker 3: more engaged I am, I find like I'm like a shark.
Speaker 3: Like if I'm not engaged in life, if I'm not
Speaker 3: like out and about and doing something or talking to
Speaker 3: something someone or you know whatever.
Speaker 2: Like That's why That's why I love cities so much.
Speaker 2: I love fucking you know, being out and engaged in life.
Speaker 2: I love being like you know, I find if I'm
Speaker 2: not doing that, I'm just like I'm spiraling fucking hard, dude,
Speaker 2: spiraling hard. Yes, I loved you know, touring and uh,
Speaker 2: I mean that.
Speaker 3: That got you know, it can sometimes get a little overwhelming,
Speaker 3: but overall, I feel much more relaxed and calm when
Speaker 3: I'm like present in in life. You know, Like I'll
Speaker 3: spend a whole morning inside and I'm like fucking depressed,
Speaker 3: and then I go outside and I see like people
Speaker 3: walking around and the sun is.
Speaker 2: Out and I'm like, oh, well, the you know, you
Speaker 2: gotta yetta do shit? Yeah, do shit. And it doesn't
Speaker 2: always it doesn't always have to cost a lot of
Speaker 2: money to do shit. Like every every city has free
Speaker 2: ship that you can go and do.
Speaker 3: You can even show you can even like fucking go
Speaker 3: out to some bar that has some fucking trivia or
Speaker 3: magic or whatever and buy like a diet coke.
Speaker 2: You know, doesn't have to be crazy expensive.
Speaker 5: Hello is this the Therapy?
Speaker 4: Agree?
Speaker 2: Yes? Who is this?
Speaker 1: Hello?
Speaker 5: My name is Alex.
Speaker 2: What's up Alex? How you doing? Man?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I'm not too bad. I just before we
Speaker 5: start this conversation, I just I wanted to say that
Speaker 5: I have I have called you before, and I've been
Speaker 5: listened to you a little bit this evening, and you
Speaker 5: and you've expressed the distaste for people who call you
Speaker 5: multiple times. So I don't know, I don't know whether
Speaker 5: you would want to talk to me again or if
Speaker 5: you want to have a different conversation than perhaps we
Speaker 5: had last time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it is true that I prefer to
Speaker 3: talk to new people because you know, I know that
Speaker 3: there's a lot of people who want to talk on
Speaker 3: the show that haven't gotten the chance to talk before.
Speaker 2: What I mean, when how recently did we talk?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 5: So I actually the first time that I spoke to you,
Speaker 5: I met you in person at show in London. I
Speaker 5: came and the last time I called you, I told
Speaker 5: you about the time that I met you at the
Speaker 5: show and you said that perhaps that you had been
Speaker 5: moved to tears or something, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were the guy, yeah, yeah, yeah, you were
Speaker 2: the guy who you were the guy who?
Speaker 4: Who?
Speaker 1: Who?
Speaker 2: Who read the letter on stage?
Speaker 5: No no, no, no no no no that wasn't me, that
Speaker 5: was someone else. But I came up to you after
Speaker 5: a show and I said to you that the show
Speaker 5: had helped me for the better and it helped my life.
Speaker 5: And I spoke to you about, you know, the something
Speaker 5: that you had talked about called the tax of life,
Speaker 5: which like you know, how you accepting some move on
Speaker 5: in your life difficult and stuff like that. And I
Speaker 5: came up to you after the show and told you
Speaker 5: about that, and then I called you. Last time I
Speaker 5: called you was about just before the Vice documentary came out.
Speaker 5: It was literally working like the day before the Vice
Speaker 5: documentary came out. And I spoke to you then and
Speaker 5: I called you and we spoke for about forty five
Speaker 5: minutes and then by the end and I think the
Speaker 5: whole conversation was me trying to reassure you that that
Speaker 5: you're doing a great job and the podcast is a
Speaker 5: good thing. And I felt like in that conversation we
Speaker 5: spoke for about forty five minutes about you, and I
Speaker 5: was trying to I was trying to therapy you. And
Speaker 5: so I thought this time, if I called up, I
Speaker 5: could maybe share something about myself. And it was but
Speaker 5: that's only if you want to.
Speaker 2: You know what, you know what, you know what, you
Speaker 2: know what? Hold on you know what?
Speaker 1: Alex.
Speaker 3: First of all, I I kind of I actually think
Speaker 3: I do remember this now, I think I do. Right, Okay,
Speaker 3: So UK, okay, you you didn't come this past November.
Speaker 3: You came to my show in the summer of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's right. Yeah, so it was in London
Speaker 5: and Camden. I came to see you and yeah, and
Speaker 5: the reason is, to be honest with you, is because
Speaker 5: I lived in a city called Birmingham and you haven't
Speaker 5: been to Birmingham yetually at all. But it's the best
Speaker 5: scene in the UK. It's the second largest city needs
Speaker 5: to come. You need to come to my city and
Speaker 5: come and hang out here. That's why. But yeah, I
Speaker 5: love the show and I'd love to go.
Speaker 2: Thanks Met. Well, yeah, of course, Well first of all,
Speaker 2: yes we can. We can have this conversation. Yeah, I remember,
Speaker 2: I do, Actually, I do remember that fucking I do
Speaker 2: remember that phone call. Yeah, I do remember that phone call.
Speaker 2: How are you doing? Man?
Speaker 5: What I'm doing good? I'm doing good. And I think
Speaker 5: a lot of my life is like extremely extremely stressful
Speaker 5: right now, but I feel quite I feel quite happy.
Speaker 5: I feel good in the field. And I think I
Speaker 5: know just moments ago that you said that you don't
Speaker 5: you don't want to talk about extrastential dreads and so't
Speaker 5: we won't talk about that, and I'll talk about happy things.
Speaker 5: And but yeah, I can tell you about my life
Speaker 5: if you want to know about me. And I think
Speaker 5: last time, when I spoke to you and you asked
Speaker 5: me some questions, I think that I tried to not talk.
Speaker 5: I try not to not tell you too many details
Speaker 5: about my life to be identifiable. But I actually I
Speaker 5: think I don't mind. I think if you want to
Speaker 5: talk about anything, then I'm happy to talk about literally anything.
Speaker 5: With you as well. So if you if you want
Speaker 5: to ask me something, then I'm oiles whatever you want
Speaker 5: to talk about.
Speaker 2: Sure, mat well listen.
Speaker 3: It sounds like you called in to want to talk
Speaker 3: about something specific, so I'm down to talk about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah I did. I did want to talk
Speaker 5: about something specific.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 5: So I have something that I talk about. It is
Speaker 5: like a funny thing sometimes it's like a bit of
Speaker 5: a nice breakup and I think my partner, my partner
Speaker 5: hates it because she it's really embarrassing, Like it's a
Speaker 5: really embarrassing thing to talk about and tell people. But
Speaker 5: I just wanted to get your opinion on like this
Speaker 5: thing that I tell people about, and I want to
Speaker 5: know what you where you think about it as well,
Speaker 5: if that's okay, sure, Oh my god, Okay, my girlfriend's
Speaker 5: she's she's just looking at me with her head on
Speaker 5: her hands, her hands on her head. I think she
Speaker 5: doesn't want me to say this, but I'm going to
Speaker 5: tell you about it, okay. So have you have you
Speaker 5: ever been poor and like desperate for money, like you
Speaker 5: need to do something like really like like drastic tourn
Speaker 5: some money. Have you ever been in that situation?
