Sgt. Vegan: Bravo

At ease, soldier! The Tofu Trio is back to continue their conversation with Sgt. Vegan, Bill Muir. As the debriefing continues, Sgt. Vegan gives the intel on his three published books and offers a preview of what his fourth book might look like. Jon asks the sergeant if he has an ancestral claim to Muir Woods before Joey leads the conversation into a mosh pit of heavy metal, punk, and hip hop. Vanessa eventually steers the group back to veganism, which leads the sergeant to reflect on his original dream of owning a vegan restaurant and the pivot that led him to become a registered nurse instead. The episode also covers his possible speaking tour in the northeastern United States, and his brother who shares the vegan mission. Bill wraps things up by sharing why he is so optimistic about the next generation of plant-based advocates. Grab your favorite plant-based snacks and settle in for the conclusion of this thought-provoking discussion.

Learn more about Sgt. Vegan by visiting https://sgtvegan.com. You can also find him on Facebook and Twitter @sgtvegan, Instagram @sgt_vegan, and YouTube @veganroadtrip.

Buy some Vegans Talking Shit merchandise! Visit https://vegans-talking-shit.myshopify.com to buy Vegans Talking Shit t-shirts, hoodies, coffee mugs and more.

Vegans Talking Shit is hosted by Joey Di Girolamo, Jon Missirlian, and Vanessa Silva. Main podcast image artwork by Diego Orellana. Theme song "Flying" by TrackTribe. Visit @veganstalkingshit on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube and @vegans.talking.sh on TikTok. Send questions, comments, and topic ideas to veganstalkingshit@gmail.com, and you may get your email read during the show.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hey everybody, welcome to Vegans Talking Shit. I'm Joey. I'm John.

SPEAKER_04 0:14

And Vanessa.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

And we're gonna continue our conversation with Sergeant Vegan, Bill Muir. And yeah, he has a lot to say, and we have a lot of questions because he has a hell of a story. But uh before we begin, uh I ask all of you to like, subscribe, and you know, send us a review, especially on Apple Podcasts. Yeah, yeah, do your thing. You know what you gotta do. Subscribe, like, ring the bell, whatever. All right.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, wherever you are, like us and comment, please. Yes, please.

SPEAKER_04 0:47

We need to know if you guys like, give you, you know, give some uh ideas for us for next uh effects and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

Exactly. Because how many topics can we do? Give us some ideas, everybody. Yeah, all right. Without further ado, here is Sergeant Vegan. Um, I want to make sure that we talk about your books. Oh, thank you very much. Yeah, because I think it's interesting because as far as I know, you've written three books. Are there more?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Uh let me, I'm gonna grab them because they're literally within arm's reach.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

No, no, that's great. Uh, I just like how you the three books I know of, they each fill a different void. There's you wrote nonfiction, you wrote fiction, and you wrote a children's book.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yes, and not a full plug, but I do have a book that I wrote about my time in Japan because we were speaking about Japan stuff, that it may be my next book because it's it's been done for years, or it might kick around uh for another 10 years. Who knows? I wrote it while I was in Afghanistan between fire emissions, and I was like, let me write write some like uh some stories of being a punk rock idiot in Japan. Um we'll see if that ever makes it to makes it to the light of day. But uh first book, Vegan Strong. I wrote it like an army field manual on how to be vegan. Um yeah, it was fun writing. I think I originally wrote it as kind of like the vegan guide to the apocalypse. And I don't know, I think especially in these uh I wouldn't call them super dark times, but they're not no, they're super dark, no, but they're not super undark, that's for sure. Um, especially when when we don't know what's gonna happen with Impossible, will it will it be not a vegan company anymore? What's gonna happen with beyond? You know, are these other companies go away? Stuff like this. It talks about how to cook tofu and how to make satin. I feel like every vegan should know that, especially if you get you know start to get too attached to being able to have all these like you know, easy, viable vegan alternatives, you know, sometimes that's you know, that's gonna not always be around for you. And uh, I mean, luckily, there's companies throughout the world that have their alternatives that have been thriving for years. I mean, just check out if you ever want to see real amazing stuff. Taiwan has a a thriving vegan faux meat uh market. Uh absolutely amazing. I also wrote Adventures of Sergeant Piggy for kids.

