The Little Rascal Who Walked Away From Fame - with Bug Hall

What happens when a child star walks away from Hollywood at the height of his career to embrace poverty, faith, and radical simplicity? Bug Hall, best known as Alfalfa from "The Little Rascals," takes us on his extraordinary journey from Hollywood sets to homesteading.

Bug's story begins with an unexpected casting call that launched him into stardom at age 8. Over the next two decades, he appeared in approximately 100 film and TV productions, culminating in an Emmy nomination. But beneath the success lurked struggles with substance abuse starting as early as age 11. While many child stars' stories end in tragedy, Bug's took a remarkable turn when he encountered Catholicism through Father Ripperger, a renowned exorcist priest.

The conversation delves into Bug's profound spiritual awakening and his controversial decision to "self-cancel" - walking away from Hollywood entirely after concluding the entertainment industry is fundamentally incompatible with his Catholic faith. "I fundamentally reject the idea that Catholics can change Hollywood from within," Bug explains. "The entire foundation of filmmaking is sodomitical."

Most compelling is Bug's embrace of voluntary poverty as a path to freedom rather than deprivation. Living with minimal overhead expenses on a farm, building structures by hand, and raising his children in a lifestyle centered on prayer and simplicity, Bug challenges our modern assumptions about success and fulfillment. "Poverty only sucks if you're desperately trying to get out of it," he reflects. "When you embrace it, there's something psychologically freeing about letting go of the rat race."

Now building a timber-frame stone house in Arkansas "designed to stand 500 years," Bug shares practical wisdom about sustainable living, the psychological benefits of direct stewardship over land, and the profound peace that comes from radical fidelity to conscience. His testimony offers a powerful alternative to our culture's relentless pursuit of more.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Little Rascals Audition
• 7:37 Hollywood Career and Struggles
• 14:57 Catholic Conversion Story
• 21:21 Self-Cancellation and Embracing Poverty
• 29:34 Farm Life and Family Adaptation
• 41:46 Algorithm Manipulation and Media Control
• 54:28 Farm Living and Building a Home
• 1:07:04 Father's Role in the Home
• 1:21:32 Finding Purpose and Fulfillment
• 1:41:51 Closing Thoughts and Future Plans

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:46

no-transcript. It's very impressive. So I see somebody in the comments saying we're going to get a long show tonight because I'm not working tomorrow. But I'm actually stuck working tomorrow. It's also my anniversary, so maybe not too long. Oh, it's Rob's anniversary. Yeah, let's not All right.

Speaker 1: 1:09

But, okay.

Speaker 2: 1:10

So I've been waiting to get Bughole on for a while Before we do that. Actually, we're going to jump in and just do our ad real quick for recusensellerscom. Recusense sent me and Rob both cherries that they grow on their farm. I devoured that entire box in one sitting. Really, dude me well, me, my wife. A lot of cherries, there's a lot of cherries, and I don't typically, like I'm not, the hugest fan of cherries. They were unbelievable, they're really. If you guys are looking for fresh fruit, if you're looking for wine, go to recce. And sellers are the only company willing to sponsor a filthy show like ours, where we, where we do regular episodes, just basically getting ourselves banned from steubenville not too hard these days.

Speaker 2: 1:59

But talking about the uh, the franciscan crowd, so go, uh, support recce and sellers. Use code based at checkout for 10% off. Please, guys, support the companies that support us. They are a Catholic family, help them out, all right. So, bug, I've been waiting to get you on for a long time In my home growing up, not in my home, growing up in my home. When my kids were growing up, the Little Rascals was like a staple to their childhood. We watched it regularly. I watched it as a kid growing up and I.

Speaker 2: 2:32

I saw it as a kid also well, I want to know, like, what was the story behind? How did you even get that gig? Like, how did did your parents want you to be a child actor? Like what was what? How did that even come about?

Speaker 1: 2:46

No. So yeah, I got into the business in a very different way than most child actors. Most of them it's their parents and they kind of find them an agent, slowly get them out into the hollywood audition circuit and it's a whole, you know a whole thing. Uh, little rascals was an odd circumstance because spielberg, uh, he rightfully recognized the charm of the original rascals was that they weren't actors, it was all just like normal kids uh, from around the country, and so he wanted to kind of recreate that with the remake. So he had a strict ban on like no actors, we're not hiring actors, we're doing open calls, I don't care how long it takes. And that's what they did. They went around the country, all the big cities. They auditioned 10,000 kids for Alfalfa and you know it was just.

Speaker 1: 3:40

It was a long process and the first one was like a four hour long line. You know, all the news was there and it was funny because I, when I decided to go to it, a bunch of my friends were going and we all just kind of went together. Well, I had grown up watching the old little rascals. My mom, my mom ran a 24hour daycare out of our house and all we watched was the sound of music and the Old Little Rascals. So I don't know why I knew to do this, but I was eight years old and I would just sit and rewind the VHS tapes and play them and like, imitate Alfalfa and play it again.

Speaker 1: 4:26

Getting ready for the audition, I cut my rat's tail off and put black mousse in my hair and my mom, like hot, ironed my hair up for me and so I went in and it was funny because I had the voice down, I had everything the posture, the mannerisms and then I got. I've been waiting in line for four hours. I go in and they asked me like three or four questions and then they said, okay, thanks. Next, and again I don't know how, I knew that I was screwed and that I needed to figure something out quick, but somehow I did and I realized, okay, that was it, I need to grab their attention. And so I said, hey, can I, can I sing you a song? And they said, oh, uh, you know, sure, I guess you can't say no to a kid.

Speaker 1: 5:17

So I launched into she'll be coming around the mountain, which was like a famous alfalfa song that he used to always sing. And I did it in the voice and I launched into the character, into the posture and everything else. I assumed they were going to ask me to do that and they didn't, so I just launched into it and then from that point on I was like answering their questions in the alfalfa character and doing the posture. And then it was a callback, another callback, and then they were flying me to Los Angeles to meet Spielberg and Penelope Spires and that was it the last audition, the big final audition. It was an eight-hour long audition because they wanted to see which kids could handle the long hours. And there were two other kids for Alfalfa there at the final call. One of them went in one time and the other one never even went in. They never even called him in, they just the whole eight hours was me going in and out. Basically they were matching me to all the other kids that's pretty interesting.

Speaker 2: 6:13

So wait what right around that?

Speaker 1: 6:16

time the movie came out in 94, so okay, so now now that movie comes out now.

Speaker 2: 6:32

Did you have hopes of landing another role after, like, what, what happens to your acting career after that? Because you, you definitely were in other stuff and I know you, you know you did try to keep that going for a while. So how did that pan out?

Speaker 1: 6:48

yeah, uh, yeah, I did about 100 film and tv shows over the years. So the first, first year after little rascals, I did like four movies, uh, the big green and uh, john landis's the Stupids with Tom Arnold, a whole bunch of like kids stuff. And then I was on a TV show for a little while. On WB. They put a show together for me. I was doing that with Shelley Long, robert Hayes, and then I kind of went into.

Speaker 1: 7:22

I wanted to do a bunch of indie movies around my teen years because I was worried about being typecast as like the nerd character. So you know, I kind of stupidly, you know, said no to a bunch of big stuff. I wanted to do like real gritty indie movies. And so I did that for a few years and then just kept working. I mean, you know, tons of Disney movies over the years, a whole bunch of stuff working. I mean I, you know tons of disney movies over the years, a whole bunch of stuff by my late teens. Uh, you know, I was doing I was still doing a lot of big stuff, the, unfortunately the like american pie spinoffs and all that stuff. But I was a big liability by that point because of, you know drinking and partying and everything else. So more frequently the film insurance companies were like he's never gotten in trouble, but he's probably going to pretty soon and so work slowed down. So how?

Speaker 2: 8:17

old are you when the drinking and stuff starts? I started drinking around 11 um around 11 12 so were you living with your parents through all these gigs or were you like like what, like what? Was your home life like through those years where you were going on working on these shows and things like that?

Speaker 1: 8:43

uh, I had a great family. My mom was great and my aunt and uncle actually moved out to California with us. They lived with us, my siblings but I wasn't home a lot. So I'd be home a few months out of the year and then I'd book a movie Back. In those days you could kind of get around like trial and custody laws I guess, in terms of like a guy could kind of be dropped off on a movie set and yeah, you know, uh and my little brother was also working a lot, so he was doing a big show with ralph macchio for a long time and, um, so my mom was with him because he was the younger one he was five years younger than me and so I was. She would usually show up you, she'd come out and bring me out for the first week of filming and then kind of signed me over to the production. Or sometimes my uncle would go with me or somebody else, you know, but I was just, I was kind of on my own for large portions of the year.

Speaker 2: 9:48

And were you like how, how does the drinking and the drug use, like when does it start to get out of hand? Because I had, I mean I'll, I'll share some stuff from my childhood. I had, I mean, you're talking about drinking and drugs. I had a very rough childhood with drinking and drugs as well.

Speaker 1: 9:58

So yeah, yeah, I mean out of hand, I don't know. You know, I mean early on, very early on, I would. I would frequently blackout, but it was, you know, at that age it was I couldn't make my own opportunities Right. So, like only if I was allowed at a party or if I was, you know, at some particular event or whatever, that I kind of scam drinks and everyone would kind of turn a blind eye or whatever. It really wasn't until it was easy for me to make my own parties right. So that was around 16, 17. It was easy for me to actually go get my own alcohol and say, okay, I'm partying and I was hanging out with a, you know, a rougher crowd. By that point. You know all the, the dredges of hollywood, all the people that had kind of kind of shot themselves in the foot, uh, because they were constantly in trouble. Brad renfro was, you know, one of my closest friends back then and he ended up overdosing and dying when I was 18, 19.

Speaker 2: 11:05

So now, so you go through, so, like, when does it? When do you make the decision that like, all right, I'm, I'm, I'm going to stop the acting thing, like was there something that happened or cause, or was it the atmosphere? You just had to get away from it? Was it the drinking? What was it?