Speaker 3: I'm really lucky that I grew up, you know, not
Speaker 3: having to like ever be like particularly stressed about money.
Speaker 3: So I'm I'm too privileged to answer that question.
Speaker 5: Okay, have you ever have you ever thought to yourself,
Speaker 5: what's the weirdest or like, what's the worst thing that
Speaker 5: you'd be willing to do for money? Have you ever
Speaker 5: had that thought cross from money?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've had that thought across lunch for sure.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, well, so I also had this thought come
Speaker 5: across my mind many times, and I think, you know,
Speaker 5: would you ever like sometimes I find myself thinking, like,
Speaker 5: would I lick a homeless man's foot for fifty pounds?
Speaker 5: And I mean that's like seventy five dollars. I think
Speaker 5: something like that, And I think that, you know, I
Speaker 5: probably wouldn't lick at homeless nuns for like fifty or
Speaker 5: seventy five dollars or whatever. But I think my threshold
Speaker 5: is a lot lower than like a lot of people,
Speaker 5: so like what I'm willing to do to embarrass myself
Speaker 5: for money? Like if that makes sense. So anyway, it
Speaker 5: was about twenty twenty, you know, in the middle of
Speaker 5: lockdown and COVID. I was a student at university, and
Speaker 5: I was, you know, very poor, Like my partner lost
Speaker 5: her job because of COVID. She was working in retail,
Speaker 5: and we didn't have a lot of money. We were
Speaker 5: eating like on the like reduced labels in like the store.
Speaker 5: Like everything we were reading was like about to expire
Speaker 5: and stuff like that was very bleak, Like we were
Speaker 5: totally running out of cash. And I used to live
Speaker 5: actually I won't say that the city, but I used
Speaker 5: to live in a different city's where I live now.
Speaker 5: And someone in that city posted on the city subreddit
Speaker 5: that they were looking for a skinny, young white man
Speaker 5: to fart for them for money, And so I replied
Speaker 5: to the reddit comments saying that I was game for
Speaker 5: a bit of fighting because I thought, you know, I'm
Speaker 5: willing to fart my way out of my situation, you know,
Speaker 5: if I if I had to. And this isn't this
Speaker 5: is not a bit I'm being I'm being so serious
Speaker 5: that this that this happened. So I like I made
Speaker 5: myself like an alternative Snapchat for this this purpose, like
Speaker 5: I was gonna I was serious about The sender guy
Speaker 5: added me, and and so I asked him like what
Speaker 5: he wanted specifically because I wanted the money. I was
Speaker 5: serious about it, you know, I wanted to see like
Speaker 5: what he wanted to he told me. He told me
Speaker 5: what he wanted and he basically he said that he
Speaker 5: wanted me to fart and like comment on it as
Speaker 5: well if I could. So what I did was I
Speaker 5: filmed myself. I filmed myself fighting, and I did like,
Speaker 5: oh that really stinks, like that's something really like I
Speaker 5: don't know, like I commented until how bad it's now?
Speaker 5: And then I actually did that twice. I filmed too,
Speaker 5: and then I sent him the first one and I said,
Speaker 5: this one's free, but if you were more, you're gonna
Speaker 5: have to pay. I was serious. And then he stole
Speaker 5: my part video. He never paid me, and then that
Speaker 5: was it. And then I just have Now I just
Speaker 5: have two videos with myself buying on my phone.
Speaker 3: Wait, but did he but he didn't really steal it.
Speaker 3: He didn't really steal it. You gave it, you said it,
Speaker 3: you said the first one's free.
Speaker 5: Well, because because I didn't really know, I've never done
Speaker 5: something like this before, so I was very naive. I
Speaker 5: was like twenty years old. I didn't really know. I
Speaker 5: didn't really know what I was doing, so I thought, well,
Speaker 5: I just want to show him that I've got the
Speaker 5: goods and then if this is going to be like
Speaker 5: a reoccurring arrangement, then then that was going to be happening.
Speaker 3: When I was from a business perspective, I think you
Speaker 3: did the right thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, well this is the thing as well. And
Speaker 5: in the conversations up to this, he had spoken about
Speaker 5: doing this in person because he obviously he was local
Speaker 5: to the or so he claims, he was local to
Speaker 5: the city that I was living in. So in my mind,
Speaker 5: I was thinking, like, this could be the start of
Speaker 5: a beautiful business relationship and I could be you know,
Speaker 5: fighting on this man form for vast amounts of money
Speaker 5: and and you know, maybe one one day I won't
Speaker 5: have to far on anyone. You know, That's what I
Speaker 5: was thinking. But it didn't work out that way, and
Speaker 5: you know, but I'm glad that it didn't, because I
Speaker 5: think life is probably better now than if I had
Speaker 5: built like some kind of fighting empire. But that that
Speaker 5: was something that I was very serious about, and I
Speaker 5: went to the point of, like, you know, degrading myself
Speaker 5: and fighting on my phone, not not to say that
Speaker 5: you know, I think, I don't know. Maybe I don't
Speaker 5: really think that's sex work. Maybe it's sex I don't
Speaker 5: I don't want to call myself a sex work and
Speaker 5: I don't think less of people for being sex worky.
Speaker 5: But obviously you know, but you know, it's it was
Speaker 5: kind of crazy that I went through all that effort
Speaker 5: to fart on my phone, that the ethical dynama, just
Speaker 5: to get nothing, nothing from it? Do you know what
Speaker 5: I mean?
Speaker 3: Hmmm, is that something you would you would do today?
Speaker 3: Like how much money would somebody have to offer you
Speaker 3: for a fart video nowadays?
Speaker 5: Well, that's that's a good question. Well what have you
Speaker 5: ever considered? Like, I don't want to sip the question.
Speaker 5: I think i'd need to address this. I think if
Speaker 5: someone wanted me to send a video of me fighting,
Speaker 5: I think I would do it for fifty pounds. I
Speaker 5: think that's pretty fair of like a fifteen second video
Speaker 5: of me fighting and coming on this now, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think i'd I mean, I've sent videos like that
Speaker 3: in my like Facebook group chat of friends. I think
Speaker 3: I sent a video of me farting in my on
Speaker 3: the toilet and my Facebook group chat like a week ago,
Speaker 3: and I did that for free.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but see that's okay, that's pretty normal, And I
Speaker 5: think that maybe can I ask you another question, because
Speaker 5: I think that's normal than mix friends, right, And this
Speaker 5: is another thing. You know, I kind of prefaced this
Speaker 5: thing as well by saying that, like my girlfriend she
Speaker 5: really disapproves of this, this whole story and this whole scenario.
Speaker 5: But I she also doesn't like it when I send
Speaker 5: my friends like pictures of my nutsacks and stuff like that.
Speaker 5: Do you ever do that?
Speaker 3: Not as much anymore, but like I've seen I sent.
