The speaker recounts a journey from a life in healthcare and the military to becoming a touring comedian with close friends, driven by a series of unexpected turns. After a failed nursing career and a stint as an electrician, he discovered his passion for comedy and content creation, starting with a viral TikTok about Aldi’s efficient store design. The group’s humor and authenticity are central to their success, built on shared experiences, low barriers to entry, and a deep sense of camaraderie. They frequently reflect on the randomness of their path, joking about it being a "fever dream" or a "shaky lamp" scenario, emphasizing that their lives feel real and meaningful. The discussion expands to broader societal issues, including the dangers of industrialized food systems—especially glyphosate use in agriculture—linked to rising cancer rates in Iowa and the Midwest. They critique politically unqualified leaders, noting how business experience and real-world resilience are missing from modern politics. The speaker also touches on cultural quirks, like the ban on self-pumping gas in New Jersey, and contrasts American pragmatism with European norms. Ultimately, the narrative celebrates a life of simplicity, authenticity, and personal growth, where humor, travel, and shared values form a resilient foundation for success.
(upbeat music) - It's huge big gangs in New York, guy, huh? - Well, we went on the-- - No idea. - When we went on the tour, I, I, the unsub tore this past fall. Like, I became obsessed with it and I just watched it every time we got on a flight. And so the joke was, fine, you've talked to me into it, I'll watch gangs in New York. - For context, we got on four flights a week. For like six weeks straight, every time. - Yes. - Just so, what would happen was I'm so tired and exhausted because like the day, the day is long. Like when you do the tour, you show up at like four, drop your bags and then we go to the venue, audio check, we, the food, they do the VIP and then it starts around eight and then we, we don't leave till like midnight. So I would only get like 10 to 15 minutes each time to the movie, so I'm just like laid out on the plane. - You Pavloved yourself into falling asleep to this minute. - I did, yeah. - Well, actually, I'm Neeson Dye a lot of times. - I did, it's rough. I don't know what happens next. - Yeah. - Yeah, he's in a lot of movies though, so. - That's his thing, for sure is his thing. - But it was just like an ongoing joke, it was like, you've talked to me into it. - Liam Neeson, like him, also the main character in the worst movie ever made. - Which one? - The Grey. - Oh yeah. - I hate that movie. - Why do you hate that movie? - That movie is an hour and a half of edging and not getting to come. It's literally, it's 90 minutes of, I get to see Liam Neeson fight a wolf. No, you don't, credits. Roll the credits. (laughing) - That's kind of the idea though, it's an artistic rendition of what it might be. - Bull, that's like getting on porn hub and watching a plumber fix a sink. The entire time and then he leaves, okay? Ain't nobody came to see how to fix the drain. That's absurd. - What about the electric and fixing the fucking outlet? - Whatever, I don't care what it is. Nobody came, nobody came to see my fat hair, he asked fix an outlet. - Okay. - That's right, that's right. - Well, I like some of the cinematography in that movie, some a little biased, but I see what you're saying. But how was it actually like going on tour and doing things in front of a live audience? 'Cause you've had unsubscribed for a long time. - Yeah. - You've got multiple podcasts, you do one together too, but I always wonder what that dynamics like, 'cause it's way different than sitting in a room like this, obviously. - It might be the best drug I've ever done. - Really? - I mean, just from my perspective, I have the easiest job, I have a bit. I come out and tell it. I have like one thing I have to do, Nick starts off the show, he tells the story and I have to wait for my cue and then I go up there and then my friends work for an hour and a half and then we hang out again. But that's a good job. - It's great, but it just kind of happened naturally and it's, everyone on unsubs, we're all like a very tight, like our group's really tight. And for me, it's just like the craziest experience. There's no direct linear path from like getting out of the Marine Corps, going to college, working in healthcare, holding up cardboard, going on tour with your best friends. Like, it's not, it doesn't make sense and it sounds like a fever dream. Like I have like malaria and I'm like residing something, but it's just like, it's crazy. The energy in the room's insane, the fans are awesome and they're screaming at the second, you like walk out there the entire time. Like it's, that's cool. - Yeah, I mean, that's insane. - That's the thing, like it's less scary than you think because like, it's not like being a stand up comedian. You know, like I'm not going out there trying to win over the crowd. Like the crowd already knows who I am. They already like me. So I just have to show up and meet expectations, which is pretty easy when the expectation is to be yourself hanging out with your buddies and get drunk. So, I mean, it's a very low bar to make everybody happy. So they're thrilled, it's a lot of fun. - That's cool. Yeah, I see a lot of guys doing that these days. I don't know, like I think it's also a different dynamic too from the outside when you have like a really big fun group podcast where it's like the boys and everything versus like one where it's usually me talking with someone else or something like that. I always wondered if it would be like you do three hours and you could actually have the same kind of conversation. I don't know, but like if you're drinking with your boys, like you're on a stage, everyone's rowdy in the crowd. That's probably going to be pretty good. - Yeah, that means definitely. It fits well for unsub. I don't know how it would fit for like, you know, the Joe Rogan experience or like other podcasts. I think it's very podcast-specific. But unsub is the whole thing's always been. Four friends get drunk, fly somebody out. They want to hang out with and bullshit so it works good. - What do you guys film out of? - Unsubscribed films out of San Antonio and then underwhelming films out of Nashville and Iowa. - So you're just bouncing on it 'cause you live in Iowa. So you're bouncing around all the time. - I've been in seven states this month. - Yeah, and I've seen him almost all the trips. - I'll be in Las Vegas tomorrow. Oh yeah. Hey, guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review. They're both a huge, huge help. Thank you. - Yeah. - You ever get tired? - Yeah. - I'll worry about it later. - Yeah. - Yeah, you got a YouTube channel as well. You're keeping up with. I mean, that's like, that's the one benefit of this. Like I record here. So we have a lot going on all the time. But I know where I'm at at all times, but then I'll have guys like you in and, you know, you guys are flying all over and somehow keeping that balance. I'm not jealous of that part. - Yeah. That's a good time. That's a good job. - You get better at traveling. That's probably. - Yeah. - Like, you can, there's ways to like, relieve pressure and like, it's little things. You get pre-check, you get clear. You fly enough times, you get upgraded. The upgrades turn into more upgrades. And so like, it's, those are the things that honestly, like, mean the most because like, it's little things be more comfortable that'll like make the whole trip better, at least in my opinion, because like, you know, if you're scrunched up next to someone that AC's not working and, you know, it's, it should be illegal to have the windows open on a plane before noon. I don't know who's looking outside of the window, like this morning, the guy. - Three hour flight. It's still white outside. - I don't, the guy, dude, the dude next to the dude at the row across me was like, wow. He was like looking out and I'm like, it's, it's there at this flat. I don't know what he's looking at. But like, it's just, and he was, he was mesmerized by the clouds. And it is not, we took off at like seven. - Oh no. - And the whole time, like, dude, come on. Even, they're even like, we're dimming the cabin lights. He didn't get the clue. He's like, I'll raise the curtain up more. But yeah, that's when, that's the one time in this post-epstein era where private jets are not exactly in bug where I'm like, a little jealous of those people. So I don't have to deal with any of that. - It's, it's just weird. You see, you also see like, I'm, this is a side. I'm always amazed at how blasted people get in the morning for a flight. - Oh, I know. - Like, just to go to like, for instance, does people know where you are? - Yeah, yeah. - To go to Newark, like, there was a ton of people, like, crawling on the plane. And I'm like, dude, it's, what are you, where are you going? - That's one thing I've never understood. Like, I love going out and having a good time. Yeah, I have never had an alcoholic beverage at an airport or on a plane. And like, so many fucking people doing it. I'm like, I would, I would flip out. Like, that's not for me. Whatever that is, that gene, where you could just get fucking loaded on a plane. Don't think that's mine. - I forget where we, it was either too, we're from Atlanta. We drank the plane out of Tito's. I know that. - That was from Atlanta. - Yeah. - To get like that weird, like, head high when you're drunk on a plane because you're like, air is popped and everything. - There wasn't enough Tito's to get a soul drunk. I do remember, fun fact, the little shots of Tito's come in, like a, you know, like the vacuum sealed Amazon bags. - Yeah. - That's what they come in, 'cause the stewardess literally just brought out the bag and ripped it up and was like, here, and was like, and like it was fucking how the wing, like just take what you want, like, I don't. - Was that going to, that was going to Orlando, wasn't it? - I probably. - I think it was going to work. - Yeah, 'cause we played at the Hard Rock. - Yeah, that was, yeah. - The hangover's not worse coming off a plane like that. - You gotta stop being drunk to get hungover. - Yeah. - You gotta think about it. - Stay on pace. - Yeah. - But no. - Or I'm not stopping. (laughing) - It's just weird because like, I get someone like, having a drink, going on a vacation, all that stuff I get. But like, just regular normal business suit people blasted at six o'clock in the morning, fascinates me endlessly. - Absolutely not. - And they're like, I'm looking for four A, and they're just like, they're like all messed up. They can't even lift the bag, which is like, the most emasculating moment as a man. They're like, if you can't put it up above your head, like your back. - Not great enough, bro. - Not great enough. - That's a rough look. - Yeah, we were lugging around what? Like, 50 pounders on all those trains and Italy last week. - Oh yeah, and then every AC unit would just be out and they're like, yeah, we're gonna move your seat again. - But we got it every time, no emasculating moments. It was good, it was good. But you were saying, Jack, that, you know, all these things like kind of happened. Like, you come out of the military, we'll come back to that in a minute. And I think you said you were working in healthcare. - Yes. - And you start holding up the sign and then somehow, everything lines up and now you're doing tours with your buddies around the world, with your bit and all that. Do you ever like pinch yourself like, damn, what if I didn't do that one thing that one day, like seven years ago and then none of this happens? - I think about that a lot actually because of all of our friends, I would say me and Nick had real jobs the longest. - Yeah. - And so there's never a moment where I'm like, this will last forever or that I take it for granted because I'm convinced. I was at this one health, so Nashville's the healthcare capital of the world, which is why either go in the music industry or go into healthcare. And so, I remember sitting in my cubicle and they had a sound machine over each of us that would just play like white noise. - Oh my God. - And I was like, that kind of feels like a, like that detention center. Repaint the walls, robin, egg, blue to keep 'em.
- Oh, calm. - Yeah, they tied a shit. The walls were all the same. It was stuff like that. And I just remember, I was like, I'm wearing a suit though, but I just remember like that. And then I look at my life now. And it's normal even to my family of like, what are you doing today? Oh, I'm going New Jersey and then I've got to go to Vegas and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like a few years ago she'd be like, stop. I'm leaving you like, what do you, it doesn't sound like a normal sentence because it just doesn't feel like a reality, but now very much so is. And I often think like, there's a joke we always make about the shaky lamp. Have you heard about that? - I don't think of the shaky. - The reddit post. It's like a creepy pasta reddit post about like this guy. He talks about how in college he got in a bar fight and like gets knocked out and smacks his head on the curve and he wakes up like some hot chick. Like take some home, take some care of him, winds up getting married, lives 15 years, has a wife, has kids, and then one day he's like sitting in the living room and the lamp looks weird. And he like slowly becomes obsessed with this lamp because it just looks weird. And then eventually he's just staring at this lamp all day. And then eventually he wakes up from a coma and he had lived 15 years, it was all completely fake. And he was just in a coma from getting his head smacked on the curb. So that's like the recurring joke in the friend group is like any time we're doing something cool, one of us will be like, guys, the lamp's starting to look weird like we're all gonna wake up. This is fake. - Yeah, that's a dark way to think about it. But, that's why I think about like with the simulation sometimes I'm like, what if what if we are all looking at a lamp technically? - This was great. I'm good with this lamp. - You wanna hear the parts that scares me about that the most? - What's that? - When I was in sixth grade, I had to write a paper on what I wanted to do when I grew up. When I was in sixth grade, I wanted to be a stand-up comedian and I loved blue collar comedy tour. You ever heard of that? - Yeah. - I learned the cable guide, Jeff Fox, where the billing of all Ron White, four friends that would travel the country, they would all do their bits. And then they would come out and sit together on stage in front of a crowd of people and bullshit with the crowd and tell jokes. Fast forward, by the way, my favorite comedian 'cause I was in sixth grade at the time was Larry the Cable Guy. - Larry the Cable Guy was pretty fucking cool. - Fast forward 15 years later, I'm the fat electrician and I travel the country with my three friends and we do comedy shows where we all sit up there together and bullshit with the crowd. - Came together, the vision's visioning. - For sure, the lamp's looking weird. - The lamp's looking weird. - Yeah. - No, the final electrician thing though, that's a pretty hard name. - Complete accident, complete accident. - How was it in accident? - It was, dude, all right. - Electrician your rip, so you just say you're fat instead of rip. - I was in electrician and I got, I ruptured my pack, I tore my pack, so I was off work for like six months in a sling and my wife, I was sitting at home all day doing nothing and my wife was kept sending me fucking TikToks, which to me at the time was an app for little kids to do dances on and I was, I'm a grown-ass man, that's a journey my electrician, I'm not getting TikTok, she kept sending them to me, so I would have to watch them through the internet browser, you know. - Oh, when they let you do that. - Yeah, back when they let you, this is, you know, six years ago. So I would just watch them through internet browser and eventually I was like, I'll get the fucking app. I downloaded it, then he got to make an account, didn't know what to use for a name. So as a joke to my wife because I was hurt and couldn't work out, I made the username as a joke, the fat electrician. - So hard. - And it was just a joke to my wife like, oh, can't work out, I'm gonna get fat now, ha ha ha. And then a couple months later I got a wild hair at my ass made a TikTok and I got 12 million views. - What was that TikTok about? - It was about a grocery store called Aldi. - What was going on at Aldi? - I just explained why the business model was insane. Like it was made by the Germans right after World War II, and it's like just German engineering applied to a grocery store and why it was funny and efficient and why I liked it more because it just prevented people from being annoying in the grocery store by design and just made it funny, got a ton of views and then I just kept making videos. - And now-- - And now-- - I'm like, honey, I'm a TikToker. - I'm the fat electrician forever. - Yeah, yeah, but a TikToker. - No, I switched to YouTube pretty quick. - Switch to YouTube, that's good. - What's funny about it is Aldi's such a legit business that everyone at Myerset that I wrote about it in business school, like I did a case study on it. - No shit, like it's that good. Like they do, basically they've decided the best way to move a customer through the store. They don't put stuff in special packaging, they just put it out there and pallets, like-- - Basically it's cheaper than everywhere else. When you walk into an Aldi, there's no entryway and you can like walk left and go down all the aisles. It's fucking you walk in, you're in an aisle. The only way to go is left. You're going down aisle one, when you get to the end of aisle one, you have to turn and go down aisle two. And there's only like four, three or four aisles. So you have to go, there's one path of traffic, there's no fucking one person's going against the current. You have to go this way. And everything in the store is just like, we're not taking the bags of chips out of the boxes and putting them on the rack, no, we're just opening the box and setting it there. And when the boxes are fucking empty, we throw away the box. And then we don't give out bags, you're bagging your own groceries. You can take the boxes if you forgot bags. So then they get people to take their fucking boxes for them. Like it's just-- - You put your cart back, you get a quarterback, all these little things that they did to make it efficient. - It's like the real auto-bond of grocery stores. - Pretty much, yeah. - I don't know the last time I was in an Aldi. - They also have really good food. Like the quality of their food is really good, is it Costco level? - Yeah, probably better, honestly, because they have to meet European standards on the quality of their food. So minimal GMOs, if any, at all. If you're getting a cookie, for instance, it's actually just flour, sugar, chocolate chips, the end. Not a bunch of weird stuff. - See, that's the thing. And we say it every time we go over to Europe, we'll eat shit, hypothetically, and things like that, drink a lot, and somehow we feel decent. The next day, because there is so much shit in all our foods here. I was even looking at a protein bar the other day. I think it was like, I wanna get the company, or I think it was a David Bar. And I went and said, let me check out the ingredients here, 'cause it's like pretty good for you. Like the macros all look good. I don't remember what was in there, but it was some sort of like corn syrup and like all these other preservatives and shit. Like no wonder I have to take a shit within an hour, like not the good kind every time I have one of these. You know, it's like something went very wrong in our society where they just let that happen and it's just a very bad slippery slope these days. - Yeah. It's pretty rough. It's keeping Ian Carroll in business though. - That's how I find out about him was all the food shelves and how it's all like owned by one company. I think it's you in a lever, mainly, I don't know. - Yeah, it doesn't, Ian has like an app for that now or something, right? - I'm pretty sure it's called like buyer. - Yeah, yeah, I think that's it. Where they tell you like, what's what? But someone told me a few years ago, and then I've seen it all over the internet since then, so it's probably been around a while, but they're like, just don't buy the shiny wrapper stuff in the food store, don't go to the middle aisles, go to the outside where it's like produce and stuff like that and you'll be okay. I think there's something to be said for that. - I think it still applies. - Yeah. - Yeah. - What do you think that is that we let that happen in America, we're supposed to be like the leader of the free world and everything, but we're kind of like very behind on stuff like that? - Profits. Profits. - I'm thinking of the scene in the founder, where he makes the milkshake out of powder at the restaurant. - At some point or another, we let money into politics 'cause we lost track of what a politician's supposed to be. The country was designed so that the politicians in America were supposed to be independently wealthy, successful individuals that then after becoming wealthy and successful went on to serve the public, be a public servant to help run the country because they know how to run a business, they know how to get shit done. They're leaders in the military, they're leaders in business, they're accomplished individuals and for some reason now most of our politicians all have law degrees and their entire life from the time they were 12 years old was, I'm on a chart to do this, so I need to go to this high school and then I need to go to this college and then I need to join the military where I will intentionally get a job to ensure that I never see combat for the minimum amount of time once I get out of that so I can check the veteran box and then I'm gonna go be a city council member here, be this here and then they've spent their entire life on this trajectory to run the country and they've never even lived in the real world and these people need money to win elections. So when some asshole comes to the factory and is like, I'll give you a million dollars to win your election but let me pump corn syrup into fucking strawberries. Right, they say yes. And they're owned and then they just insider trade on the information so they can get fucking rich, right? No, Nancy Pelosi's husband is better than Warren Buffett by 700% he's got to be better. Yeah. When he has company over, sometimes he doesn't have pants. What's the big deal, guys? That's it. That's it. I know when I get undressed from a long day in the suit, I go pants all first. Never the tie, never the shirt. I go, let's drop trousers. Trousers first. Trousers first. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you got to win either poo this shit. Winning the bus. So you just got to go Tom Cruise and Risky Business. You know, you start and then that's just kind of how it goes. That is true. We don't hear about that story though anymore. That's just kind of, that went away, right? I like the footage, the cops are like, yo. Like, he's like, he's like, we're fine. And he's like holding the one guy off. He's like, we're fine. He's like, are you sure you're fine? And he's like, it doesn't look like you're fine. No, no, we're just two friends hanging out. Is that a hammer? Come on. Dude, what are you doing? Crazy. I agree with everything.
