January 3, 2023 • 44 mins
Join A Witch, A Mystic & A Feminist as they kick off Season 2 with a special three-part series featuring the inspiring guests, Ricky and Tony Simpson, also known as The Salty Twins. These content creators produce informative videos on fishing and spear diving, encouraging people to harvest their own food and promoting the therapeutic benefits of these activities for mental health.
However, before The Salty Twins came into existence, Ricky and Tony experienced immense heartache and trauma when their mother, Linda Rivera, contracted E. coli after eating prepackaged cookie dough in 2009. In this series, they honor their mother's memory by sharing her story of positivity and optimism, as well as her tragic battle and eventual passing from the disease.
Ricky and Tony also delve into their own struggles with mental health, discussing how Tony's deployment to Iraq and Ricky's early coping mechanisms impacted their lives. They share the acronym GWTOY (guess who's thinking of you) and the methods they've used and continue to use for healing and moving forward.
In addition to their personal journey, Ricky and Tony also discuss The Salty Twins brand and exciting plans for the future. Don't miss out on this powerful and inspiring series that showcases the resilience of the human spirit in the face of tragedy.
You can check out The Salty Twins:
https://www.thesaltytwins.com/
https://www.youtube.com/thesaltytwins
https://www.instagram.com/thesaltytwins_/
https://www.tiktok.com/@thesaltytwins?lang=en
https://www.facebook.com/TheSaltyTwins
You can contact The Salty Twins at info@thesaltytwins.com
Medical Disclaimer
Have questions or comments for A Witch, A Mystic & A Feminist? Send us a message at https://www.wmfpod.com/contact/. Also you can subscribe to receive updates at https://www.wmfpod.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marlena (00:00):
Happy New Year and welcome back to a witch, a
mystic and a feminist. We areextremely excited to begin this
new year and this new season ofour podcast with our guests.
These two gentlemen mean theworld to me. They are content
creators, entrepreneurs. Theyare the salty twins, my cousins,
(00:21):
Ricky and Tony Simpson. Yayhere. Welcome to the show. Thank
you.
Ricky (00:30):
I gotta say I love the love the jacket. Yes, all. Thank
you. Well, we're triplets withthe salty twins
Marlena (00:44):
the salty triplets are five.
Jamie (00:47):
No quintuplets. Yeah, no, that's
Ricky (00:51):
it. No, yeah. Three. None of us can
Marlena (00:58):
figure this out our listeners.
Jamie (01:01):
Have no idea.
Marlena (01:02):
We can figure this out.
Right.
So I was gonna ask you guys,tell us a little about
yourselves. But that's just sucha dumb question. You know, when
you go to interviews and stufflike that, it's like, tell me
about yourself. And it's like,that's really vague. So I'm
gonna tell everybody a littlebit about you guys. So awesome.
And how I met you and stuff.
Yes, they are my cousins. I metthem when they were probably
(01:26):
about eight or nine years old.
Their mom, my auntie Linda.
married my uncle Richard. And weare one big happy family. Yeah.
You guys were born and raised inHenderson, Nevada. Correct? Yep.
Just outside of Las Vegas. Yeah,on the outskirts. Very cool. And
then both of you are married. SoRicky, you got married in 2014?
Wow.
Ricky (01:52):
Yeah. So I got married to my wife in 2014. And then we
ended up bringing Tony into therelationship
with my wife, I've been with mywife for 10 years. So then Tony
has been married for I think forcoming up on 2019. Correct?
Yeah. Coming up on three 2004?
Yeah, two different women.
Christy (02:17):
Thank you for clarifying for our listeners.
Marlena (02:23):
So I mentioned you guys are content creators, and you
guys have a tick tock andYouTube channel. You want to
tell us a little bit about that.
And we'll go into it more laterin the episode as well. But why
don't you give us a littlebackground about that right now?
Tony (02:37):
Yeah, so with the salty twins will kind of explain how
it all started and everything.
But pretty much what we do is wetravel, we fish and we spear
dive. And we're basically tryingto teach other people how to
harvest their own food. Soinstead of going to, you know,
the store, or a fish market, youknow, taking the time to have a
(03:00):
relationship with the food thatyou consume. And understanding
that when you're eating meat,especially you're taking a life,
right and having thatconnection. And so the salty
twins and fishing has been kindof therapy for me most of my
life. And so doing that as aprofession for a living, what's
(03:25):
better, you know, to be able tobe in a peaceful environment and
be able to experiencetherapeutic sessions basically,
on a daily basis while trying tohelp other people. So that's a
kind of synopsis of a little bitof the salty twins.
Jamie (03:44):
That's amazing. That's fantastic. Yeah,
Tony (03:47):
very cool. What's your take? To g o crazy all the time?
Ricky (03:54):
Well, there's there's two things that are super important
to us. It's veterans and it'sunderprivileged kids. And so
Tony is a veteran, he served inthe military for six years, went
overseas, came back and had PTSDthrough that with his
experiences. And me personally,I've always been a rebel. And so
(04:16):
when I look at kids who are inunderprivileged situations, in
my heart, it's really importantto help them out. And so those
are the two areas that we striveto improve or give back or like
charity work, things like that.
So yeah,
Christy (04:36):
so it's amazing. In one of your videos, you mentioned
that it was therapy. I mean, ina lot of videos, right? Therapy,
but you also mentioned healing.
You mentioned PTSD. But wheredid that start? Like what was
the initial thing that kind ofkicked that off?
Tony (04:51):
Yeah, I guess we'll kind of go into, you know, our life
story here in a little bit. Butreally, what made the transition
what was going through so muchheartache, and rough times of
life tragedy. And I've alwayshad this mentality of
overcoming, I've always had thismentality of watching other
(05:14):
people, you know, smile, behappy, and truly love themselves
and love the people around them.
And most of my adult life, Ihaven't felt that way. And so
from reading books and listeningto audios and diving into self
development, I realized that alot of the times when I'm
(05:34):
outside and not caught up intoday's society, the
materialistic things the day today life, you know, the nine to
five grind. And when you're outin the elements, it was a sense
of peace, it was basically atime for me to reflect on my own
thoughts. And so that's kind ofwhat the therapeutic session or
(05:58):
the therapeutic feeling offishing was. And then Ricky and
I actually got into freedivingand spearfishing, basically,
that took it to a whole nextlevel. Yeah, if you know what
scuba diving is, it's like thatwithout any oxygen tank, so
you're just holding your breath.
(06:21):
And so we go diving in 40 5060feet of water, and you have to
be able to basically meditateand relax your body, so that you
can retain as much oxygen insideyour body as possible. And
you're diving down 60 feet, andyou're basically hunting your
own food. So you have a spiritguide. That's exactly what you
(06:41):
do. Yeah. And it's prettyincredible, incredible. I've
been 4050 miles offshore andseeing little baby sea turtles
on the top of the water. I'veswam with dolphins, I've swam
with 100 year old turtles, swimwood seals, Ricky and I were out
in Hawaii and like 300 feet ofwater, you couldn't see the
bottom.
Ricky (07:01):
So 14 foot Tiger mass amazing. Oh
my god, yes, multiple.
Tony (07:08):
It's crazy. And just experiences like that, you know,
give you a sense of a littlesense of what this world's
capable of what this earth hasto offer, instead of spending
the most valuable precious timefor a paycheck to you know, send
it off somewhere, and then younever get that time back. So
(07:30):
might as well do something thatwe love, or at least attempt to
do something that we love.
Right?
Ricky (07:37):
Well, that's that's comes into, like the healing part
right time is it's not justdoing what you love. But with
with us, a form of meditationhas transformed us and helped us
spiritually, emotionally,socially. You know, all of that.
And with especiallyspearfishing, you have to be
able to calm yourself. So you'regetting in a state of
(07:58):
meditation, right? Like, haveyou ever I mean, you can have
active meditation, but and tryto hold your breath after you
run. And it's like 10 seconds,right? Yeah. And then you know,
if you can call them yourself,and a lot of it self talk, a lot
of it's focusing on breathingdifferent things like that. So
it's just meditation. And whenyou're holding your breath down
there, there's, there's nothingin the world that matters except
(08:19):
for what's right in front ofyou. And Tony and I talked about
he did a meditation a couplemonths ago, where he looked at a
great and or Yeah, reason, areason. And he looked at a
reason and he meditated aboutthat race and really focused on
it and the curves, the texture,what it looks like something so
small and in defined, right likein, in our world, we get so
(08:42):
distracted with what's aroundus. And we don't focus on what's
present and what's in themoment. And that's where
frustration that's where you'renot healing, that's where, you
know, the mountain just keepsgrowing. And you just keep
getting smaller, right. Butwhere this all came from was my
mom. When we were young, shewould take us down to the water.
(09:03):
And she would lay there and tanand look all beautiful. Tony's
over here fishing, and I'mfishing and I stopped fishing
because I could distract it butTony still doing it. That's why
he's catching a fish. So then Igrabbed two fish and I'm like,
Mom, look at the fish. I didn'tcatch what I'm playing. So, but
that's where it started. Right?
