Stephanie
👤 PersonPodcast Appearances
You have a map because the map has checkpoints, but it's not like your phone and just a compass and you have to figure out how to get where you're going.
You've described that so well before. So I have these two little kiddos who are two and four, two boys, and they just are wild. And I was just wondering what the best parenting advice you've ever received was. maybe how I can bring that into my daily life to not get so overwhelmed.
Ugh, yeah, I'm in Richmond. Do you want me to hit record? Are we still doing it back?
Yeah. And they grab our chickens. And yeah, 100 percent. They'll just like pick up snakes, even though another reason Central Virginia is bad is there are venomous snakes here and there aren't back where I'm from in New England. So, yeah. How do I know where you're from in New England? From Brockton, Massachusetts.
I surprisingly know that. Yeah. I played Brookline High in sports a lot.
Okay, perfect. Yeah, I'm in Richmond, Virginia.
Yeah. I'm not built to run either, which is why I tried to golf it out.
It's so hot here. It's so humid. Then get out of here!
Academia. The whole hierarchy. It's so hard.
I know, but they have to want me to. I yeah, you're right. They have schools other places. I have. Yeah, I don't know what to say. I've applied.
I go up for tenure. Stop.
Yeah, it is. I'm not from here. I miss...
Yep. I can't. My parents moved out of Rock. They're in Wilmington now. So, but yeah, I guess I would go somewhere around north of Boston. I can't afford that. No one can afford that.
I don't. I do not. They should not have me. I will complain about the bugs and the humidity and the heat and their inability to deal with snow and all of that.
Yes, I am a geography professor.
Yeah, as an undergrad, I checked off a box that said I had to travel, so then I got into this geology program, and that's not geography. Geology is rocks. Geography is people and places.
Well, I know, but it's more than maps.
Yeah. I study a lot of different things, but I mainly use satellite data to understand changes in the landscape. Uh, so one of the things I, yeah, I can feel like I'm lecturing. One of the things I study is how climate change is affecting the timing of fall foliage in Maine. Cause I love Maine. Another thing I study is how deforestation in Brazil is affecting the regional climate there.
I think about that in the southwestern Amazon. I do stuff locally in central Virginia that I love. I use drones to help map historically black cemeteries that haven't been funded.
Conan O'Brien needs a fan. Want to talk to Conan? Visit teamcoco.com slash call Conan. Okay, let's get started.
I do. It's been a tough week. So I'll tell you, yes, the lowest of bars.
Yeah, I think it's okay to be anxious about it. I think it's kind of crazy if you're not anxious about it because it's very real. But I also have a two and a four-year-old, and that was like an act of radical hope in society that we would kind of figure this out. I think just getting outside and breathing and taking a walk and connecting with nature, that's what I do if I'm getting overwhelmed.
I think you can be overwhelmed, but you can't let it take over. And you just find faith in your community. You find what you can do. Maybe eat one less burger a week. But I'm not saying become a vegetarian or a vegan. Don't go vegan. You don't have to do that. It's not that good for the environment. If you just eat a little bit less meat, feel better about it. You can take one less flight a year.
But honestly, just being okay with being upset, allowing yourself to feel your feelings. To me, I think we all should be feeling our feelings a little more.
And then just getting outside.
No, my kids have just been home from daycare with the flu. Oh, okay.
I took a private... That's not probably great for your arteries.
Oh, my God, the mahogany is, yeah, I mean, it's the best wood.
Yes, I agree. I think it's not worth it feeling guilty because like you're not Exxon. You're not the U.S. You're not BP. You're not the people who like lied to people for centuries about what harm this would do. So it's not worth feeling guilty. But I think you can look for the good stories. A negative headline gets 10 more clicks than a positive one.
I know. I know I had agency in that decision, but I didn't think I'd have to be around them all the time.
So people are always going to write negative headlines. There are some really cool climate resiliency things going on. Some cities are planting more trees. Trees are really great for cooling down cities. L.A., I think, painted some pavements white for a while because dark surfaces trap a lot of heat. There are small-scale changes that a lot of cities in the U.S. in particular are making.
And yeah, I think it's going to be a mix of science and everyone realizing that These disasters that we keep having cost so much money. So it actually be cheaper if we start actually investing in climate change solutions and resilience.
I'm so sorry. This is the most depressing conversation you've probably ever had.
And I won't feel badly about my job. OK.
I just think we don't have geography in many schools. So I just am used to it's a battle I've been fighting for years.
I think everyone should just get out more and breathe more oxygen and stop looking at your phones more. Yeah, I mean, it's weird. There was an onion headline like 15 years ago that was like, humans look at glowing rectangles all day. And I was like, oh, it's only got worse.
I think everyone should just talk to more people and go outside and look at a tree and be like, wow, how long has that tree been there? Longer than I have.
What if you take your phone and you watch your porn outside, though?
Great. Love and life. How are you?
You're employing the scientific method on your own.
Capricorn, Leo, rising Gemini moon.
A lot of people don't know why we have seasons. That's the question that my students get wrong all of the time.
Why we have seasons. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You went to Harvard. Why do we have seasons?
Yeah. Nice job. OK, great. A lot of people think distance from the sun. And that's not we're actually closer to the sun during the winter.
Yeah, I'm a real scientist, though, too.
And a tree, maybe, sometimes. My bar is low. I don't know.
I have two kids. I have a two year old and a four year old and they're pretty feral. And my my oldest is a budding mycologist. He loves mushrooms. We always go mushroom hunting, but he has a book and he does record what we and he doesn't eat it. We don't let him eat the mushrooms.
Yeah, we have a little mushroom fan club book. He's really into mushrooms.
You're not the first person.
Yeah, but that's not the whole picture.
Yeah. Yeah. He gets outside. We can make sure we get our kids outside. Yeah.
My husband, Chris, who's a delight.
No, he's the best. He's actually the best.
No, no, no, no. He's great. He's with my two kids right now who are homesick from school.
He's a behavior analyst, and he's the most patient man on earth. So he spends his days trying to help adults with disabilities just, like, successfully walk through the world.
Yeah, 100% all the time. Whenever we're arguing, a snack will appear out of nowhere, and I fully know what he's doing, and I will take the snack, and it doesn't matter.
You just might not know it. There is.
Well, he won't pop it into my mouth because it's a little much, but he'll be like, are you hungry? Do you want this thing over here? And I'll be like, yeah, I want that thing, but also.
We have been or we have been orienteering together, but and the snacks were more for like my self-preservation.
What are you talking about?
$15.
Right.
Yeah. Oh, hey.
I'm good. This is the highlight of my day.
I would consider it for a little bit of time. And then, I mean, maybe I could sell it and make some money off of it. I don't know.
Yeah, it'd be a pretty short amount of time.
I'm a licensed psychologist and I work in a university counseling center.
Yep.
I mean, yeah, no, it's just a pause.
That's correct.
I, yeah, I've got a lot of questions.
I guess I'd be most interested to know what his biggest problems are in his life. Like what causes him distress?
Go ahead, Stephanie. So sometimes the problem is not that you're in distress, but it's that the other people around you are in distress. So that would be my kind of other question is, how do most people kind of respond to you?
Oh, no, it doesn't sound normal. That's
I think that comes across.
I mean, from listening to the podcast and your other interactions, his interactions with me sound a lot smoother than his interactions with you. I don't, I mean.
The other option, too, is sometimes people, when they feel like they're being assessed, they kind of show the best of themselves, you know, and kind of want to be seen in a certain way and kind of do that, like, they kind of manage their public image more. Right, right.
That's exactly what I was saying, yeah.
So what does Conan bring out of you?
OK, well, I had a question for you, Conan, which is you said you you try to explain Jordan to people. What's your like shorthand description of him?
Yeah, I think Conan is better than you.
Bye bye. Bye.
Yeah, wow. Not very nice. That's not very, like, not very uncle-like.
Of course, why not?
Add some drama, add some spice.
That's a huge mistake.
Great.
I'm guessing a lot's going to go wrong here.
This is honestly like one of my favorite, I think, merches that we have.
Yeah, or maybe Potbelly offered them something, right?
Yeah, the design. It's so sick.
Yeah.
Damn, that's a dangerous combination.
Yeah, it was your brain. Yeah. Your brain came up with it.
I mean, which is crazy. It's absolutely insane. They never make large territorial changes.
Yeah.
It doesn't seem like it is. It's just kind of like the general little Levant area. And they're just bickering.
Yeah, it was the biggest of all of the post-Alexandrian empires by far.
Yeah. Yeah, so funny enough, you brought up like name repetition. Like in the Seleucid Empire, everyone, and you've already kind of covered it, everyone was named either, and the men at least, were named Seleucus or Antiochus.
Yeah, already both.
I was like, you know what? It's history for weirdos, right? We need to add the weirdo element here.
That's all good.
Oh, Philometer.
With all the money, too.
With, like, the treasury.
What a dum-dums.
Yeah.
When did he leave?
Oh, good for them.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, excellent.
Yeah, seriously.
Oh, boy.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, he's like, what a joke.
That was fun.
It was, actually. I messed up the shuffling. She's usually really good at shuffling, guys.
Yeah, the Romans are still busy, like recovering from the Second Punic War still. I mean, even though it was decades prior, still recovering. They're also like have like in the midst of subjugating Greece as well.
They kind of were already, but I mean, they were already fighting so many different, or they had recovered from so many different fronts. It's a weird time in Roman history. I'm not like, I don't know. I don't, I think they were probably spread thin.
And they were just like, no. And they, cause they've just, oh, you know why? They just made territorial gains in North Africa and made headway into like the Balkans and Greece.
Spain. So they're, yeah, they are definitely spread thin.
Yeah.
Seriously.
Oh, my God.
Obviously.
Yeah, sounds about it.
Oh, this poor woman.
Oh, she's like, yeah, four kids.
And I was just like, no.
Right.
Sounds lovely.
Okay.
I was going to say, it's going to be a good time, huh?
And I was like, no.
Oh, my God. What a psycho. It's like, yeah, no shit they liked him more than you, buddy.
Sounds like a peach.
Yeah.
I mean, to be fair, like from here on out, Ptolemaic Egypt is like that for Rome. They're like, Rome, like step in. They're like the petulant children.
Yeah, he's like the first one to do this. And this like literally goes for another hundred. I mean, till the Cleopatra.
You know, just slightly.
Basically, yes. I think that's really accurate.
There we go. That was better.
As they should.
Oh, maybe not.
That's wild.
It sounds like the mother lovers from the SNL skit.
Yeah.
That's basically them, yeah.
Oh, my God. So they have six kids.
I'm going to guess something along the lines of either Ptolemy or Cleopatra.
All right, I'm going to cut it. I got a kitty.
I mean, there are literally no other choices.
Yeah, with your brother and sister.
Yeah, you guys know.
I don't know for a fact, but I'm guessing that he went to the Salute Kids.
He didn't? Okay. I stand corrected. Never mind.
Yeah.
Oh, Serini, yeah.
Yeah, it's like to the east. Or no, sorry, it's to the west of Alexandria.
Yeah.
I bet they're so annoyed.
What is it? The five of swords.
Oh, wow. Okay.
Yeah, I... I knew this was coming.
It's so disgusting.
Yeah, I know this one.
Right. Be like, you can't, but maybe your kids can.
Or like.
Yeah, not because she's 13.
And he's just so awful.
Yeah. And he had like manipular legions. Like those were like they're the elite fighting force of the Mediterranean.
Yeah, and we just mentioned him last episode.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You insist on doing this and you're like, actually, I have no idea. That's amazing.
Right.
Absolutely not.
Oh, yes, I do know. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.
what pot belly owns they want to protect pot belly yeah and they're also he's also ensuring because rome's a republic right so there's not one person that benefits so no one would like they wouldn't send assassins right they they just wouldn't because they also wanted to always appear as like the good guys kind of like in the united states funny enough like they always have to have a casus belly like a cause for war for them to actually go to war yeah they always have they can never be the aggressors they have to be like in defense of someone
Oh, that's cute.
Exactly.
Right.
Right. Smart dad.
Of course.
Very reasonable.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh, boy.
Really?
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
That's better than I thought.
It's a different Josephus.
Oh, yeah. No, same Josephus.
I don't think that relates to the episode at all, does it?
Yeah. Speaking of which, while we're here, let's get started. Stephanie, it is your week this week. I hope you have something prepared. I know for a fact you do. But Stephanie, this one was a fan favorite, like a fan favorite of...
That's insane.
But he was charismatic somehow.
Like, I'm bored of you.
Yeah.
Yeah, and they didn't have excess sugar and trans fats like they do today.
Oh, yeah. I didn't know this.
My God.
I see. Okay. That makes sense.
What do they say?
Really? Oh, my God.
suggestion we had so many people suggesting this episode and it's in the ancient history realm which most most of the time is usually like geared towards me but this time it's about a subject that you know far more about than i do yes i'm really excited to hear you tell it well i hope i know more than you do i'm always so nervous when i do an ancient history episode because you don't want to disappoint me yeah and it's so hard these are such harder ones
No, we're not a fan of you. Yeah.
How many layers? You'd have to go so many layers.
Yeah, for the power.
No, poor woman. I know.
She's like, yay, I'm done.
And they can be pharaohs. Well, I guess women can be pharaohs too, but like.
That's true.
I knew you were going to bring it. You're just going to go into this.
I know. I love how passionate you get. It's so adorable.
Oh, my God. This guy is unbelievable.
It's like, dude, no wonder no one likes you, homie.
What do you expect?
Ptolemy VII.
Oh, my God. What a horrible human.
What a... No words.
It's going to get worse.
You don't want me to be like that meme of be like, wait a minute, this isn't my world. Disappointed!
Oh, boy.
This guy is such just a piece of human garbage. Yeah. There's no redeeming qualities about this guy.
Oh, they did not appreciate this.
Yeah. Oh, that sucks.
I mean, he stands against like pretty much every single Roman virtue at this time. Like, cause there weren't, this is before the civil Roman civil wars. So like, you know, that wasn't really a thing. There was like a sense of like what it meant to be like a Roman, you know, and it was very much so like, You fight for Rome.
It's starting to change with the inflow of wealth during this century. But yeah, generally speaking, you're correct.
Yeah. When they thought about foreign rulers and their corrupting force, they thought of people like him. Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah, exactly. Even in their time.
Slash Cleopatra II's grand-aught. Grand... whatever.
It's funny. I'm so confused.
Chickpea?
So Ptolemy Chickpea.
Just Chickpea. Okay, I'm sorry.
Okay.
Oh, I hate him. I hate him so much. So he's currently married to his sister and his niece.
And has a son with both of them now.
Wow.
Nothing could ever go wrong here.
Oh, my God. That's, like, perfect.
Oh, wow.
No, just to clarify. So it's yeah. So. So you do have Cleopatra the third, I guess. So the Cleopatra the third, that's the daughter Cleopatra the second and their enemies now.
Okay, so she's also kind of a piece of garbage.
They're well suited for each other.
Nice.
And they always go to Cyprus.
Weirdos, welcome back to another episode of History for Weirdos.
What?
I think so.
I'm pretty sure that's it.
I hope I'm just not giving blatant disinformation. We'll see.
That's true.
I love that. She's just piling them on. Yeah. And this is still Cleopatra II, right?
Okay.
Wow, that's interesting. Yeah.
Wow, do you know why that is?
Oh, snap. That's a big deal.
Wow. So he was ugly on the inside and out.
Damn. So they were really manipulative. They were very smart.
And that like mobilizing like a populist force almost just for their own political ends, even though they don't really give a shit about them.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Where?
Not in Alexandria?
And this was his own son?
Especially being at war on and off for decades, right? Even as a little girl, she was at war with her uncle. And now it's like, she's 55, still at war with her brother and daughter. Yeah.
That's right, weirdos. We're talking about pot belly.
Oh, I know where this is going.
I wonder, it must be like an African gray or something, right?
Oh, it had to have been African gray.
Yeah.
Like, psychotic.
Like absolutely just, this guy's like unforgivable.
That's a pretty smart political move, honestly.
Right, like this guy did this to his own child. I mean, anyone with just any sort of conscience is like, oh, this guy is just pure evil. Yeah. Like he's not fit to rule.
I bet they're so tired.
Yeah.
Oh, my God. It's a Demetrius. Someone different.
Yes.
Oh, my God. This guy, this guy, he's like the he's like a precursor to the CIA.
Dude, this guy is unbelievable.
Un-freaking-believable.
Things that go up are going down. Things that are going down should be going up.
