A Candid Q&A On Loss, Parenting, And Finding Your Way

A single letter turned into a wide-open conversation about loss, love, and the hard work of rebuilding. I share what changed after my wife passed unexpectedly—how grief lives in the small moments, why I kept the mic on anyway, and the steady ways I’ve learned to show up for my kids while protecting my peace. If you’ve ever tried to lead a family through chaos and still find a reason to smile in the morning, this one will feel close to home.

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Transcript

Warm Welcome And Setup

SPEAKER_01 2:48

Let's talk about it. It's the name of the chat.

Why The Show Exists

Life After Losing My Wife

Reading Michelle’s Letter

Why I Avoid Having Friends

Single Fatherhood And Grief

Are Today’s Kids Entitled?

Parenting Daughters Versus Sons

Why Dating Is Harder For Single Moms

Meeting People Beyond Dating Apps

Travel Dreams And Taking The Bahamas Trip

On Dating Transgender People

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Oh, yeah. Yeah, don't I? Start here in a minute. Hopefully everybody's having a good day. I know I am. Good to see you guys back. It's been cold out. We got snow the other day. But hey, it is what it is. How's everybody doing out there? Y'all doing alright? Everybody doing good? Y'all having a good week, good day, good weekend, whatever it is you want to call it. I'm having a fantastic day. So it is all good. Um so today is a different kind of show today. Um we have a listener by the name of Michelle. She's been with me for since the beginning. Um when I first started this thing. Back in it's been some it's been a while. I don't even know what my first show was. I had to look it up. But um in any event, she wrote me and I guess she just wanted to ask about me and wanted me to talk about me. Got no problem doing that. She had some questions for me that I will try to answer the best of my knowledge. No, I'm just joking, I want I'm gonna answer. But this show is just basically about I guess she wanted some questions about how you know. When I first started the show, you know, I talked about my life and I talked about how I still do things differently than what I do if I've changed anything. And for the most part, I really haven't changed a lot. Um, my show was a little bit different, it's geared towards more towards helping out people, or if I can offer advice to somebody that needs the advice, so I'm gonna try to give them the best advice that I possibly can. So, but when I first started the show, it was me and my wife, and as I said before, I lost my wife three years ago, unexpectedly. Um, like I said, she on the morning that I lost her, I um she gave me a kiss and she told me she loved me, and then she went back to sleep and she never woke up. So, um, yes, Trump is a pig. I get that, yes. Not sure how you knew that, but whatever. Any event, um when we started the show, we started with the premonition of just helping people, and then me and my wife were gonna do this together, but as fate yielded and God had other plans for my wife, so I decided to carry the show on. Of course, I was on a bit of a hiatus, um, a very long hiatus, and that was due to me the loss of my wife. I was married to this woman for 26 years. We were starting out as high school sweethearts, um, we were actually a lot longer than that because we were together in high school and we didn't get married until 98 or 99, but she was my everything, she gave me six beautiful kids, and she was the rock of this family. So I appreciate the listeners that's been there for me, and as I said before, if you guys all my shows are not streamed on um BuzzCast, I'm sorry, Buzz Sprout, um, they are actually on YouTube. So, you guys, if you want to go back and listen to some of my earlier shows, you can do that. Now, what I will say is that I will post shows at the request, like I've gotten a request to post some shows, and I will put them back up on Buzz Sprout. Um, but um when I started this thing, we had like a huge following, and that following is slowly coming back, and I appreciate that. But I'm not looking for the wild fact, I just look for just trying to help people, you know. So I appreciate that um my listeners that come in and listen to me or that send me letters, um, for the most part, as I said, most of them are positive, some are some are, and maybe I'd say about a fourth of them are not so good. And as we get later on to the show or whatever, then I'll share those experiences with you guys. So without further ado, we are gonna read a letter, and it's titled Questions for You. Um Icon, hello, how are you doing? I'm good. My name is Michelle, I'm from Colorado. I just wanted you to know. I just wanted to know more about you and some other questions I've had for you, if that's okay. I was wanting to know if anything has changed with you. Icon, I follow you since you started your podcast, and there was a time that you just stopped, but I'm glad that you're back. I was so sad to hear about your wife, but I'm glad to see that you're doing well, and I really enjoy your show. Don't get me wrong, I listen to other podcasts as well, but you're the top 10. Thank you for the top 10. But your show is very different than most, and this is why I wanted to ask you some questions because I'm sure your listeners can appreciate this as well. So, as I get into the questions, we're going to go to the questions. She has um 11 questions for me, and we're gonna go through the questions um one by one. So when I read the question off, I'm going to answer them. Um, because there's no sense of going back and forth and you guys getting lost and being like, Well, what the hell is he talking about? I'm flip-flopping and jumping back and forth and everything. But so, the first question is in your past episode, you said that you don't have any friends. Is that still the case? And if not, then why? Why is it so hard for you to have friends? Okay, so I don't have friends. First off, Michelle, thank you for the letter, thank you for the questions, and thank you for being a loyal listener and a loyal follower. Um, I don't have friends because I think in the past, friends just brought like too much drama, you know, and it's gotten a lot worse now because of the influx of social media, and a lot of people can't distinguish what's truth and what's fact. I mean what's fact and what's fiction. Sorry, I said that all backwards. So it's my choosing not to have friends. I just