Speaker 3: I what I'll do is like I have a it like, Okay,
Speaker 3: so we have a main group chat there's like nine people,
Speaker 3: and then we have a little breakout group chat where.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit less people.
Speaker 3: And in that one, I've sent a video of me
Speaker 3: like screaming with my like ass out, but then I
Speaker 3: usually I'll delete it afterwards, okay, all right? Yeah, Or
Speaker 3: like we'll send like pictures of each other, or like
Speaker 3: we'll like I'll send like a like my friend, we'll
Speaker 3: send like pictures of like the our toilets and stuff
Speaker 3: in the smaller group chat. That stuff it wouldn't play
Speaker 3: in the larger group chat, but it sometimes plays in
Speaker 3: the smaller one. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think when I
Speaker 3: was younger, I would send more like, oh, like a
Speaker 3: picture of my nuts, like in the Facebook group chat,
Speaker 3: but not not so much anymore.
Speaker 5: No, perhaps that's the learning curve. We're wrong, but yeah,
Speaker 5: definitely now that now that maybe now that I'm older? Then,
Speaker 5: So do you think that I should leave the fighting
Speaker 5: face behind and I should not tell people about it?
Speaker 4: Is it?
Speaker 5: Is it wrong that I or it should I experience
Speaker 5: shame for that? Or I don't know? Like what do you.
Speaker 3: Should you experience shame for I don't. I don't think
Speaker 3: you should experience shame for it, But I don't what
Speaker 3: do you mean by leave it behind?
Speaker 5: Well, like with my girlfriend, she tells me about like
Speaker 5: I shouldn't. I shouldn't tell people about that. It's like embarrassing,
Speaker 5: But I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't think you should. I mean, do you want it?
Speaker 3: I don't think you should not tell? Well, do you
Speaker 3: want to tell people about it?
Speaker 2: Does it? Is it funny to you? Is it?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 5: Well, it's funny to me, but it's you know. I
Speaker 5: obviously I can't see you right now, so I don't
Speaker 5: know what your reaction was when I started talking about no.
Speaker 3: I think I also think it's funny. It's objectively funny.
Speaker 3: It's very funny for sure.
Speaker 5: Oh, okay, And I think I mean, you probably spoke
Speaker 5: to a lot of people. I mean, you've probably spoken
Speaker 5: to people who, like you fought on cakes and stuff like, right,
Speaker 5: And I think it's the fighting just and coming on.
Speaker 5: It's not that's not even the worst thing that you've
Speaker 5: heard so so. But but I don't know, maybe maybe
Speaker 5: you're like, maybe you're biased towards the fighting.
Speaker 2: I don't know, uh, maybe, yeah, maybe, but like I
Speaker 2: don't know, it's what Yeah, I think you don't really
Speaker 2: have anything to be ashamed of to like feel like
Speaker 2: you have to hide.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, okay. Is that Is there anything else that
Speaker 5: you want to talk about or ask me about? And
Speaker 5: I'll talk about anything that you love anything.
Speaker 3: You sound like you have a thing, and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: and I don't. I have I have no further questions
Speaker 3: for you. But if you have further things that you
Speaker 3: want to talk about, you can you can.
Speaker 5: Well there was nothing as such, but you know, just
Speaker 5: in general, I guess I would say that I feel
Speaker 5: like I put for a living, I also interview people
Speaker 5: in a similar way that well, not in a similar
Speaker 5: way that you interview people, but I often because I'm
Speaker 5: also I'm twenty six years old, so I think I'm
Speaker 5: a year younger than you. So I think a lot
Speaker 5: of the time when I'm listening to you and I'm
Speaker 5: like listening and watching the show, and I watched the
Speaker 5: live quite often as well, I kind of I can
Speaker 5: I think that from the perspective of someone who interviews
Speaker 5: people for a living, that I kind of I sometimes
Speaker 5: feel like I can think your thoughts. When I'm watching
Speaker 5: the stream and I'm like watching you interview people, I
Speaker 5: feel like the next question is that you ask. I
Speaker 5: also I anticipate that you're going to ask them, So
Speaker 5: sometimes I feel like I'm in your head a little bit.
Speaker 5: But so I don't know whether but I don't know,
Speaker 5: I don't know whether you would find it interesting to
Speaker 5: talk about what I do for a living, who I
Speaker 5: interview and when I interview them, or whether that's a conversation.
Speaker 1: You want to go down or not.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was, I was a little I was
Speaker 3: a little curious, Yeah, who do you what do you
Speaker 3: do to interview people?
Speaker 5: Well, so so for the last like five years or so,
Speaker 5: I've been like a fraud investigator. So I used to
Speaker 5: be a benefits buster for the government in the UK.
Speaker 5: So so after all of the flying went away and
Speaker 5: I wasn't poor anymore, the first job that I got
Speaker 5: after the flying, I became like a government it was
Speaker 5: it's called the job center in the UK. Do you know,
Speaker 5: like welfare and stuff that you have in the US. Sure,
Speaker 5: it's like that, but like.
Speaker 4: In the UK.
Speaker 5: So what I had to do for a while is
Speaker 5: like help people find work. And then I did that
Speaker 5: for like about a year, and then I got transferred
Speaker 5: to be like a fraud investigator, and then it was
Speaker 5: like my job to like investigate people who were like
Speaker 5: stealing a lot of government money. And then the whole
Speaker 5: my job, a part of that whole investigation was to
Speaker 5: interview them and grill them about it and get them
Speaker 5: to confess to like stealing you know, thousands and thousands
Speaker 5: of pounds of people's money. So that was my job
Speaker 5: for a while. And then now I do like visa interviews,
Speaker 5: so like it's my job to decide whether someone's like
Speaker 5: coming to this to the UK. It's like a genuine
Speaker 5: person or not, and they like, Mostly I do like
Speaker 5: student visa interviews and stuff like that. So mostly it's
Speaker 5: about like interviewing people to work out whether they're like
Speaker 5: genuinely coming here to study or whether they have like
Speaker 5: some ulterior motives to come to the country and stuff
Speaker 5: like that. So yeah, that's what I do at the moment.
Speaker 5: But I also I study like full time as well,
Speaker 5: so I'm doing like a full time master's degree as
Speaker 5: well at the moment. So that's my tea. I don't
Speaker 5: know if you have any questions about my tea, Lile,
Speaker 5: or the interviewing or anything like that, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll ask one question, what's the number one what's
Speaker 3: the number one flag for you that makes you deny
Speaker 3: someone's visa?
Speaker 1: Oh? Oh, that's well.
