019 Just Two Good Old Boys

Ben: 0:11

Audi Jean coming to you from Athens?

Gene: 0:15

No, no. Greece. I don't know where you are. Maybe you're here in Texas.

Ben: 0:19

No, no more Germany, no more Spain. Now I'm onto Athens.

Gene: 0:23

Oh,

Ben: 0:23

Yep. I, uh, spent several days in Barcelona.

Gene: 0:27

we all, wow. Yeah, right.

Ben: 0:30

Barcelona's a neat city. I got to spend some time there. I went there for a dinner with a client, so I, uh, I had some free time, which was neat.

Gene: 0:42

Yeah.

Ben: 0:43

I mean, you know, multi-billion dollar company, that is gonna end up me going to South Africa for an assessment of one of their facilities. But hey,

Gene: 0:51

I should stick this into the, uh, the picture, into the episode so people can see what it is. It, I think it's

Ben: 0:58

yeah. Which by the way, Singapore Airlines did not suck. No, um, Hanza, the two Hanza flights? Nah.

Gene: 1:10

Southwest.

Ben: 1:11

the, uh, Erian flight I had here into Greece, um, the service was great, but the, um, seats sucked. So even the business class seats are the exact same as the economy class, but they just have a little tray in between you.

Gene: 1:30

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:31

It's like, what the hell is this? What, what are you

Gene: 1:34

They, that's definitely something I found too, is that the, of the European Airlines, the ones that I liked were KLM and Alitalia.

Ben: 1:43

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:45

Those seem to have a little better business class, first class.

Ben: 1:49

Well, but they do more long haul. So what I've noticed is, you know, Lufthansa does some long haul, but they have their long haul jets for that. Um, whereas like United and, you know, even American, any of the United and American jets can be used to go to Mexico, uh, can be used for international flights essentially. Um, whereas what Hanza and a Gian and looks like a lot of the other European airlines have done is focus on what I would say is basically just domestic. Right? So when I say just domestic, I mean to the SH zone

Gene: 2:26

exactly.

Ben: 2:27

plus like the UK and a couple

Gene: 2:29

And to be fair, we do have similar kind of deal, like the, one of my favorite air uh, airplanes, the Embryo 1 75, which is a regional jet, but it's region is pretty damn big. It's half the United States. So literally from Dallas, I could go anywhere in the US on that jet. Um, and I like them because they have the better seats in that jet cuz it's a 1 22,

Ben: 2:53

Yep.

Gene: 2:54

uh, than the. Narrow body, first class seats on bigger plane, which are tutu. So the embryo is actually very nice if you're flying first.

Ben: 3:07

Okay. I've never flown first on a ember air. I have flown on one though. anyway, flights aside. Um, got to see lots of cool history stuff in, uh, uh, Barcelona. Got to see, uh, some art. I got to see, um, the um, uh, fort or what they call a castle overlooking Barcelona that, uh, its guns have been trained on the city more than once in its history, which is pretty interesting. So,

Gene: 3:44

Yeah. And you, you go to Old Town

Ben: 3:46

yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Gene: 3:48

and uh, did you go to the Gotti Gardens at all?

Ben: 3:51

Went to the gardens, uh, went to the, um, uh, Pablo, I'm blanking on the artist's name. Picasso went to Picasso's, uh, house and toured his, that collection. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, he donated the majority of his unsold collection to, uh, the city of Barcelona. Um, first of all, I didn't realize how long he lived, and I'll say this, I've never been a Picasso fan, but what I knew of Picasso was his famous stuff. His, you know, his cubism, his, you know, really kind of out there stuff. But when you look at his earlier works, the man was Oh, amazing.

Gene: 4:34

for sure. And that, that does happen, uh, with good artists sometimes, is that they. They get really good at traditional techniques and then they kind of veer off into their own

Ben: 4:49

and do something creative.

Gene: 4:51

Yeah, well create, but you know, not so much, even just creative, but like unique. And I think that a lot of times that unique thing is, is not what most people want.

Ben: 5:05

Yeah. It's certainly not what I want. Um, some of his early stuff there, there was this one painting that there was this woman's face, and you could tell she was just an absolutely beautiful woman and her face was in such detail, but then as you looked out from her face, it just kind of faded into the background and was a blur because all he was focused on was the face. Right. Everything else was, uh, so what? And it was, it was truly amazing. It really was.

Gene: 5:35

Yeah. That's very true. And those paintings do. up very often. Like you, it's, most people don't realize he was actually a good artist. They just

Ben: 5:50

Most people don't realize

Gene: 5:51

a weird guy. Oh. I said most people don't realize he was actually a good artist. They, they just think he did weird art.

Ben: 6:01

yes. I mean, that was me for a very long time, to be honest with you.

Gene: 6:05

hmm.

Ben: 6:07

But, uh, anyway, um, moving on from that, uh, really got to see the city, walked around quite a bit. Got to see, um, the cathedral and the,

Gene: 6:18

What is it called? I can't remember what it's called.

Ben: 6:20

I don't,

Gene: 6:21

there's some Spanish

Ben: 6:22

you can Google it,

Gene: 6:24

and it's been in like perpetual construction state ever since I can remember.

Ben: 6:28

Right. They're redoing stuff on it. Yeah.

Gene: 6:31

Like constantly, like forever.

Ben: 6:33

What was,

Gene: 6:34

scam to get money donations.

Ben: 6:36

yeah, what was also astonishing to me and what I've seen in both, I didn't see this so much in Munich, which is interesting, but in Athens and in Greece or Athens and in Barcelona, you can see where bombs fell and where they didn't in the old parts of the town. Because you can see relatively new construction, pre-war II construction, right up against each other. And you're like, okay, this did not get naturally built out this way. And I doubt they tore down the building without a reason.

Gene: 7:07

So when you were in Munich, did you go to the rez color,

Ben: 7:10

Did I go where?

Gene: 7:11

the Retz Keller

Ben: 7:12

No, I had very real little time in Munich. I didn't do a whole hell of a lot in Munich.

Gene: 7:18

that Well, it's a, um, it's a fairly famous, uh, deer hall down off the something plots. One of the one where they,

Ben: 7:29

yeah, I went to the Hoff Brow house.

Gene: 7:31

okay. Yeah. So similar kind of,

Ben: 7:34

Yep.

Gene: 7:36

Yeah. What'd you think of that? Did you have a here in pretzel?

Ben: 7:40

Uh, I had some beer and I had some, uh, braw over sauerkraut with some horseradish and,

Gene: 7:49

stuff I eat every week.

Ben: 7:50

I mean, yeah, but you know what? I've never had sauerkraut like that before. It is not what I thought of a sauerkraut, and it was delicious. And, uh, we had a bunch of Germans, you know, at the beer hall like that, you don't get a table to yourself. Everybody just said there's room, you sit down. And so a bunch of locals sat down by us and we talked to them and got, you know, just back and forth and it was a lot of fun.

Gene: 8:16

Did you have any Turkish food while you were there?

Ben: 8:18

I did not get any Turkish food in Munich. No.

Gene: 8:22

You have quite a bit of that.

Ben: 8:23

Okay.

Gene: 8:25

Hmm.

Ben: 8:25

Well, um,

Gene: 8:26

you were mostly working there, it sounds like.

Ben: 8:28

Yeah, I, that was really working, uh, the SEC conference and, uh, doing a few other things. So, yep. So on my way into Athens, we were gonna record last night, but we didn't get to, did

Gene: 8:45

What, so what happened?

Ben: 8:46

did you get to read about the Greek train derailment?

Gene: 8:49

Well, yeah. So is that what happened? That's why you were delayed?

Ben: 8:53

So I was delayed because of a massive protest in the Athens City Center. And in fact, there's another one, I just got a notice on my TV at the hotel that, uh, there will be multiple road closures and things, and people advised to stay away from blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Gene: 9:10

What was the stuff that, uh, was on the train?

Ben: 9:13

So it was people

Gene: 9:15

Oh, well, that's, they're not poisonous. At least

Ben: 9:18

No, but, um, so apparently the, uh, what are you sending?

Gene: 9:24

that's the link to the rats color.

Ben: 9:25

Okay, I'll look at it later. So, um, the, uh, apparently the Greek railway system has been operating without proper signaling gear for many years now, and they've been talking about money for it and doing this and doing that. And they've basically been doing manual timing and dispatch

Gene: 9:44

Oh my God.

Ben: 9:45

and a train operator, you know, finally screwed up and sent two trains down the same track in opposing directions.

Gene: 9:52

Oh no.

Ben: 9:54

Yeah. So over,

Gene: 9:55

how many deaths and injuries?

Ben: 9:57

so, uh, the last I saw earlier this morning, it was 57 dead and it, and it was to the point where they were ha it was so bad they were asking family, family members who thought their loved one might be on that train to come in for DNA n evidence to be able to identify the bodies.

Gene: 10:16

Well, you know, if this happened in the United States, there'd probably be somebody trying to ban trains,

Ben: 10:22

Yeah, right.

Gene: 10:23

it's obviously the train's fault,

Ben: 10:25

well,

Gene: 10:25

controlling it.

Ben: 10:27

well, they're up in the air. They're all pissed off. I mean, they're, the, the officials are saying, Hey, we can't blame one person for this, and so on. But really the sentiment of the people really seems to be, you know, Keli, him, Although I don't, I don't think that's the right response because he, he was kind of put in an impossible situation, right? I mean, you don't have proper signaling gear. He thought the rail was clear by the time he figured out that it wasn't, it was just too late.

Gene: 10:59

Well that's horrible. But I'm glad you weren't on the train.

Ben: 11:03

Uh, yeah. Plane's good. Train's

Gene: 11:06

bad enough. I got one host that's having heart issues. I don't need another one Dying.

Ben: 11:10

Yeah. Well, I hope Darren's doing better,

Gene: 11:13

Oh yeah. Yeah. I hope that for sure.

Ben: 11:16

anyway.

Gene: 11:17

I gotta look out for making sure my podcast stays.

Ben: 11:21

Yeah, you're clipping quite a bit, man.

Gene: 11:24

Uh, well hopefully that's not gonna matter on the recording

Ben: 11:27

Hopefully not.

Gene: 11:28

each of us is recording our local side here.

Ben: 11:30

Yeah. Anyway, um, so anyway, there's quite a bit of civil unrest and people are very, very unhappy. Um, this comes during, uh, you know, run up to election cycles, things like that. Uh, the protests are happening all around the Greek Parliament, which I am literally a half block from, by the way, in my

Gene: 11:54

Oh geez.

Ben: 11:56

I am right here.

Gene: 11:58

Great location.

Ben: 11:59

like I, I go up one street and down a block and yeah, yeah, that's it. So, um, uh, the hotel I'm in is pretty teeny, but you know, it's location, location, location. So, yeah,

Gene: 12:13

Well that's cool. Uh, so are you gonna still be able to do some stuff? Are you gonna go to your clients? You were gonna plan on doing that or do I have you?

Ben: 12:21

So, yeah, to today, I got to walk around the city some and I met up with, uh, the business partner I needed to meet up with, did the tour of the, of the facilities here and, you know, that little surprise inspection thing I kind of talked about. And, uh, met a colleague for lunch and then just, you know, walked around the streets and got to know the city a little bit. Uh, went and looked at Parliament and a couple other things and I'll, I'll, uh, be getting up early and going to the Acropolis tomorrow morning.

