Avoiding Babylon
Avoiding Babylon was started during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. During these difficult and dark days, when most of us were isolated from family, friends, our parishes, and even the Sacraments themselves, this channel was started as a statement of standing against the tyrannical mandates that many of us were living under. Since those early days, this channel has morphed into an amazing community of friends…no…more than friends…Christian brothers and sisters…who have grown in joy and charity.
As we see it, our job here at Avoiding Babylon is to remind ourselves and those who enjoy the channel that being Catholic is a joyful and exciting experience. We seek true Catholic fraternity and eutrapelia with other Catholics who, like us, are doing their best to live out their vocation with the help of God’s Grace. Above all, we try to bring humor and joy to the craziness of this fallen world, for as Hillaire Belloc has famously said:
“Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s always laughter and good red wine.
At least I’ve always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!”
Avoiding Babylon
E. Michael Jones Predicted This | Cooper on Tucker (Full LOCALS Show)
This episode is only available to subscribers.
Avoiding Babylon +
Access to the FULL show on audio!Something feels off in modern life, but it’s not just politics or headlines. It’s the quiet loss of real community, the kind where you know your neighbors, you share traditions, and your faith is lived with other people instead of consumed as content.
We start by reacting to a viral long-form interview that raises big questions about narrative, propaganda, and identity, then connect that to a concrete story many listeners will recognize: how American cities and neighborhoods changed after the mid-20th century. We talk about social engineering through urban planning, why the breakup of parish communities matters, and how isolation can make people easier to manipulate at scale. From there we wrestle with immigration and assimilation, not as a slogan war, but as a question of what actually creates a shared culture, a common good, and a stable civic life.
Then the conversation gets painfully practical. We share travel and family stories that reveal what strong marriages look like up close and what it looks like when couples stop liking each other and pass that bitterness down to the young. We also break down a tragic New York Harbor boating story to underline basic boating safety, licensing, life jackets, and why “it’ll be fine” thinking can turn fatal fast.
We finish with a spiritual reset: St Michael’s Lent, fasting, abstinence, and why stepping away from drinking and constant scrolling can close the gap between daily life and God. If you care about Catholic community, family stability, and real-world resilience, hit play, then subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.
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Wedding Clip And Hot Takes
SPEAKER_01Ladies and gentlemen, in his mum to present the newly married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Brendan Kr.
SPEAKER_00Brendan King and his wife, Regina Hello.
SPEAKER_05Oh my Lord.
SPEAKER_06I told Taffy, these are the ones that are that are his best.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, they're subtle. Just subtle, you know. That poor dude. Oh my goodness. I I actually sent that clip to the chat thinking we would talk about it. I had no idea Taffy put it in the intro.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I guess we have to talk about it though. Uh a lot of people saying their marriage is done in one year, this marriage is cooked, but I don't think so, man. I think I think that guy is going to grin and bear it for 30 plus years. He's gonna be in it for the long haul. He's gonna be told by everyone around him that a Christ, a Christ-like figure lays down his life for his wife, and he he suffers for his family, and he is going to deal with that tyrant for 30 plus years.
SPEAKER_06I mean, uh gosh basically never mind. No, we don't want to start things with him again. Nope. Not gonna do it.
SPEAKER_05I don't even know who you're talking about, but okay. Um uh yeah, so I was away last week. There's so much has happened. Uh I my last show with you guys was the day two days before my daughter's Sweet 16. I have many Sweet 16 stories to tell, but I can't tell them on this side. I almost had a fist fight with my neighbor. The cops came.
SPEAKER_06Uh can't tell the stories on this side, and then immediately proceeds to start to tell the story.
SPEAKER_05Well, I'm giving hints at what we're what we'll be talking about on the other side tonight. Um some hints I can't even give over here because they're too personal. I have to be super super careful. But we're gonna we're gonna actually be talking about the reason I sent that clip to the chat is because it leads into some of the things I want to talk about on the other side that I experienced this this vacation that I had. Um, so that's what what was the intro, Molly. Wants to know you gotta go back.
SPEAKER_06Go back.
SPEAKER_05You gotta go back and watch it.
SPEAKER_06You should know you don't miss anything in the first 45
Vacation Teasers And Show Plan
SPEAKER_06minutes of this show, anyways.
SPEAKER_05The uh so the the show topic tonight, though, um Rob had texted me my first day going on vacation. He's like, Oh, you should check out the Daryl Cooper. A week ago, but yeah, it was a week ago, but I I didn't get to listen to it until my way home on Saturday. But there was just some things in it that struck me that I thought we should talk about. I only cut up two short clips, so like one's three minutes, one's a minute and a half, but um, I thought it could lead to a good discussion. I figured we'd do the majority of our show over on locals tonight, but uh we'll we'll give a good 40 minutes over here. But there's just too many personal things that we're gonna talk about tonight. I gotta find out
Daryl Cooper And Credit Dispute
SPEAKER_05what you were up to while I was gone. But uh yeah, the Daryl.
SPEAKER_06I didn't get into any fist fight, so no, your your stories are never like mine.
SPEAKER_05Mine are always I'm not Italian enough to have screws on George. Um, yeah, the the Darryl Cooper interview, I I I thought a lot of it was boring, I'll be honest.
SPEAKER_06But yeah, there was maybe like 20 good minutes.
SPEAKER_0520 good minutes of it where they there's also this the reason we have E. Michael Jones in the title and thumbnail is because there's this whole falling out between him, E. Michael Jones, and Daryl Cooper, because Daryl Cooper was quoting from E. Michael Jones's work on the slaughter of cities when talking to Tucker, and he didn't he didn't give credit to E. Michael Jones, he kind of just threw it in there as if it was, you know, this I mean to be fair, that's that's what he does, that's what his whole podcast is. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_06He would read a ton of work, like 20 books, and then condenses it into yeah, and he doesn't credit every author of every book.
SPEAKER_05I've got quotes what he's reading quotes, he does. But the the premise of Slaughter of Cities is about um social engineering and how they broke up cities very intentionally to break up Catholic communities specifically, like so. When I I mean, I we talked about this probably a
Cities Torn Apart On Purpose
SPEAKER_05year or two ago, but um, there's this PBS documentary on New York that goes through you have no idea, guys. You have no idea. Wait till you hear the stories. Um so this uh uh this this documentary on New York goes through like New York from like the 1600s when the the Dutch settle it and it goes all the way through to 9-11. And but when they get to this period in the 50s when Robert Moses comes in once the automobile is invented, and he just destroys like he just destroys the fabric of every like Italian and Irish Catholic community in New York. Now, the thing is this happens throughout the country, though. It doesn't just happen in New York, it's just that's the one I'm familiar with because Robert Moses puts the cross bronze cross-bronx expressway right through a beautiful Italian neighborhood through basically Little Italy in the Bronx and just banishes these people. So these people wind up moving out to the suburbs and it displaces us. We'll go through the clips. Play uh, I put the clips, the three-minute clip is the first one, the shorter one is the second one. We're gonna play.
SPEAKER_06You want to get into that or do you want to do ad reads first?
SPEAKER_05Um, well, man, I should have had an ad read ready. I mean, you've been watching Tim Dylan's ad reads. You ever see any of them?
SPEAKER_06I don't know who Tim Dylan is.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh, you live in a freaking you you're like a mushroom. You just kept in the dark on everything. Tim Dylan's a comedian from Long Island.
SPEAKER_06He's like uh why would I know who a comedian from Long Island is?
SPEAKER_05He's like he's uh everywhere. I don't know. But he his ad reads are pretty freaking funny. And I was kind of like, I'm like, man, I I think some of our ad reads are funny, but Tim Dylan's got some funny ad reads. Some of them are pretty good. So I'm gonna have to up my game and I'm gonna have to start like thinking of some better stuff to do. But uh, do we have any knick knack success stories? I feel like we do. I feel like we had one, and I hang on, I think we got one. Hang on, pretty sure. Hang on. Bear with me.
SPEAKER_06Well, I can tell you the groom in the opening video should have had knick-knacks, it would have saved them a lot of trouble.
SPEAKER_05We should send that man some knickknacks. Uh, hold on, let's see. I think I I think I tweeted one out. Uh um, well, you know what? It until then, until I can find a good one. Well, we will remind everybody that the first person who gets a box of knick-knacks in the hands of Pope Leo. So the people are always throwing Pope Leo plushies. If anybody goes to Rome, I'm offering a thousand dollar prize to the first person who gets a pack of knick-knacks tossed to the Pope, and we get a picture of it. So that's our comment contest. Uh, go to knick knack.com, use code AB25% for 25% off your first purchase, use code AB10 for 10% off every subsequent purchase. Who else can we who else do we want a picture of Knickknacks with? When we can offer a prize for, I mean, the pro the grand prize is the Pope with Knickknacks. That that's a thousand dollar prize.
SPEAKER_06We could offer $100 prizes, but like if you get a picture of the package, I'd say $500 if someone could get Tucker Carlson in a photo with Knickknacks. That'll never happen.
SPEAKER_05He's the Alp guy. I know that's why the beef between Knickknacks and Alps is kind of funny. They're actually going at it with each other. That's pretty funny. Um, yeah, no, but all right. So if you could get it's gotta be uh if it's a bishop who's kind of got a a well-known profile, if you could get or James Martin, if you get James Martin with knick knacks, they'll turn him straight. So that is actually a $500 bonus.
SPEAKER_06You could say that about 80% of bishops, though.
SPEAKER_05Maybe, but you know, all right. So $500 prize for James Martin, thousand dollar prize for the Pope. Go to knick knack.com, use code AB25% for 25% off your first purchase, AB 10 for 10 off a subscribe.
SPEAKER_06I know someone that could maybe get a photo of Scott Hahn with Knickknacks in the next month or two. I I shall be trying this. Kevin James would be a funny one.
SPEAKER_05Kevin James would be a funny one. Famous people with Knickknacks get is getting a reward. So if you guys could pull one off, and if you could pull one off and if it's on video and you get an A-B reference in there, like, all right, that's actually an amazing idea.
SPEAKER_06All right, or if you can get an avoiding Babylon, Knickknack will reimburse us for this.
SPEAKER_05I think so, but even if they don't, I don't care, it'll be well worth it. It'll be hilarious.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, someone track down vegano wherever he's hiding out and get him. Wherever he's hiding. Um, I will be in Rochester uh this weekend. Maybe I could get Bishop Barron with Knickknacks.
SPEAKER_05That would be awesome too. That's that's a big one, but you don't get a prize, so well so fair. Uh also go to blackmonkrosaries.com. Black Monk Rosary, um, it's easier to get a rosary in the hands of a bishop or the pope. But I don't know about the pope. Pope's I'll I'll I'll still give a prize for the Pope if you get a Black Monk Rosary in the Pope's hand.
SPEAKER_06At the very least, we'll buy you a replacement.
SPEAKER_05I I think we could get I think if we get a I think we get a we could drum up a prize if you guys could pull that off too. So go to blackmonkrosaries.com, use uh code AvoidingBabylon at checkout and get 10% off. Black Monk Rosaries are awesome, guys. Like we cannot recommend them enough. You should have one in your car and one in your home. Everybody should own two of these, they are the best rosaries out there. They do not break.
SPEAKER_06These things are made the one in the car can be used as a glass breaker in case you drive into a lake and you gotta break your window.
SPEAKER_05And plus, it's uh it's a great tool for evangelization because people are always asking, what the heck is that thing? Uh yeah. Yeah, we'll give you a free month of locals. All right, so let's get to the clip. Let's jump into it.
SPEAKER_06Okay, let me get that ready here. Ohly a month.
SPEAKER_05Only give them a month.
SPEAKER_06You want the three-minute one to start with, right?