Speaker 1: 11:27

Well, I mean I continued on in the business all the way up until five years ago. I mean I had an Emmy nomination just four or five years ago for the last show that I sold to Netflix and I was producing a lot, writing a lot at that point, once I got sober. I got sober when I was 23. Uh so, uh, you know, from 23 to five years ago I had four relapses, just kind of spread out but um, but yeah, I got sober at 23 and started my own development company, film and TV development company. So I was still acting. You know, I would take real big roles. You know, if it was, if it kind of outweighed the fact that it would put a pause on my company for a little while. Um, so I did the harley and the davidson's, which was actually that still holds the record as the highest, the highest rated single network miniseries in TV history. That was just eight years ago, something like that, yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:32

Did you, do you get, do you still have, like residual income from royalties and things like that from your, from your acting career, or, as all did you?

Speaker 1: 12:41

Yeah Well, the royalties will technically come in forever, but you know they're like one cent. I mean, you know I, if you're consistently working, like when I was doing a lot of TV, tv is like where the real big royalties are. So you're doing, let's say you're doing, five, six guest stars a year, you know, or you've got, you know, a reoccurring role on some, you know some show. The compounding of those residuals can be a lot of money but they taper off real fast. So you got to keep that cycle going right. So I mean, at this point you know it's probably a couple thousand dollars a year. You know, when I, when I, when I self-canceled five years ago, um, that was, you know, that was pretty much it.

Speaker 2: 13:30

So now they've, they've tapered off pretty fast so I do remember like a couple years back, um I I guess it was around five, I think it was more than five years ago, though like when you, when you had your, because you were a cradle Catholic right.

Speaker 1: 13:45

No, no, I converted. Oh, you're a convert, oh, okay.

Speaker 2: 13:49

I thought you were a revert, okay, so all right.

Speaker 1: 13:53

Yeah, I converted in 2013,. A few years after I got sober. I was sober in 2009,. Converted to the faith in 2013. I was running my company with my business partners, um. I wrote and produced a movie with selena gomez. Um created a show for netflix and I was I was through that time period.

Speaker 1: 14:14

I was struggling with the idea that that the faith was just not really compatible with filmmaking. I just don't, I don't think it is, I think it's a, I think it's a lie. And that was my big selling point to my investors, you know, was like we're Catholic, we're taking the culture by force. You know, we're this clandestine war in Hollywood, underground Trojan horse, catholic values, secular films, kind of thing. And one day I just stopped believing it, you know, and I was trying to keep that lie going in my mind and I think that's what led up to my last relapse about five years ago and that forced me to hit the pause button, you know, um, and think about what was going on and I finally came to the conclusion that the faith is just not compatible with with filmmaking in the modern world. It's just not.

Speaker 2: 15:02

So I self-canceled and chose poverty in a farm it's kind of um, it kind of does suck because, like film is such a powerful medium and, yeah, if done right, like there are several films that when you watch them they move your heart and they sure are powerful tools of conversion or or just even, you know, just evangelization if done properly. But it really is such a difficult thing to nail it properly right. Like even even the, the, the films we've seen come out recently that we were all hopeful for, kind of like we're just missing something. And yeah, I think really like for greater glory was probably the last really well done catholic film, like it was like from beginning to end it's just like a very thoroughly catholic film. It tells the story of the cristeros and stuff, but so okay, yeah I, I would, I would.

Speaker 1: 16:02

I would have to make the argument that all film and TV is sodomitical. All of it, yeah, all of it. I don't care who makes it, I don't care how Catholic they are, and I got buddies that are still Latin mass Catholics trying to make good Catholic movies. And we're friends to each his own. I think it's all just hey.

Speaker 2: 16:27

You want to explain?

Speaker 1: 16:29

well, think about this. So the the entire foundation of, of hollywood, of filmmaking in every culture, by the way, because, like hollywood, wasn't the only uh advent of filmmaking, right, there was a big, big advent going on in Germany around the same time. The sodomites were on the ground floor from day one, day one. All sodomites, all of them. And that continued on. They still flock to it like moths to a flame. At some point. They still flock to it like moths to a flame.

Speaker 1: 17:03

At some point, a reasonable man has to look at it and say, oh, it's because it's gay, that's why they all flock to it. And then we get entertained by it and we go well, this one's pretty good, this one's all right, you know. But then you take into account the amount of usury it takes to make a film. I think the whole thing is is saturated all the way to the core, no redeemable qualities whatsoever, go hey. And I think if every catholic were to hit the stop button on their entertainment intake and just say, not watching movies anymore, uh, every single one of them would benefit from it without any, without having lost anything really yeah, we're gonna.

Speaker 2: 17:45

We're gonna get to that, because even you taking a step like okay, so uh, all right. So so I do remember you did have that relapse a couple of years ago, um yeah, five years ago yeah and then.

Speaker 2: 17:57

But there was also a significant change in the way you use social media too. Like I remember you, like I remember getting like a bad taste of reading your tweets a few years back and being like whoa, he's. Like I was I'm not, I'm not even saying you were saying anything that bad, it was just very vicious the way you would. You were on Twitter and then something happened where it was just like everything got kind of wholesome and like you just started posting about like things in your daily life, like on your farm, and things like that. I was like something must have happened in that time period where you did like a little bit of self-reflection, you know yeah, I yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 18:37

Maybe you changed, maybe that's always a possibility.

Speaker 2: 18:50

That's always a possibility. No, there was some. There was definitely like a change in the way I don't know. I saw you getting into arguments with a lot of people a few years back and then suddenly you just kind of had like a lighter way of dealing with things, where you it seemed like you were laughing things off more than like going full force into arguments look.

Speaker 1: 19:08

So this is part of why this last little round of interviews I'm doing and then I'm just kind of getting off off the internet. This is partially why I because I, I I fundamentally reject that perspective, right. But here's the thing is, we're all controlled by the algorithm and the reality is all the algorithm controls so much of our perspective on every last thing. From the time that I self-canceled and started tweet, I was tweeting about my farm, I was tweeting about my family, and then some contentious thing would kind of burst out of that little bubble and the lib cards would all lose their minds, and I love good banter. So every time that would happen I'd be entertained for three or four days, poking fun at people and you know, and then the media would kind of blow it out of proportion and put a picture of T on me.

Speaker 1: 20:00

You know, tmz with me, like this, like you know, so I don't, I don't think that that's, I really don't think that's true. I think that, but also I will say that it seemed like you went through a transition at some point for sure, where you, where you, you stopped worrying about what people were you know, would think about what you were saying, right, there was like there was like this tipping point for you. So and this is this is again my point is, I think that algorithm is always kind of manipulating our perspective on a micro level and on a macro level, and I'm not sure that I'm comfortable with that. I don't, I don't think I want random mechanical processes within the broader internet controlling even a single thought of mine, right, or manipulating, even on a small level, a single thought of mine. Again, it's a very sodomitical thing, right, that hyper desire to manipulate and to curate people's perspectives, that it's a kind of narcissist thing, right, and that's one of my problems with film. I think that's why the sodomites are so drawn to film, because that's the, that is what film is, right.

Speaker 1: 21:13

Being a story engineer, I mean, I used to, you know, I used to get paid to go give story engineering classes to state film commissions, right, that was like my, that was my wheelhouse for 10 years. Story story theory, especially as it relates to film, film commissions that was my wheelhouse for 10 years. Story theory, especially as it relates to film and TV. And what the entire process is is emotional manipulation. You're presenting, through the protagonist and the antagonistic forces of the stories, you're presenting an ideology and then you're trying to pair it with a very curated emotional manipulation of the audience so that their emotions are bonded to this ideological concept that you're presenting right, this new value system. That's what it is. It is manipulation. New value system that's what it is. It is manipulation.

Speaker 1: 22:06

Now, of course, you can use that for good, for good ends, but you're still not using what I would consider to be dignified human means. We're not supposed to manipulate anybody, and that's also why I don't talk in a manipulative way online. I say things frankly and plainly and if someone isn't like it, I say well, you know? Uh, how long has it been? Long has it been since you wiped the sand out of your? You know what?

Speaker 2: 22:29

Yeah, that's actually an interesting point. It's like, even if you have good ends and intent, because, like Jim Pine just said, we need based films to win back the color, because, look, film has brainwashed generations at this point, right Like, we have these boxes in our homes. It started out that way. Now we have them in our hands, but this is this magic glass box that just pumps propaganda into your home and it. You've watched what it's done to the culture since the thing was invented. I mean, started with Elvis shaking his hips and everybody making such a big deal out of it. Wow, everybody's making a big deal. It's like, no, no, no, they were actually right.

Speaker 2: 23:07

Like Elvis shaking his freaking hips, degraded the freaking culture and turned us all into a bunch of perverts. Yep, like that criticism was correct. You know so, and all of these things the algorithm like. Everybody's fear is that we're going to have robots take over the world, but that's not what's happening. What's happening is the algorithm is taking over humans and humans are then doing the thing that the robot you know like. We don't need to worry about a terminator 2 scenario. We need to worry about what happened to that school down south where the trans girl went and killed a bunch of christians because of the algorithm manipulating her mind.

Speaker 1: 23:44

Right, but that algorithm I mean even on a larger scale. Yeah, I mean even on a larger scale. Look at Trump, right, this whole thing, I'm convinced, this whole thing with Iran and everything else. If you don't want to drill too deep on, you know conspiracy theory. You can explain it very simply. Trump is someone who is, I think, easily moved by people who he think loves him. Their opinions, Now, he's a man like us in the sense that people who he knows doesn't love him, he doesn't give two squats about their opinion, but if they're coming at it from the perspective of they love him. Oh, we love Trump. We hope he does this and we hope he does that. He listens to that. I mean, I think that's absolutely true.