It's it's an example of somebodyelse lead that put us in a
(09:24):
position to start reflectingwithin. And hopefully we can
influence or impact at least oneperson in our life.
Marlena (09:34):
So why don't you take us back to your childhood and
what it was like growing up withyour mom and with your older
brother Jay. Yeah. At the sametime
Tony (09:48):
Alright, ready? 123? Yeah.
Yeah, kind of our childhood inshort form. We were raised in US
household so my parents gotdivorced when we were five. My
mom remarried Richard, which ismy stepdad, which is blood
related to Marlena. And my dadremarried. And so basically
(10:13):
growing up, we are kind ofpulled in many different
directions. You know, we'retrying to please her dad, we are
trying to please her mom. Butthe one thing that was
consistent in our life wasunconditional love from our mom,
our mom was, is an angel. I'venever met someone that could go
(10:36):
through so much and maintainsuch a positive attitude, and
constantly be giving more thanshe could ever receive. Growing
up, I remember her takingliterally hours out of her day,
taking us to the lake, when shedidn't even want to be there.
You know, now after being alittle bit older, I don't have
(11:00):
kids, but Ricky does, you know,they'd probably rather be doing
something else. But taking usfishing because we loved it or
driving an hour and a half upthe mountain dropping us off to
go snowboard coming back intotown, and then making that drive
to pick us up. Not just onetime, but many times, you know,
weekend after weekend. And thisis
Ricky (11:21):
there's three of us.
Right? Right. Well, yeah, Tony,you had me and then my older
brother Jay, which was 14 monthsolder than us, and all of us are
trying to go in differentdirections. And somehow,
someway, she always managed tomake it happen.
Tony (11:34):
Yeah, she started working in the school district just
volunteering at with actuallyRicky's class. I think it was
your third grade class. And MissBaker. She was at my wedding.
She wanted to be around us. Andwe wanted to be around her. And
one thing that she startedsaying was GWTOY it stands for
(11:59):
guess who's thinking of you, wesay it all the time GWtoy, and
she used to write it on stickynotes and put in our lunches. So
whatever, you know, we'd open upour lunch, it say GWtoy, and it
was basically a way for her toremind us that she was
constantly thinking of us, andshe loved us. I love that. So
(12:19):
that's a little, little bit ofmom. No, no, you got anything
Jamie (12:23):
great. It's the family motto now. Oh,
Ricky (12:25):
yeah. I remember when I was 18. And I was like, where am
I gonna get GW toy tattooed onme. You know, everybody's like
thinking of something small onthe wrist. Or now the first
tattoo I got was my whole arm.
My mom was like I was like, it'sfor you, though.
Jamie (12:47):
You had to outdo everyone. Everyone's like oh,
are
Marlena (12:53):
so what's one of your earliest memories of your mom.
Ricky (12:58):
Good or Bad?
Tony (13:01):
Bad. Did you get in trouble? You probably got in
trouble. No good. I got introuble. But she'd never
punished like she would punishme but not like it was more of
like a disappointment. Shealways wanted to understand like
she would ask question, you justnever wanted to disappoint. Mom.
That's the thing. There's adifference between getting in
trouble and then just feelinglike it's the worst. She had
(13:23):
such high hopes for me. And Ireally fucked up.
Jamie (13:27):
Can't you just ground me?
It's ground me.
Tony (13:30):
Yeah, exactly. She used
Ricky (13:32):
to float in the pool all the time. Oh, yeah, that's it
for the pool. And I alwayswanted to like jump on. Get her
hair wet. She didn't want to gether hair wet. Her hair was
always up in a ponytail highponytail. So with my daughter,
that's that's actually what I dowith her hair. I'll put in like
two ponytails or I'll put in onesingle one. It just reminds me
(13:52):
of her. So Oh, remember thattime zone. We went to the Mason,
we've spent like three daysgrabbing rocks, the lava rocks
that were there because Mom, momwanted to redo the whole front
yard. So she made a trail ofherself. She was always in the
garden. And she made a trail oflava rocks that were from the
mesa. And we've loaded up withthese big rocks always afraid
(14:16):
that somebody would stop buyingsounds good. couldn't do that.
But we still get it. Awesome.
Marlena (14:20):
It sounds like you know, there's that one episode
when they're in Hawaii. Andthey're like, you know, don't
take don't take TIKI TIKI
Jamie (14:33):
steal stealing stuff early. Got exactly
Ricky (14:36):
got it. teaching us
Tony (14:38):
the good ways. Yeah. Yeah, I
Ricky (14:39):
got blamed, but I just couldn't forgive me, mom. But
yeah, it was the Brady Bunch.
You know, on my mom's side, mystepdad and my mom. You know,
when they got together, both ofthem had three kids. And so, you
know, when we all got together,it was pretty much it was a
bunch of kids running around intwo parents, you know, trying to
figure out what's
Tony (14:59):
going on, you know So, yeah,
Marlena (15:02):
like I only have, I cannot imagine the level of the
six of you.
Ricky (15:08):
I'm wanting done to one and died. I'm with my wife,
Tony (15:13):
and twins. I like twins or something else to like our
energy levels. We're just feedoff of each other, you know,
Jamie (15:23):
it hasn't stopped.
Marlena (15:26):
I remember going out to Vegas, and this was probably one
of the first times that I hadmet you guys. And I wasn't even
married to Vince at the time. Iwas married to someone else. So.
So that was a long time ago.
Probably over 20 something yearsago, so. But yeah, you guys were
(15:47):
crazy. Like your energy was justthese kids are
Tony (15:59):
blonde, blonde hair
Jamie (16:01):
age difference. So how between you guys and Marlena. So
how old would they have beenwhen you met?
Marlena (16:06):
Probably eight or nine?
Nine? Right? They were little atall? Yeah.
Tony (16:11):
Oh, we were we were little all the way till we were 411 195
Ricky (16:16):
pounds my freshman year.
I was the perfect height
Marlena (16:20):
with the skater haircuts. And yeah, they were
just nuts. And it's, you know,like, 150 degrees out in Vegas.
And, you know, they're likegoing skateboarding to wherever
and to
Ricky (16:32):
skate city.
Jamie (16:34):
I love it. That's fantastic. Yeah,
Ricky (16:36):
my mom would drive us all the way to anthem with us. 20
minutes away, dropped us off,and she had a van. So she, she
would fit probably five kids,four or five kids, she would
drop us off, come back, pick upanother group of kids, take
them, drop them off, come back.
And then she'll drop off lunch,like halfway through the day.
And then do if we didn't skatedown the wash all the way back,
which we told her we got a ride.
(16:59):
But we really did that. Shewould come and pick us up and
drop us back off. But she alwaysdid stuff like that. Her whole
world revolved around us, whichis thinking back you, you know,
you don't think of those things.
Right? Right. It whatever youthe way you grew up in you think
is normal, and everybody growsup the same way until you become
(17:20):
an adult and you look back andyou start seeing different
perspectives on people's lives.
And that's one of the blessingsthat we've had the opportunity
to do is to really understandwhat my mom has done in the
example that she provided,right? Because if I mean, we
could have gone our whole life,and she never got sick, we never
(17:42):
had the opportunity to reallyreflect on the type of person
she is and how to influence andhelp others as well as
ourselves. Right? And all theselittle things, even though they
may be tragic. They've reallytruly helped define who we are
and where we're trying to go.
Right. Absolutely. So
Tony (17:58):
yeah, it kind of makes you it brings you to a crossroad,
right, a crossroad of okay, do Ifigure this out? And do I try to
figure out what this tragedy istrying to teach me? Or do I just
suffer? You know, do I just sitin my feelings and basically put
a blanket over the world. Andit's tough, you know, it's
(18:21):
tough. Sometimes you're goingdown that road and to make those
changes, you know, you've got tobe able to, to face reality and
be able to try to have aObjective Mind to be able to
work through those things.
Absolutely. And then you come tothe conclusion of the song. It
Ricky (18:37):
wasn't always like that, right, Tony? No, it wasn't
always like that. Like, therewas even all through your whole
deployment. You know, you'reyou're dealing Mom, mom passed
away right after basic right?
Right. Right before basic. Sothen Mom, mom passed away 2013,
you went to basic, then you cameback for like couple weeks, and
then you all of a sudden you'redeployed? Right?
Tony (18:59):
No, no. So it was our 21st birthday. And two weeks later,
she passed away. And then I wasactually supposed to go to basic
training, but I was able to workwith the military and move it
back so that I could go to momservice. And so we moved it
back, went to basic training,and then did ai t, which is
(19:23):
basically your job training forthe military for the army. And
then a couple of years later, Igot to,
Ricky (19:29):
but yeah, like through that. What what I was trying to
say was I'm kind of steppingforward a little bit but through
that time period of her passingaway to you getting out of the
military was roughly six, sixand a half years, maybe seven
years, right? Yeah. That periodof time you didn't really
reflect on the feelings and theemotions of her passing and how
(19:51):
that affected you. You werefocused on other things
deployment all that oh, yeah,yeah,
Tony (19:56):
I was in such a dark place. That I, literally
mentally I prepared myself todie overseas. I don't think I
think Ricky knows this. Butthat's what I wanted to go
overseas and fight for a countrythat provides freedom. I know
we're not perfect, but I am verypatriotic. And I wanted to go on
(20:19):
any deployment to put me in thebiggest shithole you could find.
