From Texas to Germany, American vs European Life, and Starting A Comedy Club in Berlin w/ Foster Yow | Ep 73

Today I sit with Foster Yow. He shares his upbringing in Texas. Being stuck in a right wing conservative bubble while living there and breaking out of it. How Germany changed his views on America, it's news and politics. He shares how he opened a comedy club in Berlin, Germany The name of it is The Wall Comedy Club

Timestamps
(5:04) United Healthcare CEO
(7:42) Opening A Comedy Club In Berlin Germany
(18:06) Growing Up In Texas
(22:28) Experience Moving From America To Europe
(24:56) Stuck Conservative Bubble Until Visiting Germany
(27:52) News In America Vs Germany And Ratings
(35:28) How To Use Genau, Tschuss, And Ciao In Germany
(40:04) Difference Between American And German Culture
(51:43) Gun Culture In America
(59:03) Advice To Younger Self

The Wall Comedy Club Socials
Instagram

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Third Culture Talk Podcast is about people living in different cultures. Different than the culture they are from. Culture meaning, way of life, culture a person raised in, or place of birth. Guests ranges from third culture kids, artists, to comedians, to everyday people. We all are living in changing cultures and have a story to tell

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Music: "Chill Day" by Lakey Inspired

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;16;13
Unknown
There's one mentality of anything we can do to make more money, regardless of the impact of everything else, and then coming to a place where here it's like, oh no, that's but that's bad for the world, that's bad for the internet. You can't do that. You can't make money off that because it causes earthquakes. You know, we don't know what other impacts it's going to have.

00;00;16;16 - 00;00;45;07
Unknown
And then but like spending like so many years in a place where it's like, oh, whatever, whatever we do, we will make money on it and we don't care about any of the other consequences because I want my bank account to get bigger. Welcome to the Third Culture Talk podcast. I'm your host, Nya Yeanafehn. This podcast, we talk with people that are raised in a culture different than their parents, home culture or way of life or nationality, and now they're living in today's culture, which is vastly different than it is of our parents or even back in the day.

00;00;45;09 - 00;01;00;21
Unknown
So let's get in. Today's episode. Like, I'm the only person who's ever moved to Germany of my own free will, who does not like chocolate. Whoa. You didn't. This your first time saying this right? I mean, do you want me to keep this on the podcast that you don't like? You can keep this. I mean, it's a it's a known thing.

00;01;00;21 - 00;01;18;13
Unknown
We had an intern who birthed, who baked me a cake for my birthday. This was, I think, our second year in operation. Right. And it was a chocolate cake because I never told her. Yeah. And she just he's like, oh, my God. Surprise! Happy birthday. Yeah. I was like, oh, thank you. And I had to I, I ate a little bit of the cake just to try to be polite.

00;01;18;13 - 00;01;34;02
Unknown
You don't like chocolate? No. Why not? What what happened? What? Tell me about your childhood. What happened? Childhood. I tried it, I didn't like it. I said, I don't know why, I don't like it, but I it. I didn't like it. Damn. And then they're like, well, it has a lot of sugar. That's bad for you. So it's probably not a terrible thing that you don't like it.

00;01;34;05 - 00;01;50;09
Unknown
I said, okay, and that was that. Damn. Not even Oreos. I've eaten Oreos. I not really, it's just I know I'm. Oh, man. Sorry to hear that, man. I mean, you know, there's a lot of, like, there's a lot in like that you're missing if you don't eat chocolate. What a way to start, though. Yeah. You know, but.

00;01;50;09 - 00;02;09;09
Unknown
Hey, man, how you been? How's everything going? I woke up a couple hours ago. I'm. I'm drinking my caffeine just to try to try to make it through the the the early afternoon, which I consider morning Aurora. And, Yeah. Looking forward to doing this. I haven't done this podcast yet. I'm. It's about different cultures and things like that is what you've told me about.

00;02;09;09 - 00;02;26;02
Unknown
So I'm looking forward to talking about that. How are you doing? Doing good. You know, China's devolved as, I guess winter as you call it here in Berlin. Sadness, as other people would say it. It they spoke from the heart. But. Yeah. Doing okay, you know, so far. Nice. We have we have very similar jackets.

00;02;26;04 - 00;02;51;25
Unknown
Yes we do, yes. But you have, you have a lighter version, which is very troubling. You know, it's thinner for anyone. Doesn't. It's thinner. And you walk into negative, what, three, four Celsius weather with that jacket? We're we're in Celsius to. How long have you been in Germany? You know, I'm not in Germany. Okay. So, you know, I gotta I still can I can still reference, temperature fair, high if I'm trying to learn German.

00;02;51;25 - 00;03;09;19
Unknown
So I had to bite the bullet and, you know, start referencing things in Celsius. Oh, that's that's always the most fun, talking with my family, because they're always asking about the weather over here. Because we have so much to talk about that we talk about the weather that, every single time I have to, like, translate Celsius to Fahrenheit, and I can't do the translation.

00;03;09;21 - 00;03;30;24
Unknown
Like, I know what 20°C feels like, right? I have no idea what that is in Fahrenheit. And so, like, zero's easy because I can just say freezing, you know, I don't have to say number. Right, right. That's it. Oh, okay. Yeah. That makes sense. It's freezing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Of course that man this is one of those things I've learned from being here for seven, eight years is just oh well it's freezing.

00;03;30;24 - 00;03;49;24
Unknown
It's going to snow today. I mean, just, you know, that's how it is, right. Forgot in science class, you know, like, oh, yeah, I had to come to Germany to live here for 7 or 8 years for me to remember that zero degrees Celsius is freezing. But, so for anyone who doesn't know, yes, you're the owner, here at the Wall Comedy Club.

00;03;49;27 - 00;04;05;28
Unknown
Oh, yes. I should introduce myself, shouldn't I? Yeah. They don't. No one knows who I am. I'm going to look at the camera now. I'm foster. My name is foster. Yeah. My last names. Yeah. I don't know, I mentioned that. I just think most people when I say my last name, they don't believe me.

00;04;06;00 - 00;04;25;25
Unknown
Because you. If you say, yeah, I'm thinking, why a oh, yeah, I'm like, oh, you got you know, I never I was told, I was told it's either has German or Dutch origins. And then I came to Germany and I visited the Netherlands and everyone said that was wrong. So I have no clue. Oh, hopefully you can tell this to your family.

00;04;25;25 - 00;04;44;01
Unknown
They're like, wow. Our whole entire lineage has been a lie. I've mentioned this a few times. Oh yeah. Oh. So you. Oh, wow. Life at a party at, Thanksgiving, Yes. Oh, And then, yeah, we're at the War Comedy Club is of a comedy club. I started, what's a little over five? You know, about five years ago.

00;04;44;04 - 00;05;02;00
Unknown
Five years ago from next month. So if you're doing the math, that was January 2020. So about a month before something called Covid hit. So that was fun. Yeah bro. And we're still here. Yeah. He's still here still alive and kicking. We got a green room. We've got a couch. Yes. Someone gifted us which was lovely.

00;05;02;00 - 00;05;19;13
Unknown
Nice I was gifted. All right. Yeah. Have you, has anything happened since you had this couch? I have no idea what you're going. Sorry, I, I when I hear gifted, I'm thinking about, like, I didn't need a couch anymore. And I'm now trying to think about who was the people that gifted to you. It was someone who moved to a new place that had a better couch.

00;05;19;16 - 00;05;36;29
Unknown
Okay. And there's a place where there's a nice place there, like moving from. Yeah. Okay. All right. It was moving. It was moving, I believe, from, shared apartment to, like a solo apartment. And, they just didn't need the couch anymore. And it was like, okay, well, and then I just got the the that, and then that was it.

00;05;37;01 - 00;05;50;04
Unknown
Oh, okay. All right, I got just in case because, you know, I was getting a little itchy. So I want to make sure that, you know. Oh, yeah. No, no, you should not the couch. You should go to a doctor for that I should. Yeah. Good thing I just got into the cast. Okay, so, I got health care right on time.

00;05;50;07 - 00;06;09;27
Unknown
Right on time. Oh, my God. With the news. Especially in the US, with the health care, CEO. Yeah, right. It's it's crazy. It's it's so fascinating, like, morbidly. And it's just like, just seeing the reactions. Everyone over here now, I'm just so used to just having, you know, if I need to go to a doctor, I just go to a doctor and I don't have to get into debt.

00;06;10;01 - 00;06;38;13
Unknown
Yeah. Like that's just a thing that just doesn't exist here, right? And just everyone, like, cause someone was murdered, which is very illegal and very immoral as well. But the person who was murdered was in charge of basically increasing the denial of claims so that people whose lives were needing to, like, be saved, were now in debt for the rest of their lives that they had very little chance of paying off right.