Speaker 1: 24:27

Now you have this algorithm that starts driving across the Internet all these narratives. Everything rallies behind it. Who or what is causing that whole thing to happen? Right, if I tweet something that doesn't fit, whatever that big force is that's trying to move, you know, I mean you guys know you're on Twitter, you get 100 likes, right, and then, all of a sudden, you know you get behind the thing and the algorithm says yes, that's the thing. I started noticing it. I started playing games on twitter for, uh, about six months or so, where I would just kind of test the algorithm and it was wild to watch in real time how it's kind of weeding stuff out, pushing another stuff forward uh, yeah, I know most of the contentious stuff I know how to make a tweet go viral at this point, like I'm pretty good at it.

Speaker 2: 25:25

I have. I've timed it to where I usually get one a week. One a week will pop off and it gets a couple hundred thousand interactions. You know what I mean. So it's like I know, I don't, I don't do, I don't want every tweet to be that because people will hate me, but I do know when something comes along like oh, I, I know how to light the fire on the people with this one, I'll fire this one off, but it really is it's dangerous because you're right like I'm, then manipulating people's emotions through through what I'm saying, you know yeah, and and you're also, you're also contributing to that infrastructure, because that infrastructure needs people to be part of it.

Speaker 1: 26:09

And that's I don't know, man, at a certain point I was. It was nagging me for a long time, kind of like the idea that I needed to quit Hollywood because it's incompatible with Catholic moral truth. That had nagged me for a long time but I ignored it. This one, it wasn't quite quite as long, but it had been nagging me like you just need to get off the internet, just live, live your life. You already kind of self-canceled anyway. Um, you know, you're really happy, I'm really happiest when I'm just on my farm doing my thing and I'm not uh, you know I'm not distracted and dissipated by by my phone anyway.

Speaker 1: 26:45

And you know this last one, before I was evicted, I got to where I was. I didn't even take my phone out anymore, I would just kind of leave it laying around the house because I was just so happy, you know, doing what I do and living my life. And so I was with Father Rip out in Wyoming. I was praying one morning for Mass and it just suddenly was plain as day to me Okay, you've kicked the can on this, you've tried to ignore that grace and just don't be part of the whole thing. If you know it's wrong, don't be part of it.

Speaker 2: 27:21

So the other thing I was really curious about is like uh, how long have you been married?

Speaker 1: 27:28

I've been married, uh, about a little over eight years okay, so you're, you're married eight years now.

Speaker 2: 27:34

You, you meet your wife, she's, she's with a guy who's in the film industry, and and then one day you just tell her like I'm self-canceling, uh, we're gonna go live on a freaking farm, like how does she handle that whole, that whole thing? Was she shocked? Was she just because I, I think, if I told my wife like we're moving to the middle of nowhere, she's gonna do whatever I ask her to do. But I do think there's got to be like, wait a minute, what does some shock value to that? To that right?

Speaker 1: 28:08

yeah, yeah, um, it's funny because the first of all, you know she's a gem. Uh, she's a gem of docility, um, and it's one of my favorite moments of my life was when I told her I had driven four hours. I was out in Milwaukee meeting with this exorcist priest friend of mine and I hung out with him for like four days and we were just talking. We didn't even talk about the poverty thing, that was just going around my head, and then it just hit me on the way home. I was like this is what I want to do. I really know what I want to do.

Speaker 1: 29:01

It's weird and it's wild and I don't understand it. But I know that this is. And I said, okay, here's what we're doing. She just kind of stared at me and she said, okay, that was it, and she fell. She's, she's gone along, sometimes kicking and screaming, you know when it's hard, and then sometimes just pouring out affection, I mean for the idea, right, I mean she's madly in love with it as much as I am now, but she's a woman, so that comes and goes. You know when it when, when it's hard, she has to be reminded, we have to talk through it and she'll throw a bit of a fit sometimes, and then she goes back and she's like, well, I would never trade this for anything. This is, this is the best life ever and that's a growing process.

Speaker 2: 29:46

I think, yeah, there was something. Uh, there was something you said online a couple of years back and it just like struck me and you were like poverty only sucks if you're trying to get out of it. Like I remember you say you're like poverty only sucks if, like, you're desperately trying to get out of it. But if you embrace it and you actually are like no, I want to be poor, like there's something psychological about like the rat race of trying to keep up with the joneses and this and that, but if you actually say no, no, I want to be poor, I don't want all these things cluttering my life and and and the attachment to, to all these things that are basically just vain, glorious toys that we get to show off, it struck me. It's always sat with me. I've remembered it for years.

Speaker 1: 30:30

Yeah, and that's really the core of the whole thing. The core of the whole thing is there's no widgets in my life, there's nothing. Our overhead we're aiming for zero. We've gotten it really close a couple times and then things will happen and life throws a curveball at us. But I mean, our overhead is rarely ever more than a few hundred dollars a month, which you know I can build a shelf for somebody, somebody in the parish, you know she's like, oh, I need a shelf, I'll build it for you. I mean, that covers it right there it's.

Speaker 1: 31:07

You know, I don't. I just don't ever really have to think about money. I don't really ever have to think about, uh, doing anything for people, or I don't think about taxes, I don't. It's really odd now, looking back at my life, you know cause I ran this big multimillion dollar business selling shows and doing all this stuff. It's so complicated, all the mountain of widgets, and every widget begets another widget and more widgets and it's endless, right? I mean you know what it's like when you're living a normal middle class, successful life. You're juggling a thousand balls and I don't have, I mean, just don't have that. I haven't set an alarm. You know, in years I just I wake up at first light anyway, when the birds start chirping. But but I mean, you just, you don't have nothing is in control of you, there's nothing over you, there's nothing.

Speaker 2: 32:08

The one thing I was hoping you were going to do. I was hoping you were going to film the building of your home on your new land, Like I saw you were like filming the clearing of the land and stuff.

Speaker 2: 32:22

Like I was hoping you were going to film that process because not for the algorithm sake, not for the but it's so interesting to me to see somebody pick up, move to the middle of nowhere and just say, yeah, I'm going to do this. It's like it makes me want to do it. I have my friend, adrian, that we spoke to. He was just like getting on because I still live on Long Island and he's like you got to just do what Bughole did, bro. You got to just do it. You got to just move to the middle of nowhere and just say screw it. And he did it. He left like a big city and he moved down South and bought a farm and he's like living off the land and stuff.

Speaker 1: 32:58

So that's awesome. I'm a big proponent of it. I mean I first of all. Anyone can do it. It I knew. You know I knew how to use tools relatively. I knew some very, very basics of construction. You know building a shelf or something.

Speaker 1: 33:18

And from scratch, you put it all together and you know, five years later now I'm 100% sure I'm going to knock this house out of the park. It's going to. You know it's going to be a timber frame, stonewalled, beh, behemoth. It's going to stand for 500 years stone roof. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be a truly magnificent house. You know we'll get a chapel built. Uh, you know, I'll build a chapel with some flying buttresses and it's going to be it's going to be like this monastery smack in the middle of the ozarks, and who knows what god will do with that over the next. You know, next, 100, 200, 300 years, but it's a, it's a wonderful thing. And then you're free. No bills, right? We're not going to have an electric bill. We're not going to have a water bill. You know we're eventually going to, uh, share our phone. So our phone bill will go down to, you know, 50 bucks. I think it's about 100 bucks bucks right now Um 130, I think, unless I'm late. But you know, no bills you, just you're free.

Speaker 2: 34:21

So okay, so now you tell your wife that you're going to do this, she and she goes cause. I would imagine that was a difficult thing to try and sell at first, but I but I do think all of us are happier with less crap in our lives. So I think, you know, once the initial adjustment comes, I would, I would imagine most people would learn to love the freedom and in the life you're describing. Yeah, so what? What is it? Let's back up a little bit, because you had your conversion around 23. What makes you look into Catholicism over? You know something else.

Speaker 1: 35:01

You know, I know the apologetics thing is real big online, but before my last relapse I actually wasn't really online very much. I wasn't on Twitter. I wasn't on Twitter, I wasn't on anything. I was busy running my company and doing my thing and working, so I just didn't have time to be online.

Speaker 1: 35:26

And I met a Catholic priest and I was very quickly made to see that the Catholic faith was true. I didn't compare it to anything. I didn't do the whole. I know it's real popular now, but I went down this long journey and I investigated Orthodoxy and every branch of Protestantism and I found the one true church. I was just like he was talking about Thomism and the seven deadly sins and I was like it sounds like he's talking about me. How is that so accurate? Well, because St Thomas is just, you know, as accurate as you're going to get to human nature. Where did that truth come from? It comes from the Catholic faith. You know what's that? Well, here's the tenets of the Catholic faith. I see why that's true. I think probably mostly grace the teacher who I happened to run into, father Ripperger. I mean, you can't find a better person to be your first priest to ever meet. He was the first priest you ever met, first priest I ever met. I had never even seen a priest in person. That was something in a movie to me.

Speaker 2: 36:32

What were the circumstances around that? How did you meet him?

Speaker 1: 36:37

Well, he was at Eduardo Verastegui's house out in Los Angeles. My old business partner had just converted to the Catholic faith and they were all meeting up at Eduardo's house and Father Rip was giving a uh, a conference. There. Just get a little private men's men's conference with a bunch of guys. And my, my old, my old business partner kind of tricked me. He said, uh, hey, bud, we're going to cause. He knew I was very adamantly not, I don't want anything to do with you, with this new thing of yours, the religious stuff. You know, leave me out of it. And um, he was like we're going to this, we're going to Eduardo's house, uh, he's got this psychologist coming over to to give a talk on my advice and how it affects your psychology. Oh, that's, that's cool, that's really scientific.

Speaker 1: 37:27

Um, I walked in, I walked in and uh, uh, I remember when he got to one particular seven deadly, seven deadly sins. He's going through this, this Thomistic psychology. And um, I genuinely thought he was talking about me, like I actually thought it was a setup. I thought my friend like told him everything about me and was like, hey, just you know, hit him hard with this stuff. I thought I thought he was actually talking about me, but that's saint thomas right, it's so accurate.

