Daring to succeed with John Dowling Jr.

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome and welcome back everybody to another exciting episode of
Aaron's Opinion, the podcast for blind people where we speak
about critical issues in the blindness community and all other
issues from across the universe and galaxy. My name is
Aaron Richmond. Of course, we have a lot to go
over today to get started today with this episode. So
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(00:23):
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two four zero six eight one nine eight sixty nine
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(00:44):
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on Apple podcasts or anywhere else. Anyway, Today's guest, Well,

(04:52):
if you go to the TikTok, you'll see and on
Instagram you'll notice that it is John Dowling Junior is
today's guest. A trigger warning that we will be discussing
in this episode. For you know, unfortunately, we have to
discuss an enormous amount of topics today, including well many things,
but one of the things I have to give a
trigger warning too, is that there is a lot of

(05:14):
mention of drug use in this episode in many different ways.
So if you don't want to hear about drug use
challenges and things like that, maybe this is not the
episode for you at this particular moment. Anyway, I've been
wanting to sit down with John Dowling Junior for a
long time. As I told him, I said, you have
a perfect name for a podcast guest, and it's very true.

(05:36):
That's a great name to be on a show, John
Dowling Junior. And he is a podcaster. He'll explain a
little bit more about his podcast later on today, but
he's a podcaster. He's a musician, a country musician. So
download his music and oh yeah, and that's another thing.
If you want his music, just let me know and
I'll send you the playlist Aaron's Opinion Select and then

(05:56):
you can listen to him and all the other musicians.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
But he's on the playlist there.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Basically, he's going to talk about his life, his life challenges,
and his life story. Everything he's overcome. He's overcome a
lot to get where he is now, and he's living
a relatively happy life. He still has some things to overcome,
and he still has some obstacles, but he seems to
be a relatively pleased and a relatively happy guy today.
So we're just glad to welcome John Dowling Junior to
the podcast. Okay, there you go. That's all the information.

(06:24):
That was a lot to go over and all of that,
so thank you for listening, everybody, and now let's get
into the podcast. So of course, don't forget you're listening
to the Aeron's Opinion podcast. My name is Aaron Richmond.
And now let's go talk to John Dowling Junior, which
means we need a great title for today's episode, which
is Daring to Succeed with John Dowling Junior. Welcome or

(06:48):
welcome back everybody to another exciting episode of Aaron's Opinion,
the podcast for blind people where we speak about critical
issues in the blindness community and all other issues from
across the universe and galaxy. Today we are joined by
someone who I've known of in the community for a
long time. He's a musician, he has a radio show,
he's doing a lot around the community. John Dowling Junior

(07:09):
joins us. Now, all right, I'll basically get ready to
mute my microphone and ask you the question I ask everybody.
But as I always like to say, don't forget to
tell us everything you want us to know, and don't
tell me anything you want to don't tell me anything
you don't want me to repeat. But of course, who
is John Dowling Junior? You can tell the whole life story,
the music, the radio show, the podcast that everything, everything left, right, up,

(07:33):
down and in between.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
So go for it, go right ahead?

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Cool? All right, Well, thank you Aaron for allowing me
to be on this podcast. I've been a listener to
yours for a while now, not as long as I
I wish. I started listening actually right around the time
you published the episode where you interviewed Brandon Hennes. Brandon
is a very good friend of mine. Haven't talked to

(07:56):
him in a while, but he's he's a cool guy
and it was really cool. I would hear him on
the podcast and it was really neat that. You know,
you just got to do three parts of it, which
is pretty cool. We have to show so much he
had to say about his life, and that was cool.
But for people who don't know me, my name is
John Delling Junior. I am twenty four. I'll be twenty

(08:18):
five and about about a month and a half. I
was born in New Jersey. Well, I was born technically
in Philadelphia, but a group a lot in the New
Jersey area. And I am a country singer. I'm a songwriter.
I'm a radio broadcaster and a new up and coming

(08:40):
podcaster as well. So that's gonna be fun. Well, let's
let's see where should I even start from. Well, I
was born in October eighth, two thousand, so I'm, you know,
pretty young, but I a lot of the country music

(09:02):
and the even TV shows that I watch are pretty
old old fashioned. I love traditional country music, you know,
guys like Hank Williams and George Shones and Marl Haggard there,
you know, like my heroes and influences. And actually, in

(09:22):
September of twenty twenty three, I got to go to Montgomery,
Alabama and see Hank's grave. And that was an experience because,
you know, so Hank Williams Senior, for those who do know,
was born on September seventeenth, nineteen twenty three, so you know,
one hundred years after his birth. I got to go

(09:44):
back and see where he was buried, and like, I
went to the Hank Williams Museum and got some cool
little gadgets and stuff. That was fun. But I'm getting
kind of ahead of myself. I kind of want to
talk about how I kind of got to that point
in my life and what kind of led me to that.

(10:06):
So I was born. I was born blind. I have
a condition known as Ratnava city prematurity. So I was
born premature. I was born about twenty three weeks early,
and I was very tiny. I weighed one pound three ounces,
and I I was a twin but sadly, my twin

(10:29):
brother did not survive. And yeah, it was sad, but
I'm very glad that I'm here and you know, nothing
happened to me. Thank God. I've loved music pretty much since,

(10:54):
you know, I can remember. It's kind of crazy. Actually,
I remember when I was five years old on the
floor kind of with this toy keyboard that I had
gotten as a birthday present, and I was watching The Backyardicans,
which is like a kid show from the early two thousands,

(11:14):
and I remember I heard the theme song, the closing
the ending theme because the opening theme has you know,
words and lyrics, but the closing theme was all instrumental,
and so I heard the melody and I somehow my
brain was able to not only figure out what notes

(11:37):
were being played, but I was also able to transpose
them because the song is in the QB D, but
I played it in the key of C. So that
to me, and like just thinking about it now is
absolutely insane, Like that just that's kind of crazy how

(11:59):
even as young kids, our brains are doing so much activity.
And that's very fascinating to me. And after I, you know,
did that with the piano thing, I kind of it
just took off as far as the music goes. I
was very fortunate and lucky to live next door to
a musician and he kind of got me started on

(12:23):
the piano. He would let me go to his house
sometime and play the piano and that was fun. And
then he bought me a ukulele. This is, of course,
back when I was this is when I was living
in Jersey. It was I lived in it. We lived
in a town called what was it was called Del

(12:45):
rand H and it was right, you know, right across
the tracks from Philadelphia. Because we got we had a
lot of family over in Philly, and so we would
and ourselves crossing those that bridge to go right into Pennsylvania,
and you know, I'd go to my I had a

(13:08):
couple of aunts and my grandparents lived over in Philly,
and so I'd go to their houses and hang out
and stuff. But going back to my next door neighbor,
he bought me a ukulele, and that was the first
string instrument I ever learned how to play. I only

(13:31):
really started picking up the guitar and playing it seriously
about six years ago. I mean, before then, I had
a guitar and I was a new anything around with her,
but I didn't really know how to play it properly.
In fact, I would actually usually play in open tunings
and I would just kind of fret up the up

(13:51):
the front board, and it was a very interesting way
to play. But then, you know, about six years ago, Oh,
it might've been been less than that. It might have
been like five years ago, because during the the pandemic
with COVID, you know, we were all kind of stuck
in our on our houses. I was still in a

(14:12):
high school at the time because I had I'd been
held back. But that's that's we'll save that for maybe
like twenty five minutes from now or something like that.
But during the pandemic, you know, after classes, I wouldn't
have anything to do, so I would usually hang out

(14:34):
and uh, you know, smoke some weed and and playing
the guitar. And it was it was cool because, you know,
I listened to all of my heroes, Hank Williams and
Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard and just listening to that stuff.
I was very much like a sponge. I was just
soaking everything up.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Man.