SPEAKER_04 3:34

Oh, that's one I I didn't see before. That's so cute.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

I was like, how do I follow up my how to be vegan book? I'm like, do I write another book about uh about vegan and health stuff? I thought uh I thought that would be boring if I wrote more of the same. So instead I wrote a vegan uh picture book.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

Wow, it's a pretty, pretty one. Look at that.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Thank you. Yeah, my shout out to Hayden Fo Fowler for illustrating it. And basically, my idea behind this was I want to have something that has a low-key vegan message and make it for families who have a kid, you know, not any of this like really sad, like life sucks, and you know, abusing animals sucks. For if you're a little kid, you shouldn't have to be like scared into you know thinking the world is full of darkness because the world has a lot of amazing things to it, and I more celebrate them. And there obviously is some low-key vegan messaging in it, but I I keep it low-key. And then lastly, uh Dead Meat, which is love the title. Thank you. Vegan science fiction. Uh, it's not for everyone, it's kind of like like while Adventures of Sergeant Piggy celebrates light and happiness and all the great possibilities of the world. Uh, Dead Meat is meant to not be that. So I would I've actually recommended some people have uh met me at a at Veg Fest and they've showed interest, they're like, Well, that's kind of cool that there's like a novel about being vegan, and I'm like, yeah, like what you know, which kind of like when you when you ask like what's your spice tolerance, I'm like, I'm like, how are you with like violent movies and and stuff? And if they're like in the G category, I'm like, this is not for you, bro.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Like Nessa's gonna buy the children's book, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:43

I will.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

She will not buy that book. Julie will buy that book.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

See, I I like the terrifier movies, you know, like I'm into horror.

SPEAKER_04 5:51

And how about you, John? You want to learn how to do Satan?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

No, I'll buy that book too.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, this would be like the best, the best uh critique I got from it is one of my buddies uh helped me proofread it, read it, and he read through the whole thing, and he said, and like not joking, he said, your book gave me nightmares. And I was like, That I said, that is the highest compliment, and that's what I was going for. Like, I was I was trying to create a nightmary situation that mimics the horror, the absolute horror and pain that animals go through with uh animal agriculture. And I feel like I did that with dead meat.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

But when is it set? What what year is it set in?

SPEAKER_00 6:45

It's set in 2050. Uh, I not to give too much away, the setting is I wrote it during COVID. In a I was being working in healthcare during COVID was, as you would guess, not a super fun uh uh snuggly time.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

Once again, thank you for your service. I can't stop saying thank you for your service.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

So I had, you know, really my while most some other people that I knew that weren't in healthcare were like, oh, this sucks. I just have to sit at home and like I work from home. I'm like, man, I'm in the hospital or I'm by myself. Like that both are very ick. So I was like, how do I how do I use this time to my advantage? Uh and I was like, you know what? I've been kicking around this idea for a book ever since I did when I after I wrote Vegan Strong, I I I started to think about two books. One I kind of came up with The Sergeant Piggy, and I wrote it, I think I scribbled it while I was on a train somewhere. And then uh Dead Meat. I often while I'm listening to music and walking, I'll start to like think of like scenes, and I came up with a scene of someone trying to rescue humans from a slaughterhouse in some scenario where they're they're breeding humans to to eat, which is basically dead meat. And I came up with this whole like action sequence of like what would it be like if you're in an action movie but that's not your background, and now you have to shoot at people, but you barely know how to use a gun, nor do you want to shoot at anyone, and that's that's where I got that from, and that that became dead meat. And I I I have to credit uh the band Quicksand because I was listening to Quicksand while I was kind of going through that. I was like, it'd be kind of fun if we had this, and you know, the the the hero is kind of behind like something's behind some cover, but instead of it being like some Bruce Willis, like confident, cool, collected, it's like a real human being like us, where you're about to do some shit and you you're like, oh my god, like your heart's racing, and that. So yeah, uh Dead Meat's amazing, it's not for everyone, though.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

So yeah, well, not everyone can be John Wick.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

Um, who is going to love it, Joey?

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:09

Mary.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

Yeah, we have a vegan friend, long time vegan friend of the channel. And listener.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

She's a listener of our podcast.

SPEAKER_04 9:17

She's really the number one. Yeah, every single episode.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Yeah, and she she's definitely into horror, so I that sounds like what she will definitely pick up. But also, I want to point out John's t-shirt because this is a shirt you might appreciate. Uh, any fan of horror, really. I don't know if you can see. That's Ash. Is that an Evil Dead?