Speaker 1: 37:57

Uh, his understanding of human nature, you know, of course, rooted in you know aristotelian logic and everything else, but it's just so accurate. Um, and I had, I had human nature, I think, was my big thing right, having grown up as an actor for 30 years, um, yeah, I loved, I loved understanding human nature, what made man what he is and men behave the way they do, and so that was actually a really big selling point to me, if you will, the fact that that was the only time I had ever seen something that was perfect. It was a perfect description of human nature, flawless. It had to come from somewhere that was true and, most likely, divine.

Speaker 2: 38:47

Man, that's wild, because the first time I met Father Ripperger he was doing one of those little conferences for Kevin James oh yeah, yeah, kevin's from Long Island. So I went to a Scott Hahn talk and we saw Kevin James there with Father Ripperger. So when we had Father Ripperger on, we were talking about that too. But that's great.

Speaker 1: 39:08

Yeah, I was out at Kevin's place. We were at KJ's twice a year for like a week and a half at a time, two weeks at a time, you know. Yeah, I love him.

Speaker 2: 39:20

He's a great guy, yeah, he's. Yeah, I go to the same parish as him, but so oh, with the Augustinians. Yeah, at St Rocco's yeah, Nice nice.

Speaker 2: 39:36

So then you have all right. So you, you become catholic, but you're not, like, well versed in the catechism just yet. You don't know all the, all the different arguments. How do you, and you're not married at that point, right like you hadn't met your wife, right. So now, when you meet your wife, are you, you like, fully embracing your Catholic faith at that point? Is your wife already Catholic? Like, what's the?

Speaker 1: 39:57

dynamic between you and your wife. No, she wasn't Catholic. So you know I came right in to the faith through a really rigorous Latin mass community. So, you know, and having having father ripper as a spiritual director, you know, for all that time and the faith you know, plus having the norbertines, that's where I was baptized, with all the norbertines. So I mean I would say in the first year I probably knew the faith better than 90 of the catholics you're likely to run into. Yeah, you know, I read everything. I read all the papal encyclicals.

Speaker 1: 40:36

In the first year I read the Proust Prumer, you know dogmatic theology, which was the seminary tome. You know, for like 200 years that was the main seminary book. That was one of the and Father Ripley would just give me tons of homework, you know, and he would give me fun stuff, like one time he said to read aughts and to find the errors in the, the errors about Our Lady, there are errors in aughts, and that was all he gave me. He was like there's two errors in aughts about Our Lady, find them. I was and aughts and that was all he gave me. It was like there's two errors and aughts about our lady, find them I was like oh yeah, I never really got there you know, so like, so that was like.

Speaker 1: 41:21

I mean, that was. That's how I came into the faith, you know but you were 23 at the time. Right like you were young guys still no, no, no, I got sober when I was 23. I I converted to the catholic faith when I was 27, 26, 27, so so after you convert, because I had.

Speaker 2: 41:38

This is what what happened to me is, yeah, I had my I mean, I'm a cradle catholic but like, even after I'm back at mass, like I the, just like the, the every day of life kind of got to me for a period and I stopped going to mass again, like even after I had like. So like once I stopped attending the sacraments, I kind of got swallowed back into my old lifestyle, and that's when I had a relapse or two in those times. Like, did you experience that after your, your conversion?

Speaker 1: 42:08

you know, interestingly, no, I I mean, when I had my relapse, you know, it was still like daily mass. You know, we were praying our rosary. I prayed the office every day basically since I converted, you know, 12, 13 years ago, I prayed the full office, not the little office, I did the big guy. I really think it was look, ultimately and this is more Augustinian kind of moral theology but you know, ultimately, if it's, if it weren't for God restraining us right, if it weren't for God's grace, there's no sin that we wouldn't fall into. Oh, yeah, for sure, and I think that God just just retracted his grace. I think that he, I think he was trying to wake me up. There was a truth that I was adamantly refusing to see and I was running and gunning hard in my company super Catholic, all our investors are Catholic, all my business partners are Catholic. We only hire Catholics. And then we're sneaking into these meetings at Netflix, like you know. Oh, we're just like you. We're totally pretending we're this big Trojan horse battle, right, the Catholics against the world. I mean, it was like I just lived and breathed it. Right, I mean, I was. I was Catholic all the way, all day, every day. But I was lying to myself and the reason was is that I had been doing that for 30 years, living in Hollywood and working in Hollywood and being successful at that career. There was no other way God could have ever forced me to look at that attachment and realize that that's what it was. It wasn't some holy desire, it wasn't some everyone's always like God's calling me to Hollywood, to you know. The reality was God was like you don't belong here, man. You've got a family, you're Catholic, just go be Catholic. And I think he just had to shake me to the bones, man. He had to, he had to retract that grace and he did. It shook me to the. You know, netflix was cool. They were like hey, you can come back anytime you want. Your contract's good with us. Um, I mean, obviously they knew the emmy nomination was coming, so they, you know, you kind of get to do whatever you want when you have an emmy nomination. But, um, at the end of the day, I took like six months and just walked around kicking rocks and thinking and I didn't do any work. I just, you know, I talked to all the priests. I knew I would travel a little bit occasionally and go talk with these different priest friends of mine and because I was confused, like how, on paper this doesn't look right on paper you don't go to daily mass and pray your rosary and, like you know, you're a rigorous family man, when you're home Right, because you know you're a businessman You're not home all that much and then still just have this like wild, crazy relapse. That's just. I mean, it was only 24 hours, but still that doesn't work on paper. You know, something is seriously wrong and so that's what I think I mean.

Speaker 1: 45:19

For me, it wasn't, it wasn't that I slipped away from the faith, it's that I was ignoring a grace that God was just really, really trying to make me see. And he could have. He could have, as Scripture tells us, given me over to my passions. Scripture tells us, given me over to my passions. Yeah Right, he could have said, like my old business partner, you know, is right, right back to making shows about witches and everything else, and you know God love him. He's my brother and I love him. But you know God could have just gave me over and been like, oh, you don't want to listen.

Speaker 2: 45:47

All right, bye. Yeah, that's. That's actually God's wrath, right like god's mercy is allowing you to have a relapse and your conscience hits you and you make these life adjustments. That's actually god's mercy. His wrath is oh, you want this? God? Go ahead, go ahead. You want to listen to me?

Speaker 1: 46:02

I'm not gonna make you yep, one of the scariest, one of the scariest things that I've ever read in scripture I think about it all the time is you know? It know, it says God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Yeah, if God retracts his grace, if he's like you know, all right, you're done. You don't want to listen If he just decides there's nothing you can do about it. There's nothing you can do about it. What a horror. I mean the horror of that.

Speaker 1: 46:32

You know, when I recognized that, as I was, this priest out in milwaukee, um, is an exorcist and I was helping him for like four days and he thought that I I think he thought I had helped with exorcism stuff before, I guess just because I, you know, uh, you know because I came into the faith, kind of through father rip and everything else. And so he was like, hey, come out and you know, for four days you just help me during the day with my work and then in the evening we can sit and talk about what you're going through. And I was like, okay, and what's crazy is the, you know, exorcism work is like it's like torture and interrogation, right, like a lot of people don't really understand what it is, but it's basically just torture and interrogation. The priest, of course, is the torturer and interrogator, and it's wild because there's all these different ways that you can torture these demons, and you know. But the main thing that this one priest kept coming back around to is he would mention that that the demon, he would remind the demon that he is the means of this person's sanctification, that he's essentially doing God's will against his own, and that's part of the humiliation for the demons to just just forever be doing god's will, knowing that they can't get out of it. It's like a, a horror. You know one of those mirror houses, right, it's to them. It's a horror because god is a horror, right, and as I was driving home I was thinking about that and I realized that that's all, that's all of us.

Speaker 1: 48:11

When draw our last breath, we're going to stand naked before our Lord. It'll be like the whole world had never existed. It's just going to be us and him, and we're either going to be overwhelmed with joy Because our will will have been conformed to the will of our Lord and whatever he has to say will only bring us joy, right? Or we're going to gnash our teeth and we're going to spit and curse and we're going to hate when we see our life from his perspective, so to speak, and we see that we have always been at least within his passive will, right, and we're going to hate that and we're going to, we're going to act like the demons and we're going to be fixed in that state forever. Man, that's a horrifying thought. It's a horrifying thought and, uh, and that was it. That was for me. It was like, okay, that's all, that's all I'm living for. Now I'm, I'm living for radical of my conscience, every tiny little nudge. I don't care if I even don't understand what the nudge is, I'm just following my conscience every second of every day.

Speaker 1: 49:22

And the problem is living in a business world. You're jumping through moral conundrums 20 times a day. 20 times a day. I had to think through what are the tomistic principles here? You know which principles govern this and which sub principles govern it. Well, can I charge this person this if I'm doing this, and can I say this to this person? It's an endless loop. And it was like two years I was on the farm and one day I was just sitting out there smoking and watching the chickens my kids kids are playing and it just struck, it just hit me out of the blue. I was like I haven't had one moral conundrum in two years. I haven't had to sit and ponder one moral quandary right, not a single confusing principle that I had to work through, nothing, not one. And the peace from that and being able to just radically follow your conscience all worth it.

Speaker 2: 50:15

Yeah, look it like even rob, and I have to wrestle through that with our stupid thumbnails like oh, what are we gonna talk about? Tonight it's like there's been time for rob and he's just like dude. I don't want to go to hell for this show like right right and it's like we gotta, we gotta really you know what's, what's the principle here?

Speaker 1: 50:32

Okay, you know you can't bring attention to scandal, you know. But then again, you know we do have at least some degree of obligation to correct public scandal. It's an endless thing, right, and you know, frankly, it sucks.

Speaker 2: 50:50

That's part of. One of the reasons I like doing construction is because, like I go into work and I swing a sledgehammer, I go into work and you sit in a truck, that's sometimes stop it. He likes to say that, no like. But the point is like I go in and even if it's I'm sitting in my truck doing paperwork, it's like I'm not like wrestling with stealing or things like that, like it's just go in, do your stupid job and go home. It is what it is.

Speaker 1: 51:15

You know, it's like it's, it's.