don't deal with the drama. I don't like I'm not a drama person. Like when sometimes people send me videos and want me to comment or say anything about these videos, and most of the it's like fights or whatever. I don't get off into that shit. I don't. It's just not who I am. It doesn't interest me unless it's like an action movie, then that interests me. But I don't really get the satisfaction of somebody getting their ass beat over anything unless it's justified. I mean justification, which could mean you know you're disrespecting your family member, they put their hands on your family member without any um without any qualification of why you're putting your hands on this person. So I don't have friends because as I said, friends bring a lot of drama, and I've tried to have friends and I've tried to be the bigger and better person, and it's just not me. Now don't get me wrong, the people I work with I consider associates of mine. I don't really consider their friends because to me, a definition of a friend is that somebody that you're hanging out with, that you're cool with, that you're talking to, or that you're like basically just with every so often, not all the time, but through sometimes. So it's not really hard for me to make friends. I just I'm a good judge of character. And for the people I work with, I think they're great people that I work with, I think they're phenomenal people that I work with. Now it's just not a thing for me. Back in the day, I was not a popular person, and my sisters were because Lord knows I had so many of them, but and they were the only ones that made me sort of like popular, especially my twin sister. Um, she was she was a more popular one than I was. I mean, she had the friends, she had the connections, she had it all. And my sister, my sister played basketball, she had the friends, she had it all. Now I was the only boy coming up. Um, so that kind of made it hard. Not too hard, because everybody thought I was gay. Because I um grew up with nothing but women. And I didn't really, my brother didn't get it until 93, and I was just they thought I was gay. I mean, I don't really give a shit because to this day people still think I'm gay, even though I got six kids, they think I'm waiting for me to jump out the damn closet, but I'm not, so it's cool, it's all good. So, as I said, I'm gonna try to answer these questions to the best of my ability. So, if you guys have anything you guys want to say, just jump in anytime. Say whatever. Next question. I understand that you have kids. How has the journey been without your wife? I gotta say, being a single parent is something that I never thought that I would be, and I would never have thought that I would leave my wife to be a single parent. Um, because I gotta say, being a single parent is hard. You know, I have a lot of respect for women and what they do and when they're holding down every single damn thing because women have it way more harder than the men do. Like very, very, very, very, very, very, very hard. I mean, you guys have the whole weight of your world on your shoulders, and you guys manage to keep everything like together, like you guys keep everything like cool and you guys keep everything calm and collective. Me, after my wife died, I was still in denial. You know. I was in denial that she wasn't I wasn't gonna hear her voice, I wasn't going to wake up to her the next morning, I wasn't gonna receive my daily phone call as I go to work. And let's be honest, it's been really hard. It's been really tough. It's tough because I would have never thought that it would end this way between me and my wife. You know, I always thought that me and my wife would grow old together and that we would just be, you know, happy, like living out our best days. But as I said before, you know, God had other plans, and I'm not mad about that. I'm not angry about that. It's just that I thought that this life would have been we would just go old together. So has it been hard? Yes, it has been. Even though our kids were somewhat semi-grown, um, I had the three youngest, when I had my twins and then my daughter, um, which at the time um of her passing, it was very difficult because that was the year that my son was graduating high school, but he didn't go to his graduation because his mom wasn't there. So it's still bittersweet, and I still am just and sometimes I can't even believe that she's gone. I mean, sometimes it's just that I wake up wanting to hear her voice, or wake up wanting to see her face, or and the crazy thing is I just miss her, and I still miss to this very day. But I'm holding it down, and like I said, hats off to any single parent out there because what you guys do, and I've seen my mom do this, but as for me as a man being a single parent, it's just different. I didn't think I was gonna be alone raising, you know, what's left of my kids, not what's left of them, but you know, just raising them. Because I have two daughters, and though I can't feel the shoes of their mother, because when you're a single mother, and I know the mothers can't feel the can't feel the shoes of being a man, but I'll be damned because my mom, when I was coming up, she did not play, she put fist to fist to mouth, so it wasn't no no, it was she she ruled with an iron fist. So though I say this about my wife, she was like the best woman ever. I mean, I don't care what anybody says, and I don't let anybody speak ill about my my late wife, because if you knew my wife, she was that kind of woman, she would always help you, though she had a temper because she was half Italian, but for the most part, 100 100% of the time, she would do any and everything she could to help, and that's what I loved about her. So next question. Do you think today's kids are a little bit out of control? Icon, I have three kids, a son, and two daughters, and I find it harder to parent daughters than my son. Okay, so these questions are gonna be like everywhere, so don't get mad at me because these are just questions that she wanted to know. But I'm gonna try to and this is the way she sent them to me, so that's why I'm gonna that's what I'm gonna read them. Okay, so do I think it's harder? Do I think these kids are out of control? Um, I think today's kids are a little bit spoiled. I think they feel that they're entitled, I think they feel they that the world owes them something, I think they feel that they don't have to work, that they see shit on social media like clout chasing and the