And I literally, I had threehouses before I got deployed. I
liquidated them all, like Iliquidated my life expecting to
lay my life down overseas. Andthat's not what happened, thank
God. But that's where I was, youknow, kind of crazy. Yeah. And
(20:43):
now Now, it's,
Ricky (20:44):
you think back at like when everything happened, right?
Like we were juniors in highschool. You know, both of us had
girlfriends. My older brother 14months older than us. He was a
senior, you know, he he alwaysdated a year older two years
older, for some reason, theywere always attracted. Anyway,
he was a stud, you know,beautiful. Yeah, it was it was.
(21:08):
Yeah, he did are small and he'stall, you know. But yeah, it was
s3. And then all of a sudden,Mom contracted while we were
eating cookie dough. It was likea prom or something like that.
And, you know, as you're likecooking and stuff, you naturally
take a bite of the spoon,whatever. Great. Like I used to
do it brownies before this. Butyeah, she she had some, you
(21:32):
know, couple other people didwhether it was Tony or me, I
don't know. But then, like thenext day, or the day after that.
She started film sick. And so mystepdad Richard took her to the
hospital. And they sent her backhome saying that she has like
the flu, not to worry about it.
And then in the middle of thenight, I believe my my stepdad
Richard founder at the bottom ofthe stairs, and she had blood in
(21:54):
your stool and rushed her to thehospital. They put her in an
induced coma right away. And,and she was at St. Rose off of
St. Rose and St. Rose Dominicanin Yeah, in Henderson.
Henderson. And she was there fora couple of months. And she was
(22:14):
immediately in like an inducedcoma. So one day, you know,
she's she's cremisan and takenus everywhere in her whole life
is, you know, her and, and thentwo, three days, four days
later, she's also in an inducedcoma. And, you know, we're we
don't know what's going on sothat everything doesn't process,
you know, especially when you'reyounger, and you haven't
(22:34):
experienced death. You thinkthat she's just kind of come out
of it. And yeah, she was there.
And then we used to play music.
And, and we would see her toestwitch. Remember that Sony? Jack
Johnson? Yeah. Which JJ was theone that you know, brought Jack
Johnson in our life, right. Butyet her toes would twitch. And
(22:58):
you know, we're talking Oh, mygosh, she she hears that. You
know, and we believe that, youknow, now more than we did back
then more of it was like, oh,cool, you know, but anyway, and
then, yeah, she was there. Andthen we moved her to another
hospital. That was supposed tobe better care. But the facility
was just the whole aura of theplace was dark. And she was
(23:19):
there for I think a week or two,
Tony (23:23):
well back back up just a little bit. So when she was in
this in the coma, basically,they found that she had ecoli.
So they needed to take it out.
And they ended up taking outlike 15 or 20 feet of her
intestine, something like thatsomething ridiculous
Ricky (23:40):
half, half our large, large intestine
Tony (23:45):
to have for large intestine. And so she didn't she
was still in this coma. And shewas having difficulty coming out
of it. Because of, I think, thetrach that was down her throat
and, you know, it's kind of aprocess it does, you can just
pull it out and it's done. Andso JJ was really the only one
(24:05):
that was able to keep her calmenough to be able to get her out
of it. And she got out. And thenshe was herself. So she had the
surgery. You know, nothingchanged psychologically. And I
remember seeing her upstairs ina normal room. I think at this
point. She ended a normal roomin the hospital and normal room
(24:27):
in the hospital. Yep. And sowe're like, awesome, cool. It
was a fluke that, you know, shejust got sick now. It's done
pretty much and she's healing.
And then did she go to the rehabfacility after this, or did she
come home for a week? No.
Ricky (24:43):
So she went to the rehab facility that I was talking
about. It was a hospital rehabfacility and like looking back,
it was just very dark aura, justthe whole energy of it. Anyway,
that's when her heart stopped. Ithink three times. The alarms
went off off, they came in andstabbed her in the chest and had
her heart start and again. And,you know, through this whole
(25:07):
process, Richard was by her sidethe entire time. Right?
Immediately, it didn't matterabout work, it didn't matter
about bills, it didn't matterabout anything, except for
providing the best care for her.
And I can almost guarantee fromthe time she got sick to the
time she passed away for fouryears, there was nobody that
left her side, she always hadsomebody there by her side. And
(25:27):
that's a huge reason of him,right. But he was also there
when all this stuff happened atthe rehab hospital facility. And
enough was enough, you know, andhe was able to move her from
there to Desert Springshospital, sort of.
Tony (25:48):
So when she was getting because her heart was stopping,
basically, her kidneys wereshutting down. So she her legs
started swelling up, and she wasgoing into kidney failure. And
they rushed her from there toDesert Springs hospital. And
this is where she stayed for thenext year. And I think they took
like six liters of fluid out ofher in a day day and a half from
(26:12):
her kidneys failing. And we werethere for so long that and this
is our senior year, or the ARBsummer, it happened right at the
end of our junior year, and thensummer, and then
Ricky (26:27):
junior year, and then March of 2009 2009. And then
into 2010, which is here that wegraduated JD graduated in 2009.
Marlena (26:38):
So she was in the hospital when when Jay
graduated.
Ricky (26:42):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. JJ came in with his cap and gown and,
you know, yeah. So when we wentto Desert Springs, yeah, just
became normal. Like, we wouldget out of school and we cruise
over and see mom and, and, yeah,so yeah, she, she was, yeah, she
(27:04):
had kidney failure. She hadliver failure. She had plasma
transplants. So she was hookedup to a machine that filtered
her blood and took the oldplasma and put the new plasma in
as well as I think she had. Didshe have white white blood cell
transplants? Do you?
Tony (27:22):
Yeah, it was, it was unreal. I mean, she mostly had a
half a dozen to a dozen majorsurgeries. She was up and down.
Some days. She could talksomeday she couldn't. She had
bed sores. We were sleeping onthe ground and on chairs in the
hospital overnight. Richard wasthere there was. I mean, it was
so up and down. It was like aroller coaster one day, she was
(27:44):
good. Awesome. She's coming homeand the next day, like she was
completely out of it. Andthere's pictures online, you can
go online type in Linda Rivera,E. Coli. And you can read the
story. It Yeah, it was
Ricky (28:00):
like when when she got sick. There was a recall. And
what had happened was 350,000people had gotten affected by a
69 people had gottenhospitalized. And there was two
people who were severely ill oneof them being I think, like a
nine or 11 year old girl, andshe ended up getting paralyzed
(28:21):
from the neck down. And then mymom who actually is the worst
case in the history for somebodywho had survived, right, and
survived. I mean, somebody whohad, you know, survived the E.
coli been in there, whichoriginally happened and they
pulled it out through her colon.
And then she survived anotherthree and a half years after
that. But yeah, luckily, thelittle girl ended up regaining
(28:42):
like 95% of her her feeling andstuff back. But who would have
thought, you know, they cook andcookies, you know, that just,
it's just a bizarre, weird thingthat happens, but it's
definitely been a pinnacle ofour lives, right? Like, we don't
eat cookie dough. No,
Jamie (28:59):
honestly, it's all what we all did, right? As children
licking cake batter eatingcookie dough. And it was because
of your mom's story that andwith my children, I won't allow
it home. But like, store bought,it just doesn't happen. I can't.
It's too close to home. It's tooclose to
Christy (29:17):
home. I met Marlena right around this time. And so I
remember our circle kind ofsharing what was going on. And
since then, because I again,growing up with my mom, my mom
would hand me the beater Right?
Or whatever it was from thecookies. And we would we would
eat it. And then when I metMarlena and I heard about this,
I'm like, it's not worth it.
(29:39):
It's not worth the risk. So wemade we made that change too,
because that shouldn't shouldn'thappen,
Ricky (29:45):
right? And think about like, How many people does this
happened to where they don'tfigure out where Right? Right?
We were blessed enough. And Idon't say that lightly right.
I'm not putting the switchration down, I'm saying that we
were blessed to figure out whereit came from. Because if not,
(30:06):
when my mom died, she had $6million in medical bills, oh my
god,
Tony (30:11):
over seven and a half, I believe, imagine
Ricky (30:13):
that, okay, all of a sudden your mom dies now now.