Speaker 5: I think the thing is like if I think they're
Speaker 5: lying to me, So if so, a lot of the
Speaker 5: questions when I ask people, and I think this is
Speaker 5: again is like why sometimes I relate to you when
Speaker 5: I when I listen to the podcast and stuff, is
Speaker 5: because I think when I'm questioning people in interviews when
Speaker 5: it was fraud as well, like when I was like
Speaker 5: not immigration stuff, when it was financial stuff, you want
Speaker 5: to try and ask people about their motivations for like
Speaker 5: whatever they do, and because you can't really if you
Speaker 5: when you live your life, you live your life hopefully
Speaker 5: with your doing the things that you are intentionally doing,
Speaker 5: and so you have some kind of motivation for stealing
Speaker 5: money or faking of EASA or whatever. So if I'm
Speaker 5: asking you questions about like, for example, if you're coming
Speaker 5: to my country to study a course, if I'm asking you,
Speaker 5: like what you're most excited to specifically study on that
Speaker 5: that course that you're applying for, then like, if you're
Speaker 5: really genuinely excited about that, you would be able to
Speaker 5: express that to some extent in like an interview and
Speaker 5: you would have something that you've been wanting to learn
Speaker 5: more about or something like that. So yeah, it's really
Speaker 5: for me anyway. It's about like asking people about around
Speaker 5: their like motivation. And if I think that I'm listening
Speaker 5: to you and your motivation is really poor, and I
Speaker 5: don't think that I believe that what you're saying makes
Speaker 5: any sense, and I will then I will fail you
Speaker 5: and I will not give you a visa to come
Speaker 5: to the UK. But there are there are there are
Speaker 5: specific things as well, some people. I sometimes I catch
Speaker 5: people in lines very often, which is like then then
Speaker 5: it's e gps to pet someone's for that. So well, yeah,
Speaker 5: I don't know. Did I answer your question?
Speaker 2: I did answer my question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the answered my question about your ability to perceive
Speaker 3: whether or not somebody is lying to you.
Speaker 5: Okay, And do you think that you have that ability
Speaker 5: as well?
Speaker 2: No, I'm pretty good at uh.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know good at but I I
Speaker 3: I tend to take folks at face value. I tend
Speaker 3: to not think about or press upon whether or not
Speaker 3: somebody is lying to me, because it usually is irrelevant
Speaker 3: for me whether or not somebody is lying. And in
Speaker 3: both this both both both on this show and in
Speaker 3: my real life.
Speaker 5: And in your real life, so you never really questioned
Speaker 5: whether someone's sending you the truth or not not.
Speaker 2: Really. No, I don't have really much of an incentive
Speaker 2: to in most cases.
Speaker 1: Hmm.
Speaker 7: Okay, Okay, that's interesting unless if something, I mean unless,
Speaker 7: unless if someone unless if somebody tells me something that's
Speaker 7: like blatantly unbelievable, like if someone's like, oh I less,
Speaker 7: if someone's like, you know, I have a like I
Speaker 7: have a pet.
Speaker 3: Unicorn or something like that that I'm inclined to believe
Speaker 3: that they're lying. But if if they're like, oh, I'm
Speaker 3: coming to the UK to visit my grandmother, it's like,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to press whether or not they're lying
Speaker 3: about that.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, okay, I see. Well, I think that's quite good.
Speaker 5: I think I tried to do the same in my
Speaker 5: personal I think I take people that face value as well.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I don't know. Do you think of that
Speaker 5: that what I said was unfair about the visa thing.
Speaker 5: I'm taking people at face.
Speaker 2: I don't think it was.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't think it was inherently unfair. I mean, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't. I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't have a real I don't I this. The
Speaker 3: interviews I do on this show are far less real
Speaker 3: than the interviews that you do for visas. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't really. I guess that you have more of
Speaker 3: an incentive to try to determine whether or not somebody
Speaker 3: is lying than I do, because if somebody is lying,
Speaker 3: it's like I never know, And also it's relatively harmless,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's different. I think it's different for
Speaker 2: for each of us. Hey, Alex, Hey, what's up? Is
Speaker 2: there anything else you want to say to the people
Speaker 2: of the computer before we go?
Speaker 5: No, I love you, I love everyone. And this this
Speaker 5: is going to be the last time. I think we
Speaker 5: told live.
Speaker 3: I think I think, oh, no, that makes me kind
Speaker 3: of sad. Now the way you said that, that makes
Speaker 3: me sad.
Speaker 5: But you know, at the start of this conversation we
Speaker 5: had the whole bit about whether we were whether it
Speaker 5: was okay or not. But and I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I feel like I exhausted this, this conversation. I don't
Speaker 5: know if I was to call you again, whether whether
Speaker 5: we would be able to milk anything out I did.
Speaker 5: I did my whole bartit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we Well, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe if I if I come back to the if
Speaker 3: I come back to the UK, maybe I'll see you.
Speaker 5: Okay. And when was the when I just as a
Speaker 5: time frame, when when did the Vice doorcumentary come out?
Speaker 5: Do you remember?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It was January of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 5: So yeah, so that was like a year and a
Speaker 5: half ago. Okay, Well, I might call you in a
Speaker 5: year and a half time and I have something more
Speaker 5: interesting to say.
Speaker 2: I give you formal permission to call me again in
Speaker 2: a year and a half.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, that sounds good. All right, keep it real eye,
Speaker 5: I'm going to go bye bye by Alex.
Speaker 2: Take care. Hello.
Speaker 4: Hello, can you hear me?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I can.
Speaker 2: What's your name?
Speaker 1: Man?
Speaker 4: My name is Will?
Speaker 2: What's up?
Speaker 1: Will?
Speaker 2: How you doing?
Speaker 4: You know? I'm hanging in there, dude. It's been a day.
Speaker 4: It's been a life fun a year. But we're still standing.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 2: I like that. What would you want to talk about today? Man?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Man, I guess.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 4: I'm like in a phase where I'm building a photography
Speaker 4: business right now, and I quit a full time job
Speaker 4: that I was doing that was making like CBD and
Speaker 4: HEMP coummies for like a year and a half, and
Speaker 4: now I'm just trying to build this up. And I'm
Speaker 4: in the space of like a little bit of a
Speaker 4: purgatory with it, you know, trying to get business, trying
Speaker 4: to balance out of social life, trying to do all
Speaker 4: that stuff, and it gets overwhelming, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, definitely tell me more if you if you want.
Speaker 4: To, Yeah, for sure. So I do like the photography
Speaker 4: business I'm doing. I'm a wedding photographer. I was like
Speaker 4: worked is one for since like twenty seventeen, so eight years.
Speaker 4: Worked for a company for a while doing like a
Speaker 4: lot of contract work, left working weddings for other people,
Speaker 4: and started my own business doing it. So it's like
Speaker 4: this weird balance of like actually trying to get people
Speaker 4: to hire me because I've done like two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty plus weddings. But this whole thing is like starting
Speaker 4: a business and having to be your own like advertising
Speaker 4: and like client outreach and like all this other stuff.
Speaker 4: It's not something they really tell you in college that
Speaker 4: you're going to have to do, especially in this whole
Speaker 4: land of social media and everything. So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm a little bit nervous because I've been trying to
Speaker 4: call you for so long that I've seen you live
Speaker 4: like three times, I think, and I'm just actually extremely
Speaker 4: surprised I actually got through here. This is like the
Speaker 4: most wild thing for me.
Speaker 2: So where did you? Where did you see the live shows?
Speaker 4: The first one I saw was at Lincoln Lodge in Chicago.
Speaker 2: Cool.
Speaker 4: I think that was twenty twenty two. He actually interviewed
Speaker 4: a friend of mine and he kept talking about excidential dread,
Speaker 4: and you were like, I can't help you with that.