you said though, but I think you're even given too much credit because you're just mentioning the ones who maybe go the military route for the check box on the resume. A lot of these people don't even do that. They don't even do the military. The standard is constantly getting lower. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, most of them just take like admin jobs if they do the military or like, you know, something that's in like logistics is a popular thing. Like you can get in, move stuff around, blah, blah, blah, you're not going to really see combat at all. Or if you do, it's very minimal. You'll be like a big base. Yeah. And yeah, it's a lot of people in intelligence. So that's a lot of that too. A lot of that. That's always interesting. But well, they know the game. Yeah. Yeah. They used to be the guy on the other side. Now they come in. They're like, no, I'm your inside. Now I have a white naval suit. That's right. That's right. Isn't one of your boys is he's like literally about to win, right? Yeah. Yeah. Branded. Yeah. Branded up. Branded in what district is that in Texas? District 23, Texas. Yeah. And that's where the guy who like fucked his assistant or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why did why did he before all that? Why did he want to run against him in the first? So after the one he just didn't have a good voting record in general for being a Republican. And then Brandon's big thing was he kind of rolled over on guns and was becoming anti-gun as a Republican representing Texas. Really? Yeah. Brandon ran against him last time. Actually took him to a run off election. So in Texas, you have to win by more than 50%. So he prevented him from getting 50% of the vote. So they had to go to a special runoff election just between the two of them. And he managed to beat Brandon and that special runoff election by outspending him. I think 11-to-1. I think he spent like $11 million campaigning against Brandon. And it was all like complete lies of like Brandon's anti-veteran. Brandon hates it. Brandon's on one of the biggest veteran podcasts on the internet and has raised hundreds of thousands. I think we're broke a million at this point for veterans charities. It's like, no, no, he isn't. But you have enough money and you can lie loud enough. You know, people are going to that's legal. How's it legal to do something to spend money? Fill the public airways with things that are verifiably false. Great question. Very good point. Because when he, this second go around when all this stuff happened, the text messages were published. It was on NBC nightly news. I said, my house. I just like took a photo of it. I was like, oh my god. Like they're talking about Tony. And all those things happened. Still, he wasn't stepping down. I remember there was a push and there I found about out about this from Chris Jacobs, a friend of ours. There was a photo. We all took somewhere and it was in a Rolling Stone article and it labeled Brandon as a neo Nazi. A neo Nazi. Yeah, which is. And they're, they're logic of why he was a neo Nazi was because Brandon makes YouTube videos on guns, a lot of which are either weird, historically interesting, like one off, like experimental stuff. There's not a lot of or historic guns that had like a big significance on like this gun was revolutionary to firearms because of XYZ, yada, yada, yada. Amongst all of his videos, which he covers all of, he has covered some guns from Germany in World War II. That was enough. And talks about how, you know, the MG 42, the machine gun that the Nazis used was revolutionary for heavy machine guns because it fucking was. But because he made a video talking about a Nazi gun and saying, it's a good gun because objectively it is. Yeah. He's a Nazi because if the Nazis did anything and you liked it, you must also be a Nazi. Oh, it's not. Yeah, that was, that was our logic. I mean, they were literally fitted by Hugo Boss. Yeah. I don't see anyone not wearing you. You know, I mean, like, that's crazy. Not to mention his name is Brandon Herrera. So they wouldn't like them. I, you know, it was, it was a stretch. I mean, he, his grandmother literally escaped Nazi Germany. We've all met her. She's a lovely lady. She even walked back from France when she was 14. So like her family literally fought against the Nazis. And so like, but then it didn't matter. Like none of these things mattered. And so like, eventually, like, I think his, his staff or whatever, they got it all taken down. But like it was just like photos of all of us, like hanging out, like doing the podcast or like just like random Instagram things that were out there. And they're like, neo Nazi Brandon Herrera. There was, there was the one where he said, God, what was it? Somebody brought, because like the running joke on the internet is I hate communism. So we had a guest come on that brought me the communist manifesto as a gift that funny. Ha, ha. And you keep it. They got on. I already had it. I have a copy. I gotta read it. You know, it's a yeah. I gotta learn the end of your anime. So that brought up, you know, the mine comp or whatever. And Brandon said that he owned a copy. He also owned a copy of the communist manifesto. And then he listed off like 10 other books that he also had copies of. And he goes, have you ever read it? It reads like a dude's skit so posting on the internet. Like Hitler was clearly fucking crazy. And then he goes, but watch they're not going to add that part. They're going to cut that out. And then just say that I own a copy of mine. And like literally right exactly right where they did. He called where they were going to cut it and put that in the ad. And it's like, that's not holy shit. Yeah. He just shouldn't be allowed to do that. And it's also crazy because I don't know when this stopped, but like my dad was in college in the mid 80s. They assigned mine comp for for classes to have to read it to do a breakdown of like what sociopathy looks like. It used to be like that apparently that used to be a thing. And then at some point, it was like not only are they not signing it you can't you don't want down your Amazon. What if we expose people to this and then explain to them why it's so fucking stupid and horrible. And then if it ever tries to happen again, they'll be able to identify it and know that it's stupid and horrible. 100%. You know what I mean? Like, but no, the answer is to just bury your head in the sand pretend that the problem can never happen and get mad if anybody tries to educate you. It's perfect. But yeah, the reason they're attacking him is because he doesn't have any of the traditional levers. You know, he has money, he has power. They're attacking him because he's exactly the guy that I said he's supposed to be. Yeah, that's what he's supposed to be. He's independently successful. He's independently already got a bunch of money. He runs multiple successful businesses. He doesn't need people's money to get bought out. And they fucking hate that. Yeah. So it's like how do we manipulate him? And he's like, you can't. You can't. And they're like, we're just going to call you a Nazi. And he's like a Mexican. They're like, all right, we'll call you a neo Nazi. I'll say it louder. Like, yeah, and I have zero interest in ever going anywhere near politics or whatever. People would like me over there in any way, shape or form, but like, you know, I see some of these guys who will get labels like that. And you said, you said grandma literally like survive World War II, literally, literally, we like spent time with the reason if that actually happened because it's one thing to be lied about and stuff. But like then when it's something personal, you and they're saying like, you're the opposite, I would not deal with that. Well, I would just fucking use it. Good. That's what we need, though. I, unpopular opinion, I want to go back to the time where it's not a bunch of 70 year olds that don't understand how to connect to a fucking Wi-Fi router running the country, trying to explain to them what the fuck AI and why it's important. And then I want, I want guys like you, and I want people getting on the floor of Congress being like, let's fucking run it right now. Like, I want to see you guys throwing hands. Yeah. Like that's when shit was getting done. Yeah. Well, what's that one got the, uh, the Treasury Secretary's fucking thrown hands with everyone these days? You seen that? I saw the, he's like, hit beat up B1, beat up some other guy, another guy like they had to separate him from. Really? Yeah. Is that real? I swear to God, it's real. I've seen the clip of the one guy being like, we can take this outside. It's okay. Pop up. Let's go. It gets off. That's Mark Wayne Mullen and the head of teamsters. Oh, he threatened the head. Yeah. Yeah. And he's like, he's like, we can set us outside and he's like, we shook in. And like, he's like, all right. Cool. Pop off. And I was like, come on, dude. I think a little popping off would be good. Yeah, Treasury Secretary Scott Passant has been involved in several high profile internal clashes with the administration, Phil Poltie, Elon Musk. And we can't, every time we ask about this, I've gone to look for it. It's like almost a lead from the internet. There's another one. There was a guy like at the beginning of the Ron War that he, that he not Poltie. It was another one that he liked beat the shit out of him back there. Good. That's one tough day. Yeah. He's fucking. That's what I want. He can throw it around. Think about how much cooler filler busters would be if they were just running fades the whole time. I want that. I want, I want to have to be like, be taken into consideration weight classes when I'm voting for politicians. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. Iowa needs a heavyweight. I'm like, sorry. Is Iowa going to get a heavyweight? You're going to think about doing it. We got, no, we'll see. We got, we got Zach Lawn running for governor right now. So what's the story? Zach Lawn is like literally just a farmer from Iowa. His family has been there since fucking forever. Like showed up in a covered wagon and helped build the state. Love that. Family fought in the Civil War. Like all he's got this huge family history. And Iowa fought for the North. Yeah. So yeah, Iowa never has lives. I have to rise again. So vote for me for governor. Sorry. But, uh, no, Iowa's got, I think we're the only, we're either the only state or one of two states that has
as a rising cancer rate in the United States of America. We have like the highest cancer rates in the world. And it's because- - Glyphosate? - Yeah, I was the most, I guess the term would be like terraformed plot of land on the planet. Like I always used to be all prairies with tall grass. And now it's all corn everywhere. - Brother. - And the shit they spray on the corn gets in the groundwater and it's fucking up everything. Nitrates, glyphosate. And his whole platform is we need to quit letting them do this. There's safer ways to do it. He's literally running on the platform of cancer is bad. - Yeah. - And the, I think it was the Des Moines Register. They had like a Democratic journalist basically pissed off- - Cancer's actually good. - No, to their credit, they were pissed off at the Democratic Party. They were like, how in the fuck did you let a Republican beat you to this? He's like historically speaking, this is a Democrat. - Progressive issue. - Progressive issue. Like. - Well, the environment. - I can't do it. - Environment, we want to be the healthy thing, even if it doesn't make profits. Like historically speaking, that would be a Democrat talking point. They're like, how did you let this guy beat you to it? Because now he's the cancer is bad candidate. And I don't know how to run against that. - Yeah. - I can't say it's good. - That's crazy. But so they have like the highest rise in rate of it. And yeah, when did that, you know? 'Cause I think that's one thing, especially like someone who's been from the East Coast my whole life. I'm from Jersey, it is called the Garden State. We have some great farms and stuff here, but we got a little bit of everything, right? And I'm from less alike the farm area, if you will. But obviously you look at middle America. This is the ground zero of producing in this country and getting all everything into your food store. Like that's supposed to be good for you. And all that, when did it start to get like out of control with the glyphosate and with all these things? And like what was the idea of even bringing these things into the picture when we have human history that worked for so long without it? - So I'm guessing here. So not all this completely accurate. So Iowa used to be, Iowa's all prairie. It used to be covered with this prairie grass. It was really tall. Like historic accounts when the pilgrims and pioneers and stuff were coming over. They said this grass was so tall that if you were sitting on horseback, you could tie the grass around the horse's neck. These, this grass has root systems that's like 10 times longer than the grass itself. And I've seen it in museums. It's like three stories long. This massive root system going down. It's like 30 feet. Yeah, it's insane how deep these roots go. Well, we got rid of all those roots and that stuff's been there for thousands and thousands and thousands of years of grass dies. The soil absorbs all the nutrients from that plant and that went on forever. So Iowa and the Midwest has like some of the most fertile growing ground on the planet. Corn takes all the nitrogen out of the ground. So for a long time, you would do crop rotations and that's why Iowa is known most for corn and soybeans. So you rotate your field is like corn, soybean, corn, soybean, corn, soybean because the corn takes all the nitrogen out of the ground. The soybeans puts nitrogen back in the ground. So you rotate and my guess, this is where I get into what I don't know. My assumption is with ethanol and everything else, it became a lot more profitable to grow corn because who the fuck eat soybeans, right? So they figured, oh, we can just pump nitrogen into the ground with chemicals and then we don't need to grow soybeans to put that nitrogen back into the ground. It's like a drug that became relying on. So then now Iowa's predominantly corn, even when I moved there 15 years ago, I would see way more soybean fields or like different times a year, different crop. Yeah. Dave just pulled out, this is the root you're talking about. Yeah. So I mean, that's the root system of this prairie grass that they had in Iowa going on for thousands of years. And that's why the ground there is Iowa dirt doesn't look like dirt in the rest of the country's like brown. Yeah. Dirt in Iowa is like black, like dark black. So I mean, it's just the soil's good, but then I don't know, it became profitable with ethanol and everything else to just grow corn. So now they're just pumping chemicals into the ground and spraying shit. And now when we're talking about potentially, where people are aware of this kind of thing, and we want to get rid of stuff like that, we're doing it at a time where we fucking inflated the dollar six ways to Sunday. People can't afford to buy home anymore. People are making financial decisions as to whether or not to make a kid, we're funding all these wars, but can't feed the poor and everything. And so as far in, this is a 30,000 foot in the air. If you have it, when you go to unwind stuff like this, there does have to be some short term financial pain five, 10 years, something like that to readjust the industry. And you're gonna like to me, I hate to be a cynic, but it's like they're gonna keep kicking the can down the road because no one wants to eat that and then lose on the Tuesday and November. Yeah. I heard RFK talk about it on Rogan that they're looking into robots that shoot lasers at bugs. Dude, they looked up. Have you seen them? I haven't seen them. It's a giant trailer, basically, that they pull behind a tractor. It looks like a fucking solar panel laying down flat. So what? It's just a trailer. But it looks, it's like a big metal head. It's got wheels and it's got AI and cameras on it and lasers everywhere and you just drive it over the crops and it's like a Star Wars battle scene. It's just shooting lasers at little bugs. It bug zaps it and they just drive it over the field and it kills everything. Whoa, this is dead. No, I'm talking, yeah. Wait a second. These are the robots. And it's like this is what we could be using instead of spraying chemicals that give you cancer on our fields. So what he said on the episode is that it's something that HHS is looking into. The problem is cost, but until this is like up and running and even they've like figured out the cost, if they just pull the rip cord right now and take out glyphosate, it'll collapse our food industry because we have nothing else. So it's kicked the can, yes. But it does give me hope that he's like actually looking into it 'cause from what I understand, he has a history of doing really good stuff. He cleaned up the water out here, right? Isn't that what he did here? Yeah, the Hudson. Yeah, he cleaned up. He cleaned up when everyone else was like, "No, I don't do it." He's like, "I'm gonna do it." Yeah, he's a light. He's a long time, definitely say. He's a long time environmentalist and, you know. Also jacked. He is. Dude, I'm gonna work out till I'm dead. Like because of him, like everyone's like, "Oh, he's not that strong." I'm like, "Dude, he's 70." Yeah, he's like 72 or so. He's 72 and I saw him, what was it? I think it was a workout with Kid Rock, but like. But I did see him like workout with, oh, it was Michael Hurn. He was a Michael Hurn. Yeah, yeah. He's a cold shrimp. He pops top, he's in jeans, and he's reppin' on Inclined Bench at 72, 135. I'm like, that's fucking good. That's crazy. Yeah. Most people in their 20s and 30s can't do that. And your pat ball is doing it, I mean. Yeah, that's nice. Fast forward to when I'm 70, dude. I'm gonna be a beating of here. What is up with you can't pump your own gas here? Oh yeah, what's that about? Oh, you're unaware of this? What is this? No, we live in America. I don't trust any state that doesn't let me pump my own gas. I know, listen. You can't pump your gas, see. Don't not get before you try it. It's actually a very nice luxury in this state. Which side of the civil war did you guys fight on? What the fuck? No, no, no, no, I'm not. I'm pumping my own gas. Just hear me out. Listen, like when I drive over to Pennsylvania or in New New York, I'll sit at the gas station for a minute and forget. I'm like, oh, shit. Oh, you got gas PTSD? Yeah, then I know, then you know, 'cause I'm like, I'm like, where the fuck is the guy? And then he doesn't come by. I'm like, oh, right, I'm in a different state. I pump it. But like when you're here and you could just pull up, like if you go to a wawa and like you wanna go in there, you wanna get your coffee, get a couple of bananas or something, like you just pull up, you hand the guy your cart, you come back. It's crazy. You give a stranger your credit card and you just lit. It's amazing. This camera's everywhere. Oh, Charlie, you know. You don't like that? You're a penis bitch about that a lot. I didn't know that. About what? About what? Like Europeans when they come over here, a lot of them, they say it's really weird at restaurants that Americans give their credit card to the waiter or waitress and they take the credit card away to run the transaction. They think that's weird. Apparently that's weird to them. Well, they do, in Europe, they do always bring the thing to the table and they tap it right in front of you. I mean, they're doing, that's fine. You can also look and be like, oh, there's like $300 from O Charlie's or whatever. I just don't think that they realize that America will throw hands over shit 'cause that's the same thing in France where they were like, Americans are trying to fight the pickpockets and the pickpockets aren't used to handling that. Usually it's like a game. If we catch you, they just give you your stuff back and the Americans are just beating the shit out of the people. Dude, dude. You've seen Tyler all of Aaron's content on that with the pickpockets. Tyler, you've heard him. He's huge on YouTube. But he does, he has one series that he does where he goes to different cities in Europe and goes after the scammers and everything. I think I know who he's talking about. So he, we were back in Rome a couple of weeks ago and he actually hit me up on some separate. And I told him, I said, dude, I forgot to tell you this in December when I was here and now we were just thinking again when I was here. But when I lived in Rome 12 years ago, it was the safest city ever. The one thing was when you'd go on the bridges, there'd be pickpockets and scammers and shit. So you always had to walk across with your hands like this. Now you go on a bridge over there ever since he fucking was there. You can't find one, dude. I was like, I think you scared him all off 'cause he'll like tackle them and shit while he's videoing him like scammer, scammer. And they fucking, they don't like him. Hell yeah. Good. That's what I'm saying, like he's got a tea problem. Yes. But what's the reasoning behind having people pump your gas as opposed to you doing it? It's just a really nice service. We're a great state. It's like a law, right? It is, I believe it actually, can we check that deep and pretty sure it is codified like you have to have one? I'm just curious what the legislation was. - Oh, I can.
I can I guess can I guess this was a hundred percent like some Union bullshit when cars were coming out like that's All the all the Union fucking guys that feed the Haiti or horse at the bar are gonna be out of a job They got to learn how to pump gas and then we need to make sure they keep their jobs because we don't want to lose those Okay, here we go. So under the retail gas dispensing safety act is that's such a gay name But you know, whatever it is illegal for a customer to pump their own gas in Jersey It's the only state in the U.S. It still maintains this ban the reason the law was originally passed in 1949 due to safety hazards And fire concerns associated with dispensing flammable liquids. Yeah, we do smoke a lot of cigarettes in the state That could be why it's like here. I like to the official said I don't trust these fucking idiots with flammable You can't trust these civilians with the gas pump and they'll get all confused But one state once you like it used to it. It is like a drug and you're like this is very nice It's very convenient for your day. Yeah, are we still not a pump? Yeah, once you get used to the big brother state and the government is everything is very comfortable Very comfortable. You're literally one step away from like everybody else is worried about like everybody else is worried about them Put an auto kill switches and cars so they can just shut your car down and prevent travel new Jersey governments like We'll just fire the gas pump guys and nobody will know what the fuck to do. Yeah, I mean a lot of times like you know It is like an Indian guy or a Pakistani guy or some so it doesn't feel like big brother Like I don't feel like they would be a we don't mind if that guy catches fire Is that what you're saying? What does what I heard you say? This is crazy work Is it a 24 hour situation? There's literally a guy on post like a military base your shift No, if I go get gas before a long drive at like 3 30 in the morning or four There's a dude waiting for me saying what do you want like 89 regular. Let's go Dang, I don't know. I feel like you're just one step away from being like you're over your monthly allotment go back home I mean it was a 1949 law. We've been good on this. I'm just saying like it just feels like it's one It's one step away from me like let's cap those what the fucking balls on your government in 1949 to be like oh Oh, oh you guys did just one world war two that were literally having jeeps mailed to you in boxes and Ascipling them in the field and driving them in the combat you you just got home got your life together and now you can afford a car We're gonna. I don't trust you to pump gas No, I'm not buying hold on a minute. They more said. We're gonna give you a nice service. You don't have to pump your gas This is hella finessing Listen, I'm a finess. I like this. You're trying to take it away. The the cope is real And I'm like the bad like you know always worried about big brother with everything, but I feel like you're you're Roping I think I think you're coming to realize that they got you and you're mad about it I don't I don't think so This is my new goal. Is this like a Peter to it was he alive in 1949 was Peter deal Resin of Argentina. Yeah, yeah, I just had my boy pop in here. Oh, no, no, no, don't don't don't change it Now are you allowed to plug in your own Teslas or do you have to have a guy for that too? Oh, no, you can plug in your own Teslas. I'll show you. It's right up I mean power can kill just like fire. It can kill just like if you watch avatar powers more dangerous fire But actually here's here's a mine fuck for you. I think that's New Jersey saying don't get a Tesla because you got a fucking do it yourself So we're gonna stay on gasoline. It's the last day to do it. Just turn that around on you See they're trying to disincentivize Electric vehicles to try and say we do gasoline and don't fucking stay threatened me with a good time the first the first Politician to run on v8s and no carburetor. No admission standards is getting my vote like Come to New Jersey where you have gas attendants, and that's what they're running on apparently. I don't know Hmm, he's supposed to back me up here. No, I like I want to be able to pump my own gas from being out of you son of a bitch That's why that's why I was keeping quiet. I didn't want you know, but it's a pain in the ass Well, that's just stamping on me while I'm drowning Sorry, I'm not for it. I don't I don't want to bring my car here, but you are a big fan of Peter teal I don't fucking which one is that That's the reptile more specifically. It's the guy of funds could No, which billionaire is he how do you make a billion dollars a palm Mafia Facebook board vest founders fund what's his AI project? Which one is he? Is he Palantir Chaggy? Yeah, I think he's palantir trying to think if there's another one that he's on the board of Right, yeah, he's gotta be all right. He's honestly been angel investing more than anything in the past 20 years Where are you at with AI? You're more down these conspiracy rabbit holes and I am I am I would I would a silly I would assume I walk through your office What was in my office? Oh, there's you know white boards of red grid. There's white boards of red strings everywhere I thought we were in Philly look like Charlie I think a eyes in this sense like I think it's like every innovation before it in one way and then unlike it The way it's like it is that people have always been afraid of the next big technology and they say it's gonna End the world in yada yada yada, but it just over time even if there's pain like it creates overall progress And I think there's a lot of great things AI can be used for the way it's not like previous technology though It's because the exponential curve of technology We're not talking about something that has the potential if it seemed through to be able to outthink a human being and Then there's a lot of weird slippery slopes on that. I'm gonna be honest with you every AI I've ever fucked with can already outthink a lot of human beings That's the scary part to me. It's like and who has their hand their fingers on these triggers Like do you think Sam Altman seems like a regular schmo. I don't you're mad that AI is too smart. I'm mad because people are too dumb Come to Jersey All right, maybe they're smarter because they haven't been inhaling gas. We're not gonna sit here I'm not gonna sit here and be a cock at the gas pump I've never had someone fight. It's always the opposite people are like, you know, people pump your gasses I will never in my life pull up with my car and look another man in the eyes be like, yeah, bro pump my tank Stick it in you do it. I'll watch while I sit in this chair Not happening I'll be pumping the gas. Do you guys have fun? All right. I'm gonna go She full all right, I'm gonna take off No eye contact. It's weird. Let's go. I think you got to make a TikTok before you leave Do you do you tip the guy? Is that no you don't tip that's what like I'm a huge tipper That's one thing you don't tip the gas station, because that's his job Painful salary. It's not like a waiter or something like that those guys you tip the shit out Don't tell me you tip the gas antenna. No, no, no, okay, but sometimes they'll do they'll hit the hood freer That though Someone do the window squeegee and probably like 10 years. Yeah, there's no class anymore Yeah, and that the thing to piss me off about that is like I didn't ask for that Maybe I like my window dirty. That's why I have window fluid like you don't need to come do that just to get more money out of me I'm already spending fucking amounts like seven dollars a gallon just to get Well, seriously now it's like five foot, you know, it got up to seven and California just to get gas because it's more expensive at the moment It's like a you know, I already got a big bill coming You're really this is really making me rethink things. He's mad because he wants to do the cleanup. I get it This is like a giant The whole thing Did you pump your own gas in the military? Yeah, they didn't have like a designated no Have stations all around bases They have they have guys whose job it is to drive like the giant fuel tank truck, right? But yeah, no usually you're pumping your own gas That's a gas Because they're getting you the gas and this at least you can do it. It's kind of like the semi truck that brings the gas to the gas station and then you still pump your own shit Okay, all right, I got you. I got you. How long have you been out of the military though me? 2012 2012. Yeah, so you got in bridge. Do you get in 18 17? No shit. Yeah, it was still in high school Was that something you always wanted to do now? How did you end up poor kind of pay for college somehow thought I had to go to college? So joined my senior year. Where did you live at the time Iowa? So I told you say moved to Iowa 15 while that would be like 20. Yeah, I moved to Iowa when I was like 1213 okay from California. So I finished high school and everything in Iowa. Where'd you live in California? Stand all over northern California, Chico, Orlando, or though So then why'd you move though? I just family decided to move as a kid moved with him then Got to spend the rest of the time in Iowa joined a national guard while I was still in high school shipped off did all the training for that right after and