fake money, and you know, kids talking about they get this kind of money every day. And here's my thing. If you get this kind of money every day, why in the hell are you advertising on IG or TikTok or Facebook or Snapchat or what and any of that shit? Why would you advertise that? Okay. So, yes, I do think that there is a kind of there's kind of a disconnect between the way we grew up and the way these kids today are growing up. Because I think these kids today are just oh my gosh. And they're and that's this is good this doesn't go for all the kids, but majority of the kids that I see on social media and stuff like that trying to flex and you know, trying to talk about they got all this, and then it does, and I see some being disrespectful to their elders. And let's be real, back in my day you couldn't disrespect an old person and not see a fist or a hand coming to your mouth within the ten seconds after you disrespect them, maybe quicker than that. But I think these kids today are just somewhat lazy. They're lazy, they don't want to work, they don't want to do anything, they want to sit at home. And say, well, my parents will take care of me, or they want the quick come up money. There's no such thing as quick come up money. I mean, I'm not rich. Um, and I know that there are some rich people that you could take an example from because even if you are rich, then they still make their kids work for it. So I think kids today are just a little bit too damn spoiled, if you want my honest opinion. I think they just don't understand the value of what we had to sacrifice and what we had to do to get where we had to be today. Because I still parent the old way, I'll still beat your ass. You know, there's no if-fs, buts about it. I still whoop ass. I don't give a damn how big you are. You're my child, I brought you into this world, and damn it, I can take you out of it. Plain and simple. I'm still a firm believer in discipline, not child abuse. There's a huge difference between child abuse and discipline. And I'm gonna explain it to you. Discipline is when your kid does something wrong and you're disciplining them. That's discipline. Child abuse is when I come home every day and I'm pissed off just because you're existing and I want to beat the shit out of you, or I want to pick on you because I had a bad day at work or somebody made me mad, or you're doing you leave the top off the toothpaste, I'm gonna beat you up, I'm gonna beat your ass. That's child abuse. I don't do child abuse. I will still beat your ass if you still manage to get out of line with me. I don't give a damn. My sons are taller than me. I don't give a damn. I don't, I don't. You know? So I think that's what's missing in today's society is just discipline. Because back in our day, we were disciplined, not only at home, but at school. And if you got at school, you best believe that second ass whooping was coming when you got home. And you better pray to God that you made it home before your parents did. But even with that in mind, they still be waiting because they ain't gonna forget. Parents don't forget. So you say is it harder? Because I have two daughters. Hold on, I gotta get some drink. I have two daughters. And though it's a bit difficult at times with my younger daughter, because my younger daughter, who is clearly pushing me to be a future suspect in her murder, she likes to test me. She does like to test me. And she is kind of not really the wild child, but she's kind of she wants to push the limits to see what I can do or what I'm gonna do. But my but my child already knows me. Now my other daughter, who is they're like day and night. I mean, my youngest daughter, she can be good when she wants to be, but I'm trying to get her to be a leader and not a follower. And my oldest daughter, who is about to graduate this year, she is on her way up to becoming bigger and better things. And that's all I want for both of my children, all my children. You know, girls are a lot harder to parent because it's so much out here that they're trying to it's so much out there that they're trying to be. Instead of just being themselves, they're trying to fit in to a social circle or a social crowd that they want to be accepted by. But they don't have to do that here. You know, when it's harder when you're in a predominantly like black school. Well, we're not in a black school. We stay out here, excuse me, where we live, um, the school's predominantly white, so we stay in a good neighborhood, and I chose that for my kids because I didn't want them to be stereotyped into you know that group of kids. Because I understand it today that some people feel that if you're lumped in with a certain group of black people, that all black people are like that, and we're not like that. I like where I'm living, and that's all I want from my kids. I want them to have a good life and a good upbringing. I understand that a lot of people can't have that, but I understand that some parents try the best what they have and the best of what they can. They have the they make the they try the best of a worse situation, is what I'm saying. So and that's admirable because not everybody can afford to live where I live, but I do well for myself. So is it harder parenting daughters than it is sons? It is, it is. I mean, daughters are a little bit more, you know. My younger daughter, which is a diva, she's so high maintenance, it's ridiculous. Lord, it is. But my older daughter, she is just like me. She's she's laid back, she's cool, she's calm, she's collected. Until you cross her, then you have a problem, a really big problem. But it is harder to parent daughters than sons, I think, in my opinion. Now, everybody may not feel that way, but that's just me. It's it that's just me. But it's that's just that's just my opinion. So okay, so next question. Icon. I'm also a single mother. I've been married once and I have been divorced for 10 years. Why is it harder for a single mother to date than a man? Um, that's a good question. That is a really good question. I'm gonna try to answer that to the best of my knowledge. Um, I think it's harder for women to date than men because not really baggage per se, but if you're a single mother, it's like you're already established, versus a man can go out and probably date a woman just like that. And um a single mother, you have to understand, um, I understand that it's harder for single women to date than it is single man to date, and even though the man may have