November 17, 2024 • 47 mins
Gfuel Partner: Use code RMTS at checkout for 20% off! Episode Overview Are you ready to take charge of your growth and build a better version of yourself? In this episode of The Lonely Road, we tackle what it truly means to "become a man" and explore how life shapes us, much like building a bear from scratch. From setbacks to successes, every experience adds layers to who we are. What You'll Learn How to recognize and avoid a common mistake that quietly stalls personal growth Practical steps for staying on the right path toward self-improvement and success Real-life examples that will change your mindset and inspire growth Expert tips on personal development, resilience, and overcoming life's challenges 👉 Subscribe for More: Join us as we explore personal growth, success, and self-mastery. Click Subscribe and hit the bell to stay updated on new episodes! 💬 Join the Conversation: Have you felt the pressure of “building yourself up”? Share your story or ask questions in the comments. Let's grow together! Connect with Us Follow us at HotloadsZac on X for daily tips, motivation, and life advice. Watch Next If this episode resonated, dive into our playlist on [Related Playlist Title] for more transformational insights. #SuccessTips #PersonalGrowth #BecomingAMan #LifeLessons #SelfImprovement #LonelyRoadPodcast #BuildingCharacter
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Guys, welcome to the lonely road. We are here to
join you on your journey to heal and become better humans.
And god damn it, every single day it seems like
I am not only getting better but stronger. It is
one of those days where it just feels absolutely fantastic,
and you know, we want to join you on that
deep dive of grief and everything else, but not every
(00:21):
day is heavy hearted. We want to give you the
positive and the negative and trying to help you by
your side. But we're also not mental health professionals. Go
get some health if you need to get some help,
but a lot of it you can do too. We're
start up finding a therapist. It's celebrating every single w
(00:41):
you get and trying to do everything you possibly can.
Make sure to use code R and TS to check
out at g fuel, show them their love, get twenty
percent off. That's always fantastic. Save you some money. Make
sure your energy drinks don't have sugar in them anymore
because you absolutely don't need it. It's gross. It makes
you feel horrible and you you all gross and sticky.
He have you been?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Here's hit me? Hey j motherfucker. Oh wait that's the
wrong podcast, that's the wrong character. I'm kJ thanks God, Mom,
just uh. I do some other stuff on TikTok, mostly political,
but this is this is a whole different situation, It's
(01:26):
a whole different me. This is this is the depth.
This is the depth of what I go through on
a daily basis. And although I think that we're dive
into some really important deep topics, it's always important to
keep keep it like lighthearted and to keep keep celebrating
those ws.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
It's weird and like obviously I've opened up to you
guys quite a bit with with saying some things that
have happened recently, with my son passing and everything else.
It's weird in times of deprey, there's times of sadness
or times where just everything shouldn't go right that still
the universe finds its way when you are doing the
(02:10):
right thing for it still to fucking connect even when
things aren't okay. It is it's weird and like, I
don't know, I've gone through this kind of struggle now
for like the past couple of years, but it just
feels like the world is dragging me here. It's dragging
me to have this microphone in my face, for me
not to shut the fuck up, for me to keep
(02:30):
going because for some reason I need to do this. Yeah,
and it's not like it's not like a guiding light
in me, which I know sounds very ecocentric, very narcissistic.
I can understand your point of view in those thoughts,
but it feels like I just I have more to
say and I'm gonna blow every single person away as
(02:52):
I do it, and it will help thousands, And guess what,
we're helping thousands every single fucking week because for some
reason you like our dumb asses. But fuck yeah, I
say it on arms, yes all the time. It is
(03:14):
weird to be clearing about one hundred thousand people seeing
my content a month, and going from absolutely nothing to
nobody knowing my name to you know, dragging my ass
out of fucking hell. And obviously I can't go fully
into all the hell that I've been through yet, but
(03:34):
fucking hell, I've made it. And that's fucking weird. It's
weird to kind of be that voice for so many
people when they don't have it themselves.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, and you know, it's a step further to be
able to put your vulnerabilities on the line to help
somebody and show somebody that there is the way through
that darkness. Keep walking, because you're gonna walk right through it.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And you know, it's weird when you have the chance
to be smacked in the face and told no, shut up,
and guess what, it doesn't fucking happen anytime. So I'm
still here. I'm still a very very loud fucking voice,
and god damn it, there were times today where I
didn't think that was going to happen. But I'm still
(04:19):
fucking here.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You know. It's it's interesting when you work on yourself
and you realize that not everything needs to be said,
even if you want to say it's so bad, yeah,
it's it's it reflects better on you to refine yourself.
And that's what I'm finding in my God damn it, Zachary.
(04:42):
I'm going to be fifty years old this year. In
my fifty years of life, what I found is that
you're like I heard you shoot from the hip and
not even you just you just say what you're going
to say. And that's exactly how I was a lot
of times I've I like, that's where you got it,
because where else did you get it?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
From Oh wait, it absolutely wasn't my mom. It absolutely
wasn't my dad. They are the most thumb stuck up
there ass people that I've ever seen in my life
where they're just like, I'm silent, guys, my feelings are quiet.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
They're more reserved. Yeah, absolutely, I just I just I
really feel like later on after my thirties. It was
after my thirties that I got into the more refining
how I act and what I do because my if
I act when that chord is vibrating, when something's vibrated
(05:36):
in my cord and pissed me off. If I act
or speak when when that chord is still vibrating, that's
not the authentic me. That's the pissed off me. That's
the me that I don't want to putrait to the world.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I think the one thing that I changed and the
one thing that was really hard for me to change.
And I don't know if I learned this from you
or Grandpa or what, because you guys are kind of
similar in that aspect where you just go and you
just say whatever and everything else. You two are the
two that kind of did that. I will kind of
focus down those feelings or focus down those thoughts, and
I will come in with something very quippi, very very
(06:13):
I'm either going to make you laugh or I'm going
to put you on your ass because you're not going
to expect what I'm going to say. And it will
connect every single dot that you did not expect me
to connect, and it will poke you in your fucking
chest and say what now. And it will go from
me having a fifty minute conversation where you are completely
on your ass and have no idea to one thing
that will shut you up, very very very quickly. And
(06:36):
I think it comes down to one thing that shows
your ADHD very very strongly. That one day in the
grocery store parking lot where we almost got into that fight.
That was one thing where you're like, I just I
own the county, bitch, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That was horrible. See, that's the kind of me that
I never wanted to portray. But that's what comes out.
That stupid, stupid shit comes out.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
That's smart to ask. Remark curtailed all of both mine
and your anger in that situation to the point just
stopped the entire argument. It stopped everything. They stopped, They
shut up. You know what I'm saying, and it's like
that point has taught me so much, and it's weird
for that point for it to be like that taught
(07:19):
me to shut up, and I'm like, no, that taught
me to be very very specific in how I say things.
And me and you had this conversation towards my mom
and other stuff and ADHD and everything else. So often
it's like, I am very very precise with how I speak,
and you tell me all the time you're self prized
with how precise I am, because I will I will
cut that hair very fucking close.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
But on the other hand, Zach, you have to you
have to admit that when you are reeling off of something,
you're very cryptic.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, I'm very bad, because.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Zach, we just don't we gotta we gotta say somebody
really back in and we need to have names with
these pronouns. So you know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, that's panic, you know what I'm saying? Like that,
that reeling of PTSD and ADHD, of just getting the
information out without giving everything is like, oh, I expect
everybody to kind of pick up the pieces like I'm
talking to them, because if I have the conversation with you, you
would hear the cadence and how I'm saying it, so
it makes sense. So I just spit out the sentence
(08:24):
and it connects the dots. No, it doesn't connect the
dots because it's set in a different way than I
would say it personally. Yeah, but it's weird. It's really weird,
all right.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So the topic of tonight, well, you.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Know that that cadence of like everything going right is
kind of weird with me, specifically, especially recently because uh friends,
friends of mine like Wendegoon and stuff like that, are very,
very religious, and you know, I talk to a psychic medium.
I've explored more religiously in the past three years than
(09:03):
I honestly ever expected to. And my mom shocked me.