Then I tried to go to nursing school, failed that miserably, not my thing. - You as a nurse. - Ralph, I was like, "I'm a combat medic." That's close to nursing, that'll be similar, it's not. - That is how they pitch it actually. - That'll be similar, no, it isn't. - No. - No, you know who you're dealing with in the middle of the night. - That's not right. - Damn, yeah, healthcare state, you were, I thought I was real good at giving IVs. I didn't realize that everybody I was trying to give IVs to was 20 to 30-year-old men that were in reasonably good shape. And I didn't have to go through four inches of fat to find a fucking vein. Like, it's just everything's harder, everything sucks. It's not a good time, wasn't for me. - Yeah, a lot of different personalities you're dealing with on that, for sure. - Not exciting. - So then you became an electrician? - Yeah, quit nursing school, went and joined in a apprenticeship, became a journeyman electrician, did that for almost 10 years. And then it turned into this YouTube thing. And now I'm here, now I'm in New Jersey where somebody's pumping my gas for me. I'm in the peak of luxury. - That's right. It is cool though, because like, I think that there's been a recent movement over the last five, six years that I've seen more to wear like trades that, by the way, are like really good jobs. Electrician, plumber, all these things that have less people going into them just starting to say like, hey, more people should look at that instead of spending fucking $200,000 for a gender studies degree. - Yeah, absolutely. And like, the other thing is is like, the most people don't think about is, it gets pitched to all these kids as like, you need to find what you're passionate about and then go to college and get a degree for that. I got a news like, you don't fucking even know who you are, let alone what you're passionate about or what you want to do. Trying to figure that out when you're 16 and playing the rest of your life, very small margin for success. You have no fucking idea what you like. You've been hanging around the same people exactly your age that grew up in extremely similar circumstances. You think you like the same shit. And 10 years, you're gonna look back at what you were into in high school and cringe. And be like, I can't believe I did that. I can't believe I wore those clothes. I can't believe I listened to that music. I can't believe any of it. Like, why would you stage your whole life off of what you thought when you were 16, 17 years old? 'Cause that's what the system soldier is actually like a monochrome of truth. And it's never, I don't think it's ever been enough. - Right, but like the, the trades in particular is, I don't think I would be here if I wasn't an electrician first. And the reason I say that is, I can call my boss that I had and I can fly back to Iowa and I could probably finish out the work day if I want my old job back. Like, I still have a journeyman electrician's license. I can go anywhere in the country and get a job making the six figures right now. So like me being able to quit my job and be like, I got a wife and kids and I'm about to quit my job to be a fucking YouTuber. That sounds like it's gonna fail for sure. But I had the certain level of confidence in knowing, hey, if this doesn't work out, worst case scenario, I go back to where I am right now. My life can't get worse from what I'm already doing. I'm living the worst case scenario. It can only get better so I might as well try and I tried and it worked. And if it didn't, I would have went back to being an electrician and I could have said I tried. So like when you get these trade licenses, you become a journeyman electrician and a journeyman plumber or any of this stuff, you have that for the rest of your life. You can always fall back on that. Like my new minimum wage is a six figure salary with full benefits. - That's amazing. - You know what I mean? And like you can get, if I wish, like I don't wish I didn't join the military, but like had I known that this was an option, I probably wouldn't have, 'cause the whole reason I went was to go and pay for college. And if I would have known that at 18 years old, I could have joined an apprenticeship and been a journeyman electrician at 22, making six figures, why wouldn't you do that? And then you have that for the rest of your life. You're still 22 years old. Now you, if you want to go to college, you can go to college and fucking pay for it. And if you don't like it, guess what? You can fucking quit and keep doing what you're doing and dick off and try different stuff. 'Til you do find what you're really passionate about. And then you can go do that. - I don't think they want people to know that. - It's insane. But there's not a lot of jobs that are like you just said, where it's like you know you can come back to it 'cause you have that skill and there's no bullshit. People, if a job needs to be done, you can be plugged in and do it. All these other, this whole corporate mindset is like, "Well, you gotta rise through the ranks. You go from fucking associate to VP." And this and that. And if you stop, God forbid some girl goes home and has a kid and decides to take a couple of years off, she's like done in the chain. Like there's something about that that just feels like that's the fucking plan. And I think that we're in a moment where enough people are waking up to that that maybe it can change for the next generation. I really believe that. You know, you see more people do what you did or more people actually like take a chance on a career and things like that, go out and try to make something. Like that's what the American dream is supposed to be. I think like either or, you know? - Yeah, I hate a corporate life. I wasn't any good at it. You know, I was really, really bad at it. I can't trust that enough. Like it's just, especially coming from the military, the problem I had was like in the military, at least when I was in, you know, when you're in like combat arms, like the infantry and doing stuff like that and it can test this too, is you work until the job's done and then that's it. Like you go home, like you get the job done, you go home, you're training, you go home. And so like I treated most of corporate life like that. If I was done, I was done. And they're like, no, no, you're not done. You got to stay and I'm like, I don't understand. - I was sitting underneath this fucking white noise. - Sitting underneath the, you have a sudo on though. - Well, that's the other part thing. - You know what I'm saying? - I completely agree, because like when I was in like Trish and it was like, don't get me wrong. There was times where like I was decking off at work, but you know, that was what the boys were doing pranks. Whatever with each other, but like for the most part, it was like, if I'm somewhere as an electrician, there's work to be done and I can do something and I really enjoyed like showing up to an empty plot of land. And by the time I leave, there's a fucking house there that's got the lights on. Like I enjoyed A, seeing that progress, but I enjoyed there always being work to do. And I have a bunch of friends that work in corporate and shit. Like I buddy with a history degree that's a fucking banker. Like and he's like, yeah, I have to work not him particularly, but like these people are like, oh, I have to actually work like maybe six hours a week and the rest of the time. It's kind of just me fiddle fucking around on the computer. I just have to punch the clock for fucking eight hours a day, whereas like a lot of these trade jobs I have, my boss would be like, hey, here's what we got to do today. I bid it for eight hours of work. Fucking, if it takes longer, it takes longer, I gotta pay you over time. If you get it done in fucking six hours and it's done right, you wanna go home, fuck it, fuck off, I don't care. Like this is what we're doing today, get it done. You need too much sense, you know? And like I've kept that same mentality with all the employees that I've hired that work for me personally. I was like, here's how much I'm willing to pay. Here's my expectations. And they're like, okay, what hours do I need to work? I don't give a shit. If you can get this done in four hours, great, perfect, wonderful. Go on with your life. And a lot of the people that have like come from those corporate backgrounds, they're like shocked. Or think it's like a test or I'm fucking with them. It's like, I don't. I need this job done. I'm willing to pay this much money. If you can get it done and work a second fucking job and make even more money, great, I'm happy for you. Do it. - Was that you were saying like in the military, they, it's just common sense. Like you get it done. - Yeah, that's it. I'm hearing that in how you're describing this stuff. Like it, it sounds like your entire baseline, whether it be like why nursing didn't work out and then why you were effective like moving into the electrician business like one plus one equals two. That's totally from like kind of being brained into you at a young age that you're working in the military where it's let's go. This, this, that done. - Yeah. It's just, it's, it's, it's very simple. Like one of the jobs I had was at a company that doesn't exist anymore. And it was 2016, Trump had just been elected. And in healthcare, the Affordable Care Act had been rolled out at that point. So like smaller hospitals were being absorbed by bigger organizations. Some just didn't end up existing anymore. Community-based hospitals. But like I had just left business school and I show up and there's a generation of people who don't understand what a PDF is. And they, they literally had no idea what I was doing any given moment. Like one time I got pulled aside. - You were working for Congress? - No. - No, they were, they were all too old for Congress, which is bad. But like I have this very clear memory of like we're in a meeting and like I have my laptop and I'm just like typing away on Google Docs and I said something, you know, make a note, call this person, whatever. And then I got pulled aside by my boss and he was like, Handi had talked to you about your meeting etiquette and I was like, oh, what did I say? - Meeting etiquette. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, do I say something? I was like, could they see my tattoos? Like I, you know, I could look like Post Malone now and everyone wouldn't care. But 2016, it was not the same. - Right. - Especially in Boomer corporate America. So I was like, oh, what did I do? And he's like, well, you're always on your computer. And I was like, oh, yeah, I was taking notes. And he's like, yeah, but you're on a computer and I go, yeah, I take notes on Google Docs and like I type it there and it's everywhere it's saved and it's done. And he's like, that's not how we do it here. What we do is we write down all of our notes on paper and then you go, go thinly slice a fucking tree. - Yeah. - And then he's, I'll never forget this looks at BTS. He looks at me and he goes, and then we go,
go back and digitize it. - Oh my God. - And I was like, sir, with all due respect, I'm not doing that. And he's like, well, that's how we do it. And I go, I am not going to write stuff down on paper. And then after a meeting, a lot like 15 to 30 minutes, this is how they plan their days with a 30 minute meeting, would become an hour or one deal, an hour or deal. So now you can see why the company doesn't exist anymore. And I knew it. It was just like, it was so rough. And it was things like that all the time. Like I had to explain to them how to like, like they wanted me to digitize everything. And so I went to this like $300,000 scanner printer, copy or whatever. I took all the old files. They kept, moved multiple different buildings. I just put them in there. And I was like, we put this in here and it organizes it and you can search it and pull up the file. And they were just like, wow, that's crazy. We're just going to keep paper copies. Like it was just like one thing after another. 'Cause I was on the like, cutting edge of technology coming into like healthcare and to see people that were actually like trying to stop it was like a core memory I'll never forget. I used to joke, 'cause I worked at a bank out of college for the first five years. And it was like in order, I had to ask for permission to use toilet paper when I took a shit. That's where the red tape was everywhere. And like, was it Neymar? It was a deck of America Merrill. And they were just kidding, you know what I'm saying? I know, I've talked about it before, but they were so handcuffed by fucking a million lawyers in a room interpreting laws and then creating guidelines that no one could ever break it. It's like if one person in an enormous bank ever breaks a rule, everyone regardless of their job role, that's now like creates a new requirement that you have just to be able to get through a hoop. So as an example, I was not allowed to text clients. This is in 2017, 2018, 2019. Like I'm not allowed to send a text to a fucking client I work with. That's against the rules. And when I went and left the bank, I was telling my boss who I was really close with. I was like, listen, I'm a liability. Like, yeah, I text people. Like, put that on a shirt. Yeah, I'm a liability. It's not gonna work out. And it just made no sense. And you see why places like that have had to totally change like even how they do business and stuff because people don't want to work there, you know? It's rough. I actually got offered a job at a, what is, are they called financial centers? So I got offered a job out of grad school by guy. I was like, he could run this financial center. He's like, he could be the whatever. And he's, this was 2020. And he's like, and I was just like, I don't know, man, I think banks are kind of going the way of the dope or there's like less and less of them. The ATM can literally do everything you need. You can deposit your checks with your phone. And he was like, dude, banks will always exist. And I go, I didn't say that. What I said is there's not gonna be these anymore. In a different form. And I don't think he had any works at any of the banks anymore. Is there just, is there a certain age that people hit where they're just like, that's it? No more new shit ever. 'Cause like, I experienced this same thing, even working in like the trades where like, some of the older dudes that have been doing this for 30 years I would work with. And they would just adamantly hate new power tools that were like, extremely fucking convenient. So like as an electrician, you have to cut a lot of like metal piping to run wires through, EMT, rigid gondo it, whatever it is. And when I was first in apprentice, they had recently come out with a portable bandsaw. It's this big, and it's a fucking bandsaw that you can cut metal with, with a battery from like DeWalt or Milwaukee. Pick it up with your hand, and cut the pipe. Up until then, everything was either a big machine. They were cutting it on or a fucking hacksaw. Old guys fucking hated it. I had a couple old guys try to tell me that for my first couple of years as an apprentice, they wanted me to cut with a hacksaw anyway. It's because I needed to know how to do it. I was like, I don't need three years of experience to know how to cut some of the fucking hacksaw. Okay, A, I already know how to do it. B, that's stupid. I think you need a day doing it. Like, or like even the difference between a regular hand drill and an impact drill, they fucking hated the impact drill, which was hilarious. 'Cause I don't know what it was with these older guys. It's like they didn't have, I don't know if they didn't play video games. They didn't control. They didn't have any throttle control. To them, it was zero or a hundred. So every time they'd go to hit an impact, and they'd go too fast and they'd fuck up their shit. And I was like, just don't squeeze it all the way. It's fine, bro. Just have a little sensitivity. You're poor wife. This is fucking awful, man. Like, what are we doing here? Yeah. No, I think it's the two themes of what you're saying are people get used to what they did. And also people want other people after them, the young bucks have to go through what they did too. And so the idea that someone like you could come in and be like, hey, we got these really cool new things that can do the job better than like, no, no, you gotta do it. You gotta do it. It's like your old math teacher. It's like, no, you have to show the work all the way to it. It's like, but bitch, I got the answer. That matter. I love the attitude of I did it. You have to suffer through it like I did. I fucking hate it. I do too. It is the worst attitude for social security. Here we go. This is the argument for social security. Of like, I've been getting fucked by the government in this Ponzi scheme my entire life and didn't say anything. And now you have the balls to come in and point out that this is a Ponzi scheme and isn't gonna work and it's gonna blow up in your face. You need to shut the fuck up and take it just like I did. It's like, no, no, I don't actually. I hate to break it to you. No, I just, I don't know. I can't explain that. - When is it run out 2032? I think so. - Yeah, can you explain this to people why, you know, it's very problematic if you will, why call it a Ponzi scheme is a Ponzi scheme? Because it fucking is. - I know, I don't. - Explain it for internet. - Oh my God. Okay, one of the problems you have is an Ponzi scheme. Okay, you have, I don't know, a generation of a lot of people. We'll call it, I don't know, the baby boomers. (laughing) - If you had to name it. - A lot. Big number. - Yeah. - Big number. And they start at the bottom of this shape. I don't know. We'll call it a triangle or a pyramid, so to speak. Like a structure. This big population, this big population starts at the bottom and they start paying into social security. They think for some reason that the money is going into a savings account or a retirement account and it's just sitting there waiting for them. It's not, they're taking their money and they're giving it to the older generation above them. Smaller, smaller generation. Okay, not as big, not baby boomers. - Okay. - Greatest generation, they won World War II, they were awesome. Okay, so they're paying all their money to them. Okay, that's fine. And then they have kids, they go down here, but they're a smaller generation also. - Okay. - And all their money goes to the big generation. Okay, and then the generation below that's even smaller. And now, after, you know, five generations, the big part is at the top of the fucking pyramid and there aren't enough people to pay in to fucking get them the money they need. - So what you're saying? - Well, a Ponzi scheme is when there's no underlying asset. - So there's no underlying asset with Social Security. There isn't. And then you take all the money from the new investors and pay off the old investors, which is exactly what Social Security's doing. It's a maiden Ponzi scheme. - How do you fix it? - You fucking quit doing it. - Just, but pull the rug out and say it doesn't exist anymore. - You can, if you wanted to do it the right way and paper it off and make it work, first of all, you come out and say this was fucking stupid. Here's how we're gonna fix the problem. And you tell people, hey, we haven't been giving all your money to a fucking checking account and it's not sitting there anymore. It doesn't fucking exist, okay? You get a fucking cut off. First of all, you let people opt in and out of it because right now I've been paying into Social Security since I was 14 years old. If you gave me the option, sign away your rights. We're not gonna give you any money back. - I'll do it. - But you never have to pay Social Security again and you're just done. I'm signing that shit so fast. Keep the fucking money, leave me alone. That would make too much sense though. - Exactly. - Everyone would opt out. - Everybody else, you paper it off. You say, okay, you're 40, you paid in for this long. We're gonna quit collecting Social Security and then when you reach retirement age, you're gonna get this level of benefits so they amount that you paid in, a percentage. Like you paid in 60% of your working life, you're gonna get 60% of Social Security. We highly advise that you as an adult take the money, you're saving by not paying into Social Security and invest it for your fucking retirement. Now here's the issue. And, 'cause I agree completely and I think that's the exact way to solve it. But again, it makes too much sense because I remember like, I was talking with this guy one time and it's at the beginning of my career whose literal job was like he was a Social Security analyst and he raised a lot of the same points. Like yeah, this is a demographic sign. Look at David with this. But I was like, how do you end it? And he said the problem is the minute you come out as a politician, you talk about incentives here and say I am for ending Social Security. - You're done. - It's 90% of the time. - You're done. - But it's because there's a fundamental misunderstanding because the amount of people that genuinely have the rebuttal, I paid into it my whole life, that's my money under the notion of it's sitting in a savings account for me. You're trying to take my money. It's like no dude, the government already took your money and gave it to other people and then raided it every time they wanted to to go invade the Middle East. And you sat by and did fucking nothing about it your entire life. I'm sorry, that's not my fault. I didn't do that. Just because you were kicking around letting the government fuck you your entire life doesn't mean I'm obligated to do it too for your benefit. Sorry. - 100%. - Like that fucking sucks. You should probably get ahold of the money.
the government that did it. Quick getting mad at me for not wanting to get fucked and get mad at the person that's fucking you. - Yes. - Like that's the analogy I give. Like if, I don't know, if Zach is robbing us, okay? And Zach comes up to you and is like, give me all your money and you have $500. And then he robs me and I only have $100. Are you gonna get mad because you got robbed more than me? Or are you just gonna get mad at him because he got robbed? No, you're directing your anger at me because like, you only lost $100 and shut the fuck up, bro? Like no, we both got robbed, that fucking sucks. Let's blame him. But they don't see it that way. - It does seem to be, I don't know if this is the right word, it does seem that there is a generational cognitive dissidence with the baby boomers. I mean, and you know, I guess maybe-- - Well, baby boomers expose the fault and democracy as a whole. - Yeah, but they also cause the opioid crisis, multiple wars, so security collapsing. I mean, they literally had the world handed on to them on a platter, it's just like, don't mess it up. We won the war, do good, and they're like, we're gonna pump GMOs in the food, right? We're gonna poison the food, and then we're gonna sell heroin through Walgreens because it looks pretty because historically, opium has been known to be a good thing. Like it's, that's like, the opioid thing bothers me to this day, especially someone in healthcare. I used to see those vultures, you know, they would show up in their high heels and their business suits and they're just like, ah, you know, just looking at doctors, like, you wanna go on a free trip? All you gotta do is give 'em clean looking heroin and like, no one blinked, they all were like, oh, it's fine, it's fine, the study said, it's good. Oh, who did the study? Just, you know what I mean? Like, they did the study. Oh, so it's an internal study. Yeah, doctors wouldn't lie, why would doctors lie? Because they get paid more, like, it's just all this thing, and so it's like one thing after another, and then the biggest boom they're gonna do is we have to, we're the ones carrying the bill for all of it. They made all of these problems, generational problems, and now they're looking at us being like, AI's taking jobs. And I'm like, well, you killed all the jobs, you killed all the food, you killed all the things, and then it's just kind of like this, it's really weird, especially when you're in a place of like, and you guys are also in charge of most of the government? Yeah, I think so, of course, like every generation, there's a subset, and it's a different number, and it's just the way humanity works, but there's a subset of people that are either incompetent evil or both, right? And they certainly have that. But I think when you have two things take over society, which I would argue it has throughout the life of baby boomers, and that those two things being group think, and backwards incentives, it causes a passivity, and you said it perfectly, a cognitive dissonance, to how, you know, oh, there's one little block right here, it's not just one little block, it's one of a thousand blocks, and we're stacking into this entire, call it actually a card, into an entire house, a card is an eventually, the music's gonna stop, and someone's gonna flick it, and the whole thing comes down, and they just, when you're putting each card in there, one at a time, it's just human nature, the boiling frog idea, like you don't think of it that way, and now we're starting to see that frog's getting fucking hot in there, and our generation's seeing that, and now the anger's directed, I get it. The other part is the baby boomers exposed, like, the flaw in democracy as a whole, because it's a bigger generation than everybody else. And as a bigger generation, like I said, when, you know, you don't really know yourself in high school because you're growing up around other people all the same age, there's certain fads, there's certain things you want at the same point in time. When you get it, when the new toy comes out at Christmas, everybody wants that new Nerf gun. Everybody wants the new particular bike at the same time. - Turbo man. - It's that on a generational level. So as a generation around the same time, everybody wants cheap college, and then everybody wants cheap housing, and then everybody wants low taxes, and then everybody gets towards retirement, and then they want benefits like social security, which means high taxes. And because they have the bigger voting numbers, they're constantly able to impose what that one generation wants on the rest of society. And they're not even doing it maliciously. They're just coming from that, I'm a person living a day-to-day life. This is what I see in my life that I need, and that's how I'm gonna vote. Like I can't fault them for that. But it exposes the flaw in democracy as a whole. Like what do you do when one generation of people want something at the same time, and they have the voting power to get it, and it's to the detriment of everybody else. And that's what's happening right now. How would you fix that when you do weighted voting or something like that per your block? - I can't, I don't know. - First of all, I don't think everybody should be allowed to vote anyways. (laughing) - Yeah, maybe that should be an actual starting point. - You don't think everyone should be allowed to vote? - Absolutely, fucking not. I could tell you the moment I came to this conclusion. - Okay. - I was head of a rising. I was getting a new phone, and it was me, some other dude, a dirty high viz shirt that clearly just got out of work. It's like six o'clock in the afternoon. I'm getting my photos and stuff transferred onto my new phone. And it's like, I got the Verizon guy helping me. Verizon guy helping him. And the third Verizon guy just kind of stand in there and we're all chatting while things are getting done. And this 60 year old woman comes storming in Verizon with a fucking attitude. She's holding a surge protector. You know, like the power strip, like seven plugins on it. She's holding that and a fucking phone charger on her hand. And she walks up and is like, you sold me this yesterday and it doesn't work. I'm watching, like I'm engaged now. The Verizon guy's like, what do you mean it doesn't work? Like it won't charge your phone. And she goes, no, I can't even plug it in. And you know how the fucking phone charger's now the prongs fold in because some asshole stepped on it one time. So now they have to fold in so you don't step on them. She grabs it with the prongs folded in and just smacks the two pieces together like a fucking caveman that doesn't know how fire works and looks at him and goes, see? And he folds the prongs out and plugs it in. And then she realizes that she's a fucking moron and goes, thanks and walks out. So yes, not everybody should be allowed to vote. It was a fucking two piece puzzle with one moving part. - I have the thought every time I go through TSA and they're like, no shit, no belt, no shoes, no laptops, there's signs, there's a guy doing it. 9/11 happened a fuck ton of years ago and everyone in there is just like, do I, do I wear my belt? Do I wear, what about my laptops? Sir, do you have a laptop? No, but if I wanted to bring one later, do I need to scan it? No shirt, no belt, I mean no shoes, no belt, no laptop. I don't have any shoes. Do you need them? I have preach it or like, that's when I'm like, - The older I get, the more pro barriers to entry I am. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I want barriers to it. I don't care why it is at this point. Give me any standard to become a voter, okay, yeah. - I want you to dream with me for a minute, I want you to dream with me. - Dream with me, all right. Dream with me, brother. - Dream with me. - I want you to go back about 89 miles from here, give or take, maybe it's 91, I have a little. - Fuck, I'm gonna have to somebody pump my gas. - And the year, no, no you won't. - No you won't, 'cause gas ain't around yet and you're on the other side of the border. I want you to go back to 1776 and a little beer hole and fucking fill it up, yeah. - Okay. - I'm not even going to the constitution in New York, I'm saying before then, when these guys were like, "Yo, fuck this tyranny, we're out." - Yeah, type shit, yeah. - These are the guys that then we're just gonna give them the credit of 13 years later came doing agreement that we got this thing set up and people can vote on who their elective representatives are. What do you think they would say about imposing some sort of ban on people voting? - They did that. What are we talking about? - What do you mean they did that? - In 1776, the founding fathers did not fucking be like everybody gets an equal say. You had to own land, you had to be an American, you had to be invested in the system, you had to have something at stake, you had to be a stakeholder in America, you had to be a landowner. At no point did the founding fathers just be like, "Everybody gets a fucking vote." - But never happened. - So they didn't let women vote, they obviously didn't let slaves vote and stuff like that, but I'm saying like at the time the cultural standard was like, "Man, in society you're allowed to vote." - So when they did land-owning men? - Only, so in 1789, when they got a vote-- - It was a double-check institution. - Double-checking, I'm more or less positive. You had to be a landowner. There was criteria. - That's interesting. - Nick's never wrong. - This is my life. - There's more criteria on top of that, too. - Basically. - What was that criteria to vote when the country was founded? 'Cause it was not just white men, like it wasn't just like a racial thing, you had to be a land-owning American citizen. - I don't know that. - That's why I love the internet. We can just double-check. - That's it, and that's why I do this here. I see he's got like a whole timeline of when it was, but we're just trying to go to 17. - I just want like a nice list. - There's obviously like, there were other things, as I said, that they were totally behind on, but just like in general of what was, how society viewed it, I don't know, the every man at the time, which excluded people. - Yeah, we know. - All right, so 1789, white male, virtually universal restriction, so that would, okay. So age 21 or older, property ownership or tax paying status. Most states required owning land to vote. A few states allowed taxpayers without property to vote instead of or in additional land, so you're correct. Several states also impose religious tests, which required voters to be Protestant or Christian, a few excluded Catholics or Jews from voting or holding the office outright, free status and slide people couldn't.
