Japan, Comics, Wrestling, and Spirit Airlines

It's the Tofu Duo in the studio today because the third member of the trio, Vanessa, is away in Brazil taking care of business. Naturally, with the boss out of the office, the boys immediately lose all sense of direction. It should surprise absolutely nobody that Jon and Joey manage to completely avoid talking about veganism for the entire runtime. The chaos begins when Jon plugs the Beyond Immerse Protein Drink, something his wife did on the show just a few weeks ago. Once that unpaid product placement is out of the way, Joey launches into a breakdown of how he spent Free Comic Book Day and what he bought at his local comic shop. This inevitably triggers a massive nerd tangent where Joey delivers an unnecessarily long history lesson about Todd McFarlane and the founding of Image Comics. Joey spends nearly 15 minutes trapped in this comic book vortex, and without Vanessa around to get things back on track, he just goes on and on. Eventually, Jon breaks the geek trance to talk about his recent trip to Japan with his better half. He shares details about his excursion to Mount Fuji and explains the unique atmosphere of watching a Japanese baseball game, where he watched the oddly named Hiroshima Carp play. Somehow, this sports talk creates a bizarre logic bridge that gets Joey talking about professional wrestling and his all-time favorite wrestler, Mick Foley. By the end of the episode, the guys completely give up on structure and close out the show by rambling about Spirit Airlines. It's truly a wild ride. Please hurry back, Vanessa, because these two fools are completely lost without you!

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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

0:10

Hey everybody, welcome to Vegans Talking Shit. I'm Joey. I'm John. And today we're going to continue our discussion of uh John and Vanessa's trip to Japan. I obviously don't have much to say about it, but John, uh yeah, clearly there's a lot to discuss because we already had the episode uh and that was with Vanessa, but now it'll be just you and I'll be the uh eager listener. But maybe you can give us an unfiltered version since Vanessa's not around. You touched on the you touched on the uh the bathroom bodily function stuff. So I'm I don't know, maybe you'll be into it a little bit more in this episode. But either way, I want to start off with something a little bit different because uh can I stop you really quick? Sure, yeah. Before we start this episode, yes, this is oh, this is sponsored by Beyond. Beyond I wish we were sponsored by Beyond, I do too. But I do want to plug this drink for all you guys seeing on video. And if you're not, it's called Beyond Immerse, and uh it is done by the company Beyond, obviously. What flavor is that? The strawberry lemon. This is strawberry lemonade, and it's amazing. And you see how many how much protein it has. Uh, we order it. Uh, I gotta I think we order just on the website, on the Beyond website. I don't think it's on Amazon, but they're really, really good, and they have a lot of protein, and they're obviously vegan. So, for all you out there, all your listeners, Beyond Immerse is the drink, and it's done by the Beyond brand. Um, you know, I've seen some of them. Uh, none of the flavors appealed to me when I saw them, but I the one you just held up, strawberry lemonade. I've never seen that before, and that's a flavor I would love. Is that you want to hold on while I get you the other flavors? I got like five different flavors. Yeah, sure. Hold on, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold on, Joey. Let me go to my fridge. John goes looking. I can hear you. Oh, yeah, that's right. You have the mic on you. Yeah, go ahead. This is me getting them from my fridge. Well, yes, yes, we can definitely hear you. We can't see you, but that's fine. We do get to see Grogu in the background. For all of you who uh who are listening to this, uh, unfortunately, I have not seen the Mandalorian and Grogu yet. I am gonna see it in a few days. Can't wait. Very excited. And John has returned with the let me see. This one's really good, too. I see raspberry, blackberry, and cherry. I don't really like cherry, but I do like raspberry and blackberry. It's very good. Uh frankly, they're all pretty good. Coconut and pineapple, two things I absolutely abhor. I do not like the coconut and pineapple. Yeah, peanut clad. Pina clot is probably my least favorite, right? Um, this surprisingly is very good as well. I I didn't think it would be, but it is. What is that? Kiwi and nectarine? It is cucumber and grapefruit. Oh, I love grapefruit, do not like cucumber. You would like it though. It's a very slight uh cucumber flavor. Okay, we put these back in the fridge and you could talk more about Grogu if you like. Well, yeah, I mean, I'm definitely into the strawberry lemonade. Can you tell us where you got that? Or did you get it through mail order, or did you actually uh yeah, we um I think Vanessa ordered them from the Beyond website, okay. Um, but uh you know, as our as our listeners know, I