children, but here's the thing, the children may not live with the man. So I'm trying to I'm trying to try to make the best sensible possible way of this as I possibly can. I think that when a single woman is looking for a date and she has kids at the house, well, the kids aren't always going to be friendly to the person that you're dating. Why? Because they have resentment issues, they don't want their mother to date anybody, especially if you were in a relationship with their father for 10 years and there's this new guy showing up trying to tell them what to do, or not even that, just trying to make just trying to be a support system for your child, and there's a lot of resentment. Um trying to see if I can get an example here. Because when me and my wife were separated, she had no problem like dating. Not really dating, but you know, just having a social circle. Me, it just wasn't my thing. So it's harder because the women put up with a lot more shit than the men do, and it's harder because if you have kids, then okay, if you have kids, if the mother is dating somebody, then they then she's automatically looked down upon. Why is that like that? I have no idea because men do the exact same shit, and it's like they get high fives. But when a woman goes and dates another man, then she's looked at it. Oh, she is definitely getting a turn, and it's not even like that. I think women, I'm trying to make some little sense of this, just bear with me, guy, Mary, for a minute. I think women have it rough all the way around when you're trying to find somebody that you can date, and that you can't find a body today because you have kids, and then here's the other thing the kids may be grown, but if you have little kids, then here's the risk. If you have little kids, because this happened to me, I was dating a girl that had little kids, and when she was dating little kids, well, she still had to go see the baby's father. So, of course, if you're dating this woman, you have some kind of resentment because these kids are not yours, but you're not trying to keep them away from their you're not trying to keep them away from their father, you're trying to not necessarily fill the void or fill the gap, but you're just trying to be someone, be there for them, and it doesn't always work like that. It's never it's never gonna work like that. Um it doesn't always work like that. So the sad thing is is that it's just I don't know. I'm trying to answer this the best way I can, but I think women, when you're looking for a date, it's all about how you can present yourself. Now, I know that there's a lot of men out there that don't really like to date um single mothers because of the fathers, because it's not the fact they didn't even know the father, it's the fact that the kid. And I've seen a video where there was this mother that was letting her, looks like he was like 10 or 11-year-old son, was disrespecting the stepfather, and the mother just sat there and just like, well, no, he's alright, and then the stepfather's like, well, if I knock his ass out, then I'm going to jail. I mean, there was no reason to be that disrespectful to this guy. I mean, and that's the risk that you run, because if your kids are being like disrespectful to the person that you're trying to date or trying to see, well, how does they how do they know they have respect for you in your house? How do you know that? They don't know that. So I think that it's just hard because some parents, some single mothers that have kids, are not always gonna be on the side of the person that they're dating. They're automatically gonna take the side of their child. Why? I don't know. So, and then you have some kids that actually play on that, they play off that emotion, they play off that that fear, they play off that of oh, I can just get away with this because my mom, she's gonna be on my side, she's gonna obviously take my side, and that's then nine times out of ten, that's usually the case. That's usually what happens. So, if you're a single mother, I would just encourage you to if your kids, I'm not sure how old your kids are because you said you have three kids, but maybe talk to your kids. Now, after my wife died, um, you know, I talked to my kids, and I said, Well, you know, I said I know I wasn't gonna date again, but daddy doesn't want to be alone, and I made sure that my kids understood that, and I talked to my kids. Now, when we separated, and my wife was dating, um, but she couldn't really shake the feeling of being with somebody else because we kept running back to each other. So we didn't even have kids by nobody else. We had all our kids, and we just we cheated responsibly. Well, not really cheated, but stepped down on each other responsibly. When we were separated and we took a break, we did it responsibly. She didn't have any of the kids anybody, I didn't have any other kids by nobody. So I hope that answers your question. But I just don't really have a lot of experience because I think I've dated like I date this one girl, but she wasn't married, but she had three kids by this guy, and the guy was he was a total dick. God is a total dick. And unbeknownst to me, he died like a few years later, and I felt kind of bad for her, but her kids were like like just really disrespectful kids. Like, she would let these kids run around, run amok in the house. And I'm like, hold on, girl, you gotta control your kids. Kids can't do that shit here. But hey, it is what it is. So, Michelle, I would challenge you to if your house is not in order, kind of put your house in order. But it sounds like your house in order, just sound like you're just having a rough time at it. And then if you're looking to date somebody, reevaluate yourself. Is that here? Yeah. Reevaluate what you're looking for. Sit down and talk to your children and say, Well, hey, I'm thinking about dating this person. Is it okay if I bring him by? Because we all know that men can go to anybody's house and sleep with a woman, but a woman can't have a man over to her house. I'm not even sure why that even is. That's like really weird. I don't understand why men can get away with half the shit they can get away with, but women, no, they don't really get a pass. They're either labeled uh oh, or you know, she's desperate, or she's this, that, and the other. And that shouldn't even be that way. It really shouldn't. But that's the way of the world. But I don't think that way about women, I don't. So uh the next question you put