not vote. And then I doesn't say women on here, but women couldn't vote either at the time. Residency, typically some minimum period living in the state or country. That's interesting. So they had, they did have restrictions on it. So at some point, this changes and we get to where everyone can vote. And I kind of take away my dream scenario. Now it's illegal to fucking ask for an ID to vote in California. That you have to be an American citizen. That's fucking absurd. It's like, I mean, if you just gave me, you got to be an American citizen. And you have to, I like, I would like it if you were actually a tax paying member of society. Yeah. I just want to know that you're paying into the system. Okay. And like, I'm willing to give exemptions for people that are genuinely like actually disabled and can't work a job like sure. What about the director, lady? What is she paying for? You know what? I'll take it. If she is, if you were giving me that like, or she works a job and she's a productive member of society, she's just a fucking moron. I'll fucking take it. It's better than the standards we have now. Do I want some higher standards than that? Am I dream scenario? Sure. But I'll take any standards you fucking give me at this point because right now there are none. Right. The no ID thing is crazy. I have never heard a coherent argument for why someone, because there isn't one for why someone shouldn't present ID to prove that they're a fucking citizen of the country or a resident of the state of the state. Just to verify your address that you're at the right. Or just to verify you only voted once. Yeah. I mean, what the fuck is stopping me from like, I really want this merit of when and there's 15 precincts to vote in. I'm going to go to every fucking precinct and vote because they don't know who the fuck I am. Yeah. I do remember and I wish I could remember the detail right now, so I don't want to say it and get it wrong. But when I voted, I'm remembering like the big one, when I went into the 2024 cycle, which was the presidential cycle. I remember something happened when I checked in and then got to the ballot box. And I was like, I didn't have to do anything. Maybe it was something like I didn't even have to show my ID or something like that. But I was, I remember going in. I'm like, this feels kind of like the third grade class president one. Like they didn't even check what grade it meant. I showed up in it for a recent election for my congressman. And I have my voter registration card, my ID and they're like, do you need any of that? And I was like, don't like that. I don't like that answer at all. Dick, but like it shouldn't be easier to open up a fucking Gmail or easier to vote than it is to open up a Gmail or to do anything on the internet. I can't get shit on the internet without at least giving them my name and my email address. I agree with that. Like give me anything to prove you're one person. Yeah. More of the reason. So I'm absolutely on the same page with like barrage to entry. Like you said with that. But like whenever like the retarded lady in the store, whenever I hear that, it's like it's what I'm, what I'm getting at is it's a subjective thing. So you could beat technically the way a slippery slope tyranny could start is you'd be like, I think that guy's stupid. So he can't vote. And then the next, the next guy down below is less stupid and less stupid, but they keep using the precedent. That's why I asked that question the way I did. But like if there's just like some requirements like, Oh, I don't know. You're paying taxes into the system, like your functional members society. But that's probably fair. Yeah. Maybe a general intelligence test. I mean, you do have to take a version of, I think it's called the Minnesota multi something inventory. I can't remember what's called now. But even when you get a hundred safety license, you have to take like a test to make sure that you're not psychotic. And it's like you see two deer in a parking lot. Do you a not shoot them? Be hit them with a car, see all the above. Like it's questions like that. And by the way, there were people when I got it at 15 that failed. They didn't even make it to the shooting portion. But there's like a general thing. We could ask questions like, do you think the mood, the moon is made of cheese? A, yes. B, maybe C ribs. Like there, there has to be like a general knowledge thing that can be applied to like mode. I mean, it's applied to everything else in life. So why can't it be applied to voting? Cause it's probably the most important thing because the, the military has got it pretty dialed in with the Asvab. You go in, you take a test for the military and the military says you are qualified to do these jobs. You are smart enough to be able to learn these skills and perform these tasks. Why can't we do that with, I mean, we do that with all kinds of shit. You take it when you, um, we do the Asvab. I'm popular. I want more age restrictions. I'm so sick of the age bullshit arguments. Because like, well, like we said over there, you had to be 21 to vote. And I don't even like the age restriction part. Like I just want some criteria to be met. And whether that's like military service automatically, you're allowed to start fucking voting. Like I was signed up for the military before I was allowed to vote or drink. Yeah. Like if you're in the military, you should be allowed to vote. I think if you don't want to go in the military and you still want to be able to vote. Absolutely. I think you should have to pay X amount of taxes on a delay. If you're making a million dollars at 20 years old and you're paying a shit on it, absolutely. You should be able to vote. If you're making minimum wage or whatever, like you'll get there in three, four years to be able to vote. And some kind of like you're invested in society. You have a track record of performance and being a productive member of society. I'll tell you one thing that is an interesting idea that I've thought about before. You know, when they get, when did they even come up with 18, Dave? Can we look that out? It's been a while. Like, you know, what if you had it to where like if I could go to rent a car, you got to be 25 years old. And part of that is, I mean, there's literal science about brain development. But also it's like this is someone who's now had hypothetically on the average three, if they went to college, just standard college, like they have at least three years, like out on the real world to understand consequences of life and things like that. I think someone should probably have spent three years in the real world to be able to know like, oh, that's how my billing works. Oh, that's how accounting works. Oh, that's how people like put you know what I mean? Like you don't, I didn't know anything when I was 18 years old and they're like, you can go vote. That's what I want. I just want criteria that we can look at because I'm sick of the age arguments where it's like, I think a 16 year old should be allowed to vote because it's their future too. But also when that same 16 year old commits a fucking crime and somebody winds up dead. That's right. Oh, he's just a kid. He can't be held responsible for his actions. If he can't be held responsible for his actions, why are we allowing him to dictate what direction all the fucking society goes? Like either you're an adult or you're not. I want a solid criteria on when you're a fucking adult and you get to be treated that way. Period. And I even hear the stupid argument on the internet like, well, we should actually their brain isn't fully developed like you said until they're 25 or 26. So they should be treated like a kid. Fuck you. I was 25. If I got pissed off and like did some illegal shit, I absolutely should have been thrown in prison at 25. I knew better. I hate that. I just want people to be like, you're an adult. Actions have consequences. There's benefits to be an adult. There's downsides. You get them all. You can't fucking pick and choose 24 seven. It drives me fucking nuts. Yeah. By the way, I pulled it up. It was 1971 where I remember 26th of a constitution lowered the voting age to 18 years. But again, also like somewhere along the way in society and fuck of I know where it was like is probably a slow descent. There were basic civility standards that just slowly went away, you know, to where people could get away with more things or society. I don't know, accepted more behaviors. It wouldn't have been the past. And like when I look at something like 1971, where an age work, it's lower to 18. That's, you know, that's a different kind of 18 year old than it is today. You know, there's just some realities that that 18 year old understands that today's 18 year old doesn't today's 23 year old doesn't fucking clue about. Yeah, because your grandparents were in the depression. And like you have perspective, I mean, that's really what's lacking as a whole was like, I think we should mandate some form of civil service. I don't know what that looks like. I don't think it should be military for everyone. That's a hard stop. But I think if we gave everyone like out of high school, like a year, or two years, whatever, work at a nonprofit, you know, do go for Habitat, do whatever you want to do, just do something and learn more about the world than the world you live in. It'll help to shape everything about the rest of your life in a positive way. And like you'll actually have some sort of investment in your future. I'm like, I'll have actually like experienced different things as opposed to like, because K through 12, you don't really have any real life experiences that you can pull from unless like your life's hard or you have different things like that. That's like personal, but like, I don't know, because like my time in the military really helped to shape me as a person. I had a horrible childhood growing up, but like it also exposed me things I never thought possible. And not that everyone should join the military, but it also got me to college for free. It also changed the course of my life. I got two degrees out of it. Like think about just the culture shock of going to basic training. Going to basic training at 18 years old, you show up spent, you know, I moved around a lot. I'm a bad example, but like hypothetically, I grew up in Iowa my entire life in small town, Iowa, surrounded by corn. Okay. Like everybody was into the same things. And now I'm going to basic training with a 33 year old that just got a divorce had a midlife crisis, divorced his wife. He's in one bunk next to me. The other bunk next to me is a 20 year old kid from Chicago who, you know, had a completely different upbringing than I did. I'm going to become friends with both these people.
from completely different walks of life. And there's 50 other people in the platoon that all have extremely other different walks of life. I'm gonna have to learn how to work together with these people, be a team, care about them, and at the end of the day, realize that we're all Americans and we gotta fucking work together. That's crazy, impactful, being 18 years old, and then getting to live the rest of your life understanding that. And a lot of these kids are just like, oh, I graduated from high school, what college are you going to? We should all go to college together. And you live in this fucking bubble thing. Even when they don't, though, to your point, Zach, it's like, if there's some level of civil service you're doing, whatever it is, you're working for something that is in some way like an actual cause or something bigger than you that helps build like a cultural bond. It's not to say college isn't fun, and you don't meet people from different walks of life. 'Cause I mean, I did, and I think that's great. But like, you know, you're going there, you're doing your classes yourself, and then you're going out there and you're partying and having a good time. It's not like a higher calling in that way, nor is it supposed to be. But if you said, like, hey, for like a year out of college, everyone is required to do something that at least gives them some perspective on life. Yeah, I think that would be worth it's weight and gold. Yeah, you go to somewhere where they have like, rolling brownouts, not even blackouts. There's rolling brownouts where electricity is not common. Most parts of Europe don't have air conditioning. You go to other countries that you've heard about, but then you go there and you're like, holy shit, this is crazy. Like, those are the things that help to shape you as a person. I mean, like, I grew up in Memphis and, you know, prior to the military, people from the Northeast were like in movies. Like, I'd never met people in New York. And it's like cliche. It's my friends like, "Hey, my name's Tony Tony." You know, like, it's all like the most, you know, "Hey, I'm from Cape Cod. "From on Cape or off Cape or Yenzes from Pennsylvania." Like, I'd never met people like that. I'd just seen them and I was like, wow. This is wild. Like, I'd never, but they don't pump their own gas. They don't pump their own gas. Those cowards. But like, Nick's right, like, you never outside of that. That's the only time you'd ever meet people. I mean, now people do like more often because of like remote work and things like that. But like, you learn cultural things. And there's just little differences that you learn about people and like, unless you're like trying to break that, you're not gonna do it. I think it's actually popular in either Europe or Austria, I can't remember where, but they do a sabbatical where they're like, "Hey, you gotta go." And they send you out like after, after-- - See on it. - It's Run Springer. - Run Springer. - I mean, even there, even there do it. But like, they go out for a year and they just travel the world or they do something like, I mean, think about how awesome it would be. Like, if you're like, "Hey, just go to Australia." Whatever you gotta work with this nonprofit, they help, you know, make sure people don't kill the kangaroos or something. I don't know, just making stuff up. But how else would you get there any other way? I would be okay actually putting my tax dollars towards something like that. Like, if you're like, "Hey, this is like," I'd say, "It's so security." But like, some sort of stipend that'll go is like, as long as you're doing this, we're gonna give you X amount of dollars. It's enough to live on and you can go on this thing 'cause it will help to make you a better informed member of society. 'Cause that's the biggest problem people who are in the military, as opposed to outside the military is like, you get exposed to a lot of different things. And you see the world a whole lot differently. I suppose people aren't who are just like hearing about it. And like, everyone's like, "Oh, the government's like doing this," and stuff. Like, yeah, they're all obviously doing things, but as someone who's also in the government, everyone's also pretty fucking dumb. Like, it's not like-- - It's not like if the government too much credit, they're not that smart. - Yeah, everyone's like, "Oh, there's like one guy." - No, no, dude, there's not. Like, there's not that many people that are like, that sharp or smart, I mean-- - Oh, it's like seal teams, even them. They'll full of morons. Like, they can just hold their breath for a long time, so they get movie deals. (laughing) - How long were you in the military when you were there? - Four years. Was it something you always wanted to do or-- - Oh, dude, I was made for it. I'm a child. Yeah, I was, I'm a child of trauma, poor white trash. There was nothing. Nothing, then my family knew other than like, how to break the cycle of poverty, other than like, do a trade, be a mechanic, which is fine, nothing wrong with that. My father did it, his father did it, his father before him, you know, the first bell was probably looking at Mr. Ford, being like, "I think there might be something here, Mr. Henry." You know what I mean? Like, we were made to turn wrenches, but I also saw my father, man, my stepfather, man, my grandfather, I would always see them in the morning rubbing their hands, because you can only turn a wrench for so long. You can only do things, and every morning, they would like warm up and do these like stretches and stuff. And then they'd like to cigarette and head out to the car. So, what's tough about growing up in poverty, no one really talks about, is you don't have an example of like how to get outside of it. Like, there's no like, you know, Uncle Mike did this, and now he, you know, he has a mortgage, and he has a house, and he goes on vacation once a year. Like, there's no, there's nothing, you know, it's just my grandmother telling me to start a side business, which is code for still free on and sell it on the side, or, you know, scrap copper when nobody's looking, things like that. - I miss free on. - I do too. I miss the cold stuff that was punching holes so the hose, I mean, that's, I mean, we were so poor, I remember when we got a car with the air condition, and I was like, "Pff, technology's the fucking best." Like, literally, I remember seeing it frost the vents, and I don't care what it did to the ozone. This other stuff is nothing compared to it. - I'm so, I did. - What was it? I think it was 134A. - I need to do a video on this. - Maybe, 'cause like the new ones, I couldn't do it. I doesn't matter. - Because the fucking patents run out. That's why. - And so someone has to make a new formula? - I get, yes. - I just spit in a cup in the end. - I got a new AC in my house, and I'm like homies with the guy that did it for me. And he's like, "I'm warning you right now, this is not gonna be as cold as your last unit." And I'm like, "Why, it's newer. It should be getting colder as time goes on." What do you mean, technology has improved. Why is my AC getting shittier? And he's like the new chemical, the free-on replacement, the refrigerant, basically. They came out with new environmental regulations. We got to use this new stuff. It's not as efficient. So then I go and I look into it. And it's like, conveniently, every, when they make these new formulas, they have a patent period, where there are one company owns it. They're allowed to make all the fucking money from this refrigerant. And conveniently, as soon as that patent fucking expires, that, you know, oh, there's a new environmental thing. This is actually bad for the environment. But we have this new one that's better for the environment. Now you have to use this one. Sign that shit into law. As luck would happen, we have a new formula. Isn't that-- - Every fucking time. I hate 'em. But yeah, no, I watched lively when I was little. When I shouldn't have been watching it. Not 11 happened when I was in eighth grade. - You remember where you were? - Yeah, my mother called me and said, "You need to stay home 'cause I was gonna walk "to the school bus and bus stop." And so it was like eight o'clock our time. So it's nine o'clock in New York time. And so I was like, what's happening? She's like, "Something's bad happening. "Turn on the TV." And I gradually grabbed my brother. He's like, "We're not going to school." And like, he at first didn't believe me. And he was like scared that I was gonna get us in trouble for escaping. And I was like, "No, mom said to stay home." And so I turned on the TV and right when I did it was when the second plane hit the second tower. - I was like, "You're old enough in eighth grade. "You're old enough to grasp that." - Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And my cousin joined the Marines about four years before I did. He's four years older than me. And he went to Iraq twice. And then I was like watching stuff on live leak. Like there's like dudes like with M203s, like launching grenades and we're like, "Good, good, boom." And like I was like locked in on the family computer that took forever to like load and dial up. Here, and I'm just like waiting. I'm like, "Show me the war, show me the war." And then, you know, I went into the recruiter's office and I was like, "I wanna be in the infantry." And they're like, "You can do whatever you want." And I was like, "I don't wanna do that." And they're like, "Well, this is kinda like that." And I'm like, "I'm not doing kinda." You know, I'm not gonna roll the dice on maybe. And the Marine Corps at that time had like, you would pick a field, you pick the infantry field and then you get a job when you go to your MOS school. And I wanted to be O311 infantry rifleman. And that's what I picked. Why'd you wanna be that? - I wanted to go on an adventure. I didn't wanna risk not having that opportunity. - Fuck you, tell the story. - I wanted to kill you. - No, tell the story of the speeches when they brought in the rifleman infantry gunner. - I mean, well, that was infantry in general. But yeah, so, okay, so you go to the school of infantry. And so what happens is combat MOSs go to like one side of the camp, non-combat MOSs go to the other side. They do 21 days in the field. They do a bunch of hikes. They get exposed, like they sit behind a 240. They shoot a few rounds, they get up and they go to another thing. 21 days in the field consecutively, honestly sucks. But that's their only, it's like drinking water from a fire hose, like they're exposed and they go off to whatever school camp they're doing. Well, all of the infantry guys are brought in in this auditorium. And there's multiple MOSs that are pitched at you. And they start, they come out and these instructors, you get to pick like which one you wanna do and based on your scores and other factors, they match you to whatever. And so the first guy comes out and he's an O351 Assaultman. And he's like, hey, my name's Sartin Soin. So he like rock and she like blow and shit up. You wanna be a man, be an Assaultman. Rar, Rar, and labor is like, it's just a bunch of dudes. And then next guy comes up, Sartin's, I'm Sartin Soin. So I'm a Mortemann. You wanna drop still rain on top of the enemy. You wanna place some cards, you wanna do some space. Be an O341 Mortemann. Rar, Rar, Rar, and it's like going on. And then there's this guy comes out, looks like a fucking full back. And he's like, my name's Sartin Soin. So I'm a machine gunner. You wanna put rounds on the target from a click away. You wanna fucking carry big guns. You pick O331 today. Boom, he never was like, ah! And then I would never forget this one guy. I fucking wish I could know his name. He comes out and he takes his can of dip and, I'll get put the dip in, he goes. My name's Sartin Soin. So you wanna be in charge, [BLANK_AUDIO]
fucking idiots. Pick out 311. I wrote down O311 three times and I turned it in and they're like, yeah, you're an idiot. We were obviously going to pick you. Oh my God. And so then that was it. That was it. That was it. Went off to my unit. They had just got back from her body. It was like being dropped off in a prison complex that years is like O5. This is O7. So I went in February of seven. I got there July. I didn't know that. You got in right when they got back from Ramadi. Brother. Bro, you're the fresh meat in a prison at that point. So it sucks. So you get picked up from receiving. You gather all your gear and obnoxious amount of gear that you put in a sleeping bag. You're dragging it across the lawn and they're cat calling you and throwing shit at you. Hey, fuck you, boot. That's the lowest level of term to be called in the military. You're fresh out of boot camp. You haven't deployed. You get called a boot. It's our version of like the worst word ever. And so they're throwing stuff at you. You have to run past them. Like the first two weeks of base, we just got tortured like digging fighting holes and filling them back up, running past doors, plotting points on a map underneath the gas map with a gas mask going underneath the poncho in the shower. Like all sorts of crazy shit. Some of my best friends. But like nothing that was like ever derogatory or degrading, it was just like no elephant walk or anything like that. Oh, you know about that one. Oh, you heard about the pickles and all that stuff. Yeah. I don't know about pickles. I've heard about the elephant walk. Yeah. No, nothing like that because like, honestly, you're the reality is you can't push people too far. You're all depending on each other in a worst case scenario. Right. So you don't know if that kid's going to like remember the time that you fucking made him run naked somewhere and somebody saw him or whatever it was. And these were like hard dudes. They had multiple racked appointments. And I just kind of like fell in. And I was like, I'm going to treat this like a job, treat it like a job. And we did a workup and one of my first appointment to Garmser, Afghanistan and the March of 2008. What was that like? I've heard so many stories in here from so many different guys across many different units who talk about in particularly Afghanistan, starting in like 0708 all the way to like 2015 and how fucking crazy it was. Yes. What was it like when you got there? So when we got there, I left a few days after my first daughter was born, basically a week from the time she was born until I got there. And I thought I was going to like land on like, dude, like I thought I was just going to be like rockets going off everywhere and I land. The first thing I can see is a fucking burger king. So I go, I go to eat at burger king shout out Dick Cheney, friend of the show. What a flash. Thanks. Thank you, sir. I don't think you're dead. But no, dude, he thinks he's alive. Why would he stop giving up hearts that he was harvesting every few years? Like all of a sudden he's going to collapse? There's no way. I'm pretty sure he reached in his heart from the president of Dick Cheney hate club. So I'm not arguing with any of it. But he's the hell that motherfucker was dead. Dude, he's like Tony Stark. He just took a new battery out and put one in. You know what I'm saying? Me and him had to go to the the George Bush Center or something. They did not like us cracking Dick Cheney jokes. That was 30 seconds. When did you go to the George Bush month? A month ago or so? Yeah, we got invited. I thought I thought W and fucking Dick Cheney weren't on the best terms when he died. Well, I know it didn't like our jokes. But yeah, it was, it was funny. It was just me and Nick making like Dick Cheney Bush jokes the entire time. Other people were there. But it was really just me and him passing the mic back and forth. But that was like my first meal. And there's an acclimatization period. And that was in Kandahar airfield, which in the early 2000s, there was nothing by that time there was a ton of stuff. Toby Keith came out to visit us blah, blah, blah. That's a cool story. But we're waiting. And then like the mission launch, we're going to go out and secure this area and you're going to stay there for seven to ten days. This is what they told us. And my unit had a, for some reason, they did a drug test before we deployed. Now, I'm not at condoning or endorsing the use of drugs going to war, dude. Like, ask me no questions. I'll tell you no lies. So when they did the drug test across the entire battalion, there was over 30 people that popped because it was snowing in campus unit that time. I mean, it was yeah, brother. I don't know. It was wild. And so they ended up reorganizing the entire battalion, which is highly unusual. So I was in this platoon called third platoon. I think I moved to a second platoon. And I went from basically being in like the worst platoon with like a platoon sergeant who was relieved of command in boot camp because as he said, I get too excited. That's how he always said is like, I get really hands on. And like he was known for that. And so I mean a lot of things. Yeah. It's, it means what you think it means. I mean, for them to fire a drill instructor in the early 2000s is pretty rough. But we went out there, engaged the enemy, that deployment. We, I mean, we literally had every asset in the world, direct assets, air and direct fire mortars. And like we were like on top of the battle space the entire time, the living conditions were nightmarish because you were just outside an entire time, like doing posts for four to six hours at a time, doing a patrol and just kept doing that back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And it was dangerous. And it was hard. I didn't call home for 90 days. There was a lot of that stuff. But that deployment overall like in the grand scheme of things was like a good deployment for like getting your feet wet. Now when we did the invasion of Marsha in 2010, a completely different scenario. What was so different about that? So in that point in 2010, Marsha was where there was a ton of, a ton of dope. And so that was where the Taliban were getting a lot of their money and we were trying to interdict that movement. Very famously, Geraldo Rivera went around that area and was like, these Marines are guarding the poppies. And that was actually not far from where I was. And that was in December of 2010. But we left in late '09 and my wife was pregnant with our second child then because they had told us during the workup, you guys are going to be shutting down bases in Iraq. And I was like, great. It's going to be maybe a 90 day deployment will come home. So we started planning our second child and they switch it to Afghanistan and like a real. Yeah. It was when President Obama went to West Point. They told us like hours beforehand. Hey, there's going to be a troop search in Afghanistan and that's you. And so that deployment was highly documented. It's very famous. There's a speech. I fucking can we play it? Yeah. It's gunny Walgreens speech. It's on my YouTube veteran with a sign. So this guy gunny Walgreens is like my mentor in the infantry. I've known him the whole time. And he was known for giving these speeches. And the whole day prior to us leaving, there was a fuck ton of speeches. Like to a point where my junior Marines were like, "Yo, are we going to be okay?" I was like, I don't know because this has never happened before. They're talking to us a lot. Like it was it was gnarly. Yeah, there it is. This is fucking great. So I'm I'm here. You can't really tell. But like I'm across the other side of the thing in the 280P days. Yeah, well, it was secret, but this is perfect. Yeah, that we've got to be double. We're coming back here. We'll eat you up. Camera's off. See you there. No, negative. Negative. I agree with one thing that's been said is about how good you look. Do you tell me to make my butt look fucking off? I see a whole bunch of do-rags. I'm motivated to shit out of me. Fucking professional. Why are professionals? Is that what we're called? I think y'all are crazy. God, they are motherfuckers. Hey! Not one speech. Now, we've been talking about this. I'm kind of upset about the general speech. I'm kind of upset about the kind of smander speech. I haven't got any fucking goosebumps yet. Have y'all been motivated about this? I know y'all figured out another secret that the Marine Corps had. We don't tell you shit, and we play games. And I knew we were leaving tonight. Fucking seven months ago. Tell y'all because we want you to get fucking pissed off. You might be envisioning us when you kill the enemy. But motherfucker, you're going to be pissed. Marshal. Fuck that. What do y'all want to hear? Y'all want to hear the whites, please? I'm not doing that shit. Don't say that. I don't like you. You know, John Glenn speech, right? I tell you that. We'll do that. He would always smoke cowboy killers. Kill. What? Was the senator for the state of Ohio, oldest man to go back up in the space because he's a P.D. God. Before all of that, he was a fucking Marine. And airwanger, though, a pilot. Right, Captain Smith. I have that camera. Get the fuck away from me. John Glenn. 1974 ran through. I said it against a politician. How it met the bomb? How it met the bomb? Was the starry motherfucker? John Glenn at this point was a Marine.