Now you have to figure out inyour whole entire life is trying
to pay off that medical debt,figuring out a way, you know,
trying to bring it down whateverthe case is, right? How many
families has this happened towhere they don't find out who,
where it came from, you know,
Tony (30:28):
whether it's foodborne illness, cancer, all these other
things. And, and from myperspective, it comes from how
society is set up. You know,like, the FDA is supposed to
protect us from stuff like this,where the GMOs and the processed
foods, all this is, is it'sbasically quick fixes to feed
people in a quick way. Well,with the salty twins, what we do
(30:51):
is we teach people how toorganically harvest your own
food, you know, and I'm gettinginto more of gardening and stuff
like that, to be able to befully sustainable. But it all
comes down to the mentality ofyou are what you eat, you are
what you consume. A lot ofpeople think that it was the
eggs that got my mom's sick, itwas actually the flower.
Ricky (31:14):
Right? Wow. Yeah, there was a farm that was like 200
miles away, where they raisedcows. And what they think it
happened was, you know, themanure, right becomes airborne,
just naturally, littleparticles, and a windstorm
blowed over and landed, andsomehow I've gone through like
customs back there. And then gotmass distributed, just
Tony (31:40):
blended into the concoction called cooking.
Jamie (31:45):
That is insane. Yeah.
Ricky (31:47):
But yeah, like Jamie was there, Jamie was, you know,
right. Like you had seen himfrom the beginning to everything
and Christy, you know, you startcoming to the picture and stuff
and just imagine like, like yourguys's family, though, you know?
And, like, if that happened toyou, and you didn't find out
like, that's the biggest thingfor me is, like, whether it's a
(32:09):
kid or you know, a parent, justlike things could have played
out so differently. In so manyways, what if my mom didn't go
through this, right? Think aboutthat? What if my mom My mom
didn't go through this? WouldTony and I and whoever Marlena
right? Really understand thetype of person that she is and
was and the impact that she had.
Right? And with that, like, eventhrough suffering, I believe a
(32:34):
lot of things happen a certainway to help us understand
certain people always say like,why do the best people die
first? Well, we're on thispodcast, aren't we? Yeah, she
knows how much I love her. And Iknow how much she loves loves
me. But But I really, truly tryto think about things like that.
Like, like, we can always goback and try to change things.
(32:57):
But what's, what's the rippleeffect of, you know, the
butterfly wings? Yeah, yeah, thebutterfly effect can be crying.
Welcome to my life.
Jamie (33:09):
It's finding the positive in the tragedy and in moving
forward with that and doing goodwith it, right. It's not just to
stay in and and what if what ifwe could have done this, it's
taking that that moment andmoving forward and doing the
things that you know, your yourmom is so proud of you to for
doing? I mean, I How can she notbe this is beautiful. You know,
(33:32):
she's here listening to all thestuff you're talking about. So,
remember,
Christy (33:37):
the finger wag, remember.
Jamie (33:42):
And I'm pointing she's hearing everything you're
saying.
Marlena (33:50):
Your mom was so very positive. I mean, she was
probably one of the mostpositive people I knew. And so
when she got sick, and when shewas fighting, how did how did I
affect her emotionally? Youknow, her positivity? Did that
affect it at all?
Tony (34:11):
After a while. But the first couple years, the entire
time she was in the hospital.
She was extremely positive.
There was times where she couldnot talk. And she could only
What's the noise that she usedto make Rick something you sold
(34:34):
me on? It was something Oh,yeah. Yeah. So she she had made
that sound. And that, and that'skind of how we communicated. But
there was times I remember shehad all these different machines
hooked up to her she had a holein her throat. She was swollen
(34:57):
after, you know, six, eight.
months in the hospital, her feetstarted, she started out her
fingers
Ricky (35:04):
are stuck like this, because they weren't massaged,
right? So think about threeyears of, you know, your, your
tendons tightening up, and yourher feet were hurting all the
time, because they're stuck likethat she couldn't lift them.
Tony (35:17):
And we'd come in, and it was all about us. Like, it was
like she wasn't sick. That washer mentality of, you know, just
giving more than, than what youhave for, you know, just just
trying to be super positive. Andit was like we had so much love
(35:37):
and support looking back fromGreen Valley High School, from
our friends from her friends,family, it was unbelievable. We
had people praying all over theworld for her. And it just goes
to show all the love that shebrought into this world. And
it's Ricky, and my and Jaysresponsibility and Richard's
(36:01):
responsibility to take that loveand multiply it. And the biggest
thing in this world, I believe,is people just need to be loved.
You know, looking back when Iwas going through this, you
know, I did a lot of things andmade a lot of mistakes, because
I was hurting because I didn'tknow how to deal with losing the
(36:25):
most precious thing in my life,or watching the most precious
thing in my life slowlydeteriorate. And it gave me a
perspective to have patiencewith people that hurt other
people, because hurting peoplehurt other people. You know,
someone that's super happy, andloving and loves themselves and
(36:47):
loves their life. They're notgoing to go out and hurt other
people. And so reflecting on thedecisions that I made as a young
adult, it gives me a really goodperspective on people honking me
on the way to work. It gives mea good perspective of, you know,
family members or friends havingshort tempers, it just means
(37:08):
that they need a little bit morelove. Yeah, you know. And so
this situation really opened myeyes to that.
Marlena (37:16):
Then your mom passed away, and Ricky who actually
spoke before the FDA inWashington, DC, correct?
Ricky (37:24):
Yeah, yeah. So I'll backtrack a little bit. So from
Desert Springs, she was outthere for about a year, year and
a half. And then she transferredup to California. We had my
stepdad and our attorney, BillMarler. Oh my gosh, she's
incredible. A great guy doinggreat things. They worked
(37:45):
together and tried to find thebest rehab facility for my mom.
So after a year and a half of inthe hospital, they moved her
from Desert Springs to CPMC upin San Francisco, California
Pacific Medical Center. And shewas up there for I think, two
years, maybe two and a halfyears. And from the time of
Desert Springs to CaliforniaPacific Medical Center, JJ
(38:07):
became her caregiver. And, andmy stepdad, Richard obviously
was there the whole time. Butwhen he wasn't physically there
at the hospital, JJ actually,like flew on the jet with her,
we had to get a private jetbecause of her, you know, they
later on there, and he was hercaregiver up there. And then
(38:27):
then I started kind of steppingin and I was flying up from
Vegas every other week, takingcare of her in the hospital. And
then when she got out, I movedin and became a full full time
caregiver. And when she passed,I have the opportunity to go and
speak in front of the FDA asMarlena said, I got flown out
there, Nikki and I and my wife.
And yeah, I had my whole paperof my story of my perspective on
(38:51):
what happened. And I walked inthere and it was like a big huge
classroom almost, with like tallevery stair and then the
teachers at the top. And I stoodright there and I'm looking at
all these grown adults that looklike you know, they honestly
don't really care if I'm thereor not. But I started reading
(39:11):
and I was taught to look at theclass. So I've read and I look
and I'd look around not at oneplace. I I spoken and it seemed
to do something and it helpedfund $20 million dollars with
the FDA which sounds like it dida lot but looking back I don't
(39:32):
know what it did you know, maybeit went into their pockets maybe
it actually did something butit's an example of what can be
done you know, it's the entrywayand then I got to our hotel woke
up in the morning and my wholenewsfeed on my Facebook was like
blown up my phone was blowingup. Everybody's like look look
(39:53):
on look on Yahoo look on Yahoo.
I ended up being like the topstory on Yahoo for that day. And
then all of a sudden, everybodystarted calling my stepdad and
different. Maybe Bill Marlertrying to get us on a talk show
and speak about what happened.
And, you know, what that canprovide, right is is more eyes
on families and things andpeople who who are eating, and
(40:17):
the whole thing of the Saudi toillustrate like, we just want to
be better and safer and morereliable on ourselves instead of
relying on everybody else.
Right? That is what could havebeen. But with where we were, we
settled outside of court. And sothe name of the company that got
(40:41):
my mom's sick, it's very easy tofind you literally Google E.
coli, Linda Rivera, and and popsup. And that started becoming
announced, right, not out of ourmouths, but through people doing
their own research. Now, at thatpoint, that company threatened
us to take everything awayfinancially.
(41:03):
If we continue down this road,well, we're at a position to
where, you know, you look at $6million $7 million dollars of
debt, you know, or speaking.
Tony (41:13):
And, yeah, and getting mom that care. Like, that's the one
thing that was able to extendmom's life, for sure, was the
ability to get her the top notchcare that she needed. And we did
not have the finances to dothat. And it was really, really
important to be able to help mymom any way we possibly could or
(41:35):
put her in a good position to beable to heal.
Ricky (41:39):
So yeah, so at that point, we had opportunity to
grow and share my mom's storyand really impact people. But we
had to step down and back up andwe didn't pursue that. And so
everything kind of subsided. Andas you know, in this day and
age, the story only lasts for aday, right, six years later, we
(42:00):
start to salty twins, and we'restarting from the ground up
again, right? We're two yearsinto this. And this is the first
time we've spoken on anypodcasts or any channel at all
outside of the salty twins,about our story and what we're
trying to do, because we trulybelieve that you three beautiful
women, right there have impactedso many people, and especially
(42:24):
our lives and the beliefs thatyou guys have and the values and
the things that you're trying todo and are doing. We mash up and
we are 100% for. So that's whywe're here. That's why we're
grateful. That's why it is ahonor. And we've been invited
and immediately Tony and I werelike no questions asked. Yeah,
because we've denied otherpeople. But they just won't do
it for you. No.