00;06;38;14 - 00;06;54;28
Unknown
And so just seeing the reaction of it, yeah, it's crazy. It's really crazy when you think about it. And then also what's really crazy is that as soon as it happened, there was no rest. And, I don't think I even seen a Rest in Peace post on social media. Everyone's been like, well, you didn't get coverage for that one,

00;06;55;01 - 00;07;11;28
Unknown
And it's like, oh, then the jokes are coming. Yeah, everyone's making jokes. Literally. There's people here in the green room last night, at the end of the show, trying to come up with jokes for what to say that other people haven't thought of. That is. I mean, look, you know, that I was thinking about the whole CEO stuff and that.

00;07;11;29 - 00;07;28;03
Unknown
Yeah. When it comes to, like, you know, people getting shot or whatever, and I guess not in America, maybe all over. It's like we pick and choose. Yeah, it's a weird thing. I mean, like, yet again, a school shooting, it's like, okay, that's awful terrible right now. It doesn't even make the news. It just happens so much.

00;07;28;06 - 00;07;49;18
Unknown
Yeah. And but a CEO of but again it's, it's a CEO of like the worst part of America which is health care. Yeah. It's like the one thing where everyone just it's like everyone knows it's broken. No one is trying to fix it. I don't know why. But that's just how it is. I mean, I assume money is one of the reasons, but money and,

00;07;49;21 - 00;08;07;10
Unknown
Yeah, listen to a podcast about it, about, I mean, you know, this is not a health care podcast. For anyone who's listening, can you talk about other podcasts on a podcast? Yeah. You can. Okay. How long you starting beef? I don't want start no podcast beef. I'm one of the few English speaking, podcast in Germany, so I don't want to start no beef.

00;08;07;10 - 00;08;26;17
Unknown
I'm new here. Just like my visa is still new here. I do not want to get revoked, and I do not want to get my podcast deported, but, yeah, it was okay. So to go back into here the Wall Comedy Club. For anyone who doesn't know, we're in the green room now. The infamous green room with a lot of names.

00;08;26;20 - 00;08;47;19
Unknown
People sign your stuff. And what made you, want to open a comedy club way here in, Berlin, Germany. Okay, so I didn't start doing comedy until I moved to Germany. Wow. So I did it. Basically, I studied in Leipzig. I had an internship in, in Berlin, which is when I fell in love with Berlin.

00;08;47;22 - 00;09;03;07
Unknown
That internship I was not allowed to speak English at. So that was a good way to learn German. So if you ever need to learn German, just get a job where they don't allow you to speak English. Wow. Okay. Of my German's okay. Now I can do comedy in German. I did it comedy in Germany maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago.

00;09;03;07 - 00;09;23;28
Unknown
I think that was the last show I did was in German. Congrats bro. That is a big deal. So. And I'm trying. I'm trying to do it. I've done improv once in German. I'm trying to do that again, although that's a bit more challenging. Yes, improv is challenging in general. I try to break the rules in German. In Germany that is a difficult yes feat, but yes, I did.

00;09;23;28 - 00;09;41;14
Unknown
Comedy. Cosmic comedy was the first show I ever did so with Dar. I'm assuming you've done that show. If you don't. And I had a job here that I didn't like. After the internship, and after about a year, they promised me a position which they then said, no, we're not doing that position anymore, so we can't have it.

00;09;41;14 - 00;09;58;05
Unknown
And I said, okay, well, I'm not going to stay with you. They said they, they they said some very not kind things like I would never get another job in Germany, things like that. And previously I was in West Texas, I was in the energy business in West Texas. Where I'd saved a lot of money. Right. So I was like, you know what, screw it.

00;09;58;05 - 00;10;16;10
Unknown
I'll just start my own business. Yeah. And I came up with a few different ideas. Some were more realistic than others. And I literally went to a comedy show, Roast Battle on a Saturday night, and it was just completely full at a place I had never heard of. Very little advertising. I was like, you know what?

00;10;16;12 - 00;10;40;00
Unknown
I think this can work. And so that was that was like the business side of it. Yeah. The the more fun side of it was once I decided to do it, I was like, how can I make every single thing about starting this comedy club funny? To me at least. Okay. Like every single step of the way. So as so, because I wanted to have, like a cool story behind the comedy club, right?

00;10;40;00 - 00;10;57;18
Unknown
Right. I didn't want to have Foster's Wild West Comedy Club. Yeah, that was, Well, good thing you did not do that. Wow. That would so, so, like, getting it, like, the name is a perfect example. Yeah. So I didn't know any famous people all the time. And so I was like, okay, let's not do let's just put a really cool backdrop, let's call it the wall.

00;10;57;20 - 00;11;12;05
Unknown
People will come to see just a cool wall. And if they see comedy outside of that, whatever, then I was like, okay, this was right before Trump was hopefully only going to be like a flash in the pan. Yeah. And just never show up again. And he was talking about building a wall and having Mexico pay for it.

00;11;12;12 - 00;11;29;18
Unknown
And I was like, well, I'm an American with orange hair. I should just build a wall. Okay. Putting two and two together. Okay. And then we're in. We're in Berlin. Yeah. Which is famous for the Berlin Wall. Right. And my hope was that after Trump was just gone, we would never talk about him again. I'll just be like, oh, oops.

00;11;29;18 - 00;11;38;13
Unknown
Sorry. I accidentally built a new Berlin Wall.

00;11;38;15 - 00;11;59;17
Unknown
Wow. So many cultural differences. Just in that one little story right there. I mean, okay, so you wanted to start this comedy club. Very funny. Which, by the way, on brand, right? Comedy club funny, right? You were laughing the entire time there was looseness of the situation, which is the point. What other comedy club does this, though?

00;11;59;20 - 00;12;18;25
Unknown
There are not many, if any. I don't know any. Yeah. Most people come in to make a, you know, profit, but, use like funny. Well, I mean, I thought that. Yeah, you get if you make it funny, if you make it intriguing and if you make, like, the whole foundation of it, just from the beginning to the end, just every single step of the way, there's a joke behind it, right?

00;12;18;27 - 00;12;32;23
Unknown
Like I had to get a visa to do this, right. Right. Because this was you're dealing with visa stuff. You have the artist visa right. Yeah. Yeah. What kind of visa you had to get like the business like a business owner have a business owners visa. The first one that gave me the set I was only allowed to be in Berlin.

00;12;32;23 - 00;12;53;11
Unknown
I have built a new Berlin Wall. Oh, yes, I was. I had to do. I did do a financing plan. I had to do a business plan. Oh, wow. Did you make the business more? There's so much more to this than you can imagine. Oh my God. Wow. This is so, Wow. Look, that's actually, very impressive.

00;12;53;11 - 00;13;14;00
Unknown
They approve this thing like the the Wall comedy. What? No. See that? That's the thing is, they asked how I was going to pay for it, and I did everything they said. And then I put a last page on the the the I did a PowerPoint. I gave them a PowerPoint with like all the stuff because I'm, I studied business, which means I know how to PowerPoint and that's about it.

00;13;14;03 - 00;13;28;10
Unknown
Oh, but I mean, that's clearly a good skill because you own a building here. Well, then I put because I was trying to make fun of Donald Trump again. And so I said, here's the financing plan. But if that doesn't work, Mexico will pay for it. You said that and, Yeah. And what what did they say?

00;13;28;10 - 00;13;46;27
Unknown
Well, see, they they just looked at the findings blank. Whatever. But I wanted to make that true. Yeah. Because I was like, okay, well, let's let's turn every negative thing that's happening right now in America into a positive thing. Let's this is not a place for bad things and this place for good things to happen. This place for everyone is welcome throughout the whole world.

00;13;46;29 - 00;14;13;24
Unknown
We've chosen by people in different countries, different nationalities, different backgrounds. Everything. Yeah. You can come here and just laugh. That's it. So I was like okay, well if there's two walls let's have one of them that was actually built by Mexico like stand for good okay. But the okay the most embarrassing. So I was going to go to the Mexican embassy because there's a Mexican embassy in Berlin and asked them.

00;14;13;24 - 00;14;30;05
Unknown
And I was so embarrassed that I send them an email with all of that with like, hey, this I want to like, this is a joke. Just like I think it'd be fun if we did like a thing together and they didn't respond, wow, you are so bold. We're not we're not done yet. Oh, okay. All right. Sorry.

00;14;30;12 - 00;14;58;26
Unknown
There's more, because I believe you've invoiced me and I've paid you. Yes. And it wasn't from the wall like it was from, like The Wall LLC or incorporated. It was from a company called Mike Extremely Intelligent Company. Yeah. If for those of you who don't know, is it's like LLC or incorporated in Germany, and so I had to go I had to come up with a name for the company.