I think whatever like app you use to search, you can just probably search it and it'll pop up.
Oh, I have no idea. Same. I stopped doing the episode numbers and the introductions like...
You're like, sorry, I killed our child together and I'm married to one of your other children. But hey. Oh, and I also killed one of your your kids with your first husband slash my brother slash your brother. He has killed two of her sons now and married a daughter.
Yeah. The audacity, man.
This guy's just messing up everywhere he goes.
Wow.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Let's do it.
Oh, interesting.
Probably like crops even maybe.
Kind of putting a finger under the scale.
Wow. Okay.
That's some sweeping reforms right there.
That's a great spot.
Got it. Okay. Even though they used to be spouses.
Yeah, clearly. Better late than never, I suppose.
That is unfortunate.
Unbelievable.
I wonder also if it was like he's trying to be a little bit like Alexander too. Because he said to the strongest, according to almost like legend at this point.
Gotcha. Cleopatra II lives a really long life. She's really old at this point.
Wow, that summarizes it really well.
Absolutely. I was just about to say that. It's like, it only gets worse for, like, Egypt.
And it just gets more pathetic with their desperate, like, basically pleas for help for Rome. All the time. And Rome does acquiesce and they will do things. And it's just like, it's almost as if, like, your annoying little brother is just, like, constantly just nagging you. And you're like, fine, okay, here. Here's a little bit just, like, of my attention or whatever.
The first one was named Ptolemy I. And that's why there are the Ptolemies. Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
You're ours now.
Egypt is ours. And Rome would hold on to Egypt for... Over 600 years.
Like 650 years, roughly.
Yeah.
Wow. That was absolutely incredible.
You... Talk about convoluted, right?
Oh, my God. I... You did that in such a beautiful way, though, and keeping it straight. I was actually I was following along like the pretty much the entire time.
So I think you did an amazing job.
Thank you for that episode.
I think you did a fantastic job. So I mean, I couldn't have done a better job myself.
I love it.
But that was also just an incredible story.
Yeah.
Clearly.
His own. I mean, I. A 12 year old. i mean just absolute level of despicability i don't think it cannot be measured that's why he's so infamous yeah infamous so infamous he might be one of the worst like like most one of the worst rulers who was actually competent yeah yeah not a bad ruler because he's dumb or naive or yeah or even lazy necessarily um
I'm going to guess Ptolemy.
Oh, my God. Don't get us started on that rabbit hole. Well, anyways, incredible episode. And again, I think you handled that beautifully. And it was an ancient episode.
a long time ago who knows how many episodes ago i don't know it's like probably either 140s maybe 150 something like that wow we've been doing this already a long time yeah i remember doing our 50th and like 50th episode right before we traveled to rome like years ago oh wow yeah it was like the last episode we did uh and it was that special like q a episode
I loved being in story time mode and listening to an ancient episode.
You're like, I'm going to take a pause on ancient for a while.
Well, Weirdos, I hope you guys enjoyed it. You know the drill by now, right? Follow us on Instagram if you haven't.
At History for Weirdos, yes. You can also, if you have a story that you'd like to propose, you can email us as well. Historyforweirdos at gmail.com.
That too.
Yes.
Yeah, please let us know. Exactly. Well, and that wraps up this week, guys.
Until next time. Adios.
I love that. His homies.
Oh, my God.
I know. It's like there's zero inventiveness at this point in time. It's funny because the Romans used to make fun of Carthage because everyone was named Hanno, Hannibal, like Hamilcar. It was all like the same dozen names, right? With this period, it's Ptolemy for men and Cleopatra for women. And that's like almost it.
Oh, yeah. There we go.
There we go.
It's so absurd. It sounds like we're just making this up.
That's very young.
So are you. I see you casting stones over here.
They're keeping it in the family.
No.
That's terrible.
We're your hosts, Andrew and Stephanie. And we're going to take you on a journey into the strange, obscure, and relentlessly entertaining corners of human history.
Got it.
Got it.
I remember you talking about that and how important it was and how she had a very clear plan and was very intelligent.
Okay.
So much different.
We were literally in bed recording that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Which did do that.
Oh, yeah. Again.
They're always at war.
Exactly. And because of them fighting against each other, they literally just... None of them make any massive, long-standing territorial gains.
And they just weaken each other, and they're both eventually taken over by other foreign powers.
Classic.
It's just short-sighted.
Yeah, they're the big boys on the block right now.
Interesting. I didn't know that.
Yeah, I know.
Always. Always so nice. And you might be noticing my sweatshirt here.
It's a good backstory.
He's a doctor.
Andrew is rocking the Kuriyun Wrestling Club merch.
Mm-hmm. But what's he doing in Arizona?
That's pretty much the only, one of the only interventions they had. We have a whole episode on tuberculosis.
If you're interested, also known as consumption, which I died of in a past life, which I think we get into in that episode a little bit.
Maybe that's why I'm so keen towards Doc. But yeah, he's there. Like he was an upstanding gentleman. Like he's well-educated. He comes from a wealthy background and he's just like a scoundrel now.
Yeah. Isn't that crazy?
exactly no he gambled like his whole thing is like gambling drinking partying and he's an amazing shot for some reason yeah he's an incredible shot i don't know why that would like you know a lot about doc holiday i'm actually really surprised yeah i told you i i feel keen towards him maybe because you know same illness same illness baby
I love that one. Yes. We have various designs.
Where tensions are really high on, like, multiple levels.
That's the Phineas Gage sticker on my water. So we have various designs inspired by podcast episodes and our logo, of course, and pretty much like every design you could get on anything imaginable.
That's so cool.
That's so interesting because for some reason it's really rare for movies to actually go with like the historical account.
But the historical account's always so cool.
He said he didn't mind, though, because you get paid anyway.
I got paid.
But why pay someone if you're going to disregard them? That's also true. That's so weird.
Yeah.
OK, so you can see the sign of the OK Corral in the background.
If you want it on a sweatshirt, on a mug, on a tote bag, on a notebook, on a sticker, you can get it.
Wow.
Ooh, interesting.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
And what a weenie.
Yeah.
Like, I don't know what you're doing, dude, but stop hugging me.
Get to fighting or go away.
Yeah. They don't want to mess with these guys.
That's me in a fight.
Mm hmm.
No.
That's why I like him.
Okay.
Oh my gosh.
Okay, so a set of brothers and then one of the Billys.
Wow. This all must have felt like it happened at the same time to them.
Everything that you just described must have felt like 30 seconds isn't a long time.
And this is the weenie.
Yeah, sounds like a weenie.
Oh my gosh.
That's so interesting. I guess it shows how much power the Cowboys have.
Because you would think under normal circumstances that in this lawless town, the law enforcement sort of reacting would be praised.
I think your face is beautiful.
I married you.
Wow.
That's probably true.
Now listen up, friends, because it's about to get weird. Welcome back, weirdos.
So I'm biased, but I think your face is beautiful too.
This may be too niche of a question.
Good choice of words.
Do we know why the Earps plus Doc were confronting the Cowboys to begin with? Was it to make sure they were unarmed?
As a means to try to curb the crime.
Okay. Yeah, I bet people drinking and gambling probably shoot each other all the time.
I just wanted to see what their perspective was. Like, no, we were going to do our job.
Okay, enough sappy stuff, babe.
I think complainant.
We just wanted to sell our stolen shit.
What's wrong with that? We wanted our guns. We want to sell our stolen stuff.
What are you regaling the weirdos and myself with today?
Wow. They're the victims.
Oh, that makes sense.
Oh.
Yeah, like you weren't supposed to be armed, and you were.
Wow.
Whoa, from this little town called Tombstone.
Typical United States.
Very polarized. You're either on that side or you're on this side.
Yeah, that's definitely the energy here.
Oh, yeah. Thank you, babe.
There's a very iconic name associated with this fight.
Okay, nice.
Yeah, I'm sure.
Oh, who side was he on?
Which is?
I hate that I'm on the same side. I don't want to be an industrialist.
No, but I'm not. I'm not for the industrial revolution.
Yeah, they were just like doing their job. Okay, why was Doc with them? Doc's not law enforcement.
No, the name of a person.
Because he's Wyatt's best friend.
That's so cute. That's like you and Perry. Oh my God, that's my dog.
Yeah, that's our dog. That's my son, your dog.
So they permanently injured one brother and killed the other.
Wyatt Earp is the one.
Ooh. Wyatt Earp's going to be mad.
Yeah.
It says hero's journey has begun.
Yeah.
His villain era.
Cool.
When I had heard about this before, it had always been associated with Wyatt Earp.
Whoa.
Oh, my gosh.
That's so many brothers.
Okay.
Wow. Yeah, unplanned, but they took the opportunity.
Yeah.
Is that like a little threat?
Wow.
The Earp posse?
Because they're scared.
Right.
Oh, that's right. That's right.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, of course.
Wow, that's a big posse.
Yeah.
But I, you know, I wasn't ready to hear that yet.
Oh, so this is all happening quick.
Whose side was Florentino on?
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Oh my gosh, they're picking them off.
Well, tell us about Wyatt Earp and the OK Corral.
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
What?
I wonder what they thought about.
Oh.
Are you going to tell me later?
Oh.
Yeah, tell me later.
They have a big fight. It split up.
Good, good.
It's so true.
It's like they're untouchable while Behan's here because he's their buddy.
Why is it called Tombstone?
Yeah, that's so cool.
Yeah, that's a bummer.
Wow.
Whoa.
Oh my gosh.
General Sherman?
There's a tree named after him.
In the Sequoia National Forest.
Yeah, it's about time.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
Wow. That's wild. It had such ripple effects.
It's just like their family story, but also like the nation story.
Wow.
We were thinking kind of the same thing.
Yeah, no wonder people were so captivated.
Reverberations?
That's very recent.
Oh, that kind of makes sense. Yeah.
Right. It depended kind of on your political views.
It's crazy to think that 30 seconds could go on in history for so long.
Yeah.
That is crazy.
Wow.
Which is wild because his story would be portrayed in a very famous movie.
So interesting.
Really?
I love how you said finally died.
Couldn't wait to get rid of him.
My abuela was alive.
Yeah. That's insane. Yeah.
But I feel like that's exactly how I would figure it out.
Oh, that's sad. Those people died of that all the time though.
I mean, you couldn't live with it long.
You're right.
oh wow yeah i mean doc had nothing to lose he was a dying man yeah exactly so can you okay i know you're gonna tell me later but did doc say something kind of racist yeah it was doc oh how dare he do that to me it's pretty bad we are no longer friends we are no longer buddies well maybe you could just tell him like hey that's not cool yeah i'm sure that'll work did he and wyatt ever make up
Wow.
Right.
It would have been really hard to keep in touch back then.
No. So they probably didn't.
And he died in his 30s.
Okay.
I guess that honestly, this sounds so silly, but that is what happens when you make violence, regardless of the reason, such a big part of your life.
You're probably not going to have the happiest life.
it's a tough time it is yeah it is a really really tough time and there is that very real tension that you mentioned of like people could sense the world was changing yeah and it we're kind of in a similar state and it's very unsteady ground exactly like oh things are gonna be really different yeah i i don't want to get into it too much but i feel like that's what's happening right now yeah it's it's interesting
And exploitation.
Yeah.
Wow.
A very tumultuous time.
I would say so.
There's a lot of collateral issues.
Whoa. You gave us such an in-depth view of that story that I think gets really this time period and these characters get really heavily romanticized.
You gave us like a real look at what was going on.
They're people.
And people are messy.
That's why I have a job because people are messy.
Well, thank you so much. I loved hearing that from you. It's a time period that I usually love.
So I liked hearing it from you, which I'm sure you feel the same. I think you've said when I do more ancient stuff, it's like interesting.
Oh, I'm so glad. Well, I loved this one. Thank you so much, babe. And thank you, Weirdos, for listening to this episode. If you liked this episode, please share it with a friend who you think will like it as well. That really helps the podcast grow. And I guess until next time, Weirdos.
Adios.
As in crack crack?
Oh.
I was like, did they have crack?
Hello and welcome to History for Weirdos.
We are here with another episode of History for Weirdos. We are coming to you from the very sophisticated and refined studios of our living room.
I could see why the accounts differ so much then.
Hence Tombstone. Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
Yeah. So he wanted it to be safer for him, for his benefit.
Shangri-La, our living room. Yeah. So we cannot guarantee that you will not hear Pericles puppy sounds in the background.
I don't even know what that means.
Even better.
Yeah, that's not good for investments.
Wells Fargo.
Yeah, I mean, that makes sense that the stagecoach is their little logo, right?
That's crazy, but that's because that's how far they go back.
Also, Virgil. I love the name Virgil.
That's a great name. If my family could say it, we would name a future child Virgil. Oh, my God.
Virgil? Virgil?
I think it would be Virgil in Spanish. Oh, boy.
Yeah. So that's going to be a no, but maybe a future cat or something.
Can we name him Virgil Earp?
Oh my God. What if we get three cats?
So Virgil or water Morgan, or you're literally allergic to cats. That's true. I am allergic to cats.
Even though the bird is at the literal opposite end of the apartment, folks have been funny in messages before. Like, I can hear her go like... Just faintly. In the background. Yeah. Well, I'm really excited to hear the tale that you're going to tell this week. I know a little bit of insight into it because I participated in some of the research.
Behan.
I could see that. And all of these names are like wonderful 19th century Western names. I love it.
I can't wait.
I'm not surprised.
Not if the Earp brothers are law enforcement, basically.
He's a crooked cop.
So that stinks because he's supposed to be on the Earps side as they take on this huge criminal organization, but it doesn't sound like he's going to be.
Of course it is.
But before we jump in, we want to remind you all that since we've been back from our hiatus, we also have merch.
Not chill.
Okay.
Damn.
We are millennials without a child. So he is our baby. You know, we're those millennial dog parents.
Me neither.
He slept in our bed last night. Like there there are no rules when it comes to Perry.
Pericles is running the show.
Yeah, we're just his servants and his fans.
And if you ever want to see pictures of Perry, videos of Perry, again, follow us on Instagram. We have added a Perry highlight to the page. So you can go through and you can get all the Perry, Pericles content you want.
You announce it because you really worked on this.
The subject of the... I was still cheering for the merch. The merch is huge.
We have a new website.
It'll be easier to kind of like navigate and find our content. We'd love to at some point... you know make kind of like a little blog post almost for each episode so we can link like resources there we'd love to you know share the books and the movies and the stuff that we love on there so keep an eye out on the website and that is where they can find the merch right
And we want to like acknowledge that a lot of people shared or at least I want to acknowledge as a therapist and me. A lot of people shared that they have also experienced burnout. And or are experiencing burnout. And that's just really nice when you share something kind of vulnerable like that, like, hey, we're not doing great. Crashing out for other people to say, I've felt the same.
Well, can I share what the merch is?
Oh, because I kind of spearheaded the designs. Yeah, that was you. Well, actually, some of our designs come from a listener.
You all will see that and we'll credit them in the store as well. So a series of designs are created by a weirdo, a listener, and those are more like History for Weirdos logo type products, which are really fun and cool. I think kind of subtle and quirky, like if you know, you know type of thing. We have merch for Kudiyun. We have merch for Phineas Gage.
He's the guy who got the iron rod in his head and his personality changed.
We have merch for Yasuke. He was the samurai from Africa, right? And you can find all of these designs, which I can't wait to see what you all think of them, in, like, such a myriad of products.
Sweatshirts, shirts, stickers.
Yes. The emu war. people are such fans of the emu war i know i think that's such quintessential like history for weirdos i mean kudiyun and emus the emu war you know they're the ogs like adhd like history personified right there 100 100 so not only are we back with new episodes we're back with merch and a new website and we hope you enjoy those things exactly all right love
You want to get started on this episode, the first episode back?
Hi, Pat.
Okay.
You know, that's OK. You can't be everything.
Yes, we shall.
I love it, especially the bananas part.
It's bananas.
You know I love bananas.
Yeah.
Andrew's not as big of a fan of bananas.
I've been waiting for you to bring up the United Fruit Company.
That's a lot of control.
I've been there, too. Always feels so good. And I think a lot of us are experiencing burnout because. That's just the world we live in. It's designed to burn us out. So it's not us. It's the system.
Monopolies aren't good, though.
They're not chill.
Okay. I really want to go.
Yeah. I really want to go to Antigua.
Guatemala.
Yeah, it is.
Oh, that's where he comes into play.
Yeah.
Why?
Why would it make the U.S. look bad?
Because?