Speaker 4: We should talk about something else, but all he could
Speaker 4: talk about was existential dread and it was a very
Speaker 4: funny moment. And then I saw you twice in Milwaukee.
Speaker 4: Once at the back Room, which is like the smaller ones.
Speaker 4: You had a hold David Kruber chant that went on,
Speaker 4: and then won at Turner Hall last year. So all
Speaker 4: been amazing, man, I appreciate you coming in.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks man. Yeah, I've been thinking. I've been reminiscing
Speaker 3: about those shows recently. I'd like to go out again.
Speaker 3: I just don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know when I'm going to do it or what.
Speaker 2: But tell me more about the photography land.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean I've been doing photography since I
Speaker 4: was fifteen, Like I bought my first camera from a
Speaker 4: friend then and then it kind of just built up
Speaker 4: from there, a bunch of senior photos and stuff when
Speaker 4: I was in high school. I shot my first wedding
Speaker 4: when I was seventeen actually, and then kind of went
Speaker 4: off to school. Was like, Okay, I'm not going to
Speaker 4: get a job in photography. It's like way too astronomical,
Speaker 4: and so I switched my major to graphic design and
Speaker 4: then I graduated with a major in graphic design, and
Speaker 4: then I've gotten like fired from all of my graphic
Speaker 4: design jobs, and then all of the photography jobs and
Speaker 4: gigs like that are the ones that actually stuck around.
Speaker 4: So it's just the way I learned to kind of
Speaker 4: like see people, and like I think, working a lot
Speaker 4: of events and like concerts or corporate events or weddings
Speaker 4: or whatever it may be, like music festivals too, it
Speaker 4: like teaches you like a sense of empathy, and like
Speaker 4: I think it shows you like a better way of
Speaker 4: seeing people outside of this like self consciousness that I
Speaker 4: think a lot of us feel on like social media
Speaker 4: and everything like that like very rewarding. They have someone
Speaker 4: who's like, I'm awkward in photos and then you take
Speaker 4: like a nice picture of it and they look at
Speaker 4: it and they're like I like that, and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you look great. You know. I think we're all living
Speaker 4: this wildly like extremely and too self conscious of a world,
Speaker 4: you know, based around all of that. So trying to
Speaker 4: find a way to like break through that noise to people, you.
Speaker 3: Know, tell me more about how it's given you more empathy.
Speaker 4: I think, like I think I've always been like an
Speaker 4: empathetic person. But I think just working in this space
Speaker 4: and like being around so many different kinds of people,
Speaker 4: whether you know, whatever the event may be, it just
Speaker 4: allows at least me to like kind of get in
Speaker 4: and like be a little bit more of a fly
Speaker 4: on the wall. And I think it like, I don't know,
Speaker 4: it's like a built in icebreaker, and so it cuts
Speaker 4: through a lot of small talk, which is like kind
Speaker 4: of what drew me to it, and I think people
Speaker 4: end up being a little bit more authentic to themselves
Speaker 4: and therefore, like I have a better view on other people,
Speaker 4: like regardless of whatever their views are or anything like that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't know. It's a little bit more abstract in
Speaker 4: some ways. I think it's just like a built thing
Speaker 4: that it's continued to throw in throughout my years doing it.
Speaker 2: Why would you ever see yourself doing anything else?
Speaker 4: I've thought about that a lot. Actually. I think there's
Speaker 4: like another life where I would have gone into like
Speaker 4: psychology or you know, something like that, because I feel
Speaker 4: like I can read people well enough in some regards.
Speaker 4: But there's also it's it's just not something that like
Speaker 4: I want to go back to school for or anything.
Speaker 4: You know. It's like I did my time with that.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean outside of it, I think just
Speaker 4: like anything people oriented would be something where like a
Speaker 4: lot of that lies. I don't know, it's a hard question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I also I also enjoy things that are people
Speaker 3: oriented for sure.
Speaker 4: Like you were talking about on the stream earlier, you
Speaker 4: were like, I like being in a city because it
Speaker 4: keeps my brain busy and like you know, yeah, me
Speaker 4: kind of involved. And I feel the same way like
Speaker 4: I live in Milwaukee, but like spending time in Chicago
Speaker 4: or New York or like anywhere else where, there's just
Speaker 4: like a ton of people out all the time. It's
Speaker 4: just like a there's an energy to it, you know, It's.
Speaker 2: True, it's very energizing. It makes you feel young, that
Speaker 2: makes you feel good. Yeah, I love. I love living
Speaker 2: in a city. I don't think I could ever live
Speaker 2: in like a suburb or live in a far off place.
Speaker 1: No, I agree.
Speaker 4: I think that's the other things like why with like
Speaker 4: photography and like working events, why I feel like really
Speaker 4: comfortable in that space because it is just like so
Speaker 4: many people and so many different things happening, and like
Speaker 4: I'm not somebody that's like standing out. I'm there to
Speaker 4: just like witness it and be a part of it.
Speaker 4: You know, there's not anything where like a focus is
Speaker 4: on me or anything like that, but you can still
Speaker 4: be a part of something with a bunch of other people.
Speaker 4: So I think that's like, you know, at the core
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 2: Well, let's see what is there. Do you have a
Speaker 2: dream photography gig of some kind?
Speaker 4: I don't know, man. I feel like, you know, running,
Speaker 4: like doing events and stuff like that is definitely really
Speaker 4: fun and like where a lot of the passion lies.
Speaker 4: Like whether it's like it'd probably be like concerts and
Speaker 4: music festivals overall, especially festivals, and like just capturing festival
Speaker 4: life and just like people hanging out with each other
Speaker 4: and enjoying themselves, you know, being absolute weirdos. Like you know,
Speaker 4: you've got a chance to go and like interview people
Speaker 4: at Bonnarou and that's those are some crazy conversations. And
Speaker 4: I think it's like the same thing on a photography
Speaker 4: side of that too, where it's just like people outside
Speaker 4: of their everyday environment just running around and doing them
Speaker 4: and like not trying to be necessarily you know, a
Speaker 4: corporate entity or you know, anything that they're not, so
Speaker 4: just capturing people in environments that like they feel comfortable in,
Speaker 4: I think is what I would really like to do,
Speaker 4: whether it's portraiture, events, base or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Just people, you know, so do what are you the
Speaker 2: most stressed out about? Now?
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just like living in today's society. I
Speaker 4: think there is you know, like a fair amount of
Speaker 4: existential dread that comes along with being alive right now.