00;14;58;28 - 00;15;21;10
Unknown
Okay. And when I was doing that, I had to explain all of this in German to a court of law in Charlottenburg. A court using a courtroom? No, it was on the phone. It was like the justices people to get the name approved. Wow. And I was like, I need to have the initials where they spell out the word Mexico.

00;15;21;12 - 00;15;57;15
Unknown
Oh. Wow. In explaining to someone in German who's like, life is approving and disapproving names for companies how this is comedy and this is a joke, you know, and like but like from like a place of good like, please don't judge me too hard. Like, I'm trying to make this funny and like, you know, like a thing and just having them be like, well, like, because they, they said no to my original title, which was most extreme Intelligence Company because I thought that would be like a kind of a funny play on like the startup culture here.

00;15;57;15 - 00;16;17;23
Unknown
Yeah. Most extreme. Okay. And they're like, that's no, we can't do that one. But they, they approved my extremely intelligent which is, which if you look at it, it has the acronym put all together Mexico. My am extremely intelligent AI company CEO. You know it's funny. You know what made me mad is that I actually said as you're talking and really thought about it, and I was like,

00;16;17;26 - 00;16;22;05
Unknown
Wow. It really does.

00;16;22;08 - 00;16;54;06
Unknown
And I was like, oh, wow. That's actually, pretty funny. Every single thing about this was trying to be a joke in some way. Okay. Wow, bro. Like, I could have picked any name and then no one would know, and it wouldn't make any. It wouldn't make any more money or less money regardless. I mean, but the what is a good like title, though, in terms of like, I mean, obviously the name of the actual LLC or GMB is my extremely it's a company, but they have in the wall comedy classic such a yeah.

00;16;54;06 - 00;17;12;03
Unknown
What makes sense in Berlin as well. Oh yeah. And it's simple. It's just one of those things it'll never, you know, it. It's not it's not going to change. Like it's something universal. It's got a really like backdrop, like whatever. It's just there. Right. So it's it's real easy, kind of thing. And that's what I wanted it as well.

00;17;12;03 - 00;17;36;29
Unknown
Something simple I didn't want like, you know, I didn't want something because, I mean, you see a lot of old comedy clubs, especially the names, it's very much of the time. Right. So like in the 70s, you can kind of I was like, okay, that was clearly named in the 70s because that's like the snow. The wall is I mean, there's been a Berlin Wall for, you know, when it was like in the 50s, 60, 40, I forget when it was built, I know when I was, it was it came down in 89.

00;17;36;29 - 00;17;54;05
Unknown
I know that, but that's, I don't I forget when it was built, but I think it was in the 60s. Yeah. Somewhere around there. Cold War. I know around that time, 61 I could be wrong. Correct me if there's comments are there's comments on these. It could be. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'll make sure I clip this in black.

00;17;54;05 - 00;18;18;13
Unknown
Hey, let us know. Just just this part. This one part. Yeah. When was the wall built? Yeah. Comment here and let us know. You know, just a two second video goes viral. You know, everyone's like, how do you not know? You know. Yes. But so that was that was fun explaining to, government agents like visa people and like caught people just explaining like comedy that is.

00;18;18;15 - 00;18;38;28
Unknown
Wow in German in Germany. So yeah, German is good. You're German is good. To have that much of confidence to make that type of joke, to a quarter law. That's actually impressive. That's right. Yes. You're German is actually very good. They're good answer. I mean, I worked in Germany for in German for months. I've got the C one, class.

00;18;39;04 - 00;18;53;12
Unknown
Oh, wow. I don't have the certificate, but I don't really care to get a certificate. It's just. It's just day to day stuff. I mean, when we have German shows, I do my best not to speak English. Wow. But a lot of people want to practice their English as well, so it's kind of like the mix. Yeah.

00;18;53;14 - 00;19;15;07
Unknown
And you see. Okay. That's interesting. So before we get more into this, I think is important for people to know, where you came from, maybe this get some light on the things you're doing now, which you're from originally. Texas. Yeah. I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas. Or Worth, Texas. So near near Dallas. I was, I went to school near University of Georgia.

00;19;15;09 - 00;19;33;06
Unknown
And then wait, did you spend time in Atlanta or. No, a little bit. I mean, I have family living there now. So I lived there for like not live but visit. Okay. And, yeah. So near Atlanta. And then I was working in West Texas, in Midland, Texas. Oh, nice. But I've been kind of everywhere in the small towns.

00;19;33;06 - 00;19;55;22
Unknown
I was, my job was called a land man, a land man. That was that basically, it was finding and it was discovering who owned and then buying oil and mineral and gas rights. From people who owned it. Oh, so you're using that this, is that sales kind of or kind of it's mainly research and then just, I mean it's a bit negotiating.

00;19;55;25 - 00;20;21;25
Unknown
But it takes way longer to find who owns what because the records or so it's not really tracked. Because the idea is that you pay taxes on like surface. But you don't pay taxes on minerals until minerals are extracted. So there's no reason for like anyone to know, there's no records for who knows who owns the minerals until like they find oil or gas or something like that.

00;20;21;28 - 00;20;42;21
Unknown
Wow. That is okay. So that's some real well probably a lot of money to be made. So, so that's I mean it's a it's one of those things where I'm not I don't love that I did it just because I was the environment, the environment. Basically when I, when I started doing that, that was before I, moved to Germany, as before, I like, traveled at all.

00;20;42;28 - 00;21;05;06
Unknown
And I was very much in that Texas mindset, very much conservative mindset. Always vote Republican regardless of what happens. Everyone else is evil. Like, that's just how I was brought up to believe. And then when I visited Europe for the first time, I was like, wait, none of that's true. And that kind of shifted everything. So that's how I can still talk to people from there because I'm like, no, I get the bubbles that you're in.

00;21;05;08 - 00;21;28;14
Unknown
And but like when you visit people and like see hey like there's a whole world out there and you don't have to follow the rules that you've been taught like you know, working 24 over seven, nothing else in your life but work. That's what I was taught like from like very young age and just coming to a place where, like, oh no, we have to we, we only works that we can live.

00;21;28;17 - 00;21;33;01
Unknown
And it was like what Germany saying that.

00;21;33;03 - 00;21;58;08
Unknown
That is so true. And the efficient country that I've been told like works harder than like they're like, no, we go on vacation, take time off like this, like a lot of it at 5:00. Do not answer like you're done for the day, like work is over that day. Wow. That that is still. That's still mind blowing. I mean, you know, that type of work life balance, and how people really adhere to it here in Germany.

00;21;58;10 - 00;22;18;07
Unknown
But, yeah. That's it. Yeah. I'm glad you talked a little bit about Texas because I think like Texas, really, especially when it comes to like oil and gas like that is a deep man. People get offended when you start talking against like, you know, any environmental something. People are like, well, yeah, this gas is oil and gas has fed our generation, you know, fed us for generations.

00;22;18;09 - 00;22;36;04
Unknown
Yeah. No, it was weird too, because I was in Leipzig and I was giving a presentation about kind of what I was doing for work. And we were talking about, well, a gas and someone, a German woman asked me a question, just like, what about fracking? Fracking is illegal, though, right? And I was like, oh, nice. This is a is legal as hell.

00;22;36;07 - 00;22;51;21
Unknown
But it's just it's just so weird having that just like just there's one mentality of anything we can do to make more money, regardless of the impact of everything else. And then coming to a place where here it's like, oh no, that's. But that's bad for the world, that's bad for the internet. You can't do that, right?

00;22;51;24 - 00;23;09;02
Unknown
You can't make money off that because it causes earthquakes. You know, we don't know what other impacts it's going to have. And then I'm but like spending like so many years in a place where it's like, oh, whatever. Whatever we do, we will make money on it and we don't care about any of the other consequences because I want my bank account to get bigger.

00;23;09;04 - 00;23;25;19
Unknown
Yeah, it it's such a different change. It's so that's one of the reasons I like it so much more here. Right? I mean, how was it. So to kind of skip a little before, how was it when you first like left Texas. You mean I say left Texas, but you left that bubble and you went into maybe a bubble here in Europe.

00;23;25;19 - 00;23;43;24
Unknown
Like how how was that first time? What were the moments where you're like, oh, it's different than where it's coming from? I think the biggest difference for me was so I did I did a study abroad. This is a really, so I started studying in Georgia. I left for a bit, and that was when I first started working West Texas.

00;23;43;24 - 00;24;08;04
Unknown
And then 2009 happened. Financial crisis happened, went back to school. And before doing that, I did a quick trip to London and Dublin, on very short notice. And I loved the idea of it, and I wanted to do it later in, language where I didn't speak in a country or I didn't speak in a language where I didn't speak, pick Germany because my dad likes German food.