It was probably like two three weeks ago. She's like, Zach,
out of everybody in my entire life, you are the
last person that I would ever expect to become religious
in any way, let alone be questioning looking at Muslim
as the answer or anything like that. I never would
(09:26):
have expected you to be that person. And I'm like that,
that's a weird place to be because i feel like
I've grown so much since a kid, like I've grown
so much intellectually. I've grown so much I can't even
speak properly sometimes, but I've grown so much intellectually and
kind of like self introspective that it's weird. And these
(09:49):
past three years have totally changed that. And I think
you caught onto something when we were talking about Brett
and we were talking about Joshua, about how I felt very,
very guilty in both the situations. I felt like it
was my fault, and I kind of feel like the
church is part of that, Like I think religion is
a big part of why that guilt relied on my
(10:10):
shoulders so much.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, there definitely are positive effects to religion and people
that need people that need that construct. It's it's a
beautiful thing for I am more, I like I separate
out religion and spirituality. I'm a very spiritual person, very
(10:38):
very spiritual person, but religion has turned me off to it.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, so the.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Negative effects of the religion have been pressing.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I think that's why my mom is so confused on
like where I sit with my morals and stuff like that.
It's like, Zach, I didn't expect you to have these morals,
and it's like, Mom, these are the morals that I
needed to have as a man. Like It's like I
need to provide in whatever way I can, regardless of
if I can sit here and make sure the garbage
is taken out. There's things in this life, in this
world that I can do to make sure that this
(11:14):
world is better, that my family is better, that my
house is better, that every single person around me is better.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
And where did you pick that up? Because your mom
didn't teach you that she's your mom. She taught you
other things, positive and negative. Your stepdad was good in
a lot of ways, but he wasn't good in all
those ways subtlely, where did you grab it?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Let's say, fuck this topic and go into this one.
I like this one a little bit more and I
probably could be a hell of a lot more introspective
and it would be a little bit more entertaining for
the fans. We'll do this topic at a different time.
I don't care. So it's weird if we tie it in.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
We tied in.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I'm just saying, don't stress about tying it in. So
let me lay out exactly how my stepdad was way
it's understood, why it's weird and why it's crazy. My stepdad.
I love him to death. Let me just start off
saying that firsthand, even with all of their marital problems
and their relationship problems, I supported my stepdad. I stood
(12:21):
behind my stepdad. I was like, hey, you have my
respect because you've never done anything wrong to me, Like,
regardless of what your relationship issues are, regardless of what's
going on, I stand behind you. But in saying that,
he was never the man like I took the role
(12:41):
of the man of the house at fucking eight years old,
And that's because that's how it was kind of laid out.
I think I saw that level of inequality and intelligence
very quickly. And I don't know if it was put
in front of my face or if I saw it.
And that's me being genuine, like I just I don't know.
(13:03):
I can't I can't grasp it. But the way that
the way that he was a part of the household
was like he was the lighthearted, jokey kind of guy
that kind of just got shit done. And that was
the only part of him I could take. Like when
I when I built myself up as a man, the
one part I could take from Fah is that he
(13:26):
just got shit done, Like no matter what it was
on the table. It like, did he struggle with keeping
a job. Absolutely? Did he struggle with like the impulse
decisions of like, ah, I'm gonna fuck up everything. Yeah,
that's that's who he was as a person. Absolutely, But
if something needed to get done in the house, somebody
(13:46):
needed to be heard, something needed to get done, and
he was the person that was available to do it.
That motherfucker. On the day that we lost Joshua, he
walked up to me said, but I love you. I'm
not a part of this conversation. He walked into my
kitchen and started doing my dishes because he knew that
that's where he could help. Like he doesn't try and
(14:06):
step away from what he knows he can do. And
that was like a weird thing that ADHD me had
to pick up and I couldn't put the pieces together
at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old when I had my
first two kids, of what that was because you know,
that entire relationship was surrounded by her mom who is
(14:28):
so radical feminist bullshit of like, oh, I'm a boss,
asked babe, who needs to do everything? No you don't, No,
you don't.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
If you need to be.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That level of controlling in your life and your relationship.
There's a problem. There's roles for a reason, not because
I'm just stereotypical, but as a whole, the house works
better if it comes together. And my mom, who was very,
very similar, I remember so many times hearing, oh, Zach,
(14:58):
the nurses that are hired at my job when they're men,
they make four or five dollars more than I do.
And I look back at that, I'm like, Mom, they
legally could not do that. They legally could not. I'm like,
what the what the hell? I was poisoned by that
so much that I just I let my ex wife
(15:19):
lead everything for so long. Like I sat back, and
I sat back, and I sat back, and like I
look back at our first our first apartment, which was
a trailer, right, fucking wish I had that opportunity because
it's like we had a we had a trailer right
with my grandparents, like my grandparents old house and my
(15:42):
aunt's house, who is right there, and it's like I
have my best friend right there as my neighbor. Everything
was there, and it's like I lost that because she
couldn't get past making sure that she had a pack
of cigarettes in her hand and a bottle of vodka
in the freezer, and making sure that every thing, you know,
I have new clothes to wear. I couldn't put my
(16:05):
foot down still at that point, like I struggled. We
lost that apartment because she didn't pay the bills. Even
when I was working, she didn't pay the bills. There
was no effort behind the things that she was doing
to hold her accountable to do what she needed to do.
So at that point I kind of started seeing, Oh, well,
(16:26):
somebody there needs to be an accountability buddy in this
situation out of the one of two of us, and
it's not her. So probably like four or five years
down the road, when we lived at the bottom of
the mountain, we almost lost it. She was pregnant and
(16:49):
we were about two months behind in rent and one
of my abuser's moms bailed us out, and I lost it.
I said, no, we're not accepting this. If you accept this,
I'm telling you I'm taking this shit over and we're
going to do this right, and I'm not fucking paying
anybody back anymore. We're not going into the red. Every
(17:11):
single chance that you get, every time you want to
pack a cigarettes every single time, every little hair brain
scheme comes into your head. We're not doing this anymore.
I can't do this anymore. I watched my entire life
go from cycles of the same exact shit I dealt
with as a kid too. I still haven't moved out
(17:32):
of that apartment from seven years ago. Every single bill
has not been turned off since I took over, nothing
has gone off. Just making sure everything is taken care of.
And you know, it got stronger. It got stronger. When
we got married. I was like, Okay, I need to
be the man that that a marriage is, like, I
(17:58):
need to be that relationship towards what we need to be.
And that was a weird place because I didn't know
what the fuck that was right. And it's weird because
like this is gonna sound stupid. The one guy that
I was able to look to is now my boss
(18:22):
is a millionaire on YouTube that I was like, you know,
he tells a lot of stories and talks a lot
of shit, and you know he's able to guide his family.
So I started taking little bits and pieces from here
and there and like how I needed to be.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And then.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
We got pregnant with Ava, who's my baby? And I
love that kid to fucking death. Man. That kid changed
me so much. But uh, just before Ava, I ended
up having to leave my job because I entered my neck,
and uh, I didn't that level of comfort I was
able to build for myself for that two years in
(19:05):
between getting married and me going out with my neck.
That comfort was taken from me because I couldn't make
sure the bills were paid. I had workers' comp checks
coming in that was seventy percent of my wages. There's
nothing I can do at that point. There's nothing. So
I'm I'm trying to put the pieces together, just trying
(19:27):
to figure it out and kind of be able to
understand exactly what the hell is going on? Is that
your fune, I'll cut this out. There's like there was
like a weird feedback and then I sound like music
or a ring. It was weird. I don't know. I
(19:48):
just figured I'd ask I'll cut it out of zero problem.
But there so it got really weird. It got really
weird as that time of like me not being able
to have the physical control over it being okay, I
had to rely on a disability check from her, and
(20:09):
my work was they think me and That was weird.
That got weird because it's like, I have to figure
this out. So as I got ready for my surgery.
Right the doctor's appointment before we scheduled my surgery, he
looked at me and said, if you have the surgery,
(20:31):
it is a twenty percent chance you die. Because it
was surgery on my neck and surgery on my chest.
He's like, bad surgeons, they fail. It just happens. My
percentage is lower than twenty percent, but I can accurately
give you a twenty percent chance to die. I looked
at him and said, I need to schedule this now.
(20:56):
He's like, are you sure you have a baby coming?
I said, I can't if I can't make sure that
garbage is taken out tomorrow because my arm doesn't work today,
And I can't make sure that the baby can be
held and taken care of because I can't use my
arm today. What man am I ever going to be?