Gene: 12:51

Nice. That's awesome. And then when you fly out,

Ben: 12:56

Monday.

Gene: 12:57

okay,

Ben: 12:58

Yes. Let's get my entire itinerary publicly

Gene: 13:01

well I am just, I'm not saying which airline or ticket number you have or which seat you're in. I'm just saying when are you flying out?

Ben: 13:09

Yeah. Yeah, it was funny. Um, I was out last night, uh, grabbing a bite to eat, and um, after I got in, just went and grabbed something real quick. And this, uh, couple was, uh, sitting outside. I was sitting outside on the, you know, right on the street level, uh, just outside a little cafe grabbing a, all they had left was a, like pizza. It was not great, but it was, I was close to the hotel and I was hungry. I got in late last night, so, um, they're sitting there and obviously a new couple and trying to take photos together and all this, and I'm like, can I take a photo? Anyway, started talking to him. They're from Cypress and um, he's in the military and she's a nutritionist and they, they've only been dating for like four months. It's like, uh, okay, But anyway, uh, got to talking to them and they were very friendly. And it's, uh, it, it was interesting cuz today when I was rocking around, I ran into him again. It's like, this is a pretty big city

Gene: 14:09

So you met your handlers,

Ben: 14:10

Yes, exactly. That was the thought.

Gene: 14:13

Uhhuh

Ben: 14:14

Uhhuh.

Gene: 14:15

That's nice. Yeah, Cyprus is great. Uh, it's about a 40% Russian population there. Uh, it's a very, um, it, it's a, it's a place that has got a, a long history of occupation and uh,

Ben: 14:31

So does

Gene: 14:32

so you tend to have people a little bit more, a little more, uh, pessimistic that live there than in the, in Greece.

Ben: 14:40

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 14:44

But, cool. Well, glad you guys hooked up.

Ben: 14:49

right? Yeah. So what's, uh, what's been going on in Austin, man?

Gene: 14:56

Well, we had allegedly a tornado here, although I sure still didn't see one. Don't, don't really know other people that have either. But apparently there was a tornado that came through here. Uh, we did have some strong winds that flew through at about 60 miles an hour, I guess.

Ben: 15:12

I know there was some hail in, uh, college station.

Gene: 15:15

Yeah, there was hail and college station. Apparently Fredericksburg had hail. Um, we, I don't think ever got hail. I certainly didn't hear hail and I didn't get any kind of popup on my phone of hail. Uh, so we mostly just had strong winds, but I am pretty close to downtown, so maybe places that were further out got hail. Cuz you know, city centers tend to have micro climates, so because the heat generated you tend to have a,

Ben: 15:45

Well, the heat sink from the concrete,

Gene: 15:48

um, what do, what do you mean heat?

Ben: 15:51

well, the concrete heats up and stays hot. So in the evening when the rest is cooling down, it stays warm.

Gene: 15:58

warm. Yeah, exactly. But you're also generating a lot because all those air conditioners are dumping the heat somewhere

Ben: 16:05

Correct.

Gene: 16:06

because it, it did get to like 83 here,

Ben: 16:09

Okay.

Gene: 16:10

the ACS were definitely on, so we're kind of getting to that switch in seasons from paying for natural gas, for heating to paying for electricity, for air conditioning.

Ben: 16:21

yeah, we've been going back and forth on that in my house for weeks

Gene: 16:24

I did check pricing. It looks like the cost of natural gas went up 32% from last year.

Ben: 16:32

Yeah. Easily now that we're, we're, we're complaining about that. But you know, it's still a shit ton lower than they're paying in Europe.

Gene: 16:42

Well that's obviously you. I mean, who'd wanna pay what they're paying for Europe for anything gasoline, at least double.

Ben: 16:50

Yeah. Uh, I mean, there are a lot of goods here as I walk around that are much cheaper, but,

Gene: 16:57

Like feta cheese.

Ben: 16:59

Water.

Gene: 17:00

Oh, water cheaper. Really? Less than a buck a bottle.

Ben: 17:03

Uh, I just bought a 1.5 liter, uh, bottle of water for next day or so and it was one Euro.

Gene: 17:13

it's a little cheaper. I guess I don't, it's a whole lot cheaper.

Ben: 17:17

Uh,

Gene: 17:17

Or is this like fancy water with some kind of crap in it? It was regular water.

Ben: 17:21

No, it's just regular water, but it's, nevermind anyway.

Gene: 17:25

That's about the same price.

Ben: 17:28

Okay,

Gene: 17:29

I mean, a, a gallon of water is a buck 29 if you just buy it by the gallon.

Ben: 17:34

sure. But I'm not buying, anyway, the size that I got would've been more expensive in the US is

Gene: 17:41

In a, in a gas station. But what about a grocery store?

Ben: 17:44

Well, this wasn't in the grocery store. It was a little street shop. Yeah,

Gene: 17:47

Oh, that's not a bad. Yeah, that probably would've been like two 50 or more.

Ben: 17:52

Exactly. Thank you. Um,

Gene: 17:55

sometimes more for water than for Coke.

Ben: 17:58

Oh yeah, absolutely. I have had some interesting run ins.

Gene: 18:03

are you a Coke drinker at all or not? Did you not drink sweet things?

Ben: 18:06

Uh, I occasionally, but I don't drink

Gene: 18:08

Okay. So make sure, at least at some point on your trip you do buy a small bottle of Coke because in Europe they don't use corn sweetener.

Ben: 18:18

Yeah. But in Mexico they don't either.

Gene: 18:20

Well, that's true. That's true. But I think there's still a difference in taste between Mexican Coke and European Coke. I find European Coke to generally taste better than all the other variety. And I don't really drink Coke, but it's, it's worth getting a small bottle just to notice the difference how horrible it is here in.

Ben: 18:41

Yeah, absolutely.

Gene: 18:46

Um, yeah, cuz I think in Mexico they're, they're using cane sugar and I think in Europe they use bee sugar.

Ben: 18:53

Okay. Interesting.

Gene: 18:55

So there's, I mean, they're all sugars, but there's a slight difference in place.

Ben: 18:58

Right. And each one's using the local variety that they have. Ours just happens to be corn.

Gene: 19:06

Yeah, exactly. Um, no, that's, that's very cool. Um, I'm trying to think what, what other events

Ben: 19:16

Well, I, I will say this, I did have a little bit of a run in and just a pro tip to any new travelers out there. Like me. I, I kind of went back and forth on whether or not I should take euros with me or not, or what. I was like, everywhere's gonna take a card and if not, I'll have some American currency and that shouldn't be a problem. Wrong So, uh, one, one, uh, place didn't take, uh, card, which they didn't notify me that this was in Barcelona, which here in Greece, I. I like grease more in Spain. Uh, there's nothing wrong with Barcelona, but this is, uh, this is a little more civilized place. So not to offend any Spaniards out there, but, uh, just, uh, didn't notify me, didn't have anything, you know, cash only up or anything like that, so I ended up overpaying with

Gene: 20:14

I had that happen in Russia in the restaurant years ago where I, I take a girl out to have dinner at a fancy restaurant, and then they tell me they don't take credit cards in the mail, and I'm like, uh, where's the closest atm? I was like, oh, there's, there's one about a kilometer.

Ben: 20:35

Fuck

Gene: 20:37

So I had to leave the date sitting in the restaurant as hostage while I, uh, ran out to the ATM to get a bunch of, uh, rubles.

Ben: 20:46

Well, he told me to go to the ATM and told me where it was, and I'm like, yeah, problem with that. I don't have a debit card on me. Do cash events on your credit card? Yeah. My cards are actually set up to not be able to do that so no,

Gene: 21:02

So what did you end up doing?

Ben: 21:03

I, I overpaid him in US dollars.

Gene: 21:06

Okay, so he did take him after all.

Ben: 21:07

Yeah. Yeah. He just bitched about it.

Gene: 21:10

How much No pay.

Ben: 21:11

Uh, another$10 over,

Gene: 21:14

Oh, that's not a big deal. Yeah, I generally, I think I usually carry the 200 euros with me when I land, uh, just in case. And then sometimes I'll use like 10 out of 200. And other times I would have to take out more money later.

Ben: 21:32

Yeah. And I,

Gene: 21:34

set up a bank account in Amsterdam. Cause I kept needing money.

Ben: 21:38

Well, so I mean, I all, any foreign transaction fees and all that are covered, so it's not a big deal for me on that. But, um, it's been nice having the cash and to, you know, do that

Gene: 21:50

Well, and now all the American cards have chips in them. But for a while there, Europe was way ahead of that curve. So all their cards had chips and they were getting rid of stripes, uh, or on the back of the cards. And it was at a time where American Cards just started introducing chips. So there was a good chance that a lot of people traveling, you know, the cards they had in their wallets were all Stripe cards and Europeans, a lot of'em did not take those.

Ben: 22:19

right? Well, they, they still take them today, but uh, I've seen'em do it recently, but they definitely prefer the chip for sure.

Gene: 22:28

yeah. Yeah. And I think it, well it depends on what the business got, but. You know, it's cheaper for them to have a machine that only does chips.

Ben: 22:36

Yeah, and Amex is hit or miss

Gene: 22:39

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oh, that's true. How about your phone? Any issues with your phone working there?

Ben: 22:45

Uh, when I first landed in Germany on my personal phone, getting it, uh, set up for roaming, uh, I had to go through and do a, um, what you call it, went through and, um, had to call the carrier and let'em know, even though I had tr, even though I had tried to call Verizon beforehand, and they're like, no, you're good. You just accept the roaming and blah. Yeah, that didn't work. They had to go through and reset something on the back end, so,

Gene: 23:16

Yeah, I've, I've generally had T-Mobile, so that's always worked in Europe really well. Um,

Ben: 23:23

yeah.

Gene: 23:24

good, good, good. So did you see the, um, the Hershey's commercial and the Jeremy's response?

Ben: 23:39

No, what was the Hershey's commercial in Germany's response? R Remember, I've been traveling.

Gene: 23:44

I

Ben: 23:44

My, my, my jet lag and time shift is pretty signi significant. Now I'm only doing like one time zone at a time, but still,

Gene: 23:53

Mm-hmm. Um, so Hershey's came out with a commercial for a new chocolate for Women's Month. Women's Day women's crap, whatever it is. Uh, that the ad had this new chocolate bar called her. She

Ben: 24:18

oh God.

Gene: 24:19

right? And the main person promoting it for them was a ma. I mean, a. Right. So, I mean, you can't rate this shit, right. This, this is like reality is, is basically based on South Park these days. And so this, this man and women's clothing was, uh, talking about girl power and

Ben: 24:46

Was it Dylan? Mul Mulvaney.

Gene: 24:48

it was, no, it was a Canadian version of that.

Ben: 24:50

Oh, okay.

Gene: 24:52

Mm-hmm And, uh, it was just, it was one of those ugh moments. Uh, and of course I had to post with just that story, that commercial by itself with the hashtag men winning. Uh, cuz every time that this happens, like, like the Miss Universe was won by a, uh, a transsexual, or no, I guess not transsexual a uh, trans. Uh, and again talking about, you know, women power and it's all about the strength in women. It's like, yeah, but what's, what's the takeaway from all this? Men doing women better?

Ben: 25:35

Yeah, I don't

Gene: 25:36

How insulting would

Ben: 25:37

don't know if that's the right level of analysis there, gene.