are there any decent dating sites that you can recommend? Or how or how how would I do it? There's not really a lot of sites that I can recommend because these dating sites in today's world are just all geared up towards sex. I think if you want to meet somebody, in my opinion, I think that you should probably go down to a I think speed dating is a thing. I think speed dating is somewhat okay. Um, I've only tried it like the once, but speed dating is an option because you can sit down, talk to the men for like maybe two or three minutes and kind of get that information, but versus going to a site because I know sites are everybody on the site is not really who it's cracked up to be, so they're not really projecting who they say they are because when I was on the dating site, you know, I got hit with a bunch of emails, but that was because I was on a Filipino dating site. But I think for me, I'd rather just go out and meet somebody like in public or something like that. I would probably I'm not sure what your background is as far as Christian dating, but even those sites don't promise anything. And I know they have these things out here, the balloon pop and all this other shit. I'm not really with all that. I am a person who likes to meet somebody the old-fashioned way. I want to sit down, I want to talk to you, and I want to try to get to know you. Um, if you work with somebody that's probably like a friend that you can probably like maybe go out and have a few drinks with, do that. Um, I'm not a bar person, I don't really like to go to the bar to pick up anybody because if you have drunk sex, I think it's the worst sex. Because that's like a lot of people say, well, I don't really know what's happening when you're having sex, when you're having drunk sex, and I kind of believe that. I think it's just two people that's liquored up for knee-veying, you're not really feeling a thing until you wake up the next morning and find out who you slept with that the person that you slept with that you didn't want to sleep with. So that's just my opinion. Just my opinion. So, Michelle, if I was you, I would try to just if you can, try to meet somebody. Um, I'm not sure what your social circle is on any social media platforms, but and again, I talk about this a lot. Kind of vet this person, but make sure that if you're going to do this, you talk to your kids first and let them know, hey, you know, if your husband's moved, if your ex-husband's moved on, why shouldn't you be able to move on? I mean, men can just go out there and find somebody just like that. Why is it so hard for women? I don't know, and I don't get it. Because I don't really think that I think also men pass a lot of judgment on women. You know, they're saying, well, they have kids, they come with baggage. Well, that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's not. Because nine times out of ten, the person that you meet may have kids, and they may not even be in their child's life. They may or may not. But I wouldn't get desperate. I wouldn't get desperate. I wouldn't try to go out and just find somebody just because you need to find somebody. And that's what I think the common mistake is, is that when people are going out there trying to find a date somebody, they're they're lowering their standards because they can't, they don't, they think they can't find somebody that's better for them. So you're lowering your standards, and you're lowering the you're lowering the quality of a relationship of a person that you can have. So instead of you selling for something settling for somebody that's like on your level, you're selling for settling for somebody that's below your level. And it shouldn't even be like that. I mean, listen, you gotta kiss a few toes to get your friends, and I don't mean that like literally, I mean that in a figuratively metaphorically speaking kind of way. So I know women have needs just as much more as men. With that being said, you can take that how you want to take it. But me personally, I want to get to know the person before we go out maybe once or twice, and then by the third time we're in the bed with each other. But that's just me, so I'm different. That's just not who I am. Now, no shade to any person who does that. That's not what I'm saying because everybody is just different. But me personally, I can't do that. Now I that's just not me. I have a lot of respect for women and I love women, but I don't want to have a one-night stand with anybody, I don't want to have drunk sex to anybody. I want you to see me and feel me and understand me for who I am and what we're doing here. Because if we can't do that, then what good are we? We're just gonna wake up and be like, oh my god, I can't believe I did this, you know. I don't know what's going on, I don't know what's happening. No, no, no. I need you to be incoherent, I need you to be see me for who I am. That's all I want. Miss Michelle, that's just my opinion. Next question. I've often heard about the time you spent in the Philippines. Is there any other country that you would like to visit and why? Well, that's a good question. Um I visited the Philippines because the Philippines, it's it's a good country, it's different. And it was my first time being out of the country, but it was different. So I d I would like to visit. Like Africa, Madagascar, um, which I didn't know was a real place until I looked it up because I thought, I don't know if you guys thought this too, but I thought Madagascar was just a made-up like cartoon of them from the movie. I did not know it was a real place, but it's very real. It's a very real island. So, but I talked to some people from Madagascar, and I think I would like to visit. I'm not sure if I'll ever get there, but um I like to visit Japan. Canada just like the United States, but you know, it's it's Canada, so I don't want to visit any place that's like the United States. I want to go someplace different where I can try to talk to different people in different cultures and different um ethnicity, so to speak. So, yeah, but okay, so next question says my best friend has invited me to go on a trip with her to the Bahamas, but I've never really traveled outside the U.S. What should I do? Take the damn trip. That's what you should do. Real talk, real talk. You talking about you want to meet somebody, take the damn trip, go to the Bahamas, get it in there, get it on. No, but seriously, though. If your best friend is inviting you to a trip to go to