00;24;08;07 - 00;24;24;14
Unknown
Okay. You're like the potatoes and, like, the schnitzel and things like that. Even though some of that's Austrian, but, like, I don't know, we're not here to. Yeah. Critique my dad's idea of German. Right. We're in Germany, so let's go with German. I also didn't know at the time either, because I'd never been, you know, to continental Europe at that time.

00;24;24;14 - 00;24;46;29
Unknown
Yeah. When I went there, I did a study abroad that was kind of everywhere in Germany. But it was six weeks in a place called Weimar. You might know a Weimar from the Weimar Republic. Yeah. Where, which is the government that Hitler eventually took, before World War two. Right. So he got he got elected, and then the Nazis came, and then, the Nazis all died.

00;24;47;01 - 00;25;19;20
Unknown
And, now they have a new government. Right. And so the, but the the cool thing about Weimar from my standpoint was that even though the allies, the U.S., the, the not Russia, the U.S., France and the UK, went to Berlin through that part of Germany, it when they separated it, they gave it back so that the U.S. could have part of like the, the, the Western allies could have parts of Berlin.

00;25;19;22 - 00;25;50;28
Unknown
So it was even though it was liberated by like the U.S. and stuff, it became East Germany, interest in East Germany. Okay. And so the GDR, DDR however you want to call it. But the really cool thing about that was I met a lot of people who lived through those times. And the thing was because yet again, I talk about how I was in that right wing bubble of Texas, of just conservative bubble where anything and every government spending health care, for crying out loud, is communist.

00;25;51;00 - 00;26;10;08
Unknown
And then I met people who lived in socialism. They won't even call it communism, even though that's like further like socialist, further government run than anything that the US ever had. And they would talk about logically, here's the good things, here's the bad things, here's just what it was. And you're like, wait, that's it? Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of things that were worse behind it.

00;26;10;10 - 00;26;30;25
Unknown
But, you know, there's things I miss. There's things like, health care. There's things like women having the ability to become scientists, things like that. That at the time in the US wasn't it wasn't a thing, but there it was because it was a different mentality. But it just looking at the difference of like their day to day lives and just how like the government did impact that.

00;26;30;25 - 00;26;56;04
Unknown
I was like, wait a second. All this stuff that I was being told my whole life is not right. And I know that because here's the people who lived through it. You're telling me, no, that's, you know, that's that's propaganda. Basically. And so that's what kind of got me to start thinking about that. Yeah. Wow. And I mean, even just you being in the place, talking with the people and the people that experience something that was very traumatic, you know, multiple in multiple different levels.

00;26;56;04 - 00;27;35;20
Unknown
Right. Well, I wouldn't say most of it wasn't traumatic, most of it, because yet again, there's this thing called Austell G. What's that? It's, nostalgia for life in East Germany. So Austin's German for East? Yeah. Nostalgia. Nostalgia. Austell G. Yeah, basically the same word. Okay. And it's it's one thing I've looked back, especially now with the recent election in the US, is because I met a couple people who seemed who wouldn't outright say it, but they seemed like they're either going to vote for Trump or they, you know, they remembered what it was the first year that he was in office.

00;27;35;23 - 00;28;03;01
Unknown
And they thought, okay, all the good that happened, which was just what happened. It's just America. It's just yeah, there's jobs there. There's companies. That's it. It seems like the further away you are from something, the more you remember the good and forget the bad. I don't know if that's true or not, but it seemed true because there's yet again when I mean we've all seen the pictures of, you know, families being reunited on when the Berlin Wall fell.

00;28;03;02 - 00;28;31;13
Unknown
Right. Yeah. And clearly people wanted opportunities that they couldn't have. I mean, you don't build a wall to keep people trapped. Yeah, you just don't do that. Right? So, like, clearly, there were things that weren't good about East Germany, and the people were fleeing from it. But then hear people talk in more realistic terms about what it meant for their day to day lives and just how different it is from, you know, single payer health care, things like that.

00;28;31;13 - 00;28;50;04
Unknown
Yeah. Right. That I've been told, like, if we do that, then we're a communist nation and will fail. And it's like, that's not. Yeah. Wow. That's a big jump. Big jump. And I mean, oh, it's so easy to because when you in America like, you know, you have so many different like outlets that are perpetuating these type of, stereotypes.

00;28;50;04 - 00;29;07;26
Unknown
But he starts, right, like, you know, you got you got Fox News, you got like all these other news companies, you know, MSNBC, I mean, like there's there's all companies that are pushing something to some degree, right? Yeah. And not really talking about in the pros and cons sort of way, which I think that's kind of missing in like, say, media in America.

00;29;07;27 - 00;29;24;25
Unknown
There's no media in America. You do pros and cons is when your ratings start going down. Yeah. The mini start focus on one or the other mostly probably cons is when you're ratings go up. Yes. When business is booming, focus on negative here seems like balance. Like, oh, this is good and this is bad. And that's when it becomes boring.

00;29;24;25 - 00;29;41;04
Unknown
Good. Like, All right. Well that's it. Yeah. That's it. Just, you know, this and this and you're like, oh all right, well hey, I'm about to go back to America. And, you know, I think I'd be paranoid. Yeah, I think Jon Stewart, he did one, way back in the day. I think it was like 20 years ago or some, like, it was,

00;29;41;10 - 00;30;04;05
Unknown
Well, actually, I don't know. He's done a few where he kind of. He says this is what the media does, and this is when it works in this, when it doesn't. And it's basically the rise of cable news. And mainly Fox but also get MSNBC, CNN, things like that. Yeah. It's like it makes sense during 911 like something so just earth shattering.

00;30;04;05 - 00;30;26;17
Unknown
We've no clue what's going on. We want to know what's going to happen. We will watch the news every single second until we know what's going on or any other time they have to manufacture that drama. Right. Yeah. Otherwise you're not going to get the ratings. Do you think the manufactured drama here, since your time here in Germany, like, are there any type of manufacturing of drama you have noticed or seen?

00;30;26;17 - 00;30;48;05
Unknown
I haven't noticed it. I, I mean, it's so I don't watch. I generally still watch U.S. media. I would say just because it's easier for me to just, I'd have to worry about the, the translation stuff. That being said, when something big does happen in the U.S, I will try to look at German sources and it's it's more unbalanced from what I've seen balanced.

00;30;48;06 - 00;31;11;21
Unknown
It's more like here's just the facts. Interesting. But also notice that a bit with the BBC as well. And I think the biggest thing is, I mean, there's a different mentality there. They're not trying to get Americans to watch 24/7. They know that Americans aren't going to watch. Right? So there's no like, stake. It's not like, oh, I we want you're part of our team.

00;31;11;21 - 00;31;30;26
Unknown
And the other team is bad. You're Republicans and Democrats are bad, or you're Democrats. Republicans are bad. It's just okay, well here's what tariffs mean. And like yet again, I watch the BBC like thing right after Trump got elected about what do tariffs mean. Because from my standpoint it looks like America just voted for Brexit for the US.

00;31;30;28 - 00;31;57;14
Unknown
Yeah because I okay. Blame everything on immigrants whether it's true or not. And then restrict trade. Yeah. Which is which is bad for just it's it's bad for everything. It's making up a problem that doesn't exist. And then we're going to voluntarily lose money. Right. That's what it is. And then. Yeah. And then it was just the BBC was like, okay, well, here's what this means.

00;31;57;16 - 00;32;12;27
Unknown
This is, you know, he's saying he's going to do this now last time. You know, right now the markets aren't acting like that at all. The markets are acting like, he's just going to do what he did last time, which was tons of government spending, tons of debt, lower taxes for people, making a lot of money.

00;32;13;02 - 00;32;36;04
Unknown
Right. And a Bitcoin is up. Everything's up. Yeah. Which I hate when people he was like, oh man he won. Damn. But Bitcoin is up cordona I'm like it's like well cycle continues. Well it's weird because yet again like everything's up like way more than it's been like there. Okay. So after the election it went up a little bit something.

00;32;36;07 - 00;32;58;17
Unknown
Well the day after went up a huge amount. But it it always does because once we know who's going to be, elected, we understand what the policies are going to be like. So we, we, we understand a little bit more stability wise. Right now it's up a lot. And I'll yet again it's betting that he's going to do what he did the last term, which will be good for short term profits.

00;32;58;17 - 00;33;17;04
Unknown
But it will create a lot of debt that they're not good long term. Right. This is my business. Yeah. No. Yeah. Talk about the business. Yeah. This is the business aspect. You know, the, you know, businesses. Well, no, all I'm, I'll bring this one thing up and then I'll stop talking about, basically, Warren Buffett always says when people are being greedy, be fearful.