Speaker 2: 51:18

It is one of the relieves of of doing that for a living. But so let me ask you, how, how did your um, how have your in-laws handled all of the different, uh, decisions you've made? Like, do you get along with your in-laws? Do they have a hard time with some of the ways you've taken their daughter Is that?

Speaker 1: 51:36

too, personal.

Speaker 2: 51:36

You don't have to answer if it's too personal.

Speaker 1: 51:38

No, no, it's not. Well, it's funny because, you know, when I was so, my mother-in-law, me and my mother-in-law, we got along great. She's the funniest woman Like. She could have been like a b-rate comedian, yeah, I mean, she is sharp as a whip, funny man, yeah. But uh, when, when I was still out in hollywood I was working, I was very successful um, she was unhappy. She was unhappy because her daughter wasn't home and we were having kids and you know they lived in Michigan, you know well, right on the border of Ohio, and it was difficult for me to see their grandkids. And you know we're, we're running around the world doing this and that, making movies. She was unhappy about all that. So, interestingly enough, after my relapse, when I was like you know, joe, I think we're just going to move to Michigan, be near you guys and and just be poor, just figure out how to live poor, she was ecstatic because she was getting her daughter back and she was getting her grandkids, and so she was very supportive.

Speaker 1: 52:48

Same with my father-in-law, you know he was. He doesn't get it, obviously, and still doesn't, you know, but he's a, he's a wonderful man. He's simple. He's a simple guy. Um worked in a factory. You know crazy, you know still circling hours right, where you're like midday shift and then your night shift, and you know he did that for 40 years to support his family. So, and in his mind, supporting your family is like making sure they have all the stuff right, the new pool and all this. So in his mind, well, why, why can't you just go work and provide all the everything they need? I'm like they have everything they need.

Speaker 1: 53:23

My kids are the happiest kids in the world. My wife is happy. We all have. You know, no, no, no, no, no. But they need things. They need the stuff and the toys and the. You know, you know you're not, and but he's never been contentious about it. Um, my mother-in-law passed away a year ago and, um, you know they were. Uh, it was nice man, because us being here, I mean providence, is incredible. Right, like it's only kind of by a fluke that we ended up here. Um, when we decided to do what we did, I wanted my wife to be near her family and we just kind of made it work, and then she gets sick within two years of us being here. She's dead a year later.

Speaker 2: 54:04

Um, oh, wow. So she got to see her, her daughter and grandkids those last couple of years of her life.

Speaker 1: 54:09

That's a beautiful story actually, and then, and in that, he, in those few years, you know her and her husband, you know they're, you know I love them, but they were like christmas and easter catholics, you know, and you know by by the, the last year before she got sick, like she had, she had just finished her first saturdays. She was praying the rosary every day. They never missed mass again, you know, and she died a holy death.

Speaker 2: 54:35

What a dude to talk about Holy providence. Wow, that is. I'm so glad I asked that question.

Speaker 1: 54:44

Yeah, it was. It was awesome man, and we we, you know it's been hard and we miss her and we're still kind of in the. It's been a year but we still kind of feel like we're in the middle of it, um, especially being back here, you know. But that was also. It was crazy because that happened.

Speaker 1: 54:57

We got evicted three days after her funeral and, um, me and my wife were like it was, it was weird because we weren't all that upset about it, because we sat down and we were thinking, well, shoot, we were here for this. We were clearly here to see her through. My wife was over there bathing her, you know, wiping her bottom, I mean taking care of her for, you know, in her final days and months, and that's what we were here for. We can go anywhere. Now we're done Like. We did what God wanted us to do here. We don't have't have to be here, we can. And that was how we ended up looking at arkansas. Land is cheaper. Taxes are like 400 a year for 80 acres, uh, with a house, you know like, and we just kind of said, well, okay, that's, that's what we're doing. And, uh, we, we did what god wanted and and he sent us on um, all right, we're gonna go over to the other side.

Speaker 2: 55:56

I want to. I want to ask some more personal stuff because I, I, I I don't like getting too personal on youtube. It's too too public of a platform, so we're gonna go over to the other side. So, bug, stay there. We're gonna cut the youtube feed off and we're gonna go over to our to to local subscribers only. If you guys want to hear the second part of the interview, subscribe to our locals. A lot of you need to subscribe to locals because me and rob are not doing this for free anymore. Getting a little tired of this, help us manipulate the algorithm, everything bug just said. Don't listen to any of it. Support us now. We're gonna go over to locals we always have one over there.

Speaker 2: 56:32

uh, bug for the, for the youtube people who are leaving right now. This was, um, man, what an awesome story you have, man, so I do want to continue it, but for everybody that got this portion of it yeah, this was an awesome.

Speaker 2: 56:48

I wasn't sure which way I was going to take the show. Like I wasn't sure if we were going to just like, have you as third mic and just talk about some of the stuff in the news and then do the interview over there. But I, like I just had too many questions and you and I have interacted over the past couple of years and so many times.

Speaker 2: 57:05

And I do want to tell you something you did for me about a year, maybe two years ago on the other side, that I'm not going to tell the YouTube side, all right. So all right, guys, if you're not on locals, you need to. We will see you guys on the other side, take us out, rob.

Speaker 1: 57:20

Give me a second here. I want to share the link before we go. I just got to log in real quick.

Speaker 2: 57:27

Freeloaders will make you holier, anthony, okay.

Speaker 1: 57:34

Sharing the link in YouTube Okay. Sharing a link in YouTube Okay. Let me start killing some of the feed too.

Speaker 2: 57:45

Is it awkward out? It's poor people.

Speaker 1: 57:49

Give me a break.

Speaker 2: 57:50

You have never cared about being professional once in your life Just sitting here floating adrift as rob kills the feeds? Um, what do you? Got left up? All right. Goodbye, youtube, see you later, all right. Um, yeah, bug like. Like. Maybe two summers ago I posted a picture, uh, of, of, of, of something personal I remember, and you, you actually said this picture is disgusting I remember and I deleted it and I had to think about it.

Speaker 2: 58:29

At first I was really mad at you and I was like that was like the most loving thing he could have done for me. Because, like I was like I'm never doing that, like my motivations for doing it was like I wanted people to tell me my wife was pretty or something and I'm like I'm like an e-girl. What am I doing? Like this is. This is disgusting, like why did I post that? You know?

Speaker 1: 58:48

I'll tell you, you know, we never even spoke about it. You never said anything, just deleted. I um I, I gotta say I didn't really know a whole lot about it. Surprises people to find out. I've never watched a podcast. I don't really keep other than what? Just my interactions on Twitter. I don't really know who anyone is. I don't know what anyone's shows are or how big they are, what they do. I don't really think about anything and I know you were kind of floating around and I wasn't sure what your thing was and I didn't really have much opinion about you. But my opinion actually went through the roof on you with that one because your response was perfect. It was just, you know, it was just to reconcile the issue and you handled it like a man. You know? Yeah, you didn't, you didn't try to defend it, you just done.

Speaker 2: 59:37

Yeah, it was like, but it made me see like my own motivations on Twitter too, and it was like. It was kind of just like one of those things. I was like man, am I? What the hell do we do? Why do we and I actually won't post pictures of my family anymore or anything and it's like, especially as like our Twitter profiles grow. It's like what the our twitter profiles grow. It's like what the hell are you sharing with strangers? Why are you? Why are you letting strangers into your personal life like this? It's it really is.

Speaker 2: 1:00:07

It was one crazy, uh, ex-deacon, to get you to change that. Oh, did I jim jim jim. Um, yeah, it's like okay, so even, even, that's actually a good segue, like you're. So, yeah, of course, the hollywood industry, you're dealing with sodomitical stuff and the usury and stuff like that. Like when did your mind start to come around on that stuff? Like when were you?

Speaker 1: 1:00:34

when were you like holy cow, this is just pure evil here so, like I said, I dove into catholic principles hard and heavy right away, and I mean right away. Everything rips out for money, right like. It's funny, because when I first converted you know you always hear these conversion stories and everyone's like oh, I was so happy and my life was suddenly filled with meaning and joy.

Speaker 1: 1:01:00

I remember just being pissed off for a couple months the more I dug into Catholic principles. I was like man, I've been lied to about everything history, principles, principles, morals. You know everything. Everything is a lie. And so one of the things that we did was whatever projects we were working on.

Speaker 1: 1:01:24

So I had a development slate of about 30 projects and my job was to develop them and then package them and then kind of get writer's room together, writer's rooms, and we'd hire writers and we'd come in. I didn't usually do the writing. Writing I engineered the story, because writers can't write anymore. A lot of people don't know that, like I had Oscar winning writers that I hired for one project. They can't come up with a story. You have to engineer the story and then kind of keep them in those parameters and they can write great dialogue and stuff like that. So that was kind of my job and, um, we would every project when it would get to a certain point, we'd run it by father in and he'd kind of look at it and go, okay, here's the, here are the moral principles that need to be answered. Um, you know, for the project to to retain the integral good. You have to make sure that this is answered or you have to take this out or whatever. And there were a whole.

Speaker 1: 1:02:17

I learned a bunch of stuff through that process. It was like we had a heist movie and so I had to learn. It was kind of loosely connected to like Bitcoin and stuff, and so I was learning a lot about economics and the moral principles of economics, and I kind of went down the Chesterton rabbit hole in terms of like usury and, uh, you know the, the false dichotomy of capitalism and communism. Um, and so the the economic thing was really nagging me in general, um, but then also, yeah, also just it was like all these little things. It was like a million little seeds all being planted through this process and they were trying to blossom and grace was trying to do its job.

Speaker 1: 1:03:02

Uh, and I think when I first quit my company, I hadn't committed to quitting Hollywood. I quit my company because I wrongfully this is what addicts do. Right Is is you? You when you, when you, when you recognize that something's wrong, you want to blame anything else. You don't. You don't want the problem to be to be your fault and it was my fault because I was participating in all of it and so I kind of was like you know what, maybe if I separate myself from my business partners and just start a new company, and that was like a halfway step and it was still me trying to hold on to the lie. But at that moment I definitely knew, I knew, I knew, I knew, I just didn't want to know.