Speaker 4: Not to get into any of that, you know, because
Speaker 4: that's just life, but yeah, I think it's just like
Speaker 4: money's always a worry and then just like just being like, oh,
Speaker 4: like you know, did I make the right decision? Or
Speaker 4: like am I doing the right thing? And then I
Speaker 4: always think about it and I'm just like I think
Speaker 4: I did, because like nothing else really makes me feel
Speaker 4: the way that you know, photography does, right, Like I
Speaker 4: can do a lot of other stuff, but if I'm
Speaker 4: not doing it, Like during the pandemic, when all the
Speaker 4: gigs kind of shut down and I wasn't like working
Speaker 4: photo stuff as much, there was like such a heavy
Speaker 4: part of me that was just gone, like you know, missing,
Speaker 4: and so like being able to come out of that
Speaker 4: and still work and like find those gigs again has
Speaker 4: been obviously very fulfilling. But yeah, I think the worry
Speaker 4: is just like you know, what if it fails, right,
Speaker 4: like just to be like super vulnerable with it. I
Speaker 4: think it's just you know, you'll never know that you
Speaker 4: made the right decision until the right things start happening,
Speaker 4: I think, and I think that sometimes it takes a
Speaker 4: long time to get to that point of like figuring
Speaker 4: out what the right things are.
Speaker 2: If that make sense, Yeah, it doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that there is definitely a lot of.
Speaker 2: Joy to be had.
Speaker 3: And simply trying, Oh yeah, you know, definitely a lot
Speaker 3: of joy to be had and simply trying.
Speaker 2: What if it doesn't work out? I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't fucking know, man, what do you what have you
Speaker 2: been feeling existential about?
Speaker 4: I think it's like I don't know if it's like
Speaker 4: like I've always had that existential stuff of just like
Speaker 4: trying to figure out, you know, like get a grasp
Speaker 4: on the world. I think, you know, ever since you
Speaker 4: get like cursed with self awareness at a young age,
Speaker 4: and it's like, I don't know if it's necessarily as
Speaker 4: much like existential as it is just like overwhelmed of
Speaker 4: like trying to do so much, and then there's also
Speaker 4: so much happening in the world, you know, without diving
Speaker 4: into any political stuff or anything like that, it's just
Speaker 4: like the world's pretty chaotic right now. And then if
Speaker 4: you're trying to like get your shit together or you know,
Speaker 4: start something new or like build on something, I feel
Speaker 4: like those things that you're trying to do can like
Speaker 4: be made to feel very small in the grand scheme
Speaker 4: of things.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe that's where the existentialism like lies, where it's
Speaker 4: like not necessarily where I feel like I'm not doing
Speaker 4: something that matters to me, but yeah, just trying to
Speaker 4: feel like, okay, like in the grand scheme of things,
Speaker 4: does this make an impact or a difference or like
Speaker 4: whatever it may be?
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean that's that's trying to be like
Speaker 3: beyond your mortal capacity. How do you mean like you're
Speaker 3: you're trying to You're like, oh, does anything I do
Speaker 3: matter in the grand scheme of things? And it's like,
Speaker 3: well no, but do you You can't. No, no mortal
Speaker 3: can ever do anything that matters in the grand scheme
Speaker 3: of themes, not even if you're I mean, you can
Speaker 3: get you can get pretty close. I mean you can
Speaker 3: write like I'm like, I don't know, Like, look at
Speaker 3: Mark Zuckerberg, right, he completely utterly changed the day to
Speaker 3: day life of all human beings on earth. Yeah, in
Speaker 3: the grand scheme of like how you can zoom out
Speaker 3: far enough that that doesn't even fucking matter, you know,
Speaker 3: So it's like, yeah, sure you can. You can take
Speaker 3: whatever vantage point upon your life and your work as
Speaker 3: you want. You're eventually gonna find one where it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: And if you're going to zoom in far enough to
Speaker 3: just the one person you are the universe and it
Speaker 3: matters to you, so then it matters, you know. It's
Speaker 3: like it's whatever vantage point you want to pick.
Speaker 1: True.
Speaker 4: No, that's a good that's a good thing. I think.
Speaker 4: It's like, yeah, it's very easy to get lost in
Speaker 4: the existentialism or like that the whole topic of meaning,
Speaker 4: when in reality, it's like, you know, I can get
Speaker 4: an email from someone that I did their wedding or
Speaker 4: like whatever it may be, or like a band hits
Speaker 4: me up after doing their photos like these are great,
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, and it's just like yeah, and it's
Speaker 4: just something that like, yeah, finding the touch points that
Speaker 4: are our grounding points in an overtly digital world. I
Speaker 4: think as a perspective that can be hard to look into.
Speaker 3: I mean, just one person being, you know, fucking with you,
Speaker 3: is is good?
Speaker 2: Is all you need?
Speaker 3: If just one person tells you that your work was
Speaker 3: impactful to them, that's that's enough.
Speaker 4: I think I would I would agree with that. I
Speaker 4: think that's also it's like, you know, it's I don't
Speaker 4: know if it's also like this is also something that
Speaker 4: you are you know, I feel like it is something
Speaker 4: that you have expressed, that you've dealt with in terms
Speaker 4: of like that existential realm. But I don't know if
Speaker 4: it's just like the over use social media and like
Speaker 4: playing that comparison game and like just getting lost in
Speaker 4: the scroll, you know, and then not having to focus
Speaker 4: to like put on the right things, like still getting
Speaker 4: all the stuff done right, but like, yeah, like it
Speaker 4: not necessarily searching for the meaning. It's just like looking
Speaker 4: for the stuff that is actually there that does mean
Speaker 4: something that you overlook when you're like, yeah, way too
Speaker 4: high above it.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmmm hm.
Speaker 4: So I think there's a good point. I think I
Speaker 4: think you've you've you've helped me figure out the I
Speaker 4: don't know, it's like a It's a scattered time to
Speaker 4: be alive, and my brain is very scattered about all
Speaker 4: of it. But yeah, it all comes down to the
Speaker 4: grounding points, right, friend's family, doing what you like to do,
Speaker 4: connecting with people, not letting silly things get in the way,
Speaker 4: being nice, you know.
Speaker 2: So, I don't know, man, what's your name against sir?
Speaker 1: It's will Will?
Speaker 2: How many times have I asked you that over the
Speaker 2: course of our conversation.
Speaker 4: I think only one. I guess that would be the
Speaker 4: second time.
Speaker 2: Will I will? Will? I? I uh will? I've hit
Speaker 2: my quota today for existentialism.
Speaker 3: So any any any furtherance of this conversation I will
Speaker 3: be useless in so I'll I'll end it before we
Speaker 3: get to that point.
Speaker 4: Anything else you want to appreciate you taking that time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, Man, Is there anything else you want
Speaker 3: to say to the people of the computer before we go?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you could hire me to shoot your wedding.
Speaker 3: By the time I get married, I'll probably have forgotten
Speaker 3: about this.
Speaker 4: Well, that's all good.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, Sorr, are you talking about me specifically or
Speaker 3: you talking about whoever's listening.
Speaker 4: Oh? I was talking to the people of the computer,
Speaker 4: but I mean obviously if.
Speaker 3: Sorry, I forgot, I forgot, I forgot that that was
Speaker 3: I forgot that that was the question that I asked you.
Speaker 4: Yeah no, but if you if you want to, you can.
Speaker 4: You can give me a shout at Candid Hughes h
Speaker 4: U E. S Dot Photo on Instagram. I'm always available
Speaker 4: and looking to work with cool people. So if you're
Speaker 4: looking to work with a fun photographer who makes you
Speaker 4: that easy, give.
Speaker 2: Me up beautiful, take care well, thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah you as well?