SPEAKER_03They violate all of these all of these landmines that have been planted in our heads since earliest education, you know, of again to go back to what purpose is the myth serving, if you want to do something about the fact that your people, uh, and I'll and I'll speak about like European countries, because we have a little bit different situation here in America, but you know, if you go to Ireland or someplace like that, that these are a real people. This is a people who have existed for thousands of years as a as a bloodline, as a nation, um, and they're about to lose their homeland permanently. That if you oppose that and want to take measures to correct it, well, you're a Nazi. You're Adolf Hitler. And that's the myth that that's the purpose that that myth serves now, along with, of course, like uh legitimizing uh the American Zionist empire around the around the world, things like that. There's geostrategic and other other uh purposes it serves, but on individual psychological level, and uh as far as our own domestic policy and societies, it's so powerful that it has convinced people to do what by any measure is really the the craziest thing that any people could do, which is to give up its homeland forever without a fight, and to allow their daughters to be raped.
SPEAKER_05So, like the lie that we can pause it there and we could talk a little bit about that.
Catholic Memory And Historical Identity
SPEAKER_05Like the the even when we're talking about with the Irish, right? Like, um like the part of the reason I'm going to Italy this year is because I don't know how many times that opportunity will be left. Like, there's something so devastating about like the it's so bittersweet when you go to a place like Italy, and especially when you're visiting the Vatican and you're visiting all these Catholic um pilgrimage sites, and uh because you're seeing like the shell of what formerly Christendom built, right? And and there's something so sad about all these non-Catholics just using it. It's like this secular museum at this point.
SPEAKER_06There's a well, like uh there was a video that hit Twitter yesterday that someone took of uh a visitor to the Vatican uh um praying to Mecca right there in in St. Peter's Basilica.
SPEAKER_05It's like it's just so disheartening when you go. It it it's there's two emotions you get. One is like awe at what what our like what our ancestors built, which is it's so different for uh like for us as Catholics than it is for um for like somebody who's secular and just you know, this idea of the melting pot. Like what what does that even mean, melting pot? Why do you even say that? What does that mean? Does that mean all these cultures just kind of melt down into one blob, like a fondue or something? Like, what does that even mean? It doesn't really have any real meaning other than to make you think that that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_06It's it's to get you to forget it, it it's it's how you hide an anti-culture that exists solely to tear other cultures apart, yeah.
SPEAKER_05And so that's what modern secular America is to rip apart your tr your traditions and all the things that made you a people, right? And it's I think when we're gonna get to the clip where they talk about the destruction of cities, and I think the reason, even when you sort of think about the the remember when the FBI was infiltrating the SSPX parishes and they were going to traditional Latin mass parishes, I think most of it was diocesan parishes, but yeah, yeah, like that. But but the FBI was still going to them, right? It's because there's something about a Catholic who takes his faith seriously that he does see his himself in a historical context, like you see yourself as a historical people because you're looking back, especially dude, especially for guys like uh like me, because I don't know anybody beyond my great-grandfather. So for me, the saints are are my history, that is the historical context in which I put myself. So when we're going through the the history of Christendom, and when we're learning about how the Christian faith conquers the pagan religions, like that is my story. That's the that's the grand story that my people are a part of. So when you're in one of those traditional Catholic parishes, you start to see yourself as a historical people, and that makes you dangerous because you want to preserve your inheritance. I think that's like that's part of part of why the whole secularization push came. It's why they there's so much.
SPEAKER_06I mean, look speaking of of your own people, look at um modern Italy, right? Like we've gone, we've talked about the creation of Italy, you know, a couple different times on the channel, and how it was this this push by by secular masons basically to unite Italy and and destroy all the peoples that Italy now contains.
SPEAKER_05Like, like the you know, so the the language Sicilian spoke literally was almost completely different than than the what the the people the dialects if you even talk to guys that work at my company that came over in like the 1930s, 1940s, those guys they were kids when they came over, they have a totally different dialect than the guys from like that are like when I go to Italy, those guys, the Sicilians that I work with, don't they won't understand the people in like Maine, you know, in Rome.
SPEAKER_06Because Italian, because what we call Italian really is the dialect from from Piedmont, you know, 150 years ago. That's that's what it is. It's not there was no Italian language, really. Yeah, yeah. Bopity boopity.
SPEAKER_05Um uh what was I gonna say? Dude, it's kind of interesting. Like every single thing we've talked about on this show, though, like going to uh uh evolution and like every one of these topics, like the point is to make you think you are descended from a monkey, you live on a on a speck of dust floating out in the middle of nowhere, you don't need like your your life means nothing, like all of that is meant to unhinge you from your his being a historical people. It's really really like the purpose of all that. Like if the if the traditional Catholic movement is anything, it's it's preserving the tradition for this purpose, is to make us remember we're historical people. It's kind of why I get a little bit worried about like um how insular traders can get from each other, even right, like this, like the sedes I get really freaking annoyed at because they are they are breaking themselves off from communion with even traditional Catholics. And it's like the part of the purpose of religion is to unite, right? Like when you go when we when we went through even the um when we went through the Danielic mystery, when you're when you're reading through the book of Ephesians, like the whole purpose is to gather like the mystery of Christ is that all things will be gathered into him, and like we are to be gathered into him. And if we start breaking off into splinter groups and fighting with one another, we become like a band of misfits disassociated from one another in fighting, and and there's no united front to push back on any of this stuff. It's like a real problem within traditional Catholicism that I see.
SPEAKER_06Um I've never met
Fractures Inside Traditional Catholicism
SPEAKER_06a sede that really had like a good grasp of history, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, or or or or anything like that. They're so concentrated on the last 80 years that that yeah, they they're incapable of seeing themselves as something larger. Yeah, it's so individualistic.
SPEAKER_05That is kind of interesting, yeah. Like that to for them, history began at the council, yeah. Like history begins at the council for them, you know, or or that Vatican I, maybe maybe Trent at the absolute earliest, but yeah, it's yeah, it's I'm I'm telling you, man, like seeing seeing uh um, but I really do think that's why the FBI was infiltrating those traditional parishes, is because they were worried that like they they want to get inside those and find out what they're talking about. So play play the rest of the clip because he talks about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_06Uh, by the way, for anyone who didn't watch the interview, when they're talking about uh the narrative or story or myth, they're talking specifically about the the myth of World War II. Not not like not necessarily in a sense that certain things didn't happen, but the the the overall narrative basically the narrative yeah, the narrative that came after the war.
SPEAKER_05Dude, so the we have yeah, because like this episode, like what we're gonna end up talking about is is the Jews again. Like we have to, you can't not, you can't separate us understanding us ourselves as a historical people and them understanding themselves as a historical people. Like everything we've been talking about this on this show kind of fell into the into the paradigm of this episode, which is why I wanted to discuss it, you know.
SPEAKER_06So uh look, yeah, let's play everything we talked about on what show, like the change.
SPEAKER_05On our channel, like on our channel, like it really is the culmination of all of the episodes that we did that had any kind of like real substance to them, are like this conversation goes right along with them.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, uh I think it was kind of crazy, and I hate to attribute it to you too much because of your um because you tend to cut like call calling the channel avoiding babylon, like like you said, all of our really substantive uh conversations end up being about like the the building of the city of man, the building of a new Babylon, right?
SPEAKER_05Like it really and they really do, whether it's this subject or evolution or or it's it it's dude, it really even just the way that like the channel name came about had to do with like listening to like the the story in Daniel about the the like Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, you know, and it was like I saw in the apocalypse the return of Babylon, and I'm like Yeah, we kind of got to avoid that. That's where the channel name came from. It's pretty as but and then all of the we've got a million conversations on this channel. A lot of them are just whatever dribble. But we have had some really substantive ones that substantive, whatever. I don't know. You always get mad at me when I pronounce that wrong, but uh I think you actually pronounce it more right than I did, to be honest. Okay, like they're they're substantial. I don't know. That's like the ones of substance, yeah, always were kind of geared toward this this the story, the grand story of Christianity, its arc through history, the battle against it from secular and from the secular powers and the Jews, right? And all of the things on evolution or the moon landing or the uh like all of these real conversations we've had have to do with this grand narrative and its culmination in where we're where we're headed. And I I kind of want to put some some caveats in some of my my past predictions too. I don't know. We'll see. Let's we'll see.
SPEAKER_06Hedging bets. I see not hedging bets.
SPEAKER_05Like thinking of it, thinking about how this thing plays out. Because
Immigration And The Limits Of Assimilation
SPEAKER_05I actually watched a um an Elliott Hulse video today that was really good. Who? Um we'll get we'll get into it. Let's let's play the rest of this and then I'll get into that.
SPEAKER_04That's the ultimate act of violence, and yet that's that's the result of it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Literally the result.
SPEAKER_03Sure. And you and again to go back to the internal migrations in the 20th century after the second world war, like in the United States, and the way that the internal migrations were used to break up these traditional Catholic parish communities in city after city after city around the country, and done so. I mean, we know this from from documentation, you know, that uh that these this was something that they knew what they were doing.
SPEAKER_06They knew that this is the part from EMJ.
SPEAKER_05This yeah, so this is he's getting this directly from Slaughter of Cities. Okay, that's EMJ's book about uh it's about the um uh social engineering, yeah. How they how they socially engineered us to go back to go like the the the post-war narrative begins well before the war and the push for secularization, especially in America. Like, even look at the encyclical series we're going through, right? It's back in the 1800s, they're talking about these ideas, right? But they get they get something of substance to deliver these things. It's why, dude, it's it goes to the goes to the council, everything. Like this all of this has to do with why the church changed everything, all of it. It's CIA infiltration into the Vatican, into the council, everything.
SPEAKER_03Yep. They were breaking up these communities that they saw as pools of like insularity, these black boxes that the system itself couldn't really see into and didn't exactly know it was.
SPEAKER_04So Robert Moses wasn't just a highway designer, is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_03No, no. But this was a but this was a national push. I mean, this didn't just happen in New York City, you know, it happened everywhere. And um, and when you realize when you you that when you when you start to see that, and then you start to see what's going on in Europe and now in the United States as well, and you recognize that these are weapons that are being wielded against us. They're not something that um it's not happenstance, it's not something that's being done um because, you know, um the labor markets demand it. The labor markets demand it, or because favorites the market. Yeah, or because we've just sort of um, you know, there were there were certain Cold War strategic imperatives that uh led to the to the prop promulgation of certain propaganda that maybe made some sense at the time that it's just outlived its usefulness and is sort of going along on its own uh on its own power at this point, that this is some this is a weapon that's being used against these countries on purpose. Um because I mean, you know, there's a there's a great little book by the way.
SPEAKER_05What it makes you really think about is how every single thing has been like fake BS propaganda, like everything from the civil rights movement, like everything was just fake BS to get us to where we are now, like to get us to completely let our guard down.
SPEAKER_06Makes you wonder if communism as a whole wasn't a project simply to get us to uh you know except a lighter form of it, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_05Right? It's like, oh, communism's bad, but what like what we're doing is good. It's like we're it is communism in in effect anyway. It's just all of it, man, like to to just get us to not see ourselves as a historical people anymore with a homeland worth saving. I I really wonder what happens with this because dude, all right. I went to Block Island, right? And Block Island is like this unbelievably wealthy vacation spot for like America's wealthiest of the wealthy, you know. So we go there and we're on the beach, and it's like like my uncle rented a cabana for us, and it is just a sea of white people. Like it's all you see, okay? It's just a sea of white people. They're playing country music, they're like everybody's getting along. There's no fights, there's no riffraff. I come home, and Sunday was 90 plus degrees, and we're like, it's so freaking hot, let's just go to the beach just to cool off a little. Me and my wife, because we don't have a pool. We go there, and it is just a sea of brown at the Long Island Beach now. And I'm jumping, I'm just saying, and they got their rap music playing, and their Spanish music playing, and I'm just like, Nicole, I can't. We gotta go. Like, I saw firsthand what they took from us in two days. Like, if you oh man, it was just such a wild experience to just go from from the stark contrast between there and the Long Island beach. I was just like, we had we went to a crappy one just because we were like, we just wanted to like drive a short distance and just go to like yeah, you know, whatever beach we could. There are still some really, really nice beaches on Long Island, but and one of the best parts of having a boat on Long Island is you could go find private beaches where there's nobody.