the Bahamas, why in the hell would you not take that? I mean, I would take that trip. Seriously. Real you know what? Tell your best friend and get at me. No, I'm just joking. I'm just joking. But this is the Bahamas. If you've never been outside the US, Michelle, you have to do things that are outside your comfort zone. It sounds like you've just been not really a hermit crap, but you've been, you're like me. I've never left anywhere outside the United States. I've been to like maybe 25 other states. Um, maybe, but it's different. But when you're going to someplace that's different and you're experiencing something that's totally different, like, oh my god, wow, this is definitely different. Because when I stepped off that plane in the Philippines, I was like, whoa, I'm damn sure not in America now. And I wasn't, but I felt good about that. And I felt like, oh my god, this is amazing. And it just felt so different. So why would you not why would you not take that trip to the Bahamas? I'm just don't throw it out there. You never know, you could meet somebody out there. I mean, it can happen, you know. I'm just saying, you know, you know, so I think you should go definitely go on the trip. I'm not sure. It sounds like this is gonna be a summer trip, but and I'm pretty sure if your kids are in, if they're in school, if they're out of school, I would definitely take the damn trip because that sounds like a much-needed vacation. That sounds like a much-needed rest and relaxation that you deserve and that you need. Take the damn trip. Get your passport and shit together, and you gotta have your passport, I think, for six months before you leave. So I'd get jumping on that right now. So if you've never been outside the United States, because it doesn't sound like you have, you don't have a passport, get your passport and get out there, get to the Bahamas. I'm not even sure that well, I'm not sure how to find the Bahamas. I think it's like a seven-hour flight, maybe. But hey, do you do you? You know, I'd definitely get that in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, next question. You talked about dating a transgender person. Would you still do that if you if you couldn't find someone to date or to be with? I don't think I've ever thought about dating a transgender person. Huh, I made a chip and oats on that one. I didn't, I don't I've never talked about dating a transgender person. But for the sake of argument, let's go ahead and just answer this question. I don't have anything against transgender people, that's just not my thing. Now, they are people like you and me. Um, they're beautiful people. Um, it's just not me. I mean, when I went to the Philippines, there was a lot of transgender um people there, and rightfully so. I mean, I've came in contact with a few, spoke to a few, said, Hey, how you doing? This, that, and other. That was it. I didn't have the notion to say, hey, I want to date you, but I don't think I could date a transgender person because I'm much more of a um, how can I put this? Without I'm just trying to keep this PG 13. I like the female body. I do. I'm just the female body I'm just so in love with, and I can't really get that if I'm dating a transgender person. Again, I have no shade, no disrespect towards any transgender person, but I don't think I've ever talked about dating a transgender person. I think the episode you're referring to was a man that was dating, looking to date a transgender person. I might have made a reference in there somewhere, but I may need to go back and check that. But I don't have any problem with that. I don't. If you're a transgender, that's fine. I don't hate you, I don't dislike you. I think what you guys are doing is that's just completely fine to you. But I can tell you this there's a lot of transgender people in the Philippines, as well as there is in Bangkok or I haven't really been to Bangkok, but definitely a lot in the Philippines, and the reason why it's like that in the Philippines is because there's a lot of absentee males in the home. The Philippines has a much more female female population than our males, so I can only be friends with them. We can have friends, we can talk, we can maybe go out and have tea because I don't drink coffee. And we can be friends. I mean, listen. Um I've worked with uh I think I've worked with I work with one transgender person. That was a while ago, though. But I didn't really find nothing wrong with them, just a person like you and me. I mean they didn't hit on me, I didn't hit on them, so I think they know their audience. So, hey, that's what it is. Uh next question. I understand you don't like talking about politics. Why is that? And we're gonna do two questions with this one because it says how do you keep in touch with day-to-day life? Okay, so if if if I don't do politics because politics is just it's nasty. It's it's a never-ending debate. You're never gonna be it's never gonna be settled, it's never gonna be cordial, it's always gonna be the right versus the left, or this, that, and the other. Now, what I can say, what's happening today in this world is a is a shit show, it's a clown show. I didn't vote for the guy, I don't too much care for the guy, because if you're a Trump supporter, that's your business. But this is the thing that I ask myself. If this man has assaulted this many women, if that was somebody you knew you loved, your daughter, your sister, your cousin, a family friend or relative, would you have still voted for him? This guy has done unspeakable things to hurt women. This guy has done unspeakable things to hurt children. This is a man that talked about dating his own damn daughter. If that ain't disgusting, I don't know what it is. I don't understand how people would vote for a guy knowing that he was not the best candidate for the world. And I think that when people voted, they didn't want to vote for a woman, let alone a black woman. Why? Scared. Let me put it to you this way: women have been running this damn country since the dawn of time. Behind every strong man, there is a stronger woman. Real talk. Real talk. That's just my opinion. Because without women, men wouldn't even be here. So I think our current president, which is a complete asshole, and I don't give a damn who here says it, who likes it, who believes it, or whatever. I don't give a damn. I don't like the guy. I would have took any other Republican but him. I'm not a party affiliated with, I'm not affiliated with any party. And