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yeah, Bruce Campbell. Yeah, I love it. I have uh two Evil Dead tattoos. Uh beautiful. Fun Sergeant Vegan Fact. Um, yes, I have two uh evil dead tattoos.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Uh I don't want to forget this. Where can people find your books? What's the best place to go?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Well, thank you very much for asking. Uh, you can look up any of them on the Great Satan Amazon, if you especially if you Google, you like you cross, you put Dead Meat, comma, Bill Muir, or uh Adventures of Sarge and Piggy, comma uh Bill Muir, or Vegan Strong, comma Bill Muir, or all of them are linked through my Instagram, Sgt underscore Vegan, or you can find me on the internets on sergeantvegan.com. That's sgtvegan.com.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

I I dead meat sounds like it could be a movie one day.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Yeah. I mean, the uh the girlfriend who helped me proofread it has said that she that I did a very good job of making everything so you could see like feel it and kind of see it kind of play out like a movie. As a a fan of early 80s, late 80s John Carpenter movies, there's a lot of clearly and not clearly, I'm hinting toward this or I'm hinting toward that. I really liked the movie uh District 9 and the other movie Elysium, kind of talking about one talking about healthcare, one talking about apartheid. And I thought kind of like making those movies, but making it about animal agriculture, that's basically what dead meat is. Like I I I wanted to beat your head with a baseball bat talking about animal ag and how awful it is. And I I think I achieved my goal. Um, but I you know, I don't know. It would it would definitely take uh I think if it was done as just a if especially if it was done PG, it would be it would definitely take a lot of the pizzazz out of it. Uh I would want the pizzazz left in, which would uh might shock a person or or two.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Yeah, it has to be R-rated.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

You mentioned something about your last name in the very beginning. We actually we might have even been off camera. Uh Muir, is it the same uh the last name? Is it Muir Woods?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Is that you said you're oh thank you for uh knowing that so a great distant relative, John Muir, uh came from Scotland in the late 1800s. He allegedly was well, not allegedly, he was a close friend of Teddy Roosevelt, both of them were outdoorsmen, and I think he helped found Muir Woods, obviously, with a name like that. Yeah, and then a lot of conservationism in America. And uh yeah, I shared the same last name as that guy, uh David Muir, who I think is a very famous uh newscaster, and of course Mike Muir from Suicidal Tendencies.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Who is didn't he also start another band around the same time in the 90s? Uh was it something? Some kind of like it was like an off-to-side project.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Uh it probably might, I know there's probably psycho, but spilled spelled with a C. I can't remember it off the top of my head, and I may have seen them because I've seen Suicidal Tendencies, and I may have seen his side project.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Were you like one of those kids on skateboards listening to suicidal tendencies and wearing vans?

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Probably I could easily be lumped in them with them. As a as a high school kid, I was two years, I put two years into the classic metal scene, so I would have been a jeans jacket mullet dude. And then two years as like skate hair, like you know, hit like misfit style all the way down to my chin. Like I would have to do one of these to talk to you. Then most of most of my 20s, very short hair. Like it looked like I was in the military, and then I was in the military. Yeah. And then I pretty much just have this hair now. This is probably how I'm gonna roll it, roll it out until uh uh I guess until uh God or the creator takes my hair away.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

It's always funny how music is seems so tame, you know, as time goes by. Like in the 80s, the satanic panic, Motley Crew, like, oh, Motley Crue worships the devil, but now we listen to Motley Crue's music and it's so benign, you know. It's like they weren't worshiping the devil, they were trying to get laid, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

So it you they did a good job, too. The word benign, Motley Crue probably did influence a lot of people to drink and maybe do drugs. So, in a way, they might have been like a parent's worst nightmare. But then a lot of the metal that I did listen to was I don't know, Slayer. I I mean I love Slayer, but their lyrics were definitely pro-violence. Uh I know Slayer themselves, if they ever got a hold of this, might disagree with me. And again, I love me some Slayer, but it's not necessarily anti-violence. They they they kind of get the violence and they roll around in it. They're they're stoked about violence and yeah, and everything awful. Uh, and I mean that's amazing, but uh I don't know. I don't have kids, would I would I'd be a little weirded out if my kid was listening to that. I mean, I could see where that pearl clutching of parents comes from. And and yes, we know, you know, now easy e and the stuff that I you know that hip-hop that it was around when I was a kid is not that big of a deal. But at the same time, like they were glorifying gang violence. Um, do I love easy e? Yes. Uh, were they glorifying gang violence? Maybe also, yes. Like NWA, they weren't necessarily not, you know. Uh, but the but we're to go back to what you were saying, satanic panic, yes. Uh they were talking about Iron Maiden being satanic, and neither Iron Maiden nor Ozzy Osborne was worshiping the devil. That their brains were so small that Tipper Gore and the PMRC uh uh talk about dumb and a waste of time.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