3. First American to orbit the Earth in space. Howard met some bomb at him, how could you run for some of it when you never held a job? What the fuck would you do if somebody said that should be you? No, I'm going to change a little bit of it. John Glenn said, "Is that right?" I served 23 years in the United States for equal. I fought for two morphs. I flew 149 missions. My plane was hit by an aircraft fire on 12 different occasions. I was in the space program. It wasn't my job. It was my life that was on the line. And this wasn't a 9-5 job, right? You take time off to take the daily casualties to the fight. I asked you to come with me as I went the other day to a federal hospital. And you stand there. You look at those men with their mangled bodies. You look them in the eye and tell them that they never held a job. You come with me and visit any gold star mother. You look her and the eye and tell her her son never held a job. You come with me to the space program and visit the widows in the orphans. Of Ed White, God's Christmas, Roger Chase. And you look those kids in the eye and tell them that they're dads never held a job. You come with me on this Memorial Day weekend coming up to Arlington National Cemetery, where I got more friends than I'd like to remember. And you stand there. You watch those waving flags. You think about this nation and you tell me that those people never held a job. Fuck! I'll tell you how it met them, Bob. You should be on your knees every day of your life. Thanking God that there are some men who have held a job. And they required a dedication of purpose, a love of country and a dedication to duty. That was more important than life itself. Their self sacrifice is what made this country fucking possible. Is that bad ass? Fucking you all. Is that bad ass? Hey, Roger. I hope you're motivated. Right, quiet, professional. Fuck all that. Fuck all this talk about doing what you've been trained to do. You all know damn well. You get out there and you fucking do shit because the marine to your left and the marine to your fucking right. God country and core don't matter as that fucking point. Let the Taliban throw the fucking women and children in front. We won't shoot. We'll just fucking creep out around them with a cup of coffee. Let the Taliban on the fucking shoulders say what the fuck is your problem? Fuck them. Let them try to fight the United States Marine Corps conventional. What the fuck is wrong with their stupid motherfuckers? Shoot at me. Bring the A.A. God down bitch like fucking do this. You're going to do what you need to do for fucking each other. Not for anybody else. Tomorrow, or maybe in a couple of days, it might take a little bit longer than that. The people of Mars, who will be on their knees every day of their fucking life, thanking God, that angry. The string has been cut loose. You can't fucking stop us now. The fuck are they going to do now? Shit, fuck you. Get up. You were standing right there. Yeah. It's literally right there. Is he from South Jersey? I can't say where he's from. He's very, very secretive. I'm detecting either Delco or South Jersey accent. I can tell you that he's everything that you want a Marine to be. He spent his entire life in the infantry. He was a fucking badass. He would show up in the company parking lot in a Porsche. Like everyone else would drive sedans or normal stuff. He'd show up. What the fuck are you doing? I'm like, I don't know, Gunny. Because I can see my Porsche. I've got a few of them. What he did his entire career, he actually bought land. I don't want to be too specific. But basically all around North Carolina in the coast. And he turned him into rental properties. He's always had a bag. And he just loved the Marine Corps. He loved being a Marine. That's a fucking amazing thing. That was, I mean, absolute dog trash. No one wants to hear from a fucking general, a colonel, whatever. From there, we then walked to the flight line because it wasn't built yet. With all of our gear and then the mission launched. How many of those guys didn't make it back? I don't, I'll have to get the exact number. But we lost a lot. We lost a lot. And that's what always strikes me with something like that. Because you're talking about this as a speech given before. Yeah. A mission that he knew was going to be serious. And he knows when he's standing there that some of the, some of the kids, you know, getting pumped up and laughing along with his jokes and stuff. And in his somber tone, it's like they're not all going to make it back. And I can never always imagine what that must feel like for a guy like him who's been there done that and knows the cost. But still has to like get everyone ready to fucking go. There's something really, really heavy about that. But also it takes like a special person to be able to pull that off. Well, what was unique about him is he put. So in the Marine Corps, the way it works is you have an E8 who's like a first sergeant in the infantry. And, well, master or whatever. And he needs a job to do like administrative things. Right. So he was the company gunry. So it's his job to oversee like operations and logistics. But he's the most senior tactical advisor. So he's talking to the platoon commanders, which are lieutenant to just graduated college. I've never deployed anywhere. And it's his job to shape them and also keep their platoon counterparts staff and CEOs accountable. But he's the subject matter expert for a company, which is four platoons. All things warfare. Like it's his job to know it front to back. And he was just a fucking G is a fucking G to this day. Like he convinced the battalion that he needed about five vehicles for a logistics log train. He didn't need that. He just he made him wanted it. He made a mobile QRF. And so he'd be like, oh yeah, we're delivering water. And you just hear like a machine gun going up. He's like, you know, angry six, angry six inbound. He's just like laying down rounds. He's like, oh yeah, we're dropping chow's to like because that's how he would do it. And I mean, I don't know that that deployment from start to front was gnarly. Because you guys too right after that. We're straight to the flight line. Land in the middle of a field. No, there were some AA guns that went off shot some of the helicopters. Not ours. Thank God. We had a pop is what a pop is. It is made to clear a minefield. So it's a rocket with a bunch of grenades attached to the side of it on strings. And you shoot it and it should have a meter of clearance. You know, unless one of the grenades flies up and then, you know, that's in God's hands. It happens all the time though. And we were like going into clear pathways so that the rest of the units could come in. And basically just take over this town. And then we would break it up in different areas of operation. And just try and interdict and stop Taliban movement throughout the area. I cut off the supply line to their heroin. How long were you out there? Um, 210 days, the entire time. So like a, it's basically like a two or three weeks on the front end. And then like a week or two on the back. And, but you're out there consecutively the entire time. Did it feel like we were winning at that point? The first appointment did. Um, you know, we definitely affected change. I mean, I remember on my first tour. Uh, we went to this school house that like someone had built. I remember some, some NGO and, uh, there was blood on the walls. And the blood was from the Taliban beheading children that went to the school. And then they would use their blood to, to write like don't go there. And, um, the whole time we were there, we were able to change that. Um, we were able to change that into where children were able to go back to school. And actually like have a place to stay where they were safe. And so that was stuff that I saw firsthand on my first tour. Um, you know, I don't know what is winning. What does winning look like? We made the area we were in safer. I will say that. Um, you know, but like, I was never like malicious towards the locals. Like I didn't, I wasn't, I wasn't like, why don't you believe in me? Like, I know we're coming to going. Um, you know, they're just trying to bet on the horse that'll take them to far this, you know. And when you got the Taliban coming through hanging up people by change, dragging them through the streets, cutting. People's heads off, um, lighting families on fire. Like the most horrible shit. Like a lot of it's not the downplay. It's theatrical, but it's, it's a show of force through violence to get them to submit. And, you know, they don't grow a poppy because they want to. They do because, however, it's like you're growing poppy. Well, I don't want to. We're going to kill your entire family. Okay, I'll grow a poppy. Like it's, it's not that, you know, and you add in other effects to like the moms, which are their religious leaders. In a place that has a dangerously low literacy rate of below 25%. No one knows how to read. No one knows how to blow 25. Yeah. Oh, I didn't know about that. Yeah, it's, it's, I mean, that was like last data. I don't know what it is now with the Taliban taking over. Um, but so the religious leaders oftentimes, the moms are bought off by the Taliban. And they're like, oh, blow those Americans up. That's, you know, because you're told to listen to them. And you're told that that's the only person that will, you know, tell you what to do and what's right or wrong. And, you know, we, we lost Marines in my platoon in my company. You know, it was, it was gnarly. It was absolutely gnarly. And, uh, I was about halfway through it through that second appointment. We ended up having to do a reorganization of my platoon. So I went from being a first team leader to a squad leader. So then I went from having like three guys to 12. And I had teams and I have people that reported to me. And that usually happens when you're six to eight years in the Marine Corps. Not when you're on your third or fourth year. And so when that change happened, uh, I just saw the way things were going. And I kind of had this like vision of my future the next 20 years.
years. And I was like, I missed my, I left after my first auto was born. I haven't met my second child yet. I don't know if I want to do this for rest of my life. And I'd accomplished all my goals. And how would you say you accomplished all your goals? I wanted to, I wanted to be a squad leader. I wanted to be a squad leader. I wanted to be a team leader. And I did it in four years. There's only one other person I know that's done it. And as a friend of mine who actually sells interns now, shout out Clayton Blunt. But one. Yeah, yeah, it's a hard name. It's a hard name. But like, it was just me and him that had that had accomplished that. And, you know, it's, I mean, the military, what's cool, but let's cool about it is like you can go as far as you want. But for what I wanted to do, it was going to cost me everything. I wanted to operate. I want to do the work. And so since I had moved from a private to a PFC to a Lance corporate to a corporal, ended up picking sergeant in July, I got a off-factor duty in 11. So I picked it up like five months later, you should take at least six years to do that, had all the things. So when that happens, to stay operational to keep doing the work, you got to move over to a sniper platoon, maybe you'll do some time there, maybe two to two years, maybe four years, or you're going to like Marsock at that time, Marsock actually wasn't even stood up yet. It was still called M Sob before that was actually when Cody Alfred and all those guys were standing up, Marsock. Yeah. So you can maybe get four years there. But if you get promoted again, you got to be an admin guy now. You can't do the work anymore. And I'm like, I don't want to do logistics. I'm going to do this. And so, and the cost was going to be so high on my family. I was just I wasn't going to say you have kids now, too, it's like, and you don't get to see them. Are you worried about I'll lose my marriage. I'll lose my family. So nothing of the risk to life, obviously, when you're out on the battlefield. Yeah. No, and I have an incredible wife. She's she would do things that really kind of like really made me fall in love with her a lot more. She would send me packages about every week. And whenever we would have time to talk, she would actually ask me if there are people who didn't have mail. And then she would send them a package. And sadly, it's a lot higher than you would think, like, family's just like, fuck it. And it's yeah, and it's not even that big like she would just be like what she would send me tobacco, Q tips, baby wipes, junk food, and people magazine actually people might be people magazine. The fucking grounds exploding. I want to hear about Kim Kardashian. I don't want to hear anything. Oh my God, Kanye, like it's just like whatever. And like literally some of some of the hardest motherfuckers, like I had this one guy who was in Kosovo. He I remember him looking at me being like, let me get that people after you bail. Like it was just like five seconds away from reality. And she would send stuff like that. You know, she's you know, put up with a lot then and now and like was as always kind of been this rock of like, you know, someone that I knew I could lean on. But I mean, I've noticed the first moment I met her. You know, when I mean her, where? Okay, I met her at her cousin's house on, okay, so her cousin Luke and I were friends for a long time. I was a bad kid. And he was a bad kid. And I was kind of like crash at their house now. And then and his dad was turning 50. And he was getting ready to go to a rack in the army for his first deployment. So I picked him up from the airport, took him to this party. And there's this big surprise party. No one knew he was coming. This is like before Facebook and shit where everyone's like, you know, the good old days. Maverick and so, you know, like playing stuff is just like cool. And so we did that. And then I, you know, look, God love him. Couldn't talk to a girl to save his life. And I have disproportionate game to who I am as a person. Like it's obnoxious. But like I have really tight game. All it is is confidence that doesn't make sense. And next to Mary on a river over here. Yeah, look at him, dude, look at I see you pop off God forbid. He's different. God forbid. Yeah, no. But I looked across the room and there was this girl I'd never seen before. And I had to introduce look to girls. I even had like a roster is showing up for me. Hey, soldiers showing up a hero, you know, come through, hitting them on the next tell push to talk. I think it was. So where do I go? I was so big. It was first control by itself. But I went up to Luke and I was like, who's that? And he goes, that's my, that's my cousin, Christy. She lives in Nashville. I go, you got a cousin, Christy lives in Nashville. He's like, yeah, we have never talked about cousin, Christy, that lives in Nashville, dude. I've, I've done so much for you as a friend. Where, where's this band? He goes, you weren't ready. Oh, you always hit you with the, you weren't ready. And I go, you're probably right. I tell you what, though, I'm going to marry that girl. And I went over there and I, I, I hit some solid line drives. You're not going for a grand slam. I'm just trying to get on base, get a number, follow through. She couldn't care less. She, she didn't know I existed. But at the end of the night, got the digits two weeks later, we're dating. A year later, we were married at our first child. How'd you know that you wanted to marry her right away? All I can think to say is from the, first, second I saw, or I felt something I'd never felt before, or sense. And I just wanted to do everything I could to be the best version of myself for her and for me. It was like, it's like a bit by something. And I, I don't know how to describe it. Everyone finds it whenever it's your time to find it. But I was just like, if she asked me to give her a mountain, I would give her two. Like it was just understandable. I just, yeah, I was just like, it just gave me and we're coming up on 19 years of marriage now. That's all and through deployments and everything. Deployments, you know, me being a veteran, all the different out with me hanging out with Nick Nick's fine. Yeah, well, that's, well, that's been a change because it used to be what are you doing to now like, you get out there and you podcast your ass. Yeah, she slapped me on the ass. It used to be like, I can hear her on the phone, be like, I don't know. I think he's talking to someone. There's a fat day laborer in our house. I don't know, you know, a donut, dude, sex telling people about that time somebody fucked a dog. But it's paying the bills. Yeah, yeah, it's all right, though, things are okay. You know, I understand her concerns because it is coloring outside the lines. But it's just it's she has allowed me to be the best version of myself and challenge me to be better, which is ultimately what you want. My opinion is partner. You don't want to girls like, ah, whatever, you want someone is like, what are you doing? Someone that makes you the best version yourself. Yeah, that's what true love is. I've never heard it describe better than in the Godfather, though, where they tell him you've been hit by the Thunderbolt. And that's what that sounds like right there. You just can't explain it. You don't know why, but that's it. No, I, I, I was just like, oh, that's Christy. Yeah, the wife Christy. Yeah, that's the one. That was the one. And it's funny, too, because everyone I shouldn't say it's funny, because it sounds like I'm, you know, celebrating people's failures. But everyone who was like, don't get married, don't do it blah, blah, blah. None of them are married now. Or if they are, they're remarried. And also in their defense, in my defense, she didn't have a stage name. She wasn't like, most Marines, Mary strippers now, because of my age, it would be only fans, girls. So why go to the strip club when you can do it on base, I guess, but I mean, most military marriages, so like we kind of break that statistic, but most of them shouldn't be married in the first place. Most of them are contract marriages. And, you know, it's not the best thing category to win in, but I'll overworked out for you. Oh, yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Many kids have two. That's awesome. Two girls. Yeah. How long you been married? Eight or nine years? I don't know. We've been together since we were 16. That's awesome. High school sweethearts. Yeah, we didn't get married over 25, though. Yeah, to try your out for a long time. I mean, no, I mean, for me, it was like, I mean, she was getting fucking frustrated. I hadn't proposed yet, but it was also very much like I was, I was in the camp of like, I'm not going to go to your dad and asked to marry his daughter when I'm a fucking 22 year old kid that doesn't have a shit figured out yet. Like, by the time I felt comfortable enough to do that, I had already like owned a house. I had a mortgage. I had a full-time job. Like, I had my shit together and I could actually take on that responsibility. So that's kind of why I made her wait. It's very mature to think about at that young age. I grew up poor to shit. I'm not fucking around. Good for you. Same. Yeah, you're kind of you strike me as a fucking just do it kind of guy. Yeah. Can I get that? Oh, yeah, let's take a break. We're sure. Yeah, I'm full of everything. What's this fighting preacher video you were talking about? Oh, it's the last video I did. Who's the fighting preacher? Logan Weston, AKA the fighting preacher probably like all of them. All of World War II Korea and Vietnam. Oh, he did a World Tour, if you will. Yeah. So what's the story? Dude grew up super poor, log cabin up in Michigan, Pennsylvania bounced around a lot. He's like in his early 20s, 22, I think. Great depression's going on. He's got a job working in a coal mine, a single guy. One of his best friends is hunting buddies got like a wife and kids can't find a job. So he goes to his boss and he's like, hey.