Speaker 2: 1:03:50

When I saw you guys got evicted, I remember waiting for the fundraiser to pop up, and I never saw a fundraiser pop up. Like you know, you guys never even asked for any assistance in that whole thing. Huh.

Speaker 1: 1:04:04

No, I had a lot of offers. That was the most tempting time, cause I, throughout the last five years, I've had lots of people offer, hey, let's get a, we'll do a fundraiser for you for this or for that, or you know, you know you should be utilizing your platform to at least generate some kind of passive income, and I had a ton of offers from, I mean, every big name, even non-Catholic big names. Uh, we're all like we're starting a fundraiser, and I just told him no. Um, there was always. There's two reasons, I guess. You know.

Speaker 1: 1:04:34

There was always the fear in my mind that once I cracked that, once I cracked that nut a little bit, um, I'm going to lose. What I've always promised people online is that I'm just me, I'm not a brand, nothing, you know nothing. Nothing goes into my considerations as far as, like, what I say and what, what I choose to talk about, except for just the fact that I think those things need to be talked about. And it's easy, I think, when you're making money at all, it's easy, again, that algorithm kind of mindset to slowly allow that to shift you towards talking about certain topics or whatever.

Speaker 1: 1:05:13

But then the second reason, though, was just that, um, we were okay, yeah, um, my, my, my model that I had built for four years, at that point, my model of poverty worked. Uh, we were not homeless, we were not going to starve. Um, I was able to provide for my family. You know, by the skin of my teeth, but I was able to provide for him. It was uncomfortable, but we were fine. There's lots of, there's lots of people that genuinely need, are there in genuine need, you know, and we, we weren't, even though we had a great story that we could have. Just, you know, we could have just, uh, you utilize.

Speaker 2: 1:05:53

But, yeah, rob and I, rob and I both kind of I don't even know if we ever had the conversation, but Rob and I both kind of I don't even know if we ever had the conversation, but I think both of us for us to start a fundraiser, I think it would have to involve like a family, a child or one of our wives getting sick, and the only way we would do a fundraiser would be like I can't go to work and I want to spend time with this. You know, I think that would be the threshold. But like, like I've been in very bad, like I told the story the other day, like I almost lost my house a couple years ago during covid and stuff, like the thought of like starting a fundraiser didn't even cross my mind. It's like, no, just trust god, he'll get you through this. You gotta sell your house. You gotta sell your house. What is what it is.

Speaker 1: 1:06:32

You know, maybe that's god putting another thing in front of you, but and that's the thing is, there's so much grace in the situations God puts us in and when we run from those situations and that's not to say there's never a time that charity is good and needed, but when we're, I think, very often we use money in a way to avoid discomfort, sorrows, to avoid the situations that God is trying to put us in for our growth. And what that did, what that situation did for me, was it helped me, see, because I had been defining my vow of poverty for four years and I was still unsure that it was not just absolute insanity like I, I, there was still a part of me that was like I just don't know, and that solidified, you know that, that that gave me the confidence to go.

Speaker 2: 1:07:27

This works, this is fine yeah, because there's something about, especially like even what you were saying with your father-in-law. There's something drilled into us, especially being raised by boomers, where it's the work ethic and providing for your family. It's. The reason so many men commit suicide is when they fail financially, they fail at providing for their family.

Speaker 2: 1:07:54

When I was going through that thing with the house, I remember having to sit down and talk to my wife about it, because I do all the bills. My wife doesn't have a clue what things cost. I lost 35% of my paycheck and things were costing way more. I had to sit down with her and just tell her look, things are bad, we're behind in the mortgage. We may have to sell the house. I remember it was such an ego thing. It was like, oh, I will have to sell that out.

Speaker 2: 1:08:17

Like I remember it was such a an ego thing and it was like, oh, I will have to go and tell my in-laws, I'm gonna have to tell everybody that I failed at this and there's such a mark of failure that we see as men when we're not providing the middle class lifestyle for our family. As an american, I think it really is a twisted way to see life. That's why. That's why, before we did this interview, I said there's like, there's almost something. So I have such a deep respect for what you did and just stepping away from that, that ability to provide in that world, and just saying no, no, I'm going to choose this.

Speaker 1: 1:08:54

Yeah, yeah. And what's neat is I mean, my wife's aware of it, obviously, because she, you know she's she was part of the modern world just like, just like all of us. But what's neat is my kids. They have no clue that there's that there's any other life. They love their life.

Speaker 1: 1:09:11

One of the happiest moments I've ever had was my second daughter. For a long time she kept saying she wants to join my eldest daughter's convent, because my eldest daughter, she's been adamant for like four years, she's starting a convent and um, and then one day she was like you know, dad, I don't think I want to be a nun, I think I want to be a mommy and a wife. I was like, okay, that's great, that's awesome. Yeah, That'd be, you'll be good at that, that's wonderful.

Speaker 1: 1:09:45

And she said but, daddy, will you help me find a husband who wants to live a life how we live? Because I know people there's like people that live different kinds of lives, like like where they go to work and they they have you know, they're gone all day and the kids have to go to school and stuff and um, but I want to find a husband that wants to live how we live and maybe he'll even want to live here and you can build him a house. I said, well, I'll show him how to build a house, you know I'll help him. I said, of course, yeah, that's, my job is to help you find the husband that's right for you. I'll do that.

Speaker 2: 1:10:20

But it was neat because, as I thought about that, that was her at that age, at five years old, she already knew that she loved her life, but she didn't want to trade it out for anything else. There's this there was one con. Your last controversy that they put you in tmz and all those things was when you were discussing something about women. I forgot exactly what the tweet was, but it was like the idea that you, as a father, will not have input into who your daughter marries. It's it's it's so alien to boomers and Gen X Like they think. Like no, you just have to let your kid go and do whatever they want to do and they're just going to marry whoever they want to marry.

Speaker 2: 1:10:52

And I'm I'm like I look at some of the decisions family members have made sisters of mine and things like that and I'm like where the was my father? Like why did he allow this? What, what? Why did he allow that to go down? I don't understand. Like there's no scenario where my daughter would be living with some guy before she like I'll murder the guy. There's not. Like never, in any scenario, will my daughter be living with a guy before she's met.

Speaker 2: 1:11:18

Like I don't understand these fathers that don't think they're gonna have input not just that, like if my daughter brings a young man to my home, like I, am going to be his spiritual father who starts to teach this young man how to be a father like I.

Speaker 1: 1:11:31

I don't understand the older generation and their just lack of no, no, your kids got to go do whatever the hell they're going to do well, and I think you know I was down in florida, um, so the last five years I've given like one or two talks a year at different parishes. Random people will reach out and ask. So I was down in florida giving this and it's all boomers, you know. And this woman comes up and she's like, oh, my kids, you know, they all left the faith and I don't know what to do. And I hear that all the time it's all boomers, you know. And this woman comes up and she's like oh, my kids, you know, they all left the faith and I don't know what to do. And I hear that all the time it's all they ever talk about my kids left the faith and, and you know, no shade on anyone, because a lot of people just were taught the wrong stuff. They didn't know what they were doing. They were, they were told kids are supposed to just go crazy in their teen years and leave and there's nothing you can do about it. But this just kind of shows you the mindset I said.

Speaker 1: 1:12:22

Well, I said she said she wanted me to talk to her son. She's like, if you talk to him, I think it would help If you would just talk to him. I'm not going to talk to your son. I said but what are you doing? I mean I pray for him. I said, but what sacrifices are you making? Are you making sacrifices for him? Well, I mean I said, look, how much TV do you watch? I always go to TV because I think, you know, I was so close to it and I loved it so much that now I have like a get out of jail free card I can talk about it however I want. I said, how much TV do you watch? She said, oh, I mean me and my husband. You know we have the shows we watch and we watch, you know, maybe a couple hours a night together. I said would you give up TV for the rest of your life to ensure your son's salvation? Would you offer that as a sacrifice? Oh, I think that's a little extreme. Okay, well there you go.

Speaker 2: 1:13:12

You're not willing to give up TV for your son's soul.

Speaker 1: 1:13:16

Right.

Speaker 2: 1:13:17

That's really what it comes down to, and in a lot of cases it's like it defines a whole generation almost. But so much of it is because a lot of our fathers weren't priests in the home and we, they kind of just let mom be the priest. You know, it's this like the way, the way the older generations allowed their houses to be run. It was like, oh, mom's making us go to church and dad you know whatever, just kind of going through the motions. But I, I do think there is a group of younger men who are seeing their role as priests in the home as something, especially because we have such a lack of real priests in the church right now, like your, your, your role and responsibility in the home as a father is so much more important now than it was 50 years ago, because most of the priests are freaking gay. We have to freaking step our game up.

Speaker 1: 1:14:14

My role as the domestic priest here in my home is robust. You know, we pray in the office, my daughters you know. So we're in a circumstance right now where praying the office together, the morning office, isn't practical, because I'm you know, I'm working a construction job for the last like two months in order to pay for this house. I'm trying to get renovated so I can pay for our property in arkansas. So it's like a. You know, part of the vow of poverty is that I don't keep a means of income, but I can take a temporary means of income if I have an immediate financial need that needs to be covered, right, um? And so we're in that circumstance.

Speaker 1: 1:14:52

Like my daughters are sad about it. They're like we haven't prayed the morning office in so long. Dad, when are we going to pray the morning office again? Like, and we pray the office every night, you know. You know we pray Vespers and Compline before bed, and I mean they live. They live a lifestyle that's almost as rigorous as like a really, really loose monastery, and that's my job. My job is to to guide them, lead them and do it in the way that they love it. You know, um, because you can do it the wrong way.