Gene: 25:40

No, it's totally the right level. It's, it's when, when you have sex based things like, oh, we created a chocolate bar, especially for women. We created a, a, an event, a competition, uh, beauty pageant just for women. And then you have men winning those doing the hats for em. I would be extremely insulted if I was a woman. Um, kind of

Ben: 26:05

would

Gene: 26:05

I guess

Ben: 26:05

I'm extreme. Yeah. I'm extremely insulted as a man, but that's not.

Gene: 26:10

Mm-hmm. Well, I, I think it's kind of funny as a man, frankly, but, but I, it's funny. Up to a point where it's no longer funny because, um, the people that are doing this don't think it's funny. They're not making this as a joke. They're doing it because they think like, what could be better than celebrating Women's Month than by having someone who just became a woman in their own mind be talking about it.

Ben: 26:38

Oh, Um, there could be lots of things wrong with this. I mean, you're alienating lots of people,

Gene: 26:46

But they don't think of it that way because they don't know anybody who thinks differently than them.

Ben: 26:50

well, but right now, turfs are considered, you know, uh, uh, hate organization.

Gene: 26:56

Oh yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, so immediately on the heels of this, within 24 hours, there was a commercial that came out

Ben: 27:08

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 27:09

and in fact, um, if I can do this, Let me, let me try and pull it up and see if it, I can make it come across here and get recorded or not. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, I'll just describe it. But um, um,

Ben: 27:26

How you gonna try and play the audio?

Gene: 27:28

yeah, I'm gonna try and play the audio off the YouTube cuz the audio's actually pretty damn funny. Um, find it here. Um, don't do it. This. Alright, so International women, you hear that is upon us, again, and I love an international woman, but our friends over at Hershey's, they don't even know what a woman is. They've hired a biological male to be the spokesperson for their Women's Day campaign and they're calling that campaign, and I swear I'm not making this up. Her, she, her. It's humiliating and it's the reason that I'm launching Jeremy's chocolate. We have two kinds. She, her and he, him. One of them's got nuts. If you need me to tell you which one it is, keep giving your money to Hershey's. But if you're tired of giving your money to woke corporations that hate you, and you're looking for a delicious chocolate bar from a company that actually wants your business head over to i hate hershey's dot com and order Jeremy's chocolate today,

Ben: 28:37

oh my god. I get

Gene: 28:40

It, it literally took them 24 hours

Ben: 28:45

my God.

Gene: 28:45

to get a chocolate company spun up.

Ben: 28:47

Oh, that's hilarious.

Gene: 28:50

Uh, they had 50,000 sales in the first day,

Ben: 28:54

Oh my God. That What a punchline.

Gene: 29:00

I'm telling you, dude, it's like, it wasn't a huge production ad like Jeremy's razor was. Two things on that ad. First of all, the fact that they, they did the whole damn thing within 24 hours of that Hershey's ad, meaning they lined up the manufacturing, they got everything set up, uh, and they did the ad and it was really good. Um, and then the other thing is, Brett Cooper is amazingly hot in that ad.

Ben: 29:38

Oh

Gene: 29:38

Brett Cooper is,

Ben: 29:39

yeah. But I don't see that as possible.

Gene: 29:42

I know, right? You would think so. He is like, oh, well that's, isn't that just like Ben in a female form?

Ben: 29:48

Yeah.

Gene: 29:48

Well, let me tell you, man. Uh,

Ben: 29:51

but Ben in a female form, his sister, you know, we've

Gene: 29:54

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So when you get a chance after recording, you can watch the ad yourself. But no, she looks fucking hot. Holy shit. I, I had to do a double take to. That kind of looks like her, but that's not her, is it? What? She's 21 dude. She's almost the right age. She's a year away. She's a year away from being perfect. So, but yeah, she like Jeremy looks like, uh, a little, uh, little gremlin next to her.

Ben: 30:29

A little troll. Yeah.

Gene: 30:30

I'll, I like, I'll bet you she's five lemon.

Ben: 30:35

You think she's that?

Gene: 30:38

Well, you look at the ad and you tell me what you think. She's a good foot taller than Jeremy.

Ben: 30:44

Okay. Well you think he you think

Gene: 30:47

Well I don't think Jeremy is four foot 11. Okay. But sure. Sure looks like. Oh, I'm sure Jeremy's a very average male. Five foot six, uh, you know, totally normal height for the world.

Ben: 31:01

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 31:02

Mm-hmm. So that happened. That was a funny. Funny thing. And I think, uh, I think people are saying, well that's not gonna jack shit to Hershey's. They're a huge company. They got all this stuff, blah, blah, blah. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's gonna do, it's gonna do plenty. Cuz aside from just direct sales that this company is getting now, which obviously means Hershey isn't, uh, the bigger thing that it's gonna do is tarnish the reputation of Hershey's the way it deserves to be tarnished. Go woke, get broke. And you know, it's not like Gillette stop making razors or any of these other companies, but they sure as hell have lowered their profit margins as a result of, uh, doing stupid.

Ben: 31:55

Well, and you see the, the Christians and even just, you know, people like you to go through and say, yeah.

Gene: 32:06

do you mean by you people?

Ben: 32:09

agnostic, atheist

Gene: 32:11

Uhhuh, I know what you mean by you people. Uhhuh, Uhhuh, We all know what you mean. Hollywood types don't you. Doesn't isn't that what you're referring to?

Ben: 32:21

Sure. No.

Gene: 32:25

Okay,

Ben: 32:25

Why do you think she looks hot in this?

Gene: 32:28

Dude, look at her body. Holy shit.

Ben: 32:32

Okay.

Gene: 32:33

There's a model that's a total model, uh, body type.

Ben: 32:38

Yeah. Anyway.

Gene: 32:41

How do you not wait? How do you not think she's hot? That's a better.

Ben: 32:48

I don't know. I've been in, uh, Barcelona, in Athens for a few

Gene: 32:53

Oh yeah. Well, sure. Yeah. In Europe there's a lot of, a lot of pretty women there. And well, the bigger thing is women in Europe tend to dress more like models do, and in the US the women basically wear

Ben: 33:07

And generally, and generally without certain types of garments.

Gene: 33:12

Yeah. And uh, you mean Europe they don't wear bras, what you're trying to say?

Ben: 33:17

Yes, yes.

Gene: 33:17

Yeah, that is correct

Ben: 33:19

It can be very distracting walking down the street.

Gene: 33:22

because bras are actually bad for women's posture. Whatever. It, it prevents you from building up back muscles that you need in order to not have a back that hurts.

Ben: 33:35

anyway, so that was funny. What else is going

Gene: 33:38

totally funny. South Park came out with a new episode if you probably missed.

Ben: 33:42

I have missed it.

Gene: 33:43

Yeah, it was about Japanese toilets,

Ben: 33:46

Oh God.

Gene: 33:49

and it is an allegory, but it is pretty freaking funny if you've ever utilized a Japanese toilet, uh, which I've only done a few times in my life, but they really kind of point out at the differences between the, the American toilets and the Japanese toilets. Um, so you'll have to catch up on that as

Ben: 34:09

what was the Allegory re regarding?

Gene: 34:11

you figure that out cuz it's, it's, it's, uh, I don't want to, I don't, no spoilers.

Ben: 34:16

Well, you know, I, I can't really stream from here without doing a whole lot of Rig and Morro to basically do a VPN through my phone.

Gene: 34:26

You can't do a VPN from your computer?

Ben: 34:29

I can, but I don't want to use my computer.

Gene: 34:33

No. Okay. I mean, whatever.

Ben: 34:39

Yeah, I, I, we've had this conversation. I

Gene: 34:41

could also do a VPN through your phone.

Ben: 34:44

I could, but I want a bigger

Gene: 34:45

that hard.

Ben: 34:46

that. So

Gene: 34:48

Um, well, can't you do a, uh, you can mirror your phone to your, uh Oh, you don't have a Mac with Yeah. iPad? No iPad.

Ben: 35:02

no iPad, I'm on my surface. Go right now.

Gene: 35:06

Yeah. Yeah. So, well, all right. Well, that's the downside of not having Mac stuff, I guess.

Ben: 35:12

Yeah. I'm So, one interesting thing that happened in Grease that definitely caught me off guard. I'm walking down the street and I kind of just looking up at the buildings and so on, and there's this guy walking out on his balcony, butt ass.

Gene: 35:26

huh?

Ben: 35:26

Right in the middle of town. No shame.

Gene: 35:29

Well,

Ben: 35:30

Alrighty

Gene: 35:30

they're Greeks. They're Greek.

Ben: 35:33

Hmm.

Gene: 35:34

I guess that's, uh, that's not a unusual thing there, maybe.

Ben: 35:40

I have no idea. It certainly was unusual to me. So anyway, beyond the protests here and, um, there's been a lot of inform, so I, the little bit of news I've been watching, I've been watching channels that I don't get in the States. So I've been watching, uh, some of Al Jazeera stuff. I've been watching France 24. Um, uh, little bit about a little of Russia today. Um, you know, evil propaganda. Um, It's interesting to me, and I didn't really realize this, Al Jazeera did a whole big thing on a recent move by Benjamin and Yahoo, and I don't think this is being covered in the States from the little bit of research I was able to do before we started recording. But Netanyahu turned over governance authorities, uh, in some of the occupied Palestine territories, aka the West Bank, um, from military control to civilian control, effectively declaring it permanently occupied,

Gene: 36:40

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 36:41

which is a pretty big move actually.

Gene: 36:46

eh, I don't know. I mean,

Ben: 36:49

Well, it, it's, it's saying Israel is going from, we agree. This is con this is con contentious terror territory. This is contested territory to No, no, no. This is ours.

Gene: 37:03

yeah, but I,

Ben: 37:06

pissed off.

Gene: 37:07

well, of course it's got, the Palestinians are always pissed off and it's, they have some good reason to be pissed off. I'm not dismissing the reason for that either, but I will say that, um, uh, I think Israel would've been better served by not giving up any territory ever, because that used to been the norm in the world. I think that it, there was no reason to change that. It should have still remained. So if you have a conflict, the winning party gets territory out of that conflict. That shouldn't just be territory that they gained temporarily that should redraw the map. And it's, the way that historically borders have always been determined is through military victories. So this idea that, um, that, you know, this is occupied territory, uh, that was a mistake, they should have changed the, the rhetoric on that immediately and say that this is just Israel, um, which is what Russia's doing with the territories that it's taking back from the, uh, the Ukrainian,

Ben: 38:25

Yeah.

Gene: 38:27

turn control

Ben: 38:29

Well, and I gotta tell you that I've run into some very interestingly mixed opinions, uh, here, um,

Gene: 38:37

in Greece.

Ben: 38:38

in Greece, in, uh, all over Europe. Um, Germany was probably the most consistent opinion, um, which is interesting in of itself, given. This is doing to the German economy,

Gene: 38:53

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 38:55

and it looks like my computer froze up, so hopefully

Gene: 38:57

Oh, I can still hear you. So what was the opinion?

Ben: 39:00

So the German opinion is basically that, um, you know, uh, Putin bad, Putin bad, Putin bad to pretty much everyone that I talked to who was, I'll say, doing well in life, right? So if they can afford this, they are consistently anti Putin, not anti-Russian, anti Putin. And the ones who are the cabbies, the, the, the wage earners, you know, the lower end earners are like, what the fuck are we doing? This is not our war.