I want to touch on uh easy e and nwa because I was actually huge, huge, huge hip-hop fan back then. Like that was all I listened to. Easy E, Ghetto Boys, Public Enemy, NWA.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Oh man, public enemy, it so totally holds up.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Yeah. Uh so while I do agree with what you're saying, as a suburban white kid, it also opened my eyes to what's going on in a world I had no clue anything about. You know, when NWA had the song Fuck the Police, it's just okay, I saw the title, and it's like, why are the police the bad guys? And then, you know, you start to learn more about what's good, what was going on in Compton and and uh South Central LA at the time. So I do think that it's kind of a yin-yang. You know, they do have that, but at the same time, they're it it lets you know about things that someone who was sheltered like me had no clue anything about. Um, and then also it kind of you have the public enemy, you have the the de la Sole. So I don't know about now, I'm not that big into hip-hop other than uh Kendrick Lamar. But yeah, back then it seemed like there were different genres within hip-hop. So you had like the hippies, you had the gangsters, you had the political fellas, you had the party guys. I don't know if it's like that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

I think it's so, I think it's probably even more diverse. Question Have you ever heard of Paris?

SPEAKER_02 18:04

Paris? P-A-R-I-S. Yeah, he was the Black Panther rapper, right? Yeah, I do remember him.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Did you live uh uh The Devil Made Me Do It?

SPEAKER_02 18:12

That that was solo that was his uh his first one, his debut.

SPEAKER_00 18:17

Uh if you like hip hop and you like the stuff we're talking about, check out this is for everybody. Uh The Devil Made Me Do It. I remember as a teenager seeing I was in some record store back when you had to go to record store to buy music and watching a video, and I think I had just bought a Danzig album, probably Danzig One or Two, because that's what I was rolling with at 16.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

Her Black Wings, I think, was on Danzig One.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah, and seeing that, seeing a Paris, and it was just a pure accident, and talk about worlds colliding. I feel like that it was a straight line for me for that to listening to getting into public enemy, and then also uh Range Against the Machine pretty much right after that because that Rage Against the Machine came out in like 90. I saw them in two or three. And wow, talk about life-changing.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Yeah, Rage Against the Machine, I think that was '92.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

I remember the album cover, uh, the dude burning himself, letting himself you can see that car if you uh the car that that he drove himself there, that's in the in that shot. If you kind of like wide, like that shot is very narrow, but if you go like this, he drove his car into an intersection, parked siphon gas off, knelt, and poured the gas on himself. Like, that's a part of that whole story that I think people miss. Like, they just see that guy burning himself to death, and like the courage and craziness that would have taken to drive a lengthy trip, like knowing that at the end of the trip he's gonna like light himself on fire. It just blows your mind to think about. But anyway, if you go to Vietnam.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

What's the backstory of that? I don't know anything. I know rage, I loved Rage, but I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

Oh, yeah, that was a Buddhist monk who to protest the Vietnam War in the I believe it was the late 60s, might have been 70 something like that. I know this because I read the whole thing and I have pictures of me that I took pictures with the car when I was in Saigon. Uh he drove it says like it showed a picture of him burning himself, but also, you know, it was his uh wide shot that when rage against machine took just a picture of him, you don't see his car and get the context that you know it just looked like he showed up and and did that. He did not, he was he drove, I want to say two or three hours to this thing, and just the courage that it would have took to do that. I mean to take that long drive knowing what he's going to do knowing, and I mean I don't I I can't even I can't even imagine what it'd be like to be in their frame of mind, other than he'd be like, Well, I also am bummed about having to pay bills, but now I don't have to worry about them. Like, I it'd be I I can't, it's hard to think of like it just must have been just absolutely nuts to be him. And that I feel like with that story, he had the frame of mind to be motionless going through all that until his his final end. And that's pretty similar. Sorry, good to go down that dark uh path, but but yuck.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Yeah, yeah, that's rough.

SPEAKER_04 21:48

That's okay. Let's go back to the vegan subject.

SPEAKER_00 21:52

Yay, vegan subject.

SPEAKER_04 21:54

And after you went for the second time to the military. What did you do after that?

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Well, thank you very much for asking. So uh and to in 2010, to get back on track with my story, 2010, uh, I had gone to this vegan culinary program, a restaurant, economy is collapsing, and I was like, well, not a good time to start a restaurant. What do I do? So I thought, okay, I'm gonna move to California because at this time I was living back uh back on the East Coast in Philadelphia. I was like, okay, move to California, I'll join the reserves, and maybe I'll start taking some classes and maybe go. I think I was thinking healthcare or law enforcement. And then after taking some classes, I was like, you know, I'm not 100% positive. Then uh at around that time, the and I'm muddling the time frame, but not totally, the Haiti earthquake happened, and I ended up through a vegan restaurant of all things. I ended up volunteering in Haiti for two weeks with an organization called um just for this one or just this one. I think it's for this one, which would the idea was you can't do everything, but you could help just one person. That that's at least better than nothing. And they were this organization was looking for a medical asset to bring to a medical mission in Haiti. And I remember volunteering and saying, like, well, like I, you know, I haven't been a medic for like two years. Yeah, at the well, no, at this point it would have been four years because I got out in 2006. This was 2010. I was like, but I you know, still have active certification, and you know, I wasn't an RN. I think they were looking for at least an RN or a doctor, but nobody else signed up, and they were like, Well, fuck it, we'll take you. And get in the you know, be able to hands-on, help people, you know, wrap wounds again, you know, gives do some IVs. I I think I took stitches out of some guy, some builder had fallen on rebarb and gotten stitches in his armpit of all places, and they're like, we need someone to cut out the stitches. I'm like, I'm like, bro, I haven't literally done this in four years, and then it was all just like someone had taught me how to do it. Uh they're I'm like, shouldn't someone else with certification or like letters after the name do it? They're like, you do it or nobody does it, and this guy won't. I mean, how is he gonna cut stitches that are like, all right, so I, you know, probably didn't have any anesthetic. I cut stitches out of this guy's arm, uh, which I remember it being gnarly for both of us because probably painful for him. And I was like, obviously, I didn't want to hurt this guy. So going through that whole experience made me think, you know, like, you know what? For better or worse, even though I wanted to start a vegan restaurant, this is not the right time for it, and maybe I'm not called for that, but I do seem to be one of those people that runs toward danger. So maybe I should be in that kind of situation where I can help people. And I started, I went back in the military, I got uh recertification to be a medic, and then I then it kind of one thing led to another. I started taking prereqs to become a uh NRN, and then I went to uh nursing school in Drexel in Philadelphia, and back through the VA. And I'm not sad at all that that was my trajectory. I I would have liked to have started started a vegan spot. Um, but this has been, I feel like I've been blessed to be able to help people. And it's cool to be an RN working with vets as a vet because I often feel like as great as some of my coworkers are, you know, it takes like some extra dedication to work with patients who are difficult and who are going through stuff and are sometimes, I mean, let's face it, assholes. But because I can understand, because I I know as a vet myself that I'm you know, we're all like five mistakes away from being homeless and on drugs ourselves. So I don't think of myself as anything better or different than somebody who's you know homeless on drugs, they might smell, then they look all fucked up. But you know, fact of the matter is they're a veteran who you know volunteered to fight for his country or uh her country, or they were drafted, so it's not even their fault that they ended up coming through this whole situation. So I don't know. I feel blessed to be able to do that. And as a vegan who wants to change the world, it kind of like it's just another facet of that. Um, and if we can't have compassion for our fellow humans, I mean it's hard to, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Yeah, I hear I hear you, bro. And I don't know, I mean, I think you're doing a great job as far as you know, spreading the word, you're doing things that a lot of people I think would kind of take for granted. Like the fact that you are, like I said earlier, the antithesis of what many people would picture to be a vegan, yet you're out there, you're on social media, you're doing this, you're doing that, you wrote books. Um, you're doing a lot. Like you could have opened a vegan restaurant, sure, but I think with what you're doing now, you're actually actually reaching out to more people. Yeah, it's somewhat ironic. And at the same time, you can still open a vegan restaurant, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Well, let's let's hope that happens. The last thing I want to plug is I'm possibly doing a northeast vegan speaking tour in September, possibly in New England. I haven't I've done most of the East Coast, but I haven't done New England, so possibly uh like New York to Maine area, possibly.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Um this is would be on your website, the the tour data.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

I would I'm gonna probably have updates that would be available through the website, but I'll probably do Instagram first. Um I haven't I I've only talked to two places in two of the five or six states that I'd be speaking, so it it nothing is confirmed yet, but it would potentially be around September. Hopefully, uh our soiree into war with Iran is way over, and gas prices are normal, both for our pocketbooks and for the uh the destruction for no good goddamn reason that's going on right now. Uh yeah, both selfishly and unselfishly, I think we should not be doing that dumb shit.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Right, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

But anyway, uh it would be a major bummer if gas is like ten dollars a gallon when I'm trying to do that. Both for I don't like uh children dying for no reason, and I also don't like people having to pay for yeah, anyway. Uh that's a possible thing on the horizon. Uh so I'll be I'll be putting more about that when I know it. Uh because right now it's in early stages, and I'm I'm just uh kind of looking forward to my first target, which is um next month speaking at the American Vegan Society's uh something or other gala. Where would that be? In Jersey, and I believe some people say Joycey, but it's it's it's Jersey.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

All right, Tony Soprano. Hey, forget about it. All right, so John, Vanessa, do you guys have any uh last things you'd like to comment on or ask?

SPEAKER_04 30:12

No, I'm not even asking my questions.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Yeah, one thing I think we forgot to ask you is um You guys hit me. Wait, you grew up in the Bay Area or LA? Negative.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Uh I am originally from Delaware County, also known as Delco. It basically Philadelphia suburbs. Uh have you guys watched the mayor, the show Mayor of East Town from I've seen an episode or two, yes. That is a fictional exactly where I grew up. The other thing, the other the a movie that they filmed literally in my backyard was Silverlining Playbook. Have you ever seen that? Oh, great movie, yeah. So the movie theater that they're in front of and when dudes uh having a having an having like a panic attack or something like that. I saw aliens there as a kid. That and I have so many side stories about that because that's 10 minutes away walking from where I grew up.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

And the running path that they're kind of running, it was the Memorial Day race that I used to run as a kid. And obviously, the uh you know them going down to see the Eagles. That was a part of it, though, when as a kid there would have come in the vet and not the link. Um yeah. Uh I you won't really hear it in my accent, um, because while I am from Delaware County, I I don't really have the accent, which sounds kind of different from South Philly, which that kind of has a rocky kind of you're like, hey yo, which I don't I didn't pick up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Um well it sounds like you've lived in a number of places too.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yeah, like having lived in Asia for seven years, and then most of the expats that I would have been around would not necessarily be from where I'm from. They might be from Britain or they might be from Australia. So my vocabulary was filled with words that like didn't shouldn't have been in there. Like I might have said bollocks, I might have said like mate, like not being funny, but like if I most there was times where most of the people that I I knew were Australian, so I might have said like mate, like not being funny, yeah. Uh or like like I know I I would say bollocks sometimes and it not be like I'm trying to be you know spoof on money python. Really, that's what people would say. So, you know.

SPEAKER_04 32:54

So I have a I have one last question, I promise.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Give it to me.

SPEAKER_04 33:00

How it is a be a vegan in LA. How much do you like leaving LA being a vegan?

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Uh being in LA is amazing for many, many reasons. The weather at 10 out of 10, uh as the kids would say, 10 out of 10, no notes. Um the restaurants, uh, amazing as well. I unlike the 90s, where I would have I might have considered murdering someone for the options that are available to me now. Now, as a as a like health conscious vegan who wants to kind of have abs, uh I have to like pump the brakes. Like literally, besties uh near which is near me, and and shout out to besties vegan, they're amazing. They have vegan saucer, and if I want uh vegan donuts, I can go to voodoo donuts, which is open like 24 hours.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

Oh, we just opened a voodoo donuts here finally in Miami.

SPEAKER_04 34:02

I have to drive one hour to get one.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

And thank God it's an hour away. Could you imagine the damage if you could eat a donut every day? Like, I have to protect me from me, like like whereas back in the day, you know, that wouldn't have been available. And like when when people talk about Whole Foods plant-based and how great it is, I'm like, I roll my eyes because that was the first 10 fucking years of being vegan. Like, like there were no snacks that I can recall. I I know that there were a few times out of desperation. I'm at a funeral with my brother in the in the mid-90s. There were no vegan options, so we ended up taking having a broccoli sandwich, two pieces of wonder bread with broccoli. That was so when someone's like we're doing Whole Foods Plant-based, I'm like, uh, that's amazing. So it kind of a fun Muir family fact. My brother and I both have non-traditional vegan jobs, especially as vegan guys. He's a a cop, I'm ex-military, and both of my sisters still eat meat, though to a limited extent. And one is like a high school teacher and the other works in insurance. So it's interesting how you would just guess if you were writing this, that the females who are it's traditionally more females than males are vegan, it would have been that way. Except, you know, the to all the talk about the you know, the poor starving bunny rabbits got me and my brother, and my sisters were more like so.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Did you influence your brother or did your blood brother influence you?

SPEAKER_00 35:55

My my younger brother went vegan as a reason. It was kind of an interesting thing. I I was I went, I declared myself straight edge before him, and then uh he went vegan, he was kind of like straight edge, but not calling himself straight edge. Uh, and then he went vegan, kind of like I think he was trying to stay vegetarian, and I called him out on it, and I was like, yo, uh like uh dairy is rape or something like that. And he went vegan in high school, and he stuck with it. I mean, it's funny that I because I remember it being I was vegan so much longer than him, but he's now been vegan for like 31 years.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

Wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Well, I'm and that's amazing. I'm I'm coming up on 34, but it's like still like like triple decades. Uh yeah, the Miras are are holding it down for the the vegan movement.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

Yeah, yeah. I think my brother eats a burger every meal, so he's he's on the opposite of the spectrum.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

I mean, I would just hope as a healthcare provider that he takes care of himself in other ways. I mean, I don't know. We could go, we could go uh not to make this episode longer, but I have I think you can look at if you take out morality, you take out ethics, and you care about the take out caring about the planet, uh meat is just not the best uh protein source, and it's gonna have so many more side effects. Again, take out ethics, take ethics completely out of the equation. But just the matter uh just the matter of fact that if you eat too much of it, you're gonna give yourself uh your cholesterol is gonna go up and you're gonna clog your arteries. You know, that's not gonna happen with any of the vegan proteins as a as a side effect. The whole man boobs thing is a fucking obvious bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

Uh the only thing that's I wanna I wanna actually put an exclamation point on that. The whole bullshit belief that soy gives you man boobs because of estrogen. Um I think that it's probably the most ridiculous thing in the world when you consider that dairy milk.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

It's so by that logic, every female who's vegan should be like a double D. I'm just saying, like, if you're if you're if you're following that logic, then that's where you go. That's your ultimate conclusion, and it's obviously not fucking true. So I not to be uh a vegan talking shit, but it's obviously not fucking true. Like, you know, there's so many things that people started, and uh, I would call it like from based on when I was in the military, somebody starts a rumor and says something in a in a with a straight face. For example, when I was in basic training, they were like, yo, uh, the rumor is uh, and this was something that some of us passed around and actually believed that they said, Okay, uh I heard somewhere that they're gonna cut our basic training short by a couple of weeks so they could ship us off to Afghanistan quicker. Uh, and that was some real thing that we believed, completely based in bullshit that somebody made up because you you can't process somebody to be in those jobs without going through a certain amount of training. It's like obvious bullshit. But somebody made it up and people were scared, and they're like, Oh, really? We're we're not gonna, you know, we're gonna they're gonna cut our rifle range down to just like three days, and they're gonna obviously not. Just like somebody from the dairy industry made up if you eat tofu, you're gonna have boobs, dude. Tofu was created in China, and go through that country, and I've been to China before, you're not gonna see that many double D's there either. Like, and you've got some super healthy fucking people, so you know, but if you want to believe a lie, like uh animal ag doesn't uh create climate change, and because somebody had a snowball, there's no climate change, and that uh, you know, you know, pass around that cream cheese with a uh cow that has a uh smile on its face, like you want to create a lie, people who want to believe the lie will believe it, and other people who are not that gullible will be like, Well, I don't know if that's true, dude. Like, you know what I mean? Like, and all these anti-vegan lies, the only so there is one, and I'll I'll I'll leave leave the listener with this, and unfortunately, it's a little bit of a uh slight Debbie Downer, there is one airtight argument against veganism, and it's super solid and will stand up to any scrutiny. B12. And that is that is, I don't care. If you don't care about your health, like you're like in some ways my sister or your brother, if you don't care about the environment and you don't care about animals and you don't care about how they're treated, yeah. I mean, you're right. If you don't care about that, I can't get in your mind and fucking flip the care switch. There's no it doesn't happen like that. You and that's in a way why some of the vegan propaganda that's that's vegans trying to be forcefully explained things, or stand with a a screen of all these slaughtered animals and stuff, or yell at people like I used to do as a punk rock kid, like Mita's murder with some hand jam sign that scribbled Mita's murder. If you don't care, you're right. I can't make you care. Whether it's about any of this or politics, you know, you're right. Like I that's an airtight argument. However, if if you do care about facts, oh I have a million fucking facts for you. If you do care about ethics, oh I can show you ethically how killing a cat or a cow is not the same thing as cutting a cucumber, I can show you that shit. But if you don't care in your your brain or in your heart, I I don't got nothing for you. And unfortunately, neither does the movement. Like this is based on it's based on ethics, it's based on morality, and it's based on facts. But I mean, if you don't care, you know, then you're right.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Well, I think that it's willful ignorance, and you'll have some people who will say, as you say, you know, I don't care, and then they'll call themselves animal lovers.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Well, they're they're also liars, but I mean, if you want to, I mean, obviously, if you're at that point, you're doing some mental gymnastics that's like Olympic level, and that there's nothing I can say, we can say, or do to change them. We can show them evidence to the contrary, that you know, these cows don't all commit suicide, and uh, and that's the animal that you're eating, clearly they're fucking butchered, brutalized, and raped into you know the dairy industry being uh around and the slaughter industry being around, and all of this, all of this is all the whole mechanism of production is just straight up evil. But if you don't care, I mean you're right. And and I'm I'm glad podcasts like this exist. I think the best we can do is chip away at that facade of there's nothing. I can do and I can't change things to like, hey, you know, like you can. You can at least not participate. And the more of us that don't participate, like I firmly believe that that the vegan revolution is only happening when it comes down to people just not wanting to buy that shit. Because when veganism was popular oh in the 2018-19s, where it was like, is everyone going vegan? Which I didn't I didn't believe that then. I just was like, oh, it's cool that veganism is a thing, because it's always been a thing for me. Uh when it started to become a thing, it was it started to become a thing as it was more popular, and the more popular it became, the more people wanted products, then the more products that they wanted, the more companies, even like shit-ass companies like Tyson Foods was like maybe we should have a plant-based option. That's what causes it to uh spiral in a good way. And we just need more of that. Anything we can do to chip away the facade that there's nothing we can do, nothing we can do like this podcast, like talking to people, like vegans being in traditionally not vegan roles, the better. And uh hope for this much more of this to come. And hopefully, as Gen Z and Gen Alpha start to spread their wings, we'll see even more of it.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Yeah, I think that's actually a a great point. Uh, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, uh, they're doing a great job. I mean, I don't know if I'm ready to say that you know they're gonna change the world and make the world vegan, but like they're born into being open to it, it seems. And you, you know, me, it wasn't like that. Uh Cuban mother, Italian American father, you know, I it was all meat my whole life. Uh, and I think that my generation also, you know, is just a very meat generation. Gen Xers were we were raised on meat, or at least that's how it seemed. Uh to where, like I told you earlier, I didn't know what the vegan, the word vegan meant in the early 90s. I'd never heard of it. Um, but now it's it's out there, it's proliferating, and Gen Z and Gen Alpha seems pretty open to it. Um I'm down.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Uh Gen Z, Gen Alpha. Uh feel free to take charge and and uh change the world. I'm I'm all for it.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Absolutely. Listen to the sergeant, listen to Sergeant Vegan. All right. So uh I think I mean we've gone long, but I mean, I'm grateful to you for being so generous with your time. I think that this has been a very valuable episode. And once again, I really appreciate everything that you do, everything you've done. Uh, and the fact that someone like you, you know, combat veteran. Uh I I just I just want that to get out more. I want people to understand that it's not just hippies, it's not just you know, skinny little geeks like me. You know, it can be anybody, including a combat veteran. And so I love that you're out there, you know, spreading the word and that it's you doing it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 47:13