Speaker 3 (14:56):
And now when I play music now I'm kind of
I'm channeling all of their different styles into one and
it's really really cool. But now I'll kind of talk

(15:16):
a little bit about my school journey and how that was.
So I during kindergarten, like preschool kindergarten, I was in
a mainstream school, and that was very interesting because you know,
they didn't really know what to do with me because

(15:36):
they had never really taught blind people before. So I
would get a teacher from the Commission for the Blind
over in New Jersey. She would come to her to
my school and for two days and she would teach
me how to rebrail a little bit. And for some reason,

(15:57):
as a young kid, I did not like that. I
don't know why. I don't know what was going on,
but I used to like apparently I used to bang
on the Borough writer a lot, and I'm wondering if
I was doing that because I wanted to, you know,
because I was so musical that I wanted to, you know,
maybe make it make music or something. I don't know,

(16:21):
but so that was interesting. And then eventually I joined
this acting group for people with disabilities. It was called
Acting Without Boundaries. And that's when I met or I
should say, my mom met this kid named Simon, and
Simon was also blind what to say, is also blind.
He's very active in the community. And his mom told

(16:47):
my mom about the school in Philadelphia called it was
a Catholic, a Catholic blind school called Saint Lucis Day
School and it's still being run to this day. And
it was a you know, it was a day school,
so it was not a you know, a lot of
blind schools are very boarding school like and the fact

(17:08):
that they, you know, you have to stay there every
day where so this was just a day school, so
you got to go home after after the day was done,
which was cool. My wife lived in a hud say.
She went to the Minnesota Academy for the Blind and

(17:30):
it was a boarding school. And I've you know, I've
read stories about people who went to Perkins and stuff,
and I wanted to go to Perkins for a while,
but I just like that was just never really on
the radar because Boston was a little farther away, and
I don't know, I kind of wish I had gone,

(17:50):
because I feel like maybe if I had gone, I
wouldn't have been so sheltered, because I feel like for
a while, I was very sheltered because my parents were
very overprotective of me, and I was not a fan
of that, you know, And well, yeah, I was definitely

(18:19):
very interesting growing up with overprotective parents. They wouldn't really
and it was more my mom. My dad was a
little bit more supportive of me, I feel like, but
my mom really wouldn't allow me to do anything by myself,

(18:46):
and it got so bad to the point where I
in twenty sixteen, when I went to the NFB convention,
I actually was able to get a scholarship to go there,
so I didn't know that we didn't have to pay
for anything. The only downside is I was. I think

(19:11):
I was like required to go to a lot of
these like different seminars and stuff, when the only reason
that I wanted to go to convention was to hang
out with my friends and to go to the because
of how when that was open, because I was also
very much into technology at the time, and I I
was sitting in the pool hanging out with a friend

(19:33):
of mine and he mentioned that there was a couple
of training centers, you know, around the Louisiana and the
Colorado areas, and he was like, you know, would you
want to go there? And I thought about it, but
I was a little bit scared to do that, so
I was like, well, I don't really know. And you know,

(19:57):
looking back at it now, my mom agreed with that,
and she was like, you know, I don't think you
should go and all this stuff, and you know, but
looking back at it now as an adult, I'm just like, man,
you know, I really wish you had like had said

(20:18):
something like, you know, hey, you should try it because
I want you to be more independent. But she didn't,
which was very strange, and you know, looking back at
it now, I'm I kind of resent her for doing that,
because you know, of course, you know, I was scared

(20:38):
to do something like that. But also I think if
she had encouraged me to do it, and if I
had gone and gone to one of those shrinting centers,
I feel like that would have been really good for
me because I feel like it would have first of all,
I would have boosted my confidence, and I just feel

(21:01):
like I would have gotten a better hold on what
the real world is like, I guess, because I don't know.
I just feel like because I was so sheltered, I
really didn't get to see what the world was like

(21:26):
except when my parents would, you know, bring me outside
or whatever. Because I didn't really go outside. I mean
I went outside like I would, you know, play with
my cousins and stuff, but like that wasn't really the
same thing as I don't know, just going out to
the movies or whatever. I never really did that. I

(21:47):
mostly would just watch you know, DVDs at home on
my little Portbo DVD player. And I was also in
you know, like I said, it was an only child.
My parents never had children after me, and so it
was I was kind of lonely growing up, you know,
because I didn't really have anyone else that was really.
I mean, I had cousins that were my own age,

(22:08):
but they were excited and I feel like they were
kind of in their own different universe. And so that
was really tough until well until twenty eleven when I
got my first iPhone and that really opened up a
lot of doors for me. I got the iPhone four US.

(22:30):
I remember that, and and that thing was cool. It
was so cool getting to play with Siri, and I
think I still have some old recordings of my eleven
year old self, like now, plenty of YouTube videos and
stuff like that. And yeah, and then I was introduced

(22:54):
to Skype and I started to add people from our
community and it was cool. I got to I was
in some very interesting group calls. Yeah, and my school

(23:16):
of life was very interesting, you know, like I said before,
it was a blind Catholic school, So that was very interesting.
You know. You had to wear a certain uniform. You
could not just wear whatever you wanted. You had to wear.
In the winter time, you had to wear a sweater,
button down shirt and a tie and sort of khaki

(23:40):
pants with a belt. And then in the springtime was
a little bit more formally. You had to wear polo
shirts and the belt and the pants, and you had
to wear a certain kind of shoe as well, you know,
like that kind of dress shoes, and that was that

(24:03):
was very interesting. It was cool though. I enjoyed it.
You know, there wasn't any It wasn't like the Catholic
schools of old. There was no corporal punishment, nothing like that,
Thank God, and that was cool. I mean, I wasn't
very religious. I you know, I do believe in God

(24:26):
and Jesus, but I wouldn't really take it to the
religious stream, the religious extreme. Excuse me that a lot
of people, you know, in our Christian society hold I think,
in my opinion, I think it's a little bit too much.

(24:49):
I really don't think that, you know that if you
do some bad stuff, you know, listening to rock and
roll or you know whatever, curse or smoke weed or whatever, drink,
I don't think you're going to go to hell. I
think in order to go to Hell, I think you
have to do something very very very bad, like murder.
But like, I don't think that if you you know,

(25:12):
curse or whatever, that you're going to go to hell.
I think God is very relaxed when it comes to
stuff like that because he knows that we're all we're human.
But yeah, I really liked the music though, man. And
in church, we had this really cool organ, and man,

(25:37):
nothing was awesome. I never got to play it. I
wish I could have. Sadly, the school it's not at
the location that it used to be in. It changed
locations back in twenty nineteen, so I don't know, and
I don't remember the address of the old building, so
I don't you know, I can't really go back there,

(25:57):
and I'm not even in the same state where I
moved to Minnesota. But we'll talk about that more later on.
But you know, I liked the music, not just in church,
but also during other classes, like we had a you know,

(26:19):
I mentioned my friend Simon. His mom was actually the
music teacher, which is pretty dope. That was pretty awesome,
and we got you know, I got very close. I
became very close with her and Simon as a young kid,
and sometimes I would go go over to their house

(26:40):
for a sleepover and that was fun. Man, it was awesome,
especially around twenty thirteen when I got my first or no,
I'm sorry, twenty eleven, I got my first eye phen.
I would show Simon sometimes and then in twenty thirteen
he got an iPod Touch and and that was cool.

(27:01):
I would show him some different apps that he can install,
and he got into Skype and it was it was cool. Man.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
And then around twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, I started kind
of goofing off in class a little bit, and I well,
let me actually go a little bit further back too,
before I started first grade at the at Sentency Day School.