play hockey and I usually drink one right before hockey and one during the game. Yeah, um, they're great, a lot of protein, fiber, antioxidants, potassium. Yeah, I I honestly I haven't even looked for them because when I first heard about them and looked into them, there weren't any flavors I didn't like. So when I went shopping for it, or I'm sorry, when I went would go to Whole Foods or Publix or whatever, it didn't even occur to me to look for them because I wasn't interested. But now that I see the strawberry lemonade, it's like, okay, now I'm gonna so I will definitely be giving it giving it a shot if it's available at any stores nearby. I will ask Vanessa right now where she gets them. And while you're doing that, I would like to talk about something. A few days ago was uh free comic book day. Um, free comic book day was on May 9th, I believe. And uh yeah, free comic book day is just what it sounds like. You go to a comic book store and uh you can pick up some free comics. Typically, you have to buy a couple of regular ones in order to be be able to get some of the great uh free ones, so I stacked up. But the comic book I go to, comic book store I go to, it's called Past, Present, Future in Davy. It's uh it's one the one I go to at least once a week. They also had a sale from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. 25% off anything in the store, anything and everything, 25% off, only from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. So, of course, me being uh the person I am, I actually got there at like 6:15 a.m. I wanted to be there before the rush, and I picked up something, cost me six hundred dollars. Jeez, but I am very happy I got it. It is a graded comic book, the spawn, the spawn comic book number one. Let me, I don't, I don't want the reflection. There it is. Spawn number one, 9.8 CGC graded, autographed by Todd McFarlane. And uh is that his autograph? Yeah, that's his that's his autograph. That's an interesting autograph, isn't it? Well, it it it almost it's it's not even cursive. Maybe maybe he doesn't know cursive because a lot of people don't uh know cursive nowadays because it isn't taught. Um but yeah, I I'm a I mean I'm not this huge fan of Spawn, you know. When image comics first came out in the in the early 90s, I was one of the people who was kind of not against it because I loved what they did. It was it's a creator-owned company, um, and all of the characters are created by uh there. I mean, I'm sorry, they're the the the cre I can't talk, the characters created by these comic book creators are owned by those creators, as opposed to let's say Batman, which is owned by DC Comics, or Spider-Man, which is owned by Marvel Comics, these characters are actually owned by the people who created them. So that I loved. The problem was that since the it was basically the inmates running the asylum at Image Comics, they were their own bosses. So all of the comics, you know, they would come out, they would come come out very, very late. Like even though the comic books are supposed to come out every month, some would come out every three months or every four months. Uh Todd McFarlane Spawn, he was one of the few who would actually uh have the books come out on time. And out of all the comic books from Image Comics at the time, Spawn was the only one that I would say was um one that I enjoyed. Like I picked up everything at first, you know, Youngblood, Spawn, uh Cyber Force, Wildcats, um Savage Dragon. I picked up everything, but the only one I stuck with for a little while was Spawn. And Todd McFarland is actually probably the the biggest name in comic books right now, and and for the last few decades, actually. Uh he's just because he's expanded so far from comic books. I mean, now he owns a toy line, uh McFarland Toys, which is hugely successful. And of course, there's the Spawn movie, though it was pretty bad, the Spawn cartoon on HBO, which was actually pretty good. And I believe that a new spawn movie is in the works, they're gonna reboot it. But anyway, okay, all that is to say that I was very happy to buy this autographed spawn number one, 9.8, created 9.8 with the Codma Farlane autograph. So, what is it worth? Uh, it's hard to say, it depends on because it used to be in the old days, you go by the Overstreet Price Guide or you go by the Wizard magazine, but nowadays, since everything's eBay or you you go through dealers, it's a very, very subjective um, like there is no official uh value anymore. So it's basically whatever people is are willing to spend. Like I could go on eBay if I were to sell this. It's possible that the best I'll get is $500. It's possible the best I'll get is five thousand dollars. It's very subjective, and it's all you know, yeah. But I I would think uh a professional grader can give you a closer idea than that from five to five thousand. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. The the comic book store sold it for 600, or did they sell it for more than that and you got it 25 off? That's exactly right. It the the list price was 600, and I got it 25 off of that. Oh, so you only paid like 450 for it? Correct, yeah. Okay, yeah. I would think it's worth at least 600. If the comics I agree, maybe a little less if they were wanted to make money, you know. Yeah, because the unautographed version of spawn number one graded at 9.8 is about 250 dollars. So I would say so the autograph is so it is worth more money with the autograph. Yeah, I mean, it depends. If it's a comic book creator who isn't well known at all, like if it were me, if I were to independently produce a comic book and then autograph it, chances are my autograph makes it decrease at value. But since this is Todd McFarlane, who is probably the biggest name? Maybe Jim Lee is bigger. Um, but Todd McFarlane is is one of the really, really big names. He's like Stan Lee is is at the level, you know. So, how many number one spawns autograph are there in the world? How many do you think? That's an interesting question. I would say a lot because the comic book isn't that old, relatively speaking. I mean, it came out in oh, I believe it was 94, uh, 92, actually. Okay, 1992. Um, so there were there are probably, and this isn't an exaggeration, millions of uh spawn number ones out there, but how many of them are autographed by Todd McFarlane? Probably not that many, and then how many are graded at 9.8? Like the highest you can get is 10, obviously. And 9.8 to have that condition for a comic book that's like more than 30 years old, is then you know, because if you were to get this at let's say, because this is 9.8, let's say this were instead 9.0, the value decreases incredibly. The most valuable obviously would be uh graded at a 10. What is the most valuable spawn number one autograph that's ever sold? Oh, that I don't know. I can tell you that um detective comics number 27, uh, which was the the first appearance of Batman. I believe there was a 9.0 that sold for I think five million, something like that. Well, that's it's a different comic, it's a different comic book. I'm just curious, like that specific comic book. Uh, I'm sure you can find comparables for you know, other number ones that have sold, just so you know that's how you really see what it's what it's worth. What what is it selling for right now on the market? Ones that are graded, similar, and then are also autographed. That's probably what it's actually worth. Yeah, oh, absolutely. But what you have to keep in mind, and just like anything else, it's all about supply and demand. Right now, I would say that the demand isn't as high as it would be, let's say, in 1999, you know, uh, which is around the time the movie had been out and the the animated series. But when the reboot comes out, I don't know when it's gonna come out or even if it's gonna come out. I just know that they're working on it, uh, but they haven't been in, they're not in production yet. But if the movie were to come out and it becomes hugely successful, all of a sudden the demand for what I have there goes up. Just like I have um I have the I have the in this, you know, encased in plastic, professionally graded 9.8. I have the uh the Omega Men number three, which is I believe it's valued at um about 300 right now. So I have 9.8, the Omega Men number three, which is the first appearance of Lobo. Lobo is a very popular character. Um, and on top of that, that comic book came out in 1982, so it's like 40 years old, you know. And right now, a lot of people know who Lobo is, but not that many because he's not as mainstream as let's say Batman Superman. But in the Superman, I'm sorry, the Supergirl movie that's coming out this summer, Lobo is gonna be in it, and he's being played by Jason Mamoa. So all of a sudden, Lobo is gonna be this way more popular, I think. So Omega Man number three, once again, uh the supply will actually be way lower than spawn number one because this is a comic book that came out in 1982, and I have it graded at a 9.8. First appearance of Lobo. It's very interesting. Yeah, I really did some verbal diarrhea right there. It's okay, I'm kidding. I'm just messing with you. Uh last question, did you know you were gonna buy that when you walked in? No, or you you just saw it. Let me tell you, when I went there, the only thing I had in my hands when I walked up to the counter was uh 100 bags and boards. I was just gonna buy comic supplies 25, 25 off, you know. And then I looked under the glass, you know, they have the little glass displays, what they have there, and some of the stuff you know, I either already have like Dark Knight Returns number one created at 9.8, and then I saw this uh spawn number one, 9.8, autographed by Todd and Farl. I was like, uh, how much is that? They said $600. And I did some quick math in my head, and I said, uh, okay. So you look it up, did you look it up though? Did you get an idea if it was kind of priced well? I did, yeah, yeah. And the thing is that like it's much easier to find the value of something when it's not autographed, because the supply for something that's uh I'm I'm sorry, the the the price that people are willing to play play, but the price that people are willing to pay for an unautographed