SPEAKER_06But um, yeah, it's just they they yeah, yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Yeah, I didn't complain about the country.
SPEAKER_05It's awful, it's awful, but it's still better than like being being in a place where they're playing hip hop and like you know, salsa music or something. Like, it's just definitely better than that.
SPEAKER_06But um, I mean it everything you said is is why I live where I live. You know what I mean? Like, we moved four hours away from from where we grew up to be up where we are now, and but that's social engineering, Rob.
SPEAKER_05Well, I I'm like you're a victim of it because you felt no choice, you felt you had no choice, right? Like you felt you had no choice, but uh look, and this is part of the discussion I wanted to talk about because so many of us are like, damn, we gotta move out to the middle of nowhere, man.
SPEAKER_06But but it it's also but like in some way it's social engineering, but the up like the opposite direction was social, like uh like the town we're with the town we live in now is half the size it was in 1970, right? And it's probably gonna be half the size it is now in 10 to 15 years when the boomers go, you know, and it's because all the people that lived here moved to the cities because that's where the jobs were, that's where you know that's that yeah, all that stuff.
SPEAKER_05There's no more farming, there's no more, yeah. It's like everybody's gotta go where the jobs are. The only people that can live by you is those who can work remote, or if those they work for a small business in the area, yeah, things like that. But it is still like Rob, you gotta drive two hours to mass.
SPEAKER_06Well, to to a TLM, sure, yeah, but like if if the church was all right, oh I would that wouldn't, you know, the our local mass here is five minutes away, but it's like yeah, we have to drive an hour to go to Walmart or Target, yeah, you know, and buy things at lower prices. But you know, we can go to the stores here and spend money with local families. Do you have a community where you live? Yeah, you do, like, and you know them and you guys well I hope and I are introverts, so we need to be better at that. But the area where we live, yeah, like you know, the the the town I live in still has a you know an annual festival uh every year where everyone gets together and and stuff like that. And like just this last weekend we were at the the local Coney fair, and yeah, you know, they were doing lava.
SPEAKER_05So much of it is look, it's a mix of things, right? Technology just changes things, right? The the automobile changed changed everything, right? Like you used to if like if we worked in the city, you used to have to live within commuting distance of the city on the train or you know, whatever public transportation provided. Once the automobile is invented, um like I drive an hour in the morning and two hours on the way home from work. It's like you just you're doing everything you can to move away from the riffraff in the city because of what they did to the cities. They destroyed the cities by like they they had the migration of the blacks from the south to bring up and they and like they did it on purpose to break areas up just to destroy these communities because they didn't want people seeing themselves as a people within the United States, they wanted it to be this nebulous blob that melted in in the American system. And what I'm wondering is, do we now because of the influx of immigrants over the past 15-20 years, like it is it was at such an astronomically high rate? It's like when you go to immigration of the past, it was it trickled in in like ebbs and flows. It would be like there would be high, high periods, and then they would kind of close, close the borders and they would cut it off, give people time to assimilate. And even if like you were in an Italian ghetto, you still like those people became patriotic Americans, even if they were Italian or Irish or English or German, they became patriotic Americans, they loved the country they were in, they maybe uh learn English, largely uh you know, I don't know what percentage, but 30, 40, 50 percent shared culture with the other cultures that were here.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you know, that they came out of Christendom together.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. So it's like but the influx that's come over in the past 20 uh say even say say say 25 years, right? That it came in so fast, and they're from such alien places, like really and there's no there's no incentive for them to to um to assimilate to assimilate, yeah. So now I'm wondering, like, are we going to form a new culture with this blob and let it and like are we going to now become a people, or is that impossible?
SPEAKER_08Like that's impossible, it's impossible.
SPEAKER_05There, we're just too different. It's like everything we've been talking about for the past there's nothing to unite us, nothing, right?
SPEAKER_06You know, as if we as we've talked before, you know, you need a shared cultist to to create a culture.
SPEAKER_05That's again getting to another topic we talked about on this show. Like, how many times we said during like when the when the elections were coming up, the narrative was the democrats are letting these illegals come in because they want them to vote. No, it was never about voting, it's about destroying any sense of unity you have in this in this in this country. Like the whole purpose was to break down any sense of being American. Like you dude, you think back, and we've we've we've talked about this too. Like, you think back to even when 9-11 happened, like we felt like a people who were attacked.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, everyone, even those who didn't like country got behind uh uh um Toby Keith and uh Lee.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I had liberals buying American flags for me after 9-11. That's all I know. It's like this is there was some there was still a sense of being American back then, and I don't know, man. It just like I don't know if like the the immigrants that have come in the next two generations that go by, are their kids going to become American kids or are there are they gonna be so insulated in these ghettos that they basically come into? Are they going to retain their identity? And because I don't know if that's better or worse. Like, I don't know if I want them to assimilate.
SPEAKER_06I don't, yeah, it it's tough.
SPEAKER_05Um because there's like do you really want the the Somali community in Minnesota leaving that area and assimilate? It's like no, keep them in that one area, don't let them leave. Let them have their Sharia law in that one area, like just they they do not want to.
SPEAKER_06No. No, the families won't. None of them, none of the Mohammedans will. The the hit the the Indians will only assimilate while it's advantageous to, and then they'll oh none of these cult like these cultures value things so differently than us that there can be no uh no shared common good with them, no, right? Because because they they don't even
Prepping Fears Versus Real Life
SPEAKER_06believe in the common good, yeah. They have to they they take pride in doing whatever is necessary to to uh aggrandize themselves and themselves only, yeah. So, no, we can't share a common good with them, they can only harm the common good, they they have to go, they just have to go. It's that's it's it's not simple how it gets done, but the solution is I just don't know what happens, man.
SPEAKER_05Like, um, the Elliott Hulse video I watched today, he was talking about how um during COVID he went and he bought a ranch and he became a prepper. And he's like, he's like, I freaking like I his mind was just in collapse is coming. Like, that's what he just thought like collapse was coming. It's gonna be financial collapse, it's gonna be the he's like, I went out, he's like, as soon as I bought the ranch, I spent like six thousand dollars on an orchard. I put all these fruit trees in. He goes, that next winter we got like the deepest freeze we've ever gotten in Central Florida, and it killed my entire orchard. He's like, I wasted through six grand away. He goes, the amount of guns I've bought. He goes, he's like, I've I'm embarrassed to tell you how many weapons I've bought, the amount of ammunition I've bought. I taught all my children to shoot guns for the people who were gonna come, and they never came. He's like, he's like, I have yeah, but that's a fun one, at least. It is. He's like, I have a garage stocked full of Mormon food, you know. Like, I mean, I'm handing my own flavor into this a little bit, but like he just went through and he's like, I just went through all of it in this state of fear, thinking like the end of the world was coming. He's like, and none of these things ever came. And he's just kind of like reflecting on it, you know, and it's like we we've talked about um like my my predictions that like you know, we're we're in the end times and like something we're heading to something, but like even when I talk about like the Antichrist coming and what that looks like, I'm not sure it looks like total collapse and like uh uh Book of Eli type apocalyptic imagery. Like, I don't think that's what it is. I don't think there's gonna be a an a power grid outage. I think there could be a currency collapse, and then they're going to use that as a way to get us to accept digital currency, and then it'll just be a system of control for us. Like, I think there's gonna be totalitarianism that comes. And it's I don't I don't know if it's gonna be roaming bands of marauders and things like that that are you know raping and pillaging. I don't know.
SPEAKER_06That would be on, I mean, although that would obviously be terrible, that would be so much more interesting than then the the banal like banal BS we're living through right now, you know. Like if this if this is the climax of the collapse, I know right.
SPEAKER_05Well, the thing is, I dude, I used to it's funny, when I was younger, I would have fantasies about living in that post-apocalyptic world. Be like every guy does, every guy has like a four and you know, you just you there's two things men men all have the the the fantasy of one is you can go back in time and bring a piece of technology from oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Every guy has all right, what piece of technology would you bring back sniper rifle where you can shoot one really important person be better, or a Gatling gun with 10,000 rounds of ammunition or like or like a Jeep, a Jeep with a Gatling gun on it.
SPEAKER_05Like Yeah, but what you go back to like Odyssey wars or something. What do you do for gas? That's that well, this is this is the thought that you go through as a man, and you go, okay, well, I have how much gas can I bring with me? And like, all right, now or like yeah, you just you think about like how you could gain power in the past with technology from today, go into the past and show them something and make them think you're some oracle or something. Um, yeah, now zombie apocalypse is another one, or just an apocalyptic, like end time scenario, and you're like, all right, you know, but once you have a wife and children, that fantasy goes out the window, and you don't want to live in some post-apocalyptic world, not because you wouldn't enjoy it, it's because you don't want to see your children suffer. You don't want to see them have to go through it. So, like, I I don't want to leave New York because I want to be taken out in the blast. I don't want to live through some like I don't want to live through the road, you know, like the road where where he he's he's got a uh him and his him and his kid are just walking the trail and his cannibals everywhere. Like, I don't want to live through that anymore. If there is a nuke and it hits New York, I want to be taken out with the nuke. I want to go with my family.
SPEAKER_06How about you?
SPEAKER_05You know, if someone really you live out in the wilderness, so you you and you got a lot of guns, so you still kind of have that fantasy, I think.
SPEAKER_06Uh, I mean, it it would be rough, obviously, but like yeah, I think I would be better off than anyone in an urban area.
SPEAKER_05I'll tell you something though. Even even us with our uh our Mormon food buckets, right? Dude, those run out quick. Like you might have two, three months of food, but you don't have years of food, you know what I mean? Like you you definitely need to hunt, and you definitely like you, but you could probably right.
SPEAKER_06But of the 1500 people in the 10, 12 square blocks around me, I imagine I my family outlast 80% of those pretty easy, and then they have a lot of stuff we can take.
SPEAKER_05So, all right. So, I watched uh The Last House on Netflix because everybody was saying it was the worst movie ever. Like everyone, every dude, every review I saw was like, This is the worst movie I've ever seen. It's so bad, it's so bad. I'm like, I'm gonna watch it. It wasn't that bad. It's like Is that the Obama one? No, no, no, it's the last house standing or something, and it's basically the premise is genius, where like everyone is locked in their house by some mysterious force that won't let them leave. The ending is dumb, like it's a really dumb ending, and like the reason why everyone's locked in their house is really dumb. But uh, it's one of those scenarios when nobody could leave their house, and this family has to figure out how they're going to survive, and they can't live there, they can't leave their house. So, like they have to ration their food, and it winds up lasting like 10 years or something, and they find ways to grow food in their house. Yeah, it lasts like 10 years. There's no way they find ways to like all the food they had when they when they first got like all the fruit and vegetables and stuff, they saved the seeds and they wanted to plant the it's where did they get water from? They still had power and water for like three or four years. I don't know how, and then like after three years, the power runs out, and they still had wall water because it's the whole part of it is rain, so they have rainwater, like tons of rainwater coming in. Like, that's part of the water. Wow, do they put a hole in their roof? I mean, it's not I'm not gonna tell you to watch the movie, it's not good enough to go watch, but regardless, it's like the the whole the like the survival thing, it's it's why I won't love watching the show alone. Like, I love the idea of having to survive.
SPEAKER_06I don't like the idea of like people trying to kill you, but the the the point I was making with the movie you were going crazy when Twitter wouldn't load the other day.
SPEAKER_05Dude, I know. I know. Well, no, that was because I didn't have a book and I was on the beach, is what I was on the beach. Like me and my wife went to the beach just to like cool off a little, and I get there and I have no service on the beach. I'm like, all I want to do is sit in my beach chair and scroll Twitter, and I have no service, and I had to walk up by like Anthony was on the beach with the
SPEAKER_06Music and he couldn't complain on Twitter, which only made him want to complain on Twitter. That's it.