Gene: 39:40

Yep.

Ben: 39:41

They don't want to take a moral stance in the.

Gene: 39:43

it's interesting cuz this is something Adam said as well, um, when I talked to him is, um, that, uh, he doesn't see Russo phobia, he sees Putin phobia for sure.

Ben: 39:58

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 39:59

And that's probably true, but it also is just demonstrates the, the lack of insight that people have because, um, like for example, uh, the average Russian person in Russia does not like Germans.

Ben: 40:20

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 40:22

The average German person may say, well, we don't like Putin, but we have no problem with Russian people. Well, the Russian people don't like the German people.

Ben: 40:31

do you

Gene: 40:31

So right off the get-go, there's an asymmetry that exists and uh, and part of that you can say, well that's cuz Russia has been really good at prop Propagandizing every generation after World War II about what happened in World War ii, but, well, so they

Ben: 40:49

the, the absolute horrific shit show that was Stalingrad.

Gene: 40:54

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and there was, there was a lot of sacrifices that were made involuntarily by a lot of Russians during World War ii. A lot of people died, not of bullets, but of starvation and disease.

Ben: 41:08

Well, I mean, have you, have you ever read the, uh, story of the siege of, I can't remember, uh, which one it was, but one of those siege is there, I think it was Stalingrad, where there was a seed, uh, seed bank. Um, and the people who ran the seed bank literally starved to death protecting it so that after war was over, they could replant the crops,

Gene: 41:32

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 41:33

have eaten the seeds and survived and saved themselves, but they knew that if they did, the famine to come would be far, far worse.

Gene: 41:41

Yeah. Yeah. And I didn't read this story because that was actually in letting grad, which is where I was born, and so I heard my grandma telling that story.

Ben: 41:49

Yep. Yeah. Tremendous.

Gene: 41:53

Yeah. So I'm, I'm making fun of the fact that, you know, like you're one of the few people that may even know that in this country. But, um, but it's well known in, in the country that actually suffered the most during World War.

Ben: 42:06

You, you mean in Greece? Yeah. I don't know how many Greeks know that.

Gene: 42:11

No, no. Greece. I don't know where you are. Maybe you're here in Texas. For all I know.

Ben: 42:16

Mm-hmm. I have sent you pictures up my window of

Gene: 42:20

Oh, I've sent you pictures too.

Ben: 42:23

yes. Well, yours were clearly fake,

Gene: 42:26

wow. Yeah, right. Uh, Uhhuh. Uhhuh. I, I like the postcards you sent over as though they were your own. That's, that's always nice.

Ben: 42:33

Dude, I did send you a picture earlier that, you know, I took just for you.

Gene: 42:40

Yeah. Fair enough. Fair enough. No, that one definitely looked like something you would take. Uhhuh. And then the, the picture is, I should stick this into the, uh, the picture, into the episode so people can see what it is.

Ben: 42:54

Oh, it

Gene: 42:55

I think it's artistic in nature, is how I

Ben: 42:57

yeah, it is, it's a, it's a very, very colorful bottle opener. And I just

Gene: 43:02

Oh, is that what it's supposed to be? A bottle opener. Oh, and I didn't get the bottle opener part from the photo.

Ben: 43:09

No,

Gene: 43:10

Nice.

Ben: 43:11

yeah. You can find anything in

Gene: 43:12

a new friend.

Ben: 43:14

No, not at all. I was just walking by this, this little bodega store down here and is just sitting right out there in the front. And they had some of'em, they were two feet long man.

Gene: 43:25

Oh my God. Those are huge bottle openers, two feet long. Holy cow. What's somebody gonna do with that?

Ben: 43:31

Whatever the

Gene: 43:32

very

Ben: 43:32

want.

Gene: 43:34

They are very colorful, for sure. Yeah. I'm gonna stick this into the, uh, it'll be, uh, the cover art that flips on automatically after a few minutes. But it's not the, it's not the stuff you'll see on the outside of the episode, but

Ben: 43:46

You're gonna get us banned.

Gene: 43:47

podcasting two point download that's not gonna get podcasting 2.0 player, then you will be able to see the photo that we're currently guessing pop up on your. Um, no, but you know, a lot of countries have podcast apps.com. That's right. Um, or podcasting 2.0 org. Dot org. If you wanna look at more stats and have links to all the podcasting 2.0 stuff, which I think now there's, I think was like 50 plus apps now

Ben: 44:21

Yeah. They've,

Gene: 44:22

Podcasting 2.0 features.

Ben: 44:23

between apps and hosting, yes. I mean, they've

Gene: 44:26

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 44:26

they've really

Gene: 44:27

I think there's 80 between apps and hosting. I think there's actually like 50 apps now,

Ben: 44:31

I don't know. I haven't looked at it, but it's, it's, they're getting to that critical mass point of pretty much every major podcasting

Gene: 44:38

I, and I think,

Ben: 44:39

it.

Gene: 44:40

I think once it's literally only the Google and Apple apps that don't,

Ben: 44:45

And Spotify,

Gene: 44:46

and Spotify, that's when people are gonna start asking the question of why not? And that's when I.

Ben: 44:52

well, I think they're pretty damn close.

Gene: 44:54

Yeah, I think they're close. I don't think they're quite there yet, but when that happens, that's when the big flip's gonna happen because as soon as the Apple app supports podcasting 2.0, that's gonna be so much legitimacy. I mean, it'll be like, uh, uh, well, it will be flipped around. So where podcasting 2.0

Ben: 45:15

will be l Yeah. It, it will be full adoption. Of standard. Yeah.

Gene: 45:20

yeah, exactly. So that's why I wanna make sure that my, my IP based, uh, limiting of access controls are built into it before that happens, so that it's codified in the final version so that

Ben: 45:35

Well, that's

Gene: 45:35

rights enforcement of the creator should always be respected in World War rights, and therefore I should be able to ban, like the IP address of Poland, for example,

Ben: 45:45

Now,

Gene: 45:46

uh, from being able to

Ben: 45:48

on the anniversary to Unban someone.

Gene: 45:51

oh, he's on ban.

Ben: 45:53

There you go. C, s, b

Gene: 45:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it doesn't mean I can't ban the whole country at Poland though.

Ben: 45:58

Well, I think we've agreed that he's probably not in Poland,

Gene: 46:02

No, he's definitely not. No.

Ben: 46:04

so you're just gonna ban the whole country of Poland.

Gene: 46:06

I saying I want the right to, okay, my rights, my content, I own the rights. If I don't wanna license

Ben: 46:12

what are they, what are you gonna do when they use a vpn?

Gene: 46:16

well, that's a separate issue. And I've got some, uh, some thoughts on that as well.

Ben: 46:24

Ma'am. So

Gene: 46:26

of tea.

Ben: 46:27

it's, uh, it's really interesting to me the, um, the, there are more beggars and gypsy types in Greece than there were in Spain.

Gene: 46:41

robbed already?

Ben: 46:42

No,

Gene: 46:43

Oh, okay.

Ben: 46:44

I, but I, I feel way safer here in Greece than it did in Spain in different parts.

Gene: 46:49

Hmm.

Ben: 46:52

So yeah, it's been pretty nice and really, man, I don't know what else to talk about other than that, and the train derailment and some things that are going on. Um, there's the whole Pakistani, uh, did you, have you been tracking the, the, uh, stuff going on in Pakistan?

Gene: 47:08

I have not now it's new to me. What's going on Pakistan?

Ben: 47:11

So let me, uh, We can edit this out in post. So there's been some unrest in Pakistan and they're quote unquote inches away from civil unrest.

Gene: 47:30

Uhhuh.

Ben: 47:31

So, uh, there's been some moves based off of the, let me go through and look at this cause I don't wanna, I'm again, time zones and Yeah. Um, former pm uh, former PM accused of,

Gene: 47:49

Mm.

Ben: 47:50

um, creating wave of public anger. So it's one of the former prime ministers coming out and stirring up trouble. Some people are calling him a traitor, blah, blah, blah. Essentially, there are some people, and again, I only call it one story on this, so forgive me on that, but I didn't think this was being covered in the um, uh, US news supposedly. So supposedly he's being Iranian backed and he's being accused of trying to incite the Civil War.

Gene: 48:21

Who is Guy? His name?

Ben: 48:26

IAM Khan.

Gene: 48:28

Oh, yeah. No, I like Kahn. He's a good guy.

Ben: 48:30

Yeah. Well he's, they're talking about him starting a new civil war in Pakistan.

Gene: 48:37

Well, he should, he, he got illegally kicked out office.

Ben: 48:41

Yeah, it's still

Gene: 48:41

he got coed by the US

Ben: 48:45

Okay. Well, anyway,

Gene: 48:46

it wasn't bloody, but it definitely happened. He, he was very popular.

Ben: 48:50

well, apparently Iran is throwing their weight behind him and he's stirring up some trouble. So something to, for us to watch for.

Gene: 49:00

Yeah, he was, he was cooled out in 2018,

Ben: 49:04

Okay.

Gene: 49:05

or no, sorry, April, 2022. So just like a year, a year ago. Mm-hmm.

Ben: 49:13

don't watch Pakistani politics that

Gene: 49:15

He was a, uh, he was a very popular cricket player, so you probably know him from that.

Ben: 49:23

No, I would not know him from that

Gene: 49:25

Oh,

Ben: 49:26

Why would I know him from Cricket Gene? Um, I did have a really interesting conversation with a cab driver in, uh, in Barcelona. He was Pakistani actually, and I started talking to him and he was very marose, like, very angry que individual. Like you just tell, and I, you know, I said, uh, where are you from? He said, uh, I'm from Pakistan. I said, oh, yeah. How long have you been here? 30 years? I said, oh, okay. Well, I guess this is, I guess this is home. Then he said, no, no, no, Pakistan is home. I should've never left. I made a mistake and started going off and, yeah. Yeah, and I started talking to him about it.

Gene: 50:07

Huh?

Ben: 50:09

you know this Well, this is interesting.

Gene: 50:11

Yeah. Hell yeah.

Ben: 50:12

anyway, he, uh, you know, I said, well, you know, I can understand that, you know, uh, Texas will always be my home no matter where I live. And, you know, there's an affinity and, you know, patriotism for one's homeland. And we started talking and he said, well, you know, Europe, there's just, I thought this was gonna be, uh, a better life and so on and so forth, but there's no opportunity here. There never has been.

Gene: 50:37

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 50:38

And, uh, yeah,

Gene: 50:39

racist in.

Ben: 50:40

well, and he, he asked me what America was like and I said, more or less, they're a little bit of a language barrier. Um,

Gene: 50:47

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 50:47

you know, that, uh, America for all its faults and all our in-fighting and issues, more or less, wherever you go, it's a pretty decent meritocracy. And more or less, no one really gives a fuck about your race if you're good at what you do and don't play into, I'm sorry.

Gene: 51:05

Except for the blue states,

Ben: 51:07

Well, I told him to stay away from like the New Yorks and so on and really talk to him about it. And he, it was weird because the conversation went from him being pissed off and angry to kind of hopeful and like, Hey, well maybe, maybe I should try America. Um, you know, because,

Gene: 51:26

There's some, there's a big opening right now through the Mexican border, right? In Texas.