00;33;17;04 - 00;33;34;19
Unknown
When people are being feel fearful, be greedy is the best investor in the history of investing. Yeah. Very good. And so that's that's all I keep thinking of is right now, I don't I see a lot of people who are investing in they're like, oh taxes are lower. It's good for people investing, making a lot of money. It's good for corporate profits.

00;33;34;21 - 00;33;52;29
Unknown
But at some time yet again, if if people who are not making much get annoyed enough, I mean, look what happened, what yesterday or the day before, we'll have the CEO. Oh right. Yeah yeah, yeah. I mean yeah, that that is crazy. If people if people aren't making enough money to buy your products like you can't sell anything.

00;33;53;02 - 00;34;12;18
Unknown
Yeah. It makes you highly marginalized people to the point where, you know, so like that happens where people can't pay rent, people can't pay debt, things like that. Yeah. And that's just the financial side of it. That's not the emotional side of it. This got depressing. Yeah. Oh no no no I think though talking about business and politics and stuff is just part of American culture.

00;34;12;18 - 00;34;32;07
Unknown
Right. Because like the one thing, you know, I visit New York City, a couple months back, this is back in September, and it's been a year since I went back. And I went there. And I remember when I got there, it was like, everything's all about, you know, before the election. So I mean, everything's about politics and the mayor, the NYC mayor, then like all of us, it was like all political.

00;34;32;14 - 00;34;52;02
Unknown
And it it was almost a jarring. But it's just like, oh shit. Because you in Germany, I mean, well, there's a lot political stuff happening here in Germany, but I don't speak the language, so it's not hitting me as some kind of like just hearing words. I've got, like the they have the okay, this party did it, it it, you know, I'm like, okay, I just hear acronyms.

00;34;52;09 - 00;35;14;00
Unknown
Yeah. But not really like things behind it unless I really break it down for me. Whereas America is just like, oh, room, room, everything's heightened and oh jeez. And you know, we'll see. America. There's also only two sides. There's the there's the Democrats and the, the Republicans and that's it. Yeah. Right. And here there's like five, there's the SPD, there's the CDU, there's the AfD, which is the right wing party, right.

00;35;14;03 - 00;35;32;21
Unknown
There's the link Delink a I mean, it's in depending on who you talk to. It's just like these are the good guys. Everything else is bad. Yeah. It's because I remember speaking to someone who. And it looked like it was like the center left one, but I don't really follow it enough to know, I was like, oh, that's probably like the comedians are probably happy about that.

00;35;32;21 - 00;35;51;17
Unknown
Like it's slightly to the left. That's not bad. And so many people are like. Because like, the far left party didn't do that. Well. Right. And that's like and they're just like anything, anything slightly right of that is evil. And so it's just like it's just one of those things where I'm like, I have no clue. Okay.

00;35;51;17 - 00;36;11;03
Unknown
So and like when I like reading about this, like when I was like, learning about it, like when learning German, I was like, okay, here's the parties. It should probably be one of these two that are like in the middle that should win. And I'm like, okay, the one on the left one. So everyone's probably happy. And then you meet people who were like, well, know the, the far right just won everything.

00;36;11;03 - 00;36;33;23
Unknown
And we're like, wait, what am I? So what's that? What's going on? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, these are like another thing in which is like, I don't understand yet, so maybe my brain, I'm just still trying to understand how to use Ganahl correctly and certain, you know, just whenever you feel like it, whenever, you know, sometimes or saying, you know, choose instead of child, you know, and being comfortable with making either decision.

00;36;33;23 - 00;36;55;09
Unknown
So I'm like, at a low level of like understanding Germany. So choose when you're being silly. Okay. Yeah. Because I might choose to my child I'm like well that's fine. It doesn't make child choose choose child. I'm like, well did I what? Starts when he start saying choosy now. Choosy. I can do that. That that that is, I have not.

00;36;55;12 - 00;37;14;04
Unknown
I got to be a citizen here first before I even think about. No one will judge you. It's fine. I will judge myself. That's the. I know that you got to get over that. I look myself in the mirror. I'm like, who are you? You know, an American who? What is a choosy? What's funny is you will. You will meet like guys who are big.

00;37;14;04 - 00;37;36;15
Unknown
Yeah. And they and like, you know, like, I don't want to I don't want to get into an argument with you because you will beat me up or and they will say choosy, choosy you. But, by. See you later. Until next time, pal. I generally just stick with gel, so I generally don't do the choose because there's the risk of doing cheesy.

00;37;36;19 - 00;37;51;09
Unknown
Let's. I'm trying to be silly, in which case that's when I'll do choose. And then I will throw in a see occasionally. Okay. Truth. I feel like you gotta have good clothes on, you know? I know it's just it's just, you know, whenever you're. I'm trying to take it as less is little seriously as humanly possible. Yeah.

00;37;51;14 - 00;38;06;23
Unknown
And I'm just trying to be like, I'm going to make you uncomfortable now by saying cheesy. But, yeah, I mean, but you could do that because you have a comedy club here, so it's choosing sounds like very, you know, prestigious, I don't know, choosy. Like if somebody is like, you know, okay, help me out. All right. Jersey, you know, you have to say it in the light.

00;38;06;23 - 00;38;25;06
Unknown
Voice. You can't say it like, tough because it's not a tough word. Sure. You got the choosy. Exactly. You got it. Oh, wow. You've learned one thing I learned something. Yeah, I know, hello. You spin. ERISA. You know, you know, me. I get, you know, started saying, ich bin. You can also say hi if just the Hollow's too much because they say hi.

00;38;25;11 - 00;38;50;02
Unknown
Yeah, I said hi. In a certain time, I can be like, hello? You know, if I say that, that's like who I. I say hello. Yeah, you guys sing it. Hello. Me? It's the. It's weird. Have you traveled a lot around Germany? I Munich. Okay. Hamburg. Kaiserslautern. But I went to the base, so that really doesn't even count.

00;38;50;02 - 00;39;13;18
Unknown
Really? And meant. No, not Mannheim bomb Halder, but basically any of the American Air Force bases or the. So not really. Basically the reason I ask is because I went to I went to Munich. I've only been to Munich twice, but like the only time I've been since I've moved to Germany. I was visiting a friend who, who's working for.

00;39;13;20 - 00;39;32;11
Unknown
Who's he working for? It was a I don't know, I don't think it was. It might have been BMW. I'm not sure. Oh, nice. He was doing an internship there, and, I think it was BMW was either BMW or Mercedes, I believe, because it wasn't. It wasn't Audi because that's a Stuttgart. No Mercedes in Stuttgart.

00;39;32;13 - 00;39;53;15
Unknown
I don't know who's working for. But I remember we walked into a store and he doesn't speak German like he just doesn't speak German. Wow. And I you know what there was like oh good. And talk L's or whatever. And then they spoke back to me in English and he just goes, hi service is your service.

00;39;53;17 - 00;40;11;21
Unknown
Yeah. And I completely forgot that. And then like, spoke to him in German. He's like, oh wow. Like the opposite. That's like, I'm trying to do this whole interaction in German. Yeah. And they were like, nope, you do not speak enough German. And he just says utter like a German word as badly as I've ever heard in my entire life.

00;40;11;23 - 00;40;31;09
Unknown
And then they speak to him and in German. And then he's like, you know, can I get like, yeah. He's like, who's, I don't know. That's, so interesting. And to be in Germany, not speak German is a possibility for anyone who doesn't know, you can come here to Germany and be fine. Well, Berlin.

00;40;31;12 - 00;40;49;03
Unknown
Yeah. You go to other places you might actually get, Yeah. Affect you might be affected, negatively. You been here for a minute? You know, for about five years. No, eight years now. No. Comedy club has been here. Five. Yeah, five years, because I did a study and then internship and then job and then comedy club.

00;40;49;05 - 00;41;09;18
Unknown
Okay. So out of the differences right of American European like what was the first couple things that came out to you like since living here in Germany that has been different. I have not driven a car just period like I, I mean, I used to drive. I'm going to go with the miles again.

00;41;09;18 - 00;41;30;23
Unknown
I 100 miles to work. 100 miles from work every single day. What? When I was in West Texas. Wow. That's crazy. So that was, And now I don't. And I never realized how much less stress exists when you're not worrying about traffic because you don't think that it's, like a thing. Yeah, like when you're driving, you're like, okay, I'm driving.

00;41;30;24 - 00;41;46;03
Unknown
It doesn't work. Right? But, you know, you're, you know, you're just like looking at people like, are you going to cut me off? And then you have to find a parking spot. So you never know exactly when you get there. But then, like taking a train, it's now okay. The train says, I'm going to be here at this time.