Christy (42:45):
Well, we're honored.
Yeah, we are seriously honored.
Truly, you chose to tell thestory to speak again, on our
podcast with us, right.
Ricky (42:54):
I'll take a picture of myself and I'll sign it and mail
it to you after this. Oh, thank
Christy (42:58):
you. Yes.
Ricky (42:59):
Will you signed my sweatshirt? No, no, no.
Christy (43:04):
autographs are sweatshirts.
Ricky (43:06):
I'll give you a big ol hug. You're making me blush.
Happy New Year and welcome back to a witch, a
mystic and a feminist. We areextremely excited to begin this
new year and this new season ofour podcast with our guests.
These two gentlemen mean theworld to me. They are content
creators, entrepreneurs. Theyare the salty twins, my cousins,
(00:21):
Ricky and Tony Simpson. Yayhere. Welcome to the show. Thank
you.
Ricky (00:30):
I gotta say I love the love the jacket. Yes, all. Thank
you. Well, we're triplets withthe salty twins
Marlena (00:44):
the salty triplets are five.
Jamie (00:47):
No quintuplets. Yeah, no, that's
Ricky (00:51):
it. No, yeah. Three. None of us can
Marlena (00:58):
figure this out our listeners.
Jamie (01:01):
Have no idea.
Marlena (01:02):
We can figure this out.
Right.
So I was gonna ask you guys,tell us a little about
yourselves. But that's just sucha dumb question. You know, when
you go to interviews and stufflike that, it's like, tell me
about yourself. And it's like,that's really vague. So I'm
gonna tell everybody a littlebit about you guys. So awesome.
And how I met you and stuff.
Yes, they are my cousins. I metthem when they were probably
(01:26):
about eight or nine years old.
Their mom, my auntie Linda.
married my uncle Richard. And weare one big happy family. Yeah.
You guys were born and raised inHenderson, Nevada. Correct? Yep.
Just outside of Las Vegas. Yeah,on the outskirts. Very cool. And
then both of you are married. SoRicky, you got married in 2014?
Wow.
Ricky (01:52):
Yeah. So I got married to my wife in 2014. And then we
ended up bringing Tony into therelationship
with my wife, I've been with mywife for 10 years. So then Tony
has been married for I think forcoming up on 2019. Correct?
Yeah. Coming up on three 2004?
Yeah, two different women.
Christy (02:17):
Thank you for clarifying for our listeners.
Marlena (02:23):
So I mentioned you guys are content creators, and you
guys have a tick tock andYouTube channel. You want to
tell us a little bit about that.
And we'll go into it more laterin the episode as well. But why
don't you give us a littlebackground about that right now?
Tony (02:37):
Yeah, so with the salty twins will kind of explain how
it all started and everything.
But pretty much what we do is wetravel, we fish and we spear
dive. And we're basically tryingto teach other people how to
harvest their own food. Soinstead of going to, you know,
the store, or a fish market, youknow, taking the time to have a
(03:00):
relationship with the food thatyou consume. And understanding
that when you're eating meat,especially you're taking a life,
right and having thatconnection. And so the salty
twins and fishing has been kindof therapy for me most of my
life. And so doing that as aprofession for a living, what's
(03:25):
better, you know, to be able tobe in a peaceful environment and
be able to experiencetherapeutic sessions basically,
on a daily basis while trying tohelp other people. So that's a
kind of synopsis of a little bitof the salty twins.
Jamie (03:44):
That's amazing. That's fantastic. Yeah,
Tony (03:47):
very cool. What's your take? To g o crazy all the time?
Ricky (03:54):
Well, there's there's two things that are super important
to us. It's veterans and it'sunderprivileged kids. And so
Tony is a veteran, he served inthe military for six years, went
overseas, came back and had PTSDthrough that with his
experiences. And me personally,I've always been a rebel. And so
(04:16):
when I look at kids who are inunderprivileged situations, in
my heart, it's really importantto help them out. And so those
are the two areas that we striveto improve or give back or like
charity work, things like that.
So yeah,
Christy (04:36):
so it's amazing. In one of your videos, you mentioned
that it was therapy. I mean, ina lot of videos, right? Therapy,
but you also mentioned healing.
You mentioned PTSD. But wheredid that start? Like what was
the initial thing that kind ofkicked that off?
Tony (04:51):
Yeah, I guess we'll kind of go into, you know, our life
story here in a little bit. Butreally, what made the transition
what was going through so muchheartache, and rough times of
life tragedy. And I've alwayshad this mentality of
overcoming, I've always had thismentality of watching other
(05:14):
people, you know, smile, behappy, and truly love themselves
and love the people around them.
And most of my adult life, Ihaven't felt that way. And so
from reading books and listeningto audios and diving into self
development, I realized that alot of the times when I'm
(05:34):
outside and not caught up intoday's society, the
materialistic things the day today life, you know, the nine to
five grind. And when you're outin the elements, it was a sense
of peace, it was basically atime for me to reflect on my own
thoughts. And so that's kind ofwhat the therapeutic session or
(05:58):
the therapeutic feeling offishing was. And then Ricky and
I actually got into freedivingand spearfishing, basically,
that took it to a whole nextlevel. Yeah, if you know what
scuba diving is, it's like thatwithout any oxygen tank, so
you're just holding your breath.
(06:21):
And so we go diving in 40 5060feet of water, and you have to
be able to basically meditateand relax your body, so that you
can retain as much oxygen insideyour body as possible. And
you're diving down 60 feet, andyou're basically hunting your
own food. So you have a spiritguide. That's exactly what you
(06:41):
do. Yeah. And it's prettyincredible, incredible. I've
been 4050 miles offshore andseeing little baby sea turtles
on the top of the water. I'veswam with dolphins, I've swam
with 100 year old turtles, swimwood seals, Ricky and I were out
in Hawaii and like 300 feet ofwater, you couldn't see the
bottom.
Ricky (07:01):
So 14 foot Tiger mass amazing. Oh
my god, yes, multiple.
Tony (07:08):
It's crazy. And just experiences like that, you know,
give you a sense of a littlesense of what this world's
capable of what this earth hasto offer, instead of spending
the most valuable precious timefor a paycheck to you know, send
it off somewhere, and then younever get that time back. So
(07:30):
might as well do something thatwe love, or at least attempt to
do something that we love.
Right?
Ricky (07:37):
Well, that's that's comes into, like the healing part
right time is it's not justdoing what you love. But with
with us, a form of meditationhas transformed us and helped us
spiritually, emotionally,socially. You know, all of that.
And with especiallyspearfishing, you have to be
able to calm yourself. So you'regetting in a state of
(07:58):
meditation, right? Like, haveyou ever I mean, you can have
active meditation, but and tryto hold your breath after you
run. And it's like 10 seconds,right? Yeah. And then you know,
if you can call them yourself,and a lot of it self talk, a lot
of it's focusing on breathingdifferent things like that. So
it's just meditation. And whenyou're holding your breath down
there, there's, there's nothingin the world that matters except
(08:19):
for what's right in front ofyou. And Tony and I talked about
he did a meditation a couplemonths ago, where he looked at a
great and or Yeah, reason, areason. And he looked at a
reason and he meditated aboutthat race and really focused on
it and the curves, the texture,what it looks like something so
small and in defined, right likein, in our world, we get so
(08:42):
distracted with what's aroundus. And we don't focus on what's
present and what's in themoment. And that's where
frustration that's where you'renot healing, that's where, you
know, the mountain just keepsgrowing. And you just keep
getting smaller, right. Butwhere this all came from was my
mom. When we were young, shewould take us down to the water.
(09:03):
And she would lay there and tanand look all beautiful. Tony's
over here fishing, and I'mfishing and I stopped fishing
because I could distract it butTony still doing it. That's why
he's catching a fish. So then Igrabbed two fish and I'm like,
Mom, look at the fish. I didn'tcatch what I'm playing. So, but
that's where it started. Right?
It's it's an example of somebodyelse lead that put us in a
(09:24):
position to start reflectingwithin. And hopefully we can
influence or impact at least oneperson in our life.
Marlena (09:34):
So why don't you take us back to your childhood and
what it was like growing up withyour mom and with your older
brother Jay. Yeah. At the sametime
Tony (09:48):
Alright, ready? 123? Yeah.
Yeah, kind of our childhood inshort form. We were raised in US
household so my parents gotdivorced when we were five. My
mom remarried Richard, which ismy stepdad, which is blood
related to Marlena. And my dadremarried. And so basically
(10:13):
growing up, we are kind ofpulled in many different
directions. You know, we'retrying to please her dad, we are
trying to please her mom. Butthe one thing that was
consistent in our life wasunconditional love from our mom,
our mom was, is an angel. I'venever met someone that could go
(10:36):
through so much and maintainsuch a positive attitude, and
constantly be giving more thanshe could ever receive. Growing
up, I remember her takingliterally hours out of her day,
taking us to the lake, when shedidn't even want to be there.