Ben: 51:32

well, I mean, he's the kind of guy who's obviously wanting to work and do stuff and wants an opportunity, um, to come over and do something and you

Gene: 51:42

think that's true of most people coming through on the southern border. The a problem I have isn't that a lot of people want to come in, it's that it's being done without following the rules with absolutely zero checks in place, uh, to weed out the people that don't want to come into work, but people that actually want to be, uh, causing trouble, that want to be criminals

Ben: 52:09

Well, the people who are trafficking people, the, the MS thirteens, the gang

Gene: 52:14

those are all

Ben: 52:14

Every, right. The what? What we should be doing, basically to me is filtering at the border for Do you want to work? Yes. Okay. Here's your tax id. There you go. You're not a citizen yet. Come here, earn a wage for six months. Steady. You'll get your preliminary citizenship. Earn it for 10 years. Yeah.

Gene: 52:34

seven years. Seven years,

Ben: 52:36

Whatever, 10 years, whatever. I don't care. A period of time. Come in work, earn money, support yourself. Don't go on any social welfare. Where will fair programs? And there you go.

Gene: 52:47

had a program in the US much like other countries, for essentially the foreign legion where a path to US citizenship

Ben: 52:56

Through the US

Gene: 52:57

to actually sign up through the US military. And a lot of these people coming across are able-bodied men. So they, the vast majority are, there's certainly some women and children as well, but a lot of'em are able-bodied men, uh, and their plan is to make money here, send it back to their families back in Guatemala or wherever they're from. But they could do that completely legally and legitimately by joining the US military and the US military today.

Ben: 53:26

needs.

Gene: 53:28

It, not only is it these people cuz it's drunk, but it is a much more easy military to be in because they've lowered all the standards. Now I know people are gonna say, oh, but you're full of shit. They haven't lowered all the standards. No, but they've certainly lowered plenty in order to be fair to people that can't actually make it. And uh, it's kinda like lowering the standards for fire fireman tests. Is that really a good thing? You know, maybe, maybe we need to have higher standards, not lower standards for people whose job is to rescue others from a fire and not like, uh, you know, drop'em halfway through carrying'em out of the building. So

Ben: 54:07

what? What Jean is saying is a fireman should be able to deadlift around 350 pounds

Gene: 54:12

right around there. Exactly. And if they can't, they're not a very good fireman, aren't they? Um, so I think that there's. A perfectly legal, legitimate way to do it that I don't think is being well enough publicized. They had to have guys standing around with brochures in all the variety of different languages, meaning Portuguese and Spanish, those two languages at the border saying, uh, if you would not like to be hunted down by ice and then kicked outta the country in a few months, consider doing this right now. Come and join the US military.

Ben: 54:51

Yeah, but it would really need to be broken out in the foreign legion. So they were, because right now the problem with the way the US handles it is they're not put into their own division. They're put into, and my understanding is they're put into the regular ranks. And the, and the reason why I have a problem with that is because, and people may find this, uh,

Gene: 55:15

you're racist.

Ben: 55:16

no, not racist at all, because it comes down to, comes down to militia versus regulars versus, uh, foreign legion versus. Home guard, right? Um, you, you have the people who are fighting for another country because, um, maybe I believe in their cause, or maybe I'm wanting citizenship or whatever, versus the people who are defending their homes, they are going to be reliable in a different way.

Gene: 55:43

Uh, I can see your point, but I think there's a downside in putting everybody that is trying to fight in the military to get this citizenship into one group, and that is more balkanization immediately. Because what you're doing is you're creating an us versus them mentality, uh, at a place where you don't need to. I, I prefer the, the, the big, uh, pot of soup analogy where you would intermingle everybody together, whether they're born or domestic,

Ben: 56:14

and maybe you do that at the brig, the bega burrey level, the division or brigade le the brigade level. Um, but maybe not the unit level is all I'm suggesting.

Gene: 56:26

Okay.

Ben: 56:26

So that a commander can kind of judge based off of that, you know,

Gene: 56:30

Yeah. Well, keep in mind that the US military has not had to defend the United States since 80 years ago.

Ben: 56:38

Uh, when did we have to defend the United States?

Gene: 56:42

Japanese World War ii.

Ben: 56:44

Uh, do you really think we had to defend the United States?

Gene: 56:48

Well, US territory.

Ben: 56:51

Yeah. I mean, other than the Alucian Islands, the US mainland was never challenged.

Gene: 56:58

No, it wasn't, but I mean, US property was certainly in Hawaii and, and in the, uh, territories in Ellucians, like you mentioned.

Ben: 57:07

Yeah. Well, you know,

Gene: 57:10

but that's as close as we got was 80 years ago. Cuz everything after that has been fighting foreign wars on foreign soil.

Ben: 57:18

well, in playing World Police, following up the Brenton Woods agreement, doing exactly what we said we were going to do.

Gene: 57:24

Mm-hmm. So I don't, that's where I think there is no distinction between, you know, a bunch of locals defending their home versus, uh, paid, uh, nurse. Because there, there is no defending home. That's, this is a thing where, uh, you know, you, you were saying people might look at you. Well, this is, this is where people always give me shit is everyone has this, um, not everyone, but a lot of people have this, this attitude of like, oh, you meet somebody who's, you know, serving the military, you can tell'em thank you for your service. I'm like, what fucking service? It's a job. You did a job of working as a world policeman. There was zero Defense of America for the last eight years. No. Has actually defended America with the small exception of a handful of CIA agents who shall go nameless. That's it.

Ben: 58:18

how dare you not f how dare you not find it Fly the thin blue line flag.

Gene: 58:24

Yeah, that's

Ben: 58:25

God damning. Our military are not only like the police, they're the world police

Gene: 58:30

they are the World Police. Uh, and I love that movie. That was, uh, that was such an awesome movie.

Ben: 58:35

Fuck yeah.

Gene: 58:36

yeah. Um,

Ben: 58:38

on to save the motherfucking day.

Gene: 58:41

yeah. Those guys are just too good for,

Ben: 58:44

Uh, that is, yes, east Street

Gene: 58:48

uh, Oh God, my God. Like, I don't even think you could make that movie today. Even though that wasn't made all that long ago.

Ben: 58:55

You would, it would it would never get

Gene: 58:57

It's like making blazon saddles today.

Ben: 59:00

Yes.

Gene: 59:01

It would not happen. There would be no studio willing to do

Ben: 59:04

a 20 minute puppet. Sexy

Gene: 59:07

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It, it's, it goes on for way too long.

Ben: 59:13

They, they take it to that awkward point For sure.

Gene: 59:16

Oh, it's absolutely, like, even when you're laughing at the beginning, after a while you're just looking around and other people sitting next to you in the theater going, uh, is it just me or, uh, This is, this, is this, not really, I don't really wanna watch this.

Ben: 59:32

This is, oh my God, what are they doing now?

Gene: 59:35

Uh huh. Mm-hmm. Yes. So, so, yeah. So my thing's like, look, you, you join the military. Great. I, I tried, you know, I attempted, joined the Navy. They told me to lose like 45 pounds. And I said, we'll see. And, uh, so I didn't join the Navy, but, um, but I wasn't looking at it as some kind of patriotic thing. I just wanted to, you know, I, I was buying their ads, which is, come see the world for free.

Ben: 1:00:05

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:00:06

I was like, yeah, I wouldn't mind doing that. That'd be, And I, I know how to shoot guns. I'm good at that. So Navy sounds like the perfect place. You go off, you, uh, you're in a cruise ship for a few years. You're getting paid while you're in a cruise ship. And, um, you know,

Ben: 1:00:21

what, what class of ship did you serve

Gene: 1:00:23

watched Mikhail's Navy, I know all about the Navy.

Ben: 1:00:27

Uhhuh.

Gene: 1:00:27

Mm-hmm. uh, what class of ship? Well, I don't know. I mean, I, I've always really loved submarines. Like I would've loved to have been a submariner, but I also know for a fact I was too fat to be a submariner.

Ben: 1:00:40

Yeah.

Gene: 1:00:41

Yeah.

Ben: 1:00:43

Not, not enough space for you on the boat?

Gene: 1:00:46

yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a combination of health and space. Um, you have to be in reasonably fit shape to be in a submarine, but at least you used to be able to, maybe all those standards have gotten relaxed these days. I, I saw an ad that I think was a parody ad, but I can't really tell these days to where it looked. The, um,

Ben: 1:01:10

I mean the Hershey's and the Jeremy's chocolates.

Gene: 1:01:12

those are real.

Ben: 1:01:13

proved every

Gene: 1:01:15

yeah. Yeah. They're literally real

Ben: 1:01:16

That's what I'm saying. It proved, uh, you know. Yeah,

Gene: 1:01:20

But there was an ad that, that basically said that there's, uh, there's opportunities for seniors, uh, in the US Army now, like they're recruiting seniors.

Ben: 1:01:33

no,

Gene: 1:01:34

Yeah,

Ben: 1:01:35

maybe like Coast Guard reserves or something

Gene: 1:01:38

no, it was, it was the Army. But it makes sense because if you want people with actual logistics experience, it's not gonna be the blue hairs. It, it's, and a lot of the people that were career Army have retired because it's an embarrassment now.

Ben: 1:01:55

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:01:56

they may be at a point where they're hiring for non, uh, non-combat related positions, but still, For people that have experienced a variety of these fields that they just don't have people for.

Ben: 1:02:16

Yeah, so I heard a very interesting proposal in as a way to get around this baby boomer retirement slash lack of talent issue we're about to have.

Gene: 1:02:32

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:02:33

for baby boomers in reasonably high possessions, let's say like a director level that's been doing the same job for 20, 40 years, whatever it may be, they're about to retire. And, um, you know, they have a lot of expertise. They retire, they promote, um, they promote from, you know, within they, they put their, uh, uh, Air apparent in the saddle as it were. And then they go to work for not necessarily the same company, but doing the same thing as a mid-level, um, analyst or mid-level, uh, worker. You know, not necessarily in management, but if so, low level line management or below. And the idea being to mentor and teach and, you know, share that wealth of knowledge and experience because these people are still sharp, um, while taking a lot of the quote unquote pressure off of them. So, I don't know. I thought that was an interesting idea. I doubt anyone's gonna do it, but it was an interesting idea.

Gene: 1:03:49

Yeah, well, historically you had a lot more longer term jobs, so we knew this was coming and I, I was talking about it back in the nineties, that the average tenure of an employee is gonna go from seven years down to like two years in my lifetime. And I think it may even go lower than that at this point. But, uh, it used to be there was a mentorship on the job, whether you wanted it or not, because everybody worked longer, so people stuck around for an average of seven years, which means there were plenty of people sticking around for 10 or 12 years in one job,

Ben: 1:04:25

but I mean, as companies have gotten rid of their pension or vesting periods on stock and things like that, I mean, there's less and less reason to stick around and you have more and more advantage by moving.

Gene: 1:04:37

Yeah. I mean, look at you, you're on third job in a.

Ben: 1:04:42

Not true,

Gene: 1:04:43

Ish ish.

Ben: 1:04:45

not true.