00;41;46;03 - 00;42;04;24
Unknown
If it's on time, then I will be there at that exact minute right? I won't be there. Like I won't need to be there five minutes early to find a parking spot and walk there. So simple. Yeah, but it's small things like that. Oh, and in Texas, that's a driving as, like, laid state. You got to drive everywhere.

00;42;05;01 - 00;42;24;17
Unknown
Yeah. Can even go across the highway. You got to drive, take a U-turn like a jug handle. And then just the gold on the other side. Oh, I started walking to, so there's a grocery store that was about a ten minute walk. And there was, there's an Outback Steakhouse because they all they've all chain restaurants, there's nothing like local or isn't that.

00;42;24;19 - 00;42;38;27
Unknown
And that was about a five minute walk. And what was hilarious is occasionally I would walk to the grocery store not be the only one because it's like a two minute, three minute drive. Right. But then you got to go find a place to park. You got to deal with traffic, and there's tons of traffic in Midland, right?

00;42;39;02 - 00;43;02;29
Unknown
Or I can just do the ten minute walk, get outside. You know, that's. So I did that, and like, my, like, my brother was there as well. And his wife and then some coworkers. Well, and they would there was like, why would you ever walk so crazy? But the reason I bring that Outback Steakhouse is because to get an order for Outback Steakhouse, you had to tell them the make and model of your car so they can bring it out to your car.

00;43;03;02 - 00;43;23;08
Unknown
And I would walk there and I'll say, I would have to show them, like my confirmation. I was like, I ordered this, already paid for it. I live like five minutes away. Like I walked here and start looking at you like, are you homeless, am I not? I promise you, I'm not homeless. I'm wearing a really nice Hawaiian shirt right now.

00;43;23;10 - 00;43;46;10
Unknown
Oh, shit. That's crazy. Wow. Yeah. The whole driving, versus walking culture and, in America, it's like crazy because, I mean, in most places in most countries in Europe or so, I there still feels like it's mostly walkable. Yeah, but a lot of places, Berlin is the least walkable city I would say that I've been to in Europe, really.

00;43;46;16 - 00;44;09;25
Unknown
Maybe London as well, but like, Paris is more walkable. It's huge as well. Paris's walkable. Everywhere in Germany have been has been walkable, basically. Wow. And here it's I mean, I still don't like I've thought about getting my driver's license kind of moved over to Germany as well. And I haven't done it, and I every single time, I just don't because it's like, it's like, you can just go without it.

00;44;09;27 - 00;44;24;27
Unknown
Yeah. It's just like there's there's a few like maybe a couple times a year where I'm like, well, you know, doing the five minute drive would be easier than the 15 minute train right now. The true. But do I really care? You like to, you know, read a book or something? I can get an Uber as well.

00;44;24;27 - 00;44;42;05
Unknown
It's one of those things where it's like, you know, when something breaks and I need to get, like, a new fridge or something like that. Yeah, yeah, that would be easy just to rent the van and then do that. Right. That's about the only time. Yeah. But other nights, like, walking everywhere is like better. They got the bikes, even bike.

00;44;42;08 - 00;44;58;08
Unknown
You know, the bike lanes aren't the best. And in most you know, obviously you got Netherlands, you got the places that are pretty good. But, you know, here it's definitely a lot walkable. Do you, do you ride a bike? I do okay, yeah. I used to ride my bike in the streets of New York City and,

00;44;58;10 - 00;45;23;06
Unknown
Yeah, the getting hit. I haven't got hit, luckily, but, getting hit has happened to a lot of friends. How was that? How was that? What? Ride in New York City? It's crazy. It's like now thinking back and, like, riding my bike here, like, not on my bike, but like, renting a bike here. It's like crazy, like, because the bike lanes are always incomplete, or people just take space or you have people now on those bikes that are like, like, electric, bikes or whatever.

00;45;23;10 - 00;45;41;27
Unknown
They go very fast and like, so they're cutthroat and taking space. Sometimes people just like, you know, the cars just veer right into the bike lane. So you got to like, you know, be actually active. They do that many people know, like I hit multiple times in New York City, like, yeah, this people I know, they even died like, riding a bike.

00;45;41;28 - 00;46;03;06
Unknown
Yeah. It's like it's crazy. It's crazy. And I, I, you know, I still, need to wear a helmet. But no one does over here. I wrote I rode a bike in Leipzig for about six months. And when I moved to Berlin, I thought the Berlin was too crazy, so I stopped riding a bike. It,

00;46;03;09 - 00;46;19;17
Unknown
And you're saying that, you know, Berlin's fine and New York is crazy, so I cannot imagine for a second ever thinking about riding a bike in New York. Oh, my gosh, new York is crazy. Got potholes sometime right in the middle of the, you know, the bike lanes you got to, like watch out. There's other people constantly trying to go fast.

00;46;19;17 - 00;46;42;08
Unknown
And it's like, you know, car is it. It's like now looking back I was like, oh, it's been some times where I almost got like made my legs clipped because like, a, garbage truck is like backing up and like the iron bars about to hit my knee. But just this guy right in, you know, the, you know, the thing the the trains on the not not like the S-Bahn or anything like that, but the, the trams, the trams on the street.

00;46;42;13 - 00;47;01;01
Unknown
So Leipzig has those. They don't because it's not a big enough city for the I mean there's like a couple S-Bahn stations basically. Right. But it's basically all the trams. Oh, shit. The first time I rode a bike to class, I had to do an uphill start, which I had not done in like since I was like 15 years old.

00;47;01;01 - 00;47;20;11
Unknown
Whoa. And I almost got hit by one of those. It had to stop and it rang the bell and got mad at me and I was like, oh yeah, those big things that you see from a mile away. I almost got hit by one of those. Yeah. Oh yeah. So yeah. Okay. So it can get dangerous out there too, but it's dangerous if you haven't written a bike in 15 years.

00;47;20;13 - 00;47;36;15
Unknown
I mean. True, yeah. When you start riding after a while, you start getting used to it. So I started getting better at it. And then, when I moved to Berlin, I was like, I'm not. I'm not taking that risk. It's like, I'm good. I'm just going to walk. I'm just going to have a club here, just go walking to or from and then that's it.

00;47;36;15 - 00;47;52;11
Unknown
Yeah, it would be quicker for me. I think it would actually be quicker if I rode a bike here and back by like five minutes. But on the train I can read the news, I can text people. There you go. Do stuff like you can do your business. That sounds people do their business on the train. That's a bad thing.

00;47;52;14 - 00;48;19;05
Unknown
Oh, haha yeah yeah, yeah. Some people have LLC, some people have other, personal business they attend to publicly. Yes. There was I read a, I read an internet post, I think this was, two days ago. I do in the question was, hey, people in Berlin. So what's what's the procedure? When someone gets on the train, it starts smoking crack.

00;48;19;08 - 00;48;37;29
Unknown
What's the person? Somebody asked the procedure. He was like, what do you do? Because he was like, it was me. And like three other people, we were all just kind of shocked at someone just like smoking crack out of a pipe. I've never even seen crack. I have no idea what crack looks like. And so but it was just that, and I was just I was like, well, I know what I would do.

00;48;37;29 - 00;48;52;13
Unknown
I would, I would shut up and I would try to move to the other side of the train and not it's not my problem. That is. So what do I do? You don't do nothing. That's the thing. You don't do nothing like the police are going to come. It's like, no, they're not. Now what's this crack we saw going about?

00;48;52;13 - 00;49;13;09
Unknown
You know that that's what do you do? We see crack. That's hilarious. As a person who lived in a neighborhood, that crack that is, funny. Yeah. You look away and you just go about your business. You don't stare. Yeah. Generally. Yeah. That just whatever happens with, like, things that you disapprove of on the train is you just look the other way.

00;49;13;10 - 00;49;26;15
Unknown
Yeah. And say, I am on this train for two more minutes. There you go. You'll be fine. Yeah. Hold your breath for our interval so you don't inhale all the smoke. You know, you open the window. You can do that. Oh, right. Opening a window that is, yeah. There's like choices here. Life where? It's up right there for you.

00;49;26;16 - 00;49;40;27
Unknown
I don't need to. Yeah, because sometimes just stuff happens, like, oh, why is it. Where's the air conditioning on one. No, there's no air conditioning here. That's actually another thing that's, Yeah. We have well, to be fair, we have two air conditioners in this room. One of them is broken, and one of them is very loud.