You know, now after being alittle bit older, I don't have
(11:00):
kids, but Ricky does, you know,they'd probably rather be doing
something else. But taking usfishing because we loved it or
driving an hour and a half upthe mountain dropping us off to
go snowboard coming back intotown, and then making that drive
to pick us up. Not just onetime, but many times, you know,
weekend after weekend. And thisis
Ricky (11:21):
there's three of us.
Right? Right. Well, yeah, Tony,you had me and then my older
brother Jay, which was 14 monthsolder than us, and all of us are
trying to go in differentdirections. And somehow,
someway, she always managed tomake it happen.
Tony (11:34):
Yeah, she started working in the school district just
volunteering at with actuallyRicky's class. I think it was
your third grade class. And MissBaker. She was at my wedding.
She wanted to be around us. Andwe wanted to be around her. And
one thing that she startedsaying was GWTOY it stands for
(11:59):
guess who's thinking of you, wesay it all the time GWtoy, and
she used to write it on stickynotes and put in our lunches. So
whatever, you know, we'd open upour lunch, it say GWtoy, and it
was basically a way for her toremind us that she was
constantly thinking of us, andshe loved us. I love that. So
(12:19):
that's a little, little bit ofmom. No, no, you got anything
Jamie (12:23):
great. It's the family motto now. Oh,
Ricky (12:25):
yeah. I remember when I was 18. And I was like, where am
I gonna get GW toy tattooed onme. You know, everybody's like
thinking of something small onthe wrist. Or now the first
tattoo I got was my whole arm.
My mom was like I was like, it'sfor you, though.
Jamie (12:47):
You had to outdo everyone. Everyone's like oh,
are
Marlena (12:53):
so what's one of your earliest memories of your mom.
Ricky (12:58):
Good or Bad?
Tony (13:01):
Bad. Did you get in trouble? You probably got in
trouble. No good. I got introuble. But she'd never
punished like she would punishme but not like it was more of
like a disappointment. Shealways wanted to understand like
she would ask question, you justnever wanted to disappoint. Mom.
That's the thing. There's adifference between getting in
trouble and then just feelinglike it's the worst. She had
(13:23):
such high hopes for me. And Ireally fucked up.
Jamie (13:27):
Can't you just ground me?
It's ground me.
Tony (13:30):
Yeah, exactly. She used
Ricky (13:32):
to float in the pool all the time. Oh, yeah, that's it
for the pool. And I alwayswanted to like jump on. Get her
hair wet. She didn't want to gether hair wet. Her hair was
always up in a ponytail highponytail. So with my daughter,
that's that's actually what I dowith her hair. I'll put in like
two ponytails or I'll put in onesingle one. It just reminds me
(13:52):
of her. So Oh, remember thattime zone. We went to the Mason,
we've spent like three daysgrabbing rocks, the lava rocks
that were there because Mom, momwanted to redo the whole front
yard. So she made a trail ofherself. She was always in the
garden. And she made a trail oflava rocks that were from the
mesa. And we've loaded up withthese big rocks always afraid
(14:16):
that somebody would stop buyingsounds good. couldn't do that.
But we still get it. Awesome.
Marlena (14:20):
It sounds like you know, there's that one episode
when they're in Hawaii. Andthey're like, you know, don't
take don't take TIKI TIKI
Jamie (14:33):
steal stealing stuff early. Got exactly
Ricky (14:36):
got it. teaching us
Tony (14:38):
the good ways. Yeah. Yeah, I
Ricky (14:39):
got blamed, but I just couldn't forgive me, mom. But
yeah, it was the Brady Bunch.
You know, on my mom's side, mystepdad and my mom. You know,
when they got together, both ofthem had three kids. And so, you
know, when we all got together,it was pretty much it was a
bunch of kids running around intwo parents, you know, trying to
figure out what's
Tony (14:59):
going on, you know So, yeah,
Marlena (15:02):
like I only have, I cannot imagine the level of the
six of you.
Ricky (15:08):
I'm wanting done to one and died. I'm with my wife,
Tony (15:13):
and twins. I like twins or something else to like our
energy levels. We're just feedoff of each other, you know,
Jamie (15:23):
it hasn't stopped.
Marlena (15:26):
I remember going out to Vegas, and this was probably one
of the first times that I hadmet you guys. And I wasn't even
married to Vince at the time. Iwas married to someone else. So.
So that was a long time ago.
Probably over 20 something yearsago, so. But yeah, you guys were
(15:47):
crazy. Like your energy was justthese kids are
Tony (15:59):
blonde, blonde hair
Jamie (16:01):
age difference. So how between you guys and Marlena. So
how old would they have beenwhen you met?
Marlena (16:06):
Probably eight or nine?
Nine? Right? They were little atall? Yeah.
Tony (16:11):
Oh, we were we were little all the way till we were 411 195
Ricky (16:16):
pounds my freshman year.
I was the perfect height
Marlena (16:20):
with the skater haircuts. And yeah, they were
just nuts. And it's, you know,like, 150 degrees out in Vegas.
And, you know, they're likegoing skateboarding to wherever
and to
Ricky (16:32):
skate city.
Jamie (16:34):
I love it. That's fantastic. Yeah,
Ricky (16:36):
my mom would drive us all the way to anthem with us. 20
minutes away, dropped us off,and she had a van. So she, she
would fit probably five kids,four or five kids, she would
drop us off, come back, pick upanother group of kids, take
them, drop them off, come back.
And then she'll drop off lunch,like halfway through the day.
And then do if we didn't skatedown the wash all the way back,
which we told her we got a ride.
(16:59):
But we really did that. Shewould come and pick us up and
drop us back off. But she alwaysdid stuff like that. Her whole
world revolved around us, whichis thinking back you, you know,
you don't think of those things.
Right? Right. It whatever youthe way you grew up in you think
is normal, and everybody growsup the same way until you become
(17:20):
an adult and you look back andyou start seeing different
perspectives on people's lives.
And that's one of the blessingsthat we've had the opportunity
to do is to really understandwhat my mom has done in the
example that she provided,right? Because if I mean, we
could have gone our whole life,and she never got sick, we never
(17:42):
had the opportunity to reallyreflect on the type of person
she is and how to influence andhelp others as well as
ourselves. Right? And all theselittle things, even though they
may be tragic. They've reallytruly helped define who we are
and where we're trying to go.
Right. Absolutely. So
Tony (17:58):
yeah, it kind of makes you it brings you to a crossroad,
right, a crossroad of okay, do Ifigure this out? And do I try to
figure out what this tragedy istrying to teach me? Or do I just
suffer? You know, do I just sitin my feelings and basically put
a blanket over the world. Andit's tough, you know, it's
(18:21):
tough. Sometimes you're goingdown that road and to make those
changes, you know, you've got tobe able to, to face reality and
be able to try to have aObjective Mind to be able to
work through those things.
Absolutely. And then you come tothe conclusion of the song. It
Ricky (18:37):
wasn't always like that, right, Tony? No, it wasn't
always like that. Like, therewas even all through your whole
deployment. You know, you'reyou're dealing Mom, mom passed
away right after basic right?
Right. Right before basic. Sothen Mom, mom passed away 2013,
you went to basic, then you cameback for like couple weeks, and
then you all of a sudden you'redeployed? Right?
Tony (18:59):
No, no. So it was our 21st birthday. And two weeks later,
she passed away. And then I wasactually supposed to go to basic
training, but I was able to workwith the military and move it
back so that I could go to momservice. And so we moved it
back, went to basic training,and then did ai t, which is
(19:23):
basically your job training forthe military for the army. And
then a couple of years later, Igot to,
Ricky (19:29):
but yeah, like through that. What what I was trying to
say was I'm kind of steppingforward a little bit but through
that time period of her passingaway to you getting out of the
military was roughly six, sixand a half years, maybe seven
years, right? Yeah. That periodof time you didn't really
reflect on the feelings and theemotions of her passing and how
(19:51):
that affected you. You werefocused on other things
deployment all that oh, yeah,yeah,
Tony (19:56):
I was in such a dark place. That I, literally
mentally I prepared myself todie overseas. I don't think I
think Ricky knows this. Butthat's what I wanted to go
overseas and fight for a countrythat provides freedom. I know
we're not perfect, but I am verypatriotic. And I wanted to go on
(20:19):
any deployment to put me in thebiggest shithole you could find.
And I literally, I had threehouses before I got deployed. I
liquidated them all, like Iliquidated my life expecting to
lay my life down overseas. Andthat's not what happened, thank
God. But that's where I was, youknow, kind of crazy. Yeah. And
(20:43):
now Now, it's,
Ricky (20:44):
you think back at like when everything happened, right?