(21:19):
What can I ever be as a human if I'm
just sitting here waiting to pass out again. I decided
that day I needed to have surgery. It was a risk.
They told me it was a fifty to fifty shot
if it worked, and a twenty percent chance of death.
That is a thirty percent chance of positive outcomes. And
(21:42):
I came home. I talked to my lawyer first, because
I didn't even speak to my ex wife at the time.
I was like, this is the percentages they're giving me
if I die on that table. Can you promise me
that my kids are going to be taken care of?
That's all I care about. Are my kids going to
(22:02):
be okay? And he said, if you die on that table,
it's two million dollars. And I remember, and I'm sure
you probably heard this too. I remember my mom always
coming home and being like, you know, there are some
days I realize that I'm worth more dead than I
am alive. I'm worth a million dollars dead and I'm
(22:22):
worth this alive. And I'm like, I don't think you
had a million dollar life insurance policy. Maybe one hundred
K I could understand, but not a million. Just life
insurance doesn't work like that. Everybody knows that now. But
whatever was like, Okay, even at thirty thirty seventy, I'm
taking these odds. I have to surgery failed but inevitably,
(22:47):
but like, I have to take these odds. I have
to be okay. Enough to do this. It's my turn
to step up now. It's not just working, it is
making sure my case don't have to worry about tomorrow.
Because workers Comp was telling me, oh, well, if you
don't have surgery, what are you gonna do. You're gonna
(23:08):
sit on a workers comp for the rest of your life.
We're gonna stop giving you offers. Hey, Surgery's my answer.
Though I can't go back to work, I physically can't
pass out at work because you're going to tell me
it's no longer covered. So I wrote a letter to
(23:32):
my mom, begging her and wishing her to be there
because I just needed somebody. Wrote a letter to my kids,
telling them I love them, hoping that Eva would be
able to read it and think of me because I
didn't know what was going to happen, and all I
(23:55):
had was my aunt who's literally been my rock for
years now, and my ex wife. It's fucked up to
say that three days later showed me even more at
the man. I had to be in ice you because
(24:16):
I had surgery on veins and arteries and trying to
get shit uncompressed and everything else. They were offering me
shots every single night to make sure that I didn't
get blood clots, and I kept telling them to go
fuck themselves because I'm not sticking myself with needles just
because you don't want an insurance claim. And I would
get up and walk and eat. My son was playing
(24:44):
in the living room of my in law's house. It
was the day after Christmas, and we got a message.
I sent my ex wife back here to get clothes
and change and you know, do the normal daily stuff
stuff sitting in a hospital chair. Go take care of yourself.
So she came back, walked the dogs, made sure everything
(25:05):
was taken care of, and she got a message while
she was here. She's like, hey, Nick is swelling. Nick
has Nick's having an allergic reaction to something. It was
like eight o'clock at night. I'm giving him benadru, I said,
show me him. She said, no, I already give him benadru.
(25:30):
The next morning, I h I withdrew myself from the hospital.
I made them take the drain out of my chest
and I came home. Because I know, and I know
this sounds egotistical, there's not a single place where those
kids are safer than they are with me. I dit it,
(25:51):
because no matter what, no matter what I have to
do for those kids, if I have to take a
gunshot right now, I would. If I died on that table,
I would have done anything. I learned that from FA
(26:14):
because that's exactly what he would have done, no matter
if he's dying, he has a fucking drain holding all
of his blood together, that's touching his fucking intestines and
it feels fucking gross on the inside. And I had
to watch them rip it out of my chest. Guess what,
I'm coming home because fuck you, that strike three. I
(26:44):
don't play these games. And that day showed me exactly
how many people I can trust? Is there. There's gonna
be people in this world that you can trust ninety
five percent. There's gonna be people in this world that
you can trust fifty percent, maybe your best friends. And
then there's people that are literally in your circle only
(27:05):
because they have to be, and you would rather drag
your nuts on fucking glass than ever deal with them again.
And I promise you there will never be a day
I don't give every single ounce of fucking energy I
can to those kids.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That's your should, there's your should.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
You know I was tying it back into your morality question.
You know, I don't know where I got the morality
of like I'm supposed to provide and take care. That
might even be the ghetto streak in me that you
brought out, you know what I'm saying, Like we're, oh,
the guy is gonna be the feisty one. The guy's
gonna be the one that protects and and fight and
(27:52):
do everything that he possibly can. And you see that
with me talking out about my abuse with my dad,
you got fiy and lit up about it. You stood
behind me. There wasn't the same fieriness from everybody. That
fieryess only came from those kind of the people that led.
(28:16):
And it's weird. It's weird the things that I kind
of clung to. But at the same time, it's like
I had to. Yeah, as I saw the steps in
front of me, I saw exactly how I needed to move.
And I don't know if that's like a meeting or
an everybody thing. I don't know if it's an autism
thing or an ADHD thing, or if it's just like
there is something about this life that I'm supposed to do.
(28:41):
There's something that is pushing me through this path, no
matter how hard. I fucking fought against it. How many
times have I pushed myself through this exact path? And
I'm winning now?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Yeah? Yeah, So it appears that like you took something,
whether it be positive or negative, from pretty much everybody
you came across in your life, yeah, and put it
in it.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
It's weird when when you look at the two biggest
actual men in my life, one of them is gay,
and you know, I'm sure my humor will be like, oh,
he's homophobic, very very far from.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
It, very don't get me stock.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
We know this, but like the most manly man, the
most manly man you have in my life is fucking
JT and uncle Donnie.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And like we're in a weird fucking place now, you
know what I'm saying. It's a weird standard to grow
from here. Guess what. I have one hell of a
best friend in JT. And guess what, even though he's
not the greatest dude, there are things that, you know,
just light up the world because of how Donnie was,
(29:57):
you know what, I took things there too.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I love Donaio is awesome. I love him. I know
he hasn't been the most amazing guy to people that
you love, But I exactly, I only know what I know,
and I just take the good from the people that.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
The negative or is the negative, and I will never
stand behind him for those things.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Right right, But.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
On July eleventh, twenty twenty two, you want know, the
first person to ask it was the first week of August, sorry,
not July. First person to ask if I could go
out and I could spend guy time because obviously I
needed it because I wasn't okay, because my brother Josh
and uncle Donnie, and they made sure I was okay.
(30:51):
They made sure another dude was making sure I was okay.
They made sure I got down to Pa to get
the hell out of him here for a fucking week.
It covered me and made sure that everything was gonna
be fine. Those things stuck too.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
So you do have a lot of really good role
models in your life. Your grandpa. Your grandpa is a
solid I mean again, had his downfalls, and when I
was around him was different, but he was different with you.
But my point being that your grandpa was a very
(31:36):
responsible man. Yeah he is. He is a very responsible man.
But what I say was because I don't interact with
him anymore very much, but he when I knew him.
He just he knew how to make money, he knew
how to hold things down, and he knew how to Yeah,
he knew how to keep his household running.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
It's weird. It's really genuinely weird. You know, two years ago,
in the middle of dealing with all this shit, I
call him for Father's Day talking, talking bullshit, back and forth,
back and forth, and uh he starts going on a
rant about Trump being an asshole and everything else, which
(32:20):
is hilarious if you know who he is. The fact
that he doesn't like a Republican Canada is fucking absolutely hilarious.
But uh, ken's our phone call with h.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Zach.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
No matter what anybody says about you, no matter what
anybody looks at you for, no matter how mad they
are at you, no matter who you've lost in the world,
or who's abused you or anything, I'm proud of the
man you became. Yeah, and you know that ties back
into something that we said a couple of weeks ago,
(32:58):
giving the whether it's a man or a woman around you,
giving them those flowers of I'm proud of you, I
want you to be happy, this is how you do this,
and I'm proud of how you're doing this. Those things
are life changing. Yeah, yeah, because you want to know
what every single dude looks for when they don't have
(33:18):
a dad, that dad to give them the flowers that
they needed to say, Hey, you did a good job.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I'm glad I could do that for you. That's awesome.
I'm glad that's a relationship that is definitely worth fostering.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
And like you saw me growing up, how often did
I look for my dad? My dad abused me for
three fucking years, and I was still waiting for him
to walk and stand up at my fucking graduation as
Mattie's running across the fucking stage to me to tell
me she loves me, Like I sat there and waited.