Gene: 1:04:47

Something close though. So, point is people are not sticking around very long, which means there isn't really an opportunity for mentorship. And so what ends up happening is the, you're really like, you have to be a lot more, um, feeding employees a lot more like contractors these days because they're not only the time that they're gonna be with you is shorter, but the opportunity to grow somebody, uh, into being a a more valuable employee has shrunk. So you pretty much, they're gonna be the way they are when you get'em. There's not really a whole lot of growth potential there. And so you no longer need to plan on making investments in your employees. Which means that the, what used to be was you hire people at a slightly reduced rate to what they're actually doing. Um, because they, you, it gives you an opportunity to grow the salary within the job that that person's doing as they gain more specific knowledge, doing it well within your company, that no longer happens. So this idea of even getting, giving raises is almost redundant at this point. Like, there's good arguments to be made to just not give people any raises at all. They're gonna leave no matter what, even if you give'em a raise. So you might as well not give'em a raise, save money, wait until they leave, and then hire the next person at a slightly higher rate.

Ben: 1:06:25

Yeah. Well, you

Gene: 1:06:28

and I, I think these are all, these are all, what's the phrase for it? They're like, uh, self-correcting systems or whatever, um, kinda like your.

Ben: 1:06:37

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:06:38

every different change in one metric will affect the change in another metric. Uh, and a lot of these we haven't really studied beforehand to determine what the outcomes will be. We're like, we're, we're measuring things for the first time as we're observing. Definitely that happened with the whole Covid thing when you had an executive order telling the whole country to just not go outdoors.

Ben: 1:07:05

Well, we, we don't have good data modeling for complex systems. In fact, our modeling of simple systems are pretty damn reduced.

Gene: 1:07:14

Mm-hmm. Yep. I don't go along with that. Um, yeah. So what, uh, you know, what does that mean for the future of the us?

Ben: 1:07:34

Uh, what do you mean?

Gene: 1:07:36

Well, do we all just become a country of Uber drivers, basically?

Ben: 1:07:41

No, I, I, like I said, I think it's going to, like you said, it's gonna be a self-correcting system where it's going to, um, it's, it's going to hit a correction point at some point. And I think where I'm seeing that the most is companies hiring in senior talent, uh, in the US and then looking for lower level talent, uh, abroad and tying them to a higher salary than they could usually get in their country, and therefore forcing them to be somewhat dependent upon the company. Um, that, that's kind of the methodology I see playing out really globally. That, or even the H one B Visa slaves, you know, which, I hate to say it, but the way the H one B Visa program is set up is not, it's not good for anyone. It's not good for the Visa recipient.

Gene: 1:08:30

us, that's for sure.

Ben: 1:08:31

No. But what it does is that person, if they leave their job, they're probably leaving the US So they, they are very held to that.

Gene: 1:08:43

very easy to get

Ben: 1:08:45

in many ways.

Gene: 1:08:45

It's really not. That's, that's the propaganda about it. I've dealt with this on a number of times on the hiring level, and if somebody with an H one B wants to change jobs, it is not that hard for them to do. What's hard for them to do is to start their own business, hard to do, for them to do something that isn't gonna have a large company behind it. But if somebody gets hired by Target Corp as an H1B in it, it is almost trivial for them to go work for HP if they get a job offer there. Because all these large companies have departments with lawyers that deal with the transitioning of H one B people and that that transit. Risk only happens if somebody gets fired or quits, I suppose, without having something else in the wings and already being worked on. But if you're, if you just want to start working in the US and if you can manage to get on an H one B program through one company, it doesn't matter what that company is, it's as soon as you get to the US you can start applying to the companies you actually wanna work for. And for most companies, having somebody that is currently already on an H1B in the US is much cheaper administratively than hiring them abroad and bringing them to the US as an H one B. My advice for the last 20 years has been just don't do it. It's not good for business, it's not good for the country. Uh, cuz the excuse for H1B is the rationale that you have to have is that there is no talent capable of doing this job currently available in the United States. And that's always been bullshit. There are always people in the United States available. Most of these California high tech companies don't want to put an ad in the Kansas City Tribune to hire a person. They'd rather bring somebody in from India. And that's just reality. Uh, they, they, they would've much rather have somebody that they've spent$50,000 to get here. Uh, then you have somebody coming from a red state.

Ben: 1:10:53

Yeah.

Gene: 1:10:55

So if, if I was president, I would shut down the whole program. You do not need H one Bs in the United States. Anybody that says you do is a self-serving person. Yeah. I'm not gonna call'em a liar, but they are absolutely self-serving. They would prefer to get H one Bs over having American citizens working for them.

Ben: 1:11:16

Okay, and why do you think that is the case?

Gene: 1:11:21

Um, Why is that the case? Well, there's two reasons. One is that the can has been opened and it's hard to close it back up, which means that there's currently already a substantial number of people that either are working as H one Bs or used to work as H one Bs and then became American citizens because the path for that is also pretty straightforward. Uh, and these people tend to like to work with other people like them. And it doesn't matter if you're an Israeli or an Indian or a, uh, you know, you name it whatever, whatever country they came from, German. Everybody likes to bring other people that have the same culture. It's not even about language, it's about culture. And, uh, when you have companies like PepsiCo and, and Microsoft that are run by people from India, uh, you should not be surprised that the percentage of workers within those companies that are from the same place as the CEO. Is much, much, much higher than it is for the average American company. People hire their own, and this is something I've talked about previously is that I think Americans are like the only people and, and I know why, it's because we're a country of immigrants here, but it's really the only country that doesn't see, uh, it as absolutely normal to have a preference for your own people. Chinese people hire Chinese people at a higher rate. Indian people, higher Indian people at a higher rate. Israelis, higher Israelis at a higher rate. I mean, you name the country, it doesn't matter what it is. Russians hire Russians at a higher rate. Everybody likes to surround themselves and give preferential treatment to people that have a similar culture to themselves in the United States, this is anathema like you Americans think, well, I can't do that. I can. I can't preference an American over some other culture that wouldn't be right. Literally the only place in the world that thinks that nobody would blink twice in, uh, in another country if Americans did that.

Ben: 1:13:32

But define what it means to be an American. That's, that's the thing, is what you're saying is you, you have to define what you mean to be an American because America's a very

Gene: 1:13:43

well, the, the, the reason I think, uh, what I'm getting at is America is not an ethnicity.

Ben: 1:13:48

Yeah, exactly.

Gene: 1:13:49

There is no such thing as an American. American is, is basically it's a country built on ideas rather than ethnicity. And, and, but because of that, Americans will always lose to countries that have ethnicities in terms of preferential treatment. Somebody that is in the America, somebody that has a, um, that's working for a company. And has managerial decision making capabilities inside America. They could listen to all the rhetoric about not being racist that is pushed by, uh, HR offices around the country and they could hear it all and then they would not see what they're doing by hiring other people from their own country as at all being in conflict with that because that's normal. That's a normal human thing that they don't see as being racist or anything. Uh, this happened while I was watching it in, uh, in Minneapolis where the Somali basically took over the entire cab industry. So in different times, uh, of the history of of the country, there have been different ethnic groups that kind of dominated certain professions, right? You have the Irish policeman. That was the thing for a while. You have the Italian mob, that was a thing for a while.

Ben: 1:15:16

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:15:17

you have different professions being kind of dominated. And, uh, in the 1990s when the US got involved in Somalia, there was a, a large contingent of Somali refugees that ended up in Minnesota and those Somali refugees, I don't know what the original, what, how the first guy got in there, but long story short is over the course of about a decade, they completely took over the entirety of the taxi cab business. This is pre-Uber days, right? So this is the, like by the two thousands this happened. So if you were to either call a cab, you'd be talking to a Somali person to get that cab, or if when the cab arrived, it was driven by a Somali person.

Ben: 1:16:04

Well, and depending on where you're out in the US that's still largely the case. And most Uber drivers, most taxis are still first generation immigrants.

Gene: 1:16:15

But it, it, the, but my point is that it's not random that they're all from the same countries because they tend to have a preferential hiring treatment of people that have the same culture as them. Uh, so what what kind of pinnacled this, that actually caused the issue to become problematic was that the taxi drivers, um, who again, pre Uber days, pretty much everybody relied on to and from airport traffic, right? Most people don't wanna leave their car at the airport. They want to just take a taxi from their house, then take a taxi back to their house afterwards.

Ben: 1:16:56

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:16:57

Um, they, they started using Islam law when determining whether they would give somebody a. Uh, so well, a dog is a dirty animal, so all of a sudden nobody that had a dog would be picked up in a taxi. This never used to be a problem in the past, but it became a problem. And now it, and it doesn't matter whether, whether it's a pet flying with you in a small crate, or whether it's a seeing eye dog or whether it's a, uh, you know, the, the sort of mythical, uh, companion animal thing, or whatever the hell they're called, the, the category of people that don't like to travel without pets, that, that say that they have to have their pet with them. Um, but whatever category it is, they, they just would not pick'em up. So if you had a, a pet that you were flying with, you don't get a ride back home. The other issue is alcohol. So alcohol is. And so they would not give rides to people that were drunk leaving bars.

Ben: 1:18:13

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:18:14

would not give rides to people that were drinking on the plane, getting off the plane and having to drive home.

Ben: 1:18:20

So you mean everyone

Gene: 1:18:22

not everyone drinks. Thank you very much. Some must, uh, can actually be multiple religions without having to work too hard at it. Um mm-hmm. But yeah, so there that became an issue when all of a sudden there was no competition in the taxi space. All the taxi drivers had the same basic preferences that they codified and say, yeah, no, we don't give rides drunk people. We don't. If, if you're bringing back, uh, wine with you from your flight to

Ben: 1:18:55

the duty

Gene: 1:18:56

you picked up some nice from duty free, you're not getting a taxi ride back. Sorry. That's our law, that's our religious law.

Ben: 1:19:04

Yeah.

Gene: 1:19:06

And they got to the point where the city basically stepped in and said, we're going to take away, uh, all of the taxi, um, I, what are they called? The, uh, the, the thing that B Yeah. Well, they're not called medallions in Minneapolis, but basically the

Ben: 1:19:23

they, they, that's what they are in New York is

Gene: 1:19:25

the franchise things, right. The thing that grants your taxi company the ability to have hired cars. And they said, look, we're going to just start stripping you guys of these things. If you don't, if you don't get rid of these requirements, we don't care about your religion. If you don't get rid of'em, we're just gonna start taking them away from you and giving'em to other people. And that was right about the same time that Uber came in. So I think the problem kind of solved itself,

Ben: 1:19:50

Well,

Gene: 1:19:51

it got to a point of a threat.

Ben: 1:19:54

Yeah, so that, that's an interesting thing. And I'm gonna transition Alyssa a little bit because the Ubers here are all taxis. So in Greece it's taxis in Barcelona, it was a mix. In Germany, it was, uh, all individuals.

Gene: 1:20:11

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:20:13

So that's an interesting shift,

Gene: 1:20:18

Yeah.

Ben: 1:20:18

I will say getting around Athens is way the fuck cheaper than any other major city I've ever been in in my life.

Gene: 1:20:25

Really?

Ben: 1:20:26

Oh, I can go pretty much anywhere in the city for,

Gene: 1:20:28

is cheap, or, or

Ben: 1:20:29

I can go pretty much anywhere in this city for four to five euros.

Gene: 1:20:33

Oh, that's, that's really cheap. Yeah.

Ben: 1:20:35

Now the airport to and from the airport, that's, you know, expensive. But that's the, that's the long haul ride. But in getting around here, in, you know, within 15, 20 minutes, four, five euros, nothing. Yeah.

Gene: 1:20:51

And other than trend driller ailments, the traffic is okay.