I know people who have voted for him and who have told me that they voted for him, and they thought that I was just going to end the friendship. I would only end the friendship if you would just keep coming at me with Trump this, Trump that, Trump this, Trump, this, Trump, this, Trump, this, that. Yeah, I would end the friendship. But a lot of people said that they voted for this asshole is because they couldn't see themselves voting for a woman. Why the hell not? You came from a woman. This woman had every she checked every damn box. There was not a red flag in the in the in the area. There was not a red flag. Not not a not not a one. But people voted for a guy who was a felon who had to pay out because he sexually uh harassed women or sexually assaulted women. And again, this is the only thing I keep going back to. If this was somebody you knew, like that he is sexually assaulted, would you still feel this way? Because let's be real honest. Look what Harvey Weinstein did. Look what um R. Kelly did. And he's still sitting in jail. You know, look what some of these people that just sex trafficked these women. I mean, Trump was pretty much damn near sex trafficking. I mean, he knew a guy that you cannot tell me that he didn't know this guy, he didn't know what this guy was doing. When you look at all the videos online of seeing Trump and Epstein and with these young girls and these little white dresses on, that shit is just sick. That is mind-boggling. I am waiting for somebody, some female, to pop up and say, This is Trump's son or daughter. Yes, I got pregnant by him when I was at such and such age. They paid me this to keep everything quiet. I mean, for Christ's sake, he had sex with a porn star on the night that his wife was giving birth. Make that shit make sense. So I don't talk about politics is because it's just not my thing. I don't like this guy, I don't hate him, but I just don't like him. Hate is not in my heart. I don't hate anybody. I just dislike him, I dislike his ways, I dislike what he stood for and what he's about. And we see that since he's back in the White House, he has enriched himself to a tune of$1.4 billion. Make that shit make sense. And then you have Republicans who are following him blindly and they're paying lapdog to this asshole, is because I don't know why that is, but the only thing that got Obama was that he wore a damn tan suit. Make that shit make sense. Come on, people, talk to me. So I don't get none of that. I am not. And this is what I tell people. If you're a listener on my podcast, you gotta do your facts, you gotta do your history. Because as we see that when they when they interview these people online, there's one guy I talked about 9-11. He's like, Why do you not think, why didn't you think President Obama um, he said something to the tune of, why do you think President Obama didn't have anything to do with 9-11? He's like, he was too he was doing too much golfing. That's because at the time of 9-11, Barack Obama wasn't the damn president, it was George W. Bush. Jesus Christ. But I think when you talk about Trump, and I can't really stand to talk about this guy because I don't even you ask me how I keep up on day-to-day news. I read. I read. I don't really like paying attention to the news. Um, I'll get up and read um the newspaper or newsfeed or news articles from news outlets. I don't take this shit from you know sites that are basically looking to uh conspiracy sites, conspiracy theories. Because I don't understand how people can be so this complacent about a man that is not good for this country. Now, we all know he's not good. I mean, look what he's doing. He's about to take it to the freaking World War III or whatever this but whatever the hell he's doing. You know, you're cozying up to somebody who is well, who is he? You're cozy up to a guy that puts your wife all over his country's TV, but you still want to call him your friend. Okay, make that make sense. This is why I don't do politics, why I don't talk about I don't I don't get mad about it. I just think that for me and my family, we will survive. I know there's a lot of people out there that don't know how to survive without this presidency, but you look at what uh DHS is doing, you know, they're murdering people, and how do we even get here? It's because we voted for out of hang on, I'm gonna try to say this the right way. We voted out of fear of a man that told us that they were eating the cats and dogs. Really? Really, eating cats and dogs. Again, I wasn't surprised that he won because I kind of knew it. But I think looking back now, there's a lot of people that have a lot of regrets. I have two letters now that I'm gonna get to, probably within the next couple of shows, that people are having voters' remorse about Trump. You can't have it's already happened. The only thing that that people are praying for the midterms is that when the Democrats come in and probably impeach him and put his ass in jail. Now that that would be what I call swift justice or good justice. Because this is a guy that doesn't give a damn about the world. He only cares about he only cares about enriching himself or his family, or that's basically it. So this is why I don't do politics. But in any event, it doesn't make me mad. I don't get angry, I'm not pissed off about it. It's just that it's a messed up situation. So I'm not gonna keep talking about I'm not gonna talk about him as much as I want, but back in the day, um, and think of it this way. If you're my listeners, if you're either in the United States or you're not in the United States, we have never had a Democrat president that has took us to war. It's always been Republican. I think we had one back in the day, but that was probably before my time. But all these wars that are starting are because of Republicans. Why is that? Make that make sense. And the crazy thing is, it used to be the Democrats were a lot tougher, but now they kind of like flip roles or reverse roles because Trump is a guy who's just not happy. He's not well, we can see that every day his mind is deteriorating more and more and more, but the Republicans just want to keep this man in power. I'm not even sure if they're pulling the strings on this guy. Like, clearly, this guy is just speaking like nonsense, he's just straight talking bullshit. The guy had the audacity to call Sleepy Joe Sleepy Joe when this guy falls asleep more times than anybody can count on camera. His whole cabinet is just a clusterfuck