I waited to fucking fistfight, because you know, you expect
(34:03):
somebody to give a fuck even if they've hurt you. Yeah,
it's weird, you know how, For damn sure, my kids
will never fucking feel.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
It, That's right. They'll never have to wonder.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
They know, for damn sure their daddy loves them, and
they know what a real man will show them love.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, because you are the blueprint for how they're going
to expect men to treat them, whether you treat them
bad or good, and that could be. That's very scary
in a lot of instances and a lot of homes.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
And it's so weird watching Nick because like he's using
me as the blueprint and he's learning You're so fucking fast. Yeah,
And there are things that come out of his mouth
that floor me. And I'm like, I would have said
that at fourteen.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Fuck yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I'm like, I understand your morality, kid, I fully grasp it,
and I'm so fucking proud of you for that morality.
But fucking hell, you have one hell of a thought
process on you already. That kid is going to be
so hard stanced, just like me and Joshua that it's crazy.
(35:37):
So yeah, it's it's weird. It's hard looking at you know,
all these pieces of like, oh I got this from there,
and I got that from there, and you never fully know, No, you.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Don't, you don't. I mean I just followed my mom
what she did to this day. I mean where I'm working,
what I'm doing, how I'm living my life, like it's
basically a blueprint of her. So I get it, Like
(36:10):
I had that solid in a lot of ways. I
have the blueprint of both her and and my dad
in a different way because although we didn't see eye
to eye in life a lot, he was a really
good role model to show me how to do stuff
(36:31):
you know, and don't. I don't need no man, No,
that's not true. But I don't have one in the house,
you know. I mean we two women household like, sometimes
things get sucked up around here and you need to
fix it. But my dad taught me some some useful
stuff and and how to how to how to how
(36:52):
to do some ship around the house.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
You know, you know that that level is so funny
and so weird because big adhd as fuck. I teach
myself absolutely everything. I have to teach myself everything where
I get fucking lost. Bree the other day she looks
at me, She's like, bab you really frustrate me. I said, why, Why?
(37:17):
Why do I really frustrate you? She said, absolutely everything
I've ever asked you, you have an answer for absolutely
everything that I've ever asked you to do. You know
exactly how to do almost perfectly, and you achieve at
a level that I don't think most people that I've
ever talked to can achieve at half your fucking level.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Because I don't care, Zach. You know a lot of
people just don't care about the quality of things. They
just want to get through something.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
And it's just it's just so weird that whole Oh,
I have a man in the house. It's weird, And
it's weird because I used to think of that being
a negative thing. Now it's like, if Maddie needs something done,
Nick needs something done, You need something, and they all
run to Dad, every single every single one of them.
If they need their tire change, their oil change, to
(38:10):
go get something from the store, to make sure a
bill is paid. Every single thing goes through Dad. Did
either of the households before me show that, Yeah, not
at all.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
No, Well, I mean I didn't. I didn't have I
mean I had my dad was there. Don't get me wrong.
I don't don't mistake that at all. My dad was
always there. I didn't always live in the same household
with him. My parents divorced when I was young, about four,
but I always had the influence there. And then he remarried,
(38:49):
so I had the married couple family type situation over
here and my mom, me and my brother over here,
So I got to see two different ways to life,
if you will, you know, And and I picked up
(39:11):
something from everybody. You're right, you know, and you think
about it, you know. I picked up a lot of
a lot of things from my stepmother as far as
household is concerned. It's amazing to me how much I
picked up a lot of of attitudes and platitudes and
(39:36):
demeanor of my mom and my dad. He wasn't always
the lead. He always wanted to be the lead, but
he always he wasn't always the lead. I was surrounded
by really strong women, but nobody you know that that
(39:59):
put his his manhood down. But being being rooted in
the LGBT community when I was younger, it was very
much I don't need no man type. Yeah, of environment,
and and I this point in life, don't don't. I
don't agree with that, you know, I don't agree with
(40:20):
that at all. And it's it's amazing how much my
mindset has changed where all that's concerned.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
And I don't know, maybe maybe you can give me
a little insight on this. You might know a little
bit more than I do. And you know, you look
at my childhood and I was I forced myself to
be quiet all the time. I tried to resort back
to the same exact kind of standard settings that my
mom and my dad had. Quiet quiet, Quiet, Shut up, Zach,
(40:46):
Shut up, Zach. Shit. But you know, my grandparents always
said that I would be the person that ties everybody together.
I'm the person that will bring everybody back to the table.
I'm the person that will fix it. My grandma said
that when I was two years old, right, And I
(41:09):
was the one that brought everybody back, and I'm the
great uniter. It's weird. I didn't this personality, This this
whole I walk into the room and everybody has fun
and greets me was not Zach's personality at fucking thirteen
(41:29):
years old. Once I sat down and everybody was in
a circle. Yeah, I might light up the fucking room
because I'm fucking funny, but I wasn't the I'm going
to command a room and make people stare down at
their dick because they're questioning their size. That was never Zach.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Metaphor. Yeah, yeah it didn't land well.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
But oh no, I'll la it's okay. I'm going to
leave the awkwardness into so that way everybody's confused. But
you know, it's weird because the alpha version wasn't something
I ever chose. That that wasn't me.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
It wasn't, It wasn't. I think had a lot to
do with with your upbringing and the type of man
that your mother chose, as well as the type of
woman that you chose.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
And it's just it's weird looking at it now that
the person that I've become, Like we walk into the
pizza place, every every single person waited for Zach to
get there because I was the one who started it.
But still like everybody, this is where we're here, this
is what we're doing. Like I think, was there ever
(42:45):
a family group chat before I started one either of them? No, No,
nobody had back channels, nobody had conversations. Everybody was quiet.
It's weird. It's weird, kJ It's fucking weird that this
was set forward at fucking one and two years old,
and now for some reason, I'm fulfilling prophecies that I didn't.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
No wor a thing filling prophecies. Oh man, you know,
since this is all over the place anyway, I'm going
to circle back to fah for a second. Yeah, And
the reason why I'm going to circle back to Pap
(43:31):
for a second. Is because the trait that you got
from him was you're gonna do You're just gonna do it.
You're just gonna get things done. You're going to power through.
There's a task list and you've got to get through it. Right.
When my mom passed, that's a whole nother episode. Yeah,
but when my mom passed, my world fell out from
(43:52):
underneath me. I couldn't even walk back into her house
for weeks. But the one thing that did happen is
(44:13):
I ended up having to move and clean that place
out when your mother was moving in.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Not only could I could I not look at me
right now? Not only could I not thirteen years ago
you'd think this was like last month. Not only could
I not live in the house that my mother left me.
(44:46):
Talk about missed opportunities. Yeah, I couldn't clean her things
out of the house. Yeah, it was horrible. So what
did FA dou go?
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Motherfucker made sure everything was taken care.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Of, Everything was put in a story to it yep,
or my apartment everything. I'll never be able to make
that man enough. We have our muscles being thaugh but
I'll never be able to thank that man.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Enough. Now, when we moved to the bottom of the mountain,
you know, he was the only one that stepped up
to help. He sat there and made sure that the
U haul was filled and we were able to move
the shit into the apartment. And guess what, he took
my autistic ass and sat there and accepted putting all
the shit together. And he's like, I want to do this.
(45:44):
Fucking horrible at it, but he fucking loves doing it
because he just wants to be told what to do.
That I've never been hard.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
But yeah, just wants to be part of something. Yep.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
He just wants to be part of something. Wants to
listen to some fifty and jam many men and be
told exactly what to do and achieve it at like
eighty five percent of what you want and then you
finish off the last fifteen percent and you're good.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Yep. So just I feel like those are the flowers
that I need to give next. Now I'm going to
do that.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
He is, honestly, and I'll give them right here, because
you know what he deserves, the public flowers. Fucking Yeah,
if you are one of the greatest men that I've
I've been around, are you a normal dude. Absolutely the
fuck not.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
That's why we like you.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
But you you bring so much more to this world
than you realize.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
But thank you from the bottom. Make sure.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
You made sure a lot of those days that I
had to go to school that baby was taken care of.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah, yeah, thank you from the bottom of my heart
for everything you've done for me, specifically the mom's house thing. Yeah,
because you knew I couldn't and you did, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
I love you, man, well, even even the dishes. You
know what I'm saying, Like it it gets it gets heavy,
you know what I'm saying. Next year, Zach, make a
joke and make me laugh when I'm not supposed to,
or he's gonna start balling and I'm gonna feel like.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Emotions aren't his things. So he does what needs to
be done that he knows he can help with. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
You'll never catch cheer on his face unless I cry,
and you'll never catch any fruit or vegetable on his
plate ever. We'll see you next time, guys. Used codarns
he has to check out
Guys, welcome to the lonely road. We are here to
join you on your journey to heal and become better humans.