(27:40):
When I was in kindergarten, I mentioned that I told
you guys already that I got taught from a Brew
teacher from the Commissioner for the Blind twice a week.
She came. I believe it was every Tuesday and Thursday.
What I could be wrong? And so I only got
taught Brew twice a week, and I was not very

(28:03):
I did not want to learn it for some odd reason.
I don't know why. But because of that, I well,
I really didn't learn it. So when I went to
the blind school, I didn't really know Braille too much,
so then I had to get hold back my first grade.

(28:26):
I got held back during first grade because I didn't
really know Brew, so they had to basically repeat a
grade because I had to spend the first, you know,
the first year learning it, and then the second year
was actually completing first grade, which I did, and I'm
glad to say that. The only other time I repeated

(28:47):
that grade was in sixth grade, and that was due
to well, let's just say I was I did not
like to do homework, and so I would against that
and does not do my homework. And I would soon
learn that that was not a very good idea and
that you should probably do your homework because if you didn't,

(29:09):
then you just keep getting held back. So during my
second year of sixth grade, I I straightened out and
started doing my homework and it was cool. And so
then as a consequence of being repeating first and sixth grade,
I graduated high school when I was twenty years old

(29:33):
in June of twenty twenty one, which was very interesting.
Was very odd being in a school of you know,
seventeen year olds and being the one twenty year old.
It was very It was interesting, but it was cool
because the kid the students were very nice to me.

(29:57):
And that's another thing that I want to talk to
you guys about is after the grade school, I did
briefly go to Catholic high school, but after the first
year that totally sucked because the the people, the staff
there didn't really know how to work with me and
the the blind that the state because at that time

(30:23):
I was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the and and the
their state services for the Blind or you know, whatever
you want to call them, they were not really doing
their job. And so we decided to move back to
New Jersey and I went to a high school in
a town called Cinnamons and which is close to the

(30:47):
del Rand town that I was tan, the del Rand
town that I was talking about, And uh, yeah, and
that was public high school and that was really cool because,
you know, you could wear whatever you wanted. You weren't
you were not coming into this uniform that you had

(31:09):
to wear every day. You could wear anything. And that
was very freeing and you didn't have to worry about religion,
class or any of that shit. And yeah, it was
It was cool. And I think tenth grade was that
was really the year that I sort of found myself

(31:33):
because my history teacher in tenth grade was a musician
and his name was Sean McGee, and so sometimes we
would I will admit that some of the conversations were

(31:54):
definitely derailed to talk about music, although that wasn't They
weren't derailed as much as they were in my eleventh
grade history teachers classroom because that teacher was also a
musician musician, which is very ironic. And I think that

(32:16):
was cool because from my tenth grade history teacher, he
gave me a CD of because he was in a
band in twenty twelve called the Black River Kings and
they only made one record. There was a self titled
album and so it was called the Black River Kings.

(32:37):
And it was cool because it was very much I
don't know how to describe it. It was like country
meets southern rock meets blues almost.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
It was.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
It was cool. There were a couple of tracks on
there that I liked. I liked one called Helping Hand.
That was my favorite, and actually it was I was
so obsessed with that at one point I actually made
it a ring tone. It's on my phone. And that's
another thing with me is I have a very severe

(33:13):
case of O c D. So when I get obsessed
with something, it, yeah, it becomes absolutely insane. And so
you know, that was that was cool, and well, I

(33:41):
think I'll talk to you guys about my grandparents. Next,
because my grandmother on my mom, my mom's mom, I
never got to know her. Unfortunately, she died. I think
it was like a month after I was born, so
I really didn't get to see much of her. It's

(34:02):
not anything that I remember. But my mom's father, he
lived until I was about five years old, and I
had a very close relationship with him. He was a
great guy. He apparently he was also a musician. I
didn't get to talk to him about that because, you know,

(34:23):
when I was five, I really didn't I really didn't
articulate much about my musical abilities. And he died pretty
early on in oh five. I think he died in
like April, and I started playing that music in like,
you know, I started doing the backyarding and sink. I
think in like June or July. Now these are all

(34:45):
guestimations because I don't really remember. And uh, let's just
say I've smoked a lot of weeks since then, so
I remember when it used to be. But yeah, and
then my grandfather on my dad's side passed in six
and my grandmother and my dad's side just recently passed

(35:07):
away this year in fact, But I was not very
close with her, and so her death didn't really affect me.
But I was very close with my mom's father and
my dad's father, and it was very sad when they
passed away. And yeah, and right around two thousand and

(35:36):
six is when I got my first iPod. Before then,
I had swiped this MP three player that my dad
was using, and I was playing with it a little bit.
So then one day he noticed that I had it,
and so he took it and he put some music
on there that I would like to listen to, because

(35:56):
there was a bunch of stuff in it that wasn't
really I wasn't really interested in. And there was a
put a lot of kids songs there. There was some
you know Larry Gross, you know, like the seventies stuff
that he did. There was some some raffi on there,
and that kind of really opened a door for me,

(36:20):
and it really introduced me a lot of you know, country,
and I think it's kind of where my love country
and folk comes from is because you know that that
Larry Gross stuff. There was a lot of folk kind
of references in there, and there was a lot of
country instruments in some of those songs, like you know
there's some banjos and guitars and whatnot, and yeah, and

(36:48):
then when when the iPod came around, he gave me
that there was a lot more diverse music on there.
There wasn't a lot of kids stuff. There was, I mean,
there was still some kids and music on there, but
it was there was a lot of country. There wasn't
a lot of traditional country where there was a lot
of kind of the modern country of the day. But
that was okay because minor country hadn't uh, it was

(37:11):
kind of slowly going to shit it with. There was
still a lot of really good music out there. You know.
It really didn't hit broke country until twenty fourteen, which
by then I was way out of that. I'd stopped
listening to the radio a long time before then. But
you know, in twenty oh seven, you know, country music

(37:32):
was still pretty good, and there was a lot of
country on that iPod. He put a lot of motown
on there as well, and he just when I was
going through the songs, it kind of it painted me
a picture of what my dad's interests were, because he
liked a lot of the you know, because he grew
up in the sixties, so he liked a lot of lot,

(37:53):
you know, old sixties motown and pop and early rock
and roll, and that was that was cool. And he
put in some classic country, not a lot. The three
songs that I remember that stuck out and the classic
country air and the classic country section where a live

(38:15):
version of There He Goes by Patsy Kline. It was
live from the Opry. And one thing that was interesting
was years later when I listened to that song again,
I realized that the live version, the man doing the
introduction to that song, well more just inter introducing her

(38:36):
more than the song, was actually Jim Reeves, which was
kind of cool for me because Jim is one of
my really big influences. But you know, that song was
a staple on the iPod. There was also Loreda Lynn's
Coal Miner's Daughter, which was That's a classic. And then

(38:59):
what was that It was one of the other son
I think it was probably Thank God I'm a Country
Boy by John Denver, and it was the live version.
It wasn't the pre recorded the studio version was the
live version, which I think is better anyway because it's
more upbeat. I think, jeez, let's see you And in

(39:26):
two thousand and eight, I got a beagle boxer mix
and I named him Chase, and he was a cool
dude man. He was an awesome dog. He me and
him used to play all the time and he was
a great, great dog. And then in twenty fourteen for Christmas,
I got another dog. It was the He was a

(39:48):
tiny little fella. He was alpstop so Pekingese and I
named him Gizmo. And he was a tiny little dog man.
He was like you could comfortably fit in in your
lap man, he was that small and tiny. He was
cool though sadly he would end up uh not passing away,

(40:10):
but he uh he liked to do this thing where
he would he would crawl under the couch for some reason.
I don't know why. I don't know if there was
something hidden under there, maybe that he you know, that
maybe only he could see or whatever. But sadly, one
day he did it and and our bigo didn't know,

(40:31):
our Bigo boxer didn't know that he was under there,
and he was jumping on the couch and h somehow
my dog's his like hip broke or something and and
so his back legs stopped working. And that was that

(40:54):
was really sad because it was just after that he
would just started declining, like you know, he would just
be crawling around all the time because he couldn't use
his back legs. And so at some point we took
him to the the SPCA and I think they ended
up putting him down, which is really I mean, that

(41:15):
was some heavy shit, man like that. That was that
was really sad. And I wrote a song about that
a little bit. I still haven't published it though, because
I have to kind of refine the lyrics a little
bit more. But I did write a tribute to my

(41:36):
dog Chase and my first original album. That is you
can hear on all the major streaming platforms if you
if you're looking at the name John Dolling Junior. But
I'll talk more about that later on because there's a
lot that went into that album and a lot of

(41:57):
changes that I had to go through to even sit
down and write that that record. So after I graduated
high school that was around twenty twenty one.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
I.