Hey, can we get this guy a job? He's like, no, I'm struggling to keep you guys employed. So he's like, all right, well, give this guy my job. He's a good dude. I'll give him my job so he can pay for his wife and kids. Next day, fucking claps at this coal mine. His buddy survives, but a bunch of other friends die and he goes, gets a job, fucking being a logger, like a lumberjack, working again. That coal mining collapse happens and then he does the same thing again, gives his logging job to his buddy so he can pay for his wife and kids. A couple weeks later, logging accident wipes out the crew, friends die. So he's like super depressed, beat up about it, feels like death is chasing him wherever he goes. Besides, he's gonna take his own life, grabs a pistol, puts it to his head, pulls a trigger, like doesn't go off. And like when he pulled the trigger, he heard somebody say, wait, gun doesn't go off. He looks around, nobody's there. And then he goes out and he like can't believe whatever happened. He's immediately, and I've heard like other accounts of this, like when something, that event does get stopped. People are immediately like thankful, have a holding lease on life, like they realize they didn't want to do it. He has that moment. And then he goes out, outside of his house in this log cabin in the woods with the same gun that he just tried to fire, pulls a trigger, fires into a stomp, it goes off. So he becomes convinced that, you know, God gave him a second chance, dedicates himself to God, goes to Bible school, he wants to be a preacher. Goes off the Bible school for a couple of years. He's a junior, trying to get his degree in theology so he can become a preacher. He gets drafted for World War II. This is pre-Purl Harbor, but the draft is going on. He's leading up to Pearl Harbor, like the American government knows we're going to war. There hasn't been the catalyst yet. So they are already drafting people. He gets drafted and goes off to training. He shows up. This is 1940, 1940, early 1941, one of the two. And so he shows up to training and he's grew up in a log cabin in the fucking woods, dude. He doesn't know anything about the military. There's no TV shows. There's no books. He's read. He doesn't know anything. He gets off the bus and they're like, all right. If you want to be infantry, go over there. You want to be artillery, go over there. You want to be a medic, go over there. You want to be this. Go over there. He doesn't know what any of these fucking words mean. So he's like, I don't fucking infantry. I guess. I don't know. Sounds easy. So he fucking walks over to the infantry line, becomes an infantry man. Then gets out of training. He's kind of on Camp Shelby and Mississippi. Pearl Harbor gets attacked and they just like, they don't know what the fuck is going on. So they station him out on the Mississippi River. And he's just like camping on the Mississippi River in case the Japanese fucking invade or something. Or if they get attacked, he's out there for a couple of months. They bring him back in. They ship his ass over in World War Two Pacific or he ends up going to the Pacific. So cut through a bunch of bullshit. He winds up, he winds up becoming an officer. He's a lieutenant. He's in charge of a platoon. And he's told there about to invade some island in the Pacific. And he is told you're, you're the first guy to hit the fucking beach. Is this midway? No. No. It's a Guadalcanal. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So he's told, you're going to be the first one to hit the fucking beach. So like fucking, he's got the moment like the hits and the Higgins boat, the fucking rolling up the door drops down. He's the first one off the Higgins boat, falls immediately neck deep in water. Just like takes a wind out of his fucking sails, you know, like cool guy moment gone. They get up on the beach. He's expecting enemy gunfire. There's nothing going on. He's like, what the fuck? He gets all his guys up on the beach. He's just dead Japanese dudes everywhere, supplies thrown all over the fucking place. Like what the fuck is going on? Apparently the Marines had already been there for like, six months. The island was already wiped out, like a Guadalcanal was already taken. And the funny part is if you go back and watch the Pacific, you see this moment in the show, like the army guys are rolling up after the fact and like they're all nervous, like they're wrecking their guns are getting ready to go. Like the army guys were told where they were going to be the first ones there. And then they get there. Like what took you guys so long start rating all their shit. So that doesn't happen. He hops into the next campaign in this island called New Georgia, also brutal jungle warfare. It's basically Guadalcanal 2.0 goes out with his battalion. His battalion gets cut off and surrounded for I believe 29 days completely cut off surrounded. He goes from like 180 to 119 loses a ton of weight. A lot of this guys get fucked up. They make it out. He goes back, regains some weight. They take a bunch of the other guys that are healthy enough again, go back out on another mission gets caught, surrounded again. This time it's for 21 days. And the whole time this is going on, he's like functioning as a pseudo chaplain because they don't have a chaplain out there. He's like being the preacher. He's like counseling guys. He's an officer. He's helping him out. So he picks up the nickname preacher, the fighting preacher. And he's just like trying to help these guys get him through it. He's also an officer. He's leading his men. The second time around they get surrounded like they know the game, they've done this before. And somewhere along the line, the first time they figured out the Japanese, I'll have like sacks of rice for their rations. So now as soon as they're killing Japanese guys are sneaking out at night, they're grabbing all the rice. This time they've got some native guides. The guides are showing them all the tips and tricks like, oh, we can mix this bark from this tree. It makes it taste better and we can eat these plants and these guys are like doing master chef while the Japanese are like launching attacks, they just couldn't give a fuck less. They'd already been through so much. And ultimately they start running low on ammo and the battalion commanders like, all right, you're the most experienced, you know, patrol officer. We got take one of these guides probe around their line. See if you can find a way to get us out of here. So he takes this native guide by the name of beady. And they go out probe in the enemy line and they walk right into an ambush enemy machine gunfire lights him up and they run take off. They dive into the swamp. They're hiding in the swamp. They lose them. He gets out of the swamp. They start wiping all the mud off. They get all the mud off the native guide beady and beady is like, he's good. He's good to go. He didn't get hit. They start wiping the mud off Logan. He's got a bullet hole in his helmet, didn't hit his head, went around to the helmet loss of velocity. He's got another bullet hole in the heel of his boot, didn't hit his foot. He's got another bullet hole. He's got two more bullet holes like in his clothing, all the bullets missed him and his wristwatch got shot off his wrist and grazed him. God. But he's fine. That's God. So beady, beady the native to this island and the Pacific sees this and he's like, wow, your God must be really powerful. And he's like, yeah, man. He's pretty cool. He's like, can I, can I worship this God? Yeah. He's like, sure. Yeah, you just, you know, except Jesus is your Lord and Savior and, you know, you could be Christian too, blah, blah, blah, and they say a little prayer together. And okay, cool. No, that was great. Let's get back, let's get back to the guys now and beady from his perspective. Now is under the impression that he is immune to bullets. So he starts dancing and singing and making a bunch of fucking noise and Logan's like, shut the fuck up, like, but, you know, he thinks he's fucking invincible. Now what's he got to be scared of? So he gets through that situation. They make it back. It's the guys that out of the line, um, continues to fight. I'm a abbreviating. This is like an hour and 20 minute long video. It's good abbreviation. Yeah. So he, he, uh, fights through the rest of World War II and then goes back home, finishes his theological degree, becomes a preacher for a couple of years. And he had signed up for the reserves while he was doing that. Well, then they called him back a couple of years later and they're like, ah, we need you to go on occupation duty. You can either go to Europe or Japan. You can pick which one you want. He picks Japan because he wanted to see what was up now because he just got done fighting the Japanese and, uh, well, there were two bombs that went off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see if they're still holding a grudge. And he, uh, so he chooses to go over there. But before he leaves, he requests that he becomes a chaplain now. Hmm. It's kind of what he wants to do. He wants to be a military chaplain. He's got the degree for it now and they tell him, uh, you're two old. He's 31. He got to be 30 or younger to be a chaplain. Uh, apparently, that's what he gets told. So he's like, well, fuck it. I guess I'm infantry. So he shows up to Japan. He's got a wife and kids back home at this point. They're living in a trailer outside of like Fort Benning, I think. He's there for a little while and then he gets a fucking notification one day. The North, North Koreans are attacking the South Koreans pack your shit. We got to go up there. He gets told it shouldn't take longer than a week. So he leaves all his personal shit in South or in, uh, Japan heads up to North South Korea. Technically, because this is the point where they had pushed the South Koreans all the way down to the very, very end of the peninsula called the Puson perimeter where they held out. So he shows up at the Puson perimeter. They're like, all right, take this platoon. Go stand out at this fucking gate and, uh, you know, if there's an attack, repel it. So he's out there with this platoon that he just picked up, bucking, bunch of North Koreans come rolling up with three T 34 tanks and the T 34 tanks punched through their machine gun positions. They just drive right through it and they get behind this position. He's up on a hill. So he radio's backing. He's a, you know, an anti-tank crew to come up here, he gets this anti-tank crew. They show up with the bazooka. He's got his guys up on the hill, repelling the infantry and these tanks behind him. He takes the anti-tank crew and he goes out. They run through these rice paddies. They sneak up on these tanks. They hit all three tanks, but they just take out the tracks to immobilize them. Before they're able to actually knock the tanks out completely, the, uh, one of the tanks hits their position.
all the guys in the anti tank crew and he's the only one left. So he fucking starts firing rifle grenades at it and everything else and he gets up on top. There's two tanks that are still operational, both on the ends with one in the middle that's completely knocked out and he's like I'm getting fucking shot at. There's nowhere safe to be right now. So he's like the safest place I can be is on top of the tank. So he gets up on top of the first tank and they fucking open the hatch, drops a grenade and fucking closes the hatch, takes them out. The other tank guys start trying to climb out of their tank, shoots all those guys, knocks out three tanks and in the video I pull up like the old newspaper articles they've got drawings of like the fighting preacher knocks out commy tanks blah blah blah blah from the era and from here they fucking pull him he goes on a couple of missions. They're still preserving the pusson perimeter at this point just trying to keep a foothold on the peninsula and he's basically put in an area that's deemed safe because his guys have already kind of like been through some shit. That's how it started and they're chilling out there and he's you know everybody's just hanging out basically camping but they got their guns and off in the distance he's like checking everything on binos. They're up on a hill it's North Korea you can see fucking 20 miles out. He sees a formation of guys coming towards them as they get closer. He's like those are fucking North Koreans. So he sends a runner back to the headquarters tent away away his back and he's like tell him I got North Koreans coming runner makes it back. He's like commander says they're not North Koreans. They're constantly getting closer. He's like tell him I can see their uniforms they're carrying Japanese rifles. I know what a Japanese rifle looks like. I fought in World War Two. That's what the North Koreans are carrying. Tell them they're North Koreans get some more guys up here sends a runner back runner comes back. They're not North Koreans are South Koreans. This is a safe area and this conversation goes back and forth playing fucking phone with the commander until the fucking North Koreans are at the hill and open it open fire. So he starts defending himself winds up getting shot at the beginning of the fire fight gets all his men set up. They're fighting runs. He gets shot through the thigh. He's he's losing a bunch of blood. So he runs back to this like aid station gets turned to get put on then goes back up with his guys keeps fighting takes out an enemy machine gun position that they were trying to get set up to wipe out his guys leads a counter attack and then gets shot. I believe three more times he gets shot through the arm he gets shot in the chest and ultimately ends up stopping this attack before he gets a meta-vact. He had a platoon so like 30 guys and they stopped an attack of 700 men and killed over 400. He was personally credited with 27 of the kills six with Bayonet one with a trench knife. So he's he's so fucked up they got a flying to Japan to a hospital to go through surgery and at the time the standard operating procedure was if you're in the hospital for 60 days they send your ass back home. Day 59 he gets orders to go back out. Oh my god. So he goes back out and by this point he basically shows up and that's when they make the amphibious landing in Inchon and they start pushing the North Koreans all the way back up to the parameter. Is this before or after General MacArthur was fired like what point in the war? He isn't fired yet. This is what gets him fired. So MacArthur has the amphibious landing at Inchon. He's supposed to you know push up the peninsula take out the North Koreans as they're approaching the Chinese border. MacArthur is ordered to stop short of the Chinese border because we don't want the Chinese getting involved like we're not coming for them. It's communist nations they're going to think that we're trying to eradicate communism that's why we're there. So he's ordered to you know stall short of that but he decides to push forward anyway is he pushes the forces all the way up to the Yali River which is basically the border of China. And that's where they start getting attacked all the allied forces they bring in hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers. They basically have to do fighting retreats all the way back down to the peninsula. It gets pushed back down below the 38th parallel again and then they fight their way back up and it gets stalled out at this 38th parallel. So he fights all the way up the peninsula all the way up the peninsula all the way back down the peninsula. And then during when they're fighting back down they get pushed back down past Seoul for a minute. And there's another town right outside of Seoul I can't remember Siu-wan I think it's called outside of Siu-wan. By this point he's been promoted. He's no longer leading a platoon. He's leading a battalion and he's kind of the role that you were talking about with the Marine where it's like he's the guy that knows everything war and he's telling the platoon elements what to do in this battalion. And the platoons that he's working closest with is a echo company. And echo company gets fucking attacked by these guys up on a hill. And echo company is led by this crazy lieutenant that also fought in World War II named Lewis Millett. And Lewis Millett has the dude likes combat and he has heard that the communist are talking shit saying the Americans are scared to bayonet fight. So he decides he decides that he's going to lead the last bayonet charge in American military history and take the hill and he got to oversee that as well. And then after. So fucking cool. And so at any point was he like thinking about you know because he's like a big Christian guy, owes his life to God and everything. He's just out here full blown Ben still earn it and fucking that's what I'm picturing him on top of the tank like Ben Stiller and Tropic Thunder. I mean I skipped the Merrill's Marauder's part it gets worse. All right well let's keep going. All right sorry rewind World War Two. New Georgia. So he gets down in the Pacific. After he gets down with that new Georgia campaign, he gets a letter. So this is back in World War Two. Sorry. He gets a he gets two letters. They're back dated 14 months. One letter is from mom and dad once from his fiance. First letter mom and dad are getting divorced. Second letter fiance is leaving him. Oh geez. Then they come around and they're like we're taking volunteers for a dangerous mission for guys that have extensive jungle warfare training. And he's like don't have anything else to go home to a fuck it. Why not? So they're all right get on the boat. Okay so he gets on the boat. They're taking him to all these different islands. He winds up in Australia. He's like where the fuck are we going? Next thing he knows he's remembered it's Japanese ever. Yeah remember dude grew up in a log cabin in Michigan. Like next thing he knows he's in fucking India. Yeah they start training for more jungle warfare in India and then he figures out like oh here's the mission. We got three thousand guys including you. We're going to walk from India into Burma into the jungles of Burma and you're going to go fight the Chinese while they're in Burma fall on guerrilla warfare tactics. Your whole mission prevent the Japanese from taking out China. China's basically cut off. We need to establish a foothold in Burma so we can establish the Burma road to get supplies to the Chinese so they can defend against the Japanese because if China falls Japan and the Nazis are going to have a direct like highway between them and that's going to be awful for the war efforts. So we're going to send you 3,000 guys into the jungle. Just go fuck up the Japanese as much as possible. 3,000 guys to stop the connection of the entire eastern world. Now the problem is they can't get supplies into China right? So how are you going to get supplies to 3,000 guys are trying to fight a war? Air drop? That's all they do. They live in the jungle for seven months straight while they're getting air drop supplies conducting guerrilla warfare operations against the Japanese. 3,000 guys against how many would you say? I don't. Whatever the fuck the empire Japan had and they were just in their wreaking havoc the entire fucking time and I get into like the different major battles they had but this unit's called Meryl's Marauders. General Meryl was a guy in charge and this would later go on to become the 75th Ranger regiment. So this is like the predecessor to the 75th Rangers. So these guys were functionally special forces at the time and he was selected because of his experience inside of the dangerous mission they asked for volunteers for another more dangerous mission inside the dangerous mission. Nobody volunteers. So he gets violent told you're the guy. He is the platoon leader for the Iron R platoon for the whole element. Iron R's intelligence and reconnaissance. So he's a scout platoon. So he's like 30 miles ahead of the rest of this element in the jungle. In the jungle moving forward. He's the eyes and ears. Is that where they came up with a long range? That's a lurp long range reconnaissance control. That's Vietnam. Okay. But yeah, this is basically where this all stems from starts. Would be at the middle of that one too. What? Coming up with lurp in Vietnam. Oh yeah. Is that where this is going? He was the guy that invented that there too. He didn't he didn't coin it but he would pioneered the shit. Right. So while they're in, he's in Meryl's Marauders fuck lost my train of thought, my bad. So he was going ahead 30 miles. Oh, so he's ahead like 30 miles. So and they're this is such a historic military unit and they did so much shit while they were there. I had to like stop reading his books and doing research on him and I had to go and read a book just on Meryl's Marauders. Okay. Meryl's Marauders has a book. It's about this is about 3,000 dudes. This is all talking about here's this entire element moving through and here's what happened. Like they're not really talking about individuals and he's just a platoon leader. Like he's not a big. He's not important. He's not a general. He's not a colonel. He's not an officer. He's not in charge of shit. He's in charge of 30 guys. In this book, he's named 14 times.
And on multiple occasions, his platoon saved the entire element of 3,000 guys. The official historian for Merrill's Marauders equated one of his actions to the Battle of Thermopoly and goes on to explain King Leonidas fought on his own soil. This guy fought on enemy soil in the jungle. King Leonidas lost all his men. This guy didn't lose a single guy. Do we have tape for this guy talking like being interviewed? He doesn't even have a fucking Wikipedia page. It's fucking crazy. Did you hear about him from that book? Is that how you find out about him? I got an email saying you should look into this guy and then I looked into it and every anytime I get an email like that, I just Google it. I was like, there's no Wikipedia for this guy. What the fuck? But the nickname the fighting preacher was so compelling that I just kept fucking digging deeper. He wrote memoirs later in his life, but they've been at a print forever. I finally tracked down a copy of his book and then like went back, pulled all the stuff I could find from like national archives has award citations and everything and like cross verified everything and it's like everything he says he didn't his book. He fucking did. And then he's in. I'm just doing math in my head. He was 31 when he went to Korea in 1950 or 51. So by the time Vietnam's popping off, he's in his mid 40s. So yeah. So then he finishes up with Marles Marauders World War II ends. He goes, does the Korean stuff get pushed down the peninsula overseas? overseas. The last bayonet charge after that, he gets shipped home from here. He decides he's just going to finish out his career in the military. He's already been in long enough. Yeah. So he goes, he basically helps rewrite the book on jungle warfare. He's working at the Pentagon for a while. And then he gets, he's like, I hate this, I hate paper push and stuff. I want to go back. So he goes out to brag and he's like, I think he's 44 at the time. And he's like, I'm sick. I haven't a walk everywhere because Marles Marauders walked. He's, his platoon scouted over 1,250 miles at jungle. My kind of guy. So he's like, I'm tired of walking everywhere. I want to jump out of planes. So at 44, he becomes a paratrooper. And then they're like, hey, you want to become a green beret? He's like, sure. So then he becomes a fucking green beret in his mid 40s. Oh my god. And then Vietnam pops off. And he doesn't talk much about what he did in Vietnam, but he was sent over to Laos as a green beret to be a technical advisor to the lay oceans on how to combat communism, which you ever heard of Mac Vsauge? I have heard of that remind me though. Yeah. Mac Vsauge was the green berets that were basically operating in Laos and Cambodia, waging a shadow war against the Vietnamese the entire time. Like the most dangerous fucking combat you can imagine, super insane attrition rate. Like, I'm assuming he was doing that, but I can't verify it. But he was over there for, he was over there for his first 12 months and then they're like, okay, you can go back home now or you can extend for 36 months and we'll fly your family over here and they can live here too. So he flies his family over. He stays there for like the additional 36 months. And it's like, you know, you're bringing your family to a war zone. Like what? Your videos. What do you do to make? What do you do to make it up to your daughters and your wife when you bring them to, you know, Vietnam during a war like, how do you make a kid happy? You buy them a pony, right? You get them a dog. They're in Southeast Asia. So he gets them a monkey. Oh my god. Spunky the monkey. Spunky the monkey. Spunky the monkey. Cause that's what the story needed. And yeah, ends up, uh, finishes out, finishes out his career in Vietnam, brings his family and the monkey back home, keeps the monkey forever and then goes on to become, I forget the title, but basically the campus religious leader for Texas A&M for 13 years. After all that, still the chaplain, still the chapel. Oh my god. This is him. Logan Weston. Metal of honor. Silver Star, US military, man of God and, uh, bad ass motherfucker. Can you pull up my Instagram? There's a picture of him with all of his medals. So he got given the distinguished service cross. He was supposed to get the metal of honor for repelling that attack a 700, but the commander that kept arguing back and forth with him basically made sure he didn't get the, uh, that, that post next one over no other one. Sorry. Right. There you go. That's all of his metals. The fucking shadow box. It's as tall as he is. He's got over 200, 200 awards and commendations. When did this guy pass away? He lived to be like 86, I think, maybe like 20 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. That's insane. What got you into telling these stories? They're so compelling. I mean, you do so many of them across military history. I started doing, you know, I mean, the whole YouTuber thing, like I didn't do it on purpose as an accident. I think I made a, I made a video about a grocery store and I got 12 million views. And then I was like, Oh, I guess I should keep doing it. So then I made like a couple more videos and then, you know, I'm just looking for any ideas to like crack jokes and be funny. So I made a video about how the Marine Corps is the craziest branch of the military. It's not even a branch of the military. It's a cult. And I did a little quick, three minute video of all the little crazy shit they do. And people loved it and they were like, Oh, now do army infantry, now do army mortars. So then I started doing these little three minute videos on jobs and then that kind of turned into like five minute videos on equipment. And then one day I just like covered one dude, one dude's war memoirs and people loved it. I didn't think people would want like a 40 minute video, but it performed great. And then I just, I kept doing it. And I mean, over time, I mean, obviously you look for more purpose for doing something other than I enjoy getting views and likes and clicks. And I think the purpose is just kind of turned into, you know, we don't celebrate war heroes anymore. Like we used to have war heroes in World War II. Like you earn the Medal of Honor, you come home, you go on a war bonds tour or people knew who you are. You were a celebrity. We celebrated brave man for doing incredible things and being selfless. And we did it a little bit in Korea and then we kind of quit after Vietnam. I mean, the fact that, you know, Barcelona, World War II, like, you know what I mean? But like, there's no GWAT guys that have notoriety like that. There's nobody from Desert Storm. There's nobody in any of the wars that we like celebrate and hold up of like, this is the example of what you should and could be. And, you know, I think it's extremely impactful, especially for kids growing up, having war heroes to look at and be like, I want to be like that. Fuck yeah, dude. No, you're making an amazing point. I forget who I had in here recently, but this came up and I couldn't agree more. It's like, I don't have any problem. I think it's great when, you know, there's a great athlete or stuff like that and you look up to him or you really like getting a day loose as an actor and you look up to him. That's awesome. But like in society, I think like people who make the ultimate sacrifice and understand how the world works because they go over and see the things that we're lucky enough to not have to see here because there's guys like them doing that. I mean, you tell me that story from a guy from three generations ago across two generations doing wars. I feel like I was fucking there. Like people should know. What was his name? Logan West. Yeah. People who should know that name like that's, I completely agree, man. You know, it would be a great thing to look up to in society. Everybody wonders why. Like, oh, none of these kids take pride in being an American. Half these kids think America is bad or evil or whatever and it's like, yeah, because you've never heard any stories of anything like, you know what I mean? Like America has so many heroes that have done so much incredible shit and nobody teaches you that. Yep. Some of the, some of the, I saw you guys did this to, I really admired that, but you guys had in a World War II veteran on, on, on subscribe really, really cool. You just passed away, right? We had a couple and a couple summers ago, one of them left like one of his purple heart, like I guess, mementos here is really cool. But, you know, you're sitting there and you're like, these guys are 100 years old and they were just thrown into a situation when they're 18, 19, 20 and they had to figure it the fuck out. It's just, I don't know, it's a strange feeling that you understand, but it's like the gratitude you feel that people were able to do that and pull that off. No questions asked is pretty fucking immense. Yeah. And I mean, I don't know. The cool part for me is like, I mean, I get tons of emails, tons of comments, but like some of the emails I get are crazy to me. Like I've had, I've had wives reach out to me and say that she started watching these videos with her husband and she, her husband served 15 years in the Marine Corps. And she's like, I understand my husband better after watching your videos or my favorite ones are, hey, my dad served in the military for a long time. He's passed away now, but he never talked about it. He fought in Vietnam or Korea or World War II and the unit that you talked about the this guy was in. That was my dad's unit. I had no idea. He's, I learned so much about my dad. I had no idea what a bad ass my dad was. Thank you. That's cool. It's cool. It's cool being able to show somebody like, oh, you know, to you, dad was just the guy mowing the lawn and new balances, but your dad was a fucking bad ass at one point and they went their whole lives never knowing that and now they do it. That's really cool to me. That's really special. And I think, you know, you talk about how we stopped doing it as a society like propping these guys up and everything, but like the US military to me never stopped having amazing people in it or amazing town and being bad asses and stuff like that. Karen because of money. What do you mean? I mean, the US government switched over to fractional reserve banking and they could just print more money to fund wars and they didn't need to anymore. The reason the US government was promoting these people was to bring them back to sell war bonds because they needed money to go fight the fucking war. And as soon as they said, oh, what, we can just print more now.