Ben: 1:20:54

Hell no. Oh, Jesus Christ. Dude, I thought Austin and Houston Dallas drivers were bad. Good God. And apparently, I, I have yet to experience the, the worst of it. So,

Gene: 1:21:07

Hmm.

Ben: 1:21:10

w

Gene: 1:21:10

Yeah, I think for, from my, from my personal experience, the, the worst drivers that I've been around have been in Costa Rica.

Ben: 1:21:20

Yeah. Well, from what everyone has to say, uh, Dubai and Abu Dhabi and, you know, uh, is not, uh, not a, their own slouch. So I, I have a, I have a general purpose tip question here for you. Um, getting, getting little items back,

Gene: 1:21:43

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:21:44

stuff I've picked up along the way, so I'm getting to the point where I'm either going to have to ship some stuff back. Or I'm gonna have to start checking a bag, uh, just because of liquids, requirements and things like that. Is it better for me to send stuff through customs or walk it through customs myself?

Gene: 1:22:06

Uh, so you're, you're saying ship it back home or bring it on the plane, or you, what are you talking about?

Ben: 1:22:12

Yes. Now remember, I have three, I have two more countries to go to,

Gene: 1:22:18

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ben: 1:22:19

so I means I'm carrying it through their customs as well.

Gene: 1:22:22

Yeah. I mean, I think I, the only stuff I would not ship would be bottles. If you're bringing any alcohol back. That's interesting. I'd probably fly with that. But anything else you can ship? Um, I will tell you, I had a, a damage in shipment. I was in Ireland at the, um, uh, the, uh, factory that makes the, what the hell's that glass called? It's uh, Waterford Waterford Glass Factory,

Ben: 1:22:50

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:22:51

and I bought replicas of the Titanics. Um, glassware,

Ben: 1:22:57

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:22:59

I mean, it's, I don't know if it's even fair to call'em replicas. They were made by that same company originally for the, the white star line. And so they're still making them Uh, but it was basically the same shit that Titanic would've had. And I thought, well, I'm not gonna schlep this with me. I'm going to ship'em directly from there and just get'em at home. And I did get'em at home. They came in a few weeks after I came back home and a third of the pieces were broken. And, and it's one of these situations where, um, you know, I could reorder'em, but the insurance, at least at the time, worked backwards. Meaning like the first a hundred dollars was my deductible on any damage. Then anything over that they would pay for,

Ben: 1:23:51

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:23:52

Which is the opposite of like normal FedEx insurance, I think, which is they cover up to a hundred dollars or whatever. So anyway, long story short is I ended up just basically losing a third of my order and that kind of sucked. And then, then, because it was right around the a hundred bucks worth of stuff, um, and I could just reorder it directly from the factory and then pay for shipping, that would've been a lot more expensive and, and kind of takes away from the whole idea of buying him in person and then shipping him back here. So I just ended up with fewer pieces. So you just, if you're gonna ship something, try shipping stuff that isn't breakable and that isn't liquid.

Ben: 1:24:29

Well, we. I have a problem.

Gene: 1:24:35

What's that?

Ben: 1:24:36

I, I really need to ship liquids or I've gotta check a pack and I've gotta go through two other

Gene: 1:24:41

you bought Booz already?

Ben: 1:24:42

No, no, it's not booze.

Gene: 1:24:44

What, what kinda liquids are you talking about? Did you buy blood?

Ben: 1:24:48

yes, yes.

Gene: 1:24:49

bought some, I figured.

Ben: 1:24:50

yeah, I,

Gene: 1:24:51

In some of these countries, you can actually get like, really? Yeah. Get, get the really good clean stuff.

Ben: 1:24:58

No, actually I'm getting it right now. What I, what I got was some essential oils and some herb extracts for my mom. So I hope she doesn't listen to this before she actually gets

Gene: 1:25:09

He's not gonna listen to this. Uh,

Ben: 1:25:12

Anyway, but, uh, by

Gene: 1:25:14

well, you can just,

Ben: 1:25:15

here

Gene: 1:25:16

really over if you ship it. Really overpack it.

Ben: 1:25:18

Yeah. Essential oils here in Greece. Holy shit. Way cheaper than the US

Gene: 1:25:24

Hmm.

Ben: 1:25:24

so.

Gene: 1:25:25

probably fake

Ben: 1:25:26

Mm. I don't.

Gene: 1:25:30

here. They're off the boat from China.

Ben: 1:25:33

I don't know,

Gene: 1:25:34

What kind of essential wells did you get?

Ben: 1:25:36

uh, some lavender and some other things.

Gene: 1:25:39

Dude, that shit grows in the us. Why would you get it?

Ben: 1:25:44

Um, well, first of all, some of the oregano variety stuff that I got isn't available in the us.

Gene: 1:25:52

Well, that would make more sense. Yeah.

Ben: 1:25:54

Yeah. Second of all, um, just the price of the essential oil. So the bottle I, what caught my attention was I bought a handful of loose herbs and a thing of essential oils. And, um, anyway, it, it, uh, I, I was surprised at the price. So I went back to the hotel, searched the company, looked at the label, looked at everything and seems. Seems to be very legit, so. Okay. Yeah, like something that I would expect to be like 25,$30 in the US five euros.

Gene: 1:26:33

That is a good price. Yeah. Well just overpack it then and ship'em that way. Also, just keep in mind that they're probably. It's gonna, you know, do samples of all this shit when it comes through customs. So it'll be less available inside the bottle.

Ben: 1:26:48

They will actually crack open a bottle

Gene: 1:26:51

Oh, absolutely.

Ben: 1:26:52

really?

Gene: 1:26:54

Oh yeah.

Ben: 1:26:55

Well. How do you ship anything internationally then?

Gene: 1:26:57

Well, you try not to ship liquids internationally because people figured out a long time ago that this is a good way to ship drugs is in, uh, bottles of liquid.

Ben: 1:27:06

mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:27:07

And, uh, they, um, customs figured that out as well.

Ben: 1:27:14

Gotcha. Well, Sorry, mom, if all your oils are opened, hopefully they close'em back up tight enough.

Gene: 1:27:22

They'll close'em, but they'll, there'll be some missing from each one.

Ben: 1:27:25

Yeah.

Gene: 1:27:26

Um, you, you may just wanna run out there and buy another bottle of all of'em so that you have start with two bottles instead of one.

Ben: 1:27:33

Yeah. Anyway, I'm, I'm still looking for gifts for

Gene: 1:27:38

Or bring the whole thing to a FedEx thing and let them pack it

Ben: 1:27:42

Yeah.

Gene: 1:27:43

so you don't have to worry about it.

Ben: 1:27:45

Around here. I think it's D H L, not FedEx,

Gene: 1:27:48

yeah, yeah, that's right. The HL and that in the us that sucks.

Ben: 1:27:52

Yes.

Gene: 1:27:55

yeah, and, uh, I mean, they, they may end up opening all the bottles, even if you hand brought'em back into us anyway.

Ben: 1:28:06

Yeah.

Gene: 1:28:07

Didn't you ever see 12 monkeys? Did I talk to you about 12

Ben: 1:28:11

I've seen

Gene: 1:28:11

is a guy that had roughly the same trip plan as you flying around in first class, and then he was carrying little vials of just clear liquid with them,

Ben: 1:28:22

Okay.

Gene: 1:28:23

so,

Ben: 1:28:24

the, I I, right now I'm kind of at a decision point. Do I buy a duffle bag and start throwing shit in there and checking it through, which then I've got to

Gene: 1:28:35

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:28:36

potentially deal with customs at each next two countries,

Gene: 1:28:41

Yeah, just ship'em back. I, I would just ship, if I was here right now, I would definitely do one shipping out of Greece and they include like your winter clothes and your, uh, souvenirs.

Ben: 1:28:53

Yeah. Yep. I think that's what I'm gonna do. And then hopefully I will get, uh, I will get some, uh, really, really awesome stuff in, uh, Q Qatar and Dubai and Abu d. Which, by the way, I totally almost bought a rug today. And I thought about it before I said, and I said, where is this from?

Gene: 1:29:21

Yeah.

Ben: 1:29:22

Yes,

Gene: 1:29:23

Saudi Arabia.

Ben: 1:29:24

Iran.

Gene: 1:29:25

They're all, yeah. Iranian rugs are really good.

Ben: 1:29:27

Yeah. Yeah. It was fantastic. And it was a great price problem. I can't fucking ship it to the US

Gene: 1:29:33

Well, you could, as long as you put a label that says Made in China on it.

Ben: 1:29:37

Yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. The who, who's filling out the custom's paperwork? Me or the Greek guy, you know?

Gene: 1:29:44

Well, if you give the Greek guy$5, he'll do it for you.

Ben: 1:29:47

Yeah. Well, anyway, and needless to say, I, I would get my hand slapped for picking out something like that.

Gene: 1:29:57

or talking about it on a podcast for sure.

Ben: 1:29:59

Yeah. I I really, almost, almost, almost bought a painting of the Acropolis by a Greek artist here. Um, you know, no, no nothing, artist.

Gene: 1:30:11

Yeah.

Ben: 1:30:12

it, you

Gene: 1:30:13

it look good?

Ben: 1:30:13

Yeah, exactly. The, the 110 euros. Okay. You know, maybe no. Yeah. So I

Gene: 1:30:22

four hours of work.

Ben: 1:30:23

exactly, so,

Gene: 1:30:25

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:30:26

but I, I didn't, because my wife would be like, where do the hell do you think that's going?

Gene: 1:30:32

Clearly in the bedroom right above your bed.

Ben: 1:30:34

Yeah. Uhhuh,

Gene: 1:30:36

Mm-hmm. reminds me of that Greek chick. What's her name? Ferdi.

Ben: 1:30:44

Uhhuh. Go on.

Gene: 1:30:46

No, it's just a joke. I was saying that's what you tell your wife.

Ben: 1:30:50

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:30:51

Yeah.

Ben: 1:30:53

Yeah.

Gene: 1:30:53

Bought this painting to remind me of, uh, very special experience in Greece. Uh, see there's this guy that was standing naked on his balcony right outside my hotel room every morning.

Ben: 1:31:05

Mm. This wasn't outside my hotel room. This was down, uh, more towards the rural area. Uh, which, oh, hey, uh, real quick, real cool, interesting thing in the neighborhoods, and especially in the poor neighborhoods of Athens, they've planted these citrus trees.

Gene: 1:31:24

Mm.

Ben: 1:31:25

So they're these citrus trees all up and down the streets and literally citrus falling on the ground.

Gene: 1:31:32

Yeah. Yeah. And bi you mean oranges?

Ben: 1:31:35

Uh, they're a type of orange, but they're not like, sorry, sneezing. Um, they're not the type of orange you would typically eat. They're usually made into a jam or preserve or something. But,

Gene: 1:31:49

Yeah. Well, that's, that's where they grow. I mean, they grow in Spain as well.

Ben: 1:31:53

right. But these were purposefully planted as a public, um, works project. To get poor people to make stuff to then sell and to then, yeah. Da da da da.

Gene: 1:32:07

Yeah. Well, I mean, that's, that's good that they did that. But historically they, they have had orange trees and lemon trees and sides of roads. That was like going back 2000 years.

Ben: 1:32:21

Okay. Well, I'm just saying,

Gene: 1:32:23

And if you, if you were

Ben: 1:32:25

homeless and really poor, you can go shit your brains out and eat a bunch of oranges.