Speaker 4: Shout out asle bye.
Speaker 1: What's up?
Speaker 4: Man?
Speaker 1: Hey?
Speaker 2: How's it going do? What's your name?
Speaker 6: Ken? Like this from the eminem album I'm gonna go
Speaker 6: with that.
Speaker 2: I'm not familiar with that, but that sounds cool. What's up?
Speaker 4: Ken?
Speaker 1: Has life? Dude.
Speaker 6: I got fired on Friday, those thirteenth this month, and
Speaker 6: I've just been chilling. It's been amazing. I hated that job,
Speaker 6: so it was like the best thing ever happened. And
Speaker 6: now I'm just trying to figure out what i want
Speaker 6: to do after that. I don't know, trying to scheme
Speaker 6: on the internet and try to figure out what to
Speaker 6: do next. It sucks, but it's also been amazing.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy, all all right, Well, let's start with
Speaker 2: why it sucks. Why does it suck?
Speaker 6: Oh, it's like, oh man, it's like just the endless
Speaker 6: possibilities of what you could do or what you could
Speaker 6: do next, you know, and like, man, I have no
Speaker 6: clue what I want to do next, which is both
Speaker 6: like so scary but also so amazing because like I
Speaker 6: can go anywhere from here. But yeah, no, Like, as
Speaker 6: an impulsive decision, I decided to just say fucking go
Speaker 6: to Japan. So I got like a three week solo
Speaker 6: trip coming up in about a month, uh and hopefully,
Speaker 6: hopefully this month I could try to figure out what
Speaker 6: I want to do with like a job and all that,
Speaker 6: but then just again, chill out in Japan, have a
Speaker 6: great time, and then go from there.
Speaker 3: I don't know, Yeah, I mean, Japan's fucking wonderful. Man,
Speaker 3: what are you applying for?
Speaker 6: So I got a mechanical engineering bachelor's degree, but dude,
Speaker 6: I have no clue if I even want to do
Speaker 6: anything about that. Yeah. No, I haven't even been applying
Speaker 6: because I'm trying to figure out what exactly I want
Speaker 6: to do. So I've been talking to random people what
Speaker 6: their jobs are, like, try to see if that's something
Speaker 6: I want to do. Maybe uh, do like data science
Speaker 6: or acture. You're out. I don't fucking know, dude, anything
Speaker 6: anything that's not stressful. Because this last job paid really well,
Speaker 6: but it was so stressful, wasn't even worth it. I
Speaker 6: would rather make like half the money that I made
Speaker 6: back then and just killed the fuck out, you know,
Speaker 6: so trying to find something like that. It don't even
Speaker 6: have to be engineering, man, it could be like like
Speaker 6: that that one person that was selling ice cream out
Speaker 6: of an ice cream truck. And when I heard that shit,
Speaker 6: I was like, ooh, I'd be down to do that.
Speaker 6: I would love that as long as it pays for
Speaker 6: what I want to do.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: You kind of remind me of the last caller who
Speaker 3: was talking about how he yeah, you know, the guy
Speaker 3: in the van who was talking about how he wants
Speaker 3: to just just like take a lower paying job for
Speaker 3: the more for less stress.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: I respect.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, you could, dude, you could just
Speaker 3: like fucking if you wanted to just be a barista
Speaker 3: and hang out.
Speaker 6: True true as you but yeah, okay, okay. The only
Speaker 6: downside is like at some point I do want to
Speaker 6: settle down and like have family and all that and
Speaker 6: have enough money to buy a house. So you I
Speaker 6: always got that in the back of my head, like,
Speaker 6: oh shit, I gotta work on my career so then
Speaker 6: I have enough money to do all this shit in
Speaker 6: the future. But also like I'm I'm about to be
Speaker 6: twenty seven, I'm still decently young. I could still you know,
Speaker 6: I I you know, I could still fuck around a
Speaker 6: little bit, do some do some random side quests, and
Speaker 6: then figure that shit out later. Well, I don't know.
Speaker 6: It almost feels like a form of procrastination, you know.
Speaker 6: It's just, dude, there's just again, there's so many choices,
Speaker 6: so many annavenus I can go down, and it's just
Speaker 6: trying to make sure I pick the right one, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's uh, it's a difficult balance. It's a difficult balance.
Speaker 3: I mean, i'd be lying to you if I I
Speaker 3: this is the part I don't have good advice because
Speaker 3: I just got lucky.
Speaker 2: Right right, Yeah, but uh, it's a difficult balance. I mean,
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't.
Speaker 6: Think I felt like I got lucky with the last job.
Speaker 6: Even though I hated it, it paid me so much
Speaker 6: money that I was able to save up, so now
Speaker 6: I have like a good pushion. So like, in a sense,
Speaker 6: I was I was pretty lucky that they found me
Speaker 6: on LinkedIn and they're like, hey, do you want a job,
Speaker 6: And I'm like, you're gonna pay me double what I
Speaker 6: make right now? I mean, hell yeah. I didn't ask
Speaker 6: any questions.
Speaker 1: So it's like fuck it.
Speaker 6: So like, yeah, in a sense, I was kind of
Speaker 6: lucky too, But I don't know, I don't know it's
Speaker 6: part of but no, no, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2: I was just gonna ask a part of town you
Speaker 2: live in.
Speaker 6: I am in the suburbs of Chicago, and I really
Speaker 6: want to live in the city because I've been just
Speaker 6: staying with my parents and saving up money, which has
Speaker 6: been great. I don't regret it, but I kind of
Speaker 6: want to go out there and and be and be
Speaker 6: out there in the world and and just experience not
Speaker 6: living with my parents. You know, I'm ready for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 6: Having the income to do that is my first goal.
Speaker 6: And you try, I don't hate my job.
Speaker 3: Can you live with like, can you live with like
Speaker 3: six other dudes and pay like like five hundred dollars rent?
Speaker 6: Dude? Okay, yeah. Yeah, Yeah, So before I got fired,
Speaker 6: I wasn't going to move in with my one buddy
Speaker 6: and the rent would have been like eight hundred bucks
Speaker 6: because Chicago isn't that bad. Now. I'm not against living
Speaker 6: with like six other people. Uh, I just worry that
Speaker 6: someone's not gonna like each other and some shit's gonna happen. Uh.
Speaker 6: But if everyone's chill, I would fucking love that. I
Speaker 6: am all for like minimizing my costs so that I
Speaker 6: can make very little money and then low stress jobs
Speaker 6: and still like enjoy life and go out and do shit.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: That seems to be the theme of That seems to
Speaker 3: be the theme of today's episode. That seems to be
Speaker 3: the theme of today's episode. Yeah, I mean I respect that.
Speaker 3: I think that, Uh, there's something to be said about that, especially.
Speaker 1: Bro.
Speaker 3: It's a hard balancing act because you're aware of the
Speaker 3: fact that I think I think it's a hard balancing
Speaker 3: I think it's a balancing act that our generation in particular,
Speaker 3: is like trying to figure out, right, because the economy
Speaker 3: is all like fucking crazy and we're all like I
Speaker 3: think I feel like our generation is the most woke
Speaker 3: to the fact that time is finite. You know, maybe
Speaker 3: that's maybe that's wrong, Maybe maybe they figure that shit
Speaker 3: out back in the you know, one thousands or whatever.