Fuck problem these guys, who cares? I don't need, but you know what I mean, but that also before fractional reserve banking and they could just have an infinite money printer, if you wanted to go fight a war, it had to be a reasonably popular fucking endeavor because you had to sell war bonds to fund the motherfucker, right? Like how many people would have bought war bonds for Afghanistan? Guessing not a lot. I'm getting Iraq maybe. - Iraq most because of 9/11, but like. - Iraq they would have printed them. - I mean, they were doing freedom fries and all that stuff. - Yeah, like Iraq they would have sold a bunch, but Afghanistan they would. So I think that fucked up all the society. It had ton of downsides because, you know, at least you had the population backing the war. - Yeah. - And now we fought a lot of wars over the years that usually just threw like over time and not really having a plan eventually, like we have to leave and we lose or whatever. But what I always say with that is, it's not because of the guys who are there that aren't capable. It's because a bunch of people in suits in DC who now have infinite money to fucking vote and print money for wars. It's like, you know, they make bad decisions and they play war games that they don't have the balls to go out there themselves and handle. - They're not allowed to win. - The Marine Corps could steamroll any country in the Middle East and fucking a week if they wanted to. Like I had a apprentice that had actually served 20 years in the army. And he came in, got out of the military. He was my apprentice for a while. Great guy. And he would tell me stories about how like, he was, remembers being in a Humvee on a 50 Cal and they start taking enemy fire. He's got a fucking 50 Cal and somebody with an AK-47 shooting at him from up on the hill. What do you think he did? - Had to radio and ask permission to fire back? - No, he had to tell somebody in the Humvee, hand me my M4 because he wasn't allowed to return fire with the 50 Cal because it wasn't fair. - Fuck that shit, blow the fucking hill up. Who fucking cares? - Yeah, I didn't do that. (laughing) - But this is the shoot first, apologize later. - This is also why you don't know about Norman Swartzkov 'cause they probably fucking hated him 'cause he wanted to quick. - Yeah, that's, that's a, what? - He won too quick. - Oh, the guy did the first goal for it. Yeah, like I, my deployments were in this weird space. Iraq, as it was coming to an end as they were getting ready to shut down bases, was much more urban and everything else in Afghanistan when I was there was literally the Wild West. Not long after I left, they started having drones in the air, these things called G-Boss towers that could see you and they give their interpretations of interactions and things like that. Like we had a bigger gap and like it, I also want to say like I actually found the exact number of guys that we lost on my deployment to Marsha and it was 10 guys that we lost. And I don't, the only reason I don't say their names is because it's not my place. I don't know who all will hear this. I don't know where this will be, where there'll be when this finds them and I don't want to say anything they can, cause any type of thing. But you know, it's just, I just took a moment to reflect on it, you know, we lost a lot of guys and because of that so many other people had to step up to and that included my friend Wendell, Archer and Wilson, other guys who were putting these situations you can't imagine. And I constantly think about it now, cause my children at the age to where, you know, I was and I've thought for a long time, like, you know, did we win what it looked like? Who did I fight for? I could have solved Afghanistan in five minutes. That's what I always say. I would have solved. I would have, so there's only one place in the world where you can actually grow and sell pharmaceutical, great pop, poppy and that is New Zealand. The other place is Afghanistan. It's part of the golden triangle, right? So what I would have done is I would have paid, pennies on the dollar more than the Taliban was to basically cut off their funding resource and take that over and then harvest that and provide a legitimate economy for the people because they weren't doing it because they wanted to. They were doing it because of the threat of death. And then I would have forced the Taliban out, cut all their funding operations done. They built the economy. Built the economy, yeah, like it's not that complicated. Now does that get, you know, the people at home thinking about this, like, well, poppy can be turned into heroin and a whole lot of shit, connect it, bastardize in a way that it turns into like ground zero for a black market, like it did. That's what it is now. And that's what it was. But like, you could also wean them off of that. Like if the long-term goal is not have that, obviously you can change that. But if you're paying pennies on the dollar more than a war for 20 years, like, I remember like we were doing a buyback program and we would like go up to them. And this is like literally what I was ordered to do. They'd like go up and offer them basically $0.75 on the dollar. And I was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. - I have a question. What is winning then? - Everybody that says America's never, hasn't won a war since World War II or whatever, blah, blah, blah. Like, what is, like, I don't know, what was the winning in World War II? - What do you mean? - Like, I would say, what did that look like? I mean, there's two arguments. One, we showed up in their country with guns and they couldn't do shit. Two, we forced their government to sign a treaty. Okay, well, if the government doesn't fucking exist anymore because we overthrew it entirely or it just never had one, what other options are there for winning other than we showed up, walked around your country with guns and did whatever the fuck we wanted, the entire time we were there until we decided to leave. - Right, I think it's a matter of what happens when either we do leave or the shooting stops, right? So in Afghanistan, to look at the modern day example, it's like, there's a badly executed pullout. Obviously, not the fault of the guys there at all and we left all the weapons behind. The guys that were in charge 20 years ago became in charge again and there are people that felt like, wow, it was just time as a flat circle. Whereas when you finished World War II, you took out the Japanese emperor. You took out the Nazi command. You made them start a new government. You have a new problem with an old ally that now you have a cold war way afterwards, but like effectively the moment of like the world's fastest growing GDP trying to start a forefront war and take over the world all at once with whatever his fucking ideas were, that was stopped. I would describe that as a win. - For sure, but then the question is like, so the hinging point is like, can we teach this group of people to rebuild a society that can be productive again? What are you doing when you can't? - That's hard. - We shouldn't have ever left Afghanistan. That's it. - Yeah, I was gonna ask you. - A hard stop. - We should have never left. There's a precedent. We didn't leave Germany. We're still there. We didn't leave a bunch of countries around it. Vietnam, Korea, we're still there. Japan, we still have a marine base there. Both of them have become world superpowers. Japan and Germany alone in technology, innovation, society, because we were there to stop a power vacuum to being created. We should have kept a base in the North, well, one in Kandahar and then one in the North, I think around Bogrum, probably would have been a good spot off top of my head. I don't really know that area that well, but I mean, Tyler Vargas Andrews, who was on Sean Ryan, who's a very good friend of ours. - Amazing. - Amazing, tough as shit. One of the best people out there. When you hear the way he was hemmed up and the way I was it, like they had ID, they had intelligence. They knew what was going to happen. And they're like, no, no, no, no, it's not that. And literally, I'm gonna steal this from 'em 'cause I think about it all the time. He said it was like, if someone filled this room with sand, that was what it was like, the amount of people that were trying to get through to leave. It's like it was unstoppable. And you see that and you see the impact that it's had on that part of the world, where things are, it might look good for the influencers that are paying to fly out there, but it's not a good place to go. I don't care how much the Taliban's cutting a check forward to go roll the blame down the one road they have. It's not a place you wanna be. But we have created another power vacuum in a very dangerous part of the world, again. - Yeah, it's an interesting argument with the bases and stuff. And I could see a good argument there. But when they did decide to basically get out and now your post-career veteran watching this who was there and fought battles and lost friends and lost friends after to suicide as well. - Double, over double. Since I left the service 2011, the first suicide was in November of 2011. And again, I don't wanna name names, it's not my place. And it just continues to happen since then. - What's going through your mind when you watch them pull out in August 2021? - I was in a much better place personally. You know, because of a lot of things I'd done, I had started, you know, when I got out in 2011, I realized no one was coming to help us. And so I started working with nonprofits. I started trying to basically do what I do now, but I wasn't making a living doing it. I was just, I was the only guy who knew how to do the GI bill. I was the only guy who knew about benefits, nonprofits that'll send you to ride horses if you want or hyperbaric oxygen therapy, or you can put magnets on your head, whatever. I was like doing all of it and I worked with a nonprofit for about six months. And I started like basically auditing and using anything that I could to make my life better. And I wasn't like, this will make me 100% better, but what if I get like 15 to 20%, you know what I mean? Like, what if I can start chunking together, patchwork.
working, a path towards healing, and ultimately it's because of my wife and my community and the people I was surrounded by that put me in a place where I was able to not have the impact really be detrimental to me, and about a month later, I went to Mexico and did psychedelics, I believe it was that year, maybe it was a year, I can't remember, it's 21 or 22 when I did, and what did you do specifically? The thing that everyone talks about now, I did, I began in DMT, but back when you had to lie about it and not tell people, we had to get medical exemptions on our passport, so all these different things, through an organization called Vets, which was a life-changing thing for me. And it obviously, like it helped you tremendously. Yeah, no, it's one of the single greatest things I've ever done. Was it immediate or was it a gradual improvement afterwards? It's immediate. I mean, so I began, it's outlawed in America, it's because it's been shown to have 100% effectiveness in opioid cessation, it attacks all the addiction centers of the brain, can't have that. Can't have that. And it basically wipes you clean, and it is not a fun experience. There's a documentary about it on Netflix called In Waves and Wards, it's the same organization I went through. Basically it shows you all the good, bad, and all the things you need to see. And for like 8 to 10 hours, you're swimming in deep water with weights on and you're blindfolded. And I don't go too much into it, just because it takes a long time. But for me, what I kept seeing was a photo of my wife and two daughters, and it was like fuzzy and unclear. And as it got closer to me, it would become more clear. And as it got closer, these moments of trauma throughout my life would kind of appear like on the camera roll of your phone. I would spend time with it and go back down in the medicine and come back up and purge. They say it's a physical manifestation of trauma that you're purging. And I hadn't eaten in 12 hours. And I don't know what came out of me, but something came right. And wake up the next day, you're like trying to stand up and can't because like your brain's like literally brand new. And then we took a day and then we did DMT, five MEO DMT the next day. What was that? They call it the God molecule for a reason. It takes you to the eternal. Whatever people want to call it, that's where you go. And you know, it helped me to put all the, like, I began like, gave me the pieces for the puzzle and DMT put them in place. And that's crazy. That's probably the greatest thing you've ever done. Was it the kind of thing where when you're forced to, I was just thinking this, when you're describing the eye of a game part, where you're forced to kind of see these traumas and live in them during that period, is it like, it's not just facing them, but then also like having, you get like some self forgiveness out of it. Like it's in the past or? Yeah. I mean, it was a combination of like my life growing up through having, you know, an alcoholic father is abusive and all the different things that come with that and, and then like, you know, all the stuff that made me good as a Marine made me bad as a person, my ability to carry around trauma and compartmentalize it. Just put it away in the rucksack, keep moving. Eventually, it gets heavy and I've been carrying stuff for too long. And I've not put it where it belonged or spent time with it and understood it or losing my friends or what could I've done to be better, could I've called this person, texted this person? How did I know anything, stuff like that? And so, you know, when I did that, the ceremonies, it was just, it was unlike anything else. I mean, it's why I'm excited that the VA is working with HHS to fast roll it. I mean, we just talked to the Secretary of VA about it. They're literally laying out a plan. Something I think really needs to happen. What he said about I became was weird to hear. He had like, he was kind of explaining it like he was, he was also a chaplain forever. So he was like very much like, not bought into the idea, but he was talking to like psychologists and the psychologists were telling him like, I thought it was bullshit at first. Like, I've done research, they're like, this is legit. Yeah. And he had given, you know, this anecdotal example about how some people needed to actually have, I began done multiple times because they had so many different issues that they had to work through that they didn't even know were like part of the problem. So like one dude would go in and, you know, hypothetically speaking, it wasn't just something that happened in his military service, but it was actually something that like happened in his childhood. And that first session only got him through whatever the issues were in his childhood. And then he had to do another session to get through the stuff after that. And then it fixed him. So that was interesting to hear it's, it's, it's interesting to hear him take like a very clinical approach to it in a way where he's like, we can't just throw veterans to the wolves of this. The reality of it is not everyone needs that much. That's kind of like the highest level. It's, it's bleach, right? And there's other, there's other psychedelics that have been shown to be just as effective in DMA, ketamine, psilocybin, things like that. That's what you're supposed to do. I skip those steps. I don't recommend what I, shout out to Jared Taylor from Black Rifle call me, coffee. He called me like the end of September and was like, what are you doing? And I was like, I'm mowing my art. I was literally mowing my art. And he's like, he's, I'll never forget this, he goes, do you have a passport, like a grown man? And I was like, yeah, I have a passport. And he goes, all right, you're going to go to Mexico in a month. And I was like, how do I take off work? And he goes, you'll be fine, because I was working with him at the time. He's like, you'll be okay. He's like, I own the company. I was like, yeah, that was a dumb question. I wish I hadn't said that out loud. But he sent me and a bunch of guys down. And I was, there was some dudes who done psychedelics before, Derek Carver is a good friend of ours. World champion power lifter has one leg. He looks like the thumb thumb things from spy kids, minus a digit. So he's just a big fist. And we took the medicine, it's weighed, you hooked up to an EKG, you have a, they drug test, you do all these things. You're under care of a doctor and everything, I don't know if we got to look at him and he takes off his leg and he goes, won't be needing this. And I was like, oh, shit, this is about to be gnarly. And it just changed everything and just changed everything. And so instead of, you know, I don't want to seem like I'm stopping or like grifting or shilling whatever administration, I don't, I don't like red or blue. I do like, Doug Collins a lot because I've seen them take input from the veteran community and be like, you're right, we were wrong. Or like, yeah, we should do that. I've never seen a V8 administration do anything like that prior. Like he's like, yeah, you're right. We should look into this. I'm partnering with health and human services to figure out how to do this. The end. That's great. I will see because most people, most people take that job as like, whatever, it's like a career. Thank you. You served. Here you go. Run this thing. He didn't quite make it to president. Yeah, you didn't quite make it. You're in the line of succession, you know, a bunch of people got to go, but you're still up there. But, you know, he's a pastor. He just retired from the, from the military and like, he just wants to help. Like he, he went from having a really good life in North Georgia to living in a condo in DC. Not exactly a good trade. Also didn't realize he was in the line of succession, kind of threw me off, trying to film a podcast for the first time with multiple secret service guys staring at me, not laughing at any of my jokes, even though they landed with everyone else in the room. Yeah. I get to the point I was trying to make these guys laugh, stone face, the entire time. I couldn't be done. Secret service agents. Yeah. Nice and serious. Couldn't be done. No, it was, it was funny. I was going inside, but the street was blocked off and everything, like one of our friends was like, I'm just going to see my friend. Where's what? The street was blocked off? Yeah. Trout. When he came in, he's, he was like, there was just a dozen cars apparently, a half dozen cars outside. So like, well, they're not fucking around, I guess. No, no, 24. I mean, they're, yeah, no, they're, they're serious and like protect this man at all costs. But like, it's just, I don't know, man, it's, you know, PTSD, people have a lot of meetings for it. They call it PTSD, whatever you want to call it, I don't care. I think when he come to the realization that the memory of who you were before the trauma is better than the reality that you are, it's almost impossible not to hate yourself. Because you can remember everything before the thing that happened, whatever it is, a car wreck, you're, you know, something traumatic happens. You lose someone close to you, you go to whatever it is, doesn't matter. And that's, that's where that thing comes up. And you know, for me, I was just carrying it for such a long time and I was kind of patch working myself together and trying to help people and that all led me to the veteran with a sign stuff because I was like, what if I open source this shit? What if, what if I call myself warfighter and like, I refer to myself in the third person? What if I wear the same thing every day? What if, how would he look? Oh, he would wear this shirt. He would write stuff on cardboard because that's what veterans do. He's a homeless veteran. Okay. What, what if I partner with companies that will help this? What if I get the word out? I talk about how June is men's mental health, mother. What if I--
talk about, you know, this thing or this event, whatever's happening. And if I just keep doing this, maybe, maybe people will find out about stuff because everyone's always asking me, is that how do you do this veteran thing? How do I get my benefits? How do I get counseling, whatever? Why don't I just lean into that? Right. And that's literally what I did. Like there's, that was what like seven, eight years ago, you started 2020 March. The first, the first one I ever made, it was like the last before the, the two weeks, you know, the two weeks stopped the curve. Yeah, we stopped the curve. It was two weeks in Iowa for real. Yeah. So I hear, yeah, Tennessee, we had, it was long two weeks. No, it wasn't. Um, so it was like the week before the young ladies cut my hair at the time, we were trying to like spend money in the local economy. I went to her, and I was talking to her about this idea. And she was like, that's a good idea. And I was like, will you take my photo? And she's like, yeah, sure. And so I went out, went outside the barber shops took my photo. And I said, drink water, take motion, change your socks. And the captions had COVID remedy. On ironically, it would have worked. It would have worked. Yeah, I was a little early. Um, but that's the most common thing people say to you in the military, if you're hurt, drink water, take motion, change your socks, right? And so I did that. And then I just kept making versions of that. I was talking about tiger kings, you know, stuff that was like relatively low, making like inside jokes about the military. And, you know, for like the first 90 days, some people got it. Some didn't. My wife was like, stop trying to make, you know, your friends laugh like 10 people laugh. You're embarrassing me. There's always them embarrassing curve, right? There's the, they'll say it now like, I always believed in him. But there's a few text messages you go back with. I don't mind being embarrassed. I don't mind being embarrassed in new car. But, um, I remember there was this guy who got relieved, his name's Captain Crozier. He was actually here on the, in New York, he had a vessel that responded when they had the, the, what do they call the, the medical ships? I can't remember what they're called, but there was a bunch of, I know what you're talking about. Yeah. There were station right outside here. And he was trying to get help from the Navy. And they were actively suppressing his request for assistance. He's like, I've got a ship full of six sailors. We're trying to help with all these, you know, medical ships. I need help. And the Navy's like, no, he's like, no, no, I really need help, blah, blah, they ignored every single time he eventually released it. I believe the CBS. He then got related to his command. And as he's leaving the ship, which is the equivalent of losing a base, which is a big fucking deal. There's going Captain Crozier. And the whole deck is shaking. Like as he's walking off. And I have this one, I saw this one video. It wasn't like bar still sports and all this stuff. He's like, Captain Crozier. And like, I'm getting chills, anything about it. It's a great fucking video. And I saw that. And I was like, I don't really do anything political. That's not really political. That's just a good leader. And I looked at Christine. I was like, Hey, I have an idea. And I like wrote it down real quick, got to take my photo. And at that time, I had turned off all notifications on everything. And I was like, I'll just, you know, have a ton of stuff to do. I'll give this a day. And I waited 24 hours. I got back on my phone. And I refreshed it. And I didn't know this until that moment. But Instagram will only cap out your notifications at a hundred. I refreshed it. It was a hundred a hundred a hundred. And I was like, whoa, that's crazy. I hit it again. And I did it again. And every time I did it, it kept doing that. And then I went to my followers. And I was like, Oh no, we might have a problem here. Comments are through the roof. Things are going up. And then I was just like, Okay, what do I do with this? And just keep moving forward, ran with it. Just ran with it. And then, you know, eventually, you like, you know, you like meet somebody DM them and you're like, Hey, you do this thing. I do this thing. Because you don't, that's that's honestly the hardest part is finding people that do the thing you do. Is that how you guys meant? Yeah, we literally, yeah, it's literally like, how much do you charge someone for an ad? Or like, what's a company you should work with? Or is this even a company? Like, there's like, there's no one who's like, oh, I know this blah, blah, blah. And so I'd met, don't operate or brand in. And then they told me about the podcast they had and it was kind of up. And they're like, Oh, there's the fat electrician and his videos are being sent to me on the regular like all the time. The marine videos are like, you should talk to this guy. I was like, who's this guy? Yeah, it's just and then YouTuber, this YouTuber. No, it's just a thing where like, you become aware of certain people in your space and stuff. Because, you know, you are the company you keep, you know, and we saw sort of hanging out. And then like, slowly but surely, like, I just started to realize like, you know, all my friends are kind of like, you know, the verses are different, but the course is the same. Yes. And like, we just started hanging out like one by one by one. And I had a podcast where I was interviewing people on my page called After Action. I mean, they could hung out several times. We'd done a bunch of, you know, unsub-adventures, different things. And he came in town and we just started talking for like, for some odd hours. I don't know. We ordered tacos. Like halfway through. Yeah. Yeah. Tacos. Good for people going. Yeah. It was me, him and Blas, who's also part of underwhelming. And then he's like, that's probably the best one we've ever done. It was just, it was just good. Like we just really hung out. And then like, we both thought about it. And then it's like, do you want to keep doing this? And he's like, yeah. And he's like, well, let's start a podcast. And he's like, what do you want to name it? And I was at his house. And I was just like, underwhelming. So you're taking on another pro. I mean, that's amazing. Oh, he's he's fine. He takes on 20 to 40 projects. Yeah. Yeah. Good for you, man. And then we just, you know, we just kept going. It's, it's fun. You know, it's like old dad, new dad or newer dad. It's just kind of like us navigating life and trying to figure things out. And it's just, it's just fun. Well, I think it's two things. I think a, obviously, it's, you know, you scratch in the edge of like things that you're familiar with the world you know. And there's a lot of the people from those worlds who are looking for, you know, something they can relate to. But then be like, you guys are like so representative of like the every man out there, you think and say the things that people think and say. And they're like, ah, that guy speaks for me. That's really like that's the vibe always got from like unsubscribe watching out from afar. Like it's, you like you said, it's guys hanging out and everything. But there's like an element of just like this is just like me and my boys hanging out too. Yeah, it's really fucking cool. For, for military people, I always say unsubscribes like the smoke pit, the smoke, right? Like it's where everyone gets around rips a button like the fuck was out about, you know, but you know, cause it's just, it's just boys hanging out. And you know, they all have like Elaine Nick's history, Brandon's guns, Cody's cops. Right. He likes streaming and everything. And it's so it's just like, I don't know. And then it's kind of like wish version of Avengers, when you look at it, cause like they like made this universe. And somehow like I wound up a part of it. Like you know, like the Hawkeye, the Hawkeye, you're famous for the donkey story. Yeah, what's the donkey story? I can tell it. No, it's it's not quick though. Well, let's go that we got time. All right. So first off, the first time I told this story, I've been talking shit to Nick for like a year, we're at shot show one year. And Nick's like, when you don't come on, this is my Nick voice. When you don't come on, subscribe. I'm like, I've got the single best story. I'm only gonna tell it to you. And Joe Rogan, you're like, okay. And he's kind of, he's so and he's like, don't tell me now. And like, this is also like at two o'clock in the morning in the Venetian. Like we're, oh, just do a shot show. So we're like, I got a sorry. I don't want to drool. But like we're exhausted. There's people everywhere. It's sweaty. It's a whole thing. All right. So when my first deployment, Tom Colt Garms, we're right. And we'd inserted and we were trying to establish like an area of operations. We're moving through like buildings. And the buildings over there, like courtyard style. So like your kitchen is a individual building. And your bedroom is individual building. And so what so on. So like we finally found like one good spot. We're set up. And I'm doing post. And like, friend, what doesn't know post is you're just looking out a hole. Rethinking your life. I mean, like, holy shit, I really wanted to be funny in high school. Like what am I doing here? Like you're just sitting there. And we're all, all the Marines are in this one building because the rest of them are like either blowing up or we had blown them up or they had blown them up. And so we only had like one good structure. So there's like 30 guys in there, like laying on top of each other trying to keep warm. And I'm looking out a hole. My friend Zachary Group is looking out another hole. We're both on 240's down this main thoroughfare, like right in front of us, crossover fields of fire intersecting fields of fire. We're ready. Machine guns. And like we're saying like dumb shit. You're just trying to stay awake. You can hit that spot. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, dude, when I get, and it, it sounds like old timing, like when I get back to the world, you know, things will be different. I'll see my gal, like you're just like, it's not like that. Do it. I get back. I'm going to get so drunk. I can't wait. I'm going to eat like fried chicken or whatever you're saying, like, I'm going to start a business. He's saying stuff. And you know, we had told the people not to move around at night. We're trying to stop movement of the Taliban, all these different things. And we're trying to stop them from basically creating bombs and like don't do it. Don't do it. We even put pamphlets out. Like I said, nobody knows how to read so we just covered the area with paper. We just played it on the radio. We did everything we could. And so we're saying there it's late. It's really late. It's not that far.