comic book is a lot easier to you know find out. Whereas with autographs, what people are willing to pay is so variable, especially when it's you know a well-known person. Yeah, some people don't don't want ones with autographs, some do. Right. Autographs are they're interesting. I just know with like uh cards, especially you know, with like baseball cards or sports cards. I I feel like sometimes autographs make it worth less money. Well, that's because uh it's so hard to get it authenticated, you know. Like with the let's say if you were to get uh a baseball card of this is ridiculous, but babe roof baseball card autograph by Babe Ruth, that would be extremely valuable, but you would have to have it authenticated, like there's no way to have it authenticated. Maybe you know, some places provide a certificate of that authentication. No, there is, you have to pay for it though, and you gotta go to these. But the cool thing about this from CGC, this where it said uh you can barely maybe you can see it. Uh, signed by Todd McFarlane. It says signature series. They are they automatically authenticated because CGC with the signature series, someone from this company needs to actually be there to witness Todd McFarland autographing this comic book, so it's automatically authenticated. So this is absolutely Todd McFarlane's autograph. It's a cool autograph, too. Yeah, it is. Okay, so I just spent like 15 minutes talking about comic books. So if you would like to talk about your Japan trip, feel free. Oh, what else can I tell you about? We saw Mount Fuji in Japan. Oh, that's so cool. Did you actually go on? That's amazing. Did we go on to Mount Fuji? No, but we went to a uh we took a train to a what was it called? It's called a vernacular. Have you heard of a vernacular? Those are the vernacular. That's are you sure it's vernacular? Because vernacular has to do with the way people pronounce say a word. It's like no, maybe it's not vernacular. Yeah, it's like it's lingo. Vernacular is lingo. What is the elevator type? It's like an elevator type. Uh I'm asking chat GPT. The chat GPT moment, folks. Did you hear did you hear the episode I did with my friend AJ? And he kind of mentioned the chat GPT thing that you have. No, he actually said it. Yeah, I mean he didn't he didn't like rip on you or anything. He it was just he in the uh conversation. I asked him if he liked our podcast, and he was like, he got very shy. He's like, Why are you asking me that? And so then we go, No, no, it's cool. I mean, you have your thing. You know, you talk about comic books and movies, and John, you know, he looked checks everything on chat GPT. You guys have your thing. I thought it was pretty funny. Oh, what the hell is it called? It's a definitely not vernacular. No, it's a but it's close. It's a mode of transportation that's kind of like an elevator. Excavator, no escalator, uh no. Is it something that's in this country? I've taken a few uh probably vernacular. What vernacular? It is is it actually it's a foon foonic foonac f u n i c u l-ar. Yeah, funacular, but I've never heard of that. Yeah, it's a rail car pulled up a steep hill or mountain by cable. You've never seen these? I think I did that in Switzerland. Probably. Yeah, I did that in Funnacular. I didn't know it was called that. I think it's called a vernacular. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking right at it. I think it's pronounced vernacular. So we took a train, this is in Japan, to a vernacular, and then so that goes up the hill, and then we took a man, I'm losing my brain right now. Um, what are the things like on the ski? A gondola. Then we took a gondola to go pretty close to the mountain, and then it was in this area where kind of a tourist area where it's like the views are just amazing, and then we took like all these great pictures and had coffee and looked at Fuji. It was gorgeous. Oh, and then after that, you take a boat on um, it was kind of like on a lake, and you could see it from from this boat as well. Um, okay. What's interesting about Mount Fuji is it's only visible 90 days a year on average, and that is because it is just so cloudy around Fuji. So you you're there's no assurances if you go to Japan that you're gonna be able to see it. It doesn't matter if you're close or far or whatever, um, because it's just so cloudy, but we're able to see it very well, like for three days. Uh, I mean, we saw from the train one day, it was and it's gorgeous, and it looks like how it does in the pictures, like like there's it's all snowy on top, you know, and it's kind of red brownish. It's just it's beautiful, and it's like just perfectly, it's just like one mountain, like shaped, like yeah, yeah. What's that mountain in uh Seattle or maybe Oregon? Oh man, where it's it's just like what you're describing, it's like this one single snow capped mountain. Is it Mount St. Helens? The one that erupts? No, no, no, no, no, no, Olympia or Olympic. I mean, if I Mount Hood in yes, Mount Hood, that's the one. That's the one, yeah. Yeah, snow capped mountains. I mean, us living in South Florida, we don't