0096 Sir Gene Speaks with Dude Named Zak

Episode Transcript
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Gene (00:00):
Hey guys.
As I mentioned on the previouspodcast today, I'm going to be
doing an interview with aZoomer.
His name is Zach and he'sactually the son of one of my
oldest friends.
And so there are a few momentswhere he talks about his dad and
I talk about stuff that Iremember doing with his dad.

(00:22):
So I wanted to give you thecontext before you listened to
it.
I wanted to do this interview.
Because I wanted to havesomebody that was comfortable
enough with the interviewer me.
To not try and present aparticular persona.
But just to talk from the heart.
But also somebody that I reallywasn't friends with, then I only

(00:45):
know passively and Zach fit thatperfectly.
I've, I've probably.
Talk to him a dozen times, butthat's a dozen times over 20
years.
So less than once a year.
And I certainly know his dad alot better than I know him.
But I thought he would be a verygood representative.

(01:07):
Of the Zoomer age bracket at 20years old, which is what he is
right now.
And in college.
It is typically the age where alot of individuality and
Personalities really becomestrong.
He is his own man.
That's for sure.
And he has very strong opinions.

(01:27):
Some of them.
Poor opinions.
Certainly my opinion, butnonetheless, he has a lot of A
lot of strong beliefs in Y.
His opinions actually.
Correct.
Now, if you have the time tolisten to the entire podcast,
the, the full conversation spansabout three hours a little over

(01:49):
three hours.
In fact by the end, you will seethat he is really kind of.
Not trying to make any points,but we're talking about just
things that are fun.
Like guns shooting, gunshooting, paintball guns.
Topics that.
Clearly indicate to him to notquite be as liberal as he
initially.

(02:10):
Comes across at the beginning ofthe interview, he talks quite a
bit about Q and I have to say, Itend to agree with him on cue.
I've done that in previouspodcasts, I've talked about how
Q is actually damaged theconservative movement.
How it's, it's been somethingthat has resulted in fewer, not
more.
People getting elected intooffice.

(02:32):
On our side of the equationhere.
But I also talked to him abouthow really I used to be the
liberal guy in the room.
And I haven't moved anywhere.
I've always been a libertarian.
I've never cared what people doin their bedrooms.
And frankly, what kind of drugsthey do in their bedrooms.
But because the left has movedso far to the left.

(02:54):
They seem to have pushed me.
Into the quote far, right?
Borderline fascist mentality.
Now I know that my opinions havebeen the same for 40 years.
Really.
And that I haven't been pushedin any direction.
It's just that.
The left has moved extremelyfar.

(03:17):
Into socialism into really theideals of Marxism.
And because they have done that.
It is shifted where everybodyelse has perceived.
As a college student, Icertainly expect Zach to have a
lot more liberal opinions than Iwould somebody that is closer to

(03:38):
my age.
I think comparatively speakingpeople that were in their
fifties, When they heard metalking about subjects when I
was in college would have saidthe exact same thing.
Although I've always consideredmyself a capitalist and the
libertarian.
And never a socialistprogressive or lefty.

(03:59):
But nonetheless, compared to themore traditional Republican
friends that I had, I'm sure Iwould have been labeled as a
hippie socialist.
I figured this is a good time.
For you guys to sit back.
Listen to what a Zoomer has tosay.
About a variety of topics and wetalk about everything.

(04:20):
From a politics, life, drugs,sexuality.
And fun pursuits, like shootingguns.
I hope you enjoy it.
If you do listen to the wholething, by all means, let me
know.
If you don't have time tolisten, maybe I should have
broken this up into multipleepisodes, but.
I'm just releasing as one foryou.

(04:41):
And if you, if you want to comeback to it and it's too damn
long to listen to one seating.
I certainly encourage you to dothat.
Just don't be distracted by hisinitial first half hour worth of
fairly serious, typical liberalleft coast, California.
Bullshit.
Enjoy.

Zak (05:01):
Yeah, let me know if there's any

Gene (05:03):
are live

Zak (05:04):
Oh,

Gene (05:05):
Lemme know.

Zak (05:07):
we're live.
We're live baby

Gene (05:09):
yeah, we're totally live.
So this is Gene, and joining metoday is Zach and Zach's
distinguishing characteristic ashe's a zoomer.
Hello, Zoomer.
Zach

Zak (05:20):
Hey, I've, I've proven myself to be that as of today,
but actually I'm, most zoomersare not as bad as me.
I'm more just

Gene (05:29):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (05:31):
incompetent

Gene (05:31):
alluding to is a little bit of delay in getting this
episode recorded, which that'sall right.
I don't mind, we got there inthe end.
That's the important part.

Zak (05:41):
That, that is the important part.
Yeah, that is my definingcharacteristic.
I'm, I'm more of I'm an expertof in Zoom neurology, so I I'm

Gene (05:51):
for all the Zoomers.

Zak (05:53):
not all of'em, but I, I, I am much more conscious of the
themes within our generationthan most people.
It's probably, I was justtelling you that I love to
record 40 minute long videos ofmyself talking, and most of the
time it's about how it's mostlytalking about our generation and

(06:14):
how I think that especiallypeople within our age range,
which I'm 20 by the wayespecially people similar and
close to my age are we are kindof going to be the key to the
Zoomers, which I can

Gene (06:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, you answered my firstquestion before I asked it,
which is how old are you?
So you're 20.

Zak (06:36):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (06:37):
so that I, I don't even know off the top of my head.
Does that put you like in the.
The older of the Zoomersgeneration then?
Or are you kind of in the middleor what?
Where's that, but you

Zak (06:48):
So I honestly, I you, if you look this up anywhere, I, I
don't think that there's a clearcut answer.
I actually think that we'remost, I wouldn't even call my
age range Zoomers, honestly.
I think we're something special.
However,

Gene (07:07):
Of course you do.

Zak (07:08):
dude, of course, who doesn't, who doesn't, but I, I
honestly don't know because nowthey're coming up with all these
other generations and you canvisibly tell the difference
anywhere.
But I would really say that,yeah, let's call me a zoomer.
I just say mid Midsummer.

Gene (07:25):
Midsummer.
Okay.
All right.
That's fair enough.
Yeah.
And I, I think that's probablyfairly accurate.
Cuz I think each generationtypically is about a 20 to 25
year span.
That's usually what they put onegeneration into that bucket.

Zak (07:42):
Yeah.
Yeah,

Gene (07:43):
so let me ask, let's start with the simple stuff.
How, how bad did covid fuck youover?

Zak (07:50):
So I was like the special, I was the worst case scenario.
I graduated 2020, so, I missedthe entirety of my senior year,
just super spontaneously thesecond half of the senior year,
which is, the time where you'resupposed to do stupid

Gene (08:06):
Yeah.
Stupid shit.
Get laid party, all that funstuff.

Zak (08:10):
Exactly.
And not a lot of that really washappening, but the worst part
was definitely like theunknowingness of it and just not
being able to see my friendsbefore we all went to school or
wherever we went.
And Yeah.
I would say that the year, thenext year, they also got equally
fucked, but y there was lessthere was less confusion about

(08:34):
it all.
So they could still hang out andparty and

Gene (08:36):
Right.
So you guys were just kind oflooking forward to your senior
year, like the guys that youwatched when you were juniors
and then it didn't happen, or ithappened totally differently.

Zak (08:50):
Oh my God.
It was, it was really a shame.
But I was lucky that my schoolat least did a graduation.
We went to Petco Park in SanDiego and they were, they were
hosting a bunch of differentgraduations for a bunch of
different schools, but we atleast got a walk and get our
diploma.
Yeah.
And we all sat in our cars andhonked and whatever, which

(09:13):
honestly not gonna lie, probablybetter than the typical
graduation.
But the problem was, we didn'tall get a, have fun together
afterwards.
I went, I went and I had lunchwith my parents or

Gene (09:25):
So that, yeah, that, I mean, that I'm sure that's a, a
huge change.
Especially like you said, whenyou guys weren't really prepared
for it.
And while the, the younger, theguys a year younger also had to
do a year from home, at leastthey kind of knew what was
coming.

Zak (09:41):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.

Gene (09:43):
Yeah, no, that's true.
And now you're

Zak (09:44):
Sorry, sorry.
Repeat that last part for me.

Gene (09:47):
oh, so the, I'm just sum summarizing up what you were
saying.
So you guys got screwed and you,but you, because you weren't
prepared for what was coming,the guys after you, at least
they knew what was coming, eventhough they also got screwed out
of a year.

Zak (10:01):
yeah, exactly.
They got screwed more so out ofthe education that they would've
received.
I mean, we second semestersenior year, really, the
teachers are pretty good andnice to you.
And it really.
Yeah, it was definitely, and atleast they kind of had more

(10:21):
knowledge about what was goingon, as in the teachers.
And, you not everything wastrying to get figured out and
set up and whatever, but

Gene (10:30):
Now you also live in California, so you kind of had
the more extreme version ofthis.

Zak (10:35):
Yep, yep.
Yeah, no, I mean, you, it waspretty, I mean, it was pretty
brutal here.
I, there's only a few friendsthat I could sometimes see a
little bit, and we would beoutside and everything, but, it
wasn't a small town where, youcould kind of just fuck off,
like no one's coming in and out.

(10:56):
You, you, like, if someone getscovid, you know that there's
covid around and you shouldavoid people.
But yeah, we didn't, we were atthe point where everyone around
us is getting it and we don'tknow if you, like, it's just
gonna kill you or not.
And yeah.

Gene (11:11):
Yeah.
And they were really the, like,the, the scare meter was an
overtime with what they weretelling everybody.
Which incidentally, I don't knowif you catch up on news at all
or not, but

Zak (11:24):
I'm a

Gene (11:24):
The, the current stats are now by the end of last year,
more people have died C O V Dthat have been vaccinated than
people who are not vaccinated.

Zak (11:35):
Really.

Gene (11:37):
Yep.

Zak (11:38):
Well, I guess that would probably entail that.
I mean, most people did getvaccinated, right?
And, but what is interesting isthat the people choosing not to
get vaccinated were probably theleast safe out of everybody.
Whereas the people who gotvaccinated were cockier than
everybody.
There

Gene (11:56):
they were what?

Zak (11:57):
cockier every,

Gene (11:58):
Oh, Kai

Zak (11:59):
they're like, oh yeah, we're not, we're not gonna get
it.
We're not gonna get it.

Gene (12:03):
Right.

Zak (12:03):
We're able to go everywhere.
Like my aunt, we can talk aboutthis a little bit later, but my
aunt, who's heavily invested inQ, the reason why she didn't get
covid is cuz she didn't leaveher damn house.
She's on Facebook all dayfreaking out about the world and
refuses to go anywhere that madeher wear a mask.
Like the people who are refusingto get vaccinated.

(12:25):
This is a pretty biggeneralization, but from,
especially it, it, it's not truefor everybody cuz I do know some
intelligent people that chosenot to get vaccinated however
much.
So I disagree with that.
But I think it was definitely,the, the majority of people that

(12:46):
I know who chose or were veryvocal about not getting
vaccinated, how about that?
That's the best way to put it.
They they didn't go outside cuzthey refused to, they were too
pissed off at the world.
They were too mad that Fauci waskilling and eating children
while making everybody getfucking Mark Zuckerberg's sperm

(13:09):
cells injected into them.
But

Gene (13:12):
Yeah.
Well, I,

Zak (13:12):
I'm sure

Gene (13:13):
don't want Mark Zuckerberg's for himself

Zak (13:17):
no.
I mean, like, of course not.
Who would I, well, okay, superbrief theory.
I think that Mark Zuckerbergdefinitely is a robot right now.
I think that there was a MarkZuckerberg before and he was a
normal person, but holy shit,

Gene (13:37):
I, I think there's an argument against that because if
he was a robot, he would havebetter.

Zak (13:43):
that's true.
But like, think, if you

Gene (13:45):
There's no one's gonna make a robot with such crappy
looking hair, like wigs haven'tlooked that bad in 50 years.

Zak (13:54):
But, but like, doesn't that kind of throw you off a little
bit?
Look, you're already questioningit, you

Gene (14:00):
Oh, well, I mean, you assume he's a robot.
I think you started that andthen you're like, well, but is
he though?
Because just some things justdon't add up.
Like if you're gonna swap aperson out for a robot, you,
you're not gonna make'em look sounhuman.

Zak (14:18):
But, but, but doesn't that, you

Gene (14:22):
there are, there are like sex dolls that look so much more
realistic than Mark Zuckerberg.

Zak (14:27):
so true.
I have a, I actually wrote ascreenplay for one of my classes
last year.
I wrote it.
I was in a screenplay class.
It was about how basically MarkZuckerberg was created by Walt
Disney in order to like WaltDisney forever ago, to create
the metaverse so Walt Disneycould come back and they started

(14:48):
bringing back people likeEinstein.
And, Walt Disney is, he was aNazi.
So it, like, like the wholepurpose was to basically cage
all these famous Jews, like allthese people who've had their
brains, put into jars orwhatever.
That was kind of the idea.
But

Gene (15:05):
That actually sounds like a pretty, pretty wild
screenplay.
That would be fun to watch.

Zak (15:09):
yeah.
No, I, I really thought that wasfunny when I was, and I, and I
was in a group trying, like wegot, that was the screenplay out
of our group that got picked, Ithink because I mean, like, come
on.
It's, it was awesome.
It was called pickled becauseall these people had pickled

(15:31):
brains

Gene (15:31):
that's a good name for it

Zak (15:32):
and every Yeah, it was, it was yeah, it was like Albert
Einstein basically had todestroy the metaverse from the
inside or like kill Disney.
And they basically were tryingto like put.
Disney back together, but Idon't remember the whole idea.
It was crazy.
But basically, mark Zuckerbergwas designed for the future to

(15:55):
bring Walt Disney back to life.

Gene (15:57):
Got it.
Interesting.
That's an interesting theory.
All right, well, let's talkabout other billionaires.

Zak (16:02):
Yeah.

Gene (16:03):
you think of bill Gates?

Zak (16:04):
I think that there, I think Bill Gates is, I, you see the
best thing that, the thing to meabout Bill Gates is like, I
don't really know all that muchabout it,

Gene (16:19):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (16:20):
which is a good thing for a billionaire because

Gene (16:23):
I think for most of your life, he was retired already and
he is mostly focusing on hishuman genetic manipulation
projects.

Zak (16:32):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's that too.
And I

Gene (16:35):
yeah.
That there's that

Zak (16:36):
I mean, Moderna, come on, man.
But if you, if you put, if youtry and spell Bill Gates from
Moderna you'll, you'll, you'llbe able to spell it.
Think about that one for asecond.

Gene (16:50):
Yeah.
I, I think he's got way too manyfingers in way too many things
to be coincidentally

Zak (16:57):
children's holes.
I mean, the old that Epsteinshit came

Gene (17:01):
I mean, a lot of that, yeah.
How many times was he on theEpstein plane?
Like the only guy that was onthat plane more often was?
Bill Clinton.

Zak (17:08):
Well, I think the thing is, is that I don't think, I don't
think Bill Gates was actually onit that much.
He, he really, so I was watchinga video about it not that long
ago.
He kind of became friends withEpstein bef, like Right.
Like pretty late compared toeveryone else.
He

Gene (17:25):
Yeah.
That's actually not the case.
He actually knew Epstein back

Zak (17:29):
Oh, before.
Yeah.

Gene (17:30):
early nineties.
Yeah.

Zak (17:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
He like, I don't, I don'tremember the whole thing, but
that's a reason why, that's oneof the reasons why Melinda
divorced him, I believe.

Gene (17:40):
Yeah, that's what I always assumed.
Although I'm sure that She'snever gonna say anything, but it
sure seemed like the divorcebecame like it was a thing
right.
About the same time that it cameout that he was flying off to
Lolita Island.

Zak (17:56):
Oh yeah.
It what was it?
Well, I believe that some,basically there were the insider
infos, right?
And I don't remember who wrotethe article about it, but the
insider infos, like theinsiders, but it was most likely
her legal team that leaked allthat information.

Gene (18:14):
Yeah.
That could very well be.
I mean, she got a nice deal outof that divorce.

Zak (18:19):
Yeah.
I mean, honestly, they've done,the thing about Bill is he's a
remained relatively silent, Iwould say he's definitely one of
the more prominent billionaires,but as one of the more prominent
billionaires, he stayed prettywell out of the media for a long

(18:39):
period of time because I thinkhe's smart about it.
Obviously he can manipulate, hecan pay people off, he can do
whatever.
But unlike someone that we knowhe's not, he doesn't make a
complete fool of himself.
He's definitely very well spokenand he clearly has some level of
intelligence

Gene (18:57):
Well, and he is autistic.
I mean, he, he's definitely onthe spectrum.
That's been well documentedsince his early life.

Zak (19:04):
the man eats at McDonald's like every day and drives a
civic like

Gene (19:09):
Yeah, well he used to drive a Porsche when he was in
his twenties.

Zak (19:13):
Oh, really?
Really?

Gene (19:14):
yeah, there was a lot of a lot of competition with jobs
directly, but he was always a,he was a guy that, that
definitely showed a lot of earlyautism, autistic signs.
Not like, heavy duty oranything, but just like a guy
that would get upset for thelack of repetition.

Zak (19:33):
Yeah, yeah.
Definitely some weird yeah,yeah, yeah.
Definitely some weird behaviorsexcept I'm sure we're gonna move
on to the man who must not benamed,

Gene (19:42):
Well, yeah.
Let's, let's talk about Musk.

Zak (19:44):
Well, let me, I think that this is the best connection is
you have Gates, right, who flewon Epstein's, jet mult, like
however many times.
You probably know the exactnumber, but how often do we hear
about that, right.
Compared to this fucking dipshit?

(20:06):
I, I think so if we move on toMusk, he, I think Bill was
really along the lines of howmuch a billionaire should be
prominent within the media andjust in the mainstream.
Because, most billionaires arepretty unseen, pretty unheard of

Gene (20:23):
Well, that's definitely what they're usually advised to
do because the last thing youneed to do is to rock the boat.

Zak (20:29):
and most likely they're kind of, they could be assholes
or they could just be provingso, so I

Gene (20:38):
yeah.
They're not necessarilyassholes, but they're definitely
disconnected and it's anopportunity to put your foot in
your mouth if you don't, ifsomebody starts talking about
something and your lastreference was 15 years ago, cuz
you have cha.

Zak (20:51):
Uhhuh,

Gene (20:51):
oh, did they raise the speed limits?
Oh, I didn't realize that.
You

Zak (20:54):
oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly, exactly.
And like there's, I wouldn't, Iwouldn't go as far to say that
like there's an illuminati likesociety o o other than the fact
that fucking Epstein.
To something, something washappening with that.
But, there's a, there's a set ofrule standards, and once you
reach a certain amount ofwealth, you want to keep your

(21:16):
wealth.
It's just the way that typicallyhuman psychology and behavior
works and you to do that.
You start manipulating politics.
You start lobbying, you, youbasically go wherever you're
gonna get the least amount ofmoney taken away from you, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
Like, we can talk about thatlater.
I've recently kind of hopped alittle bit on the progressive

(21:40):
bad bandwagon but

Gene (21:44):
Yeah.
And I, I want to dive a littlemore into politics, but let,
let's cover a few other

Zak (21:48):
us Musk, Musk, Musk, sorry.
As you can tell, I have adhd.
I'm the most distractible humanever.

Gene (21:55):
Well, I have ocd, so that'll balance up

Zak (21:57):
oh baby, I do too.
But Musk, I think, he was, hewas very well liked.
I think he was above Bill Gatesand the well likeness, there's
that video of him like crying on60 Minutes, like, oh my God,
he's so cute.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
But he, but you know, there's,there's so much that's happened,

(22:19):
but in my opinion, he's reallyshown that.
He was born, he, he's a nepotismbaby.
And once you have a certainamount of wealth, you can just
accumulate more and more wealth.
He's just purchased things.
He's, he rarely ever createdanything.
He's forced people to makethings.
He's told people to make things,and he's just proven himself to

(22:41):
not be a very intelligent humanbeing.
Like I, I could, I could argueall day.
I, I argue about this with mydad all the time, and I think
he's, he might be seeing thelight a little bit more, but
Musk is, Musk is genuinelystupid.
Like, he, like, like it's notjust all the actions that he's
taken, he just isn't a verysmart person.

Gene (23:04):
Now, how do you quantify that?
Because he's accomplished anawful lot.
So how do you not call thatbeing smart?

Zak (23:12):
so I would, I would argue in response to that is what has
he truly accomplished himself?
What has he done?
Because

Gene (23:21):
Well, he's become the richest man in the world for
one.

Zak (23:25):
all obviously Yeah.
And, and how much of

Gene (23:29):
And how many people are trying to do that?
Like thousands, hundreds ofthousands, millions.
But he's

Zak (23:35):
I think every single Exactly.
Exactly.
But if we really just look athis history, like I was just
saying a couple seconds ago, isHe's just gotten lucky.
He's just purchased the rightthings.
He's co-founded the rightthings, but has he really done
anything himself?
Like we can see how terrible hisbusiness management has been.

(23:59):
I mean, like, it's not just thathe's obviously bated insane, but
he, with the Twitter stuff, he'slike the fact that he thinks
that he can be, that, that likepeople can still consider him to
be a, a good c e o while he'sactively just destroying Tesla
stock, not even doing anythingwith Tesla on his other things.

(24:20):
And he's not on Twitter,obviously, and he's not
stopping.
He's not halting, like, he'sobviously addicted, but at some
point he has to have realizedthat he's been making a huge
mistake.
And I,

Gene (24:36):
Well, what's the mistake in your opinion?

Zak (24:37):
Oh man, there's so many.
But I think that the biggest oneis he a, oh, that's another
thing that's huge for me is hisblatant misinformation that he
repeatedly posts as fact inreality, even though he's
supposed to be such a smarthuman.

(24:58):
He also has like terribledegrees.
I don't remember ex anyway,anyway he hasn't shut his big
ass mouth.
And his, his mouth isn't verysmart.
The things that come out of hismouth are not very smart.
He's just proven himself to be aliar.
Someone who doesn't fulfillpromises.
Someone who just says things tosay things.

(25:18):
And, as a billionaire dude, likeyou're, you're not pre 2020
Kanye West dude, like.
We won't talk about the modernone, but like, you're not

Gene (25:33):
Oh, yeah, Kanye is hilarious.
I mean, this guy, the shitcoming out of his mouth, like I,
not surprised by a whole lot ofthings at this stage of my life,
but holy shit, when I watchedhim for the last few
appearances,

Zak (25:47):
No, I think my favorite thing was the Alex Jones
interview and Alex is like,dude, dude, do do, you're
supposed to, you're supposed to,you're supposed to dog whistle.
You're not supposed to say it.
Like, he's like trying to egghim

Gene (26:00):
I think it was hilarious.
Cuz Alex has this look like,holy shit, this guy's insane.
And he's making Alex Jones looktotally normal.

Zak (26:10):
yeah.
Yeah.
And that was, that was somethingthat blew my mind.
I know we're probably gonna behopping around a little bit.
Did you, did you watch ThisPlace Rules yet?

Gene (26:20):
Which

Zak (26:21):
H B O Max Special?
Do you know Andrew Callahan fromChannel Five News?
Have you ever heard of him?
Okay.
Watch this Place Rules.
Write that one down.

Gene (26:30):
So that's, is it a show or a movie?

Zak (26:33):
movie.
This one's a movie.
It's basically just a longer oneof his, it's a longer version of
a YouTube one of his YouTubethings, except it digs it, it
digs more into the, the what washappening previous to January
6th and what led up to it,because Andrew has a really
great way of not, not forcingsympathy upon you, but just

(26:57):
showing that all these peopleare just people and they're all
human beings, and they're alldeserving of love.
They're just stupid andmisguided a lot of the time.
And so one of the most is it allright if I throw a little
spoiler at you?

Gene (27:12):
Sure.

Zak (27:13):
A, a minor spoiler.
Okay.
Okay.
So in the documentary he goes,he's going all over the country.
He's going to Atlanta, like tothe hood, just interviewing
people like where a policeofficer just shot like a kid in
a Wendy's parking lot, like, andhe's just interviewing people on

(27:34):
the street, like, like blackcommunities.
And then he's going and he goesand interviews his family.
And all the while it'scontrasting, he's going kind of
back and forth between, he metthis family at some sort of
Trump rally who is obviouslyvery queued out, but these
children, like these 10 yearolds are, are yelling q

(27:55):
bullshit, like screaming it andlike fully believing it,
whatever.
And like Andrew basically, hesomehow just like, was he let
them go, like the, the dad orwhatever, let them go to the
house and hang out with thekids.
And the, he's just like, he'stalking to the kids and they're
spouting all this stuff aboutlike Hillary Clinton, Clinton

(28:19):
eating babies, like that kind ofthing.
And then he is just like asking'em like normal kid questions.
He.
Hey, you guys miss schoolbecause the parents aren't
letting'em go to school cuz theyhave to wear masks at

Gene (28:30):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (28:30):
It's like, do you miss your friends?
Like blah, blah, blah.
He's paying, he's playing bayblades with'em, like he's good
with kids.
He's just like interacting withthem like their kids.
And it's comparing andcontrasting this to, these black
teens who live in the projectswho are not even teens, just the
same age, who are doing the sameexact shit except it, it really

(28:52):
just shows the differencebetween people who have to, work
24 7 to even make a living,maybe commit crime, whatever.
You can go down that hole,rabbit hole.
And then you have like thispretty well off family where
like these kids are beingbrainwashed constantly by their
parents, who should be the onestaking care of'em.