Speaker 2: 1:15:25

I think too I got somebody here saying, uh, it's great that you're out of the public eye and out of hollywood, but you have a lot of words of wisdom to share. Don't, please, please, don't, go away completely. Um, that's kind of why I was hoping that you were going to film this journey. You were on a little bit and not even for, like I said, like you could turn comments off and stuff. But I was watching your videos of when you were clearing your land and I I was like I was kind of excited about it. I was like, oh man, this is freaking pretty awesome. I would.

Speaker 1: 1:15:55

I was too. I was too, I um was too. I became kind of loose friends with the Walsh family. You know Mrs Walsh and Matt Walsh and she was a big advocate for it. She was like you have to film this, it's got to be, like, you know, some sort of a documentary or something of this. You know, building a farm from scratch on raw land, building this house, and I was excited about it. I was even looking into, like you know, minor film gear. You know, okay, you can get a little cheap camera and, uh, you know, the, the the problem is the.

Speaker 1: 1:16:30

The more I focus on that task, the more I dive into that process. The same thing when I had my farm here and it was really getting working right the early stage, it's easy to get distracted. But once it's really working and the cows are coming home each night and you just live in the ebb and the flow of the seasons and the sun you know we live by the sun every day it's funny how the interest just wanes, it just goes away. I can't motivate myself to do it and it took me a while in prayer to realize because it's meaningless. It's ultimately meaningless.

Speaker 1: 1:17:12

I know there are people that it might help. But the reality is God doesn't need us and just like I figured it out on my own anyone that's really motivated to do it, anyone that really accepts that grace and says I'm going to just be a wild man, I'm going to drop out of high school, I'm going to work for two years some construction job and I'm going to pay off 40 acres, I'm going to build a house and I'm going to live this life. They'll do it. They'll do it without me ever having made a video to show them how they'll figure it out. You know, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:17:45

Yeah, you're not wrong. The how, how is, how's your relationship with your family? Like you said, your younger brother was into acting too and stuff. Right Like you still.

Speaker 1: 1:17:57

You still talk with your family, like you said your younger brother was into acting too and stuff right, like, do you still talk with your family? Yeah, actually, part of the reason that Arkansas popped to the top of the list because we were originally looking, you know, I was looking in all the states that had really low property taxes. I don't have to worry about income taxes because I don't have an income, so property taxes are the big one, like out here in Michigan, you know, our 60 acres was like $6,000 a year and so that was a huge, you know huge thing. That suddenly would come up and blindside me. But there's places in the United States where huge holdings, you know, 80 acres, like I said, 400 bucks a year. That's nothing I can. I can make that, you know, on a weekend, just helping someone with something.

Speaker 1: 1:18:44

So I was looking at all these different places and, kind of crazy, I told my dad, my stepdad who raised me, um, I I legally took his last name so that my kids would have his last name. He's a, he's a great man. Um, I was talking to him when we got evicted. Him and my mom dropped what they were doing and they drove straight out. They were there like three days later and he was helping me rip fence posts out, standing behind me while the landlord was screaming his head off and threatening to call the sheriff and all that nonsense. Um, cause, you know he. He was claiming it doesn't matter that you brought all those materials and that all that fencing belonged to you. Now it's installed on my property and it belongs to me. And I was like not in my world, buddy, sorry.

Speaker 2: 1:19:33

What? What happened with that relationship that he soured like that with?

Speaker 1: 1:19:37

the landlord I mean. So ultimately it was a whole goofy thing. But you know, we had a verbal agreement. Me and him talked for like two weeks. We worked out all the details. We talked for two weeks, day in and day out, walking the property.

Speaker 1: 1:19:50

I hadn't known him very long, they had just. He married this woman that was like twice his age, he was 20. She was like 40. She was like twice his age, he was 20, she was like 40. She had kids almost his age and uh, you know, it was all her money, right enough to buy the property, all of that. And I just, for some reason, I always just kind of take people at face value. He never brought anything to her, he never told her what the situation was. He, he kind of led her to believe that we were going to be eventually buying the property or something, or we'd be going in on half paying property taxes. And me and him had explicitly come to the agreement that he's financially in charge of everything.

Speaker 1: 1:20:34

I'm farmhand, I'm the, I'm the peasant farmer, I bring the knowledge. I mean he was like a tech guy from detroit and she was, you know, she didn't know anything about farming and they were, they were. I didn't pick up on this until later, but they were afraid of that. The end of the world was coming. They were like doomer, you know. Uh, you know, and that's never been my motivation. My, my motivation is beauty and goodness. I want to live a beautiful life. If the world never ends, I'll have still lived a beautiful life. That's the whole point, right. And so they were motivated by that. And then, all of a sudden, you know, one of his stepsons is like his age, uh, got his girlfriend pregnant and, um, you know, the woman, the woman wanted, wanted them. She couldn't get pregnant herself. That was a big, you know, sorrow for them. And now she's got a grandkid coming. And next thing, I know, you know the plan is they're going to be moving into our house and you know I'm expendable.

Speaker 1: 1:21:38

The farm was built, farm was done, I mean I had, you know, and so they had been watching. You know they had been watching and they had been kind of seeing how I run things and they kind of got somewhat the hang of it, although you know, it was kind of somewhat humorous to watch because I was still there for a couple of months packing up and trying to get everything out of there. They had the court evicting me as fast as possible. They had the sheriffs come to the house like four times. They tried to convince me that I'd be arrested and hauled off to prison if I took one stick of fencing or whatever. And when you, when you make a bad decision like that, you got to justify it. So next thing, you know, you know we're me, you know just demonizing me every which way they can and um, it just got nasty real quick, um, but uh oh, that's, you know the funny thing is man.

Speaker 1: 1:22:38

The funny thing is man. The funny thing is it was the best thing that could have happened. I mean, you know, now we're going to end up on this farm in Arkansas and my big thing was that I have. You know, I'm a creative person. I grew up in Hollywood, right, and over the last five years I've really invented my own method of farming, because it's rooted in this idea of poverty. And if you're going to farm for free Father Rip kind of jokingly calls it Thomistic farming it's all about just like hyper-focusing on the natures of all these different animals and then trying to figure out how to, to, uh, build this ecosystem that takes care of itself.

Speaker 1: 1:23:22

Right, you're just the the, you just orchestrate everything. Right, you build the parameters and then you let the farm thrive. And, um, you know, with my poverty, that's how I have to farm. I can't buy feed and hay and have all these expensive inputs. And little by little, you know so the woman's, her parents, also ended up moving in and adding onto the house. The other house, because they were their house was right next door, and then it became this little community. But the community was like all their family and then my family. And then all of a sudden, like as a hobby, they were constantly input right, like telling me you can't do it this way, you can't do it that way.

Speaker 1: 1:24:04

No, you know, there was a time when I got invited to this, this, this thing, and I was going to have to be gone for three days. I had been studying in the medieval ages. They would use fodder feeding, which means they would literally chop down trees into the pasture and let the livestock eat the leaves on the trees for a few days, and that would get them over to the next pasture. Right, it would buy you some time and it's actually really healthy because it diversifies their biome, their rumen in their stomach, and it's good for them. And it's like they were like no, you can't do it.

Speaker 1: 1:24:38

And now I'm a principled man, they are the property owners. So now, all of a sudden, all these kind of wild ideas, these experiments that I want to do of build this world, for himself, whatever that world is, and for me it was this, it was this farm, and my wife was kind of beat down because we're obviously trying to live this, this vow of poverty. And the other family was like not, obviously, you know. So they were out to eat and throwing parties, you know, and my wife was like kind of getting the the grasses green, uh, the grasses green around the side of your face constantly.

Speaker 2: 1:25:24

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 1:25:25

Yeah, yeah. And so you know, and then they weren't treating her real, real, real great. You know, they were always just kind of they were, you know, they were sort of feminist and they didn't like that. She was submissive and docile towards me and so they would kind of poke at her and make comments about how, you know well, your husband just kind of rules, rules around here, and at a certain point we weren't as happy as we could have been and I think God just was like look, I got something better in store for you, don't worry about it. And we felt that, and not to sound like a, you know, evangelical, but like the second it happened, we felt it. We were like okay, there's a plan here, there's something better in store. It's probably going to require a lot of suffering to get there, but there's something better in store.

Speaker 2: 1:26:11

Man, that's a what a story.

Speaker 1: 1:26:15

But back to you were asking about my parents.

Speaker 1: 1:26:17

So yeah, my dad they dropped everything and they came out. My dad was like helping me pull fence posts for you know a week and and we were just talking and he was like hey, you know, your brother is the same brother. That was that was in acting and stuff when he was little. So you know, your brother just bought a farm in Arkansas which I I you know me and my family are really close but we don't talk on the phone. Like it's a weird thing. Everyone always says y'all are closer than any family we know and yet we almost never talk on the phone. We see each other in person every few years or whatever it is. So I was like no, I didn't know jim and I bought a farm. He said yeah, yeah, he's in arkansas. Now I said that's crazy, because arkansas is like in my top three. And my dad, he was like dude, if you buy a farm in arkansas, if you buy land in arkansas near your brother, uh, we'll sell everything in texas and we'll move to arkansas.

Speaker 2: 1:27:07

And I was like done arkansas, that's, that's, that's really what it takes. It takes the first person in the family saying screw it, I'm leaving. Then somebody else follows them. Then it's like why would we be apart from our family? Everybody just go there. It's like that's pretty amazing yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:27:26

So my dad's already been out there on the on the property helping me. Uh, he helped me, put you know with the driveway, because he's a he's like you, he was a concrete guy his whole life and, uh, you know, he was a engineer in the army so he, we had the skid steer out there and just ripping up, ripping up mountain to turn it into driveway yeah, it's like uh, it really I think every man has that carnal desire to just own his own land and do what he wants on it you know it's like yeah, I, I've, I've hit a point and this is somewhat controversial.