00;49;41;00 - 00;50;02;19
Unknown
Oh, okay. And the broken one? I tried to give it back, and they said, no, we're just not going to charge you for it. Oh, okay. It's going to charge you. But they just say, hey, keep it. Yeah. It was one of those things where. Yeah, it just it was, it just stopped blowing cold air. Wow. And like, I tried to get it like I was like, okay, I'll send it back and get a refund.

00;50;02;21 - 00;50;17;23
Unknown
And then they were like, oh no, it's too much. Just keep it. Oh sure. So you just have okay, it was Amazon eBay. It wasn't like oh is Amazon okay? I thought Amazon was like no you buy you buy stuff from us. It's it's fine. Yeah. It's like it's just it's cool. Just use as a stand you know.

00;50;17;25 - 00;50;35;19
Unknown
Well yeah, it's it's holding a iPad case now. It ain't from, How many years old is that iPad that. That's a five year old iPad case, so. Wow. Okay, well, hopefully the iPad is still working. I mean, it was yesterday. Do you go. Oh, that's the one you use for the, thing. We have two of them that we need.

00;50;35;19 - 00;50;53;15
Unknown
Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah. So is it still is in working condition and no one we we got robbed one time, so, so happy. Yeah, that was fun. And and then we had to get, like, an extra security on all the doors and shit like that afterwards, and, the, they didn't take the iPad. Wow.

00;50;53;15 - 00;51;09;21
Unknown
What did it say? Give me just money. Okay? We don't keep a lot of money here, so it wasn't that bad. Oh, but the, the thing I think is funny is those iPads are so old, and they're, like, the cheapest ones you can get that if they like, I. If we sold them, it'll be like, 50 bucks apiece.

00;51;09;23 - 00;51;34;06
Unknown
Yeah. So it's not even worth like, it's not one of those ones that you want to steal. Right. And iPad is not really a thing of theft. Really? Like an iPhone, maybe, but like an iPad, it's like. I mean, you know. Yeah, I don't even like I because you can track them in, like, I guess to steal an iPhone, you would be to sell and then you have to turn it off before like it gets tracked or something.

00;51;34;06 - 00;51;50;11
Unknown
Right. So that works. Yeah. You got a so far. So what I got to do in in London to where they like snatch phones, but then they send it, out to China and then China has like, there's this place where they, like, just disassemble and and remake the whole entire phone, so it just dissemble different parts. You know, you sell a decent amount of phones, you can actually get like some good money.

00;51;50;17 - 00;52;03;01
Unknown
Well, it's kind of ironic that because China, that's where those phones are made. Right. But so then they kind of just, you know, it's like a cycle. Yeah. It it's like, all right, we sell it to you, we sell it to you, then we steal it from you, we send it back to where it was originally made, and then we sell it to you again.

00;52;03;05 - 00;52;21;26
Unknown
There you go. That's how they do it. You know, Apple is very smart. You know, shout out to Apple. You guys are doing good. You know, please invest in this podcast. We need we need sponsorship money. Yeah. We do need sponsorship money. Yeah. Apple. What do you want to say? A fruit and mean a technology device?

00;52;21;28 - 00;52;39;16
Unknown
Right. Yeah. He made a joke. I didn't, please don't support me. But, All right, two more things I want to ask you. Right. Okay. So one is that, it would be crazy for me to do this without asking you about gun culture and you being in Texas. I'm the only person in my family that does not own multiple guns.

00;52;39;19 - 00;53;00;24
Unknown
Okay? My brother sells guns for fun. Wow. Look at, I have grown up shooting guns pretty much my entire life. I've been hunting, I've killed my own dinner and prepared my own dinner. Wow. I actually do think this is. This might be one of the more controversial things I'd say. I'm not a vegetarian or vegetarian.

00;53;00;24 - 00;53;25;18
Unknown
No. It wouldn't. I do think that if you are going to be a non-vegetarian, you should understand that you're eating meat. You're eating an animal. I agree, so I do think that. Yeah. So that's one of the things, I think if I was squeamish about hunting, then I should give up meat. I agree, I don't enjoy it but that doesn't mean like it's like oh no this is just a reality of life and you appreciate it more.

00;53;25;18 - 00;53;46;22
Unknown
I mean because you know, I mean it's like you know, it's life right. Yeah. And then you see what's happening to you now, like you know. Yeah. No, I agree with that. And yeah. But I mean, I don't I, I it's, I've been away from guns for long enough now yet again like shooting guns. I always enjoy doing it, especially when I was in West Texas.

00;53;46;25 - 00;54;06;06
Unknown
I, I think it was three years ago, I was in Fort Worth with my family and they're bringing out a bunch of guns just to look at and I was uncomfortable then for the first time around, guns in my entire life. Wow. Because we weren't shooting them. We were in just a house in Texas. Oh, so set out in a.

00;54;06;06 - 00;54;23;07
Unknown
Yeah. And I mean, there's bullets there. Like nothing good can come from it. Yeah. All you're doing is looking at a gun with a bullet maybe close by. And I'm like, I'm drinking and I've been drinking for a couple hours, or, like, all that's going to happen is we're going to look at this thing, which I don't really care to look at.

00;54;23;09 - 00;54;42;24
Unknown
And if everything goes great, nothing happens. Anything below that. Yeah, is bad. It's terrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gun culture. Right. I went, to one of my friend's house in Atlanta where I walked in and he just had like, a he just had, like, a pistol on a counter, just like, oh, I mean, come on, you want any water?

00;54;42;24 - 00;55;02;25
Unknown
I'm like, bro, you have, you have a pistol and exodus the faucet like, no, I don't you know, it was laying there kind of like, oh yeah, man, I forgot to clean up. It was like, bro, you forgot to put safety first. What are you doing? Yeah, that's. I mean, that's one of the things when you, when you're around stuff more and more often, you just get comfortable with it.

00;55;02;28 - 00;55;22;04
Unknown
And that's one of those things where yet again, it just it's, you know, when you're, when you're in that environment, you don't think about it. And then when you leave that environment, you go back to it. You're like, you know. Yeah. It's like, okay, cool. Like, yeah, there's a gun on the counter. Like that's normal if you just deal with guns every single day.

00;55;22;04 - 00;55;50;19
Unknown
Right. And for me, and I haven't seen a gun outside of Texas and like, I've seen guns once in the last eight years. And I'm just like oh yeah I'm happy without them. I don't need them. All right. Like what, what, what, what's the point. Right. It's a, it's it's it's a culture in itself, but I doubt that people will ever want to get rid of their guns in America, especially Texas.

00;55;50;19 - 00;56;08;21
Unknown
I think it needs to be like a whole, like, sweeping thing, because the one thing I will say, and it's something I laugh at myself, is that if I go to Georgia, I basically feel, I want to say naked. I feel like just vulnerable because I'm the only one who doesn't have a gun and everyone does. So then it's almost like this weird thing.

00;56;08;21 - 00;56;25;20
Unknown
We're kind of like, all right, Let me make sure I don't look at nobody, you know? And again, I wouldn't do anything if I had one. It just more of the fact that, you know, mostly everyone around you has it except for you. So you kind of like, oh, all right, I'm in this bar, and I know everyone in here probably has something.

00;56;25;20 - 00;56;45;15
Unknown
Although this is weird. I've felt that way going to the U.S last couple times, but it's also mainly because there's such a divide politics wise, that there's so much animosity there that it's like, okay, I don't want to cause any problems, but then once I get in that, once I've gotten in that environment, it's gone away. So it's like, it's like right over here.

00;56;45;15 - 00;57;06;05
Unknown
It's like, oh, I'm going to the U.S, there's a ton of guns. You see the news, things like that. Then once you're in the situation, you're like, at least for me, I was like, oh, did you get used to it quickly? Yeah. Or so this time. You just see that I how lax people are. When I was doing a comedy show in Georgia and then, you know, as I'm going in my book bag, I'm thinking like, they want to check in my book bag because I might have gone to this place I want to like I was opening my book better than I know.

00;57;06;05 - 00;57;22;22
Unknown
You can go in on my art. If they didn't check my bag, that means check. Nobody here. That means everyone here is strapped. This is unnerving. And I'm doing a comedy show. What if I offend somebody? What the hell? And I did, and somebody actually came on stage, some old drunk a white is like, hey, what are you doing here with the comedy?

00;57;22;22 - 00;57;42;08
Unknown
I'm like, I can't handle this dude the way I do. So in regular comedy, this dude probably has a gun. So I'm like, hey, sir, this is you. Hello. Yeah, we're doing all the comedy show here. Do you know what comedy is? I don't know. What's your favorite drink, Jack Daniels. Hey, bartender, can you give him a Jack Daniels for, please?