(29:14):
And you see how irresponsiblethis, this white family is.
And later in the l later in themovie, he goes back and visits
them a couple months later afterJanuary 6th.
And the kid who, so there'sthree kids, but or four, three
or four, I don't know.
But the one who he is mostlytalking to, who's clearly a very

(29:37):
bright kid, like he's not justrepeating all this information
and like, you know when kids cando that and they seem much more
intelligent than they are.
He's just like clearly a verysmart boy.
And he's like, I, I don'tbelieve in any of it anymore.
My dad ruined our family.
He destroyed our family and heruined our lives pretty much.

(29:57):
And like the dad is just like,he's there too.
And it's sad but also, it'slike, it really just shows this
is by the way, the stuff thatI'm most interested in, but it,
it just shows how once you startdigging yourself this hole, it's
nearly impossible to get out ofwithout really, like, it's not

(30:20):
easy, like, that you fucked up.
You can have the knowledge, butyou only have one community
because you pushed everyone elseaway.
Like, there needs to be likeliteral Q recovery groups.
Like my aunt is like fuckinghard lining this shit.
She's, she's just got like a bagof fentanyl attached to her all

(30:42):
day, like 10 hours a day onTelegram, on, I don't even know
what she's on.
She deleted Facebook so shecould have more room for
telegram messages,

Gene (30:51):
So where do you think where did Q come from?

Zak (30:55):
what, where did it

Gene (30:56):
do you think Q came?
Yeah, where did it come from?

Zak (30:59):
I, so this is where my generation really showed itself.
So I've kind of probably sincesixth, seventh, sixth, sixth,
seventh or eighth grade, seventhor eighth.
I don't even remember when Istarted.
But like, I'm, I was a kid.
I was doing kid shit.
I was on four chan, likebrowsing every once in a while.

(31:20):
I never really liked it.
But one thing that's reallyinteresting, so there's this app
called I Funny.
This is, this is some like topsecret information I'm providing
right now, by the way.
But I, funny notablyhilariously, unfunny on the
surface, but there's communitiesunderneath the surface and a lot

(31:42):
of this, gamer gay I don't, Idon't want to get entirely into
that, but as I've grown up, Ican still follow these people
who I've been following since Iwas in seventh grade.
and learning over time, likethese people, I, I would see
them post Pizzagate shit beforePizzagate became even remotely

(32:03):
mainstream.
Like they were making thisinformation, and over time still
following them, they'll startposting their ages.
And I'm like, holy shit, you'vebeen my age this whole time, and
you are the one making all ofthis.
And basically, I think where Qreally came from, I went on to

(32:26):
eight chan or eight Kun theother day, like a while ago.

Gene (32:29):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (32:30):
I, I, I think it's, it's mostly been created by
psychopathic narcissists who no,but like, honestly like
diagnosable, like this is theonly thing that makes them happy
is fucking with large groups ofhuman beings.
Because I, I was on this, I wason the side of the internet.
I loved that shit.
I loved fucking

Gene (32:50):
Well there there's definitely the antisocial
behavior crowd is always had avery cozy home on the internet.

Zak (32:57):
a hundred percent.
And I'm sure that, yeah.
You met my dad on what?
A pirate board, right?

Gene (33:02):
Yeah.
We don't talk about that

Zak (33:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We can, we can cut that out

Gene (33:06):
no, that's, that's e exactly true.
So I actually, I ran a PirateBolton board when I was

Zak (33:12):
Oh, it was you, you were the one running it.
Yeah, exactly.
You were 16 years old.
Mm-hmm.

Gene (33:18):
And your dad gets on there and I'm, I happen to be the
computer when it was happening.
So I see a new applicationcoming in and I noticed that he
put, he had a PC and it said Macor pc and I, I was running a Mac
bulletin board.

Zak (33:35):
Oh

Gene (33:35):
and so I, I jumped on to just let him know I'm gonna kick
him off cuz it's for Mac people,

Zak (33:41):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (33:42):
And and he's like, oh, hey, no, I've actually, I've got
both, but he didn't have both ofhis options, so I just put PC
down and that was literally howI met your dad.

Zak (33:51):
That is so fucking funny.

Gene (33:53):
Isn't that hilarious?

Zak (33:55):
That is like genuinely hilarious because he is
probably, he's four years olderthan you.
He is

Gene (33:59):
Five.
He's five years older.
Yeah.
So he was 21, I was 16.
And then he proceeded to corruptme by buying me alcohol.

Zak (34:08):
that is hilarious.
Wait, did you, I forgot whereyou lived.
Where, where did you get, wereyou in Cato?

Gene (34:14):
No, no, no, no.
This was right after he moved upto Minneapolis.
So I lived in the

Zak (34:18):
Oh, oh,

Gene (34:19):
he lived in, up north in the northern burbs with his
first wife.
And it was It, it's, it's funnyremembering back to those days
cuz it doesn't seem like allthat long ago, obviously a while
ago, but, it was way, way, waybefore you were born.

Zak (34:34):
yeah, but you, it's crazy how much of that is just a
straight up testament

Gene (34:41):
what happened is the volume got cranked up to 11
because we were doing a lot ofshit that was, the adults would
not like

Zak (34:47):
Yeah.
But, but most, but Mo here's thething is, most people on those
pages were intelligent.
They weren't, they knew whatthey were doing.
You had to know your way aroundthis stuff, and you could
probably sniff out most bullshit

Gene (35:02):
But there was still bullshit around back then
though.
I

Zak (35:04):
Oh, oh, a hundred percent.
Exactly.
Well, exactly, that's what I'msaying.
But you knew as, as abullshitter, most people who
were coming on to your board orwherever you were, were also
most likely bullshit.
But the problem is, is once itgets introduced to the general

(35:25):
public in the mainstream, is youhave people who are like, if I
go back, like I follow thisactually finish what you were
gonna say,

Gene (35:33):
Well, I, the, the only thing I was gonna say in there
is back in those days, back inthe eighties we, the people that
were doing Bolton boards andstuff parenting software, doing
whatever, as as kids, we wouldstill get together in person
because a, it seemed unnaturalto just never meet somebody.
It was weird.

(35:54):
Not these days it's normal.
But also because we're nottalking like everybody's online
at once.
Cuz you have usually either oneor two.
I had two lines and that wasconsidered like fancy.
For calling in.
So you, there would be twopeople at most online at the
same time.
You'd be on for half an hour,maybe download something, grab
something, write some messages,then log off and somebody else

(36:15):
would log in.

Zak (36:16):
Yeah.

Gene (36:17):
when you get together in person, then all of a sudden
it's like, there's 25 peoplehere.
And then they're all, they allbring their computers with them.
Everybody's bringing their, alltheir gear at a big meetup.

Zak (36:29):
Dude, there's nothing better than that.
Shit.
Actu well keep going.

Gene (36:33):
Well, and it's, this was all like pre network games even.
So there, it wasn't even like aland party.
It was, it was, it looked like aland party will eventually look
once there were computer games.
But back then, the only gamesthat existed were single player
games.
So there was not even anopportunity to play anything
with other people?

Zak (36:52):
Well, I mean, like, maybe there was some.
Well, what I would like Ataritype things where you could do

Gene (37:00):
Well, oh yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
So there wasn't anything on thenetwork and there wasn't
anything on the computers.

Zak (37:05):
Oh.
Oh.

Gene (37:06):
games did have two controllers or even four
controllers.
Yeah, for

Zak (37:11):
So what I was gonna bring up is I don't know how so,

Gene (37:15):
Dude, your dad and I used to go to arcades and spend like
10 bucks.

Zak (37:19):
oh man.
Oh man.
Holy shit.
10 bucks.

Gene (37:22):
telling you.
Big money.

Zak (37:24):
Big money, dude.
That's like, that's more thanyou'd find in the couch
cushions.
But

Gene (37:30):
I don't think I've had cash in my hands for about five
years now.
So,

Zak (37:33):
Oh really?
Wow.
That's, that's crazy.
Okay, Mr.
Fancy Schmanzy over here.
You

Gene (37:39):
not fancy.
I just, eh, it's a moreconvenient to just use a card.

Zak (37:43):
I just got my debit card in the mail after not having one
for probably two years.
I

Gene (37:49):
Why?
Why'd you not have one?

Zak (37:51):
because I lost it and I just never reordered

Gene (37:54):
You never reordered for two years.
Why you had no expenses.

Zak (37:57):
But here's the thing is, I, I haven't needed one because I
can just use my phone.

Gene (38:03):
Oh, that's true.
That's a good point.
Yep.
Yep.
So you don't need to have acard, it's just re reminding
this old shit.
Back then, credit cards didn'thave, not only did they not have
a chip, they didn't have amagnetic strip.
And what would happen is theywould actually make a copy of
the front of the card,

Zak (38:23):
mm-hmm.

Gene (38:24):
with that embosser machine that would kind of go clink,
clank.
And they had copy paper, the,the black little thin sheets of
paper that had transferable linkwhen you press on it.
And then those would actually besettled up like once a month.
It was totally different.
Now, I send you moneyelectronically, you get it
within a minute.

Zak (38:43):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Well, the better, the evenbetter part about that is I'm
sure Gene would never have doneanything naughty with that very
simply Exploitable type thing.

Gene (38:56):
It was extremely exploitable.
Yeah.
Unbelievably.
Yeah,

Zak (39:00):
Yeah.
I mean, like, it, it, it's soexploitable that you probably
could have just put up on, youcould have had some form of a,
like an embosser or a mold typething

Gene (39:12):
man,

Zak (39:12):
had a bunch of random numbers and they would've
embossed

Gene (39:15):
Yeah.
And nobody would even know.
Nobody would know.
Cuz you, you're running itthrough the machine.
And I think some of the earliestscams were doing exactly that
kind of

Zak (39:23):
Yeah.

Gene (39:23):
it was like, anytime you have convenience, there's always
a way for criminals to utilizeit.

Zak (39:30):
Oh, a hundred

Gene (39:31):
That's just goes without saying.

Zak (39:33):
Yeah.
Okay, so one thing that I wasgonna bring up about the games
is first, do you, what, who,like influencer wise, do you
watch Twitch streamers orYouTube people at

Gene (39:44):
Yeah, I watch, I watch both.
I occasionally do both,actually.
I'm on another streamer'schannel very frequently as just,
a guy who's like in his partydoing shit with him.

Zak (39:57):
Big streamer or

Gene (39:58):
nah, he's not very big, but he, he's he's in the game
that I've been spending a lot oftime in, which is Star Citizen.

Zak (40:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I know you used to be a big artguy, but,

Gene (40:09):
Yeah.
I did ARC for, I think I got4,000 hours in arc, so

Zak (40:16):
as many.
I cuz you were modding, right?

Gene (40:18):
I was, yeah, I was actually writing mods for Arc
because I got into ARC as soonas it came out in pre-release,

Zak (40:26):
Uhhuh

Gene (40:27):
and I quickly discovered there were things that just
either were impossible ordifficult to do.

Zak (40:35):
No, that game sucks ass.
Yeah.
Like it's not, yeah, it's likejust an, I remember when I was
old, I, I actually don't think Iever owned Arc, but I've

Gene (40:45):
Really?
Oh, I, I love that game.
I, I've had so much fun in thatgame,

Zak (40:48):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
People fucking love it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But,

Gene (40:51):
up writing I think three or four different mods basically
for me.
And then of course I posted'em,and then I had like thousands of
people using'em because, they'reconvenient.

Zak (41:03):
Okay.
You're just Remi, you're, you'rebringing me back a little bit,
but Okay.
Okay.
I'll get to a few things, butinfluencer wise, who do you
watch?
Like, or maybe I should just askyou, do you know who Ludwig is?
Have you heard that name?
So, how much have you paidattention to him?
As of late?

Gene (41:21):
I mean, I've seen'em a few times.
I, I've certainly heard thename.
I don't watch regularly.
I don't think I subscribe oranything.

Zak (41:27):
And you're, you're one of theunsubscribed, he always tells
you to subscribe.
He's, he always shows you the,the thing.
But what, so, I, I have a, i, Ihave an innate knack for finding
things that have longevity andthat are going to get popular or
stay popular.

(41:48):
Stay relevant.
And Ludwig's one of them, hejust recently though, did a
chess boxing match.
I don't know if you saw any of

Gene (41:56):
Mm-hmm.
I did not, no

Zak (41:59):
Yeah.
Can you guess what that is?

Gene (42:02):
chess, boxing,

Zak (42:04):
Yeah.

Gene (42:04):
I don't know.
Chess board with boxing?
I don't know.

Zak (42:08):
Basically do like two to f it was like 2, 4, 5, 6 minutes
of chess.
I don't remember how many.
And then, so you do that, youput, you're playing a game of
chess.

Gene (42:20):
Yeah.

Zak (42:20):
And then the way he had it set up is the chess board, like
gets lifted up into the air andthen you get into your corners,
you put on your boxing glovesand shit, and

Gene (42:29):
Oh, okay.

Zak (42:30):
like two minutes.
And it's influencers doing it.

Gene (42:34):
Yeah, that, that's, it's interesting.
My, I think partly cuz of myage, just partly cuz of my
interest level I tend not towatch people that do kind of
simplistic or, I don't know,goofy games.
I watch more simulation people.

Zak (42:48):
Uhhuh.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm, I'm gonna give you somegood names, man.
I, I, but keep going, keep

Gene (42:55):
Well, and it's, I, so there there's tons of people
that have gotten really big thatI just, I can't watch their
content because it's just notthat interesting.

Zak (43:08):
I, I understand.
I'm such a little gatekeeper,man.
Like the second something getstoo big, I'm, I leave

Gene (43:17):
yeah.
And it's not even too bignecessarily.
It's, it's more of just interestlevel wise, I, I've always
really enjoyed playingsimulation games.
I like stuff where, it's, it'syou figuring out how to do
something creatively that endsup being an advantage and not
just using a formula of, up, up,left, right, left up, up.

Zak (43:40):
yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It gets

Gene (43:43):
any monkey can remember that shit.

Zak (43:46):
Well, I don't know how much speed running you watch, but
that's always

Gene (43:50):
I've watched a few speed running things.
I've,

Zak (43:52):
Yeah.

Gene (43:54):
I mean, that is definitely a skill and, and some people are
incredibly good at speed

Zak (43:58):
Oh my God, man.
It's fucking wild.
Yeah.

Gene (44:01):
but also I like to, like, I'm more of a completionist than
a speed runner personality-wise.

Zak (44:09):
Uhhuh Uhhuh

Gene (44:11):
when I play a game, I, I tend to not rush through the
main storyline.
I wanna kind of take on a lot ofquests, a side quests, and then
once I kind of run out of sidequests and I'll do the next
segment of the main storyline,just make sure I get everything,
which also typically means

Zak (44:31):
little bit of o c d moment.

Gene (44:33):
yeah, a little bit.
But also it means like, by thetime I'm doing the end boss,
I've got like superpowers

Zak (44:39):
Yeah, yeah.
That's, that's the only problem.
Did you go through Eldon ring?

Gene (44:43):
I, no, I've, I've none of that one.

Zak (44:46):
Dude?
What's wrong with you?
Man?

Gene (44:49):
I was, I was playing ARC when that was up.

Zak (44:52):
oh my God.
Fucking play Eldon ring man.
You will, you will

Gene (44:56):
Well, aren't they coming out with a new version?
I heard something about that.

Zak (45:00):
no, probably not.
They, they take forever torelease games.
They're they by far the bestgames.
I mean, I, I, I've never been abig Dark Souls guy, but holy
shit man.
If what you just explained to meis it, you will have, you will
be, it.
It's, it's hard.
You can choose what you chooseto invest your time in energy

(45:23):
and whatever, but also there'sthe part where it's like,
there's so much to do.
It's a great open world game.
It's

Gene (45:34):
Well, and that, that's really cool cuz I, I do like a
lot of the open world.
So I just, the last one kind ofalong those lines I finished is
cyberpunk 2077.

Zak (45:44):
gonna ask you, yeah.
So

Gene (45:45):
So I, I bought it before it came out, but I, I started
watching your views, like rightwhen it was

Zak (45:51):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
You,

Gene (45:53):
was saying how horrible it is and once somebody said
something really smart, theysaid, if you bought it, the best
thing you can do right now isjust leave it uninstalled for a
year.
Wait a year.
Let, they'll fix it all.
They always, they always do.
Just give'em a year, don't playit and, and make the game be
shitty and play it once it'sdone.

(46:13):
And I kind of forgot about it.
And then about a year and a halflater after it came out, I
remembered, oh, I have this, Ijust don't have it installed.

Zak (46:21):
Yeah.

Gene (46:22):
it, I didn't watch the anime and a lot of people did,
but it was right

Zak (46:24):
the fuck is, oh my God, there's so much wrong with you
right Just kidding.
Keep

Gene (46:29):
I'm not a kid for one, so,

Zak (46:30):
Oh, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, dude, I, if you don't like
anime, I, this show will get youinto anime.
It

Gene (46:40):
Well, anim, I, I watched a anime when I was in my teens and
my

Zak (46:45):
yeah.
Yeah,

Gene (46:46):
and then eventually I got married and I stopped watching
anime.
And not saying everybody goesthrough that process, but I
think a lot of people

Zak (46:55):
someone's a virgin hater over here, but No, no, I
understand.
I understand.

Gene (47:00):
anyway.
Yeah.
And I do, I do like, like theoli cosplay shit that comes out
of anime.
I'm all for

Zak (47:05):
Uhhuh.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,

Gene (47:07):
it's just, I don't know.
And again, one of the, the enemythat I liked was the, the more
hardcore enemy, not the cutesyenemy.

Zak (47:14):
Cyber punk is fucking hard.
That show, that show is gory as

Gene (47:20):
What was it on?
Maybe that's the other

Zak (47:22):
It's on Netflix.
It's on Netflix.
So,

Gene (47:25):
I don't, I don't, I I think I told you I don't, I
don't have pfl,

Zak (47:28):
What that, what dude that fuck that.
I was like, did he just like,text somebody?
What?
Why did he

Gene (47:36):
Oh.
That's why I refer to Netflix as

Zak (47:38):
No, no.
I know.
I, I looked it up.
I'm like, what is Gene intowhat's going on here?
Scared the hell out of me.

Gene (47:45):
Oh really?
No, that's funny.
Yeah, no, I, I did a, they'vebeen like, I, I was, had Netflix
literally since it first cameout when they had, the only shit
they had when they started, bythe way, was they had a bunch of
Indian movies, like movies fromIndia that they bought licenses
to super cheap and then they hada bunch of like 1970s TV shows.

(48:05):
It was just

Zak (48:06):
get the disk coming to you?

Gene (48:08):
Yeah.
You would get the disks and thenyou could, you could sign up for
in fact the first, when youfirst signed up, when it first
became available online, it wasa free add-on and they didn't
start charging an additional feefor like two or three years and
then there was like four bucksor something for both online,
and then added onto your eightor nine bucks for the normal

(48:29):
disks by mail service.
And then eventually there was nopoint in doing disks by mail.
Cuz all the good stuff is comingon an online version as well.

Zak (48:37):
Uhhuh.

Gene (48:38):
But I don't know, man.
I just, I, I, I hate vog shit,man.
I just can't stand it.
I think this country that itjust took a, a left turn for the
worst with this whole cultureout there.
And I'm really hoping yourgeneration isn't buying into it
the way the millennials.

Zak (48:58):
I'm, I'm gonna help you out here a little bit.
Cuz I've been, I, my dad's avery, he's interesting.
I've really been learning a lotabout him, but he's, he's
definitely a hard-headed personwho is very stuck in his values
in ways.
I think the first thing,

Gene (49:15):
Yeah.
I could tell you a few stories.

Zak (49:17):
Oh yeah, no, I'm sure.
So I've really been trying,especially with like this Elon
shit, like, he made me a bet.
He was like, a hundred dollars,if you bet a hundred, I'll, I'll
give you a thousand if he fucksup Twitter.
So I, I hopefully will bereceiving that.

Gene (49:31):
Bet on

Zak (49:33):
Elon Musk fucking up Twitter, because I was trying to
explain to him that Elon Musk islike one of the stupidest human
beings ever.
And he's like, no, no, no, no,no, no.
How could he be stupid?
How?
I'm like, Mike, Mike, Mike, lookat this pole.
That like, I, I just, I, I was,I was quite aggressive with him.
I was kind of, I, but like, he,he needs a little slap in the
face every once in a whileanyway, with the woke culture

(49:56):
ship.

Gene (49:57):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (49:58):
So, I've recently gotten kind of into Hassan.
Do you know, you've heard ofHassan?
Maybe.
I'm actually, so the reason whyI really have been as, as the,
as the Zoomers say, fucking withhim is he, he, he, he's just
honest.
He's not, he's never, he, ifthere's any woke culture

(50:21):
bullshit,

Gene (50:22):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (50:22):
just steps on it.
He's like, no, fuck off.
Like, I don't know, this isbullshit.
Like, stop saying shit likethis.
But I think there's the otherside where whenever I hear the
words cancel culture or woke,right, right around now woke is
a little different.
I, I, it's a hit or miss, likethe way you said it was better,
but it just makes me feel like,holy shit, you don't know what

(50:47):
you're talking about.
Like, that shit doesn't exist.
You are obsessed with b t sloving 12 year old girls.
Like that is who you're letallowing to determine your
political opinion and views.
And I think because it took me awhile to get around to it too it
took a lot of people, mygeneration a while, but you
know, like I was mentioningearlier, I was kind of on this

(51:09):
side of the internet.
I was never right.
But I definitely was like on theoffensive side, right?
And it took a little bit of atraumatic event along with a
couple of other things.
But once I started to get it,once, once society started
making sense to me, and again,like this, my brain just, I'm

(51:29):
20, right?
Like, I still got five more, sixmore years to go before I'm
fully developed.
But it's feeling, my brain'sfeeling pretty cool right now.
I'm like, holy shit.

Gene (51:39):
Yeah.

Zak (51:40):
I'm, I'm somewhat smart.
Or I'm smarter than I was.
Anyway, once it started makingsense to me, it's like, It's so
easy to filter out the bullshit.
And the reason why I like Hassana lot is because he really
explains to people who might belike, opposed to all this woke

(52:02):
culture shit and might not wantto be involved whatsoever with
liberalism or politics ingeneral, or not liberalism, but
I guess progressivism, progreprogress.
See, maybe I'm not that smart.
But like at all, because, theyassociate all of it with the
woke culture.
It's just like, no dude, justdon't be a fucking asshole to

(52:24):
people who, like people aretransgender.
Like grow up, like you don'tneed to judge anybody for being
transgender.
Like, people know that they'retransgender by the time they're
six most of the time.
Like, it's, there's, there's,and, and by observing my dad and
his responses to a lot of this,I'm like, I'm not the one whose

(52:46):
brainwashed you are So set inyour ways, in your culture and
your age that you refuse to evenobserve any of this, and you're
just contradicting yourself atevery turn.
And when I try to explain it toyou, like I'll get a little
aggravated, I had a greatconversation with him last
night, but like I, I'm justlike, dude, if your whole thing

(53:11):
is not caring so much, why thefuck do you care so much?
Like, stop saying cancelculture.
It doesn't exist.
People are getting quote unquotecanceled by like two year olds
now.
Like, it's not a thing that'shappening when people are
getting like, I guess what youwould call canceled.
It's, it's deserved most of thetime now, like at the very

(53:33):
beginning.

Gene (53:34):
So do you think that makes it okay?

Zak (53:35):
Dependent.
Again, very, very dependent.

Gene (53:38):
Because, the people that did the most canceling were
world War II Nazis.

Zak (53:43):
yeah,

Gene (53:43):
They canceled a, a whole group of people.

Zak (53:47):
Yeah.
No, I mean, like, no, no, that'snot true though.

Gene (53:51):
It is.

Zak (53:52):
No.
I mean, 6 million, are youkidding me?

Gene (53:56):
That's a, it's a pretty good sized group of people.

Zak (53:58):
I'm just fucking with you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, no.
You know me, I'm a Jew, so, myHolocaust survivor grandma's
here right now as well, so,yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyway but, but that's notcanceling.
That's not, no one's dying.
It's like, I think, I think atthe very beginning, I think this
is what really gave it

Gene (54:17):
Well, he didn't start with people dying, dude.
Now if you look

Zak (54:20):
Oh, no, I'm talking,

Gene (54:21):
in the 1930s, it,

Zak (54:23):
look at the history of

Gene (54:24):
dying started.

Zak (54:26):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, like, look atCatholicism in Roman,

Gene (54:30):
horrible.
Yeah.

Zak (54:31):
the worst.
Like,

Gene (54:33):
Yeah.

Zak (54:33):
but I'm, I, I'm,

Gene (54:34):
I think if you look at Catholicism, which is a good
example, and I think you're kind

Zak (54:38):
oh, it's my favorite example, man.

Gene (54:40):
towards the

Zak (54:41):
the cause

Gene (54:42):
well, no I mean there's the, probably the, the thing
that I usually point to onlooking at the bad elements of
Catholicism is the inquisition,

Zak (54:53):
Yeah,

Gene (54:54):
where under the guise of that religion, basically anybody
that wasn't espousingCatholicism was tortured and
eventually killed, and all theirproperty taken.

Zak (55:08):
no, that, but, but no, I'm just, sorry, I'm gonna keep on
saying that.
I'm joking whenever I say that,by the way.
Because

Gene (55:17):
Well, I mean, you, you keep saying it, you're just
gonna look more dumb every timeyou say that, but

Zak (55:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, no.
I'm, I'm making, I'm making ajoke every single time I'm
making a joke, but I, well,exactly.
I mean, you look at

Gene (55:29):
nobody expects a Spanish Inquisition.

Zak (55:31):
no exact Exactly.
Oh, man, that was, that was thatthrew me back.
I was in fourth grade when thatwas like a meme.
That's crazy.

Gene (55:45):
think I was in fourth grade when that was a meme

Zak (55:47):
well, yeah, exactly.
It d it ca

Gene (55:49):
dude.

Zak (55:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, and it repeated, right?
Like it came back.
I remember having like asoundboard with all these
buttons, like a

Gene (55:56):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's the thing that'sso funny is what, what kind of
are memes these days today?
It's not like people weren'tsaying or showing memes before
the internet and beforecomputers.
It was just all done verbally.
People just repeat funny, stupidphrases like that.

Zak (56:16):
dude.
I mean, like, so that's oh myGod, there's so many things I'm
holding in my brain right now.
But that's one thing about mygeneration.
It's so funny because I'm such alittle gatekeeper, so I, I
always know about memes sixmonths before they become
mainstream.
I'm gonna say that.
I'm gonna sound like an assholesaying it, but I don't

Gene (56:37):
you're also not very little.
How tall are you?

Zak (56:40):
six four.
I'm big, I'm a big fella.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm a big fella.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Big asshole.
But, I, I, I, it, it, once it,once people start saying it, I'm
like, like, I can't, I can'thandle it if it's not me and my
friend saying it, like I can'thandle it.
And, but at the same time,there's these words like be

(57:02):
like, I don't know if you'veever heard that.
Also, like, I've been working onmy usage of like,

Gene (57:08):
Just using the word, like

Zak (57:10):
Yeah.
I, I, I stopped, I was doing itfor a while,

Gene (57:14):
you're conscious of saying it and you're trying to avoid
it.

Zak (57:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.

Gene (57:20):
a lot of, I think a lot of people go through that at some
point in their lives.
Some people never stop using it.
They use it forever.
But those of us that noticethat, it definitely starts to
jump out at you every time

Zak (57:35):
exactly.
And it's like, oh, oh, Oh,

Gene (57:39):
now of course we have software that does text or
speech to text and.
Like, one of the things that Iuse for podcasting is called
Script which it, it shows youall those words.
In fact, you can remove'em.
And one of the regular things Ido on podcasts is I, I remove
all the ums

Zak (58:00):
ooh,

Gene (58:01):
cuz there's a lot of

Zak (58:02):
I like that.

Gene (58:03):
There's

Zak (58:03):
Hey a lot of

Gene (58:04):
Yeah.
There's usually several hundredums per hour.
It just pops up cuz empty,

Zak (58:10):
That is fucking wild.

Gene (58:13):
Yeah.
It's you save about three, fourminutes worth of length on the
podcast.

Zak (58:18):
crazy.
700.
Wow.

Gene (58:21):
at 200 per hour usually.

Zak (58:23):
Okay.
Okay.
You, you over exaggerated it alittle bit,

Gene (58:26):
Yeah.
Well, I thought I said two, buteither way.
So that's about 400 for a twohour podcast.
You get about 400, 400 of thoseums to remove.

Zak (58:35):
Yeah.

Gene (58:36):
gonna leave'em all in for this podcast just because I'm
pointing it out.
I wanna not, not,

Zak (58:41):
not, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Gene (58:43):
I wanna leave them in.

Zak (58:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But

Gene (58:46):
But yeah, so we, we were, let's get back to games.
So we're talking about cyberpunk

Zak (58:50):
Oh my God.
Well, well, before we Okay, wecan backtrack super quick to
the, to the be lit, that kind ofthing.
I'm always late to that shit,but I'm always early to music.
I'm always early to like tomemes, to there we go.
There's a, for

Gene (59:08):
So that means you spend way too much time on the
computer or the

Zak (59:10):
I, I, I used to, I don't do an amor.
I, I, I, now it's just music.
I, I super music's focus Supervideo

Gene (59:19):
you, what, what are you listening to now?

Zak (59:21):
I would not, I don't think that there's necessarily really
a okay, okay, let's do this.
I'm gonna cover this in a minutebecause I can go on forever
about it.
So basically what happened is atsome point my dad, right?
He, here's a rap song.
He's like, he pisses me off somuch with it.

(59:43):
But so I used to hate it.
I used to hate rap.
And then eventually somethingclicked and I think it was my
cousin was showing me maybe theunderground rap scene I was
making, like joke rap.
I kept on making jokes about allthese rappers that were coming
up, the lil phase, whatever.
And what was really interestingis, for some

Gene (01:00:03):
when you say rap, do you mean hip hop?

Zak (01:00:05):
I mean, rap, so, so I would say hip hop, I would say hip hop
is more like what you wouldthink old school rap is, I think
I would say new rap.
So, I think you've probablyheard this name, Lil Pee, right?

Gene (01:00:20):
I, I never have.
No.

Zak (01:00:22):
Oh, really?
There's a whole documentary madeabout him recently.
I'm trying to think.
So, so I would, I would sayKendrick Lamar is kind of in
between hip hop and rap for meand my eyes.
Because he's more lyricallyfocused.
He's more beat focused, he'smore storytelling.
That's how I feel about hip hop.
Right.
And then rap is more what youwould, you would, you would

(01:00:43):
listen to rap and you would belike, I actually don't know what
your opinion would be, but my

Gene (01:00:49):
Well, I'll tell you, when I, when I was listening to rap,
it was run D m C,

Zak (01:00:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I, for me, I don't evenconsider that's like, that's,
that's hip hop.
Well, I guess that is rap.
That is rap.

Gene (01:01:02):
So after that is when hip hop kind of came more
mainstream,

Zak (01:01:07):
Yeah, yeah,

Gene (01:01:08):
and that's when I kind of stopped listening

Zak (01:01:11):
Yeah

Gene (01:01:11):
and so to me it was like, well, we had the rap back in the
eighties and then hip hop, I waskind of like nineties and after.
And so it sounds like now rap is

Zak (01:01:22):
it's a, it's such a huge, huge, extensive term nowadays.
There's, there's no one realgenre because of computers.
I mean, you can produce anythingat home.
I've made music, I made a lot ofmusic like Eazy Peasy Lemon
squeezy.
Anyway getting

Gene (01:01:38):
blown away by how the quality of production people are
doing at the home now.

Zak (01:01:44):
it is.
So, it, well, so, okay.
Okay.
Let me go, I'll go on a littletirade.
Don't I'm, I'm gonna just gostraight down the hole.
So I, I'm sure you've heard ofLil Uzi Vert,

Gene (01:01:55):
No,

Zak (01:01:56):
the guy who got the pink diamond embedded in his
forehead.
You remember that?
Yeah.
Oh my God.
Future

Gene (01:02:03):
no.

Zak (01:02:04):
Young Thug.

Gene (01:02:05):
Yes.

Zak (01:02:06):
Okay.
Okay.
So Young Thug.
Young Thug is probably thegranddaddy of like so much that
man, that man.
I don't even like himpersonally, but like he, he is
the base.
He, he has been so influential.
But if we run down the list, soessentially what happened is my
cousin was showing me music.

(01:02:28):
He was kind of into it.

Gene (01:02:29):
born about the time I stopped listening to Rap

Zak (01:02:32):
What's fuck in, what's, wait, Thugger was,

Gene (01:02:36):
Yeah.

Zak (01:02:37):
I thought he was old.
He just got a re He's, he is,he's not getting outta jail.
That guy's

Gene (01:02:42):
born in 91.

Zak (01:02:43):
is fucked right now.
He has like 10 kids.

Gene (01:02:45):
Yeah.

Zak (01:02:45):
he has a, he has Yeah.
Well, and he, he loves them.
And his family's always at riskwhen his flight's being tracked.
Anyway so going down the list.
So what happened is Lil Pee, sohe's one of the rappers who died
he died I think 27, 28.
He's in the 27 club, 28.

Gene (01:03:04):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:03:05):
what the club is.
No, he's not.
Sorry.
He died at 22, 21 or 22.
He was, he was young.
He was really young.
Which is kind of the age that alot of these rappers have been
dying at

Gene (01:03:14):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:03:15):
He was kind of one, I, I, I hated his music at first.
My, my friend like, was like,did you hear that Lil Peep died?
I'm like, who the fuck is that?
And then eventually somethinghappened where my cousin was
like, let put on some littlepeep.
And I'm like, I hate him.
And he can't listen to that.
And I, and he can't stand thismodern rap.
And then all of a sudden I waslike, oh shit, wait.

(01:03:36):
I really like this.
This has a vibe.
This has an energy to it.
So then after that I startedgetting into it and I started
watching music videos, which isone of my passions now is music
videos.
It's probably one of the thingsthat I want to spend a lot of
my, it's something that I findvery entertaining.
I like making'em, I like workingon'em, making edits, whatever.

(01:03:58):
And I love watching them.
Anyway, so there's this channelon YouTube called A Star.
They do a lot of undergroundrap.
Music videos, or they just postthem on their channel.
And so I just started goingdown, and I think you've
probably heard of Lil Zan asthat is the coolest name ever.

Gene (01:04:16):
Little Zen?
I don't think so.

Zak (01:04:18):
you've never heard of Lil Zn?
He surprisingly, he ended up inthe hospital for eating too many
Hu Hedos.
I actually know his ex.
But that's, that's a whole otherstory.
So there's a song by him.
He has like two good songs.
But there, there's a song by himand I'm like, holy shit.
Like, this makes sense to me nowI get it.

(01:04:40):
And I started going down andthis is a rabbit hole, man.
And then you just start goingdown and down in shit that you
like listened to a couple monthsago, and you're like, what the
fuck?
How do people listen to this?
And then all of a sudden itstarts clicking and it clicks
and clicks.
And now I'm listening to what Iwould, so basically, this is
what I love about the new rapgame and the genre.

(01:05:01):
Right now.
It's kind of, it's, it's kindof, it's about to start a new
era.
I really hope because it's, it'sflatlined a little bit, but I'm
big into Glitch.
Core Hyper Pop is kind of thegenre that I would

Gene (01:05:14):
Glitch.
Core hyper pop.

Zak (01:05:17):
Have you heard of Hyper Pop?

Gene (01:05:18):
No.

Zak (01:05:19):
Oh man.
So, okay.
So Hyper Pop is like, it's, itreally just got started, but at
first you're like, how cananyone listen to this?
And then it makes sense.
That's just typically how itworks with it.
And then Glitch Core

Gene (01:05:34):
And what's it, if you were describing it without somebody
listening to it, what, what isit like?

Zak (01:05:40):
So hyper pop is probably, it.
It, it was so, oh my God.
I don't know if you heard ofSophie trans Woman.
She died looking up at the Starsin Greece.
It's a crazy story, but yeah,she like fell off of some thing,
but she was a huge, hugeproducer.
Huge

Gene (01:05:59):
mm-hmm.

Zak (01:06:00):
And she anyway, I don't even know why I brought that up.
The way I would describe it isit's since pop is so mainstream,
so simplistic, it's basicallyoverexaggerating every single
aspect of it to an extreme.
And it's awesome.
Like at first you're like, Ew,what is this?

(01:06:24):
And then it starts making sense.
So, high pitched vocals, lowpitch vo well, mostly high
pitched vocals.
Like the gain is all the way up.
Like it's peaking, it's doingwhatever.
And it's, and and it's reallyimpressive, like how good a lot
of it sounds, but I don't reallylisten to the mainstream stuff.
So there's this group, a hundredGs, they're probably.

(01:06:45):
I, I, I found their music videoon Asari, I think, like way
before they blew up.
But those, those two are,they're probably like that.
It's the kind of music that Ishowed people two years ago and
they're like, please shut thisoff, Zach.
And now they're obsessed withit.
It, it's, it's what happens withol again, I'm a little, I mean,

(01:07:07):
I'm a huge gatekeeper asshole,but it, I show people stuff
before it blows up.
And then, so what happened isthat genre, which took a little
bit from pretty much everythingstarted combining with the
underground rap scene, which iswhat I was very involved in.

(01:07:27):
So, underground rap scene beingSoundCloud, rap Young Lean is
huge.
Have you heard of Young Lean?

Gene (01:07:35):
No, no, no.
I've heard of SoundCloud,

Zak (01:07:37):
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene (01:07:40):
Underground rap back, back in the day was basically guys
that do a run of vinyl.

Zak (01:07:47):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This is super different cuzSoundCloud rap, you gotta sort,
like there is some

Gene (01:07:53):
There's so much stuff on, on SoundCloud.
It's almost like I can't

Zak (01:07:56):
It's really difficult to find what's good.
Yeah, I, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, same.
I I just, I bought SoundCloud Gocuz I get like a$2 a month

Gene (01:08:07):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:08:08):
Like that's crazy.
Student being a student's coolfor that.
But anyway,

Gene (01:08:12):
of all that shit.
It all goes away.

Zak (01:08:14):
oh it's so nice.
Young Lean is he.
Probably the most influentialSoundCloud artist.
He's a Swedish guy.
There's actually twodocumentaries about him.
Really weird.
But he's a, he's a really coolguy.
He's, but he's been on theinternet.
Like he started on the internet.
Everything.
He just made stupid ass kind ofjokey, but not really.

(01:08:36):
But he created a sound.
And then this was, this was likethe underground sound.
It's like the ultimate gatekeep, it's like you, like I
can't explain to you why themusic that I listen

Gene (01:08:47):
All right.
Well, I, I will check out Hyperpop, glitch

Zak (01:08:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anyway, the, the, the bottomline is they both combined and
then 14 year olds to 18 yearolds started making the best
music of these genres.
And that's what's beenincredible and amazing for me to
watch is just like, oh my God,you guys are so much more

(01:09:13):
creative, talented, and whateverthan anybody else.
You're making collectives.
You're, you're managing all thisstuff on your own.
There's no adults influencingyou, and yet you're doing,
you're maybe not doing betternumbers wise, but you're making
better quality content and morecreative content because you

(01:09:33):
have to be creative.
And, if you have a child's mindor like a kid's mind and maybe
you're starting the smoke weedor like do psychedelics or
whatever, like, y like thesekids are just making beautiful
shit.
And anyway, that's, that, that'sanother thing that I'm super
passionate about.
But we can go back to games now.

Gene (01:09:53):
Well, I, yeah, I mean, we, we got a few other things to
cover.
Yeah.
As far as games, I was justgonna say, I, I really enjoyed
cyberpunk.
I'm glad I waited till theyfixed everything.

Zak (01:10:03):
Sorry, what did.

Gene (01:10:05):
I'm glad they, that I waited until they fixed
everything, all the.

Zak (01:10:11):
Oh my God.
Yeah, they I think it was themost played game on Steam pretty
much ever like two years afterit came out.
Right?

Gene (01:10:18):
Yeah, exactly.

Zak (01:10:19):
maybe It was just

Gene (01:10:20):
Yeah, probably that's right.
Around two years or so.
It, which is, and they just wonsome award, I can't remember
what, but it was like the end of2022 award.
So literally two years after thegame came out,

Zak (01:10:32):
yeah.
It's so funny.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
It's

Gene (01:10:34):
for 180 million,

Zak (01:10:37):
really,

Gene (01:10:37):
stockholders because they fucked up the launch.

Zak (01:10:41):
oh man.
I, I honestly, I feel awful for

Gene (01:10:44):
So the game

Zak (01:10:45):
really pressured.
They were

Gene (01:10:47):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I mean, it was in the endthat was a good game and I think
the next witcher they're workingon is gonna be really

Zak (01:10:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I haven't even played TheWitcher.
I'm,

Gene (01:10:56):
Looking forward to all that stuff.
But yeah, a lot of other stuff Iplay is like, simulation stuff
like KAL two is about to comeout.
I've, I've played Kurbo foryears.

Zak (01:11:06):
Kble Space program.

Gene (01:11:08):
Yep.
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:11:08):
Yeah, man, that game, I

Gene (01:11:10):
where you can design your own rockets from all kinds of
parts.
And then,

Zak (01:11:15):
I saw the trailer for that at somewhere.
They, they've updated that gameconstantly too.

Gene (01:11:20):
yeah, it's been, it came out originally seven or eight
years ago and it's been updatednonstop since then.
But the big thing isn't eventhe, the company that makes it,
it's just got the biggestmodding community ever.

Zak (01:11:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I remember

Gene (01:11:33):
insane what kind of mods are out there.
And it literally, like, I've gotall the realism mods running so
that it's the real earth, it'sthe real solar system, it's
real, sizes and real physics andeverything, and just makes it 10
times harder than the originalgame that they put out, which
teaches you all the basics thatyou need to know if you wanna do

Zak (01:11:56):
isn't

Gene (01:11:57):
real

Zak (01:11:58):
space, space things.

Gene (01:12:00):
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
Space things real, real like,what's the word I'm thinking of?
Well, yeah.
Rocketry, but it's, it's orbitalmechanics is the word I was
thinking of.

Zak (01:12:08):
okay, okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
Isn't that, but you know, likeyou could give that to a kid and
they'd be able to figure it out

Gene (01:12:15):
Yeah.
They sell, they sell a schoolversion of that game that has a
bunch of training material thatcan be integrated into classes.

Zak (01:12:23):
But, but you give it to a sixth grader and they, they're
probably gonna end up beingbetter than you at the game.
Like

Gene (01:12:29):
that very much.

Zak (01:12:30):
you think you're, you think you're okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I guess, I guess you're really gI'm just kidding.

Gene (01:12:36):
thousands and thousands of hours.
And I wrote some mods.

Zak (01:12:40):
okay.
Okay.
Yeah, no, I'm sure that you havea great basis, but you, but you
kind of know what I'm getting atas

Gene (01:12:45):
Yeah.
It's, it's one of those gameswith a very steep learning curve
though, is you kind of like, alot of people, I think lose
interest when they're, when theycan't leave the atmosphere.
Like

Zak (01:12:57):
Yeah.

Gene (01:12:58):
and they try and try and nothing like, they just don't
have enough to leave.
And that's, that's why I lovethat saying that Musk has been
re speeding, which is, space isreally hard and it's totally
true.

Zak (01:13:11):
space is not easy.
It's not an easy thing.
I'm gonna pull up my friend whoI know has a shit ton of hours
on that game.
Let's see, three months ago.
Yeah.
This guy got a girlfriend,apparently.

Gene (01:13:24):
Okay, so

Zak (01:13:26):
but,

Gene (01:13:26):
this dead air we got in the middle of the podcast?
You playing with your phone?
Is that what it was?

Zak (01:13:30):
no, are you talking about me?

Gene (01:13:32):
Yeah.

Zak (01:13:34):
Oh, no.
I, I just opened up steam to seehow many hours my,

Gene (01:13:37):
Oh,

Zak (01:13:38):
my friend has on Oh man.
Does it not even say how many?
I know he has like a metricfucked ton of hours on this
game.

Gene (01:13:46):
on kl.

Zak (01:13:47):
On Kurbo?
Yeah.
Is it on Steam?

Gene (01:13:50):
I think I've got 4,000 hours in Kal

Zak (01:13:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, this

Gene (01:13:54):
around there.

Zak (01:13:55):
this could he played

Gene (01:13:56):
And then Kurbo two's supposed to be coming out next
quarter, I believe they said.

Zak (01:14:01):
Oh, really?

Gene (01:14:01):
So it's pretty close to coming out.
And then the whole wantingthing, I'll just restart again.

Zak (01:14:07):
Yeah,

Gene (01:14:07):
then I got a game.
You're probably gonna laugh atthat.
I, I used to play, I haven'treally played it in probably two
years, but I used to use Play ita lot, which is Farm Sim.

Zak (01:14:17):
Farm Sum.

Gene (01:14:18):
Yeah.
We got hundreds and hundreds oflicensed tractor products and
all the tra all the farm gear,everything.
Planters, harvesters, all thatcrap.
It's just very relaxing.
Single player.
You could be watching a moviewhile you're doing it.
You,

Zak (01:14:35):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.

Gene (01:14:36):
you're, you're like running a combine eating corn,

Zak (01:14:40):
Wait, gimme like two seconds.
My,

Gene (01:14:42):
or whatever.

Zak (01:14:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's kind of like Americantruck, American truck simulator
while you got a beer in yourhand.
Yeah.

Gene (01:14:50):
e Exactly.
Exactly.
And I, I do, I do have truck simas well.
I haven't really been playing itmuch lately,

Zak (01:14:57):
Uhhuh

Gene (01:14:57):
did play a little bit when they released Texas.
Texas is finally out, so it waskind of fun driving around in,
in American Truck Sim to, placesthat I've actually been

Zak (01:15:07):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's, yeah.
Oh my God.
I, I, I, I love Truck Sim everytime I remember that.
I own it.
I'm, I'm on it.
I was, so if we go way back towhat I was talking about, the
reason why I brought up Ludwigis cause he really got his start

(01:15:29):
in the melee scene, like SuperSmash Melee, which has had
probably one of the most potent,I it would be the word or
consistent fan bases ever.

Gene (01:15:41):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:15:42):
And, that's like You can download the simulator, which
Nintendo might even just takedown this podcast for me even
saying that.
But you know, it's a very, I'mjust, I'm just

Gene (01:15:53):
they don't give a shit.
But it, it's a, but that's whatI mean, that's kinda what I
refer to as far as like, gamesthat are just not that
interesting to me.
It's like,

Zak (01:16:03):
Oh my God.
Dude.

Gene (01:16:05):
for the, the coolest graphics, the highest res, the,
the most life-like experience.

Zak (01:16:13):
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene (01:16:14):
So, I mean, I played Mario Brothers in arcades back in the
late eighties,

Zak (01:16:19):
Yeah, yeah,

Gene (01:16:20):
nineties, whatever it was, bowling alleys, but it was and
it was fun at the time, but wedidn't, like, we didn't have all
the cool shit we have now.
Like star citizen,

Zak (01:16:29):
yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Well, what I was gonna say is we

Gene (01:16:33):
your hands on the microphone.
Don't do that.

Zak (01:16:35):
I wasn't, I was actually typing.
I know

Gene (01:16:37):
Okay.
Now don't do that either.

Zak (01:16:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sorry.
I

Gene (01:16:39):
That was very loud.

Zak (01:16:40):
I know I'm te that actually didn't happen.
I never did that.
But so this game came out in2001, 2002 Melee.
And it has consistently been,it's been, it's honestly kind of
beautiful because people willbring their, their, I think it's
Game Cube or man, I forgot whatpeople mostly play it on,

Gene (01:17:01):
the old Nintendo Cube.
Yeah.

Zak (01:17:04):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
But they'll, no, they lug adifferent system.
I forgot which one it is, butthey'll lug their systems.
They'll drive 500, 600 milesjust to go and meet up and play
with other

Gene (01:17:16):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:17:17):
And, and, and they've been doing that for 20 years.
And it's been one of the mostunsupported communities from
Nintendo, even though the playerbase is so, so, so big.
They've made like four gamespost this game.
But people love melee.
Like melee is melees the shit.
And anyway, incredibly complexgame.

(01:17:39):
Like the, the, the best playersin the world.
Like, they're still the best.
A lot of'em, there's this guyMango, it's a whole long story,
but he did, at the chess, boxingthing, kind of what he started
it off with was, was Meleeboxing.
So he got two people to playlike a round of melee and then
box, and then a round of meleeand then box.

(01:18:00):
And whoever did like best ofthree or whatever would win.
But Melee, the community hasbeen so, so, so strong with it,
even though Nintendo's justNintendo's the most fucked
company ever.
They're really awful.
But,

Gene (01:18:16):
They've done a lot of really stupid shit over the
years.

Zak (01:18:20):
you, if you get into this lore, man, like, it goes deep
with how, like, recently there'sthis huge thing where they, they
fucked over everyone in themelee scene, even though it's
just like a game out of love.

Gene (01:18:32):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:18:33):
people, like, like, you just, it's probably the
smelliest room you'll ever walkinto.
It's like worse than a walkinginto like a, like a card shop
where everyone's playing magic.
It's like, or I, I think WarHammer would probably be worse
smelling.
But

Gene (01:18:46):
Oh man.
Magic The Gathering.
Yeah.

Zak (01:18:48):
Still

Gene (01:18:49):
Yeah.
I, and I've never gotten intoany of that cart game stuff.
I know a lot of people aren'treally into that.
I just, I mean, I kind of getit.
It's like you, you got yourimagination, you got the cards
are kind of

Zak (01:19:02):
Oh man.
Nah, that's not even the mostfun, honestly, the most fun part
about that entire thing.
I, cuz I used to be super intomagic.
It's kind of like chess, it'skind of like chess.
It's kind of like chess.

Gene (01:19:13):
I've heard people say that.
I just, just never gotinterested enough to even try
it.

Zak (01:19:18):
So, yeah.
Yeah.
No, I feel like you would, youwould, I feel like you would be
more of a war hammer guy forsure.
Or d not, not D and d war.

Gene (01:19:26):
I just, I don't know.
I mean, I

Zak (01:19:28):
You never got into models or anything

Gene (01:19:30):
no.
Nope.

Zak (01:19:32):
that surprises me, honestly.
Yeah.
You're more of a gamer yourwhole life.
But anyway, the

Gene (01:19:38):
Yeah.
I mean, I've been, I've enjoyedcomputer games and different
arcade games, but I, I don'tknow, I've just never got into
that stuff.
I did a d and d a number oftimes in my life.
Like I've been invited to, beparticipate in games, but, and
it was fun, but the fun aspect,just hanging out with

Zak (01:19:55):
with your buddies and being stupid little

Gene (01:19:58):
That was really, yeah.
That was, that was about it.
I mean, it's like, I, I rememberwere doing like a Star Trek, d
and d kind of thing back in thenineties.

Zak (01:20:08):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (01:20:08):
And I,

Zak (01:20:10):
Oh, I, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene (01:20:11):
I, I told the, the dungeon master guy that, you know, and
then I, I typed in the formulainto the computer keyboard and
he's like, oh, but there are nokeyboards.
You, the computer is verbalonly.
I'm like, well, that's horriblyinefficient.
That's, that's totally not gonnahappen in the future.
I mean, sure, you can say basicthings to the computer, but
you're not gonna be wanting tofreaking say a formula in the

(01:20:35):
proper order without looking atit on screen.
That's

Zak (01:20:37):

Gene (01:20:39):
get, I didn't get re-invited back to that.

Zak (01:20:41):
yeah.
No, I bet they didn't like that

Gene (01:20:43):
No, they, they snoop,

Zak (01:20:45):
You would be surprised.

Gene (01:20:47):
to our yeah.
Uhhuh.

Zak (01:20:50):
You would be surprised though.
I mean, well, maybe you wouldn'tbe, I don't, you said that
you've played a couple d and dthings, but that shit, when
that, when that kind of thinghappens, it is always the
funniest, like you just have somuch fun.
Just like, because if you have a

Gene (01:21:07):
had fun.
I had fun.
I think that the other peoplewere fine with too, but I think
the Dungeon Masters just pissedoff.

Zak (01:21:14):
yeah.
Yeah.

Gene (01:21:15):
I, I've done that a few times.
I've pissed off a number ofDungeon Masters over the

Zak (01:21:18):
yeah, yeah,

Gene (01:21:19):
have that ability pretty easily.

Zak (01:21:20):
you're a little too logical sometimes,

Gene (01:21:22):
I am, I am, I, I tend to bring up things that aren't just
simple, like, okay, you gottaleave your, your logic and
beliefs at the door and when youcome in, but just
inconsistencies, like, I'llbring up inconsistencies in what
they're doing.
It's like, wait a minute.
What you told us 35 minutes agois contradictory to this.
What the hell?

Zak (01:21:42):
And then they're like, oh, there is a

Gene (01:21:46):
nobody likes

Zak (01:21:47):
walk out of right now.
Yeah, exactly.
No, I I used to go to Astro campwhich was like, like, I mean, it
was the nerd camp, but theinstructors there, like

Gene (01:22:00):
And what was the, like, what, what kind of stuff did you
guys do?

Zak (01:22:04):
could do whatever you wanted that you would like ch it
was kind of like picking anelective or like a major kind
of, so you would choose onething that you would want to do.
I don't remember even what I didmostly, but you could do like
rocketry, 3D printing.
I, I know I did 3D printing.
I th I definitely did somerocketry.
But you could do like theadvanced, or, and you could do

(01:22:26):
they had this one space game,you might actually know it.
Old, old.
It's not super old.
Imagine like Eve, but like,there's like six people on a
ship old doing individualthings.
And

Gene (01:22:42):
Trek thing.

Zak (01:22:43):
it wasn't Star

Gene (01:22:45):
I'm pretty sure it was Star Trek.

Zak (01:22:46):
No.
The, I I know, I know that thisone wasn't Star Trek.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah.
If you remember any other gameslike that, you'll, it'll
probably be exact, but you wouldhave, it would, it would be like
20, or not 20, but like 12people or 10, 12 people in a
room.
And like, you would have twoteams and they're, everybody's

(01:23:09):
communicating with one eno withone another.
And you're on like 2002 likePCs, cuz

Gene (01:23:15):
Yeah, that wouldn't have been Star Trek.
Hmm.

Zak (01:23:18):
I don't remember what it

Gene (01:23:19):
But speaking of Eve, I did play Eve for

Zak (01:23:21):
I, I, I would figure that you would've been a Big Eve guy
or,

Gene (01:23:24):
very well on Eve.
I was a trillionaire.
Well, no, not real money, justeve money, but but that kind of
ended for two things.
One is I, I owned the mostexpensive ship in the game and
well, I, I mean, I didn't, Igrinded for it, but the, the

(01:23:45):
equivalent value of that wasabout 2,500 bucks.

Zak (01:23:48):
only 2,500.

Gene (01:23:50):
yeah.
Yeah.
Back, back then.

Zak (01:23:52):
Oh, okay, okay, okay,

Gene (01:23:54):
this is, this is like 2007, eight, right

Zak (01:23:58):
yeah.
I didn't even know that thatgame was that old for the

Gene (01:24:01):
Oh eight.
That game came out in 2003.

Zak (01:24:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That shit is

Gene (01:24:06):
so

Zak (01:24:07):
And it's still alive.

Gene (01:24:09):
2000.
Yeah, it is.
I know.
It's crazy.
But yeah, I stopped playing it,I guess in 2008 or nine, but
yeah, when I got, when I hadthat ship yanked by guys that
did a great job, just like

Zak (01:24:20):
they fucked you.

Gene (01:24:21):
they totally fucked me, but, but it was like they, they
figured out when I'm usuallyonline

Zak (01:24:27):
Oh, yep.

Gene (01:24:28):
and where I usually fly to, and then one day, all of a
sudden there's like 70 peoplethat showed up, because

Zak (01:24:37):
Oh,

Gene (01:24:38):
typically you don't fly these ships solo.
Right.
But

Zak (01:24:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is, this is like yourdriving, like your fucking
Lamborghini and like Atlanta.
Yeah,

Gene (01:24:47):
yeah, it's, it's well beyond that.
I mean, this is not, this wasnot a Lamborghini, this is like
driving a, a the Rolls Roycethat Elvis used to drive in,

Zak (01:24:56):
Like, like, like the James Bondcar or something like that?
Yeah, yeah,

Gene (01:25:01):
And they ended up yanking me and then my connection
dropped

Zak (01:25:06):
Oh, no.

Gene (01:25:08):
back on because that, one of the things that Eve really
sucked at back then was when youhad a large number of people you
hoped to God you didn'tdisconnect, because if you did,
you may not get the connectionback up again.

Zak (01:25:20):
Oh man.
So, so basically they ki theykind of like, I don't know if
you ever

Gene (01:25:25):
they killed an empty ship effectively.

Zak (01:25:27):
Well, they pretty much, they, they overloaded the server

Gene (01:25:31):
Exactly.

Zak (01:25:33):
I don't know if you ever used to play Halo.
I wasn't even around during thispoint, but there used to be what
was it, A lag switch where youwould switch it?
Yep, yep.
Feels very similar to

Gene (01:25:44):
Exactly.
And, and so by the time I goton, I logged in to see my ship
blown up and, and myself dead,which really sucked.
But then the part that reallypissed me off and did more to
make me quit the game was allthe people that were like in my
corporation and my alliance werelike, nobody was feeling bad for

(01:26:04):
me.
Everybody was like, well, whatthe fuck were you thinking?
You shouldn't have been doingthis?
I'm like, well, fuck you, dude.
I just lost something that tookfour years to get

Zak (01:26:11):
to grind.
Yeah.

Gene (01:26:12):
telling me, oh, well, too bad.
You're an idiot.
Thank you.
The other guys, the guys thatcame out and killed me, they
were donating money to mebecause they were like, Hey, had
a blast.
It was fun.
I know it sucks for you.
Here's some.

Zak (01:26:25):
yeah.
Yeah.

Gene (01:26:26):
like, Jesus, I'm in the wrong fucking group.
I got the bad guys

Zak (01:26:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Gene (01:26:32):
me, here's some cash, cuz we know it sucks.
And I got my guys saying, well,you're an idiot.
So, so I pretty much became ajust total pirate after that.
That was the, that was a bigswitch.

Zak (01:26:44):
Hey, you know what?
You know what?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So much more fun doing thatshit, man.

Gene (01:26:49):
Eh, for a while

Zak (01:26:51):
you reminded me that that sounds a lot like, this is much
smaller scale, but like rust,like that

Gene (01:26:57):
Oh, yeah, yeah,

Zak (01:26:57):
under rust,

Gene (01:26:58):
played Russ for a little while.

Zak (01:26:59):
I feel like Yeah.
Yeah.
It's not as complex as arc oranything like

Gene (01:27:04):
No, I mean, it's all about building your, your triangle
next to a square and then it's,

Zak (01:27:09):
and then fucking shit, and then stealing everyone else's
stuff.
Oh man.
It's so funny, man.
Gimme one second.
My stupid ass just sat right onmy headphones.
I gotta give me two seconds.
Oh, man.
Oh, nevermind.
Give me a second.

Gene (01:27:27):
Okay.

Zak (01:27:28):
I kind of bent them.
Not, not my bear dynamics.
Can't do that to my babiesanyway.
Hello?

Gene (01:27:36):
would you sit on your headphones?

Zak (01:27:38):
Because I didn't realize that I put them there.

Gene (01:27:41):
Put'em down in the seat?

Zak (01:27:43):
Yeah.
I'm just an

Gene (01:27:44):
Yeah.
You should always hang those up.

Zak (01:27:46):
Yep.

Gene (01:27:48):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:27:48):
have just learned that lesson.

Gene (01:27:50):
There you go.
You won't ever repeat it.

Zak (01:27:53):
I probably

Gene (01:27:54):
All right.
Enough about gaming.
Let's, let's cover some topics

Zak (01:27:58):
Important.
Important topics.
Important

Gene (01:28:01):
I don't know about important game's.
Pretty important.

Zak (01:28:02):
Oh wait.
Yeah.
Yeah, we can do that.
Can I, can I do one more thingabout gaming

Gene (01:28:09):
Okay.
Go for it real quick

Zak (01:28:10):
it's super quick?
Well, a, I just looked up 33,300 30,000.
in Eve anyway was the biggestbattle ever or whatever.
B I don't know how much you payattention to it, but
Counterstrike, global offensiveskins trading probably one of
the most interesting things tojust be paying attention to.
Actually Incredible, most of thetime.

(01:28:32):
Very stable, very consistentlyuprising skin's market.
It's, it's really fun to payattention to it because it's
like stocks ex pretty much, cuzyou, can sell, trade, whatever.
Chinese collectors are goingcrazy.
Although something happened inChina, I don't remember what it
is.
But right now, skins aredefinitely gonna take a little
bit of a hit.

Gene (01:28:53):
kind of one of the things I like about star citizens as
well, is there's almost like ametagame for the, the ships and
all the other crap other thanspaceships as well, because a
lot of that stuff is limited.
And so there's a total secondarymarket for everything.

Zak (01:29:10):
I think I love that shit, man.
It's always it.
CS Go is definitely the creatorof it.
I mean, I used to gamble when Iwas in like seventh or eighth
grade.
I actually, this is prettyinteresting.
If you look up Mick Skillet Ididn't know this for the longest
time, but I used to watch him.
He was one of the biggest CS GoSkins people.

(01:29:31):
And it turned out he had a verydeep voice.
I was like, oh, this guy's incollege or whatever.
It turned out he went to my highschool

Gene (01:29:38):
way.
That's hilarious.

Zak (01:29:40):
well, this story isn't, doesn't end up too hilarious,
but he actually so he wasprobably in 10th, 11th, 12th
grade.
I don't remember when it was,but he bought McLaren.
He had, he, he was heavilyinvested in Bitcoin crypto.
I'm pretty sure I, I don't knowhow many people really know what
exactly he was invested in, buthe ran a lot of, like these

(01:30:00):
gambling sites or like skins,trading sites.
He made a lot of videos.
But something, oh, I think oneof I something got like trade
banned or something.
Like something happened.
And I don't know exactly what itwas because I think there's a
lot of other shit stacking ontop.
And he was a manic depressiveand he he ended up driving his

(01:30:23):
McLaren through an elementaryschool, like just like the
parking lot, but like brokethrough the gates.
And then we don't, no one reallyknows if this was like entirely
on purpose, but there's this oneturn, I think it's on the 8 0 5.
It's like an exit.
And it, it, and it, you caneasily confuse it with an
on-ramp, but he was drivingalong the highway, 120 miles an

(01:30:46):
hour face first collision with amom and like her two, three
kids,

Gene (01:30:52):
Ooh, that's horrible.

Zak (01:30:53):
Blew'em all up.
Killed them instantly.
Crazy fucking story, man.

Gene (01:30:57):
Wow.
Yeah.
Let's talk about drugs.

Zak (01:30:59):
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let's do it.
I, that's, that's another thing.
So it's it's games he had overlike a million dollars in skins,
by the way, like, probably waymore than that,

Gene (01:31:10):
Yeah.
At that age, you're, you're notwell equipped to

Zak (01:31:14):
he, yeah, he dropped out his second semester, senior year
he dropped out.
But he, he was like two gradesabove me.
He was a really sweet kid.
He was on my basketball team,but c team basketball.
Anyway, drugs.

Gene (01:31:27):
yeah.
Do you think that people yourage or around your age, let's
just say and it's kind of abiased question.
I mean, everyone's gonna have adifferent perspective, but do
you think drug use is higher,lower, or about the same as
people of that age group havealways done?

Zak (01:31:44):
So I think that me answering this question is a
little difficult because Iwasn't alive when you were
alive,

Gene (01:31:52):
Right.
No, I know.
That's why I said it's biasedbecause everyone's gonna only
have their own perspective.
So based on what you think washappening before you were alive
or what you think is gonnahappen after do you think it's
about the same, more or less?

Zak (01:32:05):
Far more in incredibly, incredibly higher and it's
younger.
That's, that is the scarierthing.
I don't know.
Yeah.
So, so let me give you kind ofthe explanation, because every
time I talk to younger kidsabout it, I'm just like, ho
what?
But you know, my dad used totell me kids were smoking

(01:32:25):
cigarettes when they were likefour or six.
That's very, very different than

Gene (01:32:30):
his friends.
I never knew anybody that smokecigarettes

Zak (01:32:32):
Yeah, well, he is Eagle Lake, like

Gene (01:32:35):
Uhhuh.
Yeah.
Yeah,

Zak (01:32:36):
hick, hickville like on the playground, whatever.
That's, that's, so that's not,obviously not the case because
it, that was more like theparents were allowing that to
happen.
But one thing I will tell you,is kids are each year, I, I
would say every one to fouryears.

(01:32:58):
And I believe that everything isaccelerating at an exponential
rate, just period right now.
Especially with my generation,the kids younger.
The year the kids are startingto do drugs, gets younger and
younger and younger and younger.
So right now, I would bet thatfourth graders are trying weed
for the first time.

Gene (01:33:19):
Graders.

Zak (01:33:20):
fourth, fourth graders a accessibility, really easy.
But TikTok, right?
Like oldest accessible socialmedia that these kids are
consuming and they're thinkingthat it's okay.
I mean, it's the same thing withQAN on.
It's like, oh, this one persondid it, so it's okay.
Oh, now I know a friend who didit, so now it's really okay.

(01:33:42):
And, and so they'll start theweed I think is typically number
one.
Like, I don't think that they'redrinking, but you know, it's
easy to get your hands on acart, like a pen, whatever, and,
and hit a, hit a dab at school.
Like, I mean, I, the, the reasonwhy I say fourth grade is cuz I
just have heard of it before.

(01:34:02):
And every single time I talk toa kid, I'll ask him, I'll be
like, like, are kids smokingweed around you?
And like, this is like an eighthgrader going into ninth grade.
And they're like, yeah, like Ihad to stop hanging out with all
my friends cuz like in seventhgrade they just started smoking
weed all the time.
And I'm like, what the fuck?
And like, this isn't the sameweed.

(01:34:25):
I can go on a whole rant aboutthis too, but it's not weed,
it's not the same weed that, youwould've smoked back in fucking
the eighties or the nineties.
Even the early two thousands.
It's, it, they're smoking cartsare smoking highly potentiated
weed, it's like 96%.
It's like, and it's fake, mostlikely.

(01:34:46):
Actually, I don't know what thefake cart situation is anymore.
I used to smoke fake carts whenI was like younger, but that was
before I got really bad.

Gene (01:34:55):
It's easy enough to get that younger and younger
generations are doing it.

Zak (01:34:59):
it.
Exactly.
But the thing that that willtrigger is I think that with
prescriptions it can go anyway.
That's more of an at home thing.
That's more of a private lifething.
But kids are gonna be trying, Iknow that this is happening as
well.
Like me and my friends in ourgrade, I went to a pretty like

(01:35:20):
private school.
Like we didn't, like kids weresmoking weed before us.
Like I didn't even know thatkids were smoking weed when they
were whatever.
But like, me and my friends,like we experimented with
psychedelics before anyone else.
Like we were, we, I, I, again,I'm a little gatekeeper.

(01:35:41):
Like I, I love finding shitbefore other people.
So like, we were doing, but weweren't doing anything heavily
cuz we're.

Gene (01:35:49):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:35:51):
I, I had like one friend who's very, he is like Case
Western.
He, he was Kum loud, Kum Lak,but he, he, he was like a daily
pot smoker since he was like inninth or 10th grade.
But like some ki some kids candeal with that.
Like me, my brain, my dad, like,I, I can, I, I definitely know
how to do it better, but I, whenI first tried weed, I had a

(01:36:15):
complete psychosis, whatever,bad episode, similar to what my
dad did, except I'm way coolerthan him

Gene (01:36:21):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:36:22):
I kind of, I

Gene (01:36:25):
Yeah.
So do you think then with morepeople smoking weed and kind of
being acceptable earlier andearlier in school, is that make
people then want to try moreharsh drugs?

Zak (01:36:38):
So what, so sorry.
I don't think I finished mythought.
that's on me.
I what I'm saying is that kidsare doing psychedelics earlier
now.
They're trying shrooms earlier.
But I will say, I think it'scompletely cultural and it's
very dependent on the area thatyou're in.
Cuz if you're in an area wherelike kids are doing, press

(01:36:58):
pills, whatever, although the,honestly, kids are getting
smarter now, so they're, they'resmoking weed.
I think weed is gonna starthaving a more and more negative
connotation again, which isfucking good because,

Gene (01:37:10):
think?
Okay.

Zak (01:37:11):
oh, I, I almost know, I, like, I've

Gene (01:37:14):
More and more states are legalizing it.

Zak (01:37:16):
exactly, but the, what's crazy is in Colorado, the
highest percent THC I'll find islike 24 to 26, 28, like maybe a
30 or 32.
But like compared to California,if you look for weed, you can't
find anything below 34% most ofthe

Gene (01:37:37):
Oh, really?
Okay.

Zak (01:37:40):
it is it, this isn't, it's not weed, it's not the same
plant.
And like

Gene (01:37:44):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Zak (01:37:44):
if I'm gonna smoke weed, I would much rather smoke Colorado
weed, cuz like, it's not, ithasn't been overtaken by
capitalism yet.
To the same degree.
Like there's more love put intoit.
They also just legalize shroomsentirely, which is pretty cool.
But yeah.
Anyway, I

Gene (01:38:00):
Are people smoking it or are they eating it?

Zak (01:38:03):
like kids, it's carts, it's old pens, baby.
It's,

Gene (01:38:07):
Well,

Zak (01:38:08):
go into the bathroom

Gene (01:38:09):
whatever, but, but it's, versus edibles

Zak (01:38:12):
Smoking.

Gene (01:38:12):
smoking.

Zak (01:38:13):
Smoking, I think, I think edibles are an definitely older
thing.

Gene (01:38:18):
Okay.

Zak (01:38:19):
Like

Gene (01:38:19):
So you kids aren't eating gummy bears.
Got it.

Zak (01:38:22):
no, surprisingly not.
The first time I did it, I, I, Itried, I took an edible, but
that was like a decision.
I, but

Gene (01:38:29):
Yeah.
That's, that's interesting.
Go.
One of the things, so

Zak (01:38:33):
because yeah, yeah, that's all bullshit.
Like all the, all theadvertising to kids.
Like kids aren't eating.
They know what it's weed.
Like they're, they're hittingthe vape.
They're hitting the vape.
That's crazy.
Potentiated.
And, and also the one thing Iwas gonna say is a kids are
probably going through similarpsychosis, but I've seen the way

(01:38:53):
that weed fucks people up.
Weed.
Weed is not a safe drug.
It's incredibly psychologicallyaddictive.
I've seen it be incrediblyphysically addictive.
And also it, it is not good foryour brain.
It's really bad.
Daily smo.
I think I honestly, because Ibelieve like smoking once or
twice a week, I think it'sactually can be incredibly

(01:39:16):
beneficial.
But you have to know what you'resmoking, whatever, and it can
have lasting positive effects.
But like these kids are, goingthrough half of a gram cart of
90% THC weed.

Gene (01:39:29):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:39:31):
That is not like, like if you would've done that in the
eighties, you would've been theking.
But like, kids won't even gethigh off of that.
Anyway, what were you

Gene (01:39:42):
yeah.
No, I was gonna say, I know yourdad's got negative reactions to
thc and I've got no reactions orvirtually no reactions.
One thing I I found out is justI don't, like it doesn't do
anything.

Zak (01:39:55):
You seem like you would be up.
Yeah.
I, I feel like you would be abig pot guy if you, sorry

Gene (01:40:00):
No, no, not really.
I'm, I've just, I, so I actuallydid an experiment scientifically
like two or three years ago.

Zak (01:40:08):
Yeah.

Gene (01:40:09):
I was up in, in Washington State and cuz it's not legal
here in Texas, but I was up inWashington State and I bought a
whole bunch of edibles.

Zak (01:40:18):
This is very scientific, it sounds.

Gene (01:40:20):
yeah, it is because it's, they've, they've got a, an exact
amount of micrograms of t h D inthere.
And then I did a, every day Iupped, I doubled the dosage

Zak (01:40:34):
Yeah.

Gene (01:40:35):
and I got, it wasn't an, I started feeling something, at
least

Zak (01:40:42):
Uhhuh.

Gene (01:40:43):
on the, I think fifth day

Zak (01:40:45):
Yeah,

Gene (01:40:46):
where the dosage was basically a whole box of the
highest vote in Seattle Bullsthat they.

Zak (01:40:54):
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene (01:40:55):
And so yeah, it does do something eventually.
I'm a completely immune from it,but it's, it's crazy high now
also that Novocaine doesn't workon me.

Zak (01:41:05):
oh.
That's

Gene (01:41:06):
so Novocaine is another thing that, so if I go to the
dentist, they can't useNovocaine.
They have to use one of theother similar kind of stuff they
have and

Zak (01:41:16):
get the lidocaine or

Gene (01:41:18):
yeah, it's basically, I'm, I'm in about like 4% of the
population that just has youcould either call it high
tolerance or just low response

Zak (01:41:27):
Uhhuh,

Gene (01:41:27):
to a number of different drugs.

Zak (01:41:30):
and I'll tell you something right now.
So with the weed thing, did yousmoke it at all?

Gene (01:41:34):
I mean I've, I've smoked it when people passed it around,
but it never did anything forme.
I was the only, like, I'll giveyou an example.
This is true story.
I was in Vegas with a friend ofmine who was on pen and teller
show, he's a magician.

Zak (01:41:46):
Okay.
Okay.
He actually pen and teller?

Gene (01:41:49):
yeah, he was on the show, he was on pen and teller,

Zak (01:41:51):
Oh, he was like, okay.
Okay,

Gene (01:41:52):
he was on their show where they like review magics acts and
stuff.

Zak (01:41:56):
I see, I see.

Gene (01:41:56):
And so we, we went to dinner afterwards and he wanted
to, smoke up and a couple otherpeople went and I thought, oh,
you know what the hell, I mean,I'm in a kind of a, a friendly,
happy mood

Zak (01:42:11):
Yeah.
You're, you're jolly.

Gene (01:42:13):
so we're sitting in the rental car and it was almost
like a scene out of ChichenChong

Zak (01:42:18):
This is

Gene (01:42:18):
where the, you could not see out the windows of this
rental

Zak (01:42:23):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (01:42:24):
because there's four people puffing away, Monkey
inside this thing.
And I'm talking like actual,rolled up, not vape.

Zak (01:42:32):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah,

Gene (01:42:33):
burning

Zak (01:42:34):
yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
You're smoking joints or

Gene (01:42:36):
and it like you, literally when we open the door up,
there's just a cloud billowingof hot smoke and smell coming
out.
So we get out, we get back tosit down dinner, and these guys
are all like, happy woozy.
And I'm like, yep.
Should the no on me nothing.
I got nothing here.
So I, and I've done that anumber of times.

(01:42:57):
I've tried smoking, like there'snothing in, the amount of t HC
that you need in order for me tofeel something.
You can't do it with somethingthat's actually burning.
It has to be concentrated likein a edible.

Zak (01:43:14):
Okay, so I'm a, I'm gonna tell you a few things.
Cause I, I do know thisfirsthand.
Most people I know.
So there's one thing, a somepeople will never feel an edible
or they, they'll be like, you,you, they have to take like
literally a gram to feelanything, which is insane.
Like, I, I, the first time Itook tw, I, I took way too many.

(01:43:35):
I took like 20 to 24 milligrams.
I don't even know.
It probably ended up being like28.
And I mean, I, I was trippingballs.
I was tripping balls.
I mean, like, I, I freaked outon a woman on the elevator.
It's, it's a great story,

Gene (01:43:52):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:43:54):
but it was probably the most terrifying experience of my

Gene (01:43:56):
Or it'll become better over time too.
I can tell

Zak (01:43:58):
Oh, oh my God.
Yeah.
No, I mean, it's, it's myfavorite story to tell, but
yeah, that's me.
But I know people who willnever, ever, ever feel inedible.
But here's the other thing iswhen you're smoking it, I know
so many people who smoke weedonce and they're like, I don't
feel it.
I don't feel it.
And I've had, I, I, I actuallyhave had a friend with who's had

(01:44:18):
a very similar situation to you,and all of a sudden he just,
after smoking it, like over,over a couple months, every once
in a while he started feelingit, like it hit him.
Like, like it took him bysurprise.
So weed is a really, is a reallyinteresting drug.

Gene (01:44:35):
Yeah.
You never, you never know.
It's just, at this stage in mylife, I've tried enough times to
know that there is just, there'sno point.

Zak (01:44:43):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, if you ever,

Gene (01:44:45):
I'm, I'm getting, I'm getting like, less into doing
weird shit the older I get.
I, like, I stopped drinking.
I didn't drink at all last year,so my, my goal was just to not
drink for a

Zak (01:44:55):
yeah.

Gene (01:44:57):
Well, we're on the eighth of, and I, it's not like I have
this deep burning desire.
Oh, now the year's over I godrink.
I probably will, but I haven'tyet.
I haven't gotten around todrinking yet this year.

Zak (01:45:07):
Good on you, man.
Fuck alcohol.
I think alcohol is the most,Dan, I think man, I

Gene (01:45:13):
Alcohol is very interesting.
I just watched a documentaryjust the other day that talked
about how it is most likely, thething that separated us from the
great apes

Zak (01:45:24):
really?

Gene (01:45:25):
we are

Zak (01:45:25):
wasn't psilocybin.

Gene (01:45:27):
our, and no stilly is totally a part of it.
Totally a part of it.
But or I shouldn't saypsilocybin that fungus is
definitely a

Zak (01:45:33):
yeah, yeah, yeah,

Gene (01:45:34):
but that we were, the, the ancestors I don't want to call
us monkeys, but you know what Imean, like, our pre-human
ancestors were the ones thatdeveloped a tolerance to
alcohol, which allowed us to toeat basically rotting fruit and

(01:45:57):
stuff

Zak (01:45:58):
Yeah.

Gene (01:45:59):
in the forests and not get sick from them.
And it's interesting stuff, man.
I'm telling you, if you look atsome of this,

Zak (01:46:08):
Well keep going.
I'll tell you my, my alcoholtheory in a second.

Gene (01:46:12):
Well, I, I, I think there's a lot to it because
really a fruit that that getsinfected with yeast is gonna be
generating alcohol.
I just literally had, this is sostupid.
I had a container of pickles Ibought

Zak (01:46:26):
Oh

Gene (01:46:27):
that I, I ate like half of 'em, put'em back in the fridge,
then forgot about

Zak (01:46:30):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.

Gene (01:46:31):
and about a week and a half later, these pickles, I, I
like ate one.
And then I stopped because thesepickles that were fresh pickles
started tasting, or I shouldn'tsay pickles, sorry, cucumbers.
Right.
I bought a, a thing of cucumbersthat were precut,

Zak (01:46:51):
oh,

Gene (01:46:51):
salads or whatever, and I, I was just like, ate half a box
and then put the rest in thefridge.
After about a week and a half,these cucumbers started tasting
like pickles.
I'm like, what the fuck?
This thing?
And then clearly it, that's whyI like, stopped eating, and I
was like, oh, okay.
This thing's gone bad.
I just didn't realize

Zak (01:47:07):
Yeah.
I biting into a weird cucumberis the weirdest

Gene (01:47:10):
uhhuh,

Zak (01:47:12):
on your mouth.
There's something's.
So it's very, yeah,

Gene (01:47:15):
was, it literally felt like it was carbonated,

Zak (01:47:18):
Yeah.
That's

Gene (01:47:19):
Like you bite into it and it's like, there's carbonation
in there, so it's pretty wild.
But then I think that there'ssomething interesting there,
and, it's all theories, but Ikinda like this theory.

Zak (01:47:29):
I'm about to give you some fun little theories

Gene (01:47:32):
All right?

Zak (01:47:33):
A, that there's certain plants, like an Uganda I know
for a fact.
So there's plants that monkeysand elephants will eat, and it
gets them drunk.

Gene (01:47:41):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:47:42):
actually drunk, like they get fucked up.
Monkeys actually will totallydrink if

Gene (01:47:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Zak (01:47:47):
they like getting fucked up.
Like, I've seen videos ofmonkeys smoking weed, smoking
the hookah.
You, you gotta love that shit.
That shit.
It makes me laugh.
But

Gene (01:47:55):
Well, my favorite is the orangutan driving a golf cart
around the

Zak (01:47:59):
oh, I love that one.
Yeah, that's a classic.
But what I've really beenrealizing about alcohol and just
because I don't drink either,I'm on, I'm on a lot of meds.
I don't know how much of mybackstory that, but

Gene (01:48:11):
Well, I know more than we're gonna talk about

Zak (01:48:13):
But, I'll do, I'll do otherthings, but I won't drink.
Yeah, I drink.
I like, I can drink a quarter ofa Corona and get fucked up on my
meds.
Like, it's, it's intense.
And then I'm hungover.
But the interesting thing aboutme when I'm hungover is i'll cuz
I recently got diagnosed with amyriad of things and we're still

(01:48:34):
trying to figure out exactlywhat the hell this is.
But and of course my dad justcomes out and tells me that he's
been manic his whole life andwhatever.
But I have bipo, I have aversion of bipolar and
borderline personality

Gene (01:48:47):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:48:49):
which is completely hereditary.
Like so many people in my familyhave it.
Anyway, I don't know if that'sinformation that we need to
share about the dad, but I don'tthink he really gives a shit,
frankly.

Gene (01:49:01):
You may not care.
I may not care.
Your dad may care.

Zak (01:49:04):
Yeah, it probably doesn't give a shit, honestly.
But one thing that I do noticeis I'll go into an incredibly
depressive episode.
I'll be the mo I, I'll want tokill myself.
I'll, I'll feel whatever, andthen all of a sudden I, this is
typically how I go through mymanic episodes anyway.
Or my hypomanic is then I'll geta lot of energy, but I'll still

(01:49:24):
want to kill myself.
And then I'll be the happiestgo-lucky person ever.
And then I'll just crash.
And that's over the course offour days and

Gene (01:49:33):
Well, that sounds like a typical person playing first
person shooter game.

Zak (01:49:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or fuck yeah.
League of Legends.

Gene (01:49:39):
Yeah.

Zak (01:49:40):
The most interesting thing is watching people who aren't on
meds, because I would think thatthat's a med thing who have
these mental disorders similarto me.
Like my friend just fuckingflaked the shit out on me today.
She didn't respond to me untillike six or eight.
I was waiting for old day andlike flaked on me.

(01:50:00):
But I I, but she went throughthis the other day where she
went through the same exactphase that I do where she's
depressed, whatever, and thenshe's fine.
But then she drank like three orfour days in a row after, after
me being like, Jane, don't drinkalcohol.
Don't drink alcohol, don't doit.
Don't do it.
You're gonna end up like thisagain.
You're gonna be texting me thatyou want to kill yourself.

(01:50:22):
Like stop it, stop it, stop it.
And of course she does it.
Same thing with my ex.
That's why, that's the reasonwhy I broke up my, with my ex in
a lot of ways is cuz she kept ondoing it to herself.
And I'm like, stop it.
Stop it.
But the thing with alcohol is, Imean, it's literally a spirit,
right?
And something that I've beenexploring a lot recently, and

(01:50:42):
I've been talking to my dad alot about it to get into some
brief philosophy type things, isI believe that Buddhism,
Christianity, Judaism, and Islamall come from a sense of mania.
Because this is something mostpeople will see very similar

(01:51:03):
things when they're manic.
Like everyone gets manic,everyone gets intensely manic.
And I'm sure that you'veexperienced it before, like you
feel good as fuck when you'remanic.
Like everything feels good,everything is great.
But to connect that with whatyou were initially talking about
is, I do think that.

(01:51:26):
alcohol in a lot of ways has alot of psychedelic properties.
And I don't think it's ma some,like for me, it can be when I am
drunk because I will feel likeI'm on some sort of, I'm so
weird with alcohol, but like,it, it's the post it's
afterwards.
It's like something will enterpeople's bodies.
And I do think that that makes alot of sense to me is that it

(01:51:49):
could have, I think it's, Ithink it's Western.
I think alcohol is, is the signof Western culture to me and
religious culture because itmakes you, it makes you
susceptible to so much and it,it will gather you into thought
groups because everyone'sexperiencing the same thing.

(01:52:10):
And my dad and I were talkingabout how this is similar to
like, we were talking aboutquantum theory and stuff like
that, but I do think thateverybody innately has some sort
of connection to something andit's the univer, it's God, we'll
just say God, which.
very complex word, but you, God,as in however you interpret God,

(01:52:33):
it is, it is something thateveryone can experience.
And it is something thateveryone does experience.
And the way that you connectwith it can come in a myriad of
different ways.
And some people are it, somepeople are more connected to it,
some people are less.
And then you look at, like, I, Idon't even know my dad was

(01:52:54):
explaining it to me, so I'mgonna jumble and fuck this up.
But if we do have some sort ofquantum connection to some thing
in the, in the universe like Iwould believe that there is a
universal consciousness.
There's one thing, and I believethat mania will connect us to
that thing because it comes fromwithin.

(01:53:16):
Like if you look at Buddhism,like you're basically attempting
to experience a state of mania.
You're activating D M T that'snaturally occurring, like old as
she, this shit like it all, it,it, it connects really, really
well.
And I believe that alcohol isnot only the most deadly fucking

(01:53:37):
stupid ass.
I hate alcohol.
I want to banish it.
I don't understand why it's evenconsidered why it can be
acceptable.
But again, whole other thing, Ithink it sends people into manic
states all the time.
I, I see, I, like you seesomeone on a buzz and they're in
that manic state and, andthey'll stay in it for a couple
days and they might not evennotice.

Gene (01:53:58):
But you don't think other drugs do that?

Zak (01:54:01):
I think, so this is where for me, what this was a
connection that I made when youmentioned all that is the reason
why I said western culture isbecause maybe a lot of Western
culture was kind of devised fromalcohol purely or fermented
things, right?
Whereas you look at a lot ofindigenous cultures and.

(01:54:24):
If you take these indigenouscultures, drugs, you'll
experience basically theirreligion.
And that's, that's a differentkind of consciousness.
And it's not necessarily theuniversal consciousness if we're
thinking about this in orbs andspace, basically.
Right.
We got God.
And that one's taken up a lot ofspace.

(01:54:46):
And then you got like, you, youlook at a lot of indigenous
things, you look at peyote andyou'll see the exact same
imagery.
I've never done peyote, but youknow what I mean.
Like, most people will see thesame imagery as the natives did,
and it just connects them.
And they'll have the samethoughts.
Like, people ex say that peyoteis like a grandfather

(01:55:07):
experience.
And mushrooms, like a lot ofpeople will see the same things.
And it's dependent on what kindof mushroom you're taking.
And there's so many regionalones, right,

Gene (01:55:17):
But that, that totally makes sense from a biological,
scientific standpoint becausesimilar drugs interact with your
brain in similar ways, so you

Zak (01:55:27):
But so slightly differently.
It, it feels like it's connectedto something else though, in a,
in a lot of different ways.

Gene (01:55:34):
Sure.
But I, I think that when we'represented with things that we
don't know and we haven'texperienced in the past,

Zak (01:55:44):
Yep.

Gene (01:55:45):
try to find metaphorical

Zak (01:55:47):
meaning, yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And I, and I think, I think,since you can connect it
scientifically, you can probablyconnect most of what I just said
to neurological and chemicalreactions within our

Gene (01:56:02):
yeah.
I know it's depressing for a lotof people to think that their
religious beliefs are actuallyrooted in chemistry.
I don't think it's depressing,but a lot of people would.
And so they're gonna reallyoppose.
anybody proposing that theory?
But I, I, I've, I've got my ownthoughts on that.
I, I've, I've definitely don'thold a typical opinion because

(01:56:24):
I, I've gotten I think, a littlesofter on religion in general.
Like, I understand where itplays into society,

Zak (01:56:34):
it's,

Gene (01:56:35):
but I'm still an atheist.

Zak (01:56:36):
yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene (01:56:37):
Too much of a a guy that likes simulation games

Zak (01:56:41):
yeah, yeah, exactly.
You're

Gene (01:56:42):
believe in pure emotion.

Zak (01:56:45):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, can I lay out somethingelse for you?
I'll try and take a shorteramount of time.
So if you look at a lot of we'lljust say the big four.
So like, Judaism, BuddhismChristianity, and Islam.
If you look at a lot of thereligion I was listening to some
audiobook about manifestation orsomething like that with my mom

(01:57:05):
one day on a drive.
But, Jesus, there's there'sthere's, there's these certain
phrases that

Gene (01:57:12):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (01:57:13):
will provide you with a more direct link.
But then, and you gotta rememberthat those phrases typically
vibrate at a frequency of 432hertz.
So, oh, like, like what Buddhistdo, which connects them more
with the earth, with whateverthey're trying to connect to to
the universe.

(01:57:33):
It, it's, it's like a directlink.
And that's, and, and then youlook at, Hebrew, like if you, if
you listen to a rabbi chant,you're, you're, you're feeling
that frequency, you're feelingit vibrate.
And I would assume that, if

Gene (01:57:50):
Our rap music.

Zak (01:57:53):
Yeah.
I mean, I mean, for real though,there's, there's a lot

Gene (01:57:56):
Well, and then something you, you'd, I'm sure don't know,
I, I actually was a, a c o of acompany called Holosync for a
while which is a, a company thatit was started by a guy that
very early on found and workedwith other people that found the
same thing, a connection betweendifferent frequencies and
different states of of brainactivity.

Zak (01:58:20):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.

Gene (01:58:21):
And, and so the way he described it is this was a
shortcut to meditation.

Zak (01:58:27):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (01:58:27):
You can get into a meditative state, get into the
or delta by just doing certainthings, by calming your brain,
calming your body.
and people practice it,especially like in the East a
lot.

Zak (01:58:43):
Yep.

Gene (01:58:44):
they achieved that.
He was a typical westerner, sohe wanted the quick and dirty
version of that, but it actuallyworked.
And so there were quite a fewstudies done that demonstrated
that you can induce these statesby creating certain frequencies
in your ears.

Zak (01:59:01):
Yeah.

Gene (01:59:03):
And so he explained this whole process to me, and, I, I
generally don't trust a lot ofthis woo stuff that like your
dad gets into.

Zak (01:59:12):
Yeah, yeah,

Gene (01:59:13):
And, and so I'm usually the guy saying, yeah, it's
bullshit.

Zak (01:59:16):
yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I, I'm, I'm, I'm like inbetween, yeah.

Gene (01:59:20):
yeah.
And, and so I, I said, okay,well I, if you explain this to
me technically so I understandit, then I, if I can replicate
it, I believe in the scientificmethod, then I will be fully
board with this

Zak (01:59:34):
Clearly you were fully on board with this stuff.

Gene (01:59:36):
yeah.
Yeah.
So he did, he kinda explainedit, and then I actually used my
own audio software.
to do what he described without.
So he didn't gimme any files oranything.
And then I was able to createfrequencies and it's ural stuff.
So it's actually, it's kind ofcool.
It's actually creating afrequency that it's not playing,

Zak (02:00:00):
Oh,

Gene (02:00:01):
an interference pattern between multiple frequencies.
And that interference pattern ispurely in your brain.
It's not,

Zak (02:00:09):
almost

Gene (02:00:09):
yeah.
Yeah.
It's, it is kind of like that,but if you imagine like one
frequency in one ear anddifferent frequency in the other
ear, but you're adding both ofthose together in your brain,
which creates a third frequency.

Zak (02:00:22):
Okay.

Gene (02:00:24):
And that's the basic concept.
And then they did enoughresearch to kind of fine tune
what, what those frequenciesare, how long to stay in them,
when to go in and out of'em, towhere it definitely helped you
get into a certain meditativestate very quickly, like within
the matter of a minute or two,where it typically would take

(02:00:46):
you, if you're practiced fiveminutes.
And I used to do zen meditation.
I, I did zen stuff for a while.

Zak (02:00:53):
okay.

Gene (02:00:53):
And so,

Zak (02:00:55):
It's very real, right?

Gene (02:00:57):
oh, it, it is, it is totally real.
But again, to me it just moreproof of the absence of a God
because this, these are physicalthings that we do to our bodies
to induce certain feelings.

Zak (02:01:10):
A hundred percent.
What's that thing called, likehappy or whatever?
I don't remember what it is.
It's like this thing you weararound your neck.
I don't remember what it

Gene (02:01:18):
You got super quiet.
Which

Zak (02:01:19):
Oh, I think it's called Happy or something like that.
I don't remember what it is.
It's like this thing you weararound your neck.
I don't, I, it's like magneticor something.
I don't remember the wholething, but just on the frequency
thing so, okay, this is kind oflike a short drug story, but
cause as you probably know, Idon't know how much you know

(02:01:41):
about me in a lot of ways, butyou probably know quite a bit.
But like I said earlier, I, Iexperimented with some
psychedelics when I was younger.
I really haven't done them thatmuch though, that's the thing.
But I have experimented withthem and not when I was younger,
like two years ago, but God, I'mnot that old.
I think so one reallyinteresting thing was I tried

(02:02:04):
acid for the first time and welike had an Airbnb that we got
in Julian, California, which islike up in the mountains, but it
was like 40 acres for like 400bucks.
The thing is, is he didn'tfucking tell us that Tom in the,
I think his name was Tom, in thetrailer next to us, was in the

(02:02:24):
trailer next to us.
Like, I thought that we weregetting this whole thing for
ourselves kind of deal.
It was just like a small house,but there's like a vineyard and
whatever.
And one thing that was reallyinteresting and that connects
with everything that

Gene (02:02:40):
You gotta speak up, dude.

Zak (02:02:41):
sorry, sorry, sorry.
Is that better?

Gene (02:02:44):
Yeah.
Just get your mouth closer tothe mic.

Zak (02:02:46):
Okay.
Sorry.
I think I leaned back and then,is that

Gene (02:02:49):
think that's what it sounded like.
Yep.

Zak (02:02:51):
Okay.
Sorry.
I got, I got too comfortableapparently.
so to reiterate, big, big cropof land.
We had a lot of land.
There's like a vineyard.
There was like a fake manmadelake kind of thing, but like
these trees, these fields, itwas really pretty really fucking
hot though.
But we, we brought like acid andI didn't do that much.
But one thing that happened thatso I didn't know any of the

(02:03:15):
things that I just told youabout prior to this.
It actually took me like aboutsix months to realize what
happened.
But a, I felt incredibly in tuneme.
I, I, I, I used to describe meand my friend like this pri
prior to this was, we're, we'rewatching, we're on the same

(02:03:35):
channel, but we're watching adifferent show.
Like our v our versions ofreality are very different, but
we've always liked the samemusic.
We've always liked similar art.
We've always liked similarthings, and we feel the same
things sometimes.
I actually just was in Mexicowith him, but he, he, he was, he
was off his rocker.

(02:03:56):
He had this rock name Fred thathe like picked up and he was
talking to, and like my otherfriend, like wore a hat
backwards and was like actinglike Fred.
And he was talking about Fredand big pharma and shit.
But he kept on running away.
and about four seconds before heran away, I felt the same, like

(02:04:17):
energetic presence or whateverit was And it kept on calling
him to like a certain area.
Whereas for me, I just felt itand I knew he was about to do
it.
So I was the one standing andholding him most of the time.
Or I would like even before hewould start to run, because he
would like time it, I would, Iwould just walk over and like
block his way and he'd be like,how the fuck did, how did you

(02:04:39):
know I was gonna do that anyway?
That is irrelevant to what I wasgonna say.
So I ended up lining myself.
And I had never done thisbefore.
I've done, I had done quite abit of meditation, but I started
doing the o and I startedfeeling connected with
everything and I, and I had myhands in front of my, my, my
chest in like a prayer like theprayer position and, or like the

(02:05:03):
receiving position.
And I just like started kind ofaligning myself with certain it,
it felt like I, I had to besitting on a certain path and I
don't, because like I saidbefore, I have, I have Ooc D so
I have intense Ooc d so I don'tknow if that part was O C D or
not, but I felt like I just wasin connection with everything

(02:05:26):
and I was aligned witheverything and I had aligned my
chakras.
I had never sat so straight inmy life and I was just sitting
there for two hours just likemeditating and just going, oh.
And I had never felt soconnected with, with just so
much Oh.

(02:05:46):
At the same time.
And I think like six monthslater when I realized that that
was 432 Hertz like I hadexpected, which is really
interesting because another timewhen.
Did acid, I like held back mywhole trip.
That's a whole other story.
But I remember the, the, like,the only visuals I got was I was
looking at my popcorn ceilingand I saw like this symbol and

(02:06:10):
I'm like, I don't know whatfucking symbol that is.
And then like later, like again,couple months later, or maybe it
was a couple days, weeks, Idon't remember.
I looked up like, because it wasbothering me, cuz I recognized
it as some like Hindi orBuddhist symbol and It was the
symbol for Om and I was justseeing it all over my ceiling.

(02:06:31):
And this is a different trip,but basically I, what I realized
is I was doing 432 hertzmeditation, which is, the
vibration, the, the frequency ofthe universe.
And I did that entirelynaturally, obviously with the
help of psychedelic.
But I, I think that just likenow, piecing it all together, if

(02:07:00):
I, I, I had the capability tounderstand kind of what was
going on when it was happeningbecause I, I, I'm, me and I
researched the shit out ofdrugs.
I researched the shit out of allthis stuff and not to suck my
dick.
But I, it, it was genuinely, Ithink it's really helped my

(02:07:25):
belief and helped me explain Godto people and what God is and
how are, are the word of God.
Like just the word itself hasthis weird connotation when in
reality, if you look at theinitial religion of every
single, like of the Big four,right?

(02:07:47):
it's all the same thing.
God is the same thing.
They're almost all fundamentallythe same.
I would say Judaism is the mostsimilar to Buddhism, and then
Islam and Christianity are muchcloser together.
But, every single religion'sbeen thwarted with to hell other
Buddhism's probably the leastthwarted with.
But it all is the same thing.

(02:08:08):
It's, it all leads to the sameexact place.
And it's so, we just do that ashuman beings.
We all, we all are so tied intogether, and God, to

Gene (02:08:20):
Do you ever watch Battlestar

Zak (02:08:23):
I've watched all the, I've, I've, I've watched my dad's,
made me watch a little bit ofit.
It's funny, I li I like watchingit cuz of the little cuz of the
spaceships.
But sorry, I just ranted I gaveyou the most psychedelic rant
ever.
But

Gene (02:08:38):
Well, the reason I bring it up is that in, in that show,
and it went down for like sevenseasons,

Zak (02:08:43):
I know it's a Yeah, yeah,

Gene (02:08:45):
a lot of episodes, but it, what was interesting about that
show was, it's a combination ofjust really cool sci-fi shit
with really kind of religiousovertones.

Zak (02:08:57):
Yeah.

Gene (02:08:58):
Because the, the bad guys, the robots, the Androids,
robots, whatever you wanna call

Zak (02:09:06):
Are they the

Gene (02:09:06):
they, because they're kind of humanoid they believe in a
single God.
They're like, their religionsounds a lot more like,

Zak (02:09:15):
Christianity,

Gene (02:09:16):
Christianity, but not even just Christianity, but any of
the,

Zak (02:09:20):
the big, the, the, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not

Gene (02:09:23):
and meanwhile the religion of the, the humans in there, the
good guys is very much the oldGreek sort of Pantheon

Zak (02:09:31):
like Hinduism or literally

Gene (02:09:33):
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're every, every city or everyplanet and there's a whole bunch
of different gods.

Zak (02:09:38):
I love Greece, by the way, just a side note, I think why
the fuck the Romans?
Anyway, keep going.

Gene (02:09:46):
Well, that's what the Greeks say.
I, I know a few Greeks.
That's exactly what they say.

Zak (02:09:50):
well, I, I think as a Jew, as a, even if you're a British,
fuck the Roman, I fucking hatethem.
They created Roman

Gene (02:09:58):
anyway, so in that show, one of the things that happens
in the, a kind of in the middleof the show, I'd say,

Zak (02:10:05):
Okay.
Okay.

Gene (02:10:07):
is some of these people start hearing a similar melody
in their heads.
And I, that's all I'm gonna tellyou.
I'm not gonna tell you more incase you actually watch it.
And I think it's a great show.
I, it came

Zak (02:10:22):
you think it's possible to rewatch it?
Because I mean, like, I think itis probably the, the most
notably cheesy sci-fi show ever

Gene (02:10:30):
It's not, it.
You should see the originalversion that was on in the
seventies.
Now you talk about Cheesy.
That is cheesy.

Zak (02:10:37):
Oh, this isn't the seventies

Gene (02:10:40):
No, no, no, no.
This is the one from like 2003,four.
So it's like 15 years

Zak (02:10:45):
My, my dad was telling me to watch the new Star Wars
thing.
There's a new one that came outand he was like, this one's got
some

Gene (02:10:52):
Yeah.
He told me the same thing.
I, I'm just so over

Zak (02:10:55):
Yeah.
I'm so over anything that Disneymakes really, but

Gene (02:10:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Talk about pet Ffl Disney'sdefinitely one of those.
I, I just, yeah.
I, I just don't like companiesthat generate tons of revenue
off children.
Just to me, that's just notright.

Zak (02:11:10):
to me, the reason why I don't like'em, but we, let's get
back to the other thing is isbecause, They've oversaturated
such great, like, like I, I'm afilm major.
I'm like the worst film majorever, by the way.
But like, to me, I hate, like,what I've really discovered is

(02:11:31):
I, I hate corporations and Ihate the way that I've, I'm 20,
right?
But like, I've, I've, right now,everything's moving so
exponentially faster.
Like I said before, I've gotlike four main ideas in life,
but that's, one of'em is likeevery single second.
Especially now with AI andeverything, everything is moving

(02:11:52):
so much faster.
And it's like, dude, I haven'twatched a Marvel movie.
I watched like the Spider-Manone.
But like even before that, Ithink the last one I watched was
probably Infinity War.
Like, I can't, I can't stand it.
It's just like, dude, slow.
If you would've slowed thisdown, like more like stop trying
to generate revenue and makesomething that, like, give us

(02:12:14):
something to look forward to.

Gene (02:12:17):
I actually completely agree with you.
Although I will, I also hatecommunism and socialism.
I'm very much a libertarian and

Zak (02:12:25):
So you like fucking kids, huh?

Gene (02:12:27):
freedom of everything.
But I totally agree with thataspect of it.
I think that what we've seenover the last 20 years really
has been a corporatization ofevery aspect of American life.

Zak (02:12:42):
Yeah.
I

Gene (02:12:43):
And it's not been for the better, it's been for the

Zak (02:12:45):
oh yeah.
Well, if we're really going backagain, connecting to religion is
I've, I brought this up to mydad about a bajillion times, but
I find it like to be the mostInteresting thing is I just took
a British history course, likean

Gene (02:13:01):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (02:13:01):
to British history pro.
the Roman Catholics are the oneswho did it.
They've been doing it since thevery beginning.
It, it is crazy like, talk aboutglobalization, like Jesus
Christ.
Like what is what yeah, yeah,yeah.

Gene (02:13:18):
you, have you been to the Vatican?

Zak (02:13:20):
I haven't, but I, I kind of want to go.
I bet it's beautiful,

Gene (02:13:24):
You should check it out.
I, I,

Zak (02:13:26):
I've been to

Gene (02:13:26):
I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I, I, I've been to the Vatican Ithink five or six times, and
every time I go there, I'm like,it's important to go to see the
seed of evil

Zak (02:13:40):
Yeah,

Gene (02:13:41):
if you don't see it firsthand, you may not believe
it.

Zak (02:13:44):
yeah, yeah,

Gene (02:13:45):
And I know it's a, again, it's a extremely unpopular thing
to say,

Zak (02:13:49):
Oh, it's po It's pretty po I think almost everyone agrees

Gene (02:13:52):
but if you look at, well, not the Catholics obviously,

Zak (02:13:54):
Oh,

Gene (02:13:55):
but, but if you look at the history of the religion, you
look at the decisions that weremade, not even just recent ones,
but you just all throughouthistory of.
Of the church.
And you look at the, the amountof art and gold and everything

(02:14:17):
valuable that was PIL fried andbrought to the Vatican.

Zak (02:14:20):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (02:14:21):
It just really Oh, completely.

Zak (02:14:24):
But, but it's, it's their artwork as well is

Gene (02:14:27):
it, it puts into a perspective of, of what the, the
Catholic Church represents

Zak (02:14:36):
Yeah, yeah,

Gene (02:14:37):
It's not, again, this is like a lot of people point to,
well, is Israel is

Zak (02:14:41):
yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
They talk about the Jews when inreality it's like, dude, Guess
who made up that rumor?
Just guess.
Give me, give me a wild guess.
It's just like everything, what,what the British history class
really pointed me to is like,we, I read a lot about cuz it
was during the Reformationperiod, just to interrupt again.

(02:15:01):
But during the Reformationperiod, you read these
philosophers words, like, it'slike, holy shit, dude.
This was, this was in like, thiswas forever ago.
It was forever ago.
And they're saying the same shitthat like socialists are saying
today, that like anyone issaying, like, you look at
satanism like the positivesatanism and like you could

(02:15:25):
literally just grab word forword what these, what these
philosophers said.
These Christian or evenCatholic.
Mostly Christian mo, like mostreal Christians hated
Catholicism because it is, I, inmy opinion, I think what I
realized is it's a very fakereligion just made to extort and

Gene (02:15:41):
it, it, that's the thing is it's not just a religion,
it's also a country.

Zak (02:15:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Exactly.

Gene (02:15:47):
And that's that, the, the goal of of the, the Vatican
State and its precursor.
Was really the creation of thisnew unified country that spans
the entire world.
Really, they were going forreclaiming the old Roman empire,

(02:16:09):
but under the banner ofChristianity.
And there are a lot of problems.
And look, there, there's plentyof good things that are in
Christianity that I have no

Zak (02:16:18):
Oh, I, I think Christianity fundamentally is a pheno.
I think it's a perfectly fine,phenomenal

Gene (02:16:23):
of, lots of good stuff in there, but, but also the, the
marketing of the Christianity inthe early days especially is
extremely aggressive andproblematic.

Zak (02:16:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like, like right now we'reI think ads are at the worst
they've been ever, but like,imagine getting, like, having
the thread of getting your headcut off, like you're probably
gonna convert to Christianity.
Like It's, it's pretty, yeah.
I mean, look at the Jews, likesame shit.

(02:16:57):
It's,

Gene (02:16:57):
Well, and, and you look at like the the witch trials

Zak (02:17:01):

Gene (02:17:02):
like, I, it sounds like comedic when I say it now, but,
so the, the way that you know,you're not a witch, if you're
accused of a witch is if you'reheld underwater and you drown,
you're not a witch.
If you're held underwater andyou don't drown, well, that
proves you're a witch.

Zak (02:17:19):
the funniest shit ever, man.

Gene (02:17:20):
I mean, it's like, come on man.
How do you, who takes thatseriously?
That, that cl that's likesaying, when did you stop
beating your wife?

Zak (02:17:30):
are you ready for this one?
I'm about to do something crazy.
If we tie this all back, we tieup like our whole conversation
back.
All this shit, it, I don't knowif it's natural.
I, I, I do like, again, fuck theRomans because all this qan on.
it's all the, it's the sameexact tactics, almost word for

(02:17:51):
word.
Like I could, I could make you apresentation where I'll take
like a British history theRomans coming in, trying to
spread Catholicism, and I couldprobably replace all the words,
and I could probably even uselike chat G B T to do this,
honestly.
And like just make it Q Andonlike a ProQ, andon thing.
And, and every single tacticthat they use is the exact same.

(02:18:15):
It's like, no, it's not ourfault.
No, it's not our fault.
Oh, that, that thing that, likewe said would happen, that like
didn't happen magically.
Like, like, like the, youbasically have to make an
argument where you conformpeople to a belief.
Obviously Christianity reallyeasy to conform people to a
belief, good-hearted people,good-hearted people who think

(02:18:37):
that they're doing right.
And the reason why Catholicismis so powerful is because it
takes that and then it grabs it,it will hive mine people really
quickly.
So you don't start with anythingviolent and then you start, you
start attacking the minorities.
You start getting the smallpeople, and you have people gang
up and you have the, everybodythinks that they're doing right,

(02:18:58):
like they're doing it in goodnature.
Other than the people at the topreally similar to that movie
that I was talking to you about.
It's kind of somewhat similar tohis main point.
But you know, you look at thesepeople at the top and they're
the ones doing it.
They're the ones trying to forcepeople to conform, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah.
And you, with Qan on is youcan't be wrong if if, if it's

(02:19:25):
always the liberal media tryingto silence, if it's always the
liberals, if it's always thewoke culture.
If it's always the cancelculture, it's not, it, it, it,
it, it's just like by utilizingsomething that like you slightly
hate, as a tactic.
It really pulls everythingtogether.

(02:19:46):
And one thing that I've reallybeen seeing is like there I've
actually, I've, I've actuallybeen more earlier this semester,
I was really, I freaked outabout, I, I was really going
through it.
I did not realize that like Igenuinely am pretty relatively
mentally ill at certain points.
But I started going down ai butalso this other hole where I was

(02:20:09):
like, it actually connects verymuch so with ai, but there's no
longer any parties in between.
And it's the same thing thatreligion's done.
Where, where it's, where it'sthe right and the left.
Can I finish this one

Gene (02:20:24):
yeah, go ahead.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
I thought you were done.

Zak (02:20:26):
Oh, no, no, you're all good.
You look at libertarianism,right?
It's a complete the right, stoleit.
It's gone.
And you look at religion, theRight has a firm, firm grasp on
religion, and they've made allthese things that are not
political issues, politicalissues, but they've done it
slowly and slowly.
And the reason why I'm sayingeverything's getting exponential

(02:20:48):
is because the Arsenal keeps onbuilding and it's like, you have
this, you have this fuckingcrate of everything, and you
have all these groups of peoplewho will automatically align
with your side because theythink that it's the right side.
But in reality, these people arejust making shit tons of money.
And they're like, I don't evenknow how, like when I was

(02:21:10):
telling you about the kids, likethe psychopathic kids, like
that's not about money.
That's like people who aregenerally likes serial killer
type energy, but then there'slike the people, like I said
about Elon Musk or like justaccumulating more wealth,
accumulating more wealth andkeeping it, and not giving it
like you're taking this shitunfairly and keeping it for

(02:21:31):
yourself and.
There needs to be, and this, andthe reason why I'm hopeful is
because now I'm seeing so manylike progressive young kids who
are getting involved inpolitics.
Again, like I was forcing, I wasmaking sure that my friends were
voting, I was making sure thateverything was happening.
And I think that like, old headshave been controlling this

(02:21:52):
country for so long because,they're the only ones who will
go and vote in local electionsand shit.

Gene (02:21:57):
Yeah, and I, so there's, there's a bunch of stuff I agree
with you on,

Zak (02:22:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tell me what you disagree.

Gene (02:22:03):
yeah, what, what I find really fun and interesting, and
I think other listeners willnotice this too, is what you say
about qan, Aon absolutely ismirrored and can be said about
the woke movement,

Zak (02:22:18):
And

Gene (02:22:18):
same things, not changing a single word.
If I just play back like a clipof you talking about what you
just said about Q

Zak (02:22:27):
and,

Gene (02:22:28):
and not tell people you're talking about Q, like cut it off
right there and then say, whatdo you think he was talking
about?

Zak (02:22:33):
yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene (02:22:34):
it'll completely depend on what their personal stance is,

Zak (02:22:38):
A

Gene (02:22:39):
and they will be 100% sure that what you meant was either
Black Lives Matter or some othergroup that's really pushing or,
or

Zak (02:22:48):
yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
Like if they didn't know myopinions or whatever,

Gene (02:22:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because the language and the useis exactly the same.

Zak (02:22:57):
and I will contest, I will contest this because this is
what I've been working, this isthe argument that I've been
working on for a while

Gene (02:23:04):
Well, you can contest that.
I'm just saying that I, I hopethat over time as you as you age
and get better with age likewine, you will look back and
you'll see that what I wastalking about,

Zak (02:23:16):
No, no, no.
I actually so the thing is, isI, I, I agree.
Almost a hundred percent withwhat you just

Gene (02:23:23):
Here, here's the part where we totally agree on.
There's no middle anymore.
It's gone.
Like, there used to be a middle.
In fact, most people used to bein the middle,

Zak (02:23:32):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (02:23:32):
And I, I used to be the guy that was like, arguing with
my conservative friends aboutlike, what, who gives a shit?
Who these people are fucking,like, I really don't care.
Okay.
It, it doesn't affect me.
I have friends that are gay, Ihave friends that are whatever.
It doesn't really matter.
It's, it's irrelevant and itshouldn't matter to you and your

(02:23:53):
religion should have nothing todo with it.
And then at the same time,arguing with, with my liberal
friends, yeah.
I had friends that were likeanarchists and liberals and, and
conservatives, all kinds ofpeople when I was in college

Zak (02:24:06):
I have the best art.
I, I'm,

Gene (02:24:09):
I was getting shit from every side because I, I can see
all viewpoints.
Like, to me, there's good andbad bits that you can pull from
everywhere.
I just want consistency of therules.

Zak (02:24:22):
and I

Gene (02:24:23):
we, we gotta talk in the same language, otherwise we're
not gonna hear each other.

Zak (02:24:27):
a hundred percent.
Well, because Gene, I got, I gotsome, I got some, a few things
that I'll actually, this is kindof what I've been trying to do
with my dad, so I have somethings that'll help you out
here.
Because I think that this is thebiggest generational issue and
the reason why I used to be soagainst any form of progressive

(02:24:50):
progressivism is because ofpeople like that.
Like you just described, thewoke movement, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
I, I will agree.
Terrible.
The most fucking obnoxiouspeople.
I will say, however, that Ithink that the right is
considerably more dangerous andviolent.

(02:25:12):
However, I will also say,because most of the progressive
left fucking hate those people.
They hate the woke people.
And the reason why you, youalmost have this image in your
mind.
I'm not telling you what youthink, but I, I know almost for,
for some certainty is, like yousaid earlier, like PFL or

(02:25:33):
Disney.

Gene (02:25:34):
Yeah.

Zak (02:25:34):
not, that's not people.
Those are fucking money-makingcorporations who are trying to
exploit people who may havecertain views or certain
whatever to, to basically gathermoney.
And in my mind, it almost feelsa little bit villainous because
it almost plays into theconservative or the right

(02:25:56):
narrative where it's like, oh,this woke what leftism bullshit.
And it's like, it's almostgarnering hate against people
who just want to be people.
And

Gene (02:26:07):
Well, I think that's the stereotype.
I don't think it's a true

Zak (02:26:10):
I I will well, I'll follow it up super quick.
So I mentioned him earlier,Hassan,

Gene (02:26:17):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (02:26:18):
he's, he, he, he doesn't even want to be called a
socialist anymore becausefucking socialists are obnoxious
as shit.
Like, they're not, they're not,it, it's just progressivism.
And right now, what, like, thesepeople who I used to loathe and
hate, I'm realizing like, it, Idon't even think it's just my
age because I've been throughthe exact same thing that you

(02:26:40):
just, you just stated like, Icannot understate it enough.
But once I, once I reallystarted digging deeper into how
just completely unjust ourcountry, especially our country,
our country's the best exampleof it.
And like, just how repetitive itis and how we've been force-fed
lies in order to justmarginalize groups repeatedly.

(02:27:01):
Is, is really interesting.
And if we look at Disney,Disney's had fucking trans, the
villains have been gay or transthe whole time.
Like, Ursula is a d like, like ais a trans woman.
Like you, you look at, you

Gene (02:27:16):
the hell's Ursula?

Zak (02:27:17):
from the Little Mermaid, you're, she's a drag queen from
the Little Mermaid.
And then you look at like, Hadesfrom Hercules, totally gay.
Like, like if you look at a lotof these villains.
Anyway, the reason why I bringup Hassan is because he fucking
hates the woke.
And, and he'll have people comeinto his chat and be like, you

(02:27:41):
shouldn't be saying this.
You shouldn't be doing whatever.
And he's like, dude, fuck you.
Just leave.
Like, this isn't for you.
Like, I'm trying to explain thisto people in the best way who
may have who, who don't fullyunderstand these issues and the
complexities of these issues.
And I'm trying to explain it inthe most unbiased way.

(02:28:01):
And what I've realized is like,holy shit, I was, I was bred to
be spiteful and hateful in somany ways, and I was racist,
and, and I didn't even like,like, racism, n word, blah,
blah, blah.
Like, that's not racism.
Like, like once I learned justlike pretty much all the facts

(02:28:21):
about systemic racism and justhow like, like even the word
microaggression has a badconnotation still to me.
Like that word has a bad tastebecause it's been so overused,
overplayed, whatever.
It, it still exists and they'rereal.
And there are real ones and thenthere's fake ones.

(02:28:42):
But here's the biggest pointGene is you, the, the woke that
you're pointing to,

Gene (02:28:49):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (02:28:50):
you go onto Twitter, you go to their accounts, their old 12
year old K-pop stands, peoplewho are actually for this.
Democrats fuck.
Democrats fuck the Dems.
I, I want, I want, I just wantmore people to understand like
that this system, the, the bigspeakers are not, they're not

(02:29:12):
the people with the actualbeliefs.
Like the beliefs are coming fromsomewhere.
Like these people think thatthey're being good nature, like
I said, like with the QAN stuff.
Like they think that they'resaving, they're saving the
world.
In reality, they're justcultivating more hate.
And I like, they, that makes me,that, that, that cultivates hate
within me.
It's like, dude, you're, you'resuch a fucking hypocrite.
Like, shut the fuck up and justlet these people be, don't

(02:29:37):
attack and harass them for noreason.
You're, you're, you're no better

Gene (02:29:41):
I, I think that you have a slightly skewed perspective on
that, given where you live andwhat family you're in

Zak (02:29:48):
Oh dude.
Oh yeah.
No, a hundred percent.
Actually one thing is, is myschool was literally like the
Disney of trying to teach usabout that shit.
Like it's just fake bullshit.
What, like, like just doing itfor the image, not actually
trying to teach.
And then when I talk to actualblack kids, it's like,

Gene (02:30:08):
yeah.
It,

Zak (02:30:09):
God, I learned

Gene (02:30:09):
there's, and I, I'll, I'll tell having been alive as long
as I have, I've absolutely seena regression in black and white
relationships and communicationand everything else

Zak (02:30:22):
yep.

Gene (02:30:22):
like it.
25 years ago, even, even 15years ago, for Christ's sake,

Zak (02:30:27):
dude, even six

Gene (02:30:29):
Things were a lot less, us and them.
And they were like, peoplereally of my generation stopped
really noticing race for themost part, because we had black
friends, we had Asian friends,we had all kinds of friends.
And what we have in common was alot more than what we had

Zak (02:30:47):
Yeah.
It's, it's not, it's not

Gene (02:30:50):
and, and this is the, the negative side of, of a lot of
this woke stuff is it keepspointing out the differences and
then telling you, you need to dothis, you need to respect them,
you

Zak (02:31:02):
I agree.
Almost a hundred percent.

Gene (02:31:04):
It's like,

Zak (02:31:06):
one

Gene (02:31:06):
more you point out differences, the more you're
gonna stir up people dislikingeach other.

Zak (02:31:10):
Yeah.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
I think that the one thingthough is there's a nuance to
it.
A again, like the reason why I'mlike so excited about this
progressivism stuff is becauseI'm seeing everyone come
together in a new light.

Gene (02:31:25):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (02:31:26):
the thing, the, the people who talk about the differences
are white people for themajority of the time.
They're, they're just, they'rejust fucking obno,

Gene (02:31:35):
I'll give you beyond that, it's mostly rich white women

Zak (02:31:39):
boom,

Gene (02:31:39):
ultimately who's stirring the pot the

Zak (02:31:41):
same with white girls.
And that's white saviorattitude.
And that's something that,that's something that ne like,
that's, that's something thatlike, someone would be like, oh,
woke agenda.
No, dude.
No, it's not like that's, that'sa real thing.
Like if we just, although wejust generalize the shit out of
it.
It

Gene (02:31:59):
know we did, but, but it's, it is a real thing.
And I'll tell you, you'll get noargument from the conservatives
out there either, because it,it's, it's very obvious where
it's coming from.

Zak (02:32:08):
exactly.

Gene (02:32:09):
from, like this, this image of the, the southern dude
that like hates black people wasprobably true 50 to a hundred
years ago.
There are more black peopleliving in the.
and working in the south andbeing friends with people of all
kinds of races than there are inCalifornia.

Zak (02:32:27):
I

Gene (02:32:27):
California is leading the way towards pointing out about
how bad racism is.

Zak (02:32:33):
yes, I agree with that.
But I do think that that rightnow we're kind of at this weird
tipping point where it's either,it's either gonna slow down a
little bit or it's gonna getbad.
Is,

Gene (02:32:47):
get worse.

Zak (02:32:48):
I think, I think conservatives are

Gene (02:32:50):
you that.

Zak (02:32:51):
I'm, I'm more honestly, four months ago I was, I was so
like, I'm like, oh my God, theworld's ending right now.
I'm like, I'm excited.
I'm like, oh my God.
Like, like I'm seeing all thesepeople unite, everybody unite,
like people, people like me whomaybe held like really weird

(02:33:11):
views for a while, or maybe wereexposed to a lot of right wing
media and like kind of weregoing down the gamer gate
pipeline and then realize like,oh shit, like you, and then, but
still kind of having thosebeliefs and then being almost
reentered to a level ofunderstanding.
Anyway, I think that the rightis, right now, like I said

(02:33:32):
earlier, like they don't haveanywhere to go.
They, it's hard for them to goback and the only places forward
and they're moving at anexponential rate.

Gene (02:33:40):
Well, and and much like you're making a distinction
between progressive and woke, Iwanna make a distinction between
right and Q because Q is like

Zak (02:33:51):
I,

Gene (02:33:52):
of the right.

Zak (02:33:53):
I, I, I say the opposite.
I don't think it's exactly

Gene (02:34:01):
this out cuz because of where you live,

Zak (02:34:04):
Oh, oh,

Gene (02:34:05):
a very skewed perspective on this.

Zak (02:34:07):
oh, yeah,

Gene (02:34:08):
A majority of people that will self-identify as
conservative will want todistance themselves from the
crazies.
That are in queue.

Zak (02:34:18):
Okay.
So the, okay.
Okay.
I actually have a greatconnection for this.
So.
Obviously q I don't even knowwhat's going on with Q anymore.
I'm not gonna say that allconservatives are at the
craziness of Q, but obviouslyconservatives have been getting
crazier and crazier.

(02:34:38):
Like Dr.
Oz almost fucking won.
Like he, he, he was genuinelyjust saying racist bullshit and
like transphobic bullshitconstantly.
And

Gene (02:34:50):
does that mean?
Transphobic?

Zak (02:34:52):
so transphobic would be anti-trans rhetoric.
So it'd be basically

Gene (02:34:56):
is that transphobic, though?

Zak (02:34:57):
Because saying that trans people don't exist or calling
someone who's

Gene (02:35:01):
did he ever say they don't exist?

Zak (02:35:03):
There's a dog

Gene (02:35:04):
gonna let you generalize.

Zak (02:35:05):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
That's a good call out.
I, I can I would love to providea specific example, so I'll
retract that for now and I'llsend you, I'll send you a link
where he's basically like, kids,kids can't decide if they're
trans,

Gene (02:35:19):
And I, I would agree with that.
Kids can't decide a lot ofthings,

Zak (02:35:23):
That is very true.
But being transgender is therebecause I, because again, like I
have had the same, like, it,it's crazy because the reason
why I'm not even like, I don't,I, I don't even want to be like
combative is because Iunderstand where you're coming
from to such a degree, and I, ittakes time.

(02:35:45):
It took me four years to get tolike the level of understanding
that I'm at now.
And it's, I'm not saying thatI'm woke in any sense, like, I
fucking hate that word, but likeunderstanding.
Yeah.
Like I get it now.
Like I get like, dude, transpeople are being attacked left
and right.
Like the don't say gay law.

(02:36:07):
The the don't say gay law.
You're not allowed to talk aboutgay people.
Like, like the don't say gay lawis a law.
Like that shit's fucked up.

Gene (02:36:17):
It

Zak (02:36:18):
and then,

Gene (02:36:18):
what is it?
Have you read the law?
I think a lot of misconceptionsare flying around Dude,

Zak (02:36:22):
Okay.
That is very true.
But I will say where was it?
What state was it?
Where you could, no, no, notthat, don't say gay.
You could basically tell ateacher or a person that
someone's gay or trans and youwould basically receive a reward
for doing so.
I forgot what state that is.
Yeah.

(02:36:43):
That shit's fucked up.

Gene (02:36:44):
I've never heard of it.
I don't know if that makes Imean that wouldn't, like why
would someone do that?
That makes no difference or nosense.

Zak (02:36:50):
but that's what I'm saying is like, all this shit has
gotten

Gene (02:36:53):
I think there's a lot of, a lot of stuff that's just sort
of

Zak (02:36:58):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, no, no.
I totally agree.
I'm also really bad atremembering certain facts, by
the way.
So I just wanna point that outand, and, and I, and I'm
generalizing, but like,

Gene (02:37:11):
Yeah.
I, I, here's the, here's thepoint I wanna make is there's a
difference between betweendisliking what somebody says

Zak (02:37:19):
mm-hmm.

Gene (02:37:19):
and disapproving of who they are.
Like there are certainly people,religious types that disapprove
of gay people, right.
That exists.
I'm not denying

Zak (02:37:30):
No, that could that, yeah.
Yeah.
That could never exist.

Gene (02:37:33):
but there are certainly people that don't disapprove of
gays.
Like, yeah, do whatever youwant.
I don't give a shit, not myproblem, but don't get in my
face and start telling me how Ishould act

Zak (02:37:49):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.

Gene (02:37:50):
if I'm cool.
it in your face, thenreciprocate and do the same
thing.
And it's the live in that liveprinciple.
And the problem is right nowthat every year I've noticed
this, it's been ramping up tomore and more just like a

(02:38:10):
stronger impact more rhetoricthat is hotter

Zak (02:38:14):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (02:38:14):
about people not being happy enough to just be ignored,
but actually wanting there to belike I, if somebody wants to
talk about gay issues with mefor whatever reason,

Zak (02:38:27):
Yeah, yeah,

Gene (02:38:28):
I should be able to just politely say, you know what?
I just don't care.
I don't want to talk about it.

Zak (02:38:32):
A hundred percent

Gene (02:38:34):
And for a lot of people, me do saying that exact thing is
gonna put a label of homophobiaon me,

Zak (02:38:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Gene (02:38:43):
and that's bullshit.
That's what I'm gonna call it.
Bullshit.
Bullshit.

Zak (02:38:46):
Because you didn't, so, so I think the difference would be
did you say something that couldhave been homophobic or a little
uneducated, and maybe

Gene (02:38:55):
But it doesn't matter.
I mean, it's, that's the thing.
It's not their job to teachanybody.

Zak (02:38:59):
No,

Gene (02:39:01):
you could say, like, you could say Catholicism sucks.
Do you now think that it'sappropriate for a Catholic
priest to show up at your houseand say, we listen to this
podcast and we understand youhave the wrong impression of
Catholicism, we'd like to

Zak (02:39:13):
No,

Gene (02:39:14):
about what you oughta be saying.

Zak (02:39:15):
no.

Gene (02:39:16):
No, definitely not.

Zak (02:39:18):
me.
No, I, I, and, and that I hear.
But the, the thing that I seethe most is people will take
that, and you know how I wassaying that there's like two
sides and they're grabbing onarsenal.
Just that logic and ideology isnow, it, it's not just it, it,

(02:39:43):
it, it's been done by bothsides.
I'm not saying that anyone'sinnocent in this situation, but
like that's, that's.
Just that thought process canstart to drag you down a pit of
a form of homophobia, and youwon't even realize that it's

Gene (02:39:59):
Yeah.
Or Heterophobia, which I think alot of people genuinely have.

Zak (02:40:03):
Yeah.
And and to me, I don't get like,like, but I don't have to No
one's, no one's not a, like, noone's not letting me talk about
being straight.
No one's

Gene (02:40:17):
Oh, you tried doing that.
In a lot of companies thesedays, you're gonna see yourself
on the wrong side of the HR

Zak (02:40:24):
Well, well, again, companies, man, like that's what
I'm saying.
This is, they're not people.

Gene (02:40:30):
Well, people are running those companies.
People are making decisions,

Zak (02:40:33):
Yeah.
Not gay.
Not gay people.
not black

Gene (02:40:37):
plenty of gay people.
Absolutely.
Are you kidding, dude?
The, the marketing industry

Zak (02:40:42):
Actually, apple, we got Tim

Gene (02:40:43):
very high percentage gay people working in it.
I mean, like, let's put it thisway.
I'll give you a stereotype.
It's not even a joke, it's justa stereotype that you used to be
able to say without anybodybeing offended.
I don't know if that's trueanymore.
Probably not.
If I want a lawyer, I'm gonnalook for a

Zak (02:40:59):
Jewish lawyer.
Hell yeah, baby.
That's what I'm talking about.

Gene (02:41:03):
If I'm gonna look for a mechanic, I'm gonna look for a
German guy.

Zak (02:41:08):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (02:41:09):
And if I'm gonna look for somebody to do my ad campaign,
I'm gonna look for a gay, gay,

Zak (02:41:14):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (02:41:15):
like it used to be

Zak (02:41:17):
Oh,

Gene (02:41:17):
acceptable to say that because each of these
stereotypes is actually apositive aspect of that
particular group.

Zak (02:41:23):
know what's really funny is when I was talking about like
the religion stuff, that'sactually another thing that I've
been thinking about a lot islike, there are different types
of human beings that are allincredibly good at certain
things, and it's like ver like,like exactly what you just said.
Like it, I don't know if it'srooted in.
purely just like familial typethings, whatever the word is

(02:41:47):
that I'm looking for, or if it'slike a hereditary thing or if
it's whatever.
But like, you look at DownSyndrome people.
This is, this is the one that I,I, I, I tend to think about a
lot is because thosemotherfuckers are stronger, but
they're also the sweetestpeople, typically.

Gene (02:42:06):
You ever seen a black down syndrome kid?

Zak (02:42:09):
n Yes, I have

Gene (02:42:11):
never seen

Zak (02:42:12):
really,

Gene (02:42:13):
Nope.

Zak (02:42:14):
I, I, I, I, I know I have, yes, yes, yes.
I'm trying to think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm trying to think about fuck,where was it?
Where was it?
Well now I feel like you see,now I feel like an asshole,

Gene (02:42:25):
Well, it doesn't matter.
I mean, I'm just bringing it upas an example.
The, the bottom line is peopleshould be able to have
conversations that are slightlyoffensive without getting their
panties in the wad.

Zak (02:42:37):
Exactly.
And that's what we need.
We, we need more, because that'slike when I'm talking to my dad,
like, he's my dad.
But if I was talking again,since I'm talking to you, like,
I don't feel any kind of hatredor anything, especially because
you're open-minded and you'relistening to what I'm saying,
and I'm listening to what you'resaying, and it's like, for me

(02:42:57):
it's like the reason why Isometimes I'm like, I know
exactly what you're saying isbecause I've, I've been down the
same thought loops and,

Gene (02:43:05):
and I'm, my goal isn't to teach you anything.
I'm just telling you

Zak (02:43:08):
yeah.
Yeah.
And,

Gene (02:43:09):
different from your dad whose goal is to actually teach
you shit.

Zak (02:43:12):
well, I, I think it's more so the fact that he's my dad
and.
Might get a little bit easilyagitated at him.
Plus he's, you he's a hardheadedfuck.

Gene (02:43:21):
I do know your

Zak (02:43:22):
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, but I thi this is myfavorite thing in the whole wide
world.
I love having conversations withpeople who have different
perspectives, and I love tryingto find a middle ground because
it helps me find my ownperspective and it helps me.
Oh, my main goal is just tomake, I, I, again, why I, I'm
gonna send you a few thingsafter this, but I would love for

(02:43:45):
you to take a look at kind ofwhat I mean is like, the reason
why I'm excited is because like,these left, like the, the
progressives, what, it's noteven progressives.
I, I hate that word too, becauseit also has a negative
connotation because progressivesare annoying as fuck.
But whatever, whatever I've beeninvested in the, it's on the
left, whatever, it makes mehappy to see the ability for

(02:44:11):
conversation to be had and likepeople go willingly to go and
see like other perspectives.
And it's wonderful.
And for me, the reason why, whatI've, what I've really, what
I've started saying as of lateis like, again, this is gonna
kind of contradict what I said,but also in a way it's not, is

(02:44:31):
like I think that the, like the,the hardheaded Democrats are now
the right, and then like theprogressives are now the left.
And I don't give a single fuckabout what a lot of
conservatives have to saybecause it's just reset
bullshit.
And I don't, like, for me, it'sjust like, I, I know that I
can't change their mind, and Iknow that I can't have a

(02:44:51):
conversation with'em withoutattacking them.
And, and I'll try, I'll always,I'll always, I'll always, I'll
always try, but it's, at acertain point it's really
difficult.
And,

Gene (02:45:03):
I think if you talk to more conservatives that were not
religious, you would have a mucheasier

Zak (02:45:10):
More true, more true conservatives.
How about

Gene (02:45:12):
Fiscal conservatives.
Yeah.

Zak (02:45:14):
Well, we will say, we'll say fiscal with no social,
because the so like that's why,that's why, when I was like, the
qan non

Gene (02:45:21):
kind of what a libertarian is, right?
It's, it's fiscallyconservative, socially

Zak (02:45:25):
yeah.
And you can't even call yourselfa libertarian anymore without
being roped in.
Yeah.
dude.
Because you're a fuckinglibertarian, right?
Like, and

Gene (02:45:34):
it's, so I, just to give you a background, you actually
ran for office as a libertarianmany, many years ago, back in
the early nineties.
Yeah, I was pretty high up inthe party, at least on the, on
the state level.
And the libertarian party backthen, the biggest problem I had
with them is all the potheadsseemed to drift into

(02:45:55):
libertarianism.

Zak (02:45:57):
the pot

Gene (02:45:58):
libertarian.
From a philosophical standpoint,

Zak (02:46:00):

Gene (02:46:02):
that governments should be as small as possible so people
can get their shit done.

Zak (02:46:06):
Yeah,

Gene (02:46:07):
And unfortunately, the, a big group of people that also
agree with that happened to bepothead.
So I was like, oh, for fuck'ssake.

Zak (02:46:15):
yeah, yeah,

Gene (02:46:15):
So they kind of made the party really hard to take

Zak (02:46:18):
And then they kind of, then they kind of ran away.
They

Gene (02:46:21):
Well, and I, I, I, I'm I guess I wa I would call myself a
small libertarian, whichbasically means libertarian
ideals, but not a member of theLibertarian Party,

Zak (02:46:30):
Yeah.

Gene (02:46:31):
the Libertarian party kind of moved in its own direction,
and I stayed exactly where Iwas.

Zak (02:46:37):
You kind of sound like a pot head pot head list, hater
list.
It's shit.
I tried to make a, I tried tomake, I tried to make a joke.
It was a

Gene (02:46:45):
I know.
I

Zak (02:46:46):
it really, it, I'm, I, I, I was far from the mark, but keep
going.
Sorry.

Gene (02:46:51):
Yeah.
I think would be the, the, theword you were looking for.

Zak (02:46:54):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.

Gene (02:46:56):
yeah, it's, it's, to me it was just like inevitable that,
if people are too damnconcerned, Smoking pot.
Like they've lost the focus ofthe overall vision of the party.
So it's not gonna matter.
But I still think that like I I,for a good chunk of my life, I
was generally seen as the lefty

Zak (02:47:17):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (02:47:18):
my friends because they were Republicans full on.

Zak (02:47:22):
Oh, you're from Minnesota?

Gene (02:47:24):
And and I, I got a story I'll tell you about your dad not
on the podcast though.

Zak (02:47:28):
Okay.

Gene (02:47:28):
It like that.
I feel like I haven't reallymoved in either direction, but
because of where the thedivision is now, I'm, I would be
like far right wing, crazy nutNazi guy.

Zak (02:47:43):
Exactly.

Gene (02:47:44):
cuz I like shooting guns, oh my god.
The

Zak (02:47:47):
You know what's, you know what's really interesting that I
started to realize is you lookat, so I actually think that
your ideals will align more withmodern socialism, more than you
think, but also the fact thatlike no one, like socialists
aren't like about taking awaypeople's guns.
That it's more so like, it'slike personal, like keep, like

Gene (02:48:09):
historically, they sure as hell are

Zak (02:48:11):
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, like, dude, keep yourgun at the range and like, have
your pistol or a shotgun athome.
Like, that's all you need.
But like, I personally think,like, dude that's my personal
opinion.
I'm sure that you heavilydisagree and we don't need to go
on that topic.

Gene (02:48:26):
No.
Come to Texas.
We'll, we'll go shoot.

Zak (02:48:28):
dude, dude, let dude, I, I've wanted, I've wanted to,
I've wanted, like, now I don't,I I think if, if we would've
done it four years ago, Iwould've done the bore thing,
but I don't, I don't think Ihave the heart for that anymore,
man.
That's fucked up in thehelicopter.

Gene (02:48:43):
you're kind of helping him in a way because they're over.
No, seriously.

Zak (02:48:48):
They're overpopulated as

Gene (02:48:49):
way overpopulated.
Would you rather have boarsstarving?
or would you rather prune theherd and then the ones that live
don't starve to

Zak (02:48:58):
It's just from a helicopter.
It's

Gene (02:49:00):
have to be.
It's, look, it's a

Zak (02:49:02):
oh, I,

Gene (02:49:03):
expensive way to do it from a

Zak (02:49:05):
I would do it.
I would do it.
Not from a helicopter.

Gene (02:49:08):
yeah, yeah.
That's easy.
That's cheaper and easier to doit.
Not from a helicopter.
I know your dad got very excited

Zak (02:49:13):
not, dude, it's so fucked up.
It's hilarious, but like,

Gene (02:49:19):
Well, but you also it doesn't have to be boars either.
We, you can you name an aninjured animal?
We'll, we'll go out hunting.

Zak (02:49:26):
in danger.

Gene (02:49:28):
Well, they're, it's more fun, right?

Zak (02:49:29):
We could be like what the fuckwas his name?
Who's the, I actually was, Iwatched it was Channel five.
He did a whole thing where hewent to what was that?
What was that writer's name?
Who?
Florida Keys.

Gene (02:49:40):
Oh, Hemingway.

Zak (02:49:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He went to like the EarnestHemingway, like lookalike
competition.
It's a great video.
It's so funny, but like, yeah,we could be like Hemingway

Gene (02:49:49):
I'll tell you that I've not had particular good luck in,
in hunting in my past, just cuzI miss more than the hit

Zak (02:49:56):
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene (02:49:58):
I still really enjoy the idea of it.
And I love fresh deer meat.
Man.
That is great stuff.

Zak (02:50:04):
Yeah.
There's something, I, there'ssomething about me.
I, I'm a big.
I, I don't know why the fuck Iam going to school in Boulder,
but like, I'm a big PacificNorthwest guy and like hunting
there, like in Marshy Woodswhere you're like sitting, you
got yourself your soup andyou're like in your can,

(02:50:25):
whatever it's called, your cup,and you're just sipping on soup,
waiting for the deer to come,like, after tracking it,

Gene (02:50:32):
Yeah.
You're not doing that.
They'll smell the soup.

Zak (02:50:35):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No eating.
I'll cover myself in piss.

Gene (02:50:39):
Yeah.
You do that beforehand?

Zak (02:50:41):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I but yeah, like, dude, I, I, asmuch as I think that I would
probably be very, I'm just avery sensitive guy, so like, I
just don't know if I wouldreally love the idea of killing
it.
I would still probably do it

Gene (02:50:57):
I don't, I don't like the idea of killing any animals.
I think it's the hunting part,not the killing part.
That is exciting.

Zak (02:51:05):
It brings, it brings us back, man.
It's just like, it's back, backwhen we were kids, like back

Gene (02:51:10):
I don't, I don't know if they, if they had this when you
were in Africa, cause you'vebeen there how many times now?

Zak (02:51:16):
five or six,

Gene (02:51:17):
Yeah, but they, they, there are places that do safari
with paintball guns.

Zak (02:51:22):
Oh.
That's still, that's still,

Gene (02:51:24):
It's kind of a dick thing in

Zak (02:51:26):
I, I don't, I, I don't like that it still is equally just
like like, it's not a sh it's shit's like equally shitty in a
completely different way.
Like it's just fucked up.
Like you're just shooting andantelope in the ass.

Gene (02:51:41):
But it's still fun.
I mean, it's fun to do that topeople too.
I used to do paintball all thetime.
I

Zak (02:51:45):
I bet if you did things that my dad did, yeah.

Gene (02:51:48):
not even paintball, it's the the little

Zak (02:51:50):
airsoft that shit.
You would, you would love that.
Well, I mean,

Gene (02:51:55):
at this age, I wouldn't.
But I, I do watch some of thosevideos and it is very

Zak (02:52:00):
Rich or whatever his name is, you watch that.

Gene (02:52:02):
Wh which

Zak (02:52:03):
Nav.
He's a sniper one.
Oh, he's

Gene (02:52:06):
Oh.
Oh, maybe I have, yeah, I didwatch the Sniper dude for a
British guy.
Is he British?

Zak (02:52:11):
He's like British or he is from some European country.
He might be like Swedish orsomething like

Gene (02:52:16):
but it's it, the equipment just looks

Zak (02:52:19):
Oh, dude, it's, dude, you, you gotta get you, if you got
your hands on one, you wouldhave so much fun, man.
Like the, the I'll see if I canfind some of the old ones.
Oh, look up something right nowfor me.
Actually look up, he burned mypatch.
That is my, that, that Thatvideo is, it's an internet
classic, but holy shit man.

(02:52:41):
Like the rate that guns shootis, it's crazy.
So my friend, the one who usedto play Kble Space program, I
think he has all of his hours,privated or something, but he,
he got really into it.
He got super into it.
He would go out like everyweekend and he would just keep
on buying guns and whatever.
But like, holy shit man, dude,do that.

(02:53:05):
Just like get a couple guns,you'll, you'll have a blast.
How, how do you live in aapartment or a house?

Gene (02:53:11):
house.

Zak (02:53:12):
Yeah.
How big is your, you got someland

Gene (02:53:15):
big enough No, not for that.
No.
It, but, but also, I would saythe exact same thing to you
about actual guns.

Zak (02:53:23):
Oh, yeah,

Gene (02:53:23):
get out there, you start shooting, you're like, this is

Zak (02:53:25):
yeah, yeah.
Oh, dude, I love shooting guns.
I mean, I went to a trap trapshooting's, like one of my

Gene (02:53:31):
Oh, nice.
So you did go out

Zak (02:53:33):
Yeah.
I went trap.
I went to a trap shooting camp.
I got made fun of for beingJewish.
They thought I was gayCalifornian and I also was super
homesick, but like, this was inMinnesota too, so it, it makes
sense.
It the most rednecky kids, butman, I, I like got good at it.
I would, I only shot the, like,the side by side was my shit.

(02:53:54):
And I, I.
Fucking, oh my God, I, everysingle day

Gene (02:54:00):
Gun for Call of Duty too.

Zak (02:54:01):
Yeah, dude.
In,

Gene (02:54:02):
Shotguns were deadly, man.

Zak (02:54:05):
I don't know if you've played Modern Warfare 2019, but
there was the, there was theover under.
Dude, that shit went crazy.
It was so good.
It was the 7 25 is what it

Gene (02:54:17):
So I've got a a divorce.
Ah, shit, what's the, I

Zak (02:54:22):
Yeah.
My dad was telling me a littlebit about your guns.
I think he showed me somepictures, but what is it

Gene (02:54:26):
yeah.
I've got, I've got some funguns.
But this is, this is a it is a18 round semi-automatic shotgun.

Zak (02:54:33):
Oh, yeah, he was telling me about that.
It's like an AA except not fullyauto

Gene (02:54:38):
it's not fully yet.
No, no semi-auto, but it'sliterally, as fast as you can
pull the trigger, but yeah,that's a,

Zak (02:54:46):
Yeah.
That, that trap shooting wouldnot, it, I think it would ruin
the trap shooting honestly.
It

Gene (02:54:51):
yeah, they don't let you, if you, if you bring a gun that
has more than the capacity oftwo, you can only load two
rounds if you do trap

Zak (02:54:58):
Yeah.
Yeah.
How's a recoil on that?

Gene (02:55:02):
recoil is actually very manageable because well, it's a
modern gun, so they know how tomanage it

Zak (02:55:06):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it's not like non-existent.

Gene (02:55:10):
no, no, it's not, it's, it's not non-existent, but it's
straight back and forth, so itdoesn't really tip up,

Zak (02:55:16):
Mm-hmm.

Gene (02:55:17):
which makes it a lot easier, a lot better.

Zak (02:55:20):
you, like the AA twelves, right.

Gene (02:55:23):
yeah.
Yeah.
I've shot one.

Zak (02:55:26):
Have you felt like how you've shot a fully auto,

Gene (02:55:29):
Yep.

Zak (02:55:30):
how is what I've heard that, I've heard that the recoil
is non-existent

Gene (02:55:36):
it, it, I'll tell you, the problem with those guns is that
it, well, I wouldn't say no.
It's definitely existent.
You can absolutely feel it.
The problem is that it in fullauto mode, you're not prepared
for how fast

Zak (02:55:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's a shotgun,

Gene (02:55:56):
to pull the trigger every time, like you, you have enough
time between shots to reallymanage it and keep it on target
when you do it in a full automode, like.
as you're still kind of gettingused to the fact that it just
shot its shooting again.
And I think that's the thingthat at least for me made it to

(02:56:17):
where I really wasn't staying ontarget.
I was like, it wasn't tippingthe gun up.
It's, it's a good design so it,it does the impulse back, but
because it's just constantlyshooting as you're holding the
trigger.
And these are pretty heavyrounds you're shooting.
I was not at all accurate withthat

Zak (02:56:34):
Oh, no.
I mean, like, yeah.
And it's a shotgun too.
I mean, I would, I would want toshoot some slugs out of that
thing or something like that.
Like

Gene (02:56:43):
Yeah.
So something that I was offeringyour dad for ages, but now I
can't do it anymore cuz they,they went out of business.
There was a, a really coolfirearm straining institute out
of Nevada that I was a memberof.

Zak (02:56:55):
Oh, really?

Gene (02:56:56):
And they did like four day classes in either handguns,
shotguns, or rifle.
And it was small groups, so itwas a group of like 10 people
per instructor.
So you got a lot of coachingduring that for, and it, it was
literally like eight hours everyday for four days in a row.

Zak (02:57:19):
Yeah.

Gene (02:57:19):
And, and it doesn't matter what level you were when you
went there, you were guaranteedto be like two levels better by
the time you left.

Zak (02:57:26):
Oh, that's awesome.

Gene (02:57:28):
That was very, very good.
You used to go there everymonth.
That was a good time.

Zak (02:57:32):
I, I what's really weird is I think through, I think trap
shooting is honestly one of thebetter.
Th I think you should probablyshoot a handgun first, but then
trap shooting, it really teachesyou how to aim, I think.
I think that it

Gene (02:57:48):
moving targets.
It's, that's the thing that,that's more unique about it.

Zak (02:57:52):
well, not even moving targets, just in general.
It's also just like, it, itteaches you how to hold a gun
and like properly balance it.
And, but then also like keepingboth of your eyes open while
you're shooting.
Like, no one thinks to do that,but you gotta be doing it and
you're like, holy shit, when Ido it

Gene (02:58:14):
you guys using just iron targets on the, on those guns?

Zak (02:58:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I mean, it was classic.
You could choose if you weresmaller, you could use, they had
a pump, but it was mostly overunder and side by side.
Everyone shot over under, exceptlike me, I

Gene (02:58:30):
Well, I, I've got red dots on my shotguns.

Zak (02:58:33):
You, you, you little naughty man.
You naughty man.
Yeah.
Shooting slugs.
I wanna shoot slugs reallybadly.
I don't think I've ever triedit,

Gene (02:58:41):
you've never shot.
There's a lot more, you get hita lot more, man.
That's why.
So that's why I brought up thisclass.
So over the course of four days,you shoot about a thousand
rounds.

Zak (02:58:49):
Okay.
Okay.

Gene (02:58:51):
and let me tell you, the first time I went out there to
do the shotgun class after thefirst day, my right shoulder
area

Zak (02:59:00):
Oh, dude, my, my whole farm is,

Gene (02:59:03):
it was so red and just like so sensitive that the
second day was just absolutelyjust murder.
I mean, it was like, I

Zak (02:59:15):
It's like playing guitar almost.
Yeah.
It's like, it's like you're

Gene (02:59:19):
And then on the third day, I just taped everything up with
duct tape.
I was just like, fuck

Zak (02:59:25):
so funny.

Gene (02:59:26):
I'm just gonna put a layer of duct tape everywhere.

Zak (02:59:29):
That's so funny.

Gene (02:59:30):
believe it or not.

Zak (02:59:31):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, for me, I, I, I had toshoot incorrectly because if I
shot in the spot that like, likekind of over your Peck area it
hurt me so badly, it wouldbruise me instantly, but I, I
would have to shoot by myshoulder and it would bruise me
really, really easily too, butit would hurt substantially
less, and I was way moreaccurate like that.

Gene (02:59:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, and, and now we've gotmuch better shotguns with more
recoil resistant typetechnologies.

Zak (03:00:03):
but, oh man, it, we were shooting 20, so I, pretty

Gene (03:00:07):
twenties?

Zak (03:00:07):
Wait, no, no.
Maybe it was tw.
Wait, there's nothing in between12 and 20, right?

Gene (03:00:12):
Not really.

Zak (03:00:13):
Like realistically,

Gene (03:00:15):
16 gauge is a thing, but there's very few people I shoot.
16

Zak (03:00:18):
I don't think we were shooting.
Well, honestly, we might have.
I, I'm trying to think.
What was it?
I, I think maybe we shot 12 likeone day, or maybe we shot, I, I
think it was 20 mostly, butlike, dude, you're, shoot, you
probably shoot like a hundred,you shoot I think we each got
two packs a day.
So like, we would, we would blowthrough'em pretty quick, but

(03:00:41):
like, if shooting 12 gauge oldday would be a pain

Gene (03:00:45):
it's brutal man.
It is definitely brutal.
You got, you really want to goout.
That's what the first thing Idid when I got home is I ordered
a new stock with a spring in it,Cause I'm like, fuck this shit.

Zak (03:00:56):
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,

Gene (03:00:57):
I don't need a solid stock.
That's like, cuz I had a, asolid stock and it was a 12
gauge and I was like, no way.
This sucks.

Zak (03:01:04):
I, I'm a, I'm a sucker for it.
We, we went in like, oh yeah,that was really cool.
On the, on that, On, it was likea camp thing.
We went to this one area wherethey had like, they a had like
every single gauge that has everexisted.
I think they had like one gauge,dude, that

Gene (03:01:24):
what?

Zak (03:01:25):
I think that, that, I think that that exists.
A, I could be completelymistaken, but I'm pretty sure,

Gene (03:01:31):
seen 10 gauge.
I've never seen anythingsmaller.

Zak (03:01:33):
oh dude, dude, let, wait, let me, let me double check and
see if it exists.
And I'm not just speaking out ofmy ass.
I know that it, I think I knowthat there was four they had a
how do you spell Gage?
G a u g E.

Gene (03:01:46):
G a u g E l.

Zak (03:01:49):
man, I'm wordly wise, really got me through elementary
school apparently.
Let's see.
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Yep.
dude.
Yeah.
One and a half is what it says.
I think.
Look those up, man.
Like you Yeah.

(03:02:10):
Cuz we saw 10 for sure.
And then

Gene (03:02:14):
Yeah, 10 gauge is, is not nearly as fler as 12.
But it's for bigger animalsbasically.

Zak (03:02:21):
Yeah, exactly.

Gene (03:02:22):
But I've never seen anything under that.
I mean, obviously those gaugesexist, but I've never seen a gun
under 10.

Zak (03:02:28):
so big.
I, I, we didn't even, there wasno gun.
It was just a gauge.
I mean, like, I could becompletely talking outta my ass,
but I really feel like I'm notI'll have to look a little bit
harder.
And then they, they had like anold Lee that was like the old
sniper, right.
World War I

Gene (03:02:42):
The

Zak (03:02:44):
Yeah, dude.
like with the, with the, withthe the bipod thing.
But it's just not, it's not abipod, it's just for you to hold
it pretty much.
It's a like a circular disc typething.
Do you know what I'm talkingabout?

Gene (03:02:58):
Mm disc disk.

Zak (03:03:00):
Not a disc, but it's like, it's almost like a how would I
explain it?
Almost like a plate that's likethick.
It's, it's it's, it's like anoval.
It's flattened.

Gene (03:03:12):
Hmm.

Zak (03:03:12):
anyway, it's, it's like a tripod bipod.
But it's, it's one, and you useit to hold it, because that
thing's like 40 plus pounds.
That gun

Gene (03:03:22):
Yeah, those old guns are fricking heavy.
It's annoying.

Zak (03:03:25):
I mean, like, everyone, when they picked it up, they're
like, holy shit.
And, and, and you're not.
You just, and even thougheveryone's had that reaction,
you're, you're kind of like,man, there's no way they're
overreacting.
And then you pick it up and youalmost drop it.
It was It's like, how did peoplerun with this There's no way in
hell.
And then we gotta try.

(03:03:46):
What,

Gene (03:03:47):
they're annoyingly heavy.
I, I really like the lighterguns for the most part.

Zak (03:03:51):
Oh

Gene (03:03:51):
That's why I like modern shit.

Zak (03:03:53):
oh yeah, dude.
My, I mean, like, and it looksdope as fuck.
I, I, you cannot, you candefinitely not say that.
Guns do not look cool.
There is, it is weird becausethey're not, there's not,
there's, I mean, there'sobviously something primal about
it, but it, it feels sodistinctly primal.
But it's not all the, like atthe, the look of a gun, the

(03:04:15):
shape of a gun holding one, eventhough there's nothing really
fundamentally primal about itother than a long distance
killing machine

Gene (03:04:24):
Yeah.
I mean, it's, I think there'sknives look way more primal than
guns to me.

Zak (03:04:29):
Oh yeah.
No, for sure.
I'm a big knife guy.
I l I love my knives.
I want to get my hands on somemore butterfly knives.

Gene (03:04:36):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (03:04:37):
Definitely not a legal thing, I think in any

Gene (03:04:41):
I was gonna say, is that even legal in

Zak (03:04:43):
I, I have a lot of training.
One, I am live too, and they'rekind of broken.
I gotta reorder it, but I thinkthey're illegal in every state.
I,

Gene (03:04:51):
Butter.
Yeah.
No, they can't be.

Zak (03:04:54):
yeah.
You can get, you can getcharged.
In some states it's worse thanhaving like a gun.

Gene (03:04:59):
Worse than what?

Zak (03:05:00):
Not a gun.
It's a felony to own'em.
I know that for sure.

Gene (03:05:05):
Huh?
Yeah.
I think that's totally dependenton where you live.

Zak (03:05:08):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh man, I'm a big fan.
Have you seen Gravity?
Knives?

Gene (03:05:13):
yeah.
Yeah.
I've got butterflies, I've gotgravity, I've got stilettos,
I've got full automatic

Zak (03:05:17):
Oh, you've still let us.

Gene (03:05:19):
It's all legal in Texas.

Zak (03:05:21):
Oh, oh.
So if it's, oh, it is legal inTexas.
Okay.
So then I'm totally mistaken.
Okay.

Gene (03:05:26):
No, you can,

Zak (03:05:27):
yeah, yeah.

Gene (03:05:29):
you can walk around with it.
Yeah.
One of my favorite knives is areally nice German automatic.
I used to push a button, popsup, push a button, pops back in.

Zak (03:05:35):
yeah.
That pops back.
Yeah.
My, my friend actually has onein Colorado.
I guess Colorado's kind of, Ialways forget that it's quite
the, for being such a, a, anotably liberal area, I guess,
place.
It's,

Gene (03:05:51):
Colorado's not really liberal.

Zak (03:05:53):
no, it's not.
Definitely

Gene (03:05:54):
cities are totally liberal, but the rest of the
state is, it's basicallyfarmland, it's country.

Zak (03:06:00):
I mean, it's country.
I, it's country and wilderness,like people are, people are
shooting their guns and shit.
I mean, my friends and I would,we would go to the res here in
California.
We went a couple times and wewould shoot my friend shotguns
and his dad's pistols and stufflike that, go to the res.
It's do bad things at the res,

Gene (03:06:18):
All right.
Last topic.
We've

Zak (03:06:20):
we, we, we gotta go.
We gotta go.
I have to

Gene (03:06:22):
So I wanna wrap it up.
Last question, lastcontroversial topic, or maybe
not so controversial.
It seems like your generation ishaving a lot less sex.

Zak (03:06:32):
Dude, I'm gonna tell you what I think it's dependent on,
I think.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Are you ready for this one?
I think it's heavily dependenton, there's a few factors I
think that the people like,like, okay, so imagine you when

(03:06:54):
you were younger, right?
Like you were super internetfocused, gamer nerd, right?
Like, my dad got married when hewas like 20.
He was lucky

Gene (03:07:05):
married to high school, sweetheart.

Zak (03:07:07):
Yeah, yeah, Like he would've, he would've, I I
don't, well, I know, I know toomuch about some of that.
About, no, no.
I actually don't know a lotabout the marriage itself.
I know a lot about his sex lifeduring that time anyway.
And about why the marriagestayed the way it did.
You anyway I'm sure that you doas well.

(03:07:28):
But we look at

Gene (03:07:30):
I, I knew him since the first year he got married.

Zak (03:07:32):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, I think if you look atsome, it's really easy to slip
into incel culture.
I think it's getting a littlebit harder nowadays.
No, that's not true at all.
With the existence of likeAndrew Tate likes now and
whatever, I think that theyounger kids are gonna have to
struggle with that a little bit.
But once you're fucking, you'refucking, you like, like it is so

(03:07:53):
easy

Gene (03:07:54):
how often are you fucking though?

Zak (03:07:56):
dude.

Gene (03:07:58):
I mean, not you, but I mean, like, the theoretical
Zoomer.

Zak (03:08:03):
A again, it's, it is interesting because I think that
that is once you fall into thehookup culture, you fall into
the hookup culture.
Right.
But I do think a lot of it isfamilial.
So it's like, are you more of adater?
Are you more of a whatever?
Are you more of a whatever.
But like, like it's not, it'snot not typical for people to be

(03:08:25):
having sex with four differentpeople in a week.

Gene (03:08:28):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (03:08:29):
because you got access to Tinder, you got access to
Bumble, hinge grinder, maybe, Idon't know.
I don't know if kids use it.
But it's I think

Gene (03:08:43):
Yeah.
It, the, the process definitelyseems like it's easier,

Zak (03:08:46):
it is easier.
But, but

Gene (03:08:48):
what I'm referring to is more of the apathy aspect.

Zak (03:08:52):
so how so

Gene (03:08:55):
Well, just that I think in a lot of ways this was because
there weren't the apps andbecause there wasn't the
internet, I think there was alot more of a

Zak (03:09:05):
connection that had to

Gene (03:09:06):
by guys of girls or other guys or whatever.
But it was generally the malespursuing.

Zak (03:09:13):
Uhhuh.

Gene (03:09:14):
and it was a, a fairly sizable amount of your time that
went into

Zak (03:09:22):
Dude, you would be amazed how it's easier to spend a lot,
a lot more time, but keep goingbecause you're always connected.
Yeah.

Gene (03:09:30):
So, so that's kind of the impression that I got now.
And I'll, just to let you knowever since getting divorced, I
kind of preferred dating youngerwomen.
And

Zak (03:09:42):
gene, big gene,

Gene (03:09:43):
yeah.
So I've actually like I'vecelebrated my, my girlfriend's
21st birthday.

Zak (03:09:50):
Oh, okay.

Gene (03:09:51):
Ah-huh.

Zak (03:09:52):
Okay.
Okay.
So this is like younger, yeah,

Gene (03:09:54):
your age.
Yeah.

Zak (03:09:56):
that's crazy.

Gene (03:09:57):
and what I'm hearing from the girls is that the guys their
age are not horribly interestedin in having relationships.
Like, yes, there is sex, butit's not serious sex.
It doesn't lead to anywhere.

(03:10:17):
And frankly, this is why a lotof the girls that age are
actually kind of looking forolder guys.
Maybe not as old as me, butcertainly older guys in general,
guys in their thirties for sure.

Zak (03:10:27):
so that I know

Gene (03:10:29):
do you think of that?

Zak (03:10:30):
okay.
So I have a lot of femalefriends, right?
So I, I, I definitely think

Gene (03:10:37):
Have you slept with all of him?

Zak (03:10:38):
At these, I mean, like, I've, I've met a lot of them on
like Tinder and Bumble,honestly.
So I have, but like a lot ofthem are completely platonic.
I, I have a really, I have areally weird relationship with
sex, but I, I, I, I don't justlike, I'm not gonna go and fuck
a girl and never talk to heragain.
Like, that's not me.
But I do think guys in mygeneration, which makes me

(03:11:01):
really sad because I know somany great guys, they're very
emotionally immature.
And it's something that I seethere's so many patterns in
humans, but like, one of thebiggest ones is definitely like
the tribalism of it all.
So you look at like, frat guysand everything, and there's
cultures inside of that.
And that shit grosses me out.

(03:11:22):
Like, I'll be gross.
I'll be a little bit of a manwhore, right?
But like, Form a, like, I'mreally good at forming a
connection with someone nearlyinstantly.
And I'll form, I'll, I'll get,I'll get information out of
girls that they have never toldanyone before.
Not to, I'm sucking my own dicka little bit here, but it's, it,

(03:11:45):
it, it is true because like thengirls will either become
obsessed with me as a friend orwhatever, and like, I'm
completely fine with that.
I just met someone new.
I love talking to them.
But there's some really greatguys and there's this facade
that all men are whatever.

(03:12:05):
And I'm sure that you'll hearthis with your girlfriend,
whatever, but all men arewhatever.
All men are shit.
All men are this.
And I do have to agree with thema lot of the time, but it's a
facade.
And they're not looking for theright men because exactly what
they're looking for is there.
And you can have a gr like agreat boyfriend and he can be

(03:12:28):
great at sex, he can be great atwhatever, and he's just there
looking for a girl, but maybehe's the nervous one, right?
Like, he's just a little shy andhe, like, for me, it took me a
while for me to build myconfidence up.
Like I'm still scared to e likesometimes I don't know when to
make a move.
And like, I've slept with a lotof people, right?

(03:12:50):
sucking my own dick again,whatever.
But like I still, I, there is,there's a little bit of a Tim
there's right now in ourculture, You can be a little
timid about it all.
And I think that it definitelyplays a part.
I think guys are scared.
I think that there's gross inselly men, and then I think that

(03:13:11):
there's the shitty frat guys.
They don't even have to be fratguys, but they're just shitty
men who do only wanna fuck andthey'll be manipulative,
whatever.
But girls are the same fuckingway.
Dude.

Gene (03:13:22):
Yeah.
And let, let me flip that aroundinstead, like, what's wrong with
the chicks in your opinion thatare your age?
Away

Zak (03:13:30):
my least favorite.
Th this is for me, Yeah, yeah.
Sorry, sorry.
Okay.
So me personally as someone withthe issues that I do have, some
of which may be potentiallymommy related but, ding, ding,
ding.
I mean, like, like I, I, I have,I have quite a few mental

(03:13:55):
issues, right?
And I'm not super labelingmyself with that.
I hate that shit, but I do.
And

Gene (03:14:02):
self-awareness is a good thing.

Zak (03:14:04):
Yeah.
Yeah.
But they're again, mygeneration, they're getting
better at it.
I've been trying, I, I, dude, Ipull that was another thing that
I was gonna say, especially withthe woke shit is like, I like
pulling people to reality.
But anyway ghosting girls thatghost Girls that I have formed a
relationship with, who all of asudden just fucking block me.

(03:14:27):
It breaks my heart.
It breaks my heart.
It's like, oh.
I thought like, why can't youjust like do the due diligence
of you?
You decided to form thisrelationship.
You do not get, just tell me,dude.
Just tell me, give me a reason.
Be like, Hey, like, I'm sorry.
I don't really feel like there'sa connection or like, I like

(03:14:50):
you, but like, I don't thinkthat we're really like a good
fit or like, I don't think weshould be friends, whatever.
Just fucking tell me, don't justdisappear.
Don't just block me.
Like that shit's gross andnothing pisses me off more than
that.
And nothing makes me more upset.
And just like, I think I, Ithink I put a lot into it.

(03:15:11):
I have abandonment issues forsure.
And that shit, that is a verycommon theme with girls and I
don't know how many guys do it.
But I know for, damn, I, it'sdefinitely something that girls
tend to do more as well as theydo generalize men.
And I think that that is alsosomething that makes me pretty

(03:15:34):
sad because for me, I, I justsee, I make comparisons a lot
between people, but I, I alwayssee people as an individual.
Like I don't, I don't see, like,I see them, I see past all their
bullshit, all this, all whateverthey cover themselves with.
Another, like, again, like Isaid, pulling people back to

(03:15:56):
reality, like trying to removeall these fake layers that they
put on themselves and justbringing out their truest self.
That's, that's one of my biggestgoals.
And I think that, it's justlike, dude, this isn't you.
Like why do this?
Why, like what, what do you gainfrom doing that?

(03:16:17):
Like, it's obviously you powertripping.
Like, at least like, I, I dothink that there is a sense of
morality that has been lost anda sense of pride and a sense of
what's the word I'm looking for?
You probably know exactly whatI'm trying to say.
It's it's kind of like dignity.
It's kind of like all the wordsthat I just said.

(03:16:38):
It's something that yourgeneration would say that we, we
lack a lot of.
No, no, but like, for real, forreal.
I

Gene (03:16:44):
hmm.
I don't know.
I'm not sure.

Zak (03:16:46):
like, like, like, kind of like morals, but respect.

Gene (03:16:50):
Yeah.
Respect's certainly a part ofit.
I mean, you don't, like, youwouldn't just go somebody
because that shows a completelack of respect.

Zak (03:17:00):
like, it's just like, dude, I, I was so nice to you.
Like, I, like, there weremoments in our conversations
where I wanted to shoot myself,but like, not our conversation
by the way.
I'm just saying like, with agirl and it's like, I pushed
past that.
But like, you and I was nice toyou and I, and I showed you like

(03:17:24):
some things that I don't thinkyou've realized about yourself
or whatever.
Like, I think I helped you in away.
I, like, it was clear that myintention wasn't just to fuck
you or like whatever.
Like why Show me no respect.
Jesus Christ.
What's the word I'm looking for?

Gene (03:17:43):
Hmm.

Zak (03:17:45):
not pride.
It's like one of those words Ican't remember it.

Gene (03:17:49):
Me know when you think of it, but I, yeah, that makes

Zak (03:17:52):
does that make Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I could

Gene (03:17:55):
I don't think would be like, that definitely is related
to the way the communicationstarts as well.

Zak (03:18:02):
Yeah.

Gene (03:18:03):
Because if you kept seeing somebody at the same bar over
and over and then you finallyapproached them and you got into
a relationship, it's really hardfor them to ghost you.
Cuz that means they're gonnahave to stop going to all the
same places they're used togoing.

Zak (03:18:16):
Yeah.
Unless you're Oh,

Gene (03:18:19):
But when you meet somebody online through an app that
totally lives, like not nextdoor to you and doesn't go to
the same bar as you and all thisother stuff, it's, it makes it a
lot simpler to do.

Zak (03:18:29):
A hundred percent.
And it's, and your, your, yourrelationship was initiated
online.
It wasn't in person, and itdoesn't even matter.
Like, like, I hate it whenpeople just will stop talking to
you out of the blue.
But like, me personally, like myO C D really impacts the way
that I text and type like I haveto call people.
That's a long story, but it, itcan take me like 20 minutes to

(03:18:51):
send a two word text message.

Gene (03:18:54):
Mm-hmm.

Zak (03:18:54):
it can be really intense and like, I feel awful not
responding to people.
I have like 1,200 unread textmessages on my phone.

Gene (03:19:03):
how much

Zak (03:19:03):
It's like 1,200.
A lot of them are like spam, butit doesn't

Gene (03:19:07):
unread text messages.
Jesus Christ.

Zak (03:19:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gene (03:19:11):
generally have zero unread

Zak (03:19:13):
ex.
No, no, no.
But that's, that's like, butlike, that's, that's mostly due
to me, like, that's mostly dueto my O C D and me also just
being kind of sometimesunconscious or forgetting.
I mean, like, you, youexperienced it firsthand.
I was actually, surprisingly,surprisingly good with you.

(03:19:33):
But like you did, and I, you,you see how like, like that, I
don't want to not give yourespect.
I don't like, like you deservemore

Gene (03:19:42):
Well, you're very polite and stuff, but you're just like

Zak (03:19:46):
No, I'm shitty.
I'm fucking, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
No, I, it doesn't matter.
I mean, like, I try torecuperate as best as I can, but
like, like, it's not myintention ever.
But it doesn't feel like that.
Right?
Like, that's not

Gene (03:19:59):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, and again, it's like, I,it's not a big deal cuz I could
do this recording anytime, butthe issue is when somebody sets
a time if they don't show up,it's kinda like, well shit,
something really bad must havehappened.
It's like, oh yeah, you werefucking fishing for deep sea
fishing instead.

Zak (03:20:17):
yeah.
Dude, dude, I totally thought Iwas coming back on the sixth.
I, I looked at my phone the daywe were coming back and I was
like, oh my God.
It's not the sixth.
It is

Gene (03:20:28):
Yeah.
Well you caught some good fish.
So that's, that's

Zak (03:20:30):
Yeah.
You see that Dorado?
That was me.
That was me, baby.
I have

Gene (03:20:34):
yeah.
I've gotten fishing with yourdad a couple times and then I've
always enjoyed going deep sea.
It's, I don't do it

Zak (03:20:39):
I, I like Lake

Gene (03:20:40):
ain't cheap,

Zak (03:20:41):
So much more fun.
Yeah,

Gene (03:20:42):
but it is really fun.

Zak (03:20:43):
it is really fun.
Oh, that,

Gene (03:20:45):
know, I mean, you're also sticking something in the mouth
of a fish and then killing.

Zak (03:20:49):
oh yeah.
Especially a Dorado man.
Like, look at that fish.
Like look at that thing.
That thing's beautiful.
And

Gene (03:20:55):
That cool looking fish,

Zak (03:20:56):
I'm a bit, I like lake fishing, which also reminded me
of that rodent in Louisianathat's like eating all the
marsh.
I forgot what they're called.
It's similar to the bore problemthat you guys have, except way
worse.
It's like Lama set.
Lar Larman.
Larman.
Yeah.
I don't remember what it'scalled, but they lamo.
I almost just said Lamotrigine.

(03:21:16):
That's that's Claritin.
That's not That's not an animal.
Anyway.
You like, some people make ahundred thousand dollars a year
because there's a bounty on'embecause they're so invasive and
they're destroying all the marsh

Gene (03:21:28):
and which, what critters are these?

Zak (03:21:30):
they're these rodents, they're huge rodents, nutrients.
There you go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's like, that's kind

Gene (03:21:37):
for those.
Yeah, for sure.

Zak (03:21:39):
that when we were talking about the bores, that's what
that was

Gene (03:21:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
They're like big rats.
The bores are, you can actually,I think the bores taste a lot
better, first of all.

Zak (03:21:48):
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Actually, apparently, I thinkyou can eat the nutri.
Apparently they're

Gene (03:21:53):
I've seen people on YouTube.
I would not I just, I just havezero interest le Oh, I got
fucking pet snakes.
I don't need to eat the samething they do.

Zak (03:22:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
I, I think I have to skedaddleright now.

Gene (03:22:10):
Yeah.
No, that's cool, dude.
Well, I appreciate the the longass

Zak (03:22:14):
Really long as dude.

Gene (03:22:16):
You could have said the same stuff in about an hour and
a half, but I wasn't gonnainterrupt you.
That's fine.
I don't mind having a longerepisode.
That's, that's perfectly okay.

Zak (03:22:24):
you know what like I said, I like talking.

Gene (03:22:28):
Yeah, you do

Zak (03:22:29):
man.
Well, I'm also a little dazedand confused.
I'm just out of it.
But I would love to, I think, Ithink in a couple days I'll
definitely be more focused andeverything.
So if you ever wanna I'm, I'mhere for it, man.
Like, I, I want, I want

Gene (03:22:44):
Well, I'm, I'm happy just chat in general, but you know,
I, I don't need two episodes ofyou one way after the other,
that's for sure.

Zak (03:22:50):
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's for damn sure.
They don't want to hear me talkthat long.
Yeah,

Gene (03:22:54):
dude, you're gonna, you're gonna stir some reactions
guaranteed on

Zak (03:22:57):
Oh, really?

Gene (03:22:58):
what my audience

Zak (03:22:59):
That you think that they're

Gene (03:23:00):
you definitely gonna trigger some

Zak (03:23:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Get triggered.
Get get triggered.
Leftists.

Gene (03:23:07):
No, I mean, the right

Zak (03:23:08):
here, Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Fuck you.
No, I'm, I'm just kidding.
Well, I I sure as hellappreciate talking to Eugene.
I miss you as well.
Haven't seen you in a while.

Gene (03:23:20):
Yeah, it's, it has been a while and

Zak (03:23:22):
forever.
Yeah.
We're coming out to Texas.
We're shooting guns.
We're

Gene (03:23:26):
yeah, definitely, definitely doing that.
Yeah, I still I used to be inthere quite a bit more frequent.
I'm trying to think what, thelast time I was out in San Diego
was, I wanna say maybe four anda half, five years ago.

Zak (03:23:37):
I don't think that's when we saw each other last though.
We

Gene (03:23:39):
Okay.
So it was even before then.

Zak (03:23:41):
We saw each other somewhere else.
I remember that.
You got

Gene (03:23:44):
Oh, okay.

Zak (03:23:45):
I think you were with your mom.

Gene (03:23:48):
With my mom.
No, she would, like, my parentshadn't traveled outside of
Seattle for years.

Zak (03:23:56):
Where was it?

Gene (03:23:58):
Oh, wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
No, you're thinking like in incentral Valley, in California.
There in

Zak (03:24:02):
it was somewhere.

Gene (03:24:03):
were you out there?
I know, I remember Mike was outthere.
That was the last trip that myparents took to California

Zak (03:24:09):
Yeah, yeah.

Gene (03:24:10):
that was probably like, mean, my mom died last year, so
that's probably like, six yearsago,

Zak (03:24:18):
Oh yeah, dude.

Gene (03:24:19):
five or six.

Zak (03:24:20):
Yeah.
I'm probably the same height asI was, honestly.
But I I look slightly less likea child

Gene (03:24:26):
Yeah.
Okay.
I don't, I don't, I didn't evenremember that time.
I mean, I was just like,

Zak (03:24:31):
Well, get triggered.
Righties.
Get outta here.
Righties.
Yeah.
You're all like qan on, suck onthat

Gene (03:24:38):
there's not a whole lot of qan Aon, I've done quite a few
episodes as that make fun ofqan, but they're definitely is

Zak (03:24:44):
I, cuz I said that there is the,

Gene (03:24:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, I did a, I did a surveyrecently and what we had is

Zak (03:24:50):
How many

Gene (03:24:50):
is

Zak (03:24:51):
listen to this by the way?

Gene (03:24:52):
It kind of varies.
I've got about 2000 people thatfollow me and it, it, the,
there's fewer than that.
Listen, per episode.
I mean, it's probably closer toa thousand, but it's gonna
depend.
Yeah.

Zak (03:25:06):
I'm gonna be famous in a second.

Gene (03:25:08):
Oh, yeah.
I don't know about that.
I, I'm pretty sure your dad'spodcast is way more active
there.

Zak (03:25:13):
Yeah.
Well, next time I'll write out alist for you and we will stick
to topics.

Gene (03:25:19):
They, well, if you wanna, if you want to interview me, I'm
up for that as well at somepoint.

Zak (03:25:23):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're gonna have to send memore about yourself.
Cuz I kind

Gene (03:25:27):
Well, that's the point of doing an interview.
Dumb.
I ask you get to ask questions.
I get to answer'em

Zak (03:25:33):
so wise.

Gene (03:25:34):
that I am.

Zak (03:25:35):
you're so wise.
Well,

Gene (03:25:37):
All right, dude.
It's, it's getting late.
It's two hours later for me thanfor you.

Zak (03:25:42):
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Go

Gene (03:25:44):
And I'm still awake and

Zak (03:25:46):
about to play some star

Gene (03:25:47):
per probably not, probably not tonight anymore.
It's 1:00 AM

Zak (03:25:52):
Yeah.

Gene (03:25:52):
But either way.
I appreciate you coming out.
I appreciate the honesty inthere, and I, even though it's,
it's gonna serve somecontroversy, I think it's great.

Zak (03:26:00):
know what?
I want to hear the controversy,responding to hate comments.
I'm

Gene (03:26:05):
I will, I will definitely let you know.
All right.

Zak (03:26:08):
By way.
I do want to do one more note.
I promise you I'm not that Imight have sounded a little
egotistical here and there.
I promise you guys,

Gene (03:26:16):
Just a little bit.

Zak (03:26:17):
I'm not that much.
I, I, I also am very sarcasticand sometimes that doesn't come
across well, but

Gene (03:26:23):
doesn't come across in audio.
Yeah.
Video helps with that for That'sa good point.

Zak (03:26:27):
don't know.
I don't know.
But

Gene (03:26:29):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna hit the stop button

Zak (03:26:31):
hit the stop button.

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