That might be a really fun uh post heading or just general heading. Vegans, not just hippies.

unknown 47:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Katie uh, can we give you one of these when we sign off?

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Oh, please do.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

Saluting Sergeant Vegan. I remember Sergeant Vegas.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

I remember speaking of hippies. Ten years ago, I was at a veg fest. No, it was more than 10 years. I was at a veg fest somewhere in Florida. Speaking of Florida, when I was there living in Gainesville, we had driven was it O'Call's probably somewhere middle of the state, and there was a hippie doing an interpretive dance about fish. And I remember turning to my buddy who's also vegan, and I'm like, this is the shit. This is why people talk shit about us. This right here, like the fact that some people would be like, This, like, I'm gonna do this crazy hippie dance about fish, and that's gonna change anybody's minds. Like, that's why people think we're fucking crazy. Uh, you know what I mean? That right there.

SPEAKER_04 48:19

I say that all the time. And the we have like a vegan block party around here, and uh, every single time you go has some weirdo dances and the the the weirdo dresses that the the some of the gears wears.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

And I always make the same comment like that's why people believe we're weird as to be fair though, if normies did something like that, no one would be like, Oh, all people that eat meat are crazy. People wouldn't make that connection, of course.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

No, they would just be like those people are spiritual or those people are yeah, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

Yeah, they we do or say something, then it's like our group is that, yeah. Yeah, all right.

SPEAKER_02 49:03

Well, I think it's time to wrap it up. Uh Bill, I really appreciate you giving us so much of your time. And uh once again, thank you for your service. Services, I'll make it plural, because you've done so much. And yes, we we all salute you. You are an amazing person, and we're grateful to have you out there spreading the word. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 49:24

Hey, everybody, thank you very much for listening. Thank you guys for having me. As always, go vegan and stay vegan strong.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

Absolutely sergeantvegan.com. We'll put all the uh all of your information on the on the description. So everyone please check out Sergeant Vegan. So with that, for vegans talking shit, I'm Joey. I'm John, I'm Vanessa, and I'm Sergeant Vegan. There you go, and we are out of here. Bye, everyone. Bye.

SPEAKER_04 49:52

Bye bye.