And god damn it, every single day it seems like
I am not only getting better but stronger. It is
one of those days where it just feels absolutely fantastic,
and you know, we want to join you on that
deep dive of grief and everything else, but not every
(00:21):
day is heavy hearted. We want to give you the
positive and the negative and trying to help you by
your side. But we're also not mental health professionals. Go
get some health if you need to get some help,
but a lot of it you can do too. We're
start up finding a therapist. It's celebrating every single w
(00:41):
you get and trying to do everything you possibly can.
Make sure to use code R and TS to check
out at g fuel, show them their love, get twenty
percent off. That's always fantastic. Save you some money. Make
sure your energy drinks don't have sugar in them anymore
because you absolutely don't need it. It's gross. It makes
you feel horrible and you you all gross and sticky.
He have you been?
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Here's hit me? Hey j motherfucker. Oh wait that's the
wrong podcast, that's the wrong character. I'm kJ thanks God, Mom,
just uh. I do some other stuff on TikTok, mostly political,
but this is this is a whole different situation, It's
(01:26):
a whole different me. This is this is the depth.
This is the depth of what I go through on
a daily basis. And although I think that we're dive
into some really important deep topics, it's always important to
keep keep it like lighthearted and to keep keep celebrating
those ws.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
It's weird and like obviously I've opened up to you
guys quite a bit with with saying some things that
have happened recently, with my son passing and everything else.
It's weird in times of deprey, there's times of sadness
or times where just everything shouldn't go right that still
the universe finds its way when you are doing the
(02:10):
right thing for it still to fucking connect even when
things aren't okay. It is it's weird and like, I
don't know, I've gone through this kind of struggle now
for like the past couple of years, but it just
feels like the world is dragging me here. It's dragging
me to have this microphone in my face, for me
not to shut the fuck up, for me to keep
(02:30):
going because for some reason I need to do this. Yeah,
and it's not like it's not like a guiding light
in me, which I know sounds very ecocentric, very narcissistic.
I can understand your point of view in those thoughts,
but it feels like I just I have more to
say and I'm gonna blow every single person away as
(02:52):
I do it, and it will help thousands, And guess what,
we're helping thousands every single fucking week because for some
reason you like our dumb asses. But fuck yeah, I
say it on arms, yes all the time. It is
(03:14):
weird to be clearing about one hundred thousand people seeing
my content a month, and going from absolutely nothing to
nobody knowing my name to you know, dragging my ass
out of fucking hell. And obviously I can't go fully
into all the hell that I've been through yet, but
(03:34):
fucking hell, I've made it. And that's fucking weird. It's
weird to kind of be that voice for so many
people when they don't have it themselves.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, and you know, it's a step further to be
able to put your vulnerabilities on the line to help
somebody and show somebody that there is the way through
that darkness. Keep walking, because you're gonna walk right through it.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
And you know, it's weird when you have the chance
to be smacked in the face and told no, shut up,
and guess what, it doesn't fucking happen anytime. So I'm
still here. I'm still a very very loud fucking voice,
and god damn it, there were times today where I
didn't think that was going to happen. But I'm still
(04:19):
fucking here.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
You know. It's it's interesting when you work on yourself
and you realize that not everything needs to be said,
even if you want to say it's so bad, yeah,
it's it's it reflects better on you to refine yourself.
And that's what I'm finding in my God damn it, Zachary.
(04:42):
I'm going to be fifty years old this year. In
my fifty years of life, what I found is that
you're like I heard you shoot from the hip and
not even you just you just say what you're going
to say. And that's exactly how I was a lot
of times I've I like, that's where you got it,
because where else did you get it?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
From Oh wait, it absolutely wasn't my mom. It absolutely
wasn't my dad. They are the most thumb stuck up
there ass people that I've ever seen in my life
where they're just like, I'm silent, guys, my feelings are quiet.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
They're more reserved. Yeah, absolutely, I just I just I
really feel like later on after my thirties. It was
after my thirties that I got into the more refining
how I act and what I do because my if
I act when that chord is vibrating, when something's vibrated
(05:36):
in my cord and pissed me off. If I act
or speak when when that chord is still vibrating, that's
not the authentic me. That's the pissed off me. That's
the me that I don't want to putrait to the world.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I think the one thing that I changed and the
one thing that was really hard for me to change.
And I don't know if I learned this from you
or Grandpa or what, because you guys are kind of
similar in that aspect where you just go and you
just say whatever and everything else. You two are the
two that kind of did that. I will kind of
focus down those feelings or focus down those thoughts, and
I will come in with something very quippi, very very
(06:13):
I'm either going to make you laugh or I'm going
to put you on your ass because you're not going
to expect what I'm going to say. And it will
connect every single dot that you did not expect me
to connect, and it will poke you in your fucking
chest and say what now. And it will go from
me having a fifty minute conversation where you are completely
on your ass and have no idea to one thing
that will shut you up, very very very quickly. And
(06:36):
I think it comes down to one thing that shows
your ADHD very very strongly. That one day in the
grocery store parking lot where we almost got into that fight.
That was one thing where you're like, I just I
own the county, bitch, what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (06:50):
That was horrible. See, that's the kind of me that
I never wanted to portray. But that's what comes out.
That stupid, stupid shit comes out.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
That's smart to ask. Remark curtailed all of both mine
and your anger in that situation to the point just
stopped the entire argument. It stopped everything. They stopped, They
shut up. You know what I'm saying, and it's like
that point has taught me so much, and it's weird
for that point for it to be like that taught
(07:19):
me to shut up, and I'm like, no, that taught
me to be very very specific in how I say things.
And me and you had this conversation towards my mom
and other stuff and ADHD and everything else. So often
it's like, I am very very precise with how I speak,
and you tell me all the time you're self prized
with how precise I am, because I will I will
cut that hair very fucking close.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
But on the other hand, Zach, you have to you
have to admit that when you are reeling off of something,
you're very cryptic.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Yeah, I'm very bad, because.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Zach, we just don't we gotta we gotta say somebody
really back in and we need to have names with
these pronouns. So you know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, that's panic, you know what I'm saying? Like that,
that reeling of PTSD and ADHD, of just getting the
information out without giving everything is like, oh, I expect
everybody to kind of pick up the pieces like I'm
talking to them, because if I have the conversation with you, you
would hear the cadence and how I'm saying it, so
it makes sense. So I just spit out the sentence
(08:24):
and it connects the dots. No, it doesn't connect the
dots because it's set in a different way than I
would say it personally. Yeah, but it's weird. It's really weird,
all right.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
So the topic of tonight, well, you.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Know that that cadence of like everything going right is
kind of weird with me, specifically, especially recently because uh friends,
friends of mine like Wendegoon and stuff like that, are very,
very religious, and you know, I talk to a psychic medium.
I've explored more religiously in the past three years than
(09:03):
I honestly ever expected to. And my mom shocked me.
It was probably like two three weeks ago. She's like, Zach,
out of everybody in my entire life, you are the
last person that I would ever expect to become religious
in any way, let alone be questioning looking at Muslim
as the answer or anything like that. I never would
(09:26):
have expected you to be that person. And I'm like that,
that's a weird place to be because i feel like
I've grown so much since a kid, like I've grown
so much intellectually. I've grown so much I can't even
speak properly sometimes, but I've grown so much intellectually and
kind of like self introspective that it's weird. And these
(09:49):
past three years have totally changed that. And I think
you caught onto something when we were talking about Brett
and we were talking about Joshua, about how I felt very,
very guilty in both the situations. I felt like it
was my fault, and I kind of feel like the
church is part of that, Like I think religion is
a big part of why that guilt relied on my
(10:10):
shoulders so much.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah, there definitely are positive effects to religion and people
that need people that need that construct. It's it's a
beautiful thing for I am more, I like I separate
out religion and spirituality. I'm a very spiritual person, very
(10:38):
very spiritual person, but religion has turned me off to it.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, so the.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Negative effects of the religion have been pressing.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
I think that's why my mom is so confused on
like where I sit with my morals and stuff like that.