really get mountains, but we get the beaches, but uh, if given the choice, I think I'd rather um because I think mountains you can see from a distance and they can be beautiful. The beach you have to go to. And I remember when I lived in Orlando, which you know was a short drive to Disney World. I used to go to Disney World like uh several times a year, but when I lived in Orlando, I only went one time. It's like when you live near something, it loses its appeal. I'm sure there are plenty of people in South Florida who go to the beach, but I go to the beach maybe once every five or ten years, and it's usually the nude beach, believe it or not. I don't know if you want me to get into detail about that, but have you ever gone there to the nude beach with Vanessa? No, no, no, but I guess in Brazil, a nude beach isn't like anything, it's probably like every beach is a nude beach, right? I don't think so, actually, Joey. Yeah, I don't think I have my ignorant opinions or my my ignorant uh ideas of what somewhere, but I've never I've never heard of a topless beach or nude beach in in Brazil. Um, I I've heard your story about the nude beach in Miami before. You told me. Yeah, it's an experience. It's it's an experience. I went there with my friend April once, and I probably shouldn't say this, but she uh she managed to take pictures with just highly, highly Illegal there. Like if you take pictures, you you get kicked out. But she was able to do it and she had some pretty memorable photos. Did you actually get arrested for it? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Really? For taking pictures? Wow. Yeah. Sorry, I don't I don't think they like arrest you on the spot, but I think it there, I think there might be more to it. But it at the very, very least, you are you are immediately kicked out of the beach. But they have a lot of cops there. So I think if they chose to, they could press charges, but I don't know if they always do. Are the cops naked? No, no, no, no. The cops are not naked. And not everyone's naked because when I went, uh, I didn't get nude. Uh, I I've probably gone about a half dozen times my entire life, and I think I've only been nude once when I when I went with uh a girlfriend of mine like more than 25 years ago. So do the cops actually patrol it? Yeah, yeah. They they had like it almost looks like sand buggies. What are they called? Dune buggies, they they kind of go up and down in dune buggies, just making sure that everything I mean, I have to say, like it's actually a very, very nice beach. If you go to the the clothing optional beach, uh it's it's all over beach, it's actually very chill. I mean, I would say I would rather go there than any other beach because everyone's just so well behaved. It isn't a meat market, like it's almost segregated in a way because they have like the gay section, they have the swinger section. Like there are these little pockets, like little sections of of who congregates in each section. And uh, but but I mean it's all very peaceful. No one's trying to be a pickup artist, no one's trying to bother anyone, and it's in a especially when it's like a lot of uh people coming to vacation, especially Germans or South Americans. They they aren't they're there with their kids. It's a very different experience. I mean, I think it's kind of creepy that kids are there because who knows? Yeah, it's very creepy, it is very, very creepy. Yeah, yeah. Uh, I wait, wait, that doesn't make sense. It's not 18 and over. No, it's not. It's a nude beach, and kids can go. That's global creepy. I think we've lost like 25 of our listeners. I don't know what to tell you. Like, the best I can say is that it's uh there are certain cultures where nudity isn't really as you know, uh isn't it tab taboo? So I I don't know, but like for like an eight-year-old kid to see a 50-year-old man naked, I I think it's much more concerning for a 50-year-old man to see an eight-year-old kid naked, you know. Yeah, uh, but it it's a cultural thing. Um, but yeah, absolutely. I I've seen kids there, and I where I tend like there's a section of the nude beach where it's like between the gay section and the swinger section, which is I guess you can say it's more like uh the neutral section, and there aren't as many families there, but you absolutely do see families there with with young kids at the nude beach. It's it's weird. What do they do in the swinger section? Are they swinging? I can just tell you that when I went a few times, they literally had a flag. So I guess that was to let people know like this was where the the swingers hang out, and it said like Miamiswingers.com or some other dot com. Um, so that it was made very clear, they planted their flag. This is for the swingers, you know. So yeah, but it's not like they were doing anything uh you know shady or anything, they were literally just there hanging out, chilling, talking. Um, it's very cool. Very cool, yeah. Yeah, I think Vanessa took a she had a good idea of of what episode to take off from. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if well, I I think it would be kind of funny to hear her opinion on that. She would be awesome for that. I'm sure that when uh she listens to this episode, she'll uh maybe mention uh her opinion in the following episode that she's that she'll be in. Yeah. So what else, man? Talk about Japan. What else? Um what else can I tell you? It's it's um some of it is it's even hard to describe because of all these things, because of the respectfulness, the efficiency, the cleanliness, you start to have like uh you just start to feel different. Um like after after being there for a few days, you just start to feel like it's just a more evolved and better society in every way, shape, or form. Like it's just it's when I first came back here, I'm just like, this this place sucks. Yeah, yeah. I mean, based on everything that you've said, well, you and Vanessa have said, I mean, the fact that it's as clean as it is and the people are so respectful as they are, to where they they sent you that uh that card uh with an apology in English. I mean, that's mind-blowing. Yeah, yeah. Um, can you tell us a little more about oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. I wouldn't say they're negatives, but some of the people look uh a little sad, I will say. Really? Um, so on the you know, the trains are insanely packed, right? But they're all orderly. Um, one thing we didn't tell you too is when you when you go onto the train, um, especially in Tokyo, like there's just so many people, there's so many people in the train stations. Um, but everyone has their order, so there's not one line to get in the train, there's like 10 different lines, and the line it'll say on your ticket that you get, so it'll be like 10 people in line one, line car one, car two, car three, car four, and no one's ever out of place, and everyone's moving so quick from train to train, uh, but no one's ever out of place, no one ever gets in your way. Yeah, it's crazy. Um, but the sadness, I don't know. It's like I I feel like um their society's very so because it's so respectful, their individuality is not um, it's almost frowned upon. Everyone's there for like a collective, like you know, for the collective, right? Is it a socialist country? Um, I think it's a democratic country. Okay, but um people are not very um, they're not very emotional. A lot of them aren't smiling, they keep they keep their emotions like deep inside. Um on you know, you know, when you're here when you're here in the US on the train or on the bus, you see it, everyone's on their phones. It's even more in Japan. Like people are like glued. Okay, that's interesting. I had no idea. Um it just I feel this like almost sadness um in some of the people, but but it's hard to tell because like they're very um, I just think their culture is very like emotionless, you know. They they have these emotions, but I think they keep them, you know, very much inside. They they they want to portray to the world that they're all okay, that everything's okay. It's interesting because if you go to a sporting event in the United States, they're I mean, I was a season ticket holder for the Miami Heat for eight years, and it's people are so into it, you know. Like, remember when Ray Allen hit that shot to send uh the Miami Heat into overtime against the San Antonio Spurs and game six of the 2012 finals, or I'm sorry, 2013 NBA finals, and I just remember how crazy that crowd got, but in Japan, it isn't like that. In Japan actually, I went to a baseball game in Japan. Did you really? I did. You went to a sporting event in Japan. That's awesome. What was that? I went to uh a game in Hiroshima. So the baseball game was uh Hiroshima, what the hell were they called? Uh the Hiroshima carp, like the fish. Yeah, name per team. Yeah, the carp. Can you imagine go carp go? Go carp go. I think they were literally saying that go carp go. So they were uh the world according to carp. Um they were playing a team from Tokyo. Um, we were really tired that day, and I really wanted to go to the baseball game, so we took a bullet train, like, and it was so out of the way. I mean, we had to go 200 miles just to go to this game and come back, like you know, later that night. But we went to the game. Um, they're actually very loud at the game, they sing, it's like soccer games, so but it's still in a very respectful way, you know. It's not they'll never there's never gonna be a fight. You know how like now, like everyone's getting into fights at football games, yeah. They get drunk, and yeah, yeah, no one's getting drunk. I mean, they serve beer there, but no one's getting drunken out of hand, right? Um something else in Japan. I saw zero crime, zero. I saw um one crazy person in my 12 days, one, and he might have been the only homeless person I saw too. I don't even know if he was homeless. Wow, right? That doesn't happen. I don't care if you're in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, New York, every major city, even in the suburbs, you know. You see, even in the suburbs, like every uh every time you get off the highway here, people are asking for money, right? It's it's the nowhere in Japan, zero. It doesn't exist. I don't know if they lock them away and put them in in some institution. That was the New York City uh strategy when Giuliani was mayor. Put them underground or something, but like it doesn't exist. Um, what you're basically saying is what I said about uh the Japanese people as sporting events, I was wrong. Kind of, yeah. Kind of, I was I was dead ass wrong. That's fine. That's typical ignorant American coming out. Uh, but that's awesome that you got. I'm sorry, that's the most popular sport for sure. Baseball baseball. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know what I'd like to see in Japan? I'd like to see a wrestling event, a pro wrestling event, because apparently they do go crazy for professional wrestling. Um, like it's it's even a thing where people who are real wrestling fans in this country, um, they pay money to watch Japanese wrestling pay-per-views and and all kinds of things because there's something very I I personally don't know what it is, but there's something different about Japanese wrestling. I think maybe it's more violent because my favorite wrestler of all time, Mick Foley, when he talks about when he was wrestling in Japan, I he's written a couple books about it, and I've of course read them all. Um, he he talks about some really, really violent wrestling matches where like they have barbed wire instead of ropes, they have like literally explosions in the ring, um, where you try to have your opponent like let's say body slam them on the explosion and they literally have an explosion. I mean, not like a grenade type of thing, but you know, a minor explosion, but big enough to where it gets people's attention, you know. And it's wear masks like the uh like the ones in Mexico. Oh, the Mexican fluchidors, no, yeah, no, no, um, it's not like that. I mean, sure, they might be have a couple of wrestlers who are masks. Uh, there's this Japanese wrestler named Jushin Thunder Liger in the 90s, an incredibly acrobatic wrestler. And uh, that's actually an another thing. I think the Japanese wrestlers, not to the same extent as the Mexican wrestlers, but they're they're pretty acrobatic. But I think in Japan it's more about the violence. Um, they have really intense wrestling matches, a lot of blood. There's a lot of blood. Fake blood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fake blood. No, no, actually, no, what am I saying? Of course. No, no, no. Do you do you know what juicing is? Uh I've heard of it. Yeah, well, there's two terms there's juicing and blading, but it's basically the same thing. In the world of professional wrestling, let's say um uh, you know, they take the like remember when George the Animal Steel would eat the turnbuckle until the turnbuckle comes off, so then it's just that metal, uh that that metal thing. So let's say Hulkan and and uh Hulk Hogan, no, I'm not gonna say Hulk Hogan. Let's say McFoley and Terry Funk are wrestling. Uh so Terry Funk, let's say we'll grab McFoley, put his head so it crashes against the steel of the turnbuckle that's been removed. So what McFoley might do is he'll go out of the ring, he gets a blade out of his wrist and he he blades himself, and then he cuts himself, which is when you cut your forehead and then twist the blade. That's called blading. And then blood is pouring out of your forehead, and that's called juicing. So if you're juicing in professional wrestling, that means you're wearing the crimson mask, as uh good old Jim Ross would say. Um, yeah, I mean, so wrestling is fake as far as it's very theatrical, and and but the blood is real, they just have to do things in order to make themselves bleed to the extent that they bleed. And blading is one of the techniques. There's this great documentary called Beyond the Mat, came out in like '94, '93, '94. Oh no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's it's I think it's '97 it came out, '97, '98. Um, it's a documentary about professional wrestling that's probably one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever seen. Uh, Mick Foley, again, my favorite wrestler, was featured. I don't even know who this guy is, Mick Foley. Do you know Mankind? No. He was a wrestler named Mankind. Um, you've you've probably seen Mick Foley uh in the Mankind uh in the Mankind mask. You just wouldn't know the name, but he he went pretty mainstream for a while. He had an incredible match with The Undertaker called Hell in a Cell, which kind of made him. Um, but Mick, the thing about Mick Foley that's kind of charming is he has half of his teeth are gone. He's this huge, hulking guy who's terrifying looking, but in real life, he's one of the sweetest, kindest people on earth. And he does charity work. Like he did uh he was a there's this organization organization that Terry Amos founded called Rain, which is the Rape and Incest National Network. And Mick Foley volunteered for them for years, and he was a spokesperson for them. So Mick Foley is this incredibly cool guy. I've met him a couple times, got his autograph a few times, spoken to him. Uh I've been to his uh his one-man show. He's just this