Speaker 3: But I feel like, I feel like our generation is
Speaker 3: pretty woke to the fact that time is finite. And
Speaker 3: you know, it used to be like, all right, you're
Speaker 3: gonna work for forty years and then at the very
Speaker 3: end you retire, and but it's like, well, now that's
Speaker 3: just guaranteed.
Speaker 2: You know, It's like, how do I It's like, how
Speaker 2: do I. How do I.
Speaker 3: Balance living my life for today but also saving money
Speaker 3: so that, you know, if I do want to like
Speaker 3: live the quote unquote American dreams fucking have a house
Speaker 3: and afford you know, a family and all that shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a tough balancing act. Dude. It's a tough
Speaker 2: balancing act.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I think it also depends on who you talk to.
Speaker 6: Because I was telling my dad my parents were never
Speaker 6: good with money. But I was telling my dad like,
Speaker 6: I'm saving up for retirement. He's looking he looks at
Speaker 6: me crazy, like you're too young to save up for retirement.
Speaker 6: And I was like, dude, no, like the earlier you start,
Speaker 6: the better, And I tried to explain, like compound interests
Speaker 6: and all that stuff, and he just he just kind
Speaker 6: of waved his hand. But yeah, no, I feel like
Speaker 6: it definitely depends person to person. Maybe maybe earlier generations
Speaker 6: were just like fuck it, I'm gonna live day by
Speaker 6: day and see what happens. I don't know. Now, I'm
Speaker 6: just kind of talking out of just like personal experiences,
Speaker 6: but yeah, maybe we are. This generation is a lot
Speaker 6: more like oh my future, but not not just like
Speaker 6: making a bunch of money and then retiring early, but
Speaker 6: also like making sure you're also enjoying what's going on now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Anyways, well, I'm just most excited for my Japan trip.
Speaker 6: That's been my way of not thinking about it too much.
Speaker 2: Are you going by yourself?
Speaker 6: Yeah, dude, Okay, so I'm definitely doing Mount Fuji. There's
Speaker 6: like a random Japanese rock band I want to go see,
Speaker 6: so I gotta get tickets for that too. And then
Speaker 6: I'm just I've just been asking everybody like, where the
Speaker 6: hell should I go. I have no like concrete plans
Speaker 6: because I would hate to just like be in this
Speaker 6: city for two days and then I have to go
Speaker 6: over to this city for three days. I kind of
Speaker 6: just want to land there and see what the hell happens,
Speaker 6: see what I like most. Yeah, yeah, but that's gonna
Speaker 6: be fucking dope.
Speaker 2: Which cities are you going to?
Speaker 6: Or do you?
Speaker 1: Are? You?
Speaker 4: Are?
Speaker 1: You? Just?
Speaker 2: Are you just free bawing it?
Speaker 6: So I'm flying into Tokyo at like one am. I
Speaker 6: figured that out after I bought the ticket, and I'm like,
Speaker 6: oh shit, I'm probably have to sleep in the Internet
Speaker 6: cafe the first day, but that's fine. And then Mount Fuji, Okay,
Speaker 6: you could. You can now kind of tell how little
Speaker 6: planning I've done, but I think Mount Fuji is pretty
Speaker 6: close to Tokyo, so I could. I'm pretty sure I
Speaker 6: could take a train from there. And then this concert
Speaker 6: is like a three minute train ride from Tokyo. So
Speaker 6: those are probably the first two things I'm gonna do.
Speaker 6: Get get that off the list, and then uh, probably
Speaker 6: check out Osaka next, and I don't know, probably jump
Speaker 6: around from Osaka and Tokyo unless there's some other cities
Speaker 6: I find, you know that I really want to check out.
Speaker 3: I mean, Tokyo rocks man, you can, I you could
Speaker 3: spend I you could spend three weeks in Tokyo. I
Speaker 3: spent two months in there this year is great.
Speaker 6: Oh shit, wait, what'd you do out there?
Speaker 3: I was hanging out. I thought about moving there for
Speaker 3: a little bit and then I decided not to. But I, uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I had a great time. Shout I gotta go if
Speaker 3: you want to. If you want a recommendation, I gotta
Speaker 3: I gotta give a shout out to my homies at
Speaker 3: the Tokyo Comedy Bar. There's a great comedy club in
Speaker 3: the middle of Shabuyah. But yeah, I mean, if you
Speaker 3: want advice for like, I mean, there's all the like
Speaker 3: you could you should just you could just walk the
Speaker 3: entire fucking city. Like there's Shibuya, Shinjuku, Ueno, actually, yeah whatever,
Speaker 3: There's there's a Akiabara. There's just all these like great
Speaker 3: neighborhoods that you could just spend infinite amount of time
Speaker 3: just walking around and hanging out in.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, I think that. I think that's what I
Speaker 6: gotta do.
Speaker 3: And so you do that and then figure out the future. Yeah,
Speaker 3: there's a Again, it's a balancing act of of of
Speaker 3: the present in the future.
Speaker 2: But if you always focus on the future, you're never
Speaker 2: in the president. If you're always in the present, you're go,
Speaker 2: you go broke, and it's a whole thing.
Speaker 6: And like when whenever in my life am I going
Speaker 6: to be able to just take three random weeks and
Speaker 6: just like say fucking and go fly somewhere. It's like yeah,
Speaker 6: sure you yeah, Like like sure you can find a
Speaker 6: job that gives you like three or four weeks of PTO.
Speaker 6: That's fucking tough to do. But even then, are you
Speaker 6: gonna want to spend all all your your whole years
Speaker 6: of PTO to go to one place? Like I'm it's
Speaker 6: like not, fuck it. It just makes the most sense
Speaker 6: to do right now.
Speaker 3: And you have savings though, right, you're not going into yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: Thank god, thank god.
Speaker 4: Dude.
Speaker 6: When they fired me, they're like, we're gonna give you
Speaker 6: two months severance, And dude, I was so happy. The
Speaker 6: the HR guy got mad that I was so happy,
Speaker 6: Like I was like, man, you're telling me you're giving
Speaker 6: me two months of severance. Fuck yeah, I'm happy.
Speaker 2: Let's go rock and roll man, Well oh yeah, then
Speaker 2: go crazy, man, I have a good time. What's your
Speaker 2: name again?
Speaker 6: Hell yeah?
Speaker 1: Ken?
Speaker 2: Ken?
Speaker 1: Ken?
Speaker 2: Is the anything else you want to say to the
Speaker 2: people the computer before we go?
Speaker 6: Uh? Like you said dude, live in the present, fuck it,
Speaker 6: you know, don't, don't think too much about it, and
Speaker 6: just fucking ball out.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't know.
Speaker 3: Beautiful, beautiful, take care Ken, Alright, see you.
Speaker 6: The rep Can goes on.
Speaker 2: The line taking your phone calls every night.
Speaker 6: The repink Can goes doing his eye.
Speaker 2: He's teaching you how to live your life, but he's
Speaker 2: not really an expert.