Because they're both U.S. companies, I see.
I didn't realize that.
All the time.
But back then we were still pretending.
Okay.
Maybe.
And this was all over bananas.
So this was a banana turf war.
I really want some cornflakes with little banana slices in them now. Oh, my God. I think other Latinos know. That's how you do it.
You got to love it. But we were able to take some rest and we do have a new schedule coming back. Actually, speaking of burnout.
That's a lot of money.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, no.
That's so dangerous.
Oh, my gosh. The government does not have nearly as much power as the fruit company.
OK.
Okay.
We want to be really intentional coming back. We want to avoid burnout again, if possible, because as you all know, Andrew and I, this is a passion project we do on the side. We have other jobs that we have to do full time. And so to help us hopefully not burn out, instead of a new episode every single week, we're going to start with an every other week schedule.
Oh my God.
That's insane. So they're exploiting the people of Guatemala, the workers, and they're exploiting the land and hoarding the land.
Okay.
I had my eyes closed almost the whole time you were talking because I was so embarrassed for the CIA. I was like, why do you always do this?
Why are you always getting involved?
It's not chill to overthrow democratically elected leaders.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now listen up, friends, because it's about to get weird. Welcome back, weirdos!
Oh my gosh.
Kicking indigenous people off their own land.
For profit.
For the sake of profit.
Okay.
Oh, my gosh.
Wow.
And now they make cool, like, safari-chic clothes.
I can see why. And, you know, we've talked about this. I don't think we've talked about it on the podcast, but we can see very easily when you look at U.S. history why there is so much resentment, so much anti-American sentiment.
Because how... exploitive, inappropriate, disgusting for just an American corporation to have more focus, attention and resources than indigenous people.
Yes. Not not even a person, but like a corporate entity.
To take precedence over people and their lives.
Yeah.
Yeah. We see that a lot to Reagan, right?
Mm-hmm.
10 years of spring.
Sounds like it ends.
So.
I actually don't know.
Someone listening is screaming.
Yeah.
44.
44. Oh, my gosh. The people that have been waiting for this, for their voices to be heard.
Oh, boy.
OK.
Yeah. So they're covering health care, education, employment, the things that you need and should want for your country to thrive.
Right. A functioning society.
Oh, this is too triggering.
It's like, oh, I just feel like it's like been happening for so long and continues to happen. And it just keeps happening more and more and more. Like the monster of corporatism is just like never satisfied.
Oh.
You should link it in the show notes too.
Jacobo.
That's Jacob.
Yeah, we want to focus on quality with this new schedule so that we can bring you the very best Weird History possible.
That was a land back move.
Oh, my God. That's incredible.
So on brand.
Yeah, but I can't put my finger on it.
Oh, tell me.
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Where you're like trying to do something for the people.
And the wealthy or powerful parties that would not benefit from this are like, actually, I'm going to take you out.
That's the goal here. So we wanted to share that new schedule, and we want to share some updates with you all before we jump into the episode of Since We Last Spoke. What have we been up to?
That's so interesting. History repeats itself.
I mean, it's very reasonable land reform. This is unused land.
Yeah, like, you might as well... It'll help the country to give it to the people.
But the CIA is like, but that doesn't help the CIA.
Whatever those are.
Which is insane. That's a mass amount of land.
Right. No one's stealing anything, technically.
It's like giving it back.
To the people, because you're not using it.
And the U.S. government's opinion should not matter in this situation at all. The corporation's benefit should not matter at all. And the elite, that's going to be quite a minority of the people.
What about their interests?
Oh, my.
We can't profit off this. It's communist.
Okay.
Yeah. You're allowed to have whatever party.
You want.
You should be.
Yeah. Yeah.
No.
I have nothing nice to say.
God forbid.
Oh, my.
Imagine... Guatemalan people having access to land in their country. That's radical.
That's communist. That's dangerous.
Get out of here. People having their own land. My gosh.
Hemispheric solidarity is quite an interesting way of putting it.
We want everyone to fall in line with us and our best interest.
And even if it was, that's none of your business.
Mm-hmm. And for a long time.
Okay.
Oh, my God.
Where's the Murray from?
Wow.
That's crazy.
That's so sad.
This is not okay.
Corruption, corruption, corruption.
So this is like if you and all of your coworkers had a side hustle. I don't even know where I'm going with this, actually.
If you want to see Andrew's weird scalp, follow us on Instagram at History for Weirdos. I'm sure a lot of people listening have been at least somewhat interested in hair transplants. Do you want to share what the experience was like?
And then in a neighborhood, and the neighborhood was like, we don't want this side hustle. We want our own businesses. And you all banded together, used your power from your main job to destroy that neighborhood.
Oh, my God.
I'm not I'm shaking my head. No, no, no, no.
Yeah.
Absolutely. Because you're putting your own profit interests above the nation that you've sworn yourself to.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, and that basically summarizes everything.
You know what's so sad is... In... This like idea of like in our childhoods that they gave us that we, our government, the United States government was free of corruption.
That other countries had corruption. Corruption is a bad thing. We've been taught it's very, very bad to do things just like this. But the United States doesn't do those things. The United States isn't corrupt.
We bring justice where there is corruption.
Yeah. We bring freedom and democracy.
It's so heartbreaking.
Peanut butter success. Peanut butter success. Because you know what tastes really good? Is a banana with peanut butter.
And this is not sponsored.
We had half of our lunch. We didn't have our full lunch.
We had half of our lunch. That's true. Okay. I'm not a hobbit. I don't need breakfast and second breakfast and elevensies.
Because I'm hungry.
I knew this would happen if we talked about food on the podcast ever.
I mean, bananas are so yummy. Yeah.
Okay. You know what's weird?
I like bananas that are really like bruised.
Just to be clear.
I did. Oh, my gosh. I did. I did, actually. That's crazy.
Oh, PB Success.
How do you think you're the good guy?
Yeah.
I mean, General Eisenhower would know.
Well.
Exactly.
Wow. This is so, so important to remember and acknowledge that governments... will lie to you to make it look like someone's the bad guy.
When they're not really the bad guy, they're just in the way, right?
In your today you can look at what's happening and think.
Oh this they're telling me this is the truth but this may not be the truth.
Faire accompli. Yeah. Like it's a done deal.
No, that was good.
Oh, my God.
Ground up.
Oh, my God.
Terrorizing them.
Yeah.
You're always the good guy when you're learning from the Nazis.
They're like, I'm speechless.
This is...
Shut the front door, dude.
What the...
Yeah. Makes sense. To gaslight them, to convince them what you wanted isn't actually what you wanted. This is what you want instead.
Oh, my God.
This is so scary.
Well, and we're constantly hooked up to ways to get us information, right?
All the time.
Oh, my God. Yeah.
This is so wild.
I mean, this could create mass hysteria.
Mm-hmm.
I'm so sad. I'm sorry. I'm quiet. I'm so sad. Yeah.
Of course, yeah. Like a single thing wouldn't have done much, but all of them together and probably in this specific sequence.
All for profit.
You're just laying there.
Mm-hmm.
Wow. Actual bombings.
Mm-hmm.
I have no idea.
Okay.
You looked at me like, I didn't bring it up.
How long did it take?
Oh, wow.
Wow.
And how did you feel right after?
And dock workers.
Yeah, that's what matters the most. You don't need to be powerful. You need the mob to think you're powerful.
Oh, my God.
They're just burning through money.
To get this terrible, terrible thing done.
Yeah, in their relationship thus far.
I'm sure. Yeah.
It would be wild to get your hands on one of those.
Yeah.
Long time coming. Yeah.
Like a hierarchy of like who needs to be taken out, who needs to just be pushed to the side.
Okay.
doing my business yeah i waited in our hotel for the day because yeah it was like a four-hour procedure um came back and was really excited to see how it went and andrew was too sick and then the first night is difficult in terms of pain oh my god it felt like someone was jack hammering into my skull it was awful and i think um
Oh, my gosh. The terror that must have been spread.
So he really is like taking one for the team.
Mm hmm. So it's a good leader.
Hello and welcome to History for Weirdos.
Oh, my gosh.
Can't even say anything bad about the people that have been terrorizing your country.
Okay.
Yeah, which is who the U.S. had picked all along.
They're like, you guys could keep putting people here. We're going to get our puppet in there one way or another.
Mm-hmm.
It didn't matter because... Because it wasn't about communism.
Mm-hmm.
For his own country.
Oh, no, that's not what we want.
We need the fruit company to be making money.
Yeah. At the expense of your country.
I'm shocked.
Wow.
I think we didn't really ask, but I got sick while we were there, too. So we interacted with like the medical side of Turkey quite a few times. It seems as though they are much more conservative when it comes to pain medication.
So a fake election.
Crazy when that happens.
Oh my God.
So I'm just thinking, you know, what makes me sad is I'm thinking of the, how this situation that you're describing is Is going to affect generations of Guatemalans, right? This is... Oh, yeah. The long-term effects of this.
This is our first episode back. This is our first episode back after our hiatus.
Just to further the witch hunt.
Wow. Whose fault could that be?
So many steps backwards.
So much oppression.
Yes. Oh, wow. I'm surprised people were saying it at the time.
Wow.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
They didn't really provide much pain medication. So that's something to keep in mind. I don't know if we had advocated more for it, maybe. But the first night is painful.
You're just a big bully.
That's not democracy. No one can pretend that's democracy.
Yeah, the manipulation, the gaslighting.
It's horrific. In this story, at least, I'll taper it, I guess, or I'll contain it. That's the word to this story. The U.S. sounds so much like a narcissistic parent.
It's just so awful.
It's so, so awful. And then that's going to, like I said, impact generations. And people are going to flee a country where their voices aren't heard and where they're being oppressed and executed. And they're going to want to immigrate here. And then they get demonized for wanting to do that. Yeah.
It's just, it's such an awful cycle.
And then after that, it requires you to kind of sleep funny for a couple weeks.
36 years.
The most disgusting things you could possibly do all happening in this one country.
We were four.
So many lives, generations ruined.
Because of corporate greed.
Mm-hmm.
I think so.
We're just, we got to deal with it.
We're going to give land to some people that isn't being used and you're going to pay for the land and we'll just move on.
Guatemala's history would have been so, so different.
But you can't scratch it.
Yeah, because it was all coming from the U.S.,
Because it's the truth.
They're like, oh, no, this is what happened. And everyone's like, yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Two weeks. Yeah.
Right, they're like, we could do this again.
Yes, and understandably so.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what's going to happen.
Yeah, it's 2011.
Yeah, that's so heartbreaking.
Wow.
Which didn't even work.
No. What is it?
No!
This is so horrible. This is horrifying. You did such a great job of telling this story, a story that I had no idea. All I knew was really that the U.S. had overthrown a democratically elected leader at some point. I had no idea about the psychological terror and everything, everything that came with it. And I hadn't understood the scope of the ramifications of that.
An impact that's being felt today.
awful it's atrocious yeah i could see why so many people are resentful of the u.s i get it like even as an american i totally get it yeah like why are we why are we doing this are you meddling causing chaos destroying lives and then being upset with people for not being happy about it
Like, what are you doing? Yeah. What are you fighting for?
This is so, so sad. But you did such a great job of telling such a sad, awful story.
We know about these things.
Yeah. I will say.
I will say I know that in Guatemala, I mean, the Mayan community is still really strong.
A lot of people still speak Maya. A lot of the Mayan traditions are still being held there. A lot of Mayan textiles can be purchased there, art. Mayan people exist and are still very strong and resilient people in Guatemala and in Mexico.
In the meantime?
That's what I said at the beginning. I really want to go.
I really want to go to Antigua. Guatemala in general looks beautiful. I want to see the volcanoes. I want to eat the food, talk to the people. We should go.
So that's the little almost like side quest that we went on while we were in Istanbul.
Okay, we're going.
They're all like, with what money?
I love that. Yeah, that's what we want to bring to you all, weirdos. Yeah. Anything to wrap up our first episode back.
Yeah, buy our merch. It'll be cute. We'll all match.
Find that link in the show notes. Exactly. Oh, and send us pictures of you wearing our merch. That'll be so fun.
I don't understand time. So I have no idea.
Yeah. Thank you, weirdos.
Adios.
What was your favorite thing that you saw?
Oh, it was really beautiful.
That was my favorite.
The Basilica Cistern is really, really beautiful. So is the Hagia Sophia. I really was surprised by how much I just loved the city immediately.
Felt super comfortable. I was like, oh, this feels like me.
Food was amazing.
For a Michelin star restaurant?
And it was so good.
But it was red and swollen instead of blue.
Oh, wait. You know what I loved about the city?
Yeah.
Oh, our little preview, yes.
Because I was thinking about the cats we met at that restaurant. There are cats everywhere in Istanbul.
There's no rats in a huge, huge city.
But it has been several months. We are so happy to be back. Oh, my God, yeah. And we are very grateful to the weirdos who have been so encouraging and patient and so nice. When we announced the hiatus, everyone was so, so nice.
Yes. And it like you won't see a rat in sight and you'll see so many cats and the cats are friendly. And yeah, like Andrew said, like you find them if you go to a bookshop, they're going to be like in the bookshelves. If you go to a restaurant, they sit like at their own table. Like the cats are just there. They're everywhere. The cats are awesome. The city is beautiful.
Everyone was really, really nice and welcoming. Everyone. We met a lot of people from different parts of the world, actually, as a big immigrant community.
Very cosmopolitan. So it was cool. We met people from, gosh, where was everyone from? Where was Naz from? Iran. Iran. Yeah. We met just people from, oh, my gosh, that one Uber driver. He was so cool. He was telling us about the museum.
yes yeah that was cool he was really cool and he told us about this museum in istanbul that a guy made oh my god yes for his ex like it's a museum of their relationship i think maybe not ex maybe she died i can't remember it might have she it might have been late wife or something something like that but it's like their house and he turned it into a museum and it's like
everything she ever owned everything she ever touched it's like bits of her trash it's a shrine to this woman and it's very popular to go visit it we didn't have a chance it was closed when we were near it um and i told andrew i was like that better be you okay can you believe this guys i want nothing less this if i'm gone first you better make a shrine to our love into my existence what do you think weirdos should i
Let's do it.
Yeah. So that was Istanbul. We highly recommend. If you haven't been, it's definitely worth a visit. We would love to see more of Turkey in the future as well.
And what else has happened?
It's been tough.
You know where to reach us.
Or should they email you directly?
Oh, great. That's the perfect place. So, yeah, it's been a tough time. This was recent. We weren't expecting this. But I really think you're handling it beautifully. There's no easy way to go through losing your employment unexpectedly.
To put it in professional terms.
But we're pushing through and I think having – coming back to the podcast feels nice because it's like something good to focus on, something positive.
In our lives.
I'm grateful for you too. And we're grateful for you all. And while Andrew is down a job, I have too many jobs.
It's a lot.
I will. I am teaching. I think I mentioned this before we left, right? Yeah. I started teaching at Cal State LA graduate class. Shout out to my students if they're listening because I know that they found the podcast and they were excited and I told them we were on a hiatus and the class was like, eh. So if any of my students are listening, hi. Please disregard what I'm about to say. Fast forward.
I think they know because I've talked to them about it. It's not the actual teaching. It's the logistics and administrative stuff that comes with working in academia that is draining. But being with my class is probably the fun part. I don't like grading. I'm like, everyone gets 100. Oh, my God.
We're all doing our best, okay? So I'm not a big fan of grading. Not a big fan of being the enforcer of rules.
I hate it. I hate when I have to be like, hey, you're not doing this thing and you need to do this thing.
You know, just do the thing.
Come on. I've learned a lot from my students. My students are great. They're really cool. I speak of them and think of them fondly. But I think I've realized that with all the things on my plate, I won't be teaching next semester. So that'll be nice. Again, that'll be done in May. So again, I'll have more time for the podcast, which is great.
Yeah.
Yeah, Perry is our penultimate update for you guys. This is Perry. He's a big boy.
He's not a good boy.
Probably because of what I just said. I hate being the enforcer. I hate saying no.
Puede practicar conmigo.
Yes, and they're similar. When we go to Italy, I default on Spanish a lot.
I get nervous. And then I'm like, I'd lie. And I'm like, I'm not American.
Plus, he was such a weirdo.
Yeah.
I would love to steal that tradition.
Oh, my gosh.
Okay.
What you're looking at.
Now listen up, friends, because it's about to get weird.
Yeah.
We need to go next year.
Yeah.
You got to know what you're looking at. You need context.