00;57;42;08 - 00;58;03;10
Unknown
For, for for. Yeah, it's all me. Yeah. You know, because I have nothing on me. Literally. I only have money for you to get the Jack Daniels. Get it? It's just a drug deal. Hey, what are you guys doing here? It's like, bro, we we good, man. I ain't got. I got an empty bookbag. All right? You I come in BS.

00;58;03;12 - 00;58;23;21
Unknown
Yeah, because I'm going to try to do comedy in Texas for the first time ever. Well, this this this this trip. And, so I'm, I'm literally coming up with jokes that are not offensive, that like I could say in front of my family, which, like, without any problems. Yeah, that are funny enough to where they won't think that people in Berlin don't know how to do comedy.

00;58;23;23 - 00;58;48;16
Unknown
Like, that's it. It's like, okay, is this funny enough? It's like, not, is this my best joke? Is this funny enough? Cool. I don't know, for you not to get shot. That's probably the most important. Yeah. Just make sure you got that squared away person. I'm talking about my hair plugs. I'm talking about training for a marathon, and I'm talking about how scared I was in Hamburg doing the marathon where there was 10,000 mainly white people marching towards the start line.

00;58;48;16 - 00;59;05;21
Unknown
And I was like, This is Germany, and there's 10,000 white people marching right now. This is scary. Smiling. No, nothing. I have music in the background. Like then some. Hooray! Whoa! Marching in music. This is not the environment I want to be in. People. I don't even care if you're playing guitar music as you guys are marching.

00;59;05;21 - 00;59;27;19
Unknown
It's still music. Everyone's cheering everyone on. I'm like, dude, no, you cannot cheer 10,000 marching Germans. You can. Germany. Wow. Still got the past following them. You just marching? We can't applaud. We just gotta look past and be like, Well, I'm going to be in complete silence. Someone get you riled up? Let's keep making fun of countries that are not America.

00;59;27;19 - 00;59;48;11
Unknown
In America, it's pretty universally liked. So, Okay. So good. I don't think I'll get shot for that one. You'll be fine. Yeah. You be good. Yeah. You behave. You ha! I think you'll be fine. You just play through the stereotypes, you know? That's it. If you find yourself on the ropes, just bring the stereotypes out. Put you right back in the middle of the ring.

00;59;48;11 - 01;00;12;15
Unknown
Yes. Okay, so one last question I have to ask you. Right. I usually ask people this in a podcast that you've been through many different cultures, you know, starting from Texas and using Georgia and in Germany and then now in Berlin as a business owner of a comedy club, the wall comedy, so many different things you've been through in your life and what would be, a number one advice you would give to your younger self?

01;00;12;17 - 01;00;45;04
Unknown
I would actually my life has changed yet again. The person I was before I'd started doing comedy, before the ran the comedy club in general. It's pretty night and day. I'm much just, I would say start doing comedy earlier. That's it. Oh, okay. Get used to being on a stage in an uncomfortable situation where you have nothing other than just yourself to entertain people being put in that situation is made so many other things, so much more comfortable.

01;00;45;06 - 01;01;03;28
Unknown
Like there's, there's a character I do which you might know of named Foster Rito, where I pretend to be Italian. Yeah. I don't know anything about Italy just at all. Right? I don't really do an accent. I say things like, I'm from Roma Italia, and that's as close as I get. And the first few times I did that, I had like, no, nothing written.

01;01;03;28 - 01;01;24;07
Unknown
It was all improv. It was just whatever. And since being in that situation, I can go into 90% of any other situations just period just yet. I mean, there's problems I have to deal with maybe every month or two where it's just like, like one of the doors broke one night. Wow. And I never fixed a door before.

01;01;24;10 - 01;01;41;29
Unknown
Yeah. So it's such a new situation that, like, I have never dealt with before. I don't know if I can figure it out or not, but that's just a new thing to do. But like going on stage and just getting used to doing comedy has made me so much more comfortable just doing things that I've never done before.

01;01;42;01 - 01;01;59;05
Unknown
Wow. So that's that's the only I. I do wake up sometimes thinking, man, I wish I started doing this earlier because I just want to see where my life would be. That is so interesting. I never really thought about that. And yeah, comedy really, you know, allows you to be comfortable with the unknown. Yeah, really soft things as it comes to you.

01;01;59;09 - 01;02;12;26
Unknown
You know. Yeah. So because I mean, there's crowd work, you have to do what there's hecklers you have to deal with, like, yet again, like the drunk white person who's like, does this person have a gun? And then you have to deal with that. And it's just like in that moment and you're in front of, like, a group of other people, right?

01;02;12;28 - 01;02;31;15
Unknown
And you're still trying to make it entertaining. So even if you don't do well, like even if you bomb, it's fine because you realize, oh, so this is what happens. So the fear of like a lot of interaction just goes down because you've been through something worse already. This is true. Okay. That's a good yeah that's a good advice right.

01;02;31;15 - 01;02;48;03
Unknown
Did it start comedy early because yeah, it definitely buffers you from all the other weird stuff that happens in regular life, because the things that happen in comedy are not regular. The irregular, at at best. Now, even if you don't like, do it regularly, even if you just do it like a few times just to see what it's like.

01;02;48;06 - 01;03;14;05
Unknown
It's like, you know, getting over your fear of public speaking by speaking in public, like giving speeches. It's similar to that because, I mean, I haven't done comedy in like three weeks. I was supposed to do one on Tuesday but the show got canceled. All right. But I don't know the real show. Oh right. Oh okay. But yeah, I mean but no, that's a good that's a good point you make there about doing comedy early and that, you know, how that really impacts you on life.

01;03;14;08 - 01;03;29;12
Unknown
And also, one thing I would like to say too, is that, what to say? Thank you very much, because you actually were one of, one of the few people or many people actually, who helped me actually move here to Berlin. You wrote me a letter of no intent, of a recommendation or intent, I believe was intent.

01;03;29;12 - 01;03;51;28
Unknown
Intent? Yes. So that really helped out a lot at the was, you know, symbol there and everything. And then we talked minutes before we started about you hosting the show. And two weeks from today. Yes. So that is on the, 20th of December 20. All comedy club. Yes it is. This is true. So, yes. I mean, if you guys want to come check me out, I'm going to be hosting here.

01;03;52;00 - 01;04;08;06
Unknown
You know, so I perform here as well. And, you know, hopefully, things continue forward with that. Yeah. But and the only thing the last, pat on the back, I'll give myself is that it was in German, I believe is the letter that I. Yes. And it really worked out. So yes. I mean, look at it.

01;04;08;06 - 01;04;28;18
Unknown
Look at how things all work out. You know, you you went to follow your dreams to make, Mexico. I mean, my extremely intelligent company. Hey, hey, here in Germany. And help me, come here and and be, very intelligent, podcaster slash standup comedian. That's one of those things that every single time I say it, I'm like, I really hope that I say it in the right way.

01;04;28;25 - 01;04;46;17
Unknown
Yeah, because that can be taken so negatively. I ain't gonna lie. When I saw that, I'm like, okay, I'm more American as I was like, right, you know, I see you, I see you, yeah. You flexing. I call my extremely intelligent. Okay. You thought it was just me being like, egotistical. Yes. And I was like, all right, big flex, I get it.

01;04;46;17 - 01;05;09;09
Unknown
I come from that culture flexing. I was like, yeah, I am faster trying to be timid over here. He's like, not extremely intelligent. No. You know, you're talking to I'm like, I know. I'm like, he's like, no, I just like, I just, I like Mexican food, I do. I actually made Mexican food yesterday for lunch. It was quite good on brand.

01;05;09;11 - 01;05;34;16
Unknown
There you go. The wall, the border, the Texas burritos. You know, everything all works out for a reason. Yeah. No, I had to. I had a traditional, Yeah, traditional Mexican food lunch and for dinner, had a traditional German dinner of a dinner. So Turkish dinner. Actually, I might have to get some, dinner after this, either dinner or maybe the place next door to Lebanese, but, there's next door.

01;05;34;17 - 01;05;50;03
Unknown
There's a few, yeah. Shwarma that are pretty good around here. Yeah, I really just want next door, but apparently there's some better ones. I saw that, Yeah, I don't know, I they were good for a while. And during Covid, but I think they're under new management. I've heard good things. Yeah. Now is not like a lie.

01;05;50;03 - 01;06;05;25
Unknown
It's good. It's like. Yeah. So I'm at the time. Yeah. Every time I'm wrong, I gotta go. But all right man, thank you very much for doing this. Man. You know have been dope. Glad I was able to talk to you. It was fun. This one. Yeah. Had a good time. So it was a good time. And guys, thank you for listening and are watching to the Third Culture Talk podcast.

01;06;05;25 - 01;06;10;24
Unknown
I'm your boy. This is Foster Yow. And I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace.