August 22, 2024 • 52 mins
Dramos deep dives into trending stories from this last week including his take on the Democratic National Convention, Venezuela presidential updates, a artists from Puerto Rico who became a doctor and is helping those in need.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Let me talk about talk. There we go, he said,
you live in life as a dingle, where you question
where you fit in every time you mingle, they say
you do this would not Yes, Hello and welcome to
another episode of Life as a Gringo. I am dramos,
(00:26):
of course, and it is Thursday, so it mean it's
time for our Thursday trends episode. Man, can I just
can I can I pause for a second here if
you will allow me to before we get into uh,
this week's stories. I just want to publicly out loud
(00:46):
say how proud of myself I am give myself a
little pat in the back here because I have been
just going at it when it comes to a few
particular goals and a couple of projects that have been,
you know, really important to me that I think are
timely that I need to get done, and I've won left.
(01:09):
It was three really main big projects that it was like,
I just got to get this done. And I'm proud
of myself because I just sort of managed to put
everything to the side and just lock the fuck in
and just say, hey, anything that does not need to
get done today is going to get put to the
(01:29):
side in lieu of just getting this project across the
finish line. And this morning I sent out an email
that put the bow on my end, at least as
it stands for now, of a particular project or idea,
and it was like a risky without getting into details,
it was a risky email, just like an unsolicited one
(01:53):
to a very high up person that I somewhat know,
that's a company that I've worked at. But I did it.
I'm proud of myself, and this is what I talk about.
I'm not going to turn this into a whole motivational episode.
I know this is the Thursday Trends episode, but this
is what I talk about the idea of achieving failure. Right.
(02:15):
I don't know what's going to happen with these two
projects that I've just wrapped up, and then I'm kind
of just now, you know, putting out there to the world,
to the people that I need to sort of bring
them fully across the finish line. Right. I've kind of
done my part as it stands, and now I have
to just sort of release it to the world and
see what happens now, regardless of you know, if they
(02:38):
lead to the overarching larger goal that I have for myself.
I've already achieved a success because I put myself out there.
I did something, I tried something, I went for it right.
I completed it now to the best of my ability
of as far as I could possibly take it now. Obviously,
the goal is to have people be excited about the
(02:59):
idea and to give me the means to bring it
to life. But I can't control that. And and also
again I've won even if that, even if I fall
short on that particular goal, I've still achieved within the
great grand scheme of right, even if that is a
failure in terms of the grander goal, I've still found
success with the idea that I completed, you know, tasks
(03:21):
for that goal. I've made progress, right, and I've gotten better,
and I've learned things along the way. Right. One of
the things I learned is, I know I'm late to
the party on this. I was really against it. But
chat GBT and AI and how it basically is like
can give you an entire staff of people if you
(03:42):
know how to like give it the right prompts and cues,
and it's like streamlined my process ten x. And I'm
so mad at myself that I was like pushing against
it before, but I get it now. Anyway, that's that's
my that's just me patting myself in the back. I
could go on a tangible AI. But if you're not,
if you haven't tried like Chattyputen all these things, figure
(04:03):
out a way to make it work for you, because
it will make your life a hell of a lot easier.
With that said, this is Thursday Trends, so we're going
to talk about stuff that happened this last week. We'll
talk about the Democratic National Convention, a lot to unpack there.
We'll talk about the latest in Venezuela where the presidential
election was in question. Their Supreme Court has made a ruling,
(04:28):
so we will talk about that and on the positive
side of things for me. Hit this segment, we will
go to Puerto Rico, where I actually will be next week.
So just a heads up, no podcast next week. I
will be unplugging in Puerto Rico. But well, i'll give
(04:48):
you specifics when we're going to come back after that.
After after we can't tell the stories. But yeah, in
Puerto Rico, something I talk you have an artist who's
saying I'm more than an artist, and they're giving back
in a much needed way. And this is what I
want to see more of. So let's just get into it.
We'll first start, as we always do, with the nonsense,
the bs, and a second call for the people in
(05:09):
the back.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Say a lot for the people in the say a
lot for the people in the say a lot of
the people.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
All right, let's start with the Democratic National Convention had
been going on for the last few days. And do
I start with good, bad, the ugly. I mean, listen
on a positive The energy was incredible when you think
about where we were just a few short weeks ago
in terms of enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket, when it
(05:50):
was Joe Biden at the top of it, we were
in a dark place. Now people are excited. There are
happy tears happening in the crowd. You know. I love
the clapbacks that are happening. Obama taking shots at Trump, Michelle,
Obama taking shots at Trump, Hillary takes his shot to Trump.
(06:11):
You know, I think we are finally beginning to get
it where you have to fight fire with fire at times, right,
and I think you could do it in a dignified way,
but still, you know, get your point across. And I
think that they achieved that right, And I think as
a younger person, us young people, I don't not that
(06:32):
young anymore, but it feels good to say it. Us
young people I think can appreciate, you know, stepping up
and having a good clap back, and you know, being
unafraid to have an unapologetic opinion on somebody who is
an incredibly negative force and has, you know, somebody who
has been incredibly toxic and gone extremely low with lies
(06:55):
and just all sorts of disgusting accusations. I think sometimes
you just got to hit him back every once in
a while, right, You got to you gotta punch a
bully in the mouth every once in a while. And
I think that's what we see with some of these speeches,
and also like the emotion right. Obviously, one of the
big ticket items here when it comes to the sort
(07:20):
of stance that politicians have. One of the bigger things
that differentiate the Republican Party from the Democratic Party right now,
among many things, is is the topic of abortion, a
woman's right to choose, and even beyond abortion itself, the
(07:42):
Evangelical Church has taken a national stance of saying, even
they're even against ivf right, they're against the idea of
and I'm not an expert on this, you know, by
any means, but my understanding of it involves of freezing
eggs and and in in insemination and all these things. Right,
(08:05):
These fertility treatments basically for people who are having trouble
having kids. And their stance is that oftentimes in the
IVF treatment process, they produce more eggs that are needed
as a means of giving the the woman a better
chance of getting pregnant, essentially, right, and that those eggs
(08:29):
that are left unused are then discarded, of uh, and
that's what they're against. And you have vice the vice
presidential nominee, Tim Wells, and and he, you know, was
giving a a very emotional speech in regards to that,
because apparently him and his wife they used see this
(08:54):
and then and of course people are like gonna get
caught up on things because he was he was obviously
critiquing from this chance of the sort of hardcore anti abortion,
anti you know, woman's right to choose. The the real
pro lifers here are are against even IVF. And Tim
(09:15):
was using his own personal story of him and his
wife's struggle of being able to have children as a
means to express how important it is to be able
to have these options available to those who need it.
Right now, Tim and his wife they clarify that they
actually used i UI, which apparently is different than IVF.
I'm not an expert. I'm not going to bother to
(09:37):
try to get into the differences here, right, but that
there's a big critique now, like, oh, he's lying about
this thing because but I people are missing the sentiment,
and I hate that. I even am digressing onto that.
But when I was looking up trying to get some
information from that speech, just to kind of like reiterate
(09:57):
what the what I had watched, I saw like the
chatter happening online of like Tim Wills was lying he
used I UI, not IVF, And listen, I again, I'm
sure there's a very important distinction between the two, but
either way it is the same sentiment. It was a
couple who was having trouble having children the quote unquote
(10:20):
natural way, and because of these options that were available
to them, they now were able to have children. And
the beautiful thing was you had I believe it's two
kids there, a son and a daughter, and they're both
in tears, and like the so I'm getting choked about
to talk about it, but like it's the image of
like the son cheering on his dad from the crowd
(10:42):
as they're talking about like the blessing that it was
to bring their kids into this world and being able
to have those options available to them. And there were
a lot of moments like that that I literally my
eyes just start getting warded up, you know, I started
like making these ugly faces. I also realized, like just
a side note, I've trained myself and I guess this
(11:05):
is toxic masculinity. I've trained myself to hold back tears,
but like, in order to do so, you have to, like,
you know, make all these funny facial expressions. And what
I realized is I am making the world's ugliest faces,
and it's actually making it that much worse than if
I just allowed myself to cry. So it's been a
lesson in trying to catch myself when I'm like doing
(11:26):
all these facial exercises to keep tears from falling down
my face and remind myself that you are making some
of the most horrendous looking faces possible, and you would
just be better off letting a tear or two fall
from your cheek right, fall onto your cheek. Just a
little side note that I wanted to express that you
noticed a little toxic things that are still ingrained and
(11:48):
you right, but but yeah, I mean it just felt
like hope, you know. And I think for me, you know,
when I when I talk about these things, particularly when
you sort of release it into the world of social
media and people are leaving their comments, and I think
(12:12):
I've talked about this before, but it's incredibly disorienting at times.
And I think even when you talk to people in
your life where you're just like, man, they are so
passionate about this. They believe it with all of their heart.
They genuinely believe that they are on the right side
of history. And at times it's incredibly disorienting because it's like, man,
(12:35):
am I the one who's batshit crazy?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
You know?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And I hate to judge people to be empathetic, but
it's for the sake of conversation. Here am I the
one who is like on the wrong side of history?
Because it defies my logic to think that somebody would
be so passionate about lies and hate. But the sad
reality is that that is the current state of a
lot of people in this country and watch the Democratic
(13:03):
National Convention and seeing people like Obama and Michelle Obama
really was the one that took the cake, in my opinion,
And then they pant the people in the crowd, and
you see, like, you know, as Michelle is talking, they
panta to a black woman who's like in tears and
her friend is in tears. And then I'm fucking in
tears watching this on TikTok at eight in the morning,
(13:25):
you know, and it's it's just like a reminder of
like all that that I stand for and and I guess,
you know, anybody who shares in a similar mindset of
what we stand for right and and what we're fighting
and staying strong on the stance that we're staying strong
(13:47):
on the idea of equality, the idea of you know,
not ruling with hate and and wanting everybody to have
their you know, equal shot at at whatever the American
dream is or whatever their version of it is. You know,
and you realize, you know, in those moments, it's just like,
(14:08):
I don't know, it's just a beautiful, a beautiful thing
to a beautiful reminder, is what I would say. It's
a beautiful reminder This is why I go so hard.
This is why I eat so much shit from the
hate that comes from expressing yourself. It's because I'm really
(14:30):
standing for something, something real. I'm not just making something
up to make myself feel comfortable. I'm just legitimately trying
to make this world a better place. And you know,
for other people who have struggled and things like that.
And I think that for me was like the bigger
takeaway and sort of watching in and out the last
(14:50):
few days and then you know, sort of catching up
the eclipse and things like that. Yeah, it's just a
beautiful It's a beautiful reminder of of what this country
could be and why it's so important to to speak
your voice and to uplift others, right and why this
election is so important, and why somebody like Kamala Harris
(15:11):
is so incredibly important right now. With that said, I'm
also not like drinking the kool aid to the point
where I am not just like, what the fuck is
happening right now? Like I have to say, And maybe
I'm I'm a hater here. Maybe this added to the
(15:32):
energy of the room or whatever it might be. And
and maybe because by the way, I have a problem
sometimes where I just look for like the corny or
I look for the ick in things and I can't
seem to separate myself from it. I look for the
comedy and the the I don't know, I just uh like,
(15:56):
I remember, I relate to this statement so well. I
think in a in a and I think it's like
a great analogis for for like my humor or whatever.
But I remember when Damon Waynems was on The Breakfast
Club and he was talking about I believe they were
at a funeral for his uncle, and him and his
(16:18):
brothers are all like you know, standing together or whatever,
and they can't help themselves, like you know him, Damon
and Sean, they're they're keenan they can't help themselves. But like,
just look for the comedy in every situation. So they're
there like roasting their their uncle who passed. They're roasting
the suit that he's wearing. H you know what I mean.
(16:39):
So like and it's just their way of dealing with
life and and things like that, and and I relate
to that so much in just everyday life. I can't
help myself. So I maybe not there. I might not
be the right person to judge this, but did we
really need to have a like musical cue for every
(17:08):
single state as they announced the delegates, and specifically, did
we need to have Little John performing turned down for what?
As as they announced Georgia, the speakers to it to
announce their the representatives to announce their their delegates. You know,
I I I it's it hurts and it hurts to watch. Also,
(17:31):
of all songs, I feel like Little John doing turndown
for what, yes, obviously a big hit, but like I
would have much rather just have heard him do a
little bit more of like a just classic like Atlanta
hip hop record that that he was a part of,
rather than just like the commercial turned down for what?
(17:54):
That is like far too aggressive for that room at
that time. But again this could be mean. Maybe other
people enjoyed it, I know, for when they did like Illinois,
they had the music that they'll play for for the
Chicago Bulls intros, when you know, you had Michael Jordan
and all them and they had a DJ basically playing
it song. I mean, like I get it, you want
(18:14):
to keep the energy up and like this is an
exciting time. It just feels very forced, I guess is
what my My take is like I love having Stevie
Wonder performing up there. I think that's awesome. But other
than that, it's just it all feels very forced, and
it's like, you have a bunch of people and this
is what it feels like, a bunch of people are like,
you know what, we gotta do something for the young people,
(18:35):
show that we're hip. And then it's like, whenever you
have you feel the need to show somebody that you're
still hip, you're probably not hip, right and you should
just like just chill, you know, you know, it's hip
is just being cool, just relaxing, you know, not feeling
like you gotta do too much. And that's what it
felt like a bit of and if obviously it's getting
roasted on the internet by either side. The Daily Show
(18:55):
did a whole thing on it that was hilarious. I
was watching it this morning, and ironically though, this is
also what I love, the selective like blindness that happens
because the other things that were circulating, like on social media,
you had Republicans posting these clips or whatever and talking
about how ridiculous they were sure these moments were like
(19:18):
the Little John one, and but like their argument was
like the Democrats loved to turn the convention into some
sort of like a circus event because they have no
policy to speak of. But then it's like, didn't you
guys have Hulk Hogan come on stage and like rip
(19:41):
off his shirt that he was wearing to reveal a
he ripped off his sleeveless Polko Mania shirt to real
to to expose a sleeveless Donald Trump shirt and then
Trump called it trump Amania. And he's on there doing
arrest link promo at the Republican National Convention. I like,
(20:05):
come on, don't throw stones if you live in a
glass house. And then on top of that, who do
they have They had fucking Kid Rock performing what come on,
come on listen. I have no problem saying, yeah, we
turned down for what probably shouldn't have been played there,
and that whole thing just felt very forced and awkward, cringey.
(20:29):
But I am not going to let you pretend like
having Terry aka, you know, hul Cogan give a wrestling
promo at your national convention and having Kid Rock is
one of your highlighted performers. Like, come on, y'all are
in the same boat. You're doing the same thing. You
are are playing the same game, and these are the things,
(20:50):
by the way, like this are kind of end on that,
these are the things that make you feel like, am
I the crazy one? Am I? It's disorienting because it's like,
how are you guys saying that they've turned the convention
(21:11):
into a circus because they have nothing to talk about.
But you literally did the same thing in your own way,
and then with a straight face, people will go make
content on that point and completely have you know, amnesia
to the fact that their chosen side did the exact
same thing. At least call out both if you're gonna
(21:35):
do it. But that's what's fucking disorienting. It's like they
literally will watch something happen. We'll have video, evidence, will
have audio, it'll be in writing, it'll be everything, and they, somehow,
some way are able to either deny it happened or
forget that it ever happens at all, and just pretend
like nothing happened. That's what's disorienting about this whole thing.
(21:55):
And they would do it with a straight face and
look at you like you're the crazy one one. That's
what's wild about, you know, this whole situation. I actually
do want to touch on something when it comes to
some of the things Kamala Harris was announcing, I can't remember,
I can't remember if did I mention this. I think
(22:18):
I did mention this last week, but just to reiterate
and again like this is election selling season, you know,
we don't know what's going to actually happen. But Kamala
Harris talking about real word practices of stopping companies, corporations
from price gouging, specifically, I think food was mentioned, which
obviously is a gigantic problem. I feel that, you know, personally,
(22:40):
like that's the one thing I can be like, this
is crazy. I'm paying, you know, two hundred dollars every
week and a half in groceries and I live by myself.
It's me and a dog, right, And this is sound
with a broken record, Dajavo, Like I've said this before.
And she also the idea of helping first time homeowners
with a twenty five thousand dollars it up to twenty
(23:01):
five thousand dollars again, like these are real world policy
things that like have an effect on the everyday person.
And that's sort of what you know for me, if
I'm looking at the candidates and all these things. Aside
from like Trump just being bad for democracy, I could
also rest my hat in the fact that at least
Kamala Harris is saying the right things and focusing her
(23:23):
energy in the right places as far as what's actually
going to move the needle for the everyday person. So yeah,
that's that's I guess my takeaway after this convention. And
and you know what, and politicians in general, you know,
they're going to be out of touch a bit. And
(23:44):
I think on both sides, some of the entertainment value
choices we saw at the convention displayed that. But yeah,
that's that's so the world we live in, folks. So
the country we live in, I should say, And now
I want to touch on what's going on in Venezuela.
And you know, we'll take a quick break and then
we'll do that when we come back. All right, we
(24:10):
are back. And I had talked about the presidential election
in Venezuela a couple of weeks ago. There were a
lot of really big protests breaking out in regards to
the election allegedly being stolen by Nicholas Maluro and and
(24:32):
a lot of people really fighting back against this. A
lot of other countries standing by with the people of
Venezuela saying that they want transparency to to find out
who actually won. And the update, unfortunately is not great
for anybody who feels like and the evidence seems to
(24:52):
show that this this election was stolen. So you had
Venezuela Supreme Court backing President Nicholas my littles claim that
he won last month's presidential election and said voting tally's
published online showing he lost by a landslide were forged.
Now the ruling is the latest attempt by my Little
(25:12):
to blunt protests and international criticism that erupted after the
contested July twenty eighth vote, in which the self proclaimed
socialist leader was seeking a third six year term. Now,
in this article they talk about how the High Court
is packed with Maluto loyalists and has never almost almost
(25:34):
never ruled against the government in its ruling red Thursday,
and an event attended by senior officials and foreign diplomats
came in response a request by my Little to review
vote totals that he claimed, without evidence, was marred by
a foreign cyber attack stage by hackers from North Macedonia.
The main opposition coalition has accused me Little of trying
(25:56):
to steal the vote. The High Court's ruling certifying the
results contradicts the findings of experts from the United Nations
and the Carter Center, who were invited to observe the election,
and which both determined the results announced by authorities lacked credibility. Specifically,
the outside experts noted that authorities didn't release a breakdown
of results by each of the thirty thousand voting booths nationwide,
(26:20):
as they have in almost every previous election. Numerous foreign governments,
including the US as well are as well as several
leftist allies of Maduro, have called on authorities to release
the full breakdown of the results. And it's a sad day,
obviously for the people of Venezuela. This is somebody who
(26:42):
allegedly has ties to cartels, if I'm not mistaken, is
being investigated by multiple governments the common From my reading,
and I'll never claim to be an expert on these things,
but from reports that I had seen around this story,
he is allegedly if he lost and was no longer president,
(27:05):
they're saying he would have actually been extradited and brought
up on charges connected to crimes with a cartel. So
obviously this is not the person that you want to
be in charge of people. And even if you're not Venezuelan,
(27:25):
you know, as a human being, empathy right for people
who to really be in a helpless state. Right. And
that's why when I talk about immigration, I don't talk
about it from a place of thinking that we should
(27:48):
just open the floodgates completely, right. I think there has
to be a process right for all parties involved, you know,
for or to really be a solution that works for everybody.
I think you do have to have policies in place.
(28:11):
But regardless of kind of where your thought process is
on these specific policies that should or shouldn't exist, how
can you not have empathy for people who are literally
hostages of the powers that be? Right, they showed up
(28:35):
in record numbers to vote, and from what the evidence
is showing or the lack of evidence, there's at least
very credible reason to believe that these people's voices are
being suppressed, that they're not having their vote heard as
(28:56):
they should. And remand in charge is somebody who allegedly
has deep ties to criminal activity that is plaguing the
people of Venezuela and holding them back from being a
country that you know, could be operating at a far
higher level and could be providing a far better quality
(29:18):
of life for their citizens and not putting their citizens
lives in danger on a daily basis. Right, And that's
why people are fleeing places like Venezuela because of that.
And again, regardless of your stance on you know, immigration
reform and policy, you have to have empathy. And I
(29:39):
think also the US the reason why you should care
beyond the human aspect, we have a stake in this, right,
you know, we are the country that you know, is
one of the main countries that provides a safe haven
for people. And the reality is people wouldn't be leaving
(30:02):
their home countries if it weren't for the fact that
they were in desperate need of safety and desperate need
of something better. So we should be more involved in this.
We should be trying to, you know, find a healthy
solution for things like this, because it also benefits us,
(30:25):
you know, as we try and figure out the best
policy for immigration in twenty twenty four and beyond. Right,
So it's just sad, man, I can't I listen as
much shit as is going on in this country. And truthfully,
this also who's to say that if Donald Trump gets
(30:47):
in office again that we don't end up in similar circumstances.
I mean, he's already denied the results of a credible election.
You know, why would he want to leave office even
after feeling you know, the hypothetical two terms. You know,
he's already talked about wanting to be a dictator. You've
seen his supporters even wearing disgusting T shirts sort of
(31:11):
supporting that. And then again, that's the blind irony of
they love to call democratic communists you socialists. Meanwhile they're
wearing shirts to say, you know, dictator Trump, and they're
they're they're proudly smiling about that. Right. It's just the blind,
the blind hypocrisy that that happens there. But yeah, I
(31:33):
mean it's just, uh, I don't know, it's frustrating when
you I can't help but be empathetic to people and
uh and and really, you know, when you think about it,
it's like the citizens really came out in record numbers
and like were were energized and motivated and they were
(31:54):
like enough is enough, and you know, evil has prevailed
once again. Unfortunately, and I think that's what's what's a
bit frustrating. It feels like an episode of The Boys.
I just, you know, that's my my pop culture reference
to today. I just started watching The Boys on Prime.
I know I'm years behind here, but I have no
(32:16):
idea how I did not know this show existed. It's phenomenal.
It's about if you don't know, it's about superheroes, but
like they use the superheroes kind of like as a
means to do political commentary on the stay of the world.
Like the superheroes aren't aren't truly good guys, you know,
so it's more like an attack on corporate America and
corporate greed. Really phenomenal show if you haven't seen it.
(32:37):
But yeah, I feel like you're watching like an episode
of The Boys, where it's like every time it's like, oh,
we finally like defeated evil. Nope, boom, somebody else the
other shoe drops and Evil once again prevails. But I
don't know. I wish, I wish I had like a
way just pulled this around to some positivity. Just a sad,
(32:57):
sad day for the people of Venezuela and you know,
their their election process and That's why we in this
country have to keep fighting to keep the right people
in office and keep the wrong people out of office
so we don't find ourselves in a similar situation like that. Now,
with that said, we're gonna return to some positive news here,
(33:17):
positive story in Army had this segments be first, we'll
take a quick break, and then we'll be right back.
All right, So, if you've been listening to this podcast
(33:40):
for some time, you know I'm gonna love the following story,
not just because it takes place in Puerto Rico, but
because it's something I've been fucking preaching forever. Now, granted
this a little bit of different twist. I always talk
about artists. If you have a platform, you have something
you know to offer larger than your music, you should
be doing so, right, that's my always argument. So in
(34:03):
Puerto Rico you have a problem. And I'm getting my
Puerto Rico you know practice in right now. When I
go there next week, I can start sound like a local.
But we have doctors leaving Puerto Rico or Puerto Rico
in droves, and it's becoming an issue. And let me
(34:24):
read some statistics actually first where I get into like
actually what this article is about. But Puerto Rico has
lost eighty six hundred doctors out of nearly eighteen thousand,
eight hundred in just over a decade. So almost half
of the doctors in Puerto Rico have left. This according
to a twenty twenty three report by the think tank
(34:47):
the Center for a New Economy. Okay, the Center for
a New Economy is a think tank, all right. The
problem is expected to grow more dire in coming years. Now,
obviously this is a really really sad ishow. There's a
lot of like really sad stories around this, right, one
(35:10):
that comes to mind. You had somebody who because in
Puerto Rico it's it's tough to get a doctor's appointment.
It's tough to get one here in the mainland. Quite honestly,
I my my record the doctor I think in June
I called I didn't get seen till August for like
my physical or whatever. Right, That's why these pop up
clinics or whatever, their urgent cares are now like the
(35:31):
new thing. But in Puerto Rico it's even tougher it.
And I saw a story of somebody over there where
you know, they had their appointment their doctor and they
had to wait whatever I'm just gonna throw out six
months or something like that, and when they saw their doctor,
their doctor found that they had cancer. And the sad
(35:52):
part about that story is that had they have caught it,
you know, a few months earlier, this person's chance of
survival would have been much higher, that they would have
actually been able to remove it before it spread, essentially,
and unfortunately, because of the amount of time that they
(36:12):
had to wait, the cancer spread and grew and there
was no going back at that point. A tragic, tragic,
sad story. Now this article is a positive one. You
have somebody who he's actually a rapper, a rapper who
went to medical school, right. His name is doctor Berro
(36:34):
Juan Vasquez, better known by his stage name as PJ.
Sin Suela, and he's actually been been giving back. Now
I'm going to bounce around on this article, but he
became known in Latin America for his music. For his
(36:55):
song in twenty eighteen, it was actually a collaboration with
Bad Bunny, Yes, the Bad Bunny called Gualles Duplan, and
he actually ended up going on from there to work
with Lynn Manuel Miranda. He actually ended up working with
Residente from Case right, So this dude has like a
(37:17):
budding music career or has been, you know, like he's
been on big, big records with big artists, and he
now still doing music, but is also devoting his time
to being a doctor. They actually say he travels from
San Juan, whis the capital Puerto Rico, to the island's
remote areas at least once a week to treat underserved
(37:41):
communities struggling with the aftermath of hurricanes, earthquakes and a
frail economy. Now, when the COVID nineteen pandemic hit in
twenty twenty, he switched from holding a microphone to a stethoscope,
working full time at a hospital in Ponset for a
year as a general practitioner. He patients of all ages,
(38:02):
excited to be cared for by a popular rapper. I'm
pulling from an article here that I will I will
definitely credit if you want to read more into this.
He actually was born in the Bronx Bx all Day,
moved with his family to Bonce in Puerto Rico, later
went to Pennsylvania, then returned to Bayamon, which is actually
where my father's from. And yeah, have a lot of
(38:25):
family over there, and he actually went to the university
that's over there and study to become a doctor. In
twenty fifteen, music career began to take off, and then
when the pandemic happened, he got back into the practice
of being a doctor. Now obviously, Okay, so the basis
of like why this is a lot of what I've
talked about is because I critique artists who are in
(38:47):
powerful positions for not doing enough for their people if
they truly cared, right, And I know this is a
little bit of like a different story because the man
is a legitimate fucking doctor, right, It's not just a rapper,
you know. But the reality is he is somebody who
is taken to the He's answered the call. I guess
(39:13):
would be a better way of what I was trying
to get at, because truthfully, he could just move to
the States and be a doctor here, make a lot
more money, you know, if that is the case. Right,
He could focus full time on music if that was
the case. But he's choosing to be in Puerto Rico, right,
And he's choosing to utilize his time to go to
(39:34):
underprivileged areas. Right. And you think about this man, because listen,
a it's hard to manage a career in general. Right,
I'm sure as the doctor he stays very busy, and
then he has aspirations of being a musician. His music
is also very socially conscious. He's very much an advocate
(39:55):
for things happening in Puerto Rico. And on top of that,
to give back in that way, I mean, there's like
they showcase, you know, him knocking door to door and
offering free medical you know, assistance to the elderly in
a lot of these towns. And I'm just like, man
(40:16):
more of that. And again, I know not every artist
you know moonlighted as a fucking doctor. I get that,
but we all have something, right, we all have some
sort of way to give back more than than what
we are currently doing, and some more than others. Like again,
(40:40):
this man is genuinely a doctor, so he has a
great skill that he can give back to people, you know,
relatively easy. You know, obviously the time is very valuable,
but like can go to door to door and make
a difference basically, right, And then he has a platform
where he can spread awareness to what he's doing. And
I don't know, I you know, I see this in
(41:01):
a warms my heart and I'd love to see more
of it and more more of us trying to do
what we can do with what we have, you know.
And that's why I've always been like heavy critiquing people
like Pat Bunny because it's like, man, yes, you've you've
done so much with what you've spoken about, but there's
still so much more you could be doing. I saw
video shots on my Gaydins, who makes a lot of
content around Puerto Rico, and he was giving bad Bunny
(41:25):
credit for being very active in regards to reposting information.
Particularly I think it was on x aka Twitter in
regards to what's going on in the election protocals and
election coming up in November as well for for governor
and Bad Bunny reposting things and and and trying, I
(41:47):
guess getting people energized in that way. And I thought
that that was beautiful, But it was also like, yes
and right because listen, for the every day person, it's
tough for us to do something beyond just reposting, right like,
(42:08):
and I get frustrated because I'm like, I want to
do more, but the reality is I also like have
to worry about paying my bills. I can't go and
just go and become an activist and and not and
just abandoned, you know, my mortgage payments and and jobs
that I've signed on to do and all these things
right now, other things I could be doing. I could
(42:31):
be organized, right and those are things that are coming
to mind for me as I was sort of contemplating
while watching Dean Who's post or whatever? But like for me,
you know, what would be cool like because voting is
obviously important, and I saw a clip of bed Bunny
talking about if you're not registered to vote, go vote.
To me, it's like your bed Bunny And this is
(42:55):
insert any artist. This is an important election where we're
trying to get out the corruption that from a very
particular you know, the party that has been in power,
trying to get fresh blood in there. Beyond reposting shit
on your Instagram, because you could do that while you're
you know, on the toilet dropping a deuce, why not
(43:17):
say hey? In September, I'm going to be hosting a
series of pop ups all around the island of Puerto Rico,
and everybody can get in for free. You just have
to either be registered to vote or you register to
vote on site. Easy easy, right, And what happens. You
(43:40):
get people energized about voting, you get the younger generation
to register to vote. And I was trying to look
up because I wanted to know, and I'm still doing research,
Like as great as Googles, sometimes it's hard to find information.
I guess particular places, but I was like, what's the
voter turned out in Puerto Rico, Like how many people
are registered versus like how many actually live on the island.
(44:01):
I couldn't find that information, but I would say, much
like here in the US, there's still a large part
of the population who doesn't vote or is not even registered.
And that's why in like two thousand and eight, I mean,
shit as controversial and as much as he dropped the
ball now, somebody like Diddy when he was doing the
whole Rock the Vote thing, that was incredibly powerful. You
(44:24):
had the youth. I remember I was on a music festival.
I was on a music festival called Warp Tour at
the time, and they had Rock the Vote there, and
what they would do is they would actually give you
free passes like working wristbands to get inside. And what
you had to do was walk around with the clipboard
(44:45):
and just try and get people to register to vote,
and you're a you're in exchange. You get to you know,
if you want to go watch your favorite artists play,
your favorite band or whatever. It was, Yeah, you could
take time to go do that, right, And that was
actually that was you know, one of the things that
we would do to finag our way into that festival
to sell stuff was I would find you know, programs
(45:05):
like that when that would give free risk bands or whatever. Anyway,
that's my hustle back to that to help elevate my
band at the time. Anyway, But why why not you
have the platform you make an announcement, I'm going to
be in Bunce on September fourteenth. We're gonna do a
meet and greet. We're gonna do it just a free
(45:26):
show somewhere. In order to get in, you have to
register to vote, be registered to vote, or register to vote.
I'm gonna bring some of my favorite artists with me
from Puerto Rico, gonna we're gonna organize it and do that. Now,
I know I'm simplifying it. I know if it's an
artist like Bad Bunny, he has to There's a lot
(45:48):
that goes into it because you want to make sure
people are safe. The amount of people are gonna come
to support this, right, but there are avenues to do
it in some sort of capacity, right do sneaker? Even
like I was, you know, I critiqued what's it called?
(46:09):
I critiqued the Didas collab because I was like, the
shoe is called Sam Juan, what is the Adidas doing
to give back to the people? And I even like,
why didn't they just do a shoe give a sneaker
giveaway for back to school for kids? How awesome do
that have been? Because I was like, oh, they could
donate money to help build a school. There's any literally anything.
(46:33):
These are just little ideas that I'm thinking, you know,
And now you know whatever, I don't know how long
I've been going on this fucking tangent. Just now I
blacked out. I'm like, again, I use this podcast. This
is like my I'm like my diary of like flushing
out thoughts and ideas right now. But this is what
I'm thinking about, guys. This is what I mean. You
got to think a little bit outside the box, push yourself.
(46:55):
And even I was like, and I'm gonna, you know,
I don't know how feasible it is. But even I
was just like, why what if I recessed some people
that I know? I mean, I don't know a ton
of people, but like, why aren't there programs being developed
to help get more people registered vote? And that's why
I was looking into the numbers. I gotta find the
numbers and see it's just like if there really is
a giant discrepancy of people who aren't registered. But but yeah,
(47:19):
I just we could be doing more. That's all I'm
saying that the potential to do more is there if
you care and listen. I think it's great that he's
on his platform sharing things, and obviously is a gigantic platform,
so that goes a long way. It goes further than
somebody like myself sharing things. But also he has so
much more they could be doing right, And and that's
(47:45):
and that's not even a I'm not even like going
at him. It's not I don't even look at it
as like a I don't want to say crucifixion. But
I don't even look at it as like in attack
on him or his character or that how much he cares.
I look at it as how much of a potential
(48:06):
loss it is in terms of like what could actually
be happening right now that's not happening as a result,
Like I look at us, like how much wasted potential?
Right It's so much wasted potential, so much that could
be done if, if, if a little bit more action
was taken. That's how I look at it. But yeah,
(48:27):
but with that said, shout out to those who are
doing the work here of course, PJ SA for for
a fucking ano who's also a doctor. Go love it U.
That said, let's tie everything we talked about today in
a neat little boat in a segment called conclusion stew
time co All right, so I'll just quickly recap. I
(48:53):
feel like a dove into listening is super heavy Democratic
National Convention emotional roller coaster ride. One second, I was,
you know, overcome by feeling like I was on the
right side of history and seeing people become emotional and
really fighting for some beautiful things. On the other side
of it, I was cringing and jumping out of my
(49:14):
skin by some of the you know, extracurricular unnecessary tactics
that we're used to. I don't know, seem cooler hip
again that could be a meat thing. But listen, overall,
it provided me with a love of confidence of like,
it's not per perfect system, not perfect candidate, it's not
(49:35):
a perfect party, but this is the right side of
history in terms of what's best for people moving forward,
what's best for communities of color, of marginalized communities, and
as a whole, what's best for this entire country, you know.
So that is that is what I'm thinking of and
when I when I see all that stuff, and Venezuela
(49:57):
is a tragic and sad example of where we could
be heading if specific people are are placed in positions
of power. You know, we have somebody who is a
you know, former president still denying the fact that he
lost an election. Who's to say that moving forward, that's
not what's going to happen in this next election. And
(50:19):
also if he does win, who's to say he's going
to ever want to leave office again? Right? And a
Supreme Court that is stacked in favor of him, just
like in Venezuela. Right, you're seeing the correlation. That's what's
on the ticket, you know. And my heart goes out
to the people of Venezuela. I hate that you are
an example and that you were going through all these things.
(50:39):
You know, it's it's it's it's sad. And I really
hope that, you know, the the other countries out out
here in the UN could be a little bit more
forceful and and and try and be a little more
involved in trying to get these things. You know, I
don't know it. It's obviously touchy, but yeah, just helping
(51:01):
these people who are really suffering unnecessarily being held hostage
by a dictator. Basically now positive side things in Puerto Rico.
I love this man. Just people giving back doing what
they can, all right, big shot to the artist named
pjcon Suela or his real name, doctor Pedro Juan Vasquez.
(51:21):
Just a beautiful, a beautiful thing man, just doing what
you can, doing your part, especially when an issue like
this one minute's scary to not have enough doctors. You know.
It's it's a lot of beautiful work that he's doing.
So it's a big shot to him. Now. With that said,
no show next week. Also, I think we won't have
a show until Thursday trends of let me see, let
(51:45):
me see, let me see. We'll be back the fifth,
September fifth for Thursday trends because it's Labor Day, I'll
be flying back in around that time, so won't be
able to record, So we'll be back on September fifth
with brand new episode. So then, man, I appreciate y'all.
(52:06):
I am going to unplug and just enjoy life a bit,
come back re energized and recharged. I hope that you
are able to take some time for yourself and your
family and be able to enjoy the last it's crazy
to say, like the last week of like basically you know,
I know it's not technically from the weather calendar, but
like you know, last week of summer basically for most
(52:28):
of us. And yeah, just enjoy, enjoy, do something fun,
do something for yourself. You deserve it. With that said,
I'll catch y'all on September fifth, Thursday, September fifth, So
then stay safe and we shall talk soon. Worse Life
(52:48):
as a GREENO is a production of the micro Thura
podcast network and iHeartRadio
Let me talk about talk. There we go, he said,
you live in life as a dingle, where you question
where you fit in every time you mingle, they say
you do this would not Yes, Hello and welcome to
another episode of Life as a Gringo. I am dramos,
(00:26):
of course, and it is Thursday, so it mean it's
time for our Thursday trends episode. Man, can I just
can I can I pause for a second here if
you will allow me to before we get into uh,
this week's stories. I just want to publicly out loud
(00:46):
say how proud of myself I am give myself a
little pat in the back here because I have been
just going at it when it comes to a few
particular goals and a couple of projects that have been,
you know, really important to me that I think are
timely that I need to get done, and I've won left.
(01:09):
It was three really main big projects that it was like,
I just got to get this done. And I'm proud
of myself because I just sort of managed to put
everything to the side and just lock the fuck in
and just say, hey, anything that does not need to
get done today is going to get put to the
(01:29):
side in lieu of just getting this project across the
finish line. And this morning I sent out an email
that put the bow on my end, at least as
it stands for now, of a particular project or idea,
and it was like a risky without getting into details,
it was a risky email, just like an unsolicited one
(01:53):
to a very high up person that I somewhat know,
that's a company that I've worked at. But I did it.
I'm proud of myself, and this is what I talk about.
I'm not going to turn this into a whole motivational episode.
I know this is the Thursday Trends episode, but this
is what I talk about the idea of achieving failure. Right.
(02:15):
I don't know what's going to happen with these two
projects that I've just wrapped up, and then I'm kind
of just now, you know, putting out there to the world,
to the people that I need to sort of bring
them fully across the finish line. Right. I've kind of
done my part as it stands, and now I have
to just sort of release it to the world and
see what happens now, regardless of you know, if they
(02:38):
lead to the overarching larger goal that I have for myself.
I've already achieved a success because I put myself out there.
I did something, I tried something, I went for it right.
I completed it now to the best of my ability
of as far as I could possibly take it now. Obviously,
the goal is to have people be excited about the
(02:59):
idea and to give me the means to bring it
to life. But I can't control that. And and also
again I've won even if that, even if I fall
short on that particular goal, I've still achieved within the
great grand scheme of right, even if that is a
failure in terms of the grander goal, I've still found
success with the idea that I completed, you know, tasks
(03:21):
for that goal. I've made progress, right, and I've gotten better,
and I've learned things along the way. Right. One of
the things I learned is, I know I'm late to
the party on this. I was really against it. But
chat GBT and AI and how it basically is like
can give you an entire staff of people if you
(03:42):
know how to like give it the right prompts and cues,
and it's like streamlined my process ten x. And I'm
so mad at myself that I was like pushing against
it before, but I get it now. Anyway, that's that's
my that's just me patting myself in the back. I
could go on a tangible AI. But if you're not,
if you haven't tried like Chattyputen all these things, figure
(04:03):
out a way to make it work for you, because
it will make your life a hell of a lot easier.
With that said, this is Thursday Trends, so we're going
to talk about stuff that happened this last week. We'll
talk about the Democratic National Convention, a lot to unpack there.
We'll talk about the latest in Venezuela where the presidential
election was in question. Their Supreme Court has made a ruling,
(04:28):
so we will talk about that and on the positive
side of things for me. Hit this segment, we will
go to Puerto Rico, where I actually will be next week.
So just a heads up, no podcast next week. I
will be unplugging in Puerto Rico. But well, i'll give
(04:48):
you specifics when we're going to come back after that.
After after we can't tell the stories. But yeah, in
Puerto Rico, something I talk you have an artist who's
saying I'm more than an artist, and they're giving back
in a much needed way. And this is what I
want to see more of. So let's just get into it.
We'll first start, as we always do, with the nonsense,
the bs, and a second call for the people in
(05:09):
the back.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Say a lot for the people in the say a
lot for the people in the say a lot of
the people.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
All right, let's start with the Democratic National Convention had
been going on for the last few days. And do
I start with good, bad, the ugly. I mean, listen
on a positive The energy was incredible when you think
about where we were just a few short weeks ago
in terms of enthusiasm for the Democratic ticket, when it
(05:50):
was Joe Biden at the top of it, we were
in a dark place. Now people are excited. There are
happy tears happening in the crowd. You know. I love
the clapbacks that are happening. Obama taking shots at Trump, Michelle,
Obama taking shots at Trump, Hillary takes his shot to Trump.
(06:11):
You know, I think we are finally beginning to get
it where you have to fight fire with fire at times, right,
and I think you could do it in a dignified way,
but still, you know, get your point across. And I
think that they achieved that right, And I think as
a younger person, us young people, I don't not that
(06:32):
young anymore, but it feels good to say it. Us
young people I think can appreciate, you know, stepping up
and having a good clap back, and you know, being
unafraid to have an unapologetic opinion on somebody who is
an incredibly negative force and has, you know, somebody who
has been incredibly toxic and gone extremely low with lies
(06:55):
and just all sorts of disgusting accusations. I think sometimes
you just got to hit him back every once in
a while, right, You got to you gotta punch a
bully in the mouth every once in a while. And
I think that's what we see with some of these speeches,
and also like the emotion right. Obviously, one of the
big ticket items here when it comes to the sort
(07:20):
of stance that politicians have. One of the bigger things
that differentiate the Republican Party from the Democratic Party right now,
among many things, is is the topic of abortion, a
woman's right to choose, and even beyond abortion itself, the
(07:42):
Evangelical Church has taken a national stance of saying, even
they're even against ivf right, they're against the idea of
and I'm not an expert on this, you know, by
any means, but my understanding of it involves of freezing
eggs and and in in insemination and all these things. Right,
(08:05):
These fertility treatments basically for people who are having trouble
having kids. And their stance is that oftentimes in the
IVF treatment process, they produce more eggs that are needed
as a means of giving the the woman a better
chance of getting pregnant, essentially, right, and that those eggs
(08:29):
that are left unused are then discarded, of uh, and
that's what they're against. And you have vice the vice
presidential nominee, Tim Wells, and and he, you know, was
giving a a very emotional speech in regards to that,
because apparently him and his wife they used see this
(08:54):
and then and of course people are like gonna get
caught up on things because he was he was obviously
critiquing from this chance of the sort of hardcore anti abortion,
anti you know, woman's right to choose. The the real
pro lifers here are are against even IVF. And Tim
(09:15):
was using his own personal story of him and his
wife's struggle of being able to have children as a
means to express how important it is to be able
to have these options available to those who need it.
Right now, Tim and his wife they clarify that they
actually used i UI, which apparently is different than IVF.
I'm not an expert. I'm not going to bother to
(09:37):
try to get into the differences here, right, but that
there's a big critique now, like, oh, he's lying about
this thing because but I people are missing the sentiment,
and I hate that. I even am digressing onto that.
But when I was looking up trying to get some
information from that speech, just to kind of like reiterate
(09:57):
what the what I had watched, I saw like the
chatter happening online of like Tim Wills was lying he
used I UI, not IVF, And listen, I again, I'm
sure there's a very important distinction between the two, but
either way it is the same sentiment. It was a
couple who was having trouble having children the quote unquote
(10:20):
natural way, and because of these options that were available
to them, they now were able to have children. And
the beautiful thing was you had I believe it's two
kids there, a son and a daughter, and they're both
in tears, and like the so I'm getting choked about
to talk about it, but like it's the image of
like the son cheering on his dad from the crowd
(10:42):
as they're talking about like the blessing that it was
to bring their kids into this world and being able
to have those options available to them. And there were
a lot of moments like that that I literally my
eyes just start getting warded up, you know, I started
like making these ugly faces. I also realized, like just
a side note, I've trained myself and I guess this
(11:05):
is toxic masculinity. I've trained myself to hold back tears,
but like, in order to do so, you have to, like,
you know, make all these funny facial expressions. And what
I realized is I am making the world's ugliest faces,
and it's actually making it that much worse than if
I just allowed myself to cry. So it's been a
lesson in trying to catch myself when I'm like doing
(11:26):
all these facial exercises to keep tears from falling down
my face and remind myself that you are making some
of the most horrendous looking faces possible, and you would
just be better off letting a tear or two fall
from your cheek right, fall onto your cheek. Just a
little side note that I wanted to express that you
noticed a little toxic things that are still ingrained and
(11:48):
you right, but but yeah, I mean it just felt
like hope, you know. And I think for me, you know,
when I when I talk about these things, particularly when
you sort of release it into the world of social
media and people are leaving their comments, and I think
(12:12):
I've talked about this before, but it's incredibly disorienting at times.
And I think even when you talk to people in
your life where you're just like, man, they are so
passionate about this. They believe it with all of their heart.
They genuinely believe that they are on the right side
of history. And at times it's incredibly disorienting because it's like, man,
(12:35):
am I the one who's batshit crazy?
Speaker 2 (12:38):
You know?
Speaker 1 (12:38):
And I hate to judge people to be empathetic, but
it's for the sake of conversation. Here am I the
one who is like on the wrong side of history?
Because it defies my logic to think that somebody would
be so passionate about lies and hate. But the sad
reality is that that is the current state of a
lot of people in this country and watch the Democratic
(13:03):
National Convention and seeing people like Obama and Michelle Obama
really was the one that took the cake, in my opinion,
And then they pant the people in the crowd, and
you see, like, you know, as Michelle is talking, they
panta to a black woman who's like in tears and
her friend is in tears. And then I'm fucking in
tears watching this on TikTok at eight in the morning,
(13:25):
you know, and it's it's just like a reminder of
like all that that I stand for and and I guess,
you know, anybody who shares in a similar mindset of
what we stand for right and and what we're fighting
and staying strong on the stance that we're staying strong
(13:47):
on the idea of equality, the idea of you know,
not ruling with hate and and wanting everybody to have
their you know, equal shot at at whatever the American
dream is or whatever their version of it is. You know,
and you realize, you know, in those moments, it's just like,
(14:08):
I don't know, it's just a beautiful, a beautiful thing
to a beautiful reminder, is what I would say. It's
a beautiful reminder This is why I go so hard.
This is why I eat so much shit from the
hate that comes from expressing yourself. It's because I'm really
(14:30):
standing for something, something real. I'm not just making something
up to make myself feel comfortable. I'm just legitimately trying
to make this world a better place. And you know,
for other people who have struggled and things like that.
And I think that for me was like the bigger
takeaway and sort of watching in and out the last
(14:50):
few days and then you know, sort of catching up
the eclipse and things like that. Yeah, it's just a
beautiful It's a beautiful reminder of of what this country
could be and why it's so important to to speak
your voice and to uplift others, right and why this
election is so important, and why somebody like Kamala Harris
(15:11):
is so incredibly important right now. With that said, I'm
also not like drinking the kool aid to the point
where I am not just like, what the fuck is
happening right now? Like I have to say, And maybe
I'm I'm a hater here. Maybe this added to the
(15:32):
energy of the room or whatever it might be. And
and maybe because by the way, I have a problem
sometimes where I just look for like the corny or
I look for the ick in things and I can't
seem to separate myself from it. I look for the
comedy and the the I don't know, I just uh like,
(15:56):
I remember, I relate to this statement so well. I
think in a in a and I think it's like
a great analogis for for like my humor or whatever.
But I remember when Damon Waynems was on The Breakfast
Club and he was talking about I believe they were
at a funeral for his uncle, and him and his
(16:18):
brothers are all like you know, standing together or whatever,
and they can't help themselves, like you know him, Damon
and Sean, they're they're keenan they can't help themselves. But like,
just look for the comedy in every situation. So they're
there like roasting their their uncle who passed. They're roasting
the suit that he's wearing. H you know what I mean.
(16:39):
So like and it's just their way of dealing with
life and and things like that, and and I relate
to that so much in just everyday life. I can't
help myself. So I maybe not there. I might not
be the right person to judge this, but did we
really need to have a like musical cue for every
(17:08):
single state as they announced the delegates, and specifically, did
we need to have Little John performing turned down for what?
As as they announced Georgia, the speakers to it to
announce their the representatives to announce their their delegates. You know,
I I I it's it hurts and it hurts to watch. Also,
(17:31):
of all songs, I feel like Little John doing turndown
for what, yes, obviously a big hit, but like I
would have much rather just have heard him do a
little bit more of like a just classic like Atlanta
hip hop record that that he was a part of,
rather than just like the commercial turned down for what?
(17:54):
That is like far too aggressive for that room at
that time. But again this could be mean. Maybe other
people enjoyed it, I know, for when they did like Illinois,
they had the music that they'll play for for the
Chicago Bulls intros, when you know, you had Michael Jordan
and all them and they had a DJ basically playing
it song. I mean, like I get it, you want
(18:14):
to keep the energy up and like this is an
exciting time. It just feels very forced, I guess is
what my My take is like I love having Stevie
Wonder performing up there. I think that's awesome. But other
than that, it's just it all feels very forced, and
it's like, you have a bunch of people and this
is what it feels like, a bunch of people are like,
you know what, we gotta do something for the young people,
(18:35):
show that we're hip. And then it's like, whenever you
have you feel the need to show somebody that you're
still hip, you're probably not hip, right and you should
just like just chill, you know, you know, it's hip
is just being cool, just relaxing, you know, not feeling
like you gotta do too much. And that's what it
felt like a bit of and if obviously it's getting
roasted on the internet by either side. The Daily Show
(18:55):
did a whole thing on it that was hilarious. I
was watching it this morning, and ironically though, this is
also what I love, the selective like blindness that happens
because the other things that were circulating, like on social media,
you had Republicans posting these clips or whatever and talking
about how ridiculous they were sure these moments were like
(19:18):
the Little John one, and but like their argument was
like the Democrats loved to turn the convention into some
sort of like a circus event because they have no
policy to speak of. But then it's like, didn't you
guys have Hulk Hogan come on stage and like rip
(19:41):
off his shirt that he was wearing to reveal a
he ripped off his sleeveless Polko Mania shirt to real
to to expose a sleeveless Donald Trump shirt and then
Trump called it trump Amania. And he's on there doing
arrest link promo at the Republican National Convention. I like,
(20:05):
come on, don't throw stones if you live in a
glass house. And then on top of that, who do
they have They had fucking Kid Rock performing what come on,
come on listen. I have no problem saying, yeah, we
turned down for what probably shouldn't have been played there,
and that whole thing just felt very forced and awkward, cringey.
(20:29):
But I am not going to let you pretend like
having Terry aka, you know, hul Cogan give a wrestling
promo at your national convention and having Kid Rock is
one of your highlighted performers. Like, come on, y'all are
in the same boat. You're doing the same thing. You
are are playing the same game, and these are the things,
(20:50):
by the way, like this are kind of end on that,
these are the things that make you feel like, am
I the crazy one? Am I? It's disorienting because it's like,
how are you guys saying that they've turned the convention
(21:11):
into a circus because they have nothing to talk about.
But you literally did the same thing in your own way,
and then with a straight face, people will go make
content on that point and completely have you know, amnesia
to the fact that their chosen side did the exact
same thing. At least call out both if you're gonna
(21:35):
do it. But that's what's fucking disorienting. It's like they
literally will watch something happen. We'll have video, evidence, will
have audio, it'll be in writing, it'll be everything, and they, somehow,
some way are able to either deny it happened or
forget that it ever happens at all, and just pretend
like nothing happened. That's what's disorienting about this whole thing.
(21:55):
And they would do it with a straight face and
look at you like you're the crazy one one. That's
what's wild about, you know, this whole situation. I actually
do want to touch on something when it comes to
some of the things Kamala Harris was announcing, I can't remember,
I can't remember if did I mention this. I think
(22:18):
I did mention this last week, but just to reiterate
and again like this is election selling season, you know,
we don't know what's going to actually happen. But Kamala
Harris talking about real word practices of stopping companies, corporations
from price gouging, specifically, I think food was mentioned, which
obviously is a gigantic problem. I feel that, you know, personally,
(22:40):
like that's the one thing I can be like, this
is crazy. I'm paying, you know, two hundred dollars every
week and a half in groceries and I live by myself.
It's me and a dog, right, And this is sound
with a broken record, Dajavo, Like I've said this before.
And she also the idea of helping first time homeowners
with a twenty five thousand dollars it up to twenty
(23:01):
five thousand dollars again, like these are real world policy
things that like have an effect on the everyday person.
And that's sort of what you know for me, if
I'm looking at the candidates and all these things. Aside
from like Trump just being bad for democracy, I could
also rest my hat in the fact that at least
Kamala Harris is saying the right things and focusing her
(23:23):
energy in the right places as far as what's actually
going to move the needle for the everyday person. So yeah,
that's that's I guess my takeaway after this convention. And
and you know what, and politicians in general, you know,
they're going to be out of touch a bit. And
(23:44):
I think on both sides, some of the entertainment value
choices we saw at the convention displayed that. But yeah,
that's that's so the world we live in, folks. So
the country we live in, I should say, And now
I want to touch on what's going on in Venezuela.
And you know, we'll take a quick break and then
we'll do that when we come back. All right, we
(24:10):
are back. And I had talked about the presidential election
in Venezuela a couple of weeks ago. There were a
lot of really big protests breaking out in regards to
the election allegedly being stolen by Nicholas Maluro and and
(24:32):
a lot of people really fighting back against this. A
lot of other countries standing by with the people of
Venezuela saying that they want transparency to to find out
who actually won. And the update, unfortunately is not great
for anybody who feels like and the evidence seems to
(24:52):
show that this this election was stolen. So you had
Venezuela Supreme Court backing President Nicholas my littles claim that
he won last month's presidential election and said voting tally's
published online showing he lost by a landslide were forged.
Now the ruling is the latest attempt by my Little
(25:12):
to blunt protests and international criticism that erupted after the
contested July twenty eighth vote, in which the self proclaimed
socialist leader was seeking a third six year term. Now,
in this article they talk about how the High Court
is packed with Maluto loyalists and has never almost almost
(25:34):
never ruled against the government in its ruling red Thursday,
and an event attended by senior officials and foreign diplomats
came in response a request by my Little to review
vote totals that he claimed, without evidence, was marred by
a foreign cyber attack stage by hackers from North Macedonia.
The main opposition coalition has accused me Little of trying
(25:56):
to steal the vote. The High Court's ruling certifying the
results contradicts the findings of experts from the United Nations
and the Carter Center, who were invited to observe the election,
and which both determined the results announced by authorities lacked credibility. Specifically,
the outside experts noted that authorities didn't release a breakdown
of results by each of the thirty thousand voting booths nationwide,
(26:20):
as they have in almost every previous election. Numerous foreign governments,
including the US as well are as well as several
leftist allies of Maduro, have called on authorities to release
the full breakdown of the results. And it's a sad day,
obviously for the people of Venezuela. This is somebody who
(26:42):
allegedly has ties to cartels, if I'm not mistaken, is
being investigated by multiple governments the common From my reading,
and I'll never claim to be an expert on these things,
but from reports that I had seen around this story,
he is allegedly if he lost and was no longer president,
(27:05):
they're saying he would have actually been extradited and brought
up on charges connected to crimes with a cartel. So
obviously this is not the person that you want to
be in charge of people. And even if you're not Venezuelan,
(27:25):
you know, as a human being, empathy right for people
who to really be in a helpless state. Right. And
that's why when I talk about immigration, I don't talk
about it from a place of thinking that we should
(27:48):
just open the floodgates completely, right. I think there has
to be a process right for all parties involved, you know,
for or to really be a solution that works for everybody.
I think you do have to have policies in place.
(28:11):
But regardless of kind of where your thought process is
on these specific policies that should or shouldn't exist, how
can you not have empathy for people who are literally
hostages of the powers that be? Right, they showed up
(28:35):
in record numbers to vote, and from what the evidence
is showing or the lack of evidence, there's at least
very credible reason to believe that these people's voices are
being suppressed, that they're not having their vote heard as
(28:56):
they should. And remand in charge is somebody who allegedly
has deep ties to criminal activity that is plaguing the
people of Venezuela and holding them back from being a
country that you know, could be operating at a far
higher level and could be providing a far better quality
(29:18):
of life for their citizens and not putting their citizens
lives in danger on a daily basis. Right, And that's
why people are fleeing places like Venezuela because of that.
And again, regardless of your stance on you know, immigration
reform and policy, you have to have empathy. And I
(29:39):
think also the US the reason why you should care
beyond the human aspect, we have a stake in this, right,
you know, we are the country that you know, is
one of the main countries that provides a safe haven
for people. And the reality is people wouldn't be leaving
(30:02):
their home countries if it weren't for the fact that
they were in desperate need of safety and desperate need
of something better. So we should be more involved in this.
We should be trying to, you know, find a healthy
solution for things like this, because it also benefits us,
(30:25):
you know, as we try and figure out the best
policy for immigration in twenty twenty four and beyond. Right,
So it's just sad, man, I can't I listen as
much shit as is going on in this country. And truthfully,
this also who's to say that if Donald Trump gets
(30:47):
in office again that we don't end up in similar circumstances.
I mean, he's already denied the results of a credible election.
You know, why would he want to leave office even
after feeling you know, the hypothetical two terms. You know,
he's already talked about wanting to be a dictator. You've
seen his supporters even wearing disgusting T shirts sort of
(31:11):
supporting that. And then again, that's the blind irony of
they love to call democratic communists you socialists. Meanwhile they're
wearing shirts to say, you know, dictator Trump, and they're
they're they're proudly smiling about that. Right. It's just the blind,
the blind hypocrisy that that happens there. But yeah, I
(31:33):
mean it's just, uh, I don't know, it's frustrating when
you I can't help but be empathetic to people and
uh and and really, you know, when you think about it,
it's like the citizens really came out in record numbers
and like were were energized and motivated and they were
(31:54):
like enough is enough, and you know, evil has prevailed
once again. Unfortunately, and I think that's what's what's a
bit frustrating. It feels like an episode of The Boys.
I just, you know, that's my my pop culture reference
to today. I just started watching The Boys on Prime.
I know I'm years behind here, but I have no
(32:16):
idea how I did not know this show existed. It's phenomenal.
It's about if you don't know, it's about superheroes, but
like they use the superheroes kind of like as a
means to do political commentary on the stay of the world.
Like the superheroes aren't aren't truly good guys, you know,
so it's more like an attack on corporate America and
corporate greed. Really phenomenal show if you haven't seen it.
(32:37):
But yeah, I feel like you're watching like an episode
of The Boys, where it's like every time it's like, oh,
we finally like defeated evil. Nope, boom, somebody else the
other shoe drops and Evil once again prevails. But I
don't know. I wish, I wish I had like a
way just pulled this around to some positivity. Just a sad,
(32:57):
sad day for the people of Venezuela and you know,
their their election process and That's why we in this
country have to keep fighting to keep the right people
in office and keep the wrong people out of office
so we don't find ourselves in a similar situation like that. Now,
with that said, we're gonna return to some positive news here,
(33:17):
positive story in Army had this segments be first, we'll
take a quick break, and then we'll be right back.
All right, So, if you've been listening to this podcast
(33:40):
for some time, you know I'm gonna love the following story,
not just because it takes place in Puerto Rico, but
because it's something I've been fucking preaching forever. Now, granted
this a little bit of different twist. I always talk
about artists. If you have a platform, you have something
you know to offer larger than your music, you should
be doing so, right, that's my always argument. So in
(34:03):
Puerto Rico you have a problem. And I'm getting my
Puerto Rico you know practice in right now. When I
go there next week, I can start sound like a local.
But we have doctors leaving Puerto Rico or Puerto Rico
in droves, and it's becoming an issue. And let me
(34:24):
read some statistics actually first where I get into like
actually what this article is about. But Puerto Rico has
lost eighty six hundred doctors out of nearly eighteen thousand,
eight hundred in just over a decade. So almost half
of the doctors in Puerto Rico have left. This according
to a twenty twenty three report by the think tank
(34:47):
the Center for a New Economy. Okay, the Center for
a New Economy is a think tank, all right. The
problem is expected to grow more dire in coming years. Now,
obviously this is a really really sad ishow. There's a
lot of like really sad stories around this, right, one
(35:10):
that comes to mind. You had somebody who because in
Puerto Rico it's it's tough to get a doctor's appointment.
It's tough to get one here in the mainland. Quite honestly,
I my my record the doctor I think in June
I called I didn't get seen till August for like
my physical or whatever. Right, That's why these pop up
clinics or whatever, their urgent cares are now like the
(35:31):
new thing. But in Puerto Rico it's even tougher it.
And I saw a story of somebody over there where
you know, they had their appointment their doctor and they
had to wait whatever I'm just gonna throw out six
months or something like that, and when they saw their doctor,
their doctor found that they had cancer. And the sad
(35:52):
part about that story is that had they have caught it,
you know, a few months earlier, this person's chance of
survival would have been much higher, that they would have
actually been able to remove it before it spread, essentially,
and unfortunately, because of the amount of time that they
(36:12):
had to wait, the cancer spread and grew and there
was no going back at that point. A tragic, tragic,
sad story. Now this article is a positive one. You
have somebody who he's actually a rapper, a rapper who
went to medical school, right. His name is doctor Berro
(36:34):
Juan Vasquez, better known by his stage name as PJ.
Sin Suela, and he's actually been been giving back. Now
I'm going to bounce around on this article, but he
became known in Latin America for his music. For his
(36:55):
song in twenty eighteen, it was actually a collaboration with
Bad Bunny, Yes, the Bad Bunny called Gualles Duplan, and
he actually ended up going on from there to work
with Lynn Manuel Miranda. He actually ended up working with
Residente from Case right, So this dude has like a
(37:17):
budding music career or has been, you know, like he's
been on big, big records with big artists, and he
now still doing music, but is also devoting his time
to being a doctor. They actually say he travels from
San Juan, whis the capital Puerto Rico, to the island's
remote areas at least once a week to treat underserved
(37:41):
communities struggling with the aftermath of hurricanes, earthquakes and a
frail economy. Now, when the COVID nineteen pandemic hit in
twenty twenty, he switched from holding a microphone to a stethoscope,
working full time at a hospital in Ponset for a
year as a general practitioner. He patients of all ages,
(38:02):
excited to be cared for by a popular rapper. I'm
pulling from an article here that I will I will
definitely credit if you want to read more into this.
He actually was born in the Bronx Bx all Day,
moved with his family to Bonce in Puerto Rico, later
went to Pennsylvania, then returned to Bayamon, which is actually
where my father's from. And yeah, have a lot of
(38:25):
family over there, and he actually went to the university
that's over there and study to become a doctor. In
twenty fifteen, music career began to take off, and then
when the pandemic happened, he got back into the practice
of being a doctor. Now obviously, Okay, so the basis
of like why this is a lot of what I've
talked about is because I critique artists who are in
(38:47):
powerful positions for not doing enough for their people if
they truly cared, right, And I know this is a
little bit of like a different story because the man
is a legitimate fucking doctor, right, It's not just a rapper,
you know. But the reality is he is somebody who
is taken to the He's answered the call. I guess
(39:13):
would be a better way of what I was trying
to get at, because truthfully, he could just move to
the States and be a doctor here, make a lot
more money, you know, if that is the case. Right,
He could focus full time on music if that was
the case. But he's choosing to be in Puerto Rico, right,
And he's choosing to utilize his time to go to
(39:34):
underprivileged areas. Right. And you think about this man, because listen,
a it's hard to manage a career in general. Right,
I'm sure as the doctor he stays very busy, and
then he has aspirations of being a musician. His music
is also very socially conscious. He's very much an advocate
(39:55):
for things happening in Puerto Rico. And on top of that,
to give back in that way, I mean, there's like
they showcase, you know, him knocking door to door and
offering free medical you know, assistance to the elderly in
a lot of these towns. And I'm just like, man
(40:16):
more of that. And again, I know not every artist
you know moonlighted as a fucking doctor. I get that,
but we all have something, right, we all have some
sort of way to give back more than than what
we are currently doing, and some more than others. Like again,
(40:40):
this man is genuinely a doctor, so he has a
great skill that he can give back to people, you know,
relatively easy. You know, obviously the time is very valuable,
but like can go to door to door and make
a difference basically, right, And then he has a platform
where he can spread awareness to what he's doing. And
I don't know, I you know, I see this in
(41:01):
a warms my heart and I'd love to see more
of it and more more of us trying to do
what we can do with what we have, you know.
And that's why I've always been like heavy critiquing people
like Pat Bunny because it's like, man, yes, you've you've
done so much with what you've spoken about, but there's
still so much more you could be doing. I saw
video shots on my Gaydins, who makes a lot of
content around Puerto Rico, and he was giving bad Bunny
(41:25):
credit for being very active in regards to reposting information.
Particularly I think it was on x aka Twitter in
regards to what's going on in the election protocals and
election coming up in November as well for for governor
and Bad Bunny reposting things and and and trying, I
(41:47):
guess getting people energized in that way. And I thought
that that was beautiful, But it was also like, yes
and right because listen, for the every day person, it's
tough for us to do something beyond just reposting, right like,
(42:08):
and I get frustrated because I'm like, I want to
do more, but the reality is I also like have
to worry about paying my bills. I can't go and
just go and become an activist and and not and
just abandoned, you know, my mortgage payments and and jobs
that I've signed on to do and all these things
right now, other things I could be doing. I could
(42:31):
be organized, right and those are things that are coming
to mind for me as I was sort of contemplating
while watching Dean Who's post or whatever? But like for me,
you know, what would be cool like because voting is
obviously important, and I saw a clip of bed Bunny
talking about if you're not registered to vote, go vote.
To me, it's like your bed Bunny And this is
(42:55):
insert any artist. This is an important election where we're
trying to get out the corruption that from a very
particular you know, the party that has been in power,
trying to get fresh blood in there. Beyond reposting shit
on your Instagram, because you could do that while you're
you know, on the toilet dropping a deuce, why not
(43:17):
say hey? In September, I'm going to be hosting a
series of pop ups all around the island of Puerto Rico,
and everybody can get in for free. You just have
to either be registered to vote or you register to
vote on site. Easy easy, right, And what happens. You
(43:40):
get people energized about voting, you get the younger generation
to register to vote. And I was trying to look
up because I wanted to know, and I'm still doing research,
Like as great as Googles, sometimes it's hard to find information.
I guess particular places, but I was like, what's the
voter turned out in Puerto Rico, Like how many people
are registered versus like how many actually live on the island.
(44:01):
I couldn't find that information, but I would say, much
like here in the US, there's still a large part
of the population who doesn't vote or is not even registered.
And that's why in like two thousand and eight, I mean,
shit as controversial and as much as he dropped the
ball now, somebody like Diddy when he was doing the
whole Rock the Vote thing, that was incredibly powerful. You
(44:24):
had the youth. I remember I was on a music festival.
I was on a music festival called Warp Tour at
the time, and they had Rock the Vote there, and
what they would do is they would actually give you
free passes like working wristbands to get inside. And what
you had to do was walk around with the clipboard
(44:45):
and just try and get people to register to vote,
and you're a you're in exchange. You get to you know,
if you want to go watch your favorite artists play,
your favorite band or whatever. It was, Yeah, you could
take time to go do that, right, And that was
actually that was you know, one of the things that
we would do to finag our way into that festival
to sell stuff was I would find you know, programs
(45:05):
like that when that would give free risk bands or whatever. Anyway,
that's my hustle back to that to help elevate my
band at the time. Anyway, But why why not you
have the platform you make an announcement, I'm going to
be in Bunce on September fourteenth. We're gonna do a
meet and greet. We're gonna do it just a free
(45:26):
show somewhere. In order to get in, you have to
register to vote, be registered to vote, or register to vote.
I'm gonna bring some of my favorite artists with me
from Puerto Rico, gonna we're gonna organize it and do that. Now,
I know I'm simplifying it. I know if it's an
artist like Bad Bunny, he has to There's a lot
(45:48):
that goes into it because you want to make sure
people are safe. The amount of people are gonna come
to support this, right, but there are avenues to do
it in some sort of capacity, right do sneaker? Even
like I was, you know, I critiqued what's it called?
(46:09):
I critiqued the Didas collab because I was like, the
shoe is called Sam Juan, what is the Adidas doing
to give back to the people? And I even like,
why didn't they just do a shoe give a sneaker
giveaway for back to school for kids? How awesome do
that have been? Because I was like, oh, they could
donate money to help build a school. There's any literally anything.
(46:33):
These are just little ideas that I'm thinking, you know,
And now you know whatever, I don't know how long
I've been going on this fucking tangent. Just now I
blacked out. I'm like, again, I use this podcast. This
is like my I'm like my diary of like flushing
out thoughts and ideas right now. But this is what
I'm thinking about, guys. This is what I mean. You
got to think a little bit outside the box, push yourself.
(46:55):
And even I was like, and I'm gonna, you know,
I don't know how feasible it is. But even I
was just like, why what if I recessed some people
that I know? I mean, I don't know a ton
of people, but like, why aren't there programs being developed
to help get more people registered vote? And that's why
I was looking into the numbers. I gotta find the
numbers and see it's just like if there really is
a giant discrepancy of people who aren't registered. But but yeah,
(47:19):
I just we could be doing more. That's all I'm
saying that the potential to do more is there if
you care and listen. I think it's great that he's
on his platform sharing things, and obviously is a gigantic platform,
so that goes a long way. It goes further than
somebody like myself sharing things. But also he has so
much more they could be doing right, And and that's
(47:45):
and that's not even a I'm not even like going
at him. It's not I don't even look at it
as like a I don't want to say crucifixion. But
I don't even look at it as like in attack
on him or his character or that how much he cares.
I look at it as how much of a potential
(48:06):
loss it is in terms of like what could actually
be happening right now that's not happening as a result,
Like I look at us, like how much wasted potential?
Right It's so much wasted potential, so much that could
be done if, if, if a little bit more action
was taken. That's how I look at it. But yeah,
(48:27):
but with that said, shout out to those who are
doing the work here of course, PJ SA for for
a fucking ano who's also a doctor. Go love it U.
That said, let's tie everything we talked about today in
a neat little boat in a segment called conclusion stew
time co All right, so I'll just quickly recap. I
(48:53):
feel like a dove into listening is super heavy Democratic
National Convention emotional roller coaster ride. One second, I was,
you know, overcome by feeling like I was on the
right side of history and seeing people become emotional and
really fighting for some beautiful things. On the other side
of it, I was cringing and jumping out of my
(49:14):
skin by some of the you know, extracurricular unnecessary tactics
that we're used to. I don't know, seem cooler hip
again that could be a meat thing. But listen, overall,
it provided me with a love of confidence of like,
it's not per perfect system, not perfect candidate, it's not
(49:35):
a perfect party, but this is the right side of
history in terms of what's best for people moving forward,
what's best for communities of color, of marginalized communities, and
as a whole, what's best for this entire country, you know.
So that is that is what I'm thinking of and
when I when I see all that stuff, and Venezuela
(49:57):
is a tragic and sad example of where we could
be heading if specific people are are placed in positions
of power. You know, we have somebody who is a
you know, former president still denying the fact that he
lost an election. Who's to say that moving forward, that's
not what's going to happen in this next election. And
(50:19):
also if he does win, who's to say he's going
to ever want to leave office again? Right? And a
Supreme Court that is stacked in favor of him, just
like in Venezuela. Right, you're seeing the correlation. That's what's
on the ticket, you know. And my heart goes out
to the people of Venezuela. I hate that you are
an example and that you were going through all these things.
(50:39):
You know, it's it's it's it's sad. And I really
hope that, you know, the the other countries out out
here in the UN could be a little bit more
forceful and and and try and be a little more
involved in trying to get these things. You know, I
don't know it. It's obviously touchy, but yeah, just helping
(51:01):
these people who are really suffering unnecessarily being held hostage
by a dictator. Basically now positive side things in Puerto Rico.
I love this man. Just people giving back doing what
they can, all right, big shot to the artist named
pjcon Suela or his real name, doctor Pedro Juan Vasquez.
(51:21):
Just a beautiful, a beautiful thing man, just doing what
you can, doing your part, especially when an issue like
this one minute's scary to not have enough doctors. You know.
It's it's a lot of beautiful work that he's doing.
So it's a big shot to him. Now. With that said,
no show next week. Also, I think we won't have
a show until Thursday trends of let me see, let
(51:45):
me see, let me see. We'll be back the fifth,
September fifth for Thursday trends because it's Labor Day, I'll
be flying back in around that time, so won't be
able to record, So we'll be back on September fifth
with brand new episode. So then, man, I appreciate y'all.
(52:06):
I am going to unplug and just enjoy life a bit,
come back re energized and recharged. I hope that you
are able to take some time for yourself and your
family and be able to enjoy the last it's crazy
to say, like the last week of like basically you know,
I know it's not technically from the weather calendar, but
like you know, last week of summer basically for most
(52:28):
of us. And yeah, just enjoy, enjoy, do something fun,
do something for yourself. You deserve it. With that said,
I'll catch y'all on September fifth, Thursday, September fifth, So
then stay safe and we shall talk soon. Worse Life
(52:48):
as a GREENO is a production of the micro Thura
podcast network and iHeartRadio
Host
DJ Dramos
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