SPEAKER_05So I walked up by the concession stable when I got service. Uh my brother was on Survivor, not Survival, Survivor. Um, so it's okay. The point of the show story is, yeah, you're right. Um that you saw how quickly some people died, though. Like you were saying, like 80% of the people around here, they're just not gonna be right.
SPEAKER_06Like anybody who's older and firm, they're not gonna be able to be able to be able to let you I mean, as much as I hate to say this, in their current day and age in our society, something that catastrophic happens, 10 to 20 percent of the people off themselves immediately.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, Rob, do uh you know what I was thinking about?
SPEAKER_06Do you know how many people if like do you know how many people are on psychmeds and like just just pharmaceuticals over 60 percent of married women, I believe, are on SSRIs.
SPEAKER_05Dude, you think about how many people are on pharmaceuticals and are dependent on those pharmaceuticals? Like, dude, these people, if they lost their pharmaceuticals, they're just gonna go into withdrawals and detox and the amount of psychosis that you would be dealing with because how many people lost their minds from immediate like withdrawal from their SSRIs or or anything. Like, it's just it's just wild what would happen in that scenario. It would just be total mayhem. Unmedicated women in the apocalypse conjugate. You did put out a good gem or two every shit. Uh yeah, I don't know. I this whole thing, all right. Let's play the other clip because we're gonna head over to locals in a few.
Isolation, Propaganda, And Online Religion
SPEAKER_03Oh, like you know, that the that's oil and water, that those are two completely different things when in fact they're the same thing. Because when you break up, say, those parish communities, when you drive everybody out to the suburbs, everybody's living within their own fence line now. They're not living in a community, they're living in their own fence line. They maybe don't even know their neighbors' names. You have all offices who are completely isolated and easily homogenized over time. And um, you know, they lose their distinctiveness and become and melt into a part of a a mass that you can now propagandize on a mass level in in a way that, you know, you think about it like uh if you lived in a in a parish community back in the 1920s in the United States, if you lived in an Irish parish community in New York City and the government was uh or or the culture, whatever whatever outside force it is, is trying to propagandize you in a given way that your grandfather and your priest and the elders in your community that everybody respects are all telling you is not true, you're not gonna believe that. And you also just really have no need for whatever uh ideology it is that's being pushed on you because you have your community here. That's your ideology, you know? And um when you break all these people up, I mean, every every every intelligence agency going back to the Korean War is known that if you want to brainwash people, the first thing you have to do is isolate them. Of course. And so when everybody's isolated and yet you can propagandize all of them at the same time in their little isolation, it becomes very easy to and in the 20th century when the media channels were as controlled as they were, I mean, it was incredibly powerful. And you know, I the the one of the great hopes that I think, even though it was uh originally a military technology and everything, is I don't think that they plan for the internet.
SPEAKER_05And the reason I think that I just I wanted to just uh the idea, um, I will get to this uh question. We will discuss this question before we leave. Um MB loves Jesus. We'll talk about this before we leave. That's that's a good super chat. Um, but the the reason I I clipped that part is just it well, I we kind of talked about it a little bit already, but it it's the um part of it is I I worry that so much of um modern Catholicism has be to become like content Christianity, like contentification of Christianity, you know, and it's like so much of it is spent online. Um I watched uh Jonathan Peugeot talk to Luke Burgess. You know what Luke Burgess is? No, Catholic guy. He wrote he's like a uh a Renee Girard um like uh uh what would you call him? Studies Renee Girard, I don't know, whatever. But let's go yeah, he's he really studies Renee Girard. But he was talking uh with Peugeot, and Peugeot actually was the one who gave me this idea. He was and he dude, he actually was low-key taking a shot at uh what's the what's the orthodox kid?
SPEAKER_06Um Cleave to Antiquity.
SPEAKER_05Cleave to Antiquity. He was he's taking a little shot at him. He's like, he's like, what about like these guys who find their identity online, and they may not even be like, they're not even like baptized yet or in the church yet, but like they're picking up the banner to fight the good fight, and they're like making it their whole identity. Like, there's something about how social media is like making us disjointed, and like what we're doing there, we need to form like real communities and and make real life friends. It can't just I mean, I mean, for me and you, Twitter is real life, obviously. Like, me and you are like like we're legit, like you know, people that say Twitter isn't real life. Like, no, you have to make an like Robin, I mean it can be, yes, it can it can be like that, but me and you make a point to see each other at least once or twice a year, and like I don't know, like see I'm getting an invite to a wedding in New York for some dude who I met through this show that yeah now engaged to your sister, and like P for I'm going to go away with like 40 people that watch this show, and we're gonna make real life friendships, you know? And it's like that that I think is super important for us to do, but we've lost what he's talking about, where you had your your parish community where everyone was kind of gathered around that parish community, and it's like we we talk about the nuclear family now and stuff, but like there really was such a bigger concept of what it meant to be a people when you had those parish communities that you'd have these events at the parish, and that's where your kids would meet their spouse, and it it's just all of that was taken away. And I dude, I don't really know my neighbors' names, like I really don't know my I know one or two of them that I I think are. I bet you know one's name now. I actually don't know his name. The cops came and broke it up. I'll tell you the story in a few minutes.
SPEAKER_06I was thinking you at least saw it on a police report or something.
SPEAKER_05It didn't get that far, but I'm the one who called the cops because I was afraid of what I would do. But we'll talk about it on the other side. So um, yeah, I don't know. I just thought I thought it was I thought it was an interesting episode that they did because of all the topics we've discussed on our show. And it kind of just fit in line with all of the conversations we've been having, and it just man, I don't know. I don't know where all this is heading. I just know that there's been a plan for this to happen for uh a century and a half, or you know, since the enlightenment basically. Like this, this this really started with the printing press, it was like the beginning of it. And the Protestant Reformation. That was like the beginning of this stuff. It starts there and they start using technology to break apart Christian civilization. But Christian civilization was such a foundation that it has taken five, six hundred years for them to destroy. And the thing is, the Jews still see themselves as a historical people, they still tell their children, like in that episode, they get into how Winona Ryder, when she was a kid, her parents terrified her, and she was afraid of the dark because she thought her neighbors were gonna come and put her in a gas oven, you know? And it's like these this is how the Jews retain their identity is by telling their kids about the horrors their people have suffered through generations and generations and over thousands of years. So they still see themselves as a historical people. We as Catholics have to remember that we are a historical people, like this is very important. I think that's why there was not I think this is why there's such a big push to break up the Catholic identity and to like dilute it at every chance they get and just make it like oh, we're just a social club. And there's something very important about all of us understanding where we fit in the context of the grand story.
SPEAKER_06Her last name is Horowitz.
SPEAKER_05Who Winona Rider?
SPEAKER_06Yes, yeah, and she was born in Winona, Minnesota. How did I not know either of these things?
SPEAKER_05They all make up fake names, none of them want you to know they got a Stein at the end of it or a witz.
SPEAKER_06300 people just learned Winona Rider's real last name. And yes, Winona, Minnesota is beautiful.
SPEAKER_05Um, all right, so let's let's just jump to the um super chat real quick because well hold on.
SPEAKER_06While we're on that subject, um do you see the issues where we no, I don't I don't know. I I don't either, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_05And I I fear that part of the plan that they're enacting on us has to do with violence. Like they want it to come to violence, they want it to come to civil war because there's no one easier to conquer than a people who are divided. Like a house divided cannot stand. I mean, Jesus tells us this throughout the gospels, right? Throughout the gospel, a house divided cannot stand. The whole point of what they're doing to us is to divide us so that we can be conquered.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, now I would there is some hope, but also some um I guess warning. Like if we look at uh an example I would just recently talked about, the Spanish Civil War, like like yeah, that in a in a in a similar way, like that was all engineered for for violence, right? Like that was everything that took part there and was done against the church and the Spanish people was done with mass violence uh in mind in order to basically cleanse Spain and make it you know into what the the secularists and the communists wanted, um, but they were unprepared for the reaction against them, and they lost because of it. But so that I guess there there is hope there.
SPEAKER_05Well, we talked about that whole episode we did about there's no Catholic culture, right? Like there in America, I'm sorry, there's no American Catholic culture, right? The Jews have their plans, their plans will come to like all things work for good, like Christ wins the story, so they may have their plans for us to be in violence, right? What'll happen from that violence is you will get martyrs willing to die for the faith, and that is where you'll get your real Catholic American culture because you'll develop traditions around the martyrs died for the faith.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, but I would say the warning is Spain ended up, you know, the Catholics in Spain ended up winning because they had a 100-long year traditional movement that had been training militias called the Raquetes for 100 years, yeah. Right? They had community, they had they had people willing to to work together and train militarily for 100 years, so they were ready for that moment, and all we can do is all we can do is have the the SSB act and the FSSB fight each other.
SPEAKER_05We're certainly not ready for it, but at the same time, um faith blossoms on the persecution, yeah. Like faith blossoms on the persecution, and the blood of the martyrs is the seeds of the faith. So it's just like no matter what their plans are, like that's how Christ's church spreads, man. And it's I think that's how we'll get a genuine American Catholic culture is through martyrdom, because that's where these like all of the Catholic traditions you see, all the all the parades you're seeing, all these beautiful Catholic like cultural things that you see in Europe are formed. They're around saints and martyrs. Yeah, like nearly all of them. It's you know, they're nearly all around martyrs because you develop a tradition around that martyr, and then it becomes a cultural thing for you, your people to unite around. So I'm not, you know, and honestly, it's not something to doom and gloom and worry about constantly because like at a certain point you just have to say crisis in control, and whatever happens is is his plan. And for us to like the thing I got from the Elliot Hulse video was like all that worry, all that worry, and you spend your time prepping for everything. It's like he you could have just been living your life for the past five years, taking some minor preparations to make sure that you're you know, you don't, but to spend your whole life preparing for an event that may never come, it may come or it may not come.
SPEAKER_06Still, I mean you have the Spanish who were prepared and only suffered, I mean, through a horrible war, but it was only three years long. You have the you know, the the Christians in the Balkans who who were prepared and fought off the Ottomans for centuries, and then you have the Russians who were completely unprepared and suffered under Soviet communism for 75 years before finally throwing it off, you know. Like, like, yes, it's not all about I was talking about like there's gotta be a balance.
SPEAKER_05Well, I was specifically talking about like us worrying about financial collapse and us worrying about like those things, like you, they're out of our control. They're they're just some things are out of our control. We should take necessary preparations, but I mean, I if you're talking about fighting a civil war, that's a totally different conversation.
SPEAKER_06Like, I don't know what's you need uh you need uh way more organization for that than what
Family Estrangement And No Contact
SPEAKER_06we currently have for sure. Yeah, yeah, we'd be in you can't do that alone.
SPEAKER_05Um, so all right, let's get to that super chat real quick. So um can we talk about no contact by millennials against their parents? 13 of my grandkids have gone are gone overnight, two and a half years into it. This is our future. Um, yeah, it is a millennial thing, uh in particular. It's it's a hard one for me because I've just the thought would never cross my mind. I've had friends that me and my wife had to go no contact with because they were just toxic. Um it's just such an alien thing to me. Now, look, if if like a parent is abusive, if um they're constantly causing strife in your marriage and your marriage can't stay together, like then I can understand like just saying, like, I I I you know I I I can't have this in my life because it's causing too much strife at my home. But I also do think a lot of people are a lot of people are way too sensitive and they're unwilling to deal with any kind of suffering through a lot of stuff. And it's like if they just upset a woman sometimes, they'll just go, I just I'm cutting them off, you know. And it's like yeah, there's gotta there's gotta be it shouldn't be happening nearly as often as it is. I know that it's happening way too often, but I do have to allow for legitimate cases of it.
SPEAKER_06Um I would say it's happening too often for the wrong reasons and not enough for the right reasons, probably. Like, uh like there are definitely times when it is what is needed, you know, especially if we're talking like the like a hierarchy of love, like if if you know, my my duty first is obviously to my wife and then to my kids and then to my parents. So if you know I can't if if having parents in in your life prevents you or harms, you know, like like you were talking about your marriage or your children or something, obviously then you need to work out what takes priority there. Um But I I think many of the reasons people use for I mean generally the the people who go no contact generally are are leftist kids who don't like that their parents voted for Trump, you know, something like that. That's what I mean.
SPEAKER_05That's all I'm saying. Like like like when you have situations like that, like if if your kids are going no contact because they have a different political opinion, like those kids are, I don't know what happened to your kids, I don't know what you did, right?
SPEAKER_06But but at the same time, there are you know, I think we've recognized now how terrible at parenting the boomer generation as a whole was, and there might be times where a millennial parent has to cut off a boomer grandparent for the sake of their children.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I I look it family dynamics are tough, man. And I don't want to like just use my family as like the barometer because I have a good family on my wife's side and my side, so it's like for me to speak out a turn about that, like I don't know the there's always intricacies to these things, and it's like anytime I've got something you can speak on as a whole, it's in a blanket statement because I've I there's too many people I like and like trust that have told me, like, dude, I had to cut my parents out. That I can't just like blanket say it's you should never go no contact. Like, there's scenarios where it's acceptable. I just think it's way blown out of proportion, and like people consider like an argument with their parents abuse. Like, I don't know, like this there's some sometimes I think it's just way blown out of proportion.
SPEAKER_06So I mean, I I I keep my father-in-law out of touch with my wife and my my kids um for good reason, and you know, and and he knows that if he ever does want relationships with them, he has to come to me and show me that it, you know, that the issues that were there are resolved or that at the very least he's interested in resolving them.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, there needs to be like I I see I can see putting boundaries up. I think boundaries would be a better approach for a lot of people and just say, look, these are the boundaries. Like, if you want a relationship with us, this is this is how like you just said, like, this is you need to show you want to, you know, show reconciliation first, and that we're gonna work on resolving these issues, or we're never gonna talk about it, but I don't want you doing this with my kids. Like, my dad's dad, like, like hit my little sister once when we when we were younger. And like, if my if my dad ever put his hands on my kids, be like, you're not allowed around my kids anymore. Like, there's times when like you you have to just say, like, I can't let you around my kids. If you're gonna hit my kids, you're not gonna be around my kids, you know.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_05But um, all right, so we're gonna go to the other side. Uh, I have quite quite a few stories to tell. Um, and yeah, I want to talk relationships on the other side too.
SPEAKER_06So if you guys want to come, uh Let me get the link out here.
SPEAKER_05Locals.com slash avoiding babylon, I think it is, something like that.
SPEAKER_06Avoiding avoidingbabylon.locals.com.
SPEAKER_05There you go.com. Not a deal. I'm never good at those things unless I see it in front of me. So yeah, go to avoidingbabylon.locals.com. Join us for the after show. We do it every night. Oh, Eddie is coming in Thursday. And he's he's coming in for the weekend, but he has a wedding Friday. Oh uh, he's in the it's Eddie's wife's brother is getting married. So he has wedding.
SPEAKER_06He's our accountant, Eddie?
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_06Okay.
SPEAKER_05He's coming up here for his wife's brother's wedding.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05He's gonna be here Thursday through Sunday, but he has wedding stuff Friday and Saturday, and he has a million people he has to see Sunday. The only chance I'm gonna see him is Thursday. Okay, I'm thinking maybe just do locals at nine. I'm thinking no YouTube show Thursday. Maybe I'll I'm gonna go see him after work. I'm gonna hang out with him for a few hours, and I'll try to get home for nine o'clock and we'll do a local show at nine. But that's not gonna be a YouTube show on Thursday. So for those of you who only catch the YouTube show, you're gonna miss Thursday's show. We're gonna do uh locals only. Either that or we can switch the show to tomorrow, but I generally don't like doing shows two days in a row.
SPEAKER_06Something big comes up.
SPEAKER_05If something big pops up tomorrow, we'll jump on tomorrow. So keep your eyes open. We will uh you'll you know check our Twitter feeds and we'll we'll post something on the YouTube channel and we'll let you guys know what we're doing. So all right, join us over on the other side. Rob, you got something to take us out with?
SPEAKER_06Uh I'll figure out something here. Um yeah, everyone says they love this one.
SPEAKER_07I know you ate it, but the podcast acting like baby boomers.
SPEAKER_02Move over millennials, it's time for zoomers. This is just a way to do the no cap. Listen to the avoid him.
Sweet 16 Chaos And Neighbor Fight
SPEAKER_06Okay, that's enough of that. I despise that one. I know you do. I hate it. Welcome to being back.
SPEAKER_05Um, so holy cow, man. So, alright, so the the party is on Saturday. Friday the Mechanicals me, he's like, Your boat's ready. I'm like, all right, I'm coming to get the boat. I go down, I get there at like six o'clock to get the boat. I drive about a mile from the guy, and my hub blows on my freaking trailer. And I'm like, what am I going to do? So I leave the boat and trailer just on some side block, and I just take the truck and I go to AutoZone. I buy a hub. I come back, I go to put it on. It's not the right hub. The only place to get the hub is at trailer city. They close at six o'clock. It's now like 5 50. I'm not going to make it. So I called one of my uncle's trailer guys who works on our trailers, and I'll tell him the whole situation. He goes, Look, I'll run, I'll call Trailer City, I'll have them leave me a hub outside. I'll pick it up on my way home, and then you can come to my house and grab it from my house. He lives like 45 minutes from me. So I he's still at work. It's like so this like six o'clock, this happens. I'm like, all right, call me when you get home. He calls me at like 8 30 at night. He's like, I just got home. So I'm like, all right. I get the hub at like nine at night.
SPEAKER_06Meanwhile, your boat's on a trailer in the side.
SPEAKER_05On a side street by itself with a tire pulled off of it, missing hub, which made me feel better because nobody could have stolen it unless they would have had the hub and how difficult it was to get. But so I go, I get it, I get back to the boat at like 10 o'clock at night. I go to put the hub on. It's the wrong freaking hub. Now, I'm able, all right. So I if anybody doesn't know how a hub works, it it's what holds your your wheel on, right? I'm able to get it on enough, like a typical hub slides on, you screw the nut in, there's a cotter pin that goes in and holds the nut from unscrewing. Yeah, I was able to get this one on enough to thread it two times, not even close to getting the cotter pin in. And I'm like, Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with the I text.
SPEAKER_06Texts us.
SPEAKER_05I text Rob, Jason, and Mark. I'm like, guys, stop what you're doing and pray a Hail Mary for me right now. I have a 25-minute ride home and I am terrified my wheel's going to fall.
SPEAKER_06Now keep in mind, Anthony did not text us and tell us to stop what we're doing and pray Hail Mary when his sister cut her fingers off. But he did do that for his boat trailer.
SPEAKER_05And our lady got me home safe.
SPEAKER_06Yes, she did.
SPEAKER_05Our lady got me home safe. I still cannot believe it because I thought I was driving eight miles an hour home, just like waiting for that wheel to pull off, and it didn't. So um, so now Saturday comes, and I didn't get to do any of the prep I was supposed to do on Friday because I was dealing with the trailer thing. So I have so much to get ready for on Saturday. And it turns out the block. I wanted to can you pull up a map? Oh, I don't want to show you where I live.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I mean you've given addresses out before.
SPEAKER_05Alright, let me see. I'm gonna send you a screenshot. Let me see. I'll send you a screenshot of where I live. Because it doesn't really work. This isn't like this will work. Okay, hold on. I have to explain how this happens. Alright, I send it to Telegram, pull it off. Okay, now the orange dot is me. You see the block sycamore? Yeah. Okay. Now you see the the block on the like if you if you went from the orange dot, went up to sycamore, made a left, and then that's the main roadway there, right?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05Alpine. Okay. So there's a block party there. They shut it down from the main road. So nobody could get in. Um, so if you if you look where the orange dot is, they put barricades up at the corner of Sycamore and my block. Okay.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And they wouldn't let the people come from the main road to get to my house. So people had to come through the back roads. Now the problem came in when all the people who were going to the block party, I live on that on that corner. I have a very big corner property. Like you have plenty of places to park in front of my house. All the people going to the block party start parking in front of my house. And there's not going to be anywhere for the guests that are coming to my house to park. So I go up to the corner of Sycamore and I walk up to the first house on the block, and I'm super nice. And I'm like, look, I'm like, I'm not asking you to open up the main road. I know you guys don't want traffic coming through. Like, is there any way I can remove the barricade just blocking my block and I can let the people coming to the block party park on the block between my block and the main road, just like park their cars there. Like, I don't want through traffic or anything, but can they just park their cars there? The woman goes, Oh, I don't think so. I don't know. I'm gonna have to ask my husband. And I'm like, dude, I'm fuming. I'm like, I'm like, all right, well, talk to your husband. I go, but in a minute, I'm not gonna really leave it up to you. I'm just gonna start directing people over there. And I walk back to my house and I'm trying to cool down. And then, like, three more people come to the block party and park in front of my house. And I'm like, guys, I'm gonna open the barricade up there. I'm like, follow me up and make the left and just park on the dude. There's not a house in between my block and the main road. There's no houses there, it's just parking. Like, there's no reason that people can't park there. So I go up and I go to move the barricade, and the guy comes running off his lawn. Don't touch my effing barricade. And he gets right in my face, and I just pushed him off of me. I go, I don't know who you think you're approaching right now. I'm like, this is not gonna end well for you. And I'm like, I tried coming over and talking nicely to you. I'm like, do not get in my face. I'm like, and let the people parking here go park over there, dude. He gets right back in my face, and I just pushed him off of me again. And I'm like, I'm like, I'm I'm done. And I just walked away and I called the cops, and I'm like, send an officer down here because I'm gonna go knock my neighbor's teeth out right now.
SPEAKER_06Dude, can you imagine being a cop in Long Island and how many calls like that a day you must get?
SPEAKER_05The cops come as my guests are pulling up, and the neighbor comes down and sees the cop before I do and tells the cops I assaulted him. Dude, I'm like on the verge of getting arrested before my daughter's sweet 16.
SPEAKER_06Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_05And I walked out and I'm like, how should I handle this? And I walked out and I went, I saw my guests starting to pull up and fill the spots, so I'm like, it's not even an issue anymore, man. I mean this, and it's like now my guests are pulling up, and it's like it's not like my guests are now filling the spots up, and I'm not even worried about it anymore. I just went out. I go, listen, I apologize for not speaking to you first. I'm like, you got in my face. I was like, I just I don't want to be fighting with my neighbors, man. I'm sorry. And the guy was calmed down by that point. I was like, look, I don't even care if you open the block up. My guests are coming up here. And the cop was like, I need your identification. I'm like, I hand it right over because I know that's always the reason. They'll lock you right up if you don't give him your ID. I hand him my ID. You don't look, Rob, every you don't need to legally. I've never seen a video where somebody refuses to give their ID where they didn't get arrested.
SPEAKER_06That's because you would never see those videos because nothing happens.
SPEAKER_05Survivorship bias. When you when you as soon as every single video where somebody gets arrested, when they did it's like if you start telling the cop, I don't need to give you any like you just you just your best bet is to just make peace with the cops. But I believe me, I I'm not defending cops here. I just know I need to be at my daughter Suite 16. And I'm like, I don't want to, I don't want to end up in cuffs right now. And the cop's like, you know, I I understand your your predicament, but you know, it doesn't give you a right to go start assaulting people and all that. Uh if that if that screenshot ever leaves this locals, I'll kill you guys.
SPEAKER_06Um the I was gonna say showing what you showed was enough.
SPEAKER_05Of course that's enough.
SPEAKER_06Definitely if you guys know I live on Long Island, look like those it's like those videos where someone shows a picture of their foot in the grass, and someone can figure out by the angle of the sun and what type of grass exactly where they were.
SPEAKER_05When the police pull you up without a light, but you tell them you're dumb again. You guys have the best memories, man. Holy cow! Oh, you guys remember everything.
SPEAKER_06Yes, the boat is actually there on Google Maps. You're right. I just looked it up myself.
SPEAKER_05So um, I'm so sick. I don't know why I put that on there. Anyway, I wanted you guys to understand like the actual thing that was happening. Don't worry, we only have 1200 people that would so the the cops were looking to arrest me, dude. Like they really were looking to arrest me. They're like, you can't be assaulting people over Parkinson's. I'm like, officer, I apologize. I'm like, I'm like, boss, my name's Anthony. I know we've never met before. I'm like, I don't want to be fighting with my neighbors. I apologize. I'm sorry I approached you in the in that way. I should, you know, I should have handled it differently. He was like, it's okay, man. Don't worry about it. And like, cops, like, all right, so we do we we're good here, we're good. I'm like, yes, we're good. People are pulling up, they're filling the spots, not a big deal anymore. I don't even care. Thank you.
SPEAKER_06You sick os now. Do the street view. You really get a good look at it.
SPEAKER_05Oh, you guys are so sick. You can steal the boat, I don't care.
SPEAKER_06I like how you I like how you gave the initially the neighbor had I don't know what accent, but then you ended up giving the neighbor at the end the Down syndrome accent for some reason.
SPEAKER_05Dude, it was just a rough night. So then the party starts off, it's all family, right? Like we told my daughter, I'm like, don't tell your friends not to come till like 8 30 at night. Like, we want to have time with the family. These kids start showing up at like 7 p.m. So, like, I got family mixed in with these 16-year-old kids here. These kids wind up sneaking alcohol in, and I'm like, oh my god, they're 16.
SPEAKER_06They're not it's not a grad party, like a grad party, I get, but like a 16-year-old, yeah, a 16, a happy, a sweet 16. Come on.
SPEAKER_05No, it's no good, you know. So I'm like, now I'm like it just wound up being a really rough night. I woke up the next day, like, I dude, the amount of guilt I had for not like searching backpacks when these kids came in and stuff, like I was just so busy doing stuff, and I'm like, like the next day, I just had someone, I'm like, Nicole, you know, like we're so dumb. Like it was such it was such irresponsible behavior. Like, I was just so disappointed in myself that I wasn't like a tyrant about it. Like, and even when I called the kids, I'm like, all right, guys, come on, start, and I took it away and stuff, whatever.
SPEAKER_06But like, I you shouldn't have pulled the real hard ass mood uh move and made them just chug it right then and there.
SPEAKER_05No, I threw kids out and stuff, uh, but it was like it was still like I the next day I was just like, dude, God forbid, like one of those kids got picked up by their parents and smelt booze on them and called the cops on like the guy. It just would have been a cop back at my house.
SPEAKER_06It just would have been I mean, I thank God everything went okay and like it went it went off without a hitch, but like yeah, beating up the neighbors and facilit facilitating minor alcohol abuse.
SPEAKER_05I I went to uh I went to Mastics that I didn't receive. I saw Bobby at Mass Text. I'm like, I don't know. I just I just had this tremendous guilt.
SPEAKER_06You saw Bobby at Bobby. How often do you go to New York? Well, he came up for her birth for her party. Bobby was at the party.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay. Yeah, he came up for the party. He was back up last this past weekend too, though, this sicko, because they were going out and looking at like venues and stuff, and they were, I don't know, they had wedding planning to do this. Poor guy, you better hurry up and get married, man. You're gonna be broke just traveling
What Makes A Marriage Last
SPEAKER_05back and forth. Um, so then I go to Block Island, okay. Um, my uncle took 16 people to Block Island.
SPEAKER_06It was like we figured out that was what $60,000. Just for the rooms, Rob. Just for hotel rooms, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Just for the rooms, right? Every day, every day we would go somewhere during the day and hang out and drink, and he would pick that bar tab up, and that bar tab had to be five, six grand a day. Sixteen people drinking six six grand a day for the bar tab. Then he would take us to dinner, and dinner would have that same bar tab plus the foot.
SPEAKER_06Like, dinner's I do not feel bad for drinking his Louis XIII cognac anymore.
SPEAKER_05No, Rob, when I tell you this guy had to spend 140 grand on this trip to take us away, right? But all right, so that's not even what I want to talk about, though. Like, I still spent a lot of money. I went and I still spent a lot of money because like he didn't pay for every meal, you know what I mean? So, like, we still had to go get breakfast together, right? So, but what I noticed while I was there, we're there like eight couples. You could see the couples who like married the woman, like in that video in the intro. Oh, I'm sure. Like, you could just see there's some couples who just don't like each other, and it's like it's such an awkward thing to witness where, like, I watched one husband go and get breakfast by himself without his wife, and like that, but then they like they would hang out together with us and stuff.
SPEAKER_06But here's the thing my favorite part of traveling, you know, even if you're at some kind of crappy hotel with just the worst continental breakfast, my favorite thing is waking up as earlier than I normally would to go down by myself and have breakfast.
SPEAKER_05But that's not what this was. He's just you have kids, like, I understand.
SPEAKER_06Like, you want a little peace and quiet half an hour of peace and quiet is so yeah.
SPEAKER_05No, I get that. That's a different thing that I'm talking about. This is like all right, so uh it made me think of my childhood, even because like I remember coming home as a kid, and my parents love one another. I'm not even, but it's interesting where like when my kids come home, me and my wife are always together. We're watching a series together, or we're sitting, we're always together, right? Like, we're we're just we do everything together, like literally everything. It's just we enjoy one another's company. Like, I get home from work, she's looking forward to me getting home. She makes dinner for me, and like we we spend the night hanging out together every night. And I was thinking back to my childhood, like, I don't remember like my dad would come home from work, and my dad would watch like TV on the couch in the den, and my mom would be doing her own thing. Even to this day, like my dad will watch TV by himself, and my mom will be reading her prayer books in the kitchen. Like, they're never together, they go away together. My dad will take his guitar and go down to like a public place and play his guitar so people could watch him play the guitar, and my mom will be doing her prayer thing in the other corner, you know, like by herself. Like, they're never together, my parents. They do everything, and then they separate. My dad does his thing, and my mom does her thing. And it's I I because I asked my wife last night, I'm like, did like when you grew up, like, do you did your parents do anything? She goes, Nicole's parents did everything together. They schedule their colonoscopies together now. It's like this weird thing. Like, that's how they do everything together.
SPEAKER_06I'm hoping the world doesn't I'm hoping society falls before I need one of those.
SPEAKER_05Oh my gosh, man. Getting older. Oh, it's not fun. But anyway, but like that's so, but my kids, my kids' friends come over and they always see me and my wife together. So, like, they'll say to my my kids, they'll be like, Your parents are so cute, like they're always together, they're always doing something. When we when I'm home on the weekends, we're gardening in the backyard together. She's doing the gardening, and I'm usually doing some like heavy labor, but we work in the backyard together, like we just do everything together, and we like each other. And when we were on this trip, like I saw those couples where like the wife's a little nasty and like they make comments towards each other. Is that Bobby doing a kegstand? That's me doing a keg scan. I thought it was Bobby, party. Yeah, they don't have a picture of Bobby. That's funny.
SPEAKER_06Um no, just his last name. Thanks.
SPEAKER_05Um Kathy is so sick, Kathy. Um, yeah, so like just being around couple, like you could even see it on like when we would be walking to a place, which couples would hold each other's hands and which couples like didn't, you know, like they just like it's just uh so while we were there, my my cousin PJ's there and her boyfriend was there, and he hasn't proposed yet. And um uh uh one of the other couples were there and they've been married for like 30 years, their kids are in their late 20s, and the husband's sitting there, like their their one kid, their one kid is engaged to get married, and they're talking to me and Nicole about how they're like they had two their kids in like he's like 26, and they're like, he's too young to be getting married. I don't know why they think they need to get married, and they're just like denigrating marriage in front of us. And I'm like, I'm like, they're 26. Like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, the whole the whole week was basically me and Nicole like talking about how good marriage was my cousin comes up to me and she's like, I just have to tell you, like, you guys are like the only couple that ever like encourages marriage, like it's like everywhere they're going, they're hearing people knock marriage. It's just couples who are married for 25-30 years are knocking marriage to the younger people. It's sick, like it's not even like like we're all sitting here worried about like, oh, why aren't young people getting married? Because their freaking parents are telling them not to. Like their parents are miserable that in their marriage, and they think that's like an automatic thing where all couples are miserable in their marriage, and they're portraying that to their freaking kids. You guys are really looking in my backyard now, huh? Um, yeah, it was just uh it's one of those things where like when you're around it, you're just like, man, that's so sad. Like, I don't like I don't I don't want I I want to die with my wife. I don't have like the thought of like her dying first or me dying first is like awful to me. I don't know.
SPEAKER_06I wouldn't I definitely do not want to die in second.
SPEAKER_05No, no, no, I want to go first, but I don't even want to go first. I want us to go together in some like I don't know.
SPEAKER_06Well, you know, if you have your way and blast at New York, you'll go together.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping we die in the past, right in the apocalypse together. Me and my wife and all my kids, and we all entered the pearly gates as a unit. Like, that's what I actually want.
SPEAKER_06I don't know's idea of hell is him having to deal in the the the post-nuclear wasteland with unmedicated women without his wife.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, oh my gosh. I don't I don't everybody will say this, but like I don't ever see myself marrying someone else, man. Like, I really don't. I don't ever like I don't see being able to put my kids through that. I don't know.
SPEAKER_06I just especially my girls, like I was gonna say, you you've done the the procreation thing, yeah. Your kids are almost raised, like you know, they basically are, you know, a hundred years ago they would have considered right. Like, there's no reason for you to get married again.
SPEAKER_05No, I just I'd rather just dote on my kids and just like be a present father and grandfather for when they have kids, you know, and like you get if anything, you should go go to seminary, become a priest, and then we could actually be a respectable uh respectable show that has a priest on. Well, it's the thing is I would be able to live much simpler without my wife, like it's just real.
SPEAKER_06I don't like pictures to hang.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, like we're just much simpler, so it would be like there'd be a lot more to leave my kids without my wife here. Just saying. There'd be a lot more there's no chance I'm going first. I I'm I'm not would you become a boat hermit? Yeah, probably.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, you'd be one of those guys that basically I probably would.
SPEAKER_05I probably would just live on the boat.
SPEAKER_06Live on the boat.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Live on my boat by myself. I'd sell my house, give the kids the proceeds. Give them everything. Like, what the hell do I need? I'm by myself. I need I need uh my pension will cover me. I'll give them my annuity, I give them everything. They could have it all. Try to set them up with something that if that if that situation ever came up. Yeah, I don't know. Like uh Nicole's uncle, when his wife died, she died of breast cancer a few years back. He was like Within like two months, like seeing seeing the girl in his office. And it was just like that's so freaking off-putting. Which means he was probably seeing her while she was.
SPEAKER_06I was gonna say that even that just has an air of scumminess about it.
SPEAKER_05Oh dude, it's like if you're gonna do it, you do it in private, you don't tell anybody. Like he like brought her around after a after two months. It was completely inappropriate. Like yeah, he had her on deck. I think I think they might have been like while she was in the final stages.
SPEAKER_06That's uh to me, that's like the the worst part is is like there are definitely um both men and women who uh I don't know, have a thing for those who are who are caring for others, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_05Like there's like vulture women. Well, plus he's a dentist, right? So he's got a lot of money. And I think that woman was like she saw an opportunity to like get her hooks in him, and I think for him, he I don't think he ever properly grieved his wife, and I think he like had the excitement of this new relationship take his mind off of it. She was much younger than him, and now he's miserable with her. She's she is making his life a living hell, and I'm just like, there you go, man. Should have just taken your time, but you should have been okay. There's like what codependency, too, though. Like, you just lost your wife. Like, go be alone for a little bit. Like, go go be alone for a little while. Like, you could you could be alone.
SPEAKER_06I don't even I can't even imagine being alone.
SPEAKER_05Between the kids and the wives, but the kid, no, you would you would probably need help.
SPEAKER_06Oh, no, yeah, but I just mean like you haven't seen alone in forever, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Well, these kids you can't even imagine it.
SPEAKER_06You know, since since having the kids, there have been maybe 10 to 10 to 20 nights where I've had a bed alone, completely alone, and I don't sleep well anymore when I'm in a in a bed alone.
SPEAKER_05Um so uh Paul Paul says being alone sucks. It does. I understand that. Um, and Molly said uh Paul and I have to go together, or if or he goes first because he'll never marry again. He's too much of an introvert, he'll probably become a hermit. Like that's I don't know what I look. I I god forbid I never ever ever want to be in that position. I just thought, I don't know, man. Like Nicole has been I was thinking about it. Like, I my life is work and her. Like since I'm 16 years old, you know what I mean? Like it's it's um I'm 44 now, and it it my life has been work and her. Like it's I've spent more time with her than anyone. Like, I just can't even imagine not having her, you know. Like, I don't know. I don't I I don't know how people deal with losing a spouse, man. I just unl unless marriage isn't for like isn't the same for everyone, I guess, but I don't know. I I don't I think I would die of a broken heart. I really do. I don't know how the heck I would go get through that. Like I don't I don't want to live without her. Like I just I'd lose my will to live. I don't know. I'd have no I don't know. It's a rough one.
SPEAKER_06If you guys thought Ant was uh doomer uh and apocalyptic now, just imagine how bad he would be.
SPEAKER_05I don't I don't know what I you guys would have to like carry me, man. Like through something like that. Like I honestly, you guys, this these conversations might save me. Just as it would get me out of my head. Like I'd either it'd be either that or I'd just like crawl up on my bed and never get out of bed. I don't even know what the fuck I would do. Cursing, sorry.
SPEAKER_06Well, it's a good thing everyone has your address now. Oh because if anything ever happens, they can show up at your door and get you out of bed. Uh did you see the neighbor point of view uh photo someone posted? The neighbor point of view, no. They have your address in it and everything.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you guys definitely are my therapy though. Uh this show is definitely therapeutic for me, man. Definitely, definitely therapeutic. Did I do we have um dude? We gotta talk about the boat story.
SPEAKER_06What boat story?
SPEAKER_05Oh, that's we gotta talk about the boat
New York Harbor Boat Tragedy
SPEAKER_05story. Bring that up. I sent it in the telegram. I like there's few things that have enraged me like this story. Like few things that have upset me like this. And I'm gonna explain to you guys why.
SPEAKER_06You want the actual story or just a yeah, bring it up.
SPEAKER_05We may as well may as well read it. So it's a New York Post tweet I sent. Um so captain in fatal New York Harbor tragedy, didn't have boat license, was hired as a limo driver for luxury tour company, court documents say. The captain of a motorboat that capsized in New York Harbor and killed a mom and her baby, was not licensed to operate the vessel, and was actually hired as a limo driver. So here's uh I'll explain what happened. So, okay, yeah. So all right, Manuel Hernandez 46 was allegedly running an illegal charter operation when he overloaded a 21-foot boat with 13 passengers on Saturday night, lacked a required safety standards that included child or infant-sized life jackets. So, all right, this boat is a 21-foot jet boat. A 21-foot jet boat, like realistically, in New York Harbor, I would never go out on that boat with more than five people on it. New York Harbor, unless you're going at slack tide, looks like running rapids. Like it it it moves so fast. There is so much water being moved through there between the tides that when you look at it, you're like, like if you jumped in it, you'd get swept out and die. There's no chance you could be in it. So you need to know those waterways really well. So to take a 21-foot jet boat out on them, like it has to be the perfect conditions, no more than six people on it. This idiot put 13 passengers, plus him is 14. He allowed a five-month-old baby on this boat. Like, I would never put a five-month-old baby on my boat under any circumstances, even if it's like just a lake shot. Like, I would never put a five-month-old baby on my boat. It's just too dangerous. Like, there's too many things that could go wrong. Yeah, how do you how do you take 14 people on that treacherous water where besides the current, you also have like container ships coming through, you have ferry boats coming through. You like everybody going to see the Statue of Olivia, you have cruise ships coming through there. Like the the wakes that these boats kick up are like ocean waves. And this guy goes to make a U-turn, a wave comes over the bow. Yeah, he goes to turn the boat around, a wave comes over the bow, and it capsizes the boat. The boat flips over, they're all under the boat. Like they're trapped under the boat. It happens so fast, the boat just flipped over. This mother, first of all, the father, too. The the mother, why is the mother holding the five-month-old baby? That father should have been holding the five-month-old baby. The operator, that guy, tells them, I don't have a life jacket for the for the infant. So one of the parents will have to wear a life jacket and hold the baby. And the one wearing the life jacket is the one who died. Like it's just such an uh it is so dude. I've had uh I've had when I go out on my boat, I I do a pre-trip inspection on my boat before I go out on every ride to make sure I have enough life jackets. And I keep enough, like if I have six people on my boat, I'll have 12 life jackets, six in the back, six in the front. Like I make sure I always have access in case you know you can't get to the front of the boat for some reason or if there's a fire at the back of the boat. Like, I always am I double check my safety equipment all the time. First of all, just because if a cop pulls you over, you need to have all of your safety equipment. And it's you don't need to get like watch some of those fire, uh those Florida fish and wildlife videos, man. Those are the best things ever for me to watch because it like really drummed into my head the importance of safety and like fish cops will ruin your life, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Those they will they will seize your boat forever, yeah.
SPEAKER_05They're vicious, those guys. So um, but just the just to uh my my brother's friend was going on a boat with uh with a with his boss, and he's like, And can I come and get some life jackets? Because uh we're going on my my my my his uh his whatever he was going on somebody's boat and he needed life jackets. I'm like, well, how old are your kids? He's like, I got a nine, a seven, a five, and a two. I think he has he has five kids. He's got a nine, a seven, like a six, five, and two. And I go, I have life jackets for the nine, seven, and maybe the five-year-old. I said, I definitely don't have one for the two-year-old. I said, you cannot, like, I have I have to like I don't have toddler life jackets. I said, You're gonna have to go to West Marine and buy a life jacket. You can't just like put a bigger life jacket on that kid. Like, you need to have a fitted life jacket on on a two-year-old. Because God forbid they freaking fall off the boat. Like, crap happens, boats hit each other. Some stupid jet skier could come and smash into the boat. It happens all the time. Yeah. But to have a five-month-old on the boat, like that, it would never even dawn on me to allow that. I just would I would say no immediately. If I had a friend with a five-month-old kid and they wanted to come on the boat, I said, No, I'm not bringing your five-month-old on the boat. It's too dangerous. Crap happens all the time, man.
SPEAKER_06Hold on. Are you still seeing locals?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, why?
SPEAKER_06I got like logged out, and now I'm trying to log back in. And it's it's still up. People still comment. I'm the creator, damn it.
SPEAKER_05Uh, Dave for sure says, used to have an office job on site with a view of the harbor by the Staten Island ferry terminal. So much life on the harbor. Uh, very cool stuff, but it's a working waterway. Like, dude, it's if you ever saw the traffic going through there on the boats, like you'd be like, dude, you never want to like I wouldn't want to take my boat in ideal conditions on that. A jet boat is such a like it's such a shipboat.
SPEAKER_06Then and even say you you could have a boat like that on a small, completely calm lake, and if it's that overloaded, yeah, it could still capsize. It's still capsize.
SPEAKER_05So that's the point. And the guy did it at 10 30 at night. It's at 10 30 at night. Like it's just like the level of stupidity, it's like this guy, he's he's he so they were going to charge him with 13 counts of negligent homicide at the state level, and now the feds are involved, and they're like, just wipe those state charges away. This guy's going away. And I'm like, I think he should be hanged for stupidity. Like, this is something so negligent that it like borders at minimum manslaughter, like, like it's just I I guess negligent homicide, but like this guy should I'm sorry, it just like it it goes, it goes beyond comment. Like, if you had never been on a boat before, even the people that got on it, like even that mother holding the baby, like how did you not know? How did you guys not know that you couldn't fit on the boat? The boat only holds 10 passengers legally.
SPEAKER_06If there's nowhere for everyone to sit down, it's overloaded.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, if there's not a seat for everyone, right? And it's like they must have been sitting on each other's laps, they must have been or all of them standing, and just like I just can't. I I can't believe the levels it was all Spanish people, like I'm not trying to, but like they're known to just overcrowd apartments, they're known to just like they just it's like those.
SPEAKER_06Um have you heard of the duck boats? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was a couple couple uh well-known disasters in those. I think one in Wisconsin and one in Missouri, where you know they had the tour company just way overloaded them, and uh and yeah, just dude, boats are dangerous, like they really are, and people that like go out on them think nothing of it.
SPEAKER_05Like, I'm so cautious. Like, I'm like when I had when I had people on my boat, I had Bobby on my boat and he was like sitting at the front of the boat. I'm like, why don't you guys come in the back? It's a little better if you guys come in the back of the boat. It's a little easier for me. Because just because when you when you have weight distribution, like me and Bobby were both on the same side of the boat, and the boat's like leaning a little because me and him are heavy, you know. It's like two girls are on the left side, like, nah, let's switch seats around here a little bit because you want even weight distribution. Like the idea of putting 14 people on my boat's bigger than that. I would never put more than eight people on my boat. Like, I just I don't know, it would just be crazy. And I and of those eight, like some of them gotta be kids. I don't even know if I would take eight adults on the boat.
SPEAKER_06Well, it's it's like you know, up in our area, you'll have people from the city come up and rent a uh an A TV and they've never driven it or anything, and you know, they'll they'll gun it up a hill and lean back and flip over and break their neck. And it's like are you guys completely unaware of the laws of physics? Like, do you not know this stuff?
SPEAKER_05When I was like 18, 19 years old, we went uh down to the to the beach. It was me, my wife, my brother, my brother Mikey, and my in-laws' friends. We weren't even married sometimes, we were just dating. Their friends had two jet skis, and me and my brother, Nicole on the back, my brother on the other jet ski, we're driving, and I'm up in front, and I slow down and I turn to see where he is. When you have a jet ski, if you go to turn, if you're not hitting the throttle, and what doesn't turn? It doesn't turn the throttle. Exactly. He lets go of the throttle and turns the handle and it goes straight into you, dude. Right into us. Hit thank god he hit the front of the jet ski. Both jet skis sunk. Both jet skis sunk. But dude, if he was three feet back, he would have hit me. If he was four feet back, he takes my wife out like death, immediate death. Like, that is killing us. You got a freaking 2,000-pound rocket ship coming at you at full speed. Like, thank God he hit the front of the jet ski. I I just I think back to that moment all the time, man. It was like that could have been the end of my life, could have killed killed my wife before we even got married. Yeah, be careful out there, guys. They're not jokes. Like, if you if you're going to get a boat, like I grew up my whole life on boats. If you're getting one for the first time, like make sure you take the safety class, make sure you go out with somebody who knows how to drive a boat before you go out on it. Like, I don't know. I'm super careful about everything I do on that boat. Even even the like the we see people get in accidents when they're drinking on the boat, man. It's like I'll have like three seltzers on the boat. I would never get drunk and drive my boat. Like, I'll go out and we'll like be out there for the day. I'll have three seltzers, you know. Seltzers don't even get me drunk. Like, I can drink a 10 pack of seltzers and I'll be fine.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's one of those things, you know, you screw up in a car a little. Sure, the car gets damaged, but you're probably okay. Yeah, you screw up on a boat a little, and you're in the middle of a body of water,
St Michael’s Lent And Fasting Plan
SPEAKER_06you drowned. You know, like it's a lot less forgiving.