It's like, Zach, I didn't expect you to have these morals,
and it's like, Mom, these are the morals that I
needed to have as a man. Like It's like I
need to provide in whatever way I can, regardless of
if I can sit here and make sure the garbage
is taken out. There's things in this life, in this
world that I can do to make sure that this
(11:14):
world is better, that my family is better, that my
house is better, that every single person around me is better.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
And where did you pick that up? Because your mom
didn't teach you that she's your mom. She taught you
other things, positive and negative. Your stepdad was good in
a lot of ways, but he wasn't good in all
those ways subtlely, where did you grab it?
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Let's say, fuck this topic and go into this one.
I like this one a little bit more and I
probably could be a hell of a lot more introspective
and it would be a little bit more entertaining for
the fans. We'll do this topic at a different time.
I don't care. So it's weird if we tie it in.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
We tied in.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I'm just saying, don't stress about tying it in. So
let me lay out exactly how my stepdad was way
it's understood, why it's weird and why it's crazy. My stepdad.
I love him to death. Let me just start off
saying that firsthand, even with all of their marital problems
and their relationship problems, I supported my stepdad. I stood
(12:21):
behind my stepdad. I was like, hey, you have my
respect because you've never done anything wrong to me, Like,
regardless of what your relationship issues are, regardless of what's
going on, I stand behind you. But in saying that,
he was never the man like I took the role
(12:41):
of the man of the house at fucking eight years old,
And that's because that's how it was kind of laid out.
I think I saw that level of inequality and intelligence
very quickly. And I don't know if it was put
in front of my face or if I saw it.
And that's me being genuine, like I just I don't know.
(13:03):
I can't I can't grasp it. But the way that
the way that he was a part of the household
was like he was the lighthearted, jokey kind of guy
that kind of just got shit done. And that was
the only part of him I could take. Like when
I when I built myself up as a man, the
one part I could take from Fah is that he
(13:26):
just got shit done, Like no matter what it was
on the table. It like, did he struggle with keeping
a job. Absolutely? Did he struggle with like the impulse
decisions of like, ah, I'm gonna fuck up everything. Yeah,
that's that's who he was as a person. Absolutely, But
if something needed to get done in the house, somebody
(13:46):
needed to be heard, something needed to get done, and
he was the person that was available to do it.
That motherfucker. On the day that we lost Joshua, he
walked up to me said, but I love you. I'm
not a part of this conversation. He walked into my
kitchen and started doing my dishes because he knew that
that's where he could help. Like he doesn't try and
(14:06):
step away from what he knows he can do. And
that was like a weird thing that ADHD me had
to pick up and I couldn't put the pieces together
at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old when I had my
first two kids, of what that was because you know,
that entire relationship was surrounded by her mom who is
(14:28):
so radical feminist bullshit of like, oh, I'm a boss,
asked babe, who needs to do everything? No you don't, No,
you don't.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
If you need to be.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That level of controlling in your life and your relationship.
There's a problem. There's roles for a reason, not because
I'm just stereotypical, but as a whole, the house works
better if it comes together. And my mom, who was very,
very similar, I remember so many times hearing, oh, Zach,
(14:58):
the nurses that are hired at my job when they're men,
they make four or five dollars more than I do.
And I look back at that, I'm like, Mom, they
legally could not do that. They legally could not. I'm like,
what the what the hell? I was poisoned by that
so much that I just I let my ex wife
(15:19):
lead everything for so long. Like I sat back, and
I sat back, and I sat back, and like I
look back at our first our first apartment, which was
a trailer, right, fucking wish I had that opportunity because
it's like we had a we had a trailer right
with my grandparents, like my grandparents old house and my
(15:42):
aunt's house, who is right there, and it's like I
have my best friend right there as my neighbor. Everything
was there, and it's like I lost that because she
couldn't get past making sure that she had a pack
of cigarettes in her hand and a bottle of vodka
in the freezer, and making sure that every thing, you know,
I have new clothes to wear. I couldn't put my
(16:05):
foot down still at that point, like I struggled. We
lost that apartment because she didn't pay the bills. Even
when I was working, she didn't pay the bills. There
was no effort behind the things that she was doing
to hold her accountable to do what she needed to do.
So at that point I kind of started seeing, Oh, well,
(16:26):
somebody there needs to be an accountability buddy in this
situation out of the one of two of us, and
it's not her. So probably like four or five years
down the road, when we lived at the bottom of
the mountain, we almost lost it. She was pregnant and
(16:49):
we were about two months behind in rent and one
of my abuser's moms bailed us out, and I lost it.
I said, no, we're not accepting this. If you accept this,
I'm telling you I'm taking this shit over and we're
going to do this right, and I'm not fucking paying
anybody back anymore. We're not going into the red. Every
(17:11):
single chance that you get, every time you want to
pack a cigarettes every single time, every little hair brain
scheme comes into your head. We're not doing this anymore.
I can't do this anymore. I watched my entire life
go from cycles of the same exact shit I dealt
with as a kid too. I still haven't moved out
(17:32):
of that apartment from seven years ago. Every single bill
has not been turned off since I took over, nothing
has gone off. Just making sure everything is taken care of.
And you know, it got stronger. It got stronger. When
we got married. I was like, Okay, I need to
be the man that that a marriage is, like, I
(17:58):
need to be that relationship towards what we need to be.
And that was a weird place because I didn't know
what the fuck that was right. And it's weird because
like this is gonna sound stupid. The one guy that
I was able to look to is now my boss
(18:22):
is a millionaire on YouTube that I was like, you know,
he tells a lot of stories and talks a lot
of shit, and you know he's able to guide his family.
So I started taking little bits and pieces from here
and there and like how I needed to be.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
And then.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
We got pregnant with Ava, who's my baby? And I
love that kid to fucking death. Man. That kid changed
me so much. But uh, just before Ava, I ended
up having to leave my job because I entered my neck,
and uh, I didn't that level of comfort I was
able to build for myself for that two years in
(19:05):
between getting married and me going out with my neck.
That comfort was taken from me because I couldn't make
sure the bills were paid. I had workers' comp checks
coming in that was seventy percent of my wages. There's
nothing I can do at that point. There's nothing. So
I'm I'm trying to put the pieces together, just trying
(19:27):
to figure it out and kind of be able to
understand exactly what the hell is going on? Is that
your fune, I'll cut this out. There's like there was
like a weird feedback and then I sound like music
or a ring. It was weird. I don't know. I
(19:48):
just figured I'd ask I'll cut it out of zero problem.
But there so it got really weird. It got really
weird as that time of like me not being able
to have the physical control over it being okay, I
had to rely on a disability check from her, and
(20:09):
my work was they think me and That was weird.
That got weird because it's like, I have to figure
this out. So as I got ready for my surgery.
Right the doctor's appointment before we scheduled my surgery, he
looked at me and said, if you have the surgery,
(20:31):
it is a twenty percent chance you die. Because it
was surgery on my neck and surgery on my chest.
He's like, bad surgeons, they fail. It just happens. My
percentage is lower than twenty percent, but I can accurately
give you a twenty percent chance to die. I looked
at him and said, I need to schedule this now.
(20:56):
He's like, are you sure you have a baby coming?
I said, I can't if I can't make sure that
garbage is taken out tomorrow because my arm doesn't work today,
And I can't make sure that the baby can be
held and taken care of because I can't use my
arm today. What man am I ever going to be?
(21:19):
What can I ever be as a human if I'm
just sitting here waiting to pass out again. I decided
that day I needed to have surgery. It was a risk.
They told me it was a fifty to fifty shot
if it worked, and a twenty percent chance of death.
That is a thirty percent chance of positive outcomes. And
(21:42):
I came home. I talked to my lawyer first, because
I didn't even speak to my ex wife at the time.
I was like, this is the percentages they're giving me
if I die on that table. Can you promise me
that my kids are going to be taken care of?
That's all I care about. Are my kids going to
(22:02):
be okay? And he said, if you die on that table,
it's two million dollars. And I remember, and I'm sure
you probably heard this too. I remember my mom always
coming home and being like, you know, there are some
days I realize that I'm worth more dead than I
am alive. I'm worth a million dollars dead and I'm
(22:22):
worth this alive. And I'm like, I don't think you
had a million dollar life insurance policy. Maybe one hundred
K I could understand, but not a million. Just life
insurance doesn't work like that. Everybody knows that now. But
whatever was like, Okay, even at thirty thirty seventy, I'm
taking these odds. I have to surgery failed but inevitably,
(22:47):
but like, I have to take these odds. I have
to be okay. Enough to do this. It's my turn
to step up now. It's not just working, it is
making sure my case don't have to worry about tomorrow.
Because workers Comp was telling me, oh, well, if you
don't have surgery, what are you gonna do. You're gonna
(23:08):
sit on a workers comp for the rest of your life.
We're gonna stop giving you offers. Hey, Surgery's my answer.
Though I can't go back to work, I physically can't
pass out at work because you're going to tell me
it's no longer covered. So I wrote a letter to
(23:32):
my mom, begging her and wishing her to be there
because I just needed somebody. Wrote a letter to my kids,
telling them I love them, hoping that Eva would be
able to read it and think of me because I
didn't know what was going to happen, and all I
(23:55):
had was my aunt who's literally been my rock for
years now, and my ex wife. It's fucked up to
say that three days later showed me even more at
the man. I had to be in ice you because
(24:16):
I had surgery on veins and arteries and trying to
get shit uncompressed and everything else. They were offering me
shots every single night to make sure that I didn't
get blood clots, and I kept telling them to go
fuck themselves because I'm not sticking myself with needles just
because you don't want an insurance claim. And I would
get up and walk and eat. My son was playing
(24:44):
in the living room of my in law's house. It
was the day after Christmas, and we got a message.
I sent my ex wife back here to get clothes
and change and you know, do the normal daily stuff
stuff sitting in a hospital chair. Go take care of yourself.
So she came back, walked the dogs, made sure everything
(25:05):
was taken care of, and she got a message while
she was here. She's like, hey, Nick is swelling. Nick
has Nick's having an allergic reaction to something. It was
like eight o'clock at night. I'm giving him benadru, I said,
show me him. She said, no, I already give him benadru.
(25:30):
The next morning, I h I withdrew myself from the hospital.
I made them take the drain out of my chest
and I came home. Because I know, and I know
this sounds egotistical, there's not a single place where those
kids are safer than they are with me. I dit it,
(25:51):
because no matter what, no matter what I have to
do for those kids, if I have to take a
gunshot right now, I would. If I died on that table,
I would have done anything. I learned that from FA
(26:14):
because that's exactly what he would have done, no matter
if he's dying, he has a fucking drain holding all
of his blood together, that's touching his fucking intestines and
it feels fucking gross on the inside. And I had
to watch them rip it out of my chest. Guess what,
I'm coming home because fuck you, that strike three. I
(26:44):
don't play these games. And that day showed me exactly
how many people I can trust? Is there. There's gonna
be people in this world that you can trust ninety
five percent. There's gonna be people in this world that
you can trust fifty percent, maybe your best friends. And
then there's people that are literally in your circle only
(27:05):
because they have to be, and you would rather drag
your nuts on fucking glass than ever deal with them again.
And I promise you there will never be a day
I don't give every single ounce of fucking energy I
can to those kids.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
That's your should, there's your should.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
You know I was tying it back into your morality question.
You know, I don't know where I got the morality
of like I'm supposed to provide and take care. That
might even be the ghetto streak in me that you
brought out, you know what I'm saying, Like we're, oh,
the guy is gonna be the feisty one. The guy's
gonna be the one that protects and and fight and
(27:52):
do everything that he possibly can. And you see that
with me talking out about my abuse with my dad,
you got fiy and lit up about it. You stood
behind me. There wasn't the same fieriness from everybody. That
fieryess only came from those kind of the people that led.
(28:16):
And it's weird. It's weird the things that I kind
of clung to. But at the same time, it's like
I had to. Yeah, as I saw the steps in
front of me, I saw exactly how I needed to move.
And I don't know if that's like a meeting or
an everybody thing. I don't know if it's an autism
thing or an ADHD thing, or if it's just like
there is something about this life that I'm supposed to do.
(28:41):
There's something that is pushing me through this path, no
matter how hard. I fucking fought against it. How many
times have I pushed myself through this exact path? And
I'm winning now?
Speaker 2 (28:52):
Yeah? Yeah, So it appears that like you took something,
whether it be positive or negative, from pretty much everybody
you came across in your life, yeah, and put it
in it.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
It's weird when when you look at the two biggest
actual men in my life, one of them is gay,
and you know, I'm sure my humor will be like, oh,
he's homophobic, very very far from.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
It, very don't get me stock.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
We know this, but like the most manly man, the
most manly man you have in my life is fucking
JT and uncle Donnie.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And like we're in a weird fucking place now, you
know what I'm saying. It's a weird standard to grow
from here. Guess what. I have one hell of a
best friend in JT. And guess what, even though he's
not the greatest dude, there are things that, you know,
just light up the world because of how Donnie was,
(29:57):
you know what, I took things there too.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
I love Donaio is awesome. I love him. I know
he hasn't been the most amazing guy to people that
you love, But I exactly, I only know what I know,
and I just take the good from the people that.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
The negative or is the negative, and I will never
stand behind him for those things.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Right right, But.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
On July eleventh, twenty twenty two, you want know, the
first person to ask it was the first week of August, sorry,
not July. First person to ask if I could go
out and I could spend guy time because obviously I
needed it because I wasn't okay, because my brother Josh
and uncle Donnie, and they made sure I was okay.
(30:51):
They made sure another dude was making sure I was okay.
They made sure I got down to Pa to get
the hell out of him here for a fucking week.
It covered me and made sure that everything was gonna
be fine. Those things stuck too.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
So you do have a lot of really good role
models in your life. Your grandpa. Your grandpa is a
solid I mean again, had his downfalls, and when I
was around him was different, but he was different with you.
But my point being that your grandpa was a very
(31:36):
responsible man. Yeah he is. He is a very responsible man.
But what I say was because I don't interact with
him anymore very much, but he when I knew him.
He just he knew how to make money, he knew
how to hold things down, and he knew how to Yeah,
he knew how to keep his household running.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
It's weird. It's really genuinely weird. You know, two years ago,
in the middle of dealing with all this shit, I
call him for Father's Day talking, talking bullshit, back and forth,
back and forth, and uh he starts going on a
rant about Trump being an asshole and everything else, which
(32:20):
is hilarious if you know who he is. The fact
that he doesn't like a Republican Canada is fucking absolutely hilarious.
But uh, ken's our phone call with h.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
Zach.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
No matter what anybody says about you, no matter what
anybody looks at you for, no matter how mad they
are at you, no matter who you've lost in the world,
or who's abused you or anything, I'm proud of the
man you became. Yeah, and you know that ties back
into something that we said a couple of weeks ago,
(32:58):
giving the whether it's a man or a woman around you,
giving them those flowers of I'm proud of you, I
want you to be happy, this is how you do this,
and I'm proud of how you're doing this. Those things
are life changing. Yeah, yeah, because you want to know
what every single dude looks for when they don't have
(33:18):
a dad, that dad to give them the flowers that
they needed to say, Hey, you did a good job.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I'm glad I could do that for you. That's awesome.
I'm glad that's a relationship that is definitely worth fostering.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
And like you saw me growing up, how often did
I look for my dad? My dad abused me for
three fucking years, and I was still waiting for him
to walk and stand up at my fucking graduation as
Mattie's running across the fucking stage to me to tell
me she loves me, Like I sat there and waited.
I waited to fucking fistfight, because you know, you expect
(34:03):
somebody to give a fuck even if they've hurt you. Yeah,
it's weird, you know how, For damn sure, my kids
will never fucking feel.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
It, That's right. They'll never have to wonder.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
They know, for damn sure their daddy loves them, and
they know what a real man will show them love.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, because you are the blueprint for how they're going
to expect men to treat them, whether you treat them
bad or good, and that could be. That's very scary
in a lot of instances and a lot of homes.
Speaker 1 (34:50):
And it's so weird watching Nick because like he's using
me as the blueprint and he's learning You're so fucking fast. Yeah,
And there are things that come out of his mouth
that floor me. And I'm like, I would have said
that at fourteen.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Fuck yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I'm like, I understand your morality, kid, I fully grasp it,
and I'm so fucking proud of you for that morality.
But fucking hell, you have one hell of a thought
process on you already. That kid is going to be
so hard stanced, just like me and Joshua that it's crazy.
(35:37):
So yeah, it's it's weird. It's hard looking at you know,
all these pieces of like, oh I got this from there,
and I got that from there, and you never fully know, No, you.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Don't, you don't. I mean I just followed my mom
what she did to this day. I mean where I'm working,
what I'm doing, how I'm living my life, like it's
basically a blueprint of her. So I get it, Like
(36:10):
I had that solid in a lot of ways. I
have the blueprint of both her and and my dad
in a different way because although we didn't see eye
to eye in life a lot, he was a really
good role model to show me how to do stuff
(36:31):
you know, and don't. I don't need no man, No,
that's not true. But I don't have one in the house,
you know. I mean we two women household like, sometimes
things get sucked up around here and you need to
fix it. But my dad taught me some some useful
stuff and and how to how to how to how
(36:52):
to do some ship around the house.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
You know, you know that that level is so funny
and so weird because big adhd as fuck. I teach
myself absolutely everything. I have to teach myself everything where
I get fucking lost. Bree the other day she looks
at me, She's like, bab you really frustrate me. I said, why, Why?
(37:17):
Why do I really frustrate you? She said, absolutely everything
I've ever asked you, you have an answer for absolutely
everything that I've ever asked you to do. You know
exactly how to do almost perfectly, and you achieve at
a level that I don't think most people that I've
ever talked to can achieve at half your fucking level.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Because I don't care, Zach. You know a lot of
people just don't care about the quality of things. They
just want to get through something.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
And it's just it's just so weird that whole Oh,
I have a man in the house. It's weird, And
it's weird because I used to think of that being
a negative thing. Now it's like, if Maddie needs something done,
Nick needs something done, You need something, and they all
run to Dad, every single every single one of them.
If they need their tire change, their oil change, to
(38:10):
go get something from the store, to make sure a
bill is paid. Every single thing goes through Dad. Did
either of the households before me show that, Yeah, not
at all.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
No, Well, I mean I didn't. I didn't have I
mean I had my dad was there. Don't get me wrong.
I don't don't mistake that at all. My dad was
always there. I didn't always live in the same household
with him. My parents divorced when I was young, about four,
but I always had the influence there. And then he remarried,
(38:49):
so I had the married couple family type situation over
here and my mom, me and my brother over here,
So I got to see two different ways to life,
if you will, you know, And and I picked up
(39:11):
something from everybody. You're right, you know, and you think
about it, you know. I picked up a lot of
a lot of things from my stepmother as far as
household is concerned. It's amazing to me how much I
picked up a lot of of attitudes and platitudes and
(39:36):
demeanor of my mom and my dad. He wasn't always
the lead. He always wanted to be the lead, but
he always he wasn't always the lead. I was surrounded
by really strong women, but nobody you know that that
(39:59):
put his his manhood down. But being being rooted in
the LGBT community when I was younger, it was very
much I don't need no man type. Yeah, of environment,
and and I this point in life, don't don't. I
don't agree with that, you know, I don't agree with
(40:20):
that at all. And it's it's amazing how much my
mindset has changed where all that's concerned.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
And I don't know, maybe maybe you can give me
a little insight on this. You might know a little
bit more than I do. And you know, you look
at my childhood and I was I forced myself to
be quiet all the time. I tried to resort back
to the same exact kind of standard settings that my
mom and my dad had. Quiet quiet, Quiet, Shut up, Zach,
(40:46):
Shut up, Zach. Shit. But you know, my grandparents always
said that I would be the person that ties everybody together.
I'm the person that will bring everybody back to the table.
I'm the person that will fix it. My grandma said
that when I was two years old, right, And I
(41:09):
was the one that brought everybody back, and I'm the
great uniter. It's weird. I didn't this personality, This this
whole I walk into the room and everybody has fun
and greets me was not Zach's personality at fucking thirteen
(41:29):
years old. Once I sat down and everybody was in
a circle. Yeah, I might light up the fucking room
because I'm fucking funny, but I wasn't the I'm going
to command a room and make people stare down at
their dick because they're questioning their size. That was never Zach.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Metaphor. Yeah, yeah it didn't land well.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
But oh no, I'll la it's okay. I'm going to
leave the awkwardness into so that way everybody's confused. But
you know, it's weird because the alpha version wasn't something
I ever chose. That that wasn't me.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
It wasn't, It wasn't. I think had a lot to
do with with your upbringing and the type of man
that your mother chose, as well as the type of
woman that you chose.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
And it's just it's weird looking at it now that
the person that I've become, Like we walk into the
pizza place, every every single person waited for Zach to
get there because I was the one who started it.
But still like everybody, this is where we're here, this
is what we're doing. Like I think, was there ever
(42:45):
a family group chat before I started one either of them? No, No,
nobody had back channels, nobody had conversations. Everybody was quiet.
It's weird. It's weird, kJ It's fucking weird that this
was set forward at fucking one and two years old,
and now for some reason, I'm fulfilling prophecies that I didn't.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
No wor a thing filling prophecies. Oh man, you know,
since this is all over the place anyway, I'm going
to circle back to fah for a second. Yeah, And
the reason why I'm going to circle back to Pap
(43:31):
for a second. Is because the trait that you got
from him was you're gonna do You're just gonna do it.
You're just gonna get things done. You're going to power through.
There's a task list and you've got to get through it. Right.
When my mom passed, that's a whole nother episode. Yeah,
but when my mom passed, my world fell out from
(43:52):
underneath me. I couldn't even walk back into her house
for weeks. But the one thing that did happen is
(44:13):
I ended up having to move and clean that place
out when your mother was moving in.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah, And.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Not only could I could I not look at me
right now? Not only could I not thirteen years ago
you'd think this was like last month. Not only could
I not live in the house that my mother left me.
(44:46):
Talk about missed opportunities. Yeah, I couldn't clean her things
out of the house. Yeah, it was horrible. So what
did FA dou go?
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Motherfucker made sure everything was taken care.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Of, Everything was put in a story to it yep,
or my apartment everything. I'll never be able to make
that man enough. We have our muscles being thaugh but
I'll never be able to thank that man.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
Enough. Now, when we moved to the bottom of the mountain,
you know, he was the only one that stepped up
to help. He sat there and made sure that the
U haul was filled and we were able to move
the shit into the apartment. And guess what, he took
my autistic ass and sat there and accepted putting all
the shit together. And he's like, I want to do this.
(45:44):
Fucking horrible at it, but he fucking loves doing it
because he just wants to be told what to do.
That I've never been hard.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
But yeah, just wants to be part of something. Yep.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
He just wants to be part of something. Wants to
listen to some fifty and jam many men and be
told exactly what to do and achieve it at like
eighty five percent of what you want and then you
finish off the last fifteen percent and you're good.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Yep. So just I feel like those are the flowers
that I need to give next. Now I'm going to
do that.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
He is, honestly, and I'll give them right here, because
you know what he deserves, the public flowers. Fucking Yeah,
if you are one of the greatest men that I've
I've been around, are you a normal dude. Absolutely the
fuck not.
Speaker 2 (46:30):
That's why we like you.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
But you you bring so much more to this world
than you realize.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
But thank you from the bottom. Make sure.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
You made sure a lot of those days that I
had to go to school that baby was taken care of.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah, yeah, thank you from the bottom of my heart
for everything you've done for me, specifically the mom's house thing. Yeah,
because you knew I couldn't and you did, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
I love you, man, well, even even the dishes. You
know what I'm saying, Like it it gets it gets heavy,
you know what I'm saying. Next year, Zach, make a
joke and make me laugh when I'm not supposed to,
or he's gonna start balling and I'm gonna feel like.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
Emotions aren't his things. So he does what needs to
be done that he knows he can help with. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
You'll never catch cheer on his face unless I cry,
and you'll never catch any fruit or vegetable on his
plate ever. We'll see you next time, guys. Used codarns
he has to check out
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