Like we were juniors in highschool. You know, both of us had
girlfriends. My older brother 14months older than us. He was a
senior, you know, he he alwaysdated a year older two years
older, for some reason, theywere always attracted. Anyway,
he was a stud, you know,beautiful. Yeah, it was it was.
(21:08):
Yeah, he did are small and he'stall, you know. But yeah, it was
s3. And then all of a sudden,Mom contracted while we were
eating cookie dough. It was likea prom or something like that.
And, you know, as you're likecooking and stuff, you naturally
take a bite of the spoon,whatever. Great. Like I used to
do it brownies before this. Butyeah, she she had some, you
(21:32):
know, couple other people didwhether it was Tony or me, I
don't know. But then, like thenext day, or the day after that.
She started film sick. And so mystepdad Richard took her to the
hospital. And they sent her backhome saying that she has like
the flu, not to worry about it.
And then in the middle of thenight, I believe my my stepdad
Richard founder at the bottom ofthe stairs, and she had blood in
(21:54):
your stool and rushed her to thehospital. They put her in an
induced coma right away. And,and she was at St. Rose off of
St. Rose and St. Rose Dominicanin Yeah, in Henderson.
Henderson. And she was there fora couple of months. And she was
(22:14):
immediately in like an inducedcoma. So one day, you know,
she's she's cremisan and takenus everywhere in her whole life
is, you know, her and, and thentwo, three days, four days
later, she's also in an inducedcoma. And, you know, we're we
don't know what's going on sothat everything doesn't process,
you know, especially when you'reyounger, and you haven't
(22:34):
experienced death. You thinkthat she's just kind of come out
of it. And yeah, she was there.
And then we used to play music.
And, and we would see her toestwitch. Remember that Sony? Jack
Johnson? Yeah. Which JJ was theone that you know, brought Jack
Johnson in our life, right. Butyet her toes would twitch. And
(22:58):
you know, we're talking Oh, mygosh, she she hears that. You
know, and we believe that, youknow, now more than we did back
then more of it was like, oh,cool, you know, but anyway, and
then, yeah, she was there. Andthen we moved her to another
hospital. That was supposed tobe better care. But the facility
was just the whole aura of theplace was dark. And she was
(23:19):
there for I think a week or two,
Tony (23:23):
well back back up just a little bit. So when she was in
this in the coma, basically,they found that she had ecoli.
So they needed to take it out.
And they ended up taking outlike 15 or 20 feet of her
intestine, something like thatsomething ridiculous
Ricky (23:40):
half, half our large, large intestine
Tony (23:45):
to have for large intestine. And so she didn't she
was still in this coma. And shewas having difficulty coming out
of it. Because of, I think, thetrach that was down her throat
and, you know, it's kind of aprocess it does, you can just
pull it out and it's done. Andso JJ was really the only one
(24:05):
that was able to keep her calmenough to be able to get her out
of it. And she got out. And thenshe was herself. So she had the
surgery. You know, nothingchanged psychologically. And I
remember seeing her upstairs ina normal room. I think at this
point. She ended a normal roomin the hospital and normal room
(24:27):
in the hospital. Yep. And sowe're like, awesome, cool. It
was a fluke that, you know, shejust got sick now. It's done
pretty much and she's healing.
And then did she go to the rehabfacility after this, or did she
come home for a week? No.
Ricky (24:43):
So she went to the rehab facility that I was talking
about. It was a hospital rehabfacility and like looking back,
it was just very dark aura, justthe whole energy of it. Anyway,
that's when her heart stopped. Ithink three times. The alarms
went off off, they came in andstabbed her in the chest and had
her heart start and again. And,you know, through this whole
(25:07):
process, Richard was by her sidethe entire time. Right?
Immediately, it didn't matterabout work, it didn't matter
about bills, it didn't matterabout anything, except for
providing the best care for her.
And I can almost guarantee fromthe time she got sick to the
time she passed away for fouryears, there was nobody that
left her side, she always hadsomebody there by her side. And
(25:27):
that's a huge reason of him,right. But he was also there
when all this stuff happened atthe rehab hospital facility. And
enough was enough, you know, andhe was able to move her from
there to Desert Springshospital, sort of.
Tony (25:48):
So when she was getting because her heart was stopping,
basically, her kidneys wereshutting down. So she her legs
started swelling up, and she wasgoing into kidney failure. And
they rushed her from there toDesert Springs hospital. And
this is where she stayed for thenext year. And I think they took
like six liters of fluid out ofher in a day day and a half from
(26:12):
her kidneys failing. And we werethere for so long that and this
is our senior year, or the ARBsummer, it happened right at the
end of our junior year, and thensummer, and then
Ricky (26:27):
junior year, and then March of 2009 2009. And then
into 2010, which is here that wegraduated JD graduated in 2009.
Marlena (26:38):
So she was in the hospital when when Jay
graduated.
Ricky (26:42):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. JJ came in with his cap and gown and,
you know, yeah. So when we wentto Desert Springs, yeah, just
became normal. Like, we wouldget out of school and we cruise
over and see mom and, and, yeah,so yeah, she, she was, yeah, she
(27:04):
had kidney failure. She hadliver failure. She had plasma
transplants. So she was hookedup to a machine that filtered
her blood and took the oldplasma and put the new plasma in
as well as I think she had. Didshe have white white blood cell
transplants? Do you?
Tony (27:22):
Yeah, it was, it was unreal. I mean, she mostly had a
half a dozen to a dozen majorsurgeries. She was up and down.
Some days. She could talksomeday she couldn't. She had
bed sores. We were sleeping onthe ground and on chairs in the
hospital overnight. Richard wasthere there was. I mean, it was
so up and down. It was like aroller coaster one day, she was
(27:44):
good. Awesome. She's coming homeand the next day, like she was
completely out of it. Andthere's pictures online, you can
go online type in Linda Rivera,E. Coli. And you can read the
story. It Yeah, it was
Ricky (28:00):
like when when she got sick. There was a recall. And
what had happened was 350,000people had gotten affected by a
69 people had gottenhospitalized. And there was two
people who were severely ill oneof them being I think, like a
nine or 11 year old girl, andshe ended up getting paralyzed
(28:21):
from the neck down. And then mymom who actually is the worst
case in the history for somebodywho had survived, right, and
survived. I mean, somebody whohad, you know, survived the E.
coli been in there, whichoriginally happened and they
pulled it out through her colon.
And then she survived anotherthree and a half years after
that. But yeah, luckily, thelittle girl ended up regaining
(28:42):
like 95% of her her feeling andstuff back. But who would have
thought, you know, they cook andcookies, you know, that just,
it's just a bizarre, weird thingthat happens, but it's
definitely been a pinnacle ofour lives, right? Like, we don't
eat cookie dough. No,
Jamie (28:59):
honestly, it's all what we all did, right? As children
licking cake batter eatingcookie dough. And it was because
of your mom's story that andwith my children, I won't allow
it home. But like, store bought,it just doesn't happen. I can't.
It's too close to home. It's tooclose to
Christy (29:17):
home. I met Marlena right around this time. And so I
remember our circle kind ofsharing what was going on. And
since then, because I again,growing up with my mom, my mom
would hand me the beater Right?
Or whatever it was from thecookies. And we would we would
eat it. And then when I metMarlena and I heard about this,
I'm like, it's not worth it.
(29:39):
It's not worth the risk. So wemade we made that change too,
because that shouldn't shouldn'thappen,
Ricky (29:45):
right? And think about like, How many people does this
happened to where they don'tfigure out where Right? Right?
We were blessed enough. And Idon't say that lightly right.
I'm not putting the switchration down, I'm saying that we
were blessed to figure out whereit came from. Because if not,
(30:06):
when my mom died, she had $6million in medical bills, oh my
god,
Tony (30:11):
over seven and a half, I believe, imagine
Ricky (30:13):
that, okay, all of a sudden your mom dies now now.
Now you have to figure out inyour whole entire life is trying
to pay off that medical debt,figuring out a way, you know,
trying to bring it down whateverthe case is, right? How many
families has this happened towhere they don't find out who,
where it came from, you know,
Tony (30:28):
whether it's foodborne illness, cancer, all these other
things. And, and from myperspective, it comes from how
society is set up. You know,like, the FDA is supposed to
protect us from stuff like this,where the GMOs and the processed
foods, all this is, is it'sbasically quick fixes to feed
people in a quick way. Well,with the salty twins, what we do
(30:51):
is we teach people how toorganically harvest your own
food, you know, and I'm gettinginto more of gardening and stuff
like that, to be able to befully sustainable. But it all
comes down to the mentality ofyou are what you eat, you are
what you consume. A lot ofpeople think that it was the
eggs that got my mom's sick, itwas actually the flower.
Ricky (31:14):
Right? Wow. Yeah, there was a farm that was like 200
miles away, where they raisedcows. And what they think it
happened was, you know, themanure, right becomes airborne,
just naturally, littleparticles, and a windstorm
blowed over and landed, andsomehow I've gone through like
customs back there. And then gotmass distributed, just
Tony (31:40):
blended into the concoction called cooking.