Gene: 1:32:30

uh, and, and if you were not, obviously not this trip, but if you want to Cyprus, you'd see the exact same thing that like

Ben: 1:32:36

If, if I went

Gene: 1:32:37

all the roads are just full of orange trees, Cyprus.

Ben: 1:32:42

Hmm, maybe next time,

Gene: 1:32:44

Yeah. Um,

Ben: 1:32:46

actually next time is

Gene: 1:32:47

we'll, we'll see if you meet the same

Ben: 1:32:49

you know,

Gene: 1:32:49

next time.

Ben: 1:32:52

I doubt it.

Gene: 1:32:53

Oh, that'd be totally random. It's a small country. Um, so, uh, yeah, it, and I don't know what the tree, what those trees, what the roads are like gonna be in Abu Dhabi, so that'll be interesting. Take some photos there.

Ben: 1:33:09

I, I've taken lots and lots of photos, man. I've got, uh, in fact, you know, when this is all said and done, I'll go through and figure out what I'm keeping and what I'm not and I'll share, uh, I'll make a Google photo album out of this trip definitely, and I'll share it. Um, I mean, I've got some pretty cool stuff in here. There was a, um, Swedish ship that's, uh, actually still a working vessel that's, you know, several hundred years old. Uh, it's a, like a Spanish gallion, but it's obviously not a Spanish gallion, uh, that was there in Barcelona. That was pretty neat.

Gene: 1:33:45

Was it park there? They doing rides or was it private? What

Ben: 1:33:48

they were parked there doing rides, uh, you know, taking it out and doing, uh, like, uh, lunch service, that sort of stuff. Sailing.

Gene: 1:33:57

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:33:58

Anyway, I got to see the Mediterranean, so yeah,

Gene: 1:34:02

Nice. Yeah. The Mediterranean is, uh,

Ben: 1:34:05

have a paella for my last meal in Spain,

Gene: 1:34:09

in Spain. There you go. Spanish by you. I learned to swim in the Mediterranean.

Ben: 1:34:16

Okay.

Gene: 1:34:16

That was. My first, uh, I guess, uh, big body of water. My dad used the, uh, traditional method of teaching a child to swim.

Ben: 1:34:30

Three in,

Gene: 1:34:31

bring him out on a, on his shoulders until the water is deep enough to his neck and then throw the kid off and then walk back to shore. And then, uh, if the kid survives and swims back, then he learns how to swim.

Ben: 1:34:45

yeah, that's called child abuse today.

Gene: 1:34:47

No, that's traditional method of, of, uh, learning how to swim,

Ben: 1:34:51

Hmm.

Gene: 1:34:52

separates the weed from the chaff. They say

Ben: 1:34:56

Yeah. Uh, anything else you wanna cover, man, because I, again, I've

Gene: 1:35:01

you getting tired.

Ben: 1:35:02

no, I'm not tired. I just other than my travel, which I think I've said way too much about, I don't know what to cover.

Gene: 1:35:09

oh. As far as other stories, um, well, I don't, yeah, I mean, there's not really a whole lot. Uh, Going on politically, we got the usual progression of uh, uh, the, uh, the Ukrainian situation. That's all going exactly the way it was back when you left. Nothing's really changed there.

Ben: 1:35:30

There was a shift in the Canadian teacher story.

Gene: 1:35:35

what Canadian teacher, sorry.

Ben: 1:35:36

The one with the Z cups?

Gene: 1:35:38

Oh, the, yes. Yes, that's right. The teacher is unpaid leave apparently. And all the parents were happy.

Ben: 1:35:45

Yes.

Gene: 1:35:46

I think it,

Ben: 1:35:47

I think he's a troll.

Gene: 1:35:48

Yeah. I Exactly, I think this is the obvious conclusion that people are coming to is that this is obviously a troll situation or, or somebody that was unhappy what was going on and said, well, fuck you. I'm gonna play this game myself done and was willing to go through with it. Cuz nobody in their right mind is gonna get Z size fake boob.

Ben: 1:36:12

Well, they, they weren't actually implants. It was just a prosthetic that he

Gene: 1:36:16

Yeah. But nonetheless, no one's gonna do that. That's in their right mind for real.

Ben: 1:36:21

No. You mean

Gene: 1:36:22

it's a performance prosthetic, it's not a lifestyle prosthetic.

Ben: 1:36:28

Yes. Gene knows this from experience

Gene: 1:36:31

That's right. Exactly. I remember the last time I looked at prosthetic boobs, all the ones that were Z size said right on the bottom of they were,

Ben: 1:36:39

not for daily use,

Gene: 1:36:42

What,

Ben: 1:36:43

not for daily use.

Gene: 1:36:45

for daily youth. Exactly. Exactly. Uh, so it is kind of ridiculous, but, um, you know, I think it was still a funny story in how no, like people weren't quite sure every, everybody fell in one or two camps either. Oh my God, I can't believe they're letting this happen, or Oh my God, this is the biggest stroll ever.

Ben: 1:37:04

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:37:06

So I think the troll side

Ben: 1:37:07

the, the liberals didn't know what the hell to do though. That's the funny part.

Gene: 1:37:14

Well, and they still don't because they don't wanna fire this person because what if, what if this was serious, then they'd be breaking the Canadian law.

Ben: 1:37:23

Well, even if it's not serious, but he says that it is.

Gene: 1:37:26

Well, that makes it serious.

Ben: 1:37:28

Mm-hmm.

Gene: 1:37:29

Yeah. You're not, oh, did you see, uh, Jordan Peterson posted some of his college photos when he was 17 years old.

Ben: 1:37:36

no.

Gene: 1:37:38

Yeah. Looks completely dorky and nerdy.

Ben: 1:37:41

Okay. And.

Gene: 1:37:43

And in that, in one of the photos, his buddy that he was, I guess his roommate was wearing a shirt, that was great. It said, um, uh, say resist authority,

Ben: 1:37:57

Hmm. Yeah.

Gene: 1:37:59

which I thought was very opera. Opera pro This is like late seventies. So, uh, It looks amazingly current for today.

Ben: 1:38:13

Cool.

Gene: 1:38:15

Um, but yeah, I don't know what, what, if anything there is, uh, really in politics or any of the usual topics we talk about. Um, oh, I am gonna have, uh, my part two of my conversation for searching speaks with, um, with, uh, what's his face? God damn, I'm just blanking out

Ben: 1:38:45

Tucker Max.

Gene: 1:38:46

Dr. Max. Yeah. Monday. So, we'll,

Ben: 1:38:50

Tucker. Instead of going on Jean show, you should come on this one. I at least have read your books and know your name.

Gene: 1:38:58

Yeah. Well, no, I've read the Cliffs notes, so I'm good to go. Uh, I'm, I'm somewhat amazed by the number of. Like people on, no, the social that were, oh, he's totally fake. He's lying about all his stories, all bullshit.

Ben: 1:39:12

No, no, no.

Gene: 1:39:14

it's like, okay, first of all, you don't know. And then secondly, that just makes them a good fiction writer. What the hell's the problem?

Ben: 1:39:24

Yeah.

Gene: 1:39:25

You know, either, either they're crazy stories for real, which is interesting, or they're very creatively made up stories if they're not real. And uh, you know, I mean, I, I think it's basically just people that are, you know, the usual haters. Like they just can't stand that somebody would've actually had good luck cuz their lives have been all bad luck.

Ben: 1:39:53

Well, he, he, I don't know that I would say that he had all good luck.

Gene: 1:39:58

Well, not, not okay as far as getting girls is what I'm referring.

Ben: 1:40:03

Oh, he got girls. Sure.

Gene: 1:40:05

Yeah. Yeah. But I, that's what I'm saying, not everybody

Ben: 1:40:08

uh, he also had some very interesting encounters there.

Gene: 1:40:12

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And, and he got, uh, he had a lot of things happen fairly young in life.

Ben: 1:40:24

Yes. And by the way, if you haven't read the book, I recommend it to everyone. I hope they serve beer in Hell by Tucker Max. I read it in college. And it is absolutely hilarious. Skip this part where he tries a certain activity and hilarity ensues,

Gene: 1:40:45

Yeah.

Ben: 1:40:46

hilarity does not ensue. Rather, I think

Gene: 1:40:48

well, I think it ensues if you're the reader.

Ben: 1:40:50

Oh, it absolutely ensues. You're the reader, but I would not want to to live through that. Oh, ooh.

Gene: 1:40:58

Well, and I think that's what a lot of people are kind of clamoring. It's like, where's, where's the, where's the tape? Where's the proof? You know, everybody wants to

Ben: 1:41:08

Well, at the same time, either he's a creative genius and deserves attention or, or he published stuff early enough that the girls were still too embarrassed to come back forward.

Gene: 1:41:21

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And, and there's something to

Ben: 1:41:26

the way, he could not have written that book today.

Gene: 1:41:29

No, no way in hell

Ben: 1:41:30

No publisher would've ever touched it today.

Gene: 1:41:32

Nope. Nope. But the part that's missing.

Ben: 1:41:35

20 years down the road.

Gene: 1:41:37

Yeah. And the, the part that's missing, that I'm redoing on Monday with him, uh, is, uh, all the, where is he now? Stuff, right. So it's the, the current, uh, things, cuz that's the other very interesting part of his story to me, is that he has a. Uh,

Ben: 1:41:58

got some growth

Gene: 1:41:59

and public past where he could have been accused of a lot of, of being, you know, insensitive and a, a, uh, typical kind of frat boy kind of attitude. But the journey to where he is currently, which is a stay-at-home dad with four kids, that is, uh, that built literally a school for the neighborhood kids, is so damn different from what you would expect of somebody that did what he did in his youth.

Ben: 1:42:32

Yeah.

Gene: 1:42:33

so that'll be coming out, uh, later, next week.

Ben: 1:42:36

Cool. I look forward to listening to it.

Gene: 1:42:40

Well, and I, I think it, well, it might be fun to get'em, uh, you know, for you too, talk to as well. I think what would be even more fun is when you get your ass up here, we'll find a time and actually go shooting with them.

Ben: 1:42:52

Sounds good to me.

Gene: 1:42:53

Mm-hmm.

Ben: 1:42:56

All right, gene,

Gene: 1:42:57

All right. I think that'll do it then.

Ben: 1:42:59

hours.

Gene: 1:43:00

Yeah, we're, uh, we're close enough two hours, and it's not like two hours is required anyway, uh, but, uh, given your time zone and everything, uh, let's get you wrapped up. All right. Thanks everybody. Uh, we'll have next episode. Now you gonna be back in the country for next one, or is this one more remote?

Ben: 1:43:17

Uh, well, theoretically everything go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, in all, in all theory, I actually should be back in Texas on Friday.

Gene: 1:43:29

Okay. All

Ben: 1:43:30

Now I have a 17 hour flight on Friday, but I should be back in Texas on Friday.

Gene: 1:43:35

got it. Very good.

Ben: 1:43:39

I, I leave in the morning and land in the afternoon.

Gene: 1:43:42

yeah, it's the best kind of flight and you have a whole day to fuck around in between those two.

Ben: 1:43:47

Yeah. Except you're on a plane.

Gene: 1:43:50

Yeah. You're on a two story plane with a bar and a, and a, uh, a shower.

Ben: 1:43:58

Later

Gene: 1:43:58

then. Bye.