We're very close to the road. It's like from here to a little bit further than that wall and We see these two military age males and a donkey starting to walk down the road And I call up to the post. I'm like, hey COG COG is post one Roger We got two military males out moving from east to west and down the road. What do you want to do? I'm on my way over and he like comes over from the other building He's like looking out of the hole and he looks at the whole news. Listen. They do anything. They do anything at all. You fucking smoke him It's like Roger that and I hit the 240. I'm like, I'm about to go to college for free Right and I'm there. I'm in there. We don't even need NVGs. It's there's there's no noise or light pollution there if there's someone's don't have NVGs We also don't have NVGs, right? It's a it's a budgetary issue. No equipment makes you weak Chester puller said that equipment makes you weak move forward, right? So I'm on the 240. He's on the 240 and the COG corporate the guard's like What's what's going on? I'm like nothing nothing and they get like right Center, so like me and group like we're locked on We're like ready because what comments when they plan a bomb This is very well known as isn't releasing anything the way it works is like they it's not a one person job You basically get paid up for what you're doing. There's one guy who gets paid to dig the hole Another guy comes by he puts the item in the hole, right? The third guy gets paid to cover it up Basically, so they don't want to lose like one go They have like oh, we still have the holes out there. We saw the bombs out there cover them up So like we thought they would come by just scoop some stuff or just drop some stuff off whatever waiting and They just stop and then like looking at him and he's like what's going on? I was like I don't know. They're just kind of standing here and they're looking around and then one guy goes to the front and Then one guy goes to the back and the one guy goes to the front takes the donkey and he puts it like this Like he puts a headlock and like a guillotine he locks it up And and then the other guy takes his shirt and puts it in his mouth and he starts fucking this dog I swear to God. I swear to God. This is verifiable where every person I was with I swear to you I swear to you this happens and I and I go oh my god and group goes holy shit And then people start waking up they're like what's going on? I'm like see you G. See you G He's like what and I go got to get over here right now I don't say it over the radio because this stuff's documented and he like looks at the hole He's like, oh my god, he's fucking that dog by this point every marine in the room starts What the fuck what the fuck's going on so they start looking out of the glory hole right the first glory hole And he's like oh, oh my god so all of them are like they're moving around I mean guys are moving around machine gun barrels But holy shit Eventually called to the tenet like sir sir wake up wake up wake up. He's like what's going on? I was like the fucking donkey fucking a donkey sir. It's like no, they're not he's like Oh my god. They're fucking a dog. This is a well-educated man fucking a donkey And I was like sir let's go and he's like can't kill him to be blood and come everywhere This guy fucks his donkey for like a long time Arguably way too long to be fucking a donkey, right cuz you feel like if you're gonna fuck a donkey You're in and out. No this dude. He was like slapping on the ass and his friends holding it and then after Finally just it stops it just stops and see what you're just like what's going on? I was like He stopped. He's like let me know anything else happens and then I was like Roger that and I look up Then they fucking swaps So and that was the moment that I knew we're not gonna be able to teach these guys democracy So I told this story on on so it's one of their most popular episodes today And so I tell this story on stage in Nashville and the crowd just explodes and The was it was the first time on so I've also ever did two shows back-to-back So we do that and then Nick looks at me. He's half in the bag. He goes Yeah, I tell it again. We're gonna act out the donkey story next time It was his idea and I was like what who plays the donkey our friend rich He hates it. He hates it. But Rich was also half in the bag. He's like fucking the donkey both of us And he's like I'll be the donkey and so now it's an integral part of the show Where it's like a leading up point because we're Nick tells the story and then Nick leads into it He's like you guys want her a doggy sorry? So I travel to country Telling the story about two guys fucking a donkey and your sweet wife loves nothing more than hearing Thousand people And lose their fucking minds. Yeah when her husband has to go up there and tell a story about two dudes fucking a donkey Yeah It's all right puts up with a lot. It'll be okay Pays the bill and pay it does pay it does pay the bills. It's just No, and she's It was funny cuz like for a while she was like searching my friends and being like maybe one of them will tell me his ex lying and like They've all come to the house and like no it happened. It was super fucking gross She keeps hoping it's the only time my wife has been like I hope my husband stealing Valor Maybe this is all made up and maybe it's all a dream. It's not made up. It's not a dream. They're good over here We're the I can't say it's her, you know, well, but yeah, it's Yeah, I mean there's other stories there. They're not like that. That's yeah, yeah, I never heard anything like that before No, it's yeah, so that's when people are like well, you know, where the people like over there And like I got a story fucking donkeys. I got a story for you. We heard about some other fucking over there It's not great either. That's been well documented on this podcast. Yeah, it's it's very well documented the guy who made a documentary about my Deployment to Marsha's name's Ben Anderson. He used to work at vice news. I don't know if he still does But he also made a documentary called this is what winnings look like the trailers probably the worst thing I've ever seen I don't even want to say it, but Basically talks about the head afghan police chief at the time says I'm gonna be vulgar, but it just is what he says he says if we don't fuck the little boys They're gonna fuck the pussies of their grandmothers. This is the head of all afghan police. This is the very intro to the documentary like their rationalization and normalization of That the behavior they do is beyond anything that I could even really understand But yeah, I don't know how you get that out of society because I don't deproved it is and like I don't I don't They also don't like homosexuality. They hate gay people. That is if I've they've tortured killed goes back to I had to go through this You have to now - yeah Yes, but I think you I mean There has to be like all abuse a strong power dynamic and getting off on that power dynamic there beyond just like I went through this you will too and You know, it's not one or two guys who were in Afghanistan coming in here and telling me this it's everybody Dude they would try the a and a would try and like be like hey, we got to go talk to people Like you're not fucking talking to anybody here. Stay over here. Stay right here. Yeah, I'm like oh, no, no, we need talks. No, you don't you know I mean there's there's tons of stories You know of it happening. I mean army e6 that got like oh, yeah There was a it was a like famous court case those years ago, but there's an army e6 that beat the shit out of his INA like equivalent commander and he got fired and I believe he got I believe he got separated from the military because the official stance of the US government was we need to respect their culture Yeah, King and one it came in on them in a gang rape situation and he actually stopped it and they punished him for it I've had people in here who went and stopped those situations and they didn't get punished, but that's crazy That's fucking crazy. Yeah, no, we were they were never allowed to be out on my side. They were always around us You know our Afghan army counter parts at least counter parts at least the ones we worked with I didn't have any situations like that I wouldn't allow anything like that. Were you warned about that before you went there? No, I mean the first appointment we didn't work with them, but the second appointment they were like literally left-seat right seat They were with us everywhere. So how did you find out about that culture? Um, they talked about it Without going too specific into it. We were working with some intelligence Assets internal to the Marine Corps that just gather intelligence and he would honestly teach us this gentleman Would teach us some of the things about their culture to like he's like, he would literally be like no shit This is what happens here and he would explain things to us because like you hear things and like you read things and The only real cultural training we had prior to that was there was this like Professor from like UNC Wilmington or something she showed up at the Marine Corps showed the Marine Corps base theater at Camp was June and she was like This is how you tell this from that and she like talked to our whole battalion and she like Played Aladdin and said like how none of it applied to like the Middle East and I was like, yeah, we know Like this isn't real and I'm like no shit. Genie's aren't real. Oh, holy fuck. That's Robin Williams is over there And I was just like damn they really make anybody a professor these days. I literally cut her speech short because it was just like insane But there are some cultural training stuff that goes into it But like honestly like the majority of the things that we would do would like my thing was like I was always worried about the kids in particular the young girls because like one of them There was one I took a photo with my first appointment just reminded me of my daughter and I gave her some
from Skittles once, when we were walking by, I just came from Skittles, and her little brother came up to her and started hitting her with a stick. And so I walked over there and I was like, "Hey, what's up, bud?" And I cracked him in the head and I was like, "Come here, John." This is our interpreter. And I was like, "He tell him that if he ever touches his sister again, we'll come back and he'll regret it for the rest of his life." And John's like, "Don't worry." And he's like, bang, bang, bang, bang, boom. And he's like, cracking his knuckles. And he's like, "I told him in the kit started crying." And so I gave the girl a bottle of water and stuff 'cause there's also such a thing societally about them. Like, if you interact with females, pass a certain age, they're outcasts. All those different things, they're used as like property. That's how women are treated once girls become women. It's just, it's rough. And so, you know, and then you hear people talk about, like, things over here in America. And I always feel like I'm just putting on my grizzled veteran hat. Like, people have no idea the things to which the rest of the world is societally. Talk about equality and stuff. News flash, no one's working as fucking hard as we are at it. Like, we are winning in every, nothing's perfect. I'm not saying that. I would never be that fucking stupid. But everyone's like, speak of the devil. Everyone's like, you know, you have no idea, blah, blah, blah. I didn't get this, I didn't get that. It's so hard. And I'm like, I don't know, man, have you seen it? Young child get beat because she had skittles by her family members who treated her like she was less than. He ever seen all the different things that happen over there. And, you know, that's, that's what's tough. Is I think, that's what I think about. When I think about, you know, people that are still there, I think about the ones that don't really have a chance at a life because we're not there anymore. That's why we shouldn't have left. We created a massive power vacuum. Just a safe haven for terrorism and narco drugs and so many people got killed too. People who helped out. I mean, that's why I think to explain it is people like ask how bad Afghanistan is. I'm like, this is how bad it is. We're withdrawing from a country. We're leaving it. People are literally holding on to a fucking airplane that deep down inside they know they can't hold on to. But they're still gonna fucking try as it takes off. That's how bad it is. Yeah. I don't remember that video. Like that's, that if you ever, if anyone ever needs anything, be like, is it that bad? That's how, they're willing to be like, maybe I can't hold on to it. Maybe it'll land when we get out of here. Who the fuck knows? But I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try to hold on to this C-130 as long as I can because it's better than what's back there. Yeah. Yeah, it still gets me. Yeah. But, I mean, guys, we just did like three and a half hours. We have to do this again sometime. Yeah. You guys are fucking awesome. I was telling me to do an Iowa run. We'll take him out to see P.U. That would be cool. Yeah, here's my video. Yeah. I've never been out to Iowa. Dude's crazy. He can throw-- In a good way. He can throw his wedding ring in the air and shoot a nine millimeter round through it while it's falling. Do we have a video of this? He has it-- He has it in super slummo, high speed. Yeah. The first time I-- He had to be born with something for that. The first time I met him, I didn't know what to expect. I thought it was gonna be like a dude perfect situation. Yeah. Like he said, I heard for six hours, good and incredible. Shot done. I'm staying. He's like, pull your pistol. I pull my pistol out. He's like, shoot at a target. I go, okay. Ding. I shoot at the target. He's standing right here next to me. He goes, okay, shoot at the same target in the same spot. I'm like, all right. That's weird. What are you doing? I shoot at the same target in the same spot. He just wanted to see where my brass was ejecting. On the second shot, he steps back, kicks my brass into the air, pulls his gun out from concealed and shoots my brass on the first try. And that's how I met him. Dog. Yeah. Go to his shorts. Yeah. Go to his shorts. Yeah. Go to his shorts. Shout out to the boy. Do popular. Should we do popular? Hit popular on shorts. Yeah. The problem is there's so many. I do one with a pistol. Do. Hit your brass. Do that one. Yeah. That one's at the washer. Classic. Wait. It just went off. I think. Yeah. What happened? Oh, it might do that. Yeah. Hit it. And then it might. Yeah. No. Yeah. No. That's one bad. Why? Anywhere's fucking sunglasses doing it. Yeah. Bro. All right. So they're going to eject the washer out from behind him. Yeah. His camera man's going to throw it. Yeah. That's some spider. That's why filming shot Dalton for throwing it in filming all at the same time. That's spider man shit. No. No fucking way. Yeah. Bro. Is that AI? No. I've seen him do it. I've seen him do it in person. It's every time. It didn't even fucking touch it. Yeah. Nick, didn't he buy this slow motion camera just to counter all the comments? Just to do this shit. Yeah. Because people didn't believe it. Oh, my God. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I would love to come see that. Me and him out did Mythbusters in an afternoon. Like, I'm crazy. I'm crazy. This is, this is Jesus of guns right here. Show another pistol warrior. He's just fucking tearing it up. Do that one far, far left. That one. How do you slide? Oh, yeah. Slide moves so early. Okay. What the fuck? It's, it's, it's a lot better with sound with sound. It's. Oh, wait. We got to get off. Yeah. You have to take the sound out. Yeah. Let's mark that because it's copyrighted. But I, I mean, I can see it with this. That's just like, that looks like some dude, some kid in his basement, who's played Call of Duty nonstop for 11 years, except this is real. Yeah. And then what's he doing now? He's beating it up. Yeah. He's just beating it up. He's not proving to do it. Yep. What the fuck? Yep. He gets, his videos on YouTube get demonetized a lot because you're not allowed to shoot machine guns and have the video be monetized. But he's not shooting machine guns. He's shooting semi-auto guns and he just is able to fire that fast. Yeah. There you go, YouTube. See, monetization followed. He's firing semi-auto guns. Not a machine gun. He's just God. Wow. So I, to a short, that's hilarious. I never really had any pistol shooting in the Marine Corps at all. He's so good at it that the first time I shot, he's like, hey, do this with your hand. And like, ever, every, every time I'm around him, I've probably become a better pistol shooter by like 50%. And he could even like, like one time he turned around, he's like, hey, you're squeezing too much. We do left hand. I was like, were you even looking at me? He's like, nah. Can he bend a bullet? If anyone can do it, it's him. Yeah, I gotta come see that, I would love to see that. That's crazy, bro. That's some next little shit. Yeah. All right, boys. We're gonna link all the channels and everything down below. We got fat electrician, better one with a sign. We also got the underwhelming podcast, we'll put unsubscribe podcasts down there as well. What else are we missing? That's it. That's it, man. Cool. Well, thanks so much for coming out. I think I do this again sometime. Yeah, sure. It was awesome. And it is. Give it a thought. Give it back to me. Peace. Hey, guys. If you're not following me on Spotify, please hit that follow button and leave a five-star review. They're both a huge help. Thank you.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The speaker became obsessed with watching a movie about gangs in New York during long flight times while touring, turning it into a shared joke with friends.
The tour schedule is extremely grueling, with long days and minimal rest, leading to the habit of watching movies while exhausted on planes.
The group’s dynamic is rooted in authenticity and camaraderie, with no formal structure—just four friends getting drunk, traveling, and hanging out, creating a unique and low-pressure comedic environment.
A recurring inside joke among the group is about a "shaky lamp" Reddit post, symbolizing their fear that their current lives might be a dream or illusion.
The speaker reflects on a pivotal moment in their life—writing in sixth grade about wanting to be a stand-up comic—linking it to their current career path as a comedian touring with friends.
A turning point was becoming a "fat electrician" on TikTok after a personal injury, leading to a viral video about Aldi’s efficient business model and sparking a successful content journey.
The group critiques modern food industry practices, especially glyphosate use in agriculture, and highlights the environmental and health risks, tied to rising cancer rates in the Midwest.
The speaker expresses skepticism about political systems, criticizing the rise of politicians without real-world experience, and values authenticity, independence, and direct action over political manipulation.
Summary:
The speaker recounts a journey from a life in healthcare and the military to becoming a touring comedian with close friends, driven by a series of unexpected turns. After a failed nursing career and a stint as an electrician, he discovered his passion for comedy and content creation, starting with a viral TikTok about Aldi’s efficient store design. The group’s humor and authenticity are central to their success, built on shared experiences, low barriers to entry, and a deep sense of camaraderie.
They frequently reflect on the randomness of their path, joking about it being a "fever dream" or a "shaky lamp" scenario, emphasizing that their lives feel real and meaningful. The discussion expands to broader societal issues, including the dangers of industrialized food systems—especially glyphosate use in agriculture—linked to rising cancer rates in Iowa and the Midwest. They critique politically unqualified leaders, noting how business experience and real-world resilience are missing from modern politics.
The speaker also touches on cultural quirks, like the ban on self-pumping gas in New Jersey, and contrasts American pragmatism with European norms. Ultimately, the narrative celebrates a life of simplicity, authenticity, and personal growth, where humor, travel, and shared values form a resilient foundation for success.
FAQs
The speaker was inspired by a lifelong passion for stand-up comedy, which began in sixth grade when they wanted to be a stand-up comedian. After working in healthcare and as an electrician, their journey naturally led them to comedy tours with friends, creating a group dynamic that felt authentic and fulfilling.
The speaker is critical of the movie 'The Grey' because they believe it’s filled with excessive action and minimal payoff, especially in terms of character development. They compare it to watching a plumber fix a sink and then leaving without showing the result, calling it absurd and poorly executed.
Touring with friends is described as an unmatched, low-pressure experience where the audience already knows and likes the group. The focus is on hanging out, being themselves, and having fun, rather than performing to win over a crowd, making it feel more natural and genuine.
The nickname originated when the speaker was injured during a work accident, going into a six-month recovery with no physical activity. As a joke to his wife, he created a TikTok username 'fat electrician' to humorously reflect his injury and lack of fitness, which unexpectedly went viral.
The speaker criticizes the use of harmful ingredients like corn syrup and preservatives in processed foods, noting how these contribute to poor health. They highlight Aldi as a more transparent and healthier alternative due to its efficient design and minimal processing.
The speaker argues that overuse of chemicals like glyphosate in farming has led to environmental damage and increased cancer rates, especially in states like Iowa. They believe this reflects a larger failure in agricultural policy that prioritizes profit over public health.
Chat with AI
Loading...
Pro features
Go deeper with this episode
Unlock creator-grade tools that turn any transcript into show notes and subtitle files.
PodcastTranscript AI