Speaker 1: 1:27:59

I've hit a point and this is somewhat controversial. I've hit a point. I think it's actually the only true fulfillment of our nature to build things that are imminent, to manage a thing, to have stewardship over land and to imminently provide our means of sustenance. I think everything else is one, two, three, four, five degrees of separation and I think that our brains as men, I think that our brains actually can't really do it. We can say it and we can say I go and I do this job so that I can make money, so that I can pay the bills and I can buy the food at the grocery store. You have to tell us that and we have to keep that up. But but deep down, it's so many degrees of separation that it doesn't feel real. You know and I was saying this on the last podcast it is real. You know. I'm not. I'm not saying those men aren't providing. They obviously are, but deep down we don't believe it. We don't feel that that's real.

Speaker 1: 1:29:12

Until you're chopping up a cow, you're skinning a cow and you're cutting off a chunk of meat and for the next year, every meal is so satisfying. You're watching your family just chew into this meat every day and you get that dopamine hit right. Every morning I go and open the. I go and open my chicken coop door that my family gets their eggs from every day and we eat tons of eggs. It's like a huge part of our sustenance. Every day I open that chicken coop door, I get a dopamine hit that says you built out of that chicken coop. I don't care if it's two years later, I still remember.

Speaker 1: 1:29:53

I built that chicken coop like a mug. And it's just this constant dopamine hit and I think that's why so many men chase the dopamine hit in every other possible way they chase it.

Speaker 2: 1:30:04

It's why they chase it, it's why the marriage falls apart and they got to go get a younger chick. They're always trying to chase that thing that you're talking about. That would actually fulfill.

Speaker 1: 1:30:17

And it goes away, like if you have the courage to do it and to go, all, right, I'm out of here, I'm taking my family to the woods, right. Or I recommend young men, like, do it before you even get married, because then you're going to attract a woman that actually wants that Right and she's going to, she's going to be the right kind of woman. But it's like everything goes away. All the voices are quiet, all the dopamine addiction, all the desire for more and something else and that thing, that chasing, that restless soul, right, that St Augustine talks about, and I know it rests in our Lord, but it rests in Him in that imminent connection to your livelihood.

Speaker 1: 1:30:58

I mean the prayerfulness of being able to just walk my farm, hear my family far off in the distance laughing, and I'm just tending to some little corner of my farm and I'm just with God, I'm just. It's just me and my Lord out there and we're both just beaming ear to ear as we hear that family that knows I'm just a call away. They know that I'm not just providing, I'm protecting, right, because men are gone eight hours a day. And I think that deep down women, especially women and young girls, I think deep down. There's a psychological component to the fact that they know they're not actually being protected.

Speaker 2: 1:31:36

Not in reality. It's not natural that I'm out like leaving the home for 12 hours a day to go and work, and then I, you know between the commute and the actual work. Like I'm out the door four in the morning, I don't get home till five at night, like that's completely unnatural and it's not. It's not. It's not.

Speaker 2: 1:31:54

I mean, you know, it's one thing if you like it, it's one thing if like the majority of your life's at home and then, like, you take your products and you go to a market to sell them for a day or something like the lifestyle I'm living is just so right and there's, and I I always try to make it really clear, you know, there's no judgment in it, because it's the world we all made right.

Speaker 1: 1:32:16

It's just the world we're in, but I I think there is a different reality that's possible without, without the world having to change to accommodate. You know, I think I've found it. I wish I had started it earlier, that's. My only regret in life is that I didn't do this when I was 16.

Speaker 2: 1:32:35

Yeah, I feel like I keep pushing it off cause I got a few years left till I can retire and then get my annuity money. I'd actually have a decent nest egg to go and do something like that. I don't know if. I can do the poverty now. I don't think I can do the poverty now like you, but still getting the land and building my home on the land. It just sounds so attractive.

Speaker 1: 1:32:59

No, ac was the hardest one. It still is. No, ac was like it summers, it's, it's we. We keep window units and we'll turn them on like an hour before bed for like a month, month and a half during during the peak of summer. But aside from that, we're AC free, and that's been a hard one. You come outside, it's a hundred degrees outside. You come inside, it's 100 degrees outside. You come inside, it's 100 degrees inside. You're like, oh man, what am I doing? What am I doing with my life?

Speaker 2: 1:33:29

air conditioning is probably the greatest invention of the last few centuries.

Speaker 2: 1:33:34

It's like it is one of those things like it was 101 degrees in new york today and just like so I go, stop to stop. We do like patchwork in New York city, so I'm working with asphalt which is 250 degrees, but we get the jump in the truck for like a few seconds of cooling off in between stops and it's like, oh my gosh, I don't know what I would do if I, like I remember growing up we didn't have air conditioning Like ever. Growing up we didn't have air conditioning like ever. Until I got out of my home, like my parents, I had eight siblings Like we were three in a bedroom with a window fan, and I just remember dying as a kid. And then I remember when I first started driving, like as 18 to 25, every car I bought had no air conditioner. And then, like, when I finally was making enough money to buy a car with air conditioning, I was like I will never own another car without air conditioning. I don't care, no, it's a.

Speaker 1: 1:34:30

It's a, it's a fantastic invention. Well, the house I'm building down in arkansas I'd say 80 of the engineering, because I love architecture, I love engineering, I love you know I I geek out over that stuff. 80 of the engineering is all geared towards cooling. Yeah, so almost every feature on the house is geared towards cooling. I think we're going to have a really cool, even cold house, um, even when the weather's hot. I think it's going to be much better than you know we have, we had like a stick.

Speaker 1: 1:35:01

Yeah, proper ventilation. It's stone, right, we're building it into the ground. Um and uh, I've got a bunch of other features. You know, I've got a, a belvedere that I'm building into the house, which is like an eight by eight tower that sticks out of the top, and I'm going to build little bench seating up there. You know, I jokingly call it my lookout sniper's tower. But, um, the floor is going to be going to be wood grate.

Speaker 1: 1:35:25

I'm going to build some wood grate into it and when those windows are open so they do this in the middle east they have these big sort of ventilation towers on the buildings and it'll lower the temperature in the house by 10 degrees, you know. And then the stone the stone holds the heat and then radiates it back out at night once it cools down, so the house is never heating up too much. So I think we're gonna, I think. And then stuff like we've forgotten stuff like shutters. You know, shutters, we think of shutters as, like you close the shutters when the storms come, and shutters down in the south were very popular and it was because you could close them in the summertime during the day and you still get light coming into the house, but it's blocking the heat, you know. So stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 1:36:08

You just we're just kind of going back to old methods what, uh, what is your plan for finally ending the social media stuff? Because you said you were going to do a couple of, a couple of interviews before you wrapped it up for sure, like it was, it was a couple a couple of weeks ago. You said that, right, you, I, something happened, I remember. And you were just like, yeah, I think I'm I'm done with all of this. You're like I'll do a couple more interviews.

Speaker 2: 1:36:29

I watched a video you did I was. I was a really good video you put out.

Speaker 1: 1:36:33

Yeah, I, I, you know, like I said I was, I was it. It was mass, early morning mass with father rip and um during mass. That's all I, all I was thinking about and praying about, and and it was just a very clear answer from our Lord Just do it, just do it. You're not going to be quit the FOMO, you're not missing anything. Nobody needs you. You know, there's not. It's not like, uh, you know, drastically change someone's life. If you, if you put thousands and thousands of hours in over the course of your life towards making these videos or whatever, you're good, just just go live. Go live, man and um, that was right before Easter and and then after Easter I was like, okay, it's time and I, so I made that video. We were, we were staying in a convent up here for a little while and so I made that video.

Speaker 1: 1:37:23

This is the second to the last interview, y'all. This is the second to the last. The last one is when we're road tripping home to Arkansas. I'm going to stop at my best friend's house in Kansas, outside of Kansas City. He's got a little podcast that he does or used to do I don't know what the status of it is right now Mike Parrott. He does the RTL. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, me and him. He was part of my company out in LA. He was the CFO at my development company, so we made movies together and we've known each other for a long, long time, went to mass together every sunday out in la for years. Uh, so we're. Yeah, that'll be the last one. I'm gonna sit down and just uh what do they call that? Um, performatively smoked cigars.

Speaker 1: 1:38:13

We're gonna perform it and and just chat and you know, hopefully it's like three hours.

Speaker 2: 1:38:20

We'll just sit and talk and maybe piss some people off and maybe there's something so different about the in-person interview where you could just sit and just you know, like I know rob, today's rob's anniversary, I'm I'm worried about work tomorrow so we do have to wrap this up, but like when you're just hanging out with your friend in person and you're able to have a, you know, just just talk in person. It's a much different vibe.

Speaker 1: 1:38:44

So yeah, in a way, you know, set it up, you forget the cameras there and you're just talking, you know yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:38:51

Well, this was, um, I'm glad we finally did it.

Speaker 2: 1:38:54

I'm glad we caught you before you actually did sign off because, like I said, I've been watching you for years, man, and it's like I like I remember seeing you when you first started coming out publicly about your conversion and stuff. I think I watched you on Church, militant and a couple of different places where I saw you come out and talk about your conversion and then just watching this whole thing of you going from doing the self-cancellation thing to you getting evicted from that property and then and then moving down to Arkansas. Like I'm telling you, I was watching all of those and all of them were very inspirational, man, and it's stuff that I have always in the back of my mind Like when the hell am I going to finally pull the trigger and get the hell out of New York? So if I ever do, I'll I'll owe you a thank you, man. If I ever do, I'll owe you a thank you, man. God bless you and good luck with everything you're doing. You married a beautiful woman, man, and give her our regards?

Speaker 1: 1:39:47

Yeah, I will. I will Pray for me. Gentlemen.

Speaker 2: 1:39:53

Yeah, absolutely yeah, and unless you guys have like a last question in the chat, we're going to wrap this one up. Everybody say it was a fantastic show. I'm glad I jumped right into it because there was some really good gems in that interview, man and I hope. Uh, typically, like when you do an interview, they don't get, they don't blow up that big like people want people in current events. But you know the people that actually want to get something like this, this show will actually maybe get something. Give somebody a little motivation to go and pull the trigger on something they've been waiting on. So thank you very much for your time.

Speaker 1: 1:40:25

Buck appreciate that alright, love you, brother, we'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 2: 1:40:29

Take care, brother. Thank you.