Speaker 3 (42:21):
Well, I stayed home a lot because I didn't really
have anywhere to go, and I didn't I was trying
to find some work and that wasn't really helping. So
what I started to do before I graduated. I started

(42:42):
finding some bars and places around the New Jersey area
that would let me play, and I was working out
pretty good. You know. I got some good tips and
it was cool. I didn't really see a lot of them,
I'll be honest, because in addition to my mom being

(43:08):
very overprotective, she well, like a lot of blind parents.
She after I turned eighteen, she took my social Security
check to pay for rent and whatnot. I don't know

(43:35):
how much of the social Security check was spent on
things for me and how much of it was spent
on some other things, but she is an alcoholic, and
it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the money
that was my social Security that came from my check

(43:56):
was used to buy things. And you know, I'm sure
she probably took a lot of the tips that I received. Now,
I don't really know. I don't have any proof that
she did any of this, but like I don't know, man,
I can just tell. And you know, and doing the

(44:24):
live gig thing, that was working out pretty good and
it was fun. And then around around May of twenty
twenty two, I think it was, or no, I might
have been twenty twenty one. Actually, I got a really

(44:45):
good tip from the bar and I went and took
that money and I went to a guitar center and
I bought my very first professional guitar. And it's a
guitar that I still have to this day. It is
a Martin street Master and this Martin is great. Man.

(45:06):
I playing all the damn time, and it's it's really
definitely become a part of my life and I don't
really know what I do without it. And you know,
so it was it was cool for a while. I enjoyed,

(45:31):
you know, staying home and whatnot. But then it kind
of started to get bowling, especially because the guy that
my mom was that me and my mom were staying with, well,
it was kind of an asshole and he he didn't
like me. And this is kind of the kicker of

(45:53):
it is now it makes sense that he didn't want
me to smoke weed in the house, right, I'm not
complaining about that. But I had other means of consuming
the herb, so I didn't. I didn't just have the flower.
I was putting it in a bong and lighting it.

(46:14):
I also had you know, vape cartridges. And this guy
didn't even want me to vape inside, which is very
strange because with vape cartridges you cannot smell the weed.
It's not as pronounced as if you were, you know,
lighting up, you know, with the flower, because that definitely

(46:37):
has a very distinct smell to it, but with the cartridges,
there's not really a smell. So I don't really know
what he was getting at. I'm wondering if that was
just kind of a control tech technique, though he honestly
really wouldn't surprise me because a lot of a lot

(47:00):
of crazy shit went on in that house. Man.

Speaker 1 (47:02):
And uh.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
So, you know after because I started smoking pot in
twenty nineteen, and so I remember the date very well.
It was July eighth, twenty nineteen. It was at the
National Federation of the Blinds convention in Las Vegas. And

(47:25):
it was cool because I was hanging out with some
friends of mine and we went into one of one
of our friends hotel bathroom and we this guy had
a bong and then we got some pot and we
we placed in the bathroom and that was pretty cool.
That was a pretty special moment for me because you know,

(47:47):
a lot of people say that they their first time
smoking is you know, I joined or whatever with their cousin,
but like mine was a bong, and a bong is
already pretty insane, so that that was pretty cool, or
it was. I coughed a lot, man, Oh my god,
it was. It was insane. But you know, so I've

(48:08):
been smoking at that point, you know, for we're talking
twenty twenty one. I've went smoking for about two years now,
and uh, you know, so it was just very annoying
to have to go outside, especially during the windowtime, just
to vapor whatever. And vaping was, honest the only thing

(48:32):
I could do about myself because I'm I was very
nervous about lighting, you know, using a lighter to light
the bowl of the pipe or bong, and you know,
so the vape was really the only easiest way for me,
other than you know, uh, you know, getting edibles, you know,

(48:55):
getting eating gummies. But I didn't like the gummies because
they took too long to activate. Like I need that shit,
you know, when I smoke, you know, when I get high,
I need to smoke and then within the next five
minutes to be able to feel it or else it's
I don't know, I just don't think it's worth it.
But then again, I feel like edibles have their own place,

(49:20):
and you know, if that's all you have, then hey man,
that's you know home. Out of judge. But just in
my opinion, I could not just keep eating edibles. But
it was just it was very infuriating because you know,

(49:42):
I shouldn't have to go outside in the in like
a thirteen degree weather during the wintertime just to fucking
you know, smoke and have a good time, especially because
you know it would be snowing, dude, so like I'd
have to get my snow boots on, I'd have to
a lot of the chair said I would sit in,
you know, to enjoy my high we're all covered in

(50:03):
snow and shit. And like we had a little uh,
Pete's house had this, like Pete is the boyfriend. He
had his yard was it was a pretty nice backyard, dude.
Like it was had an a ground pool and stuff,
and there was like a little awning with these like
a little outside furniture, you know, chairs and stuff. And

(50:27):
the chairs had cushions. You know, they were removable, so
during the winter time or whatever, you could remove them
and place them somewhere where they wouldn't get snowed on. Well,
that's all fine and dandy, but then you know, when
you're high and when you want to get high and
you want to enjoy your high, and your mom's boyfriend's
being a fucking controlling asshole, and it's like, well, you
need to vape outside because you know, I can smell

(50:50):
your vape even though like, dude, you really you fucking can't. Dude,
You're you're it's on your fucking head and you're being supid.
But you know, so it was, it would it would
totally ruin my high man, because you know, I have
to go outside and and smoke like standing up like

(51:11):
in the fucking cold, and it would just suck. And
you know, then I'd have to like run inside before
the weed got to me, because you know if if
if if I was outside and I was already getting high,
then that was gonna kind of suck because I was
gonna be cold as hell, and like it wouldn't have
been worth it. And so then in February of twenty

(51:33):
twenty two, I got a a vaporizer for UH like
actual like for the for the flower because the vapor
that I was smoking before were from UH Cartridge, so
they were the oil of the of the cannabis plant.

(51:54):
But this vapor ice that I got in twenty twenty two,
you could actually grind up the weed flower and put
it inside the vaporiser and you would turn the vape on.
It would kind of it would act a sort of
like a little oven. It would kind of bake it
in a way, but it wouldn't combust so like it
would bake it, just it would here it up just

(52:16):
enough to get all the the terrapenes and all the
THC and stuff into air that you could you could
vape and inhance stuff. It's very complex stuff. But I
got that because I thought that, well, you know, maybe
this could be different. Maybe I could actually smoke weed

(52:37):
in the hause, you know, if I just open up
a window. Because even though it's not the same as
lighting up and getting that same distinct wheat sell wheat
sell wheat smell, you're still gonna smell the wheat itself,
because you're gonna when you open up the jar and
get the weed out to grind it up, you're gonna

(52:58):
obviously smell that. So you know, you'd open up the
window to kind of air out your room. And they
were still bitching about that so that was rather annoying.
And and so then a year later, in twenty twenty three,
I met my girlf my then girlfriend at the time,

(53:23):
who is not my wife, But I met my my
wife in April of twenty three and we started talking
for a little bit, and then we invited her to
to my house for you know, for a hangout, because
we wanted to meet in person, and my folks wanted

(53:44):
to meet her, and so it was cool. And my
wife is a Minnesota native, and you know, my mom
was asking her some of the you know what some
of the accessibility things that and I sort of asked
to offer and you know, like you know, all that stuff.

(54:08):
And so that happens, and then she goes back home
for a while. And then she comes back in August
of twenty three and we go down to uh because
we had this tradition wherever you would go down to
North Carolina to the outer Banks and hang out for

(54:31):
a week. And so she went to the outer Banks
with us for a week. And it was it was
all right, it was It kind of sucked though, because
some of the it was like a family vacation, say,
there were other it wasn't just our family was a
couple of other friends of Pete's, and they had these

(54:51):
these kids. Man, they were like, you know, and they're
they're like teenagers, right, so they're like fourteen, and those
little bastards, man, oh my god, they they were little
fuckers because they would like stop because we were living,
like we were not living. We were sleeping on the
bottom floor of the because it was like a three

(55:13):
story house or some ship or something, and we were
sitting on the very the very bottom, and everybody else
was on the top and these and by we, I
mean me and and my girlfriend. Everybody else was sleeping
on the top. And these goddamn kids figured out exactly

(55:34):
where we were sleeping, like you know, from where that
was above them, and they would just like stomp very
loudly on the floor and like so we could hear
that ship like vibrating, you know, and it was just
it was very annoying. And so then we were like, Okay,

(55:59):
we were never doing this shit again. And I was
by we, I mean me and my girlfriend. And a
couple of weeks later, I just decided that had I
had had enough of this shit because it was just
too too much. And so I luckily in twenty eighteen,

(56:24):
when my mom made me put my Social Security account
in a different bank account, it was still under my name.
So all I had to do was call the bank
and pretend like well, I wasn't pretending, but I would
just be like, you know, hey, guys, my name is
John Dolling. I don't remember what my you know, account

(56:49):
and running numbers are, because that's what you needed to
give the Social Security to, you know, give them to
bring your check over to a different bank account. And
by this time I was using the Chime Bank, and
I'm still using Chime actually, So I get my checks
about two days early, which is pretty cool. But so

(57:10):
I called my previous bank where the Social Security check was,
and I was like, hey, guys, whenever Sean Dowling, I
forgot my account and running numbers, and I go, okay,
we just need to give you, you know, we just
need some information for you, and you know, so they
needed my social Security number and I knew what that
was and all that stuff, and so they were able

(57:31):
to give them my account and running numbers, and then
I called Social Security and I had them put the
checks back and put the check into a different bank account.
And ever since September of twenty twenty September of twenty
twenty three, Sorry conut English today. Apparently I have been
receiving my own disability check, so it goes straight to

(57:57):
my account now, so that's that's great. And so, you know,
I was getting tired of all the shits, so I
was like, you know what, this is dumb. So I
called some friends because my girlfriend at the time was homeless,
so she didn't have anywhere that I could stay. So

(58:17):
I called some friends who were living in Kentucky and
that we are no longer speaking. Unfortunately, they turned out
to be assholes and they stabbed me in the back.
But that's that's coming up. But I called these friends
who were living in Louisville, Kentucky, and I was like, hey, guys,
you know this is like my experience, and they know

(58:44):
what I was going through because in May of twenty
twenty three, I had gone to Georgia to hang out
with these friends, and they saw how my mom was
acting because she had to come with me, you know,
because you know, she didn't think I could take the
plane ride by myself. And but she was telling me,

(59:09):
she told me that I was that she was only
going to drive me down to Georgia and then she
would go to a different hotel room with one of
our aunts, because whenever our aunts came along with us.
But she lied to me, and she told me that,
and she told me after the fact that she would

(59:30):
be staying in that same hotel. I mean, obviously not
I don't think probably not on the same floor. But
even still, like, that's pretty fucked up with a lie
to someone man like you, you can't do that. And
so my friends got to see how she was acting
in real time. And on the last day that we

(59:51):
were supposed to go home, well at least on the
last day that my mom wanted to go home, I
was like, well, I don't want to go home because
we still had a couple of days of hanging out,
and the hotel was already paid for, like my friends
had paid for it, and so I was like, you
know what, I'm not going to leave with you. You know,
it's like there's nothing you can do about it. And

(01:00:14):
so what we did was we had to end up
hiding me in a different room because we were afraid
that because she knew where I was staying, so we
were afraid that if she knew where I was, saying
that she could figure out a way to like, you know,
pull me out of that hotel room and stuff. So
we went into a different room and she was able
to find out which room I was in, but luckily

(01:00:36):
it was locked, and so she just kept knocking on
it and I was like, dude, I'm not going with you,
like I'm staying here, and so she left. She so
essentially she basically strengthened me in this hotel room because
I didn't at this time, I didn't have my Social
Security check, so I didn't have any money to go

(01:00:57):
back home. So literally my friends had to all pitch
in and help me get a flight to Coe back home.
So that was insane, and so that kind of started
the ball rolling of me being like, Okay, I need
to fucking this needs to change. And so when I
got my social Security rerouted and when I got paid

(01:01:18):
that September, actually I think I got I got paid
early in August, like late late August. I was able
to call Southwest Airlines and I was able to get
a flight from Philadelphia because that was the closest airport
to us, you know, all the way in Philly, Pennsylvania,

(01:01:40):
and so I was able to get a flight from
Philadelphia International Airport to the Louisville which I believe was
was that the I think that was the Muhammed Ali Airport.
I think that's what it's called, right, And yeah, and

(01:02:01):
I was able to get a pretty cheap flight for that.
I think it was like, god, I don't even remember.
I think it was maybe like two hundred and eighty bucks. No,
maybe it might have even lost me it was like
one hundred and seventy. Maybe I could be totally fucking wrong,
who knows. And yeah, So I left on September third

(01:02:24):
of twenty twenty three. I left New Jersey behind forever.
I haven't been back since. And I'm kind of glad
of that. I feel a lot more for you. But uh, Kentucky, well,
I thought Kentucky was a safe haven. It it was
fine for the first couple of weeks, you know, because,
like I mentioned, at the beginning of September of that year,

(01:02:45):
on the seventeenth, I got to go to Alabama. My
girlfriend took me to Alabama, which was awesome. That was
a really great surprize. And and you know, so after
we got back from there, we went to Kentucky. Well,
she went back to Michigan to stay with one of

(01:03:06):
her own friends, and then I went back to Kentucky
and uh, you know, so everything was fine for a while,
and then in October that's kind of when shit started
to go a little was sas with my friends or
should I say my ex friends now. But uh, well,
so my birthday is October eighth, as I mentioned before,

(01:03:29):
and that year was the first birthday, the first birthday
that I would be without my family. So my girlfriend
and my friends decided to you know, throw a little
surprise party for me. And it was mostly my my girlfriend, Mike,

(01:03:53):
my friends because we were all musicians, so we paye
like music and stuff and that was cool. But me
and my girlfriend we went and we went to some
thrift stores and we got some records and we got
some what else do we do? I think we got
some ice cream or something.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
It was.

Speaker 3 (01:04:17):
It was cool, but my I keep calling my girlfriend.
My wife was supposed to leave to go see a friend,
but then this friend started acting a little crazy and
she was like, well, you know what, actually I don't
think I think you should just cancel your flight. And

(01:04:40):
my wife was like, well, okay, when I'm in kind
of a situation because I don't have I can cancel
the flight, but I'm not going to get all my
money back, and I won't be able to get a
flight to you, like, I don't really have anywhere else
to live, because she had she wasn't living at that

(01:05:00):
the friends house in Michigan anymore, and so my other
friends were like, all right, well, you know, I guess
you guys can I guess you can stay. That's fine,
and so yeah, everything was fine for a little bit,
and then in November, you know, like in late October,

(01:05:20):
she started getting very weird. Man. They said that they
thought that my wife was like because they wanted me
to stay in Kentucky, but like I wanted to go

(01:05:46):
to Minnesota because that's where my my wife was going
to go. And by the way, we weren't married at
this point. We got married in December of last year,
so we were still you know, a boyfriend and girlfriend
at the time. But like, you know, I was still
very much in love with and so I wanted to
and I cannot do it. I cannot do the long
distance relationships.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
Man.

Speaker 3 (01:06:05):
I tried. It is not for me, but I was
not about to just give this relationship up. So I
was like, well, you know, guys, I really you know,
I kind of I really want to go to Minnesota,
Like I don't really want to go to Like I

(01:06:26):
just can't see myself living here in Kentucky because you know,
my girlfriend doesn't want to live here, so and I
don't want to live somewhere where my girlfriend isn't going
to be there. And they were like they were risky
trying to pressure me and be like, you know, hey man,
you know if you don't live in Kentucky, like you know,
Kentucky is very close to Nashville, like we can get

(01:06:46):
you some we know people, we can get you like
a record deal and stuff, and like, you know, if
you go to Minnesota, you're not going to have a
country music career because you know, there's no country music.
There's no market for country music over there. And you know,
I was naive as fuck, and so I didn't know.
So I got really scared and I went to my girlfriend.

(01:07:06):
I was like, you know, I'm scared. I think I
want to live in Kentucky now, and she started crying
because she knew that these assholes were being manipulative and sorry,
about that's my clock sheet. She knew that they were
being manipulative.

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
That's that's all right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
Yeah, I just wanted to just wanted to tell you
that you've done a obviously a magnificent, magnificent job, as
I knew you would.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
By the way, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
Yeah, So let's try to kind of start not not
completely wrap it up for the episode.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
But let's start walking more towards.

Speaker 1 (01:07:49):
You know, Okay, after all this, after all this ship
to hit the fan, you know, let's walk towards maybe
a couple of little little sentences about you know what
what you did after that, and then maybe some maybe
some quite because you've done a great job at you know,
illustrating your life story. And I just want you to
know that, you know, a lot of guests here at

(01:08:10):
Aaron's Opinion have had very very very similar experiences to you.
You know, these are experiences that we've been hearing about. No, no,
they're they're important for you to share too. But I'm
just saying that a lot of these a lot of
this craziness. You know, life is a journey for a
lot of people, and I'm just so glad to be
able to share yours too.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
Yeah, absolutely, so, I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
You know, one of the things that I kind of
want to know, and I mean this will lead into
some questions about me, but you know, yeah, if you
can kind of move towards you know, where things are
now after you went through all this, where are you
now today? What's going on now presently in twenty twenty five?
And then the other thing that I want to know,
right is so what are some questions that you have

(01:08:52):
for me? You know, I find that a lot of
people have questions and things like that that they want
to ask me about. You know who Aaron Richmond is here,
and so you know, what is Airon's opinion?

Speaker 2 (01:09:02):
You know, I do.

Speaker 1 (01:09:02):
I do like to let people ask questions that they
have for me too towards the end, So you try
to grap hoole, try to try to move towards that
in that direction.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
Yeah, Well, you know, after all the ship went down,
I moved to Minnesota. I was finally able to get
out of that hell hole of it is Kentucky. And
and so now in present day, twenty twenty five, I
live in a two bedroom apartment complex here in the

(01:09:32):
in the Twin Cities area, and I have a little.
I turn this off the space into kind of a
little studio. So I've got a bunch of instruments around here,
got a couple of guitars, I got some keyboards.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
And.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Yeah, I've been working on an album, as I stated
at the beginning of this episode, and h honestly, if
you really want to hear more about my life story,
just listen to that whole album. Man. It's it tells
a lot of it, a lot of what I just
talked about, you know, the relationship with me and my neighbor,

(01:10:14):
that my relationship with my mom and how that's deteriorated,
and yeah, it's just it's very biographical. And I you know,
I love that about music in generals that I can
bring a lot of people together.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
And absolutely absolutely it definitely does absolutely yeah. Yeah, and
also too, you're on the playlist, so just click the
link in the description to hear the playlist and then
you can get all of your music, all of your
stuff that you've already put put out there, and Spotify
is already built into the playlist, so that's that's already
a good thing.

Speaker 3 (01:10:46):
Yeah, absolutely cool. Yeah, Yeah, thank you man. Yeah, yeah,
make sure to stream that playlist. Man, because there's probably
a bunch besides me, there's probably a bunch of really.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
Really are because that's the all the other great music,
all the other great blind and one sided musician.

Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
Isn't that listing too? So that's a great.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
List absolutely, Yeah, yeah, man, Yeah, well, yeah, I do
have one question for you, and what what do you
think of everything that I've said so far? Is what
is your opinion?

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
My opinion is, unfortunately, as I was saying before, fortunately
and unfortunately your story and stories like it have been
being repeated here on the podcast in many you know, many, many,
many times and times over. Unfortunately, I'm discovering that a
lot of these blind people are having these bizarre and
traumatic experiences at very high percentages. And that when you

(01:11:43):
mentioned the social security thing, yes many, not all, but
very significant portion of blind people have their checks manipulated
by parents or just a lot of times people are
just not honest about that type of thing. But the
and on top of that, this system, in my estimation,
the system of social welfare and social securities is by

(01:12:05):
nature a system of deception in some in some regards
philosophically too.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (01:12:12):
You know, that's not really a that's not really a
perfect answer or a perfect thing. Yeah, But I mean
I think, you know, and I like what you said.
I think that that most of this is true. That
what you have to do in life is fine, find
an outlet.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
For me, it's podcasting and creating giving others a chance
to come and share their story, right, And for you
it's music. And I think that's so great. You were
mentioning some of those old country stars that you like. Yeah,
I like listening to them too. Absolutely, there's some incredibly beautiful,
some ridiculously beautiful music that which bring a long time ago.

(01:12:48):
And the fact is it's beautiful then, it's beautiful now.
It's always perfect. When music's perfect, it's perfect. Right, it's
perfectly written, I would say. And my estimation is if
it's perfect, it's perfect forever. There's no if it's perfectly written,
it's always perfectly written, is my It's my it's my estimation.

Speaker 2 (01:13:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:07):
And you're getting into the podcast space a little bit, right,
you're starting you're starting your own podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
Talk about that for just a couple of moments, sure,
go right A.

Speaker 3 (01:13:15):
Yeah, So, as I mentioned at the beginning, I am
a a big you know, stoner. I love marijuana. I
just love really.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
We never really noticed much of much of the much
of the conversation has been so so much of it
has mostly been about that and not nothing personal. But
I noticed that you kind of got on, You've gone
on a little you got that was a little tangent there,
you got a little stock there. I wanted to tell
I wanted to tell a pretty tasteless joke because I
kind of have a really because as you can tell,

(01:13:48):
I have a really fucked up sense of humor, Like
the stuff that comes out of my mouth is.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
Not okay, Oh yeah, I get it, dude.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
Yeah, okay, Well we'll brace for impact. So you know
when you were talking about the whole like technology behind
uh what was it?

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
The the vapor?

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
How you can you know, add the flower into the vapor.
That's the whole process, and that's the whole, the whole
that The only punch line I could come up with
that is it's not really that sophisticated. It's not really
a process. It's not really chemistry, it's not really weird.
It's it's just dope, is all it is. It's just
a dope process.

Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
That's funny. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
Right when you were saying that. I was thinking, you know,
because you're like promoting their ship man. I mean, I
mean yeah, I mean, hey, you know, it's nothing personal
like people, and I don't. By the way, I don't
fault you for using drugs. I really don't. I don't
fault you.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
With thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
Now let me go back and say, I'm not saying
it's okay to use drugs.

Speaker 2 (01:14:42):
It's not.

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
It completely fucks up your brain. And I can tell
based on your speech pattern that you that you smoke.
I mean, I'm not trying to illustrate it, but I'm
showing you that it is noticeable. But I but you
accept that, and that's you, and those are the choices
you made. Now it seems like you're doing much better. Yeah,
well that's great man, you know, but also don't be

(01:15:03):
don't be ashamed of it. I mean, there are there
are way, way, way, way more dangerous things than marijuana.
In my private opinion, I mean, some of these some
of these new we're not going to get into a
big tangent about it, but some of these new drugs
that are out and some of these new stuff that
people are doing now.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
Is far far more dangerous than the marijuana.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
Yeah, and I'm not at all surprised, you know, I'm
not at all surprised. Uh, well, I I'm not going
to I'll say something privately a messenger about your first
time experience because I have to be careful how deep
I cut into my twisted sense of humor. But but

(01:15:46):
none of that's surprising, you know, And I think there's
you know, the truth of the matter is is that
there's a lot of debate now about the validity of
you know, whether it's good or bad.

Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
And I'm not going to answer that. We're not going
to get into that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
But but but the fact is, the fact is, don't
sweat it, you know, don't be embarrassed about that, you know,
or you know, or if you still still occasionally once
a year smoke like that's not not the end of
the world. You know, many many people, Luckily, I'm very
blessed that I for a variety of complications, I just
never did that and never will and never had that issue.

(01:16:21):
But unfortunately, I think a lot of people need that outlet,
and it's it's nothing to be ashamed of, and it's
nothing to be ashamed of and it's nothing to be celebrated.
It's just you know, part of the part of the
part of the spiritual journey, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:16:34):
Yeah, but yeah, I mean I've.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
Absolutely so you're going to start this podcast where you're
going to cheat with other should I say other weed
other like people who also into that like culture, right,
Is that is that the point of it?

Speaker 3 (01:16:45):
Yeah? Yeah, it's basically I'm gonna connect with other Uh.
I like to call them blind cannabis enthusiasts.

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
You're sure they're You're sure, You're sure they're just not
You're sure they're not dopes? Well, I mean, I mean
what I mean, why do they be blind ones? Why
can't you interview all the sight of people? You know,
there's more sighted you know, I mean, why do you
have to discrimin you know.

Speaker 3 (01:17:12):
That's that's true. You know, that's that's fair.

Speaker 1 (01:17:15):
Yeah, you know, after all it was it was the
sight of people that invented that technology, you.

Speaker 3 (01:17:19):
Know, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:17:21):
Oh yeah, I think there's been a couple of probably
I think probably the whoever whoever invented all that tech
that you were talking about though early whoever invented that
they definitely they're definitely probably living a wonderful life in
some palace somewhere in some.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
Oh yeah probably. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
Well, well, I mean this is kind of what I'm
how I'm looking at it to go at least for
the first like, you know, a couple of episodes, until
it takes off. I do kind of plan to more
interview exclusively with blind people, because that's really all that
I can get ahold of. But like, once it really
kind of takes off, I do plan to branch out
and interview more, you know, sided folks. I might even

(01:17:58):
go to like my you know, because there's a dispensary
that's not too far from my apartment complex. So maybe
I'll go in there one day with a microphone and
interview some of the workers.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
Remember, remember you should you should ask them first. Hey,
do you guys mind if you're on a podcast?

Speaker 3 (01:18:13):
And I think of sure, yeah, of course, you know,
I would never do there's something.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
There's something well, well, I don't know, man, there's crazy
people in society, you.

Speaker 3 (01:18:22):
Know, you never know these Yes, oh, I know, I
got you.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
I would say, yeah, I mean I would say, generally speaking,
there's something, you know, there's definitely an element of kind
of like you know, it's it's it's really cool, man,
Like I get it. Like I'm obviously I'm not a user,
but I totally get it. And I think there's something
kind of endearing about that actually, like connecting with society
in that way, being able to connect with people. And yeah,

(01:18:48):
I mean provided that you know that it's a legitimate
dispensary and things like that. Provided yeah, all that, I
think probably if you if you write to them formally
and say would you be interested in coming to my
podcast to speak about, you know, the history of the
of the dispensary. The one thing that I think you
could really focus on and outline though when you when
you do stuff like that, is try to educate people

(01:19:09):
about what you think, in your opinion, are the legitimate
health benefits if there are any abusing, and then what
what the dangers are. I think if you're very objective
about it and professional, I think it's okay and I
think it'll I think you'll definitely get you you'll definitely
get some listeners for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:19:24):
With U. Yeah, there's a.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
Lot of society, fortunately and unfortunately, well mostly it's unfortunately,
but unfortunately much of society uses drugs. You need some
sort of outlet, some sort of substance, and unfortunately, or
or actually this is the fortunate part, most people now
listen to podcasts. So I think the two will come together.
I think, I think, I think that'll be. I think

(01:19:47):
that'll be. Ah, that'll be, that'll be a sale, that'll
be that'll be uh uh. There's all sorts of words
that are floating. You can hear them in my mind.
Words that are floating in my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
I can hear the Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
I just am trying to. I'm trying to trying to
still still keep it, keep it tasteless, keep it politically incorrect,
but also keep it keep it cool man, you know.
Oh yeah, yeah, no, I wish you all the best
too with with the music and keep that. I think
when you join my WhatsApp groups, you'll find that there's
I mean, we have blind musicians. I can get you,
you know, seriously, if you if you want to be

(01:20:24):
a professional musician, if you want that, I know people
who will definitely be able to help you professionally and
get you into the space professionally. If that's something you
want to do.

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
Yeah, man, that would be really awesome because you know
that's well I'm trying to do for the last.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
Well, I mean, if you're.

Speaker 1 (01:20:41):
Okay, but if you're serious about it, you know, please
connect with me off air, and I would be willing
to put you in touch with some people who might
be able to help you advance your music and things
like that. I would want to hear a cover you know,
some of my favorite country music too.

Speaker 3 (01:20:56):
I'm sure I can do that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:58):
Well, let's good.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
You know what, I like you, you know what I
like the way that ended. I'm sure I can do it.
You know what, for someone who's basically pretty hat, you know,
you've had a pretty shitty life so far, but you know,
in coming out of.

Speaker 2 (01:21:11):
This, that's a good attitude to end on. I think
that says a lot about you. You know, thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
Yeah, yeah, you're you're You're a good guy. You know
you were kind of on you know, you had some
you got kind of stuck in your life there for
a while. But I I obviously can't discuss it on
the podcast, but I understand we've had a lot of
friends and family members and and and as we say,
people that that I know, we know, our family has
known that have had very shockingly similar experiences and that

(01:21:38):
this unfortunately reality is people have to have a lot
of really bad experiences before the experience gets a little
bit good. Yeah, that's kind of the problem, all right, John,
John Dowling, John Dowling Junior. By the way, that's a
great name for a country star. In case you're wondering,
that's nothing's better than John Dowling Junior. I mean that's yeah,
that's perfect. So seriously, Yeah, let's I think we've I

(01:22:00):
think we've covered it. I think we've covered it today.
I do want to talk to you about two things
off air but still on zoom and I'll show you
in a minute. So anyway, John, if you can ask
me only one question to really make me sweat, to
see if I'm worth myself as a podcast or what
do you want to ask me?

Speaker 2 (01:22:16):
All right?

Speaker 3 (01:22:18):
When you eat your pizza?

Speaker 1 (01:22:19):
Oh god, so we go from dope to weed to
social security to pizza.

Speaker 3 (01:22:25):
Oh yeah, man, you know, after you smoke weed, you
get you you gotta have some munchies.

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
Oh you don't.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
Oh, I'll show you food. Let me tell you. Oh
I know food, let me tell you. But let me
tell you. Let me tell you something that's something called alcohol.
I can show you all. I can show you all
about it. Okay, what's your question?

Speaker 3 (01:22:44):
Okay, when you eat your pizza, do you like pineapple
on your pizza?

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
I do?

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
How did you know?

Speaker 3 (01:22:54):
I don't know? Well I don't. I'm actually well, why
did you bring it up?

Speaker 2 (01:22:59):
You asked me? If I like, uh, what's wrong with you?
Why did you ask that? Hey? Do you do you
like pineapples?

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:23:11):
Well, why are you asking? Well?

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
Just because you know I wanted because I know that
that's a very controversial topic.

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
So you basically wanted to drive right into controversy.

Speaker 3 (01:23:25):
Oh man, yes, I did.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
Your character.

Speaker 1 (01:23:29):
No, yeah, I definitely like like like the Hawaiian, the spicy,
the spicy sausage.

Speaker 2 (01:23:34):
You know, japenos.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
Okay, I'm actually a French speaker, so French is my
second life. When I go to France, I always get
the pizza, the real pizza over there, and France is
the real deal.

Speaker 3 (01:23:46):
Really wow, I wish I had known that, or also
I would have tried some because I went to France
last year actually for my for my wedding.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
Yeah, really, I.

Speaker 3 (01:23:54):
Wish I knew that you spoke French man, I would
have I would have had your come along so you
could help trends.

Speaker 1 (01:24:00):
Probably not because when I translate French, the person with
me has to eat pineapple pizza, So I probably wouldn't
have come. I'm hereous, I'm curious. This is none of
my damn business. I'm I'm I'm really, I'm really sweating here.
I'm really, I'm really pushing you. When you were in France,
did you go to any of the any of the
hookah bars and have a good hookah? You know?

Speaker 3 (01:24:22):
We did not, and I wanted to, but know that
did not happen.

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):
Okay, that's that's interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
It's there's a lot of places you can go in
France and uh and should we say nothing you've never
been to a questionable neighborhood, But there's there's plenty.

Speaker 3 (01:24:41):
Of especially around Philadelphia. Man there, Yeah, I know, neighborhood's
over there.

Speaker 2 (01:24:48):
Yeah, I know. Have you ever heard of a place?

Speaker 1 (01:24:50):
Have you ever heard of a place called Broad Street
and Temple University?

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
Have you ever heard of that? Have That's where my
so I have a friend who graduated from there.

Speaker 3 (01:24:58):
And oh man, we we were always we.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
Were I'll tell you a lot more off here, but
we were always concerned.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
We were always concerned.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
Oh no, anyway, well, like well, like we say about Philadelphia,
your home city where you started out. You know, you
know the greatest thing about Philadelphia. There's only one thing
that's great about Philadelphia. Do you know what it is?

Speaker 3 (01:25:21):
Is it the Chief Steake?

Speaker 1 (01:25:22):
No, it's the fourth of July seventeen seventy six, and
from there everything collapsed.

Speaker 3 (01:25:30):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:31):
That's awesome, man, oh man, don't forget everybody to click
the link in the description to learn more about John
Dowling Junior, his amazing music and his obviously you're a character.
You have a huge spirit and a huge personality, So
don't forget, everybody. Click the link in the description that
John Dowling Junior provided. And until next time, everybody, don't forget.
Thank you so much, everybody, don't forget. To go eat

(01:25:51):
some Hawaiian pizza and be well everybody out there, And
of course, until next time, help one person today and
help one million people tomorrow. You've been listening to Daring
to Succeed with John Dowling Junior right here on the
Erin's Opinion podcast, the podcast for blind people where we
speak about critical issues in the blindness community and all
other issues from across the universe and galaxy. John Dowling Junior,

(01:26:15):
do you did a great job as always wellcome back
to you in a moment, don't forget. The easiest way
to know exactly what's happening at the show here at
Aaron's Opinion is to ask me for my electronic business
card and I would send that to you to make
your life difficult. One two four zero six eight one
nine eight six nine. That's the number on WhatsApp and
just the number that you can call from anywhere in
the world to get information. You can call, text or

(01:26:37):
reach out on WhatsApp on that number. One two four
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six at gmail dot com. A A R O N
s O O p I N I O N six.
Aaron's Opinion six A A R O N s O
P I N I O N six. That's the number
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(01:26:59):
the directions in the I don't want to get into
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because that does get old. So if you really want
to be on the email list and to know exactly
what we're doing, just tell me to add you and
then we can connect either a messenger or WhatsApp or.

Speaker 2 (01:27:15):
What have you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
But yeah, to be added to the groups dot io
email list, please let me know. Aaron's Opinion on Instagram,
Please continue following there. It's a great place too. You
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(01:27:37):
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(01:27:58):
that people find podcasts, by the way, Sure, the main
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Don't forget. We want to take this time to think
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(01:28:18):
Kingdom and Canada, and we just want to say that
if you're following along on TikTok, go ahead and share,
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Don't forget, and you can also do that on Instagram too.
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(01:28:40):
Don't forget about following along on x and on YouTube
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to download on Apple or wherever you like. John Dowling Junior,
thank you so much for joining us today. You started

(01:29:02):
out a little shy and it kind of took you
a few moments to get used to it and get
into the conversation today. But I just want to thank
you from my heart to yours for really speaking to
me so candidly about all your challenges that you've overcome.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
And you also spoke.

Speaker 1 (01:29:17):
About those things in a very serious way, but a
very endearing way, in a very relatable way. And I
think that a lot of people you know in your shoes.
Really I think there's more people, more people than you
and I are even aware are you know, going through
some of the stuff that you've been through, and you
know would really relate to what's going on in your life.
So I just want to say thank you for joining us.
You did a great, great job. You are forever welcome

(01:29:39):
in the Eron's Opinion community, in the Eron's Opinion family,
and let me know if you have any questions. Thank
you so much. We want to take this time to
thank all the other podcasters and radio stations from all
over the Internet or all over the world for downloading
this and many other episodes of Aeron's Opinion. We couldn't
do it without you. Thank you to all of the guests, past,
president and future who continue to share your knowledge with

(01:29:59):
us each day or on the show. We couldn't do
it without you either, And of course thank you to
all of you the listeners at home from the United States,
United Kingdom, Canada and many other countries. Remember I know,
we know, we all know that there are millions of
choices in that podcast catalog, and we just want to
say thank you for choosing Aaron's Opinion. I hope you're

(01:30:20):
hungry because the next episode of Aaron's Opinion will be
about food. We're going to be talking about food and
kitchens and cooking and culinary art next time, so that's
going to be a lot of fun. But until then,
that's good for today, and of course thank you so much. Everybody,
have a wonderful day, and of course you're listening to
the Erin's Opinion podcast. My name is Aarah Richmond, and

(01:30:42):
until next time, have a great to everybody, keep podcasting,
and of course don't forget help one person today, help
one million people tomorrow.

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