Is Giotto then what brought you into Renaissance art specifically?
Okay.
Yes.
Well, how did you find Leon Batista Alberti? Yeah.
You have to catch up.
She kept you grounded, though.
Yeah.
Animals.
Wow. I didn't realize that.
You brought it back to our anniversary.
Well, first thing that comes to mind, speaking of the Renaissance, you're very much so a Renaissance man.
We think. We hope so.
You think. You think.
We have a lot of listeners that I think they love hearing about people who were multi-passionate.
And a lot of them are multi-passionate. Do you have advice for anyone who loves many things but maybe feels like, oh, I need to choose one?
What a pleasant surprise.
They want to protect you.
Yeah. Forget it. Oh, yeah.
But you took the risk.
Yeah. Yeah.
But he was willing to talk to you about it?
Wow.
Yeah.
Forgiveness isn't easy.
It's so funny that we ended up here because I don't know if you know this, but my actual day job is a therapist. What? Yeah.
So that we, of course, we ended up talking about parents.
My background is licensed clinical social worker. I'm a psychotherapist. I do a lot of trauma therapy when we're not recording the history podcast.
Yeah. It's a lot of mom and dad stuff.
No emotional trauma. I work with a lot of women with childhood trauma, actually.
The VA here in Brentwood.
Oh, yeah. The Vietnam veterans had it really rough.
Intellectualizing things?
Oh, my God.
Wow.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Yeah, because that makes so much sense, I wonder.
Hello and welcome to History for Weirdos.
Ugh.
Yeah.
Oh, wow.
I think Maya Angelou did the same.
Okay. Chunk it down.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm sure.
Which is probably why waking up and writing is smart because your inner critic isn't as loud.
Oh, my gosh.
Uh-huh.
The brainwaves, yeah.
That's so interesting.
I love that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not in history.
That's what I tell him.
You did say you need to learn Greek and Latin, right?
I didn't know that.
For the people.
Yeah.
He spent time at the bar.
And intermingle and marry.
Yeah. Oh, my gosh.
Cicero.
That's a great lesson to learn. That's why you study your history.
Well, you also seem to love... And you know what the name of it is? What?
That's perfect.
This is really going to resonate with American audiences.
Mm-hmm.
Same thing.
That's a big passion of yours.
It was a little ahead of its time.
No?
It's the Ptolemies.
Even when it's right in front of your face?
Yeah.
That's like the soul of the movie.
Yeah, it's the theme.
I know. I love that. That's the theme of most episodes.
How long have you two been married?
And then you see everything.
Yeah. Yeah.
I didn't want to talk about it.
You could rationalize it away.
Yeah.
Very magnetic.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Very dangerous to come out.
Yeah.
Of all the things.
When is your birthday?
Okay.
Yeah. It doesn't hold power over a woman.
That's true, yeah. So, so true.
They have no... Like what else?
Oh, good.
That sounds very wise.
Yeah. SÃ, mi amor.
Oh, the brainwashing.
Patriarchal brainwashing.
I haven't seen it.
Everybody's got to watch it.
I want to.
Yeah.
Oh, my God.
It could be interesting to watch with your son.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, we can imagine.
She... Oh, my gosh. Thankfully, she doesn't listen.
No, my dad does, though. He'll tell her. Yeah. My mom is from Mexico. She got pregnant with me at 21. I'm 32. Yeah. She has, she's so flabbergasted that we don't have a slew of kids already. She's like, why? Do you have brothers and sisters?
I do. My brother, I have two siblings. My brother is 20. He's a film student right now.
Emerson.
Yeah.
Yeah. And he.
No, no. Boston.
And then my sister wants to be an actor and she's 16. 16.
They're much younger, yes. So I felt like I had kids a little bit already. I helped raise them. How old is your mom? I don't know. I'm 32. How old is she?
She was young when she had me, and so she really thinks we should have a ton of kids already.
Kids are expensive.
The Latina, for sure. That's the best thing you could do is have a bunch of kids. And I'm like, but you've got the one kid who wants to be a director and the other kid that wants to be an actor. That means I'm going to end up taking care of you one day. So I got to financially plan for that.
They live in Santa Monica. I grew up here.
Yeah.
My dad is a manager of a bar called Big Dean's.
He listens. And my parents started going to Big Dean's when my mom was pregnant with me.
And then my dad became the manager.
Big Dean's is really famous because it's been in Santa Monica since like the late 80s.
The early 1900s, I think. Yeah.
Forever.
So I'm local. I grew up here. And I love it. I'm really grateful.
Really? Yeah.
Big Deans. And then another one that's close by that I know a lot of folks, it's like classic too, is Shay J's.
Yeah. They have like the peanut stuff on the floor. Yeah.
I don't know.
That sounds right. Yeah.
Oh, wow.
Garden Grove.
Rancho Alamitos. Oh, wow.
A little different than Newport. Most people think I'm from Okay.
Like near Disneyland.
How many languages do you speak then?
The poor bull.
Yeah.
My mom went to one when she was a teenager, and my mom doesn't even like animals.
And she was like, I can't ever see that again.
That must be so beautiful.
Oh, my God.
Okay.
Yes, please.
Yeah.
That's what you want to be when you grow up?
Wow.
Yeah.
You've given us a lot of things to add to our travel list.
Next year, our anniversary in Padua.
Yeah. That's going on the list. Absolutely.
Okay.
Thank you so much.
That's how kids learn.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're encouraging you. But they're encouraging you.
Yesterday was our eight-year wedding anniversary.
The single dummy.
This is good for Andrew to hear, by the way, because I speak fluent Spanish. That was my first language.
We do have merch. It will be in our show notes.
I'm glad.
Yes. And we now know what normal school is based off of like weirdo testimony, not testimony, but comments.
And my grandma.
So cool.
Good. I'm glad.
Oh, lovely.
I think it would be very popular amongst the red pill community.
Bro, like, there's so many bigger issues.
Like, that's really where you want to make your stand? Yeah.
Yes. So the link that I'll give you, it goes, it will show you all the designs. And so based off the designs you like, you can click that and then it'll show you like bucket hats, sweatshirts, just like normal hats, coffee mugs even.
I feel like she's you. Yeah.
Wow. So that's also very like forward thinking of this guy.
He's a true like capitalist and that like, oh, she can make us money. I don't care.
Yeah, you never know.
Oh, so that's where she gets it.
I mean, I'm not too familiar with 19th century music.
I mean, I'm just kind of like dumbfounded. Like, how do you have this much time? Like, there was so much poverty back then. Like, really?
Yeah, she's like a true weirdo in the best sense.
Notebooks.
Not very class-conscious of them.
All of the above.
and you can go ahead and uh you know just buy like whatever strikes your fancy yeah but when you first go in it just looks like there's no merch right it's really just have to click by design yes which is what we wanted to clarify yes thank you thank you yeah and that'll be in the show notes that'll be in the show notes and also recommendations so i'm reading a book for the second time which rarely happens usually you
Oh, my God. Some things never change. Some things never change.
I mean, I don't, yeah, I have nothing to add on that. That's just okay.
Oh, that's pretty cool.
Yeah, I'm really surprised they said yes, to be honest.
And she's not Hispanic either, so.
I mean, honestly, like, I respect the hustle. Like, I would want to also go to Mexico. Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah, the Adelitas, they rebel against his government. Maybe not him specifically, but that government.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
That's right. She's a weirdo.
Moving to the big city, you see.
And OK, her resume already is pretty impressive. Like being a foreign correspondent, like in your early 20s. That's kind of wild.
Oh, wow. Talk about like a stroke of luck there.
never reread that's right yeah i usually don't but this one is so good i had to and you know me i'm a roman history nerd that's my thing and so i'm actually rereading a book on the early portion of the late roman republic so you're talking about or i'm talking about like 146 bc to around like 70 bc roughly So this is before the rise of Caesar before.
Yeah, the Pulitzer Prize.
Ugh.
I know. Whenever we cover insane asylums on this show, it's never a good thing. It's always so bad. It's always atrocious.
Right, but it's like if anything, they're more worthy.
Not more worthy, but they need more.
That's the point. It's like if you have cancer, you need cancer treatment. If you're sick in the head, you need that type of treatment.
Yeah. It's like, why don't we just treat them with like some semblance of dignity and respect?
And like at the very end, you have like the rise of like some names you might be familiar with, like Pompey Magnus or Marcus Licinius Crassus.
They were just thrown in there because they were poor. Oh my God.
Is this like a state funded or is it part of a religious institution, you think?
Got it.
Okay.
And then, of course, Sulla, the blonde haired tyrant, the blonde haired tyrant.
Yeah, so it's basically saying like, oh, this does the opposite of what it's supposed to be doing.
I was literally thinking that. I was like, so some things really don't change.
Oh, yeah. The book's called The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan, who's also the host of the of the History of Rome podcast, which if you haven't listened to it, that's like that's like an OG history podcast that goes back to like when I was in high school.
Right. I wonder how they're even communicating, if they're communicating at all.
Yeah, it's taking too long.
I can imagine.
Oh, good.
And so she could just get away with it time and time again. Yep. It's amazing.
So you got to give that a listen.
She was kind of reminds me of that episode. We did another New York in a state in asylum where Geraldo Rivera broke in.
I mean, that was like in the 70s. So that was like what? Like 90 years later.
Crazy.
He must have.
For the second time, it was you. That's true.
That's so cool. Cause that was the, what Jules Verne.
Okay.
No, no. I listened to it once before, but I didn't finish it, to be fair.
I was going to say, yeah.
Yeah.
But they're so rich that it doesn't matter.
That was the difference.
She doesn't care about that.
I started listening to it for the second time right when COVID was hitting or right before.
Yeah. Add it.
Yes, I've seen the movie.
Yeah, I think there was a movie that came out about 20 years ago.
Yeah, it's cute.
Oh, I'm sure.
That's so dope.
They're like, girl, you're going to get killed.
Yeah. Even more so than I am now.
Guys, Stephanie, when she first heard the word Hoboken, she didn't believe that was a real place.
No, she thought her aunt was messing with her and be like, OK, I'll meet you in Hoboken.
I know. Imagine the weirdos that are in Hoboken right now. They're like, are you kidding me?
I love those.
And then you just created a monster.
Is she strapped?
She should be.
Yeah, that's true. That'd be really scandalous.
But then she has to go across the country.
Yeah.
Okay.
But like it would be so easy to do it in less than 80 days. Maybe without planes. Like we can only do like cars, trains, ships.
No planes.
Yeah.
Yeah, more or less.
Right.
Not everything has to be the same.
Oh, absolutely.
Okay.
Weirdos fund this for us.
Or, you know, corporate sponsors. If anyone's listening, please sponsor this trip.
We love them.
Oh, dude, that's actually sick.
That's iconic.
yeah I usually don't reread and the reason why is because like a like I think the time period is fascinating and be I mean he does pull from a bunch of like primary sources and kind of weaves together a really good story and especially like this it's such an interesting time in its own right but it's often overshadowed by the late late Roman Republic right of course you have like the civil wars between the first triumvirate and then you have of course the rise of Augustus and the end of the Republic itself yeah
That's so wild.
I mean, I'm really impressed that she could. She did that alone as a woman in the late 19th century. Like, it's a little bit easier now. Still dangerous, right? Especially in some areas. We're going to run into some issues.
But the fact that she did it back then when there weren't cell phones, there weren't any sort of like technology that we are reliant on today.
Yeah, exactly. She's not live tweeting.
Maybe we need to go to Jules Verne's house.
He's busy being dead.
That is really cool.
So she's like in her early 30s at this point. She's like 31. She's done all this.
It's like my Alexander moment.
Okay. Either this is a huge mistake or this dude is like a homie.
Okay, there we go, girl.
Oh, so, okay. I see what you're doing, girl. I see what you're doing here.
I know we married each other and we're poor.
Not as smart.
It's...
I mean, yeah. You got to do what you got to do.
See, it's like a boring business.
Yeah.
Oh, so she's like, I mean, she went from being wealthy or kind of rich to wealthy.
No, no, no. This is even before Henry Ford. That's impressive.
So obviously it's going to overshadow the earlier portion, but it shouldn't.
Oh, wow.
Oh, my God.
So funny. The guys. The mustaches.
I know exactly what you're talking about. They might have.
They definitely didn't have like, like, you know, squat racks or anything.
See, like you think, oh, who cares? This is boring. That's exactly the point. You're not going to have competition if you have a boring business. So you own this business and it's like you just kind of apply a little bit of passion to it. Yeah. Your competitors are like are probably super old, just like they're doing. They're just running through the motions. They're fuddy duddies.
But a teeny bit of like some new technology, you're going to be the front runner. Also, you're not going to get new entrants because it's a boring business. Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
What is up with these types of people that just like they allow their greed to just run rampant and it ruins things.
Oh, my God. He's so pissed at this guy.
She's like, whatever.
She's like, I mean, I guess that is, like, you know, the past is the past. Like, you can't change it. You can only just learn from it and be like, okay, what do I do now? Let's move forward.
I'll give you there's just a lot of parallels between what's happening today and what happened then. And it's a little terrifying, but it's like watching a train wreck. You can't not stop watching.
Oh my goodness, that's right.
So she's like in her early 50s at this point. Wow. So she's had an illustrious career.
I guess we can't be perfect.
Right. Until like by the civil rights or.
I know I really should do.
Yeah. That would be like a special.
Was that by her choice? I don't know.
Oh my God. That'd be so cool.
So any weirdos in New York, if you go to Woodlawn.
And you go to the Woodlawn Cemetery. Just like lay some flowers at our grave. Take a picture. Send it to us. We'll post.
Oh, my God. That is so your dad. Preferably a Yankees-Daughters game where the daughters win.
Manifesting. Okay. Well, without further ado.
No, that wouldn't be.
Look at that.
I was like, wow, she's like an independent investigative journalist. That's so cool. Mm-hmm.
Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Right.
Oh, wow.
I've heard of that show. I think it's like an older one. And it looks interesting. I would give it a shot.
That's right. I forgot about this.
Oh, wow. That's really cool.
I never did either.
I had no idea we would be doing an episode on that very subject.
Oh, that's how you know you made it.
Nice. I like her.
Well, thank you so much for sharing. You know, it's interesting. Her story as an industrialist actually reminded me of Henry Ford being a little bit of like a trailblazer with wanting to make the lives of his workers better. Like, for example, he introduced and not because of him, but some people who he went up against are the reason why like corporations so evil today.
Weirdos, welcome back to another episode of History for Weirdos with your hosts, Stephanie and Andrew at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, California.
He wanted to give profits to employees.
And Dodge Corporation still exists to this day was like, no, it needs to go to shareholders only.
And that has irrevocably damaged U.S. worker relations.
Yeah.
And I feel like she would have been supportive of that. She probably would have done something similar.
Nice. Okay.
Yeah, weirdos, check it out. Read it. Let us know if you liked it.
Yeah, exactly. Also, you can watch the full-length video on YouTube. In fact, I think today we just crossed 1,000 subscribers on the channel.
Small wins. So thank you guys for that.
It's so true, though.
Until next time, weirdos. Adios.
Which I feel like is that's like the adaptation. Wow. Some weirdos might get mad at me for this.
Yeah, they're going to have opinions.
I mean, it's Keira Knightley.
The 95 one? Yeah. Okay. I will.
I really liked it. I thought it was like a, it was a really good story. A bunch of people like going to each other's houses and just kind of like hanging out, you know, it was in a way it's kind of like Seinfeld or friends. No, I wanted to give a hilariously terrible take and just see what you'd say.
Except without the awkward, like, I lost my phone. What am I going to do?
Oh, yeah. The scene where they're kind of just like the picnic scene. That was awkward.
I just conflated the two. I genuinely thought that was Pride and Prejudice.
That's a good idea.
OK.
OK, let me do it.
And now without further ado, Stephanie, what story do you have for us this week?
Yes.
I think the first request for this person came, not an exaggeration, years ago.
Right. But now you do.
Yes, this is a really good one.
The opposite of good. Yeah.
Good.
What a punk rock move, like straight up. That's such a G move right there.
It's so much better, I swear.
damn, I want this life.
Excellent. I love that. That's such a like a quintessential like good weirdo mantra.
I know. I mean, it's always good to be in studio.
Not staying in your place. Like don't just I don't know, just not being stuck in the mud.
Of society.
Sounds like she's like kind of an early investigative reporter.
Okay, I'm going to be quiet now and I'll let you talk.
Yeah, and makes it feel a little bit more professional. Dare say a little bit more weird.
Do you own any mills?
Me neither.
I think it's a little factory for food.
But the factory makes it seem more grandiose.
Like a small little guy.
Yeah. Wheat.
Let's do that. We're going to go with that.
Oh, wow.
In a good way. We're bringing the weird to the weirdos. Okay, well, before we get into your episode this week, which I'm actually really, really, really stoked for.
Is that like her favorite color?
Oh, so she never really got to know him.
What? How does that even happen?
Always, right? It should just be on default. But this week, I wanted to give you a little bit of a recommendation. So before I even give you my recommendation, go buy our merch.
Oh, so like his the mill is his asset and he doesn't even get to own it or like his wife doesn't get to own it after his death.
We're your hosts, Andrew and Stephanie, and we're going to take you on a journey into the strange, obscure, and relentlessly entertaining corners of human history.
That's so crazy.
You know, I'm starting to notice a trope here. And it's about like kind of a wealthy individual growing up, but witnessing injustice and then devoting their life to like, like solving that injustice. Tiberius Gracchus is like a perfect kind of allegory for this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, I've never read that. That's interesting.
Excellent. Yeah. Teddy Roosevelt.
Yeah.
Oh, wow. So some dude has to be like, I'm going to take on your 15 kids.
That's too much.
Five is like a lot.
I'm just like, yeah.
Yeah. I have no frame of reference, too. I'm a man. I'm not going to ever give birth.
I can't even imagine giving birth once.
That was so unhinged. Oh, my God.
Okay.
Oh, yeah, that's not fun. So he's not drinking to have a good time.
It's been a crazy eight months out here. So I need to go back and look at it. It probably is. I just haven't. paid close enough attention. And I'm usually really good about that, but transitions are crazy.
Oh, yeah.
No, I have played with compound interest before and it was fun. I just didn't completely under like I understand what compound interest is. I just am not familiar enough with how it all works to properly completely understand it if that makes sense.
Okay, good.
I did not realize that.
Okay. Do you have a entity set up for yourself? Yes, I do. And then I also own a, well, It's an S-Core. So I have a business partner for a software company as well. So I freelance and own my own company. You do so many things, sister. Yeah, I do. That's crazy.
Do you make more than 150K a year? Not right now. Once that software hits the market, I will make more than 150, I think. At least that's what the forecasting is showing. Yeah.
Okay.
That actually feels doable. It doesn't seem as overwhelming when you break it down that way, because as a freelancer, it's like you have so many things up in the air. And this actually makes, like, in my line producer's mind, makes so much sense because I'm like, oh, okay, well, here. Like, here are our steps.
Here are our, like, as goofy as this sounds, geometric proofs, even though it's not a geometric proof. Talk dirty to me, Stephanie. Yes. Like, that's how I think though, is like, I think in proofs, like if this, then this, or if I mix this variable, what does it do with my overall and not, yeah, that's how my brain works. So, yeah.
Yes. I have it in two separate savings accounts that are high yield savings accounts. Probably not the best thing for me to do, but it felt the safest. So I just kind of forget that it's there. 99% of the time I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot about that because it pulls like a little bit every month. I have one set up for me, one set up for my 16 year old son. And that's, that's how we do it.
So, you know, his college fund is in a CD.
right now but i'm gonna move it when i can too because i was not in a place to be able to like start saving for him as as early as i should have and so i'm taking a little bit more risk with his stuff that i actually feel comfortable with doing but i want him to be able to go to the college he wants to too because you know he of course wants to go to a very big expensive college which is good i'm glad but also scary
That actually makes a lot of sense. it's interesting to think that like, it's, it's not selfish. Like it feels selfish, but it's not, it's like you said, put your oxygen mask on first.
Absolutely. Absolutely. We have a plan. I love it. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Stephanie, welcome to Money Rehab. Thank you. Thank you. I'm excited to be on and talking to you.
retirement planning is hot on your mind. Sure. So I'm a producer of film and theater. Specifically, I work in line producing, which if you're not familiar with that, they're the people on set that tell everybody no budget wise, probably the least popular because we have to say, no, that's not in the budget. And so, you know, my life revolves around schedules and logistics and budgets and
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's the people that want more money and it's just like, you know, you can't, you can't rob Peter to pay Paul. Like you just, it doesn't work like that. You can't invent money. I wish I could.
But part of the reason why I feel like it's so important is because like as a freelancer or even just, even in this industry, in the film industry, if you're not in specifically the studio system, you don't really have a safety net and they don't teach you how to plan for the future. So you're kind of like, unless you get an MBA, which I did get an MBA to help me become a line producer and,
you're kind of just stuck out there and you're like, okay, what do I do? And even if you get an MBA that's not planning for the financial future, that's really just strategizing.
So producers, if I was a unit production manager, I technically, once I got the hours, could be a part of the DGA, which is Directors Guild. But Producers Guild is not a union. It's a guild. And so there aren't nearly as many protections for people who are line producers because... They're guild, not union. I don't even know what the difference is.
One gives you bargaining power, like a union bargaining power. And the other protects you with some things like some insurance, some help in financial issues, but not a lot. Okay. So we're on our own. Yes, pretty much.
As far as current situation, stressed, anxious, spiraling out of control. But it's either feast or famine in the freelance world. You either have way too much work or you have done. And so it's it's very it's scary.
So I have two very opposing parents. And by that, I mean, my stepdad spends money like it's going out of style. He is an entrepreneur. He doesn't worry about it. And then you have my mom who is an accountant and she is very good. And she has all of like, she has CPA. She has all of these other things. In fact, she was a, she was a fraud auditor, which I think is amazing and cool.
It's very bad-ass. Yeah. She's a, she's a really, really cool woman. And so she was always like, okay, this is how much we have to spend. And so I,
my home situation was very weird growing up because it was like i have a stepdad who spends a lot and whenever he wants and then i have my mom who counts her pennies and puts it away and has an amazing retirement and because of her putting away an amazing retirement she and my stepdad have an amazing retirement but it's because of her it's not because of him
that's clear and so do you think you're more like her or more like him or that's a combination probably because i could have gone the direction my brother went which was okay we're going to get a stable job that comes with all the bells and whistles of having a very stable job or there's the entrepreneurship freelance world that would fill my soul
I'm in my 40s, so I'm 41. Okay, same.
Yeah, if possible, I would love to be 55 or 60, though that's probably not going to happen unless... The project that I've been working on for three years really takes off. And then it's going to be great, but it has to take off.
Oh, more than likely, I'm sitting in a garden close to water. Like, doesn't matter if it's a lake, doesn't matter if it's a beach, doesn't matter if it's a river. It just needs to be close to water, surrounded by garden. I'm very much a, like, water and earth type person. I don't like camping, which... be perfectly honest.
I hate camping, but I love being where like I can smell the flowers or I can be close to nature without actually having to deal with the bugs and things that, that are naturey.
Okay.
Absolutely. I mean, I would love to own a house again. When I was in my 20s, I owned a house and then I got divorced and that throws everything into craziness. And so I would love to own a house. My dream goal would be to be able to put 30% down on a house. And in Southern California, that's probably about $300,000. Cooking a lot at home just because I tend to go Mediterranean style.
So a lot of vegetables, things like that, hence gardening, like being around gardens, being able to do things like that. So probably about $700 to $800 a month in food. I drive a nine-year-old car now that I absolutely adore because it's a Lexus. And, you know, Lexuses tend to be decent cars. They last a long time. They're safe, things like that. So I'm not a new car person.
I'm like, as long as it's decent and it gets me where I need to go, I don't need the, like... crazy stuff. You know, I want to be able to travel as well, but not crazy travel, like not yachting around the world more. Like I just want to be able to go and see places that I haven't been.
So like in my mind, it's not the, it's not the really, really high end stuff, but it's not also your budget stuff either. Does that make sense?
About $4,250 a month. It goes up and down a little bit, anywhere from $4,000 to about $4,500 a month right now. And I'm fixing that because I'm moving to a different space that is less expensive, but larger in a different part of Los Angeles. So it makes a whole lot of sense to me. It's also closer to the water. Yeah.
Okay. Yes. I'm improving my budget in that I will spend less on rent in the next year because I'm moving to a different space that will improve my budget by about $1,000. Okay.
I know it's a big number. I'll just, no, it actually, I mean, because I work in film, it doesn't actually sound like, I mean, that's, that's a decent size film. So like to me, 1.5. Yeah. is a decent production. That sounds so crazy, but that's what it sounds like to me as a freelance producer.
About, oh, it's terrible. I only have like $5,000 saved right now. I also moved across the country last year. Last summer, I moved across the country. So I picked up everything from Central Texas and moved to Los Angeles. So yes, I have a lot of work to do.
I think it's a regular, it's not a Roth IRA. I think it's a regular IRA. Traditional. Yes. I think I'm pretty sure it's a traditional IRA. I don't have any money in stocks and bonds right now. Are you sure? Because if it's in that traditional IRA, did you allocate? I'm not sure. I think I did. I think I did. I haven't paid enough attention to it, if that makes sense.
And for some reason, somehow they were able to get a close up of the teleprompter. And it shows that they wrote drink singer. Pretend to make a mistake. Correct yourself. Oh, no. You're kidding me. Because they want to draw more attention and make this clip go viral so that everyone will hear about the yogurt brand. And they successfully generate so much buzz for the brand.
That's what I'm saying. It was crazy. Additionally, the production team had set up individual rooms for each singer with dedicated camera angles that are being live streamed with the front of each singer's face, just like online streaming their rooms. And viewers could see the singer's reactions during the entire show. And netizens were so...
exhausted they would come home from a nine to nine they'd settle down at 10 p.m and they said that they feel like they are busier than the director of this show they got seven screens with seven different live streams set up they got the show they got one contestant two contestant three contestant they're like hey bring me your laptop i got another i gotta get another screen it was exhausting it was exhausting
And the cameras, the singers themselves, the cameras were pointed directly at their face, nonstop live streaming, because normally in these edited shows, you would see singers sitting there and then they would just kind of zone out because nothing's happening right now, right? But then it's being live streamed. And Fosia, I love her so much. I fell in love with her because of this show.
She has a beautiful resting face. However, it's not super smiley. So then she would constantly catch herself just very serious looking. And then she would be like,
There's a camera Right in her face, and she's like I don't want anyone to think I'm like being rude cuz she's so sweet But it's just like she's just pondering preparing to go up on stage, and she's not smiling so then she's like It's just so awkward I mean she handles it like a queen, but I can imagine it's very awkward and her whole Listen, I wish I could.
I'm going to try my hardest to, I don't know, do some like copyright. No, I'm just kidding. I can't, but I'll just sing it for you. I'll just sing how she sings.
There is something about her singing. I usually don't get goosebumps when I watch people live because I feel like you watch a lot of people live. And then it just kind of wears off. And then you got to go to the concert to get goosebumps. I was getting goosebumps at every single one of her performances on this show. Especially her... I think it was like Desert Rose. Anyway, I'm going to link it.
I was getting goosebumps. All the hairs on my arm were standing up and doing the wave dance. Like they were at the fucking Super Bowl. Like it was crazy. I was feeling so many things. People said that her voice is...
is like a deep ocean not the beach but the ocean in the midst of a calm like wave cycle that's not how they describe it they describe it she just has it's like the last cycle of your washer you know It's like a gentle power. It's so powerful, but it's not chaotic. It feels warm and inviting. And then you have all of these emotions surging in your chest. I think I love her.
I want to say I watched it every single day for like two weeks straight. Anytime I felt a little saddy, you know, baddies get saddies, a little depresso espresso, I would watch this clip of Nihao from the other side. And I just want to say that set me down a rabbit hole because the show that she was on was in China. It was a singing competition. And that clip goes viral.
I think I'm in love, okay? Her vocal range, her technique, her stage presence is impeccable. When she finishes performing her very first song...
first of all i thought it's like playing a record on a cd like you're telling me this is not lip synced it's not it's not i'm not even saying it is but it was absolutely incredible everybody in the crowd they don't even know how to act they don't know how to respond they're so shocked what the fork is going on how is she 24 how is this happening and they thought okay this is about to be the best show ever
she is the first person to sing oh she's the very first it's only gonna go up from here that's fucking crazy it's about to because you know you would think that they're gonna save like the best for a second to last last you know and then it's just gonna amp up and play with your emotions and it's just escalating more and more and then they play the second one um hi lai amu
a folk singer that became famous through doing tiktok in china and mainly famous with like 50 year olds the song he chose to perform was clearly not a fan favorite and um it's like um it was like a boner kill everybody was so confused what just happened like they were so emotionally stirred up people were getting emotional in the crowd people were crying in the crowd and then all of a sudden
It was like back to reality. It's so weird. It was really weird. I mean, the skills were just completely unable to even compare. It just didn't make any sense. And then you had Rainie Yang. She's an icon of Taiwan pop culture.
you know how many um like drama she was in like the really really trendy drama she's known for like having some crazy concerts she'll hang upside down like a moth like a moth in a cocoon she'll go underwater and she'll sing and it sounds like No, just kidding. It sounds really good. However, unexpectedly, I don't know if it's due to being extremely nervous. She was allegedly very out of tune.
I'm so musically in talented. I was listening to every single person going, it's not that bad. How do I know if it's out of tune? It sounds on tune to me.
No, it was still like a desert. Yeah. It was not even one mile per hour of wind. Yeah. It was like this room is sweaty. So she goes up there and she... I will say there was a lot of discourse amongst Chinese netizens at the time saying that a lot of the Chinese singers were too focused on perfectionism.
They were too focused on being perfect with their body language that it didn't feel like a performance.
She has to do hit a high note and she I don't know what's happening. She just overexerted herself. It's not that high of a note, but she tilts her head all the way back to look at the stars and the moon in the sky. And then her mouth is all the way open and people have compared her to a sneaker. A what? A sneaker.
You know, when you take off your sneakers and you put them on the ground, the whole of the sneaker is perfectly circular and staring at the sky.
But so does so much other stuff. This is probably the most controversial singing show other than a different one that we covered. But we're not going to get saddies right now. We're not going to get saddies.
I don't know why they compared her to a sneaker I think the heat is making us lose our minds right now So they compared her to a sneaker And so that was like the first big meme to come out of the show. And even for the first episode, even the very experienced Na Ying that everybody thought it was gonna, she's got it in the bag. She fell short of expectation. She was not doing well.
When it was her turn, she was so very clearly nervous for this very first live broadcast. The opening of her song, they said it sounded too tight. Her voice was obviously trembling, but not in the way that it should be. It just sounded like her voice was shaky and not stable. It felt... didn't feel good. But after the first chorus, she quickly gets back into her groove.
And once her voice opens up, she gets a lot better. And when she finished singing, she comes down from the stage and fans are shouting at her like, great job. Don't worry. Don't be nervous. You can't lose. You got this. And then after her, Shantay Moore goes up onto the stage and everyone is like, OK, so this is the first foreigner killed it. Let's hope this one does it.
Because, you know, Chinese netizens, they were feeling a lot of Chinese pride. So they're like, We got it. We got it. And I think all of it was friendly, fun competition, right? And so she gets up on the stage and... They said, someone call the cops. Someone call the president. Somebody call somebody. Because we don't got it in the bag. The bag is missing. The bag is with the foreigners.
Shantae Moore comes up on stage and performs the song, If I Ain't Got You by Alicia Keys. And the way she comes up, you would think that she is up on the stage, Sunday service. singing a random song for five members of the church. So casual, so carefree. And her voice is like a 10 out of 10. The vocals are so powerful. Even like the register changes, people were saying everything was so smooth.
Honey, that's you.
so natural and this is a pretty difficult song to sing it's not an easy one and the audience comments i mean they said this is definitely first place like this voice is so comfortable this is not even at the same level as any of the chinese singers what's going on right now even the professional singers like na ying can sit there and recognize the difference in skill level when she hears shantay's part she scrunches up her face in amazement
It's just like every time I see a TikTok of, if you're not doing this to your washing machine every two weeks, your house is going to explode. I send it into the family group chat and I think they're so sick of me. Anyway, I digress. It's actually from one of the most controversial Chinese singing shows in recent times. And that is called The Singer. I am a singer 2024.
Na Ying throughout the entire season looks like everyone around her is farting.
Someone is tooting up a storm right next to her at all times. That's her look every single time. What's even more amazing is the host and hostess are talking to Shantae and she's like, yeah, I literally just got here from the airport. You didn't like need to prep for the past few weeks. Make sure your vocal cords are opened up to those facial steamers and stuff. You just like came here.
What? What's even crazier is she didn't even know she was going to be performing because she said, oh, yeah, originally, I think that there was some miscommunication or language barriers because I thought I was coming on to the show to be a judge. But I came and I was a contestant. She didn't even know she had to sing, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah, she was like, let me just put my playlist on shuffle and see what happens. Okay, Alicia Keys, let's do it. People were so, people were commenting. After participating, she did realize she definitely could have been a judge. She was right. She definitely has the qualifications to be a judge on this show. So after Shantae, you got the last contestant.
And they were, a lot of people were talking about them, but not in the best way. Secondhand rose. There's always been controversy surrounding secondhand rows. Some people call them China's funeral band. They're like a rock band.
Yeah, they're like really old school and they have a lot of similarities to traditional Chinese ceremonial music that's typically used in like funerals that happen, not even in the cities, but in the villages. And so people say they're the funeral band. And so they came up and they sang a very expected song. And everyone says this is the funeral for CPOP.
All the Chinese netizens said this is the funeral for Chinese music industry. The foreigners have taken over. We're being colonized. came over like there's we shouldn't even try anymore and that is how they end the night even na ying when the funeral band is up there she looks shocked she looks shocked at what she is witnessing it was it was bleak
yeah yeah and so all the comments to the reaction of the funeral band song secondhand rose is if there's no way to beat the foreigners then let's at least creep them out was the motive from the secondhand rose I will say, I will say, I will say, I said, I will say, I like secondhand Rose. I like that they're doing their own thing.
I like that how unique they are and they're not trying to conform to regular, you know, normal expectations of society. I like them. I stand them. Do I think that they seem better than Shantae Moore? No. Okay. That's just my humble opinion. Now, by the end of the first episode, it was undeniable that Shantae Moore and Fosia, who showed absolutely
outstanding vocal skills did much better in terms of vocals and stage presence and unsurprisingly they ranked first and second and then na ying ranked in third place
Yes. Every single week they rank them. And then at the end, they choose one. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. And then netizens are commenting, the gap between Chinese and foreign singers level is like the difference between the Grammys and the Strawberry Music Festival. That is a Chinese music festival held in a small town. People were making memes of Fosia and Shantae at the Grammy singing. Like they said, this is the Grammy Awards.
Na Ying is the Golden Melody Awards, which is like the Chinese Grammys. And then everyone else is the Strawberry Music Festival. And then the other ones are the Red and White events, which is what they call traditional music. Village weddings. Village wedding performers. Yeah, and so some netizens are commenting, the competition for the last place is even more intense than for the first place.
so uh people were not having a good time and then you have you know nae was making some funny faces throughout the entirety of the show and there's one where she's looking off to the side looking very stressed looking around and the meme is the words who signed me up for this does anybody care about my life
in this show she holds up three fingers it's actually these three fingers she holds up three fingers i think she's making the okay sign right and then but her face is very serious and the caption reads need three people who can sing hurry and come right now i need three people And the Chinese netizens, they run with this show. They call this the National Protection War, okay?
Netizens start suggesting finding better Chinese singers that can come to the show to compete. And they said, this is like, this is no longer a singing show. This is a battle to defend the honor of Chinese music. We need a national team assemble right now. Musicians, anyone on the national level, we need to bring glory to the nation. Okay, so people start commenting, singers comment sections.
And like, you know how on TikTok, well, I don't know on TikTok, can you add memes now? You know how on Instagram you can add memes? Yeah, well, on Douyin and all these different places, you can add memes in the comments, okay? And all of them are doing naïve means. So there's another singer, Gloria Dang. All the netizens were like, Gloria, tap in. It's your time. You got to go in. Come on.
She's so good live. She's very talented. People called her the queen of iron lungs because her body is like a pinky. She's like shaped, not shaped, like size, like a piece. She's a tiny little woman. And the voice that she's got on her. People say, how do you fit those lungs inside of you? That doesn't even make any sense. And she's very. Wait, what? Who? Gloria D-E-N-G. And so people. Oh, honey.
Yeah.
That's how they know.
Ooh, it's like code.
Oh, yeah. Damn, that's her code name.
Jennifer Lawrence. Yes, yes, yes.
I love her. So good. Okay, so up. They're all changing. All the netizens are changing their profile name to Na Ying and then posting Na Ying memes under Gloria's comment section. And it reads, Dear Gloria, come back soon. Can't hold up anymore.
And then another one, the nation is in crisis. Please help me. And it's Na Ying. So Gloria is live streaming one day and she's eating beef noodle soup. And suddenly there's like a million netizens tuned into her life, which is crazy. Like a million people on a live stream. She's like, whoa, what just happened? And she's like, do you guys just really like beef noodle soup? What's going on?
sometimes he would look at the meme and he would laugh for five minutes straight and i would be so patient on this side and i'd be like why what is it what is it and then he'd be like no you wouldn't get it i'm sweating oh and you don't want to give up your ice pack you're holding on to that ice pack like it's your first born child you guys want to hear the ice pack yeah
Like I never have this many people on my life. And all the comments are, how can you still be in the mood to eat beef noodle soup right now?
help save the nation stop eating and go save naing and so this is all the comment section and gloria also a funny lady she responds of course i know what's happening i know i get it you want me to save the nation right but i'm currently on tour okay so she can't go so they all abandon her and they say come on tap in gong lina
this is your dad's favorite artist your dad loves her how do i know this information i don't know it's stored somewhere inside my brain now and i can't ever get rid of it okay she combines traditional like chi music that's how they describe it okay with pop fusion she's incredible okay and she's posting um she was on doing posting k-pop dance videos and everyone is commenting
dancing i'm about to explode the other foreigners have nuclear weapons and we got the second hand rose throwing firecrackers we need help how do you still have time for k-pop when c-pop is on fire
There was a clip that was going viral. Also, if I start sweating or if I look red, it's because the AC in our home is broken. And I don't know why. It's the middle of winter, technically. But I'm sweating. It's never been hotter. It's hotter than our wedding night. This is like the steamiest. The chemistry is awesome.
and so then there's another band called phoenix legend ah that's another it's a duo yeah yeah and uh everyone in the comments you two stop training it's time for the battle come on it's time to fight against the foreigners let's go what are you doing and they're all responding sorry scheduling conflicts And so people are getting so fucking stressed out right now.
And then on May 12th, one of China's most respected and powerful vocalists, Han Hong, posts on to Weibo.
Oh no, this is your dad's favorite.
Yeah, she's really good.
Oh, she's the one that does... Oh, she's good. Yeah, yeah. She's good. And in her post, she declares, I am Chinese singer Han Hong, and I volunteer to join the battle.
Yeah, she tags. And she's also in her 50s. And so all the netizens go, damn, two 50-year-old ladies guarding the National Door Hall. It's her and Na Ying. Really? That's what we got? That's what we got right now? Wow.
yeah so good so uh nevertheless regardless of her intentions people were posting all these fighting for the country answer the call okay all these videos and people are trying to tap in even influencers are offering to go on there they're saying that i think i can do better and people were commenting can these random people stop recommending themselves we don't need more seventh places okay we don't need more seventh places
No, they're literally so famous.
So famous to the point where... Yeah, yeah. No, it's kind of funny and it's really cute and endearing. And I thought it was the cutest thing ever. So Shantae Moore, right after it premiered, she was out scene shopping just so casually. And first of all, that becomes a meme because how the f*** is she just out there shopping so casually? And all the Chinese singers are probably rehearsing nonstop.
And she's just like, she looks like she's on here for vacation. And the show is a side gig. She's like doing it on the side for fun, like a volunteer project. OK. And so the first night she goes out, she is dressed super casually. But everybody is like, you're the Shantae Moore. And they keep taking pictures of her that the next time she goes out, she's dressed a little more formally.
And she's like trying to be respectful of the customs and like not that she wasn't before, but like trying to, you know.
just more like okay let me take pictures with you guys and there's people just like lining up everywhere taking they love them they love them it's supposed to be a joke you know they're having fun they're making fun of their own singers okay and so everybody is calling this the great chinese battle They're just having fun. They're bored. A bunch of people at home, bored, and they're making memes.
That's it. And people also started these contestant recruitment rankings, polls, on who you think should be recruited for the army next, okay? And you've got some of the best singers, right? Jay Chou is on there. But he actually didn't get the most votes. The most votes went to someone named L-E-I-J-U-N. You know, Leijun?
it's like all water now july 27th 2024 about let's say six months ago there are some other viral clips that are going from this show and it's not just nihao from the other side there's so much controversy from this show and it all starts with a kazakh singer and songwriter by the It's hard to hear exactly what he says, but when you audio enhance it, it's in English.
He's the founder and CEO of Xiaomi. Oh, what the fuck? He's China's Steve Jobs. Yeah. And so people said they actually... Here, let me show you the video.
Yeah. He's actually listed as a Western male singer on Chinese music apps.
what is going on oh he went to india for a xiaomi presentation and uh yeah he his very famous line was are you okay and all the top comments are nobody asks if lei jun is okay cry face cry face cry face So he won top place for recruitment onto the show with 11.8 million votes. Yeah. Yeah. Jay Chou only got 20,000 votes.
It's a hit song. And because it's in English, he is listed as a Western male singer on Chinese music apps. Yeah. I don't know what's so funny about that. But no, at the end, some netizens volunteered themselves. They said, if worse comes to worse, I'll do it. I'll brave myself. Even if the foreign singers win against me, it won't be an honorable victory. Okay. So let me go. Let me go.
Others said, we need to get this guy on there. And they posted a link to a talent show, like one of those China Got Talent shows. And it was a male contestant who said that he can sing the highest pitch in China. And they were like, give it to us. What's the highest pitch? And he went, ah!
Like a dog dropped in the lake. Yeah, so netizens commented, my dog makes a higher pitch when someone steps on its tail. This is scarier than stepping on a squeaky chicken toy. If a rat and a cockroach jumped on my face at the same time, I would hit a high note twice as high. So people were saying he needs to tap in.
So then a week after the second episode airs and the show continues trending, it actually gets more explosive in viewership. In this new episode, you have two new singers, a Chinese singer that goes by the name Yellow and Hangai Band. It's like a rock band from Mongolia. They joined the competition. And that means the two lowest ranking contestants would be eliminated. Everybody loves Yellow.
I mean, he's got very impressive singing skills. But he also is the new meme content for the show. People say he can make his talent is not really singing. He's good. But his real talent is making 800 different expressions in one second.
Yes.
People say he looks like the muscular Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants. Yeah, yeah. Or people say, what's that show? Austin Powers. You know the bald guy with the pinky that goes like this? He looks like him. They were saying lots of stuff. They said that his head is perfectly egg-shaped. I don't know, okay? I don't know. We're in an egg shortage.
I haven't seen an egg in a minute, so I can't tell you. But after this performance, during the interview, he directly states that he had eaten too much... food and needed to urgently take care of business so they're like interviewing him after his performance and he's like i gotta go take a basically
Also netizens dug up this Pizza Hut commercial that he was in last year I don't know what Pizza Hut in China is doing but Pizza Hut marketing in the US I don't know if their legal team just doesn't know how to have a giggle gaggle but this Pizza Hut commercial in China is It's the most insane thing that you would ever imagine. It's like a fever dream. I feel like I'm high on drugs watching it.
I feel like I've taken ayahuasca shrooms. I've done acid, ketamine. I don't know. List all the drugs that I am legally not allowed to take simultaneously straight injected into my skull. That's what this Pizza Hut commercial is. He morphs into a pizza.
He's laying naked on the table and then someone is throwing pepperoni to cover his groin and then he morphs into a pizza and then the pizza starts breaking.
I'm so f***ing serious. Yeah, lots of memes are coming out. The lead singer from the band looks like the character King Kai from Dragon Ball. And then he keeps smiling and holding up his fist and then he looks like Doraemon. So everyone is like, what the f*** is happening? At this point, they're recruiting singers based off of memeability.
It sounds something along the lines of, they said it must be Chinese before you. And everyone was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. And if you're just listening to this right now and you don't understand the context of this show and you haven't seen clips of people singing on this show, then you're going to be like, I don't understand what any of this means. But let me tell you what this means.
They're not even recruiting based off of their singing abilities. It's just absolutely crazy. And then there was another singer by the name of Silence who goes up to sing a song that he dedicates to his mother, right? Which would have been all fine and dandy. But at one point he does like a monologue for his mom. Like he's like, I love you, mom.
Like something like that, okay? Which I feel like even if it was a love song, it's kind of... okay bringing it back to 2010's R&B that's good I like it but like the way he did it was just not confident enough and it was also again to his mom right so it was just a lot everybody looked really uncomfortable backstage so then what happens is after your performance because all of this is live
the host will sit down with you and they will go through their phone look up the trending things for your name and your performance and they'll have you react to people's netizens comments in real time and she keeps like tilting her phone away from the guy and he's so curious like why do you keep doing that so he leans over and the top trending phrase was silence is the worst singer
Silence has the worst voice. Silence is a horrible singer. And he just looks really sad. And then Chinese netizens made that a meme. They memed it. Silence Wang internal monologue can't even win, but also not bad enough to leave.
in the end he got fifth place and he seemed miserable like he seemed like he wanted to be last so he could just leave but he's still there and then when it was na ying's turn she seemed a little more confident this time but then by the end i think that she forgot the lyrics to the song So then she's like reading the teleprompter, but I think the teleprompter is moving too fast.
So she's pointing randomly at the sky. She's like trying to follow the words like this, but she's pointing in the air like this. While she's singing and everyone was like, what the fuck's going on? And then the last contestant was Fosia. She chose Adele's Set Fire to the Rain.
I had goosebumps. Every single cell in my body came to where my skin was, to my epidermis, and was like, let me f***ing out of here. I want to set fire to the rain. It was just so beautiful. It was so beautiful. And the contrast, netizens were like, Like we want to hate them. We want to hate them because it's fun, right? Because you want to hate the opposite team. It's like the Super Bowl.
It's all in good. Well, I don't know. People get crazy about sports, but like they want to have that beef like foreigner beef. Ooh, national pride. But they were like, no, we love her. Like she could literally pee on me and I'll say set fire to the rain. I don't care. Pee on me. You're the queen.
Ultimately, at the end, she took first place, which was not a surprise. Yeah. And Nayin got second place and Shantae secured third place. And the two singers that were eliminated were Rainie and Secondhand Rose. So a lot of people are commenting, why only eliminate two? Can't they just eliminate... Like five and just keep Fosha and Shantae because at this point, it's not even a competition.
That means he's hinting at, they said a Chinese person has to win before you because you're not Chinese. You're not even ethnically Chinese. She's Canadian and I believe she's Moroccan. Oh, she's incredible at singing. Just you wait, right? And you know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of another clip that I'm going to insert into this YouTube video of a race in China. A very what?
And then in the third episode, they tease it. They said in the third episode, we're going to mix it up. We're going to bring in a new contestant to challenge someone here. It's going to be a one-on-one battle. And that challenger is Adam Lambert. Oh, bruh. Listen, I don't know much about Adam Lambert. I don't know the whole lore. I know all of his songs. I know a good chunk of his songs. Okay.
He was the lead singer of like a British rock band Queen. But he's so many good songs. Like, I mean, they're just timeless songs. Anyway, he won a Grammy for best male pop vocal performance. He just is so freaking talented. And once that was announced, all the Chinese netizens commented, Chinese entertainment industry, it's time to pray for yourself.
And then netizens are joking, someone get a bodyguard for Na Ying right now. Don't let her run away. 56 is the perfect age to run away and start fresh. Okay? Na Ying, the plan has changed. Get ready to compete for fourth place.
Please. At this point, netizens are not even looking for Chinese singers anymore. They're asking foreign singers to come and represent China. Okay? They went to Lana Del Rey and they said, all right, you two, come on. Okay, hurry up. Let's go. They were going to Shawn Mendes. Very random. They said, you too. The Grammys has changed its location. It's now being held in Changsha, China.
He was singing. And he posted on Douyin singing. I don't know if he's posting it. I don't know if he personally has the Douyin app on his phone. I like to believe that he does. I think so. I like to believe that Shaquille O'Neal is on Douyin. I don't know if it's his social media team. I think it's Shaquille. I think it's him pressing five buttons at once because his hand is so large.
Posting on Douyin. he was trying to get tiktok but his fingers are so large somehow he got done okay now he's just posting singing videos on there and they said not you too aren't you a basketball player and it's just naive stressed out like not you too no more foreigners please yeah so um adam lambert comes also people are saying adam lambert the things you did for our nation we love you
People noticed when he came to China, he was very respectful. They pulled up pictures, Chinese netizens did, and they said, this is Adam Lambert in his hometown. This is Adam Lambert at his concerts. And it's like him being Adam Lambert, okay? He's got nail polish on, he looks cool, his style is very recognizable, okay? This is Adam Lambert at an airport in some random country.
This is Adam Lambert at an airport in Japan. This is Adam Lambert in an airport in China. Do you recognize this man?
He just looks so normal. People were saying he was trying to respect, I guess, Chinese customs of not, you know, dressing it colorfully. I don't know. Because he usually likes wearing a lot of nice colors. And then like he'll have really good. He has a very fashion forward sense. And he wasn't doing that at the airport. And so people are like, wow.
He has so much respect for us right before he destroys us.
We love you. But please calm down. And netizens were joking. It's the Chinese limited edition well-behaved look. So he goes from the airport. He goes to eat some Chinese food and then he sings. Now people are saying, what kind of Chinese food did he eat? Turns out he went to Hunan Specialty Rice Noodle Soup Shop. Now Hunan people are very famous for eating relatively spicy food, okay?
We talked about this. There was a race in China, a marathon race. People were running on their two legs, okay? And there were a group of foreigners that were running. And they were running really fast. And they're really good at running. And then near the end, near the finish line, suddenly, I don't know if all of them simultaneously get some sort of shared... Leg cramp? They just slow it down.
I would probably be sharting 24 seven if I had some really authentic Hunan food, right? He goes and people see they see a picture of him from afar eating with like a whole entourage. And they were like, that's Adam Lambert. And so the owner of the shop said that they did the national honor by adding extra chili oil to Adam Lambert's bowl of noodles so that he burns his throat and can't sing well.
Right. Of course, Chinese netizens were super upset. And then the owner was like, guys, I was literally just joking. OK, I'm not adding extra chilies. Are you crazy? I'm not trying to get sued. This is insane. And so it was just all in good fun. Everybody was playing into the memes, right?
What do you mean? People are commenting, good news, the owner added lots of chili to help Na Ying by spicing up Adam's food. Bad news, the owner spiced up the wrong person. So it's not Adam Lambert, but it's Lauv, the singer that sings I Like Me Better, who happened to be in China for his concert tour.
What? No, but also people are saying it's so funny that it's just like not another white guy. It's also another f***ing famous white guy. Like what are the odds of that? To the point where Lauv has to post a video response where he posts, he says, hey auntie, I'm actually... Hey auntie? Yeah. Auntie who?
to the the owner of the spice restaurant and he says hey auntie i'm actually not adam lambert but thank you so much for the extra spice i didn't actually have any but my friends had it and they said it was actually very spicy but sending you lots of love and he's laughing he's being a good sport but netizens are dying they're like i'm dying after all that fuss It's not even Adam Lambert.
It's not even Adam Lambert. It's not even Adam Lambert, but it's Lauv's team members. They say humor level of Adam eating spicy rice noodles, 100%. Humor level of spicing up the wrong person, 1,000%. Humor level of that person being Lauv, 1 trillion%. Okay, what the f***? What? Adam did indeed go eat noodles before the competition.
And then he was also just spotted casually shopping around before the competition. No nervousness at all. But the Chinese singers were nervous when they found out that it was going to be Adam Lambert. You can see all of them. Yeah. Even Na Ying is looking like she can't even catch her breath right now. So they say that all of them are going to sing against Adam Lambert.
And he's saying, what do you want from me?
such a good song right a few things during that performance first of all nailed it chills people are crying it's not even an emotional song did you see the part that before he started singing oh i'm about to get there okay so a few things happened at the very end there's this really cute moment that chinese netizens are freaking obsessed with okay because adam lambert he's like a
See dude, okay, he likes to pose sexy and strike all these fun poses, okay? But when he is done with his performance, there's this moment where he turns around and I feel like he's trying to hit a sexy pose, but then he remembers that he's in China and he stops himself and the Chinese medicines think it's the cutest thing they've ever seen and they fucking love him, okay?
In slow-mo, you see a Chinese runner just surpass all of the foreigners and win the marathon. And it is the goofiest shit that you're ever going to see. And I thought that this was going to be something like that, right? But it just gets so much worse. You've got Adam Lambert show up on this show.
yeah it was really cute and then what's even more shocking is that the whole performance what do you want from me?
Adam lowered the key the whole key when he performed he was probably using 60 to 70 percent of his full singing capacity he performed at a lower key it's like um like he sang the same song at his concerts in the regular key the very high key and then he comes here like he's performing at his nephew's bar mitzvah You know? He's like, I'm just here for the fun.
I'm not even like trying to win, y'all. I'm just here to giggle and gaggle. Yeah, so I'm not even going to like strain myself. I'm just, I don't even need to. And people said respect. He respects the Chinese netizens so much that he sang in a restrained manner. He held back his full potential for our dignity. Yeah.
And then all the Chinese netizens said, go watch the one where he's got the lettuce flowers on his chest. That version is nice. Yeah. It's him wearing like a very elaborate brooch. It does look like a head of lettuce. Yeah, they called it the lettuce, head of lettuce version. And every Chinese citizen now knows it's the head of lettuce version.
So what's more than that is that while another performer was up there singing, it cuts to the hostess who's in the back and she's just getting ready to interview the performer. And you hear Adam Lambert in the back.
warming up in the bathroom i mean i think he could shatter a whole glass building with how high his voice is able to go it's so good and people were so confused what was her face reaction again She just looks like, we're fucked. Like, I don't even know if I'm supposed to acknowledge what's happening right now.
Yeah, it was pretty crazy to the point where netizens were commenting, his vocals were even higher than when he was on stage, when he was warming up in the bathroom. He really sang with his EQ. He said, I want the Chinese netizens to not be too offended. I want them to like me, so I will humble myself.
People commented, a man just eliminated some of the top Chinese singers by warming up his vocals in the bathroom. He sang so effortlessly, even the high notes didn't require him to strain his voice at all. People said his energy, the way that he lowered it, but it was still perfection. It's like he was doing a commercial performance for an insurance company.
You sing for, you know, like a little jingle. You're in good hands or something. What is it?
We are farmers. I don't know. Yeah, and then people said when he opened with, hey, that's when we realized how good the sound equipment actually is. They said him just casually saying hi. That was better than all the Chinese singers. These are Chinese netizens, okay? It was crazy. And then the last contestant in the episode was Fauzia. And she sang Desert Rose.
Yes.
She did like the Arabic because she's Moroccan. I don't know how to describe this song. I don't know how to describe this performance. It was emotionally enlightening. I think it changed my brain chemistry. I think the mitochondria. I think every cell. Of my being. I think the nucleus of every atom inside of me was altered by this. I think so.
Yeah, it was so good.
So Fauzia got first place. Adam didn't even rank. He just like leaves after this episode. Yellow won second place. Shantae was third and Naing won fourth place. And so because Adam just left after one episode, he was seen at the airport afterwards. Netizens said he came all the way to China and used a nuclear bomb to blow up an ant nest.
He came to this show to sing one song and get some random Chinese singer eliminated that all Chinese citizens were like, you should have been eliminated, bro.
I'm sweating. And finally, the final competition took place July 26, 2024. It was also the eve of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.
Yes. And Battle of the King of Singers came to an end. This was also the time that the Kazakh singer, Dimash, seemed to have made a very, he whispered the words and then it went viral to the point where he had to clarify. He came out and emphasized that what he was whispering was not, he did not say it has to be Chinese before you, like you cannot win.
He was just saying that they were gonna pair people up to sing together and he wanted to sing with Fauzia, but they told him she's gotta sing with someone Chinese. He was saying, I said it has to be someone Chinese for you, not before you. That's what he claims. Nobody believes him. The Chinese netizen said, thank you. That was very nice of you. We don't believe you. And that's okay.
That's not your fault. And then this is where it gets crazy. All the singers are standing on stage waiting for the host to announce the winner and everybody's facial expressions once again become a trending topic online.
everyone seems like they know who's about to win that's the vibe to the point where before the host announced the result the singer next to na ying points at na ying to be like congratulations and na ying literally panics and does an x with her hands and pushes her hands down and both of them look incredibly awkward incredibly awkward and in the end na ying wins the title of king of singers
She wins! She wins! I'm so confused. Another Chinese singer wins second place. And then third place is another Chinese singer. And then Fauzia wins fourth place. The other singers are not even ranked. So after the announcement, Na Ying's performance became a highlight again. Okay, she felt like she wanted to cry in excitement, but she could not.
Chinese netizens, they're going viral with this. And at the end of the competition, what do you know? A Chinese singer does win the show. Now, her name is Na Ying, and she wins the title of the King of Singers. Logically speaking and technically speaking, I will say that Na Ying has a very high status in the Chinese music industry. Her music itself, her songs, they're incredible songs.
She just looked like everybody around her was, once again, flatulent. Flatulent? Gassy. Just pooping it up. Like sharting their pants. And so, um... Netizens were not happy with this. They were saying, I mean, she has exposed all of her weaknesses. She was very nervous. She was out of tune most of the time. Her voice was always shaking. And now she wins first place. That doesn't even make sense.
What are you talking about? And Fauzia, she never fell out of the top three in the past season. And she unexpectedly ranked fourth in the finals. People were making Excel spreadsheets to show how the probability isn't probability-ing. None of this is making any f***ing sense. They were saying that she could have gotten into f***ing Tsinghua University, MIT, Harvard.
But then you said, nah, she's going here. That doesn't even make any sense. What is happening right now? People started saying, Na Ying is not the king of singers. She's the best actor. She needs to win Best Actor Award.
with all of this na ying did some interviews and she responded in an interview if you win the championship there will definitely be a lot of negativity can you be brave enough to accept it i can i know what happened here i want to thank myself and i want to thank every singer that is present whoa yeah and when she was asked which singers do you think should come for the next season she replied do they dare come
And people who are not having a fun time with that. Another singer, veteran singer, Jenny, T-S-E-N-G. She was friends with Coco Lee.
Yeah, she tweeted. She was on Weibo saying she really didn't like the show. She said she has no respect for the show. And she, with a lot of other veteran singers, felt this way. They felt really shitty for the foreign singers. They said they paid foreigners to be manipulated and played around with the media when they clearly should have won.
You paid them here to get the views, and then they didn't even win based on merit. It just wasn't fair.
yeah but i do have to say yeah they won everyone's heart in china like they are obsessed yeah this actually made them even more loved yeah yeah everyone's rooting for them yeah everybody loves them i hope they release like albums in chinese or something oh there's so many fans now they're so good and people she was even asking this celebrity jenny was asking naing listen to your own singing aren't you embarrassed you're humiliating yourself by being brave enough to accept the victory
Yeah. And then the show itself made an announcement that said music cannot deceive people. Music cannot be deceived. Like she was the clear winner. And netizens were also confused about that. They said, yes, music does not lie, but the production team does. They said, well done singing competition. Let's not do it again.
okay let's not do it again yeah that's the show that's what's happened what are your thoughts on this wow what a journey and again i want to clarify chinese netizens loved the foreign singers every single one of them they were eating them up for breakfast lunch and dinner i think they were just making these it was honestly some hilarious memes that were coming out of it just hilarious yeah so good
so good insane now i gotta listen to those songs again go listen to them go stream their music and i hope you guys enjoyed and i'll see you in the next one bye
However, however, many netizens are very upset that she is labeled the king of singers. They are criticizing Na Ying and saying that she might actually be one of the worst singers in this season's show. So how the fuck is she the king of singers? People were commenting, this has got to be the biggest scandal in history. Always ranking at the bottom and occasionally making it to the top three.
Singing off key, forgetting lyrics can win the title of king of singers. They're treating us, the audience, like fools for months.
He has a Ziploc bag full of ice that is under his shirt. It's practically in his groin. It's up his pants. It's in places that I've never seen before. That's all I have to say about that ice pack. Whoa, it's melted.
Yes, I asked.
Okay, so I was like listening to Na Ying on this show. And Tiffany comes over and she goes, oh my God. She's shaking her head no, right? And I said, so like who is Na Ying in American standards? And she goes, before this, I would say like Celine Dion. And I said, what about now? And she was just like, I don't know what to tell you right now because it just gets so bad.
So she was like the Celine Dion, I guess.
Highly respected.
Yeah. I mean, I'm going to go through the whole show's rules and regulations. The show is actually a South Korean NBC show that they adapted into the Chinese version. And it's called I Am A Singer. And what they do is they only bring in professional singers who have already made a name for themselves. This is a competition of imagine getting Ariana Grande on.
I feel like I'm going to start some shit.
All on stage competing for the king of singers. That's what this show is. And this started in 2013 in China. And I will say in the beginning, it was rough. It was rough. They would invite foreigners over, but... In 2020, the show would end after eight seasons. They were declining in viewership. Nothing really was happening except 2024.
Out of fucking nowhere, they announced that they're going to redo a show. They're going to do the ninth season of the show after a four-year hiatus. And now it's going to be hosted on Mango TV.
Do I need to file a copyright? No, just kidding. Infringing on my intellectual property? No, I'm just kidding. So in 2023, they start scheduling and they start promoting the crap out of this show. And they say, guys, guys, this time we're about to make it insane. So here's the thing about CPOP. Here's the thing about Chinese celebrities and influencers that I've noticed thus far.
You're not going to believe it based off of what we talk about on the Chinaverse. But it's kind of like Korea in terms of everybody is extra polished.
There was a clip that was going viral. And this clip just sent me down a rabbit hole. And I still think about this clip every two to three business days. And it is a world-renowned, intelligent, beautiful, fascinating, so talented singer, Chantal Moore, on stage, on one of the most grandest stages I've seen. The set production of this is out the window.
Like, you know, when you see East Asian celebrities, they're just so polished.
what does that mean like they're just so put together oh they're very put together you know you have some of like the ogs that will goof around on stage when they're performing and singing songs but a lot of the times a lot of the artists pride themselves in being perfectionists and they don't like they're really um polished that's how tiffany was explaining it to me right um okay okay
Yeah.
And a lot of them lip sync. Sorry. Sorry. That's where I was going with this. A lot of them lip sync because it's very, do you know how difficult it is?
to deliver a splendid performance, working on your visuals, your aesthetics, not looking like you're choking like a dog on a fresh bite of kibble, and then dancing whilst singing, belching out the highest chords of a song that you, you know, wrote 20 years ago and you don't remember the lyrics to, really. So yes, lip syncing, I... I don't really have beef with lip syncing.
Do I think if I go to a concert and they're lip syncing, I'd be a little disappointed? Perhaps, yeah, depending on how much I paid for the concert. However, I feel like some people think lip syncing is like Satan's creation on this planet. A lot of them lip sync. So this is why this show becomes big. Because in 2023, they say, hey, it's gonna be live streamed. No one's gonna lip sync.
There's not gonna be any perfection. Everything is gonna be so cutthroat, so raw, so real. It's gonna be, you're never gonna see your faves like this. This is the first time you're going to see something like this happen. So everybody starts freaking out. They start, who's going to be on that show? The show starts releasing these posters, these teasers.
They're just releasing little names here and there. They hit them with the, you might know, you might know this name. Rosé.
You might know this name. Lisa. Lisa. what you're kidding me but they were not on there is that what you think maybe you didn't see yeah rose lisa it's gonna be a celebrity lineup that you have never seen before international celebrities are gonna be flown into china for this
show this is about to be the biggest fucking show that you have ever laid your eyes on everybody was stayed tuned everything is going to be live streamed everything on the teleprompters live stream not a second of it is going to be edited cut nothing it's all raw it's all live may 10th the day of the first episode release everybody's sitting there blinks
Blinks are sitting there in China like, hello, where's my rose? And they say, we would like to proudly announce the next contestant on the show. Secondhand Rose. Say.
That's the band name.
Okay. It's a Chinese rock band.
now they're old so they changed it's the second generation yeah okay and i'm just kidding i'm kidding i'm kidding and lisa lisa l-i-s-a we would like to announce proudly announce that all of our audio equipment the brand is from l slash isa Yeah, top quality. You're never going to get high quality audio experiences.
They released the teaser that Lisa is going to be involved on the show. Shut the fuck up. You say the name Lisa. Who the fuck are you imagining? I don't know any other Lisa. I probably know 10 Lisa's personally, but I'm not going to think of them. I'm thinking of Lisa from Blackpink.
And she is doing a cover of a very famous song. Of a very famous song that you know, I know, we both love the song. Adele. And she starts whipping out the chorus and she says, Ni hao from the other side.
They say Lisa is going to be involved. That's so funny. And then in the opening, they say all of our audio equipment is from a brand called L-I-S-A, otherwise known as Lisa. What the fuck is happening? So there's going to be seven singers, five are Chinese singers who are really well known amongst the Chinese audiences.
And then they're bringing in two foreign singers that were announced to appear on the show. You've got 24 year old Moroccan Canadian singer and songwriter Fosia and 57 year old Grammy nominated American singer songwriter Shantae Moore. Now, I will say many Chinese viewers were unfamiliar with the two foreign singers.
because I think even in Korea like you have maybe a Handful of Western singers that are super famous like household names any random person you you ask the ajumma on the street and you say ajumma ni Do you know who this person is right if it's not Beyonce or Taylor Swift? She's gonna be like, I don't know this person. Who is this person? Is that the president? We don't know these people.
Okay, and they would just keep it moving. They'd probably stare at you weird and So they've got these two foreign singers and everyone, all the Chinese netizens, because Na Ying is on this show. They start joking. The winner is already decided. It's going to be our girl Na Ying. Have you heard her sing? Like, she's crazy. She is one of the most famous OGs. I mean, oh, she's incredible.
She's only one year younger than Shantae.
Yeah, 55. Shante Morris, 56. Which, by the way, both of them look max like 35. It's crazy. She is one of the most recognized female vocalists, particularly famous for her explosive. That's how they describe her. Like she's just explosive.
explosive lungs and she's known as the queen of pop she's known as like a diva in the chinese pop music history she has been in the industry for over 30 years i'm telling you like celine dion is what tiffany said she also was a judge on the voice of china so she's been judges on these singing competitions and now she's coming in as a contestant it's not even it's not
Everyone in the comments is like, Na Ying, you got it in the bag. You don't even have to be nervous about any of this. Now the show finally begins and the host seems very nervous because everything is being live streamed. Everything is raw, unedited, live. And at the very beginning of the show, they even make a verbal slip up. They say, drink singer, watch Jian Chun.
Oh, I mean, watch singer, drink Jian Chun. Diantune is a yogurt brand that's sponsoring the show. So this little mistake goes viral because they're like, oh, the show is absolutely being live streamed. It's so real. Look at the hostess and host. They're so nervous that they mess up the lines of the show. But then there were some audience members that were there at the production date.
Hey, I'm Stephanie from Michigan, and we flipped a Democratic seat to Republican with Tom Barrett.
Correct. And he's an excellent guy. He was at many events that I got to speak intimately with him. He was very sweet. How can we make sure we hold him accountable, but making sure we don't fall back into the blue side in that region of Lansing?
Hey, Dr. John, how are you?
I'm doing well, thank you. I mean, I'm calling you, but I'm doing good.
All right, well, um... First, I want to say thank you to you and George for the public service that you guys did at Dainey's a few weeks ago. That was incredible.
No way! I was there and it was awesome. Y'all were amazing.
Oh, good. Good to know. I'll try to be there.
Okay. Good deal. So I'm going to give you a little bit of a backstory. I'll try to make it quick. And then if you need more, just let me know.
Okay. Good deal. So about 10 years ago, currently I'm not married. I am divorced. But 10 years ago, I was a homeschooling military wife and I had five kids at the time. And we had moved to a new duty station. I had signed up at a homeschool co-op and very quickly made one of the dearest friends I've ever had in my entire life. And she was my ride or die, call it 2 a.m. type friend.
We did everything together. Sometimes the dads would join in, but usually the stuff we did was during the day. So it was usually us and the kids. And because we were military, we quickly moved. but she and I would keep in touch. And fast forward to about four years ago, she got a cancer diagnosis. And then shortly after that, I actually filed for divorce. It was a very abusive marriage.
And so our grief journeys kind of overlapped a little bit. And early last summer, Actually, the day after my divorce was finalized, she lost her battle with cancer.
So talk about a range of emotions there.
Yeah. Yeah. It was a hard 24 hours. 24 hours? Well, just a shock, I guess. Okay, there you go.
No, it was a lot more than 24 hours. Okay, so fast forward to a few weeks ago. I got a Facebook friend request from her husband who had recently gotten on Facebook. And so I accepted it. We started talking. Oh, yeah. Oh, no.
Okay. So it started out as he just wanted someone to kind of sit with him in his grief. And I was like, yes, I'm all in a hundred percent. So then it kind of shifted to, I started thinking, okay, is, is he interested in something more than just talking? Like what, what's going on? So instead of mulling over it in my head, I thought, you know what, I'm just going to ask him and dive right in. So.
Hey, hold on, Stephanie.
Yes. Oh, gosh. Okay. So did your heart start beating fast?
My heart did start beating fast, but I was also freaking out like, oh, crap, me too. Oh, no. God, sweet. How many kids does he have? He has four, and I have six.
Exactly.
Sheesh. Okay, so here's my question. Obviously, if we continue on, I don't want to officially do anything until we've passed the year mark of my divorce and his wife's passing, especially for the kids' sakes. I don't want to mention anything to them.
Yeah.
Yeah, actually.
How do we purposely... walk through that because I am about going through it slow actually. And I've, I told him that last week. Um, and yeah, I guess I just want to know the steps that we do need to take and we're actually meeting. I haven't seen him in like 10 years and we're going to meet halfway in a few days and just be around each other.
Yeah. No, that was good. Just have intentional time together. And so I would just, yeah, I would love some, some advice from you on that.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
They range from 7 to 18.
Yeah. Yeah, for real.
Very fair.
Absolutely.
No, not at all. Because the last week or so, I've actually been like, oh no, I don't know if this is right. But yet... you know, is it my alarms and bells going off because I'm used to so much pain and, you know, so I've been kind of going back and forth with that. And he's actually been very gracious and he's backed off a little bit.
Um, but we still think it's fair to move, not move forward, but just continue talking and just see and just have fun and just see what it's what it's like. Cause this is brand new and it is scary in a lot of ways, but you know, I just, I don't know what's going to happen. And so I'm trying to tell myself to just relax. I'm not committing to anything.
Um, just by seeing him, it may work out and it may not. And that's okay. So everything you said is exactly what I needed to hear. So thank you.
And...
Well, thankfully, he's not military. Oh, he's not? Okay. No, that is a plus right there.
Okay. All right. So we're getting out.
Hi, how are you?
I'm good. I'm freezing cold up here, but that's okay.
Oh, well, thanks. Okay, so here's my predicament. I am in a relationship with a guy that is, he's great and I love him to death, but he has a very different
love language than me he's really really physically affectionate and that's not to say I don't like physical affection and that's a huge problem it's just that it's it's a lot he's really really physically affectionate and I what does that mean?
So I will just be sitting there trying to work because sometimes I work from home. We both sometimes work from home and I'll be sitting there trying to work and he's constantly kind of like grabbing me, hugging me from behind. He keeps kissing me on my cheek and I'm not trying to sound ungrateful.
Like I feel like I'm sounding ungrateful, but it just, it's not my love language and it really doesn't. it can be so overwhelming sometimes. Like it's just too much. I'll come home from work and I'm really happy to see him, but then it's just constantly, he needs to just be holding onto me and showering me with physical affection.
And I just like, I need to just sit down for half an hour and decompress. Like I had maybe had a stressful day.
Well, it's either one of two reactions. So either he kind of gets, hurt and huffy and just goes away and leaves me alone and he's just upset and hurt or he will say oh okay and then he'll keep doing it but then oh yeah you don't want me to touch you i forgot and god dude what a bad baby you're you're dating a toddler you know that right I don't, I don't, he's just like, he's hurting over that.
He's normally more mature. Like he's normally quite.
Yeah, I mean, I do kind of, but I also think he means well. It doesn't matter.
Yeah.
I mean, well, that's just the way I feel. It's not how he feels.
Well, I mean, how do I differentiate then? Like what is normal loving? How do I, I don't want him to feel hurt. I'm not trying to be a jerk.
I mean, yeah, it can be a lot, especially after a stressful day.
So how do I then, so I mean, a loving relationship, it requires obviously some physical affection and love. How do I navigate that in a way that it works for both of us if we both just have different needs?
Yeah. I do kind of get that sense from him a little bit. He's maybe a little bit more anxious.
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I, I guess so. I just, I, I, I do want to be able to have him feel loved in the relationship as well. I don't want it to just, I don't know, be all what,
I got a phone call one afternoon from a husband who was deployed to Afghanistan. His tone was very serious when I picked up the phone. It scared me because that was not an unusual time for him to call me. And he said, hon, he said, there's this baby.
She is gracious and kind and amazingly resilient for what she's been through.
She loves to play outside. She loves her baby dolls. She wants to be a doctor when she grows up. She has hope in what she wants to do. She has ideas. She's a breath of fresh air in our home.
She suffered a fractured skull, a compound fracture to her left leg, multiple fragmentation wounds down her leg, and second-degree burns on her face and neck.
Here is this orphan that has no one to stand up for it.
And when I finally got to see her in person, I was shocked. I couldn't believe it was her. In fact, I questioned inwardly, could that possibly be her? Because her eyes were no longer big, round, and happy. She was closed off and guarded, and she had a scowl. And she looked...
scared frightened and obviously with what she just went through that was that was understandable but it was different she had lice she had parasites a lot of trauma and just emotional just adjustments that had to take place for her to feel safe and secure and the best way to do that was just to love on her and give her everything that we had and that's exactly what we did life finally settled but she loves school
Four, five, plus one more equals six.
When you consider her past, when you see her in the day-to-day, it's incredible how normal she is. She is just like any other little girl.
She, right now, she's loved, she's secure, she has a family, she has a future. And that would all be taken away from her. She would be absolutely devastated. And I don't want to see that shell of a little girl that I saw in Germany back again. And it has taken... a lot of time and pouring into her to see her be this vibrant girl that she is today.
And for that to be ripped away from her, it would absolutely destroy her.
I had to come to that point in my life to where it became that. Of course, when it first showed up in my life when I was six years old, I didn't know what was going on. I did have some stressors that were going on that were out of my control, which I think contributed to the anxiety showing up. I think I was also predisposed. I come from a long line of anxiety. anxious women.
But, you know, I had to push myself to do things, you know, that shouldn't have been hard. And I remember having conversations with myself at such a young age saying, OK, I'm either going to let this conquer me and I'm going to just lie down and, you know, give up or I'm going to have to push through and really show what I'm made of because it was bad.
So I started viewing it as my superpower because I knew that I was going to have to look at it that way or it was going to destroyed me. You know, I started taking medication in my late 20s to help with my anxiety, and it was a game changer. I have a 12-year-old daughter now who two weeks ago we made the difficult but very necessary decision to put her on anxiety medication as well.
And my question is, what conversation should I have with her about this? And what should I share with her about my journey With anxiety.
Well, you know, we are going through the not wanting to go to school, the stomach aches. About two months ago, the school called and said, you know, you've got to come get her. She was in class, felt like she got in trouble and couldn't get it together.
Yes. And she's taught me so much through this. And I am just so thankful for you guys and talking about this because it's a lonely place to be. whenever you struggle with anxiety.
And I think I didn't talk to her about it and I haven't really, you know, gotten in depth talking to her about it because in some crazy way, I thought I was protecting her because if I didn't give her the idea that this could be an issue, it wouldn't happen to her. You know, and this wasn't happening. She just had an episode. Well, now you know better.
And I think...
Hi, I'm good, Dave and Rachel. How are you both?
I am a... About 25 minutes away from Boston, Massachusetts. Awesome.
About $105,000. Way to go, kiddo. Excellent. How long did this take you? Three years and eight months.
So I started at about $60,000 and I ended at $115,000. Excellent. And what do you do for a living? So I work for a hospital, I'm a manager in IT.
So it was everything, Dave. About $360 was medical. I had $3,100 in a car loan, $6,200 personal loan, $7,000 in credit card debt, and the biggest was my student loans. It was about $88,000. Wow.
36.
Okay. So it took me 18 years to get here. But so 2018, like I said, I'd been struggling for many years. And, you know, I'd really have been praying and asking God to really help me because I never knew how to budget, just was out of control, didn't know what to do. So September 2018, I was home on maternity leave.
I had my third child and I was actually searching for sermons really to watch on YouTube. And then in my feed, it came, this couple video came up and the title was Dave Ramsey ruined our lives. And so I never saw the couple before, never watched them ever. And I never heard your name. So but it was a pretty, you know, good looking couple, sharp couple. So I decided to watch.
And they proceeded to say how, you know, they said from the time they started your program, they weren't. getting out of debt. I mean, you know, selling things left and right, living on rice and beans, not going out, just, you know, making sacrifices to live the life that they wanted to live ultimately. And so I, you know, and I believe it was divine connection. I believe God led me to that video.
And so as I was watching, I said, wow, like they can do it. I can do it too. So I started searching for you on YouTube. Um, at that time, I just saw a lot of the short videos, the seven to 10 minute clips. I didn't know you had a show. Um, but I just started digging into those, learned about these, you know, the seven baby steps I learned about, you know, just what you teach, what you practice.
And it all made sense. Um, like I said, I was on maternity leave. So I only had, I was making half of my income at the time. Um, because I was, it was just using my vacation time to try and spread the time out. Um, So I downloaded the EveryDollar app and I couldn't really start the budget until October. That's when I went back to work. But I had the budget in place.
I listened to Rachel Cruz and all the material that you guys put out there and tried to do my budget as best I could. And so once I went back to work in October, my budget was set and I pretty much hit the ground running. I initially started out, I was, you know, picking up Instacart shifts, you know, even with sometimes my little kids in the car, my daughter.
I would work full time during the day and I picked up a temp agency job, you know, at the evening. So we were home. It was during COVID. So, you know, kids running around in the background, but I'm doing a temp agency job. And I also, you know,
delivered pizza for Domino's, um, you know, a short while, uh, fast forward to 2020, December, 2020, I, um, interviewed and got a, got a position at another hospital. So that jumped me up in my pay, um, about 20,000 and the next year, 2021, about November, I got a promotion to manager. So in that jumped me up as well. So that has been my journey up, you know, through 2018 to now. Wow.
He worked your tail off, kiddo. I was. And you know what? I believed in the vision. I believed what you taught. And from that first, paying off that first credit card, just seeing how free, how a little bit of space in my budget. And I said, wow, this really works.
And I was determined, regardless of what people said, I was determined that I was going to do it, not just for myself and my kids, to leave a legacy. And that's really why I kept going.
Yeah. Well, in perseverance, but I think the biggest thing is a mindset change. You know, people that I talk to and I share my journey with, they're happy for me. But, you know, a lot of what I hear is, you know, you'll never be out of debt. You're always going to have debt.
And by soaking myself into your show, you know, listening, watching all the death-free screams that have come across the stage. You know, watching the everyday millionaire, you know, like listening to all these people that have done it and they live debt free. It is possible.
So I think it requires a mindset shift, you know, being around different people, listening, but realizing that it is possible, but also perseverance. I mean, regardless of what comes. I mean, I had life happen during those three and, you know, eight months. So, yeah. But it's perseverance, being willing to persevere through and trusting God in the process.
Because once you've committed to it, he will see you through the end.
I would say a little bit of everybody. I mean, my mom is here, my family, they all supported me through this journey. My coworkers at work, at the time when I could pick up on call shifts, they would know I was on this journey. And so they would, you know, help me out, you know, send me there on call shifts. But I think the biggest one is my oldest daughter.
Um, during COVID, she was my babysitter when I had to pick up the shifts. She was my babysitter and she sacrificed a lot, but she knew what we were after. She knew the reason why we sacrificed and she was willing to delay gratification for a season so that we could be here today, you know, and become debt free.
So I would say she's my biggest out of, out of everyone, my biggest supporter, my biggest cheerleader.
Absolutely.
Amazing. I cash flowed this trip here. It wasn't cheap. But I didn't stress. The money's there. It's absolutely amazing. And I wouldn't trade anything for the world. I would do it again if I had to.
Thank you.
So I have Sanaya. Sanaya is 15 years old. Emanuela, she is five. And my youngest one, Atara, she's three years old. All right.
Got in my ear twice. And when I got in my boyfriend's ear, we had to go to the emergency room.
I started putting tissue in my ear, so they can't bother me as much. But, yeah, it was hard to go to sleep. They crumb on the beat. I didn't like it. Yeah, it was hard. It was very hard. Because it was a lot.