SPEAKER_05Uh way less. Um we have August 15th coming up this Saturday.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I think I'm gonna do 30 days of fasting, and it's not uh so St. Michael's Lent starts tomorrow. Yes, I think St. Michael's Lent starts tomorrow. Yeah, um, my cousin wanted me to do like a whole thing with him, but it involves like a 2 a.m. prayer hour. Uh like you have to hold vigil on Fridays at 2 a.m. and it involves weekly meetings and um like Exodus 90 stuff, yeah. It's like you have to get eight hours of sleep every night, except for the night you're doing the prayer bitch.
SPEAKER_06And I was just like, look, you have to look that's not meant for fathers.
SPEAKER_05It's not physically possible for me to do the sleep stuff. Like, I I first off, we do this show, we get off at 10 o'clock, I have to wake up at 3 50. Like, oh, one of them was giving up social media, and I'm like, all right, look, I said, I can't do I can't commit to it. I and they want to do a weekly meeting and a daily check-in. I'm like, dude, my I just my schedule doesn't allow for it. Like, it's just it I'm doing two meetings a week with you already. There's no way I'm slipping in a third meeting and taking that time away from my family. I can't wake up at 2 a.m. because I'm already getting up at 3 a.m. Like, I can't, I need that hour of sleep desperately. I said, so I would me and Nicole are going to do a 30-day uh from August 15th to September 15th. And I'm gonna treat it like Lent. I'm gonna do abstinence on Wednesdays and Fridays. I'm gonna try and do one meal a day, no drinking. I'm gonna try and go all out for it. And I'm gonna, it's gonna end right before Bobby's bachelor party.
SPEAKER_06You're gonna do Labor Day weekend on a bowl with no drinking.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's gonna be hard, but yeah. I need I dude, I want let me tell you something. This whole past week, I drank pretty much every day. Which I bet yeah, that's I never do that. I never drink during the week, you know? And you would drink, and you'd wake up the next day and you kind of feel terrible, and you're like, Oh, I guess I gotta fix it with a bloody Mary. There was no driving where we went, everything was in walking distance, everything was within walking distance. It was like you you sometimes a half a mile, sometimes a mile, but like you walked everywhere. We me and my wife did rent mopeds one day, and another day we rented golf cars, like just for like two hours, three hours, and then the rest of the everything else was just walking.
SPEAKER_06Oh, that's where the woman on a moped came from.
SPEAKER_05Okay, yeah, dude, women on mopeds are terrifying. Like, uh first of all, mopeds not that easy to ride.
SPEAKER_06It's not like a motorcycle, it's like a Mexican illegal on a jet boat.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's definitely exactly like that. These women are terrifying, and they'll have their kids on the back, and I'm watching them, and they don't they're like, like, I'm like, oh Jesus, please protect them. Like, please protect these people, like so scary. Um, so yeah, so you drink every day, and you'd wake up in the morning, you feel terrible, so you just have a bloody merry breakfast. So you start your drinking at like 10 a.m. and you go to bed at 11 p.m. You're drinking for 12 hours a day on these trips.
SPEAKER_06It doesn't even sound nice.
SPEAKER_05Uh, it's not even by the end of it. I was so ready to go home Saturday. You have no idea. So I get home Saturday, and I'm like, all right, I'm not gonna drink Sunday. I got up Sunday morning, went to confession first thing, um, went to mass, and then we went to the beach, and I had three seltzers at the beach. Like, so I go into work Monday, and dude, I when I the next day after drinking, I have anxiety in that I worry about nothing. Like, I just feel like something's gonna go wrong. I feel like something's gonna, I'm gonna have a mishap. I don't know what about not like it's not nothing in particular, especially if I'm like on Twitter scrolling, I just have this overwhelming sense of doom that first day back. I can't explain it. So, like if I'm drinking the day before, that's why I'm so glad we don't do the show on Mondays. Because if I'm drinking on a sun, if I have a couple of glasses of wine on Sunday, when I go in on Monday, I have this overwhelming sense of like something's gonna go wrong.
SPEAKER_06And I don't know if this was really your therapy, we would dig into this and figure out what I'm not the only one though.
SPEAKER_05Like, I I'm not the only one because I talk to uh like me and my uncle call it uh anxiety, it's like hangover anxiety, like, but it doesn't have to be you don't have to be hung over. It's just like if I had a couple of drinks the day before, I just I don't know. I just have this anxiety the next day. Like, I I'm worried, and I'm like, what am I worried about? Everything's fine. Why am I worried? Everything's fine, don't worry. So I just every every Monday I feel like that, and that's why I'm glad we don't do the show on Mondays because I couldn't even I can't even think straight enough to think of a show topic on a Monday. That's how scattered my brain is. But but this morning, like I got a good night's sleep last night. This morning I woke up and I'm like, all right, um we'll I'll cut those clips up. We'll do this today. And then I know I had a ton of stories to tell on the show tonight, so I figured today would be all right. Yeah, my liver is begging for a cleanse, so I think we're gonna do 30 days, no drinking. It's good to just do that on occasion, man. Just like just do 30 days and just just clean yourself out and do you. Know what it is when I drink is I'm not getting drunk, but I'm also not thinking about God. You know, like I'm just not, I'm not thinking about God. So it's kind of like I uh I did I did a week and I felt very distant from God when I got home, like very distant. And I was I was really happy to go to confession Sunday and then go to mass. Like it was the first time I prayed in a week. It was like I don't know, I just I felt this huge cavern between me and God from I clearly made me feel like I was in mortal sin. Like I could I it was weird, like all right, so typically when I go to bed at night, I listen to the gospels, like I listen to the audio gospels when I go to bed at night. And when I went to go to bed Saturday night, like I couldn't listen to the gospels. Like there was just something I just couldn't. And then Sunday morning, I set my alarm to go to confession, and I was fighting going to confession. Like I was I was gonna hit snooze, like I hit snooze, hoping my wife wouldn't hear the alarm. And she heard it. She's like, All right, we gotta know we're gonna go to confession, right? I'm like, yeah. And then as soon as I got out of that box, I was like, oh, thank God, I feel so much better. But like I didn't want to go to confession. I don't know why. I think um I've always been like very sensitive to mortal sin like that. Like I it's like that's that's almost my alarm that something's off is when I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't want to hear about Jesus, you know? Like it's like this hyper awareness. It's this hyper awareness of like I want I'm avoiding I'm Adam hiding in the garden. Like not that like I don't believe in God, it's more like I hope God doesn't see me.
SPEAKER_06Can putting yourself in a near occasion of sin itself be a mortal sin?
SPEAKER_05If there's forethought, probably, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Right maybe it's you know, if you're not uh drinking to the point of like actual you know intoxication where you lose the ability to reason, uh then maybe the drinking, never you drinking itself isn't a mortal sin, but you know, maybe historically you drinking has been mortally sinful. So maybe it's when you knowingly put yourself in that near occasion of sin, even if you don't drink to excess, maybe that you you choosing to do that is itself maybe sinful to the point where it's making you feel that way.
SPEAKER_05I damn it, we are your therapy. I'm doing exactly what I said to me. No, no, no. I'm trying to I'm trying to uh I'm trying to play with that idea a little bit. All right. So what look when I when I drink, um, I'm I've never lose like I never I don't slur my words, I never lose reason or anything, never anything like that. I've I never get drunk, but like you guys think I I like attention now. Like when I drink, I want to be the storyteller that everybody's around, and I'm like gathering a crowd and I'm telling war stories, and uh it I don't know, maybe maybe it maybe it's just the the vanity of the week, you know, just the narcissism of just I God was just not present for me. That's all I know. Like I he just God wasn't even like a thought for me while I was there, and I felt that I felt that gap very widely when I got home. And thank God for my wife, because my wife was like, she was the one that said, she's like, We got we gotta take a little break from drinking, like you know, like we just need to. We just need to we need to take a little break from it, and then we need to um have some spiritual discipline over those 30 days. So, like I don't know what what devotion we're going to do during those 30 days, but we're gonna do something and we're gonna do fasting for the 30 days. I think any I think anybody like anybody wants to um do something over the because my St. Michael's Lent starts. I know it's still summer, but you don't even have to do anything hardcore, but I mean just do something over the next 40 days, like just because especially after like summer, summer in general, there's always a lot going on. It's like we're coming up. We you kind of need a little bit of boot camp to get back into things. I love Lent, man. I freaking love Lent.
SPEAKER_06It is my favorite time of year, mine's more so than than like Advent and Christmas.
SPEAKER_05100% dude. Lent is my favorite liturgical season by far. Like, I just always feel really close to God during Lent. Because I'm so intentional about everything, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Everyone makes me wish I could obviously I could and just choose not to most of the time, but like it makes you want to live your faith that way all the time, and then the joy of Easter comes and we end up forgetting about it every single year.
SPEAKER_05I do I do good for the first, like at least through Pentecost, I always do good. It's always when the summer comes. When the summer comes, because every freaking weekend I got a family event. Every freaking, like I'm always fighting to just be allowed to go out on my boat. I'm always like, I don't, I just feel like the rat race of summer. I'm not gonna be sad when summer's over this year. I'm like ready for the fall. I think I'm almost ready for it.
SPEAKER_06I prefer the fall to summer, anyways, but like our summers are so short up here that we're like, yeah, it's it's been a crazy summer, and we've hardly had time to you did a lot this summer, too. And uh, it's gonna be another busy two or three, four weeks here, but uh like you so yeah, I'm ready for fall, but man, winter's gonna come so fast.
SPEAKER_05I'm not looking forward to I have so much to look forward to though, because I have things planned. So, like, all right, so I got I got Bobby's bachelor party, then I have Bobby's wedding, and then I have Italy. Like, I have my fall is going to go fast, man. Like October and November are going to fly. And then once November comes, like Italy's right there. And I'm gonna be off to Italy. And I'm like, it's gonna, it's gonna go really quick. So I don't know. I got I got a lot to look forward to this year. I I don't hate, I love summer. I freaking love summer. Uh Nate's saying, oh no, no, Evan said uh he hates summer. I love summer. I just this summer's been a lot, man. It's just non-stop events, family things, my daughter's party, and it just I just feel like I feel like I haven't had any time alone. Like with just me and my wife to go and do something. It's like every weekend there's been something we had to go and do. And I just want to I want to have a weekend where it's just the two of us, where I don't have any plans
Scheduling Updates And Sign Off
SPEAKER_05or obligations. All right. Well, we will uh see you guys uh for hopefully a local show on Thursday. Uh, I think that's gonna be the plan because I'm gonna go I'm gonna come home from work. I'm gonna shoot right over Joey's house. That's where we're all gonna hang out, and I'll try to cut out of there around 8:30. And then hopefully I get home by nine, and then we'll pop on and I'll we'll do an hour over here.
SPEAKER_06We don't want to do uh uh an abati family uh locals episode.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, maybe I'll just live stream from there. It might be funny. Let me see the let me see them. Maybe I'll like it might be fun to just like pop on. I may have to do it from my phone, but who cares? Let's do that.
SPEAKER_06Let's do that. I haven't I haven't seen, I mean, I've talked with Eddie a little, obviously, business-wise, but I haven't seen or talked to Joey or Eddie since Pennsylvania.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, all right, so we'll do that. I'll we'll I'll show you guys in a body family gathering on Thursday night.
SPEAKER_06They both they both already have been on the channel a few times, so yeah.
SPEAKER_05All right, so that's what we'll do. So Thursday, set up a local stream and I'll live stream from my brother's house.
SPEAKER_06Okay, we'll have to get it.
SPEAKER_05I don't feel like I have to rush out of there either. Like I'll just and we'll just do it right from there. All right, perfect. I'll even tell I'll tell Joey and Eddie to come and sit with me and we'll we'll talk.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. All right. Okay. All right, I'll see you guys on Thursday.