of a problem. Now, I don't know what's gonna happen, I don't know how this is gonna pan out, but hey. But the guy does not look well. I mean, you want to go right now, people are laughing at the United States. Our allies that used to be our allies are trying to figure out a way to stay our allies, but Trump makes it that much damn harder because he's slapping tariffs, and the crazy thing is these dumbass Republicans can't even answer any kind of question when they go to these goddamn Senate hearings. You know, who pays the tariffs? Countries don't pay the tariffs, we the consumers pay the damn tariffs. You gotta get educated, folks. Listen, I know a lot, I know enough to know about what I need to know. I don't need to know everything there is to know about the world. What I know is what I'm good with because I don't need to go out here and push conspiracy theories, I don't need to go out here and just be that person. This world has changed drastically. We went from a good president to a horrible, horrible, horrible president, and it's just sad. So again, I say to these people that if you're a Trump supporter, you can't sit back and say what he's done for you because he's not really done a lot for anybody but himself. He's tanked the stock market on purpose so that his people can make money. If you knew somebody that was in the Epstein files, or a young lady that got sexually assaulted, or let's say if it was somebody you knew, let's say if it was your daughter, would you have still voted for this man? And I know what you guys think, well, yeah, well, some of the Epstein victims did vote for Trump. Yeah, they did. They did. And it's just sad. I don't know why this is, but it's not the kind of world that I like living in. But I continue to do what I do every day. That's wake up, go to work, pray, see my kids, and that's all I that's all I want. I don't do politics at all. I'm not a politician guy. But I know enough what I need to know. And when I do need to be informed, I'm you damn sure bet I'm gonna read it. But this is why my podcast is the way it is. I don't like to spew all that kind of rhetoric. I don't. So the last question she asks, are you going back to the Philippines and do you feel safe to travel? I do, and I am. I go to Philippines every year. I do feel safe to travel. And if it's my time to leave, then may God take me and may God keep me safe. So I do feel safe. I mean, I don't know what else I can say, but I do feel safe. So in any event, Michelle, thank you for the questions. Hi, Con. I'm sorry if I asked so many questions, but I just like to understand understand you. I feel like in this world there I feel like in this world there's only about maybe a handful of people. People like you that understand because you're not the only one I listen to, as I said before. So I asked questions like this to other podcasters, and most haven't even responded. But I did hear back from two of the nine that I asked, but they didn't care to put it on their show. They emailed me back and said, Thank you for the questions, we'll get and they will get back to me. I'm kind, not gonna lie. I felt some kind of way, but not in the way that I was angry, but the way that that why I said your show is different than most because you don't have a problem responding to your listeners. I also follow you on all your social media accounts and I repost your video clips. Michelle, thank you for that. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Um as we get ready to wrap the show up, I appreciate my listeners and I appreciate my fans. I appreciate you guys, you know, taking the time to listen to me on my show, giving me good feedback, and I don't think any negative, I don't think if your feedback is intended to be negative, I don't take it as negative, I take it as a positive. Because I'm still learning in this world of a podcast. Um, there was a podcaster by the name of Miracle, Miracle Kingsley, who thought he said he was gonna give it up because he wasn't getting the kind of views that he thought he should have got. And this is what I told him. I said, just keep doing you. You know, either they're gonna listen to you or they're not. It's not for you to decide, it's for them to decide. If they like your show, they like your show. But don't give up on something because you're not getting any reviews. I don't have a large following, and that's fine to me. I'm completely fine with that. But for the people that I do listen that do listen to me and that send me these letters, that's what I do it for. So I know there's like a gazillion-in-one podcast, like a gazillion-in-one podcast out there, but I do this because again, some people think I have a lot of advice that I like to share. It may not be the correct advice or advice they want to hear, but I like to share it. Nothing wrong with that. So I do this because I like doing it. I do this because it's fun for me. And when I get these letters saying that some people that I've helped and some people that I haven't helped, I still feel I still feel good. And for the ones that I don't really that say that I don't really help them, that I make it I've I've only made it worse, well I'm sorry. I'm just giving you my advice. If you wrote the show, you don't necessarily have to take my advice. It's just advice that I'm giving you. You may not like it, but it's good advice. So if you guys get a chance, go check out my man, Miracle Kingsley. He's from Nigeria. Um, he has a podcast. It's pretty inspiring. And just because I do a podcast, doesn't mean I don't listen to other podcasts, because I do like listen to other podcasters. Now, which ones I'm gonna tell you, I'm not gonna tell you about. So, as we get ready to close the show out, you guys have been amazing, you guys have been awesome, you guys have been wonderful. As I said before, shows are posted every Wednesday. I try to do that consistently because I'm trying to stay on top of my shit. But I want to say thank you. Thank you to you guys that listen, thank you to you guys that you know really just been there for me like Michelle. She's been there with me since the start of this thing. That's like wow, wow. So keep the letters coming. D6Empire357 at gmail.com. Until the next time, I'm just gonna let y'all grew to this track, and I guess I'll see y'all on the next one. Y'all take care. Remember, tough times don't last forever, tough people do. Till next time, my friends. I'm the icon. The show is called Let's Talk About It. Y'all take care now.