Jamie (31:45):
That is insane. Yeah.
Ricky (31:47):
But yeah, like Jamie was there, Jamie was, you know,
right. Like you had seen himfrom the beginning to everything
and Christy, you know, you startcoming to the picture and stuff
and just imagine like, like yourguys's family, though, you know?
And, like, if that happened toyou, and you didn't find out
like, that's the biggest thingfor me is, like, whether it's a
(32:09):
kid or you know, a parent, justlike things could have played
out so differently. In so manyways, what if my mom didn't go
through this, right? Think aboutthat? What if my mom My mom
didn't go through this? WouldTony and I and whoever Marlena
right? Really understand thetype of person that she is and
was and the impact that she had.
Right? And with that, like, eventhrough suffering, I believe a
(32:34):
lot of things happen a certainway to help us understand
certain people always say like,why do the best people die
first? Well, we're on thispodcast, aren't we? Yeah, she
knows how much I love her. And Iknow how much she loves loves
me. But But I really, truly tryto think about things like that.
Like, like, we can always goback and try to change things.
(32:57):
But what's, what's the rippleeffect of, you know, the
butterfly wings? Yeah, yeah, thebutterfly effect can be crying.
Welcome to my life.
Jamie (33:09):
It's finding the positive in the tragedy and in moving
forward with that and doing goodwith it, right. It's not just to
stay in and and what if what ifwe could have done this, it's
taking that that moment andmoving forward and doing the
things that you know, your yourmom is so proud of you to for
doing? I mean, I How can she notbe this is beautiful. You know,
(33:32):
she's here listening to all thestuff you're talking about. So,
remember,
Christy (33:37):
the finger wag, remember.
Jamie (33:42):
And I'm pointing she's hearing everything you're
saying.
Marlena (33:50):
Your mom was so very positive. I mean, she was
probably one of the mostpositive people I knew. And so
when she got sick, and when shewas fighting, how did how did I
affect her emotionally? Youknow, her positivity? Did that
affect it at all?
Tony (34:11):
After a while. But the first couple years, the entire
time she was in the hospital.
She was extremely positive.
There was times where she couldnot talk. And she could only
What's the noise that she usedto make Rick something you sold
(34:34):
me on? It was something Oh,yeah. Yeah. So she she had made
that sound. And that, and that'skind of how we communicated. But
there was times I remember shehad all these different machines
hooked up to her she had a holein her throat. She was swollen
(34:57):
after, you know, six, eight.
months in the hospital, her feetstarted, she started out her
fingers
Ricky (35:04):
are stuck like this, because they weren't massaged,
right? So think about threeyears of, you know, your, your
tendons tightening up, and yourher feet were hurting all the
time, because they're stuck likethat she couldn't lift them.
Tony (35:17):
And we'd come in, and it was all about us. Like, it was
like she wasn't sick. That washer mentality of, you know, just
giving more than, than what youhave for, you know, just just
trying to be super positive. Andit was like we had so much love
(35:37):
and support looking back fromGreen Valley High School, from
our friends from her friends,family, it was unbelievable. We
had people praying all over theworld for her. And it just goes
to show all the love that shebrought into this world. And
it's Ricky, and my and Jaysresponsibility and Richard's
(36:01):
responsibility to take that loveand multiply it. And the biggest
thing in this world, I believe,is people just need to be loved.
You know, looking back when Iwas going through this, you
know, I did a lot of things andmade a lot of mistakes, because
I was hurting because I didn'tknow how to deal with losing the
(36:25):
most precious thing in my life,or watching the most precious
thing in my life slowlydeteriorate. And it gave me a
perspective to have patiencewith people that hurt other
people, because hurting peoplehurt other people. You know,
someone that's super happy, andloving and loves themselves and
(36:47):
loves their life. They're notgoing to go out and hurt other
people. And so reflecting on thedecisions that I made as a young
adult, it gives me a really goodperspective on people honking me
on the way to work. It gives mea good perspective of, you know,
family members or friends havingshort tempers, it just means
(37:08):
that they need a little bit morelove. Yeah, you know. And so
this situation really opened myeyes to that.
Marlena (37:16):
Then your mom passed away, and Ricky who actually
spoke before the FDA inWashington, DC, correct?
Ricky (37:24):
Yeah, yeah. So I'll backtrack a little bit. So from
Desert Springs, she was outthere for about a year, year and
a half. And then she transferredup to California. We had my
stepdad and our attorney, BillMarler. Oh my gosh, she's
incredible. A great guy doinggreat things. They worked
(37:45):
together and tried to find thebest rehab facility for my mom.
So after a year and a half of inthe hospital, they moved her
from Desert Springs to CPMC upin San Francisco, California
Pacific Medical Center. And shewas up there for I think, two
years, maybe two and a halfyears. And from the time of
Desert Springs to CaliforniaPacific Medical Center, JJ
(38:07):
became her caregiver. And, andmy stepdad, Richard obviously
was there the whole time. Butwhen he wasn't physically there
at the hospital, JJ actually,like flew on the jet with her,
we had to get a private jetbecause of her, you know, they
later on there, and he was hercaregiver up there. And then
(38:27):
then I started kind of steppingin and I was flying up from
Vegas every other week, takingcare of her in the hospital. And
then when she got out, I movedin and became a full full time
caregiver. And when she passed,I have the opportunity to go and
speak in front of the FDA asMarlena said, I got flown out
there, Nikki and I and my wife.
And yeah, I had my whole paperof my story of my perspective on
(38:51):
what happened. And I walked inthere and it was like a big huge
classroom almost, with like tallevery stair and then the
teachers at the top. And I stoodright there and I'm looking at
all these grown adults that looklike you know, they honestly
don't really care if I'm thereor not. But I started reading
(39:11):
and I was taught to look at theclass. So I've read and I look
and I'd look around not at oneplace. I I spoken and it seemed
to do something and it helpedfund $20 million dollars with
the FDA which sounds like it dida lot but looking back I don't
(39:32):
know what it did you know, maybeit went into their pockets maybe
it actually did something butit's an example of what can be
done you know, it's the entrywayand then I got to our hotel woke
up in the morning and my wholenewsfeed on my Facebook was like
blown up my phone was blowingup. Everybody's like look look
(39:53):
on look on Yahoo look on Yahoo.
I ended up being like the topstory on Yahoo for that day. And
then all of a sudden, everybodystarted calling my stepdad and
different. Maybe Bill Marlertrying to get us on a talk show
and speak about what happened.
And, you know, what that canprovide, right is is more eyes
on families and things andpeople who who are eating, and
(40:17):
the whole thing of the Saudi toillustrate like, we just want to
be better and safer and morereliable on ourselves instead of
relying on everybody else.
Right? That is what could havebeen. But with where we were, we
settled outside of court. And sothe name of the company that got
(40:41):
my mom's sick, it's very easy tofind you literally Google E.
coli, Linda Rivera, and and popsup. And that started becoming
announced, right, not out of ourmouths, but through people doing
their own research. Now, at thatpoint, that company threatened
us to take everything awayfinancially.
(41:03):
If we continue down this road,well, we're at a position to
where, you know, you look at $6million $7 million dollars of
debt, you know, or speaking.
Tony (41:13):
And, yeah, and getting mom that care. Like, that's the one
thing that was able to extendmom's life, for sure, was the
ability to get her the top notchcare that she needed. And we did
not have the finances to dothat. And it was really, really
important to be able to help mymom any way we possibly could or
(41:35):
put her in a good position to beable to heal.
Ricky (41:39):
So yeah, so at that point, we had opportunity to
grow and share my mom's storyand really impact people. But we
had to step down and back up andwe didn't pursue that. And so
everything kind of subsided. Andas you know, in this day and
age, the story only lasts for aday, right, six years later, we
(42:00):
start to salty twins, and we'restarting from the ground up
again, right? We're two yearsinto this. And this is the first
time we've spoken on anypodcasts or any channel at all
outside of the salty twins,about our story and what we're
trying to do, because we trulybelieve that you three beautiful
women, right there have impactedso many people, and especially
(42:24):
our lives and the beliefs thatyou guys have and the values and
the things that you're trying todo and are doing. We mash up and
we are 100% for. So that's whywe're here. That's why we're
grateful. That's why it is ahonor. And we've been invited
and immediately Tony and I werelike no questions asked. Yeah,
because we've denied otherpeople. But they just won't do
it for you. No.
Christy (42:45):
Well, we're honored.
Yeah, we are seriously honored.
Truly, you chose to tell thestory to speak again, on our
podcast with us, right.
Ricky (42:54):
I'll take a picture of myself and I'll sign it and mail
it to you after this. Oh, thank
Christy (42:58):
you. Yes.
Ricky (42:59):
Will you signed my sweatshirt? No, no, no.
Christy (43:04):
autographs are sweatshirts.
Ricky (43:06):
I'll give you a big ol hug. You're making me blush.
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