really sweet, sweet guy, gentle giant. But when you see him at yeah, yeah, yeah, he's still alive. But when you see him in the wrestling ring, he's just this terrifying monster. Um, but I I adore the man. He's he's just a very, very kind soul, and I like that about him. Um, do you think that do you think The Wrestler was the best wrestling movie of all time? How many wrestling movies are there? Uh I would say though. I thought it was it's a great movie, and it's also the thing is that the world of professional wrestling is a very sad world because you get these people who put their bodies through so much shit. And unless you're like a huge celebrity in the world of wrestling, you do it for almost no money. And is a sacrifice really worth it to where you can barely walk when you're 50 years old, or you have uh oh god, what is it when you have the head trauma? Is it C CPC? Uh CTE. Thank you. Yeah, like and you know what happened with Chris Benoit, right? Do you know the wrestler Chris Benoit? Yes, yeah, yeah. I mean, he murdered his entire family and then killed himself. CTE is a very real thing, and it's very common in professional wrestling. Uh, I mean, Mick Foley talks about all the concussions he's had, and they're in the in the documentary that I mentioned, um, Beyond the Mat, they get take you behind the scenes for his I quit match against The Rock, and it's a horrific, horrific thing because Mick Foley's wife and kids, and his kids were just they were very young. I think they were like six and eight years old. They were really, really young, and they're watching The Rock hit Mick Foley with a chair over and over in the head. And Mick Foley, he has handcuffs, he's handcuffed and is behind him. So The Rock is hitting McFoley with a chair, and Mick Foley it can't protect himself. These are like shots straight to the head, unprotected. It's got to be at least a dozen times. Mick Foley's gushing blood, and his wife and kids are in the audience, then they're not acting, they're going hysterical crying, especially the kids, because the kids don't understand that it's fake, even though I mean it's not fake because the rock is actually hitting him, but they don't understand that it's all rehearsed and they have uh it's predetermined and all that. Um, they even show the kids meeting the rock before the match, and the rock is being very nice to them, but still it's it's very confusing for them. But yeah, I highly recommend to all of you listening watch the documentary Beyond the Mat. Um, you get to see The Rock uh before he became the huge Dwayne Johnson celebrity we know today. Um, it's a it's a sad documentary because you see what these uh these people put themselves through, um, and usually for very little money. I mean, you don't get Mick Foley's one of the few who ended up became becoming hugely successful, but it's not common for that to be the case. God, I'm talking about everything but your Japan trip. I'm sorry. That's all right. Uh, what else can I say about Japan? Um, well, on the way to Japan, we took Singapore Airlines, which obviously is an airline from Singapore. Yeah, wonderful airline. Um, we just had basic uh coach seats, but uh just the level of services was just top-notch. Well, so when you travel on coach with an airline like that, it's still pretty damn good, right? Like yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. Like it's it was the best coach experience internationally I've ever had. Like the seats were were very good, the the plane was just very, very clean. Um the just the service was top-notch, you know. Um, the opposite of spirit or frontier or um, you know, I think a lot of US airlines don't have the best service. Actually, speaking of that, I know that you and Vanessa travel through uh Spirit Airlines. Oh, wait, oh my god, what was that? I have a package. This is funny because in my episode with my friend AJ, the exact same thing happened. The dog started barking because I had a package. Did someone cut that out? Yeah, yeah. And I never cut it out. I think it's kind of cool to keep it in, but um, but anyway, um, oh, what was I gonna say? Oh, yeah. Uh you and Vanessa fly Spirit Airlines every now and then, but I don't know if you know this. Spirit Airlines is it went out of business. Yeah, how do you feel about that? Um, I think it was in about inevitable, right? They've there's been bad news on them for years. Well, I mean, I don't know if you you know, neither of us are very big on social media, but it's common for there to be videos on TikTok, Instagram, whatever of fights breaking out in spirit airlines, uh terminals, and it it's it's it's not is it terminals gates? I don't know the terminology, but anyway, yeah, it's like commonplace, like spirit air is is like the the Walmart of the airline industry, but uh yeah, it seemed like it was inevitable because there are other discounted airlines that don't seem to have the stigma that spirit airlines had, but there was nothing you know, you got like Frontier, even Jet Blue, maybe Southwest is maybe considered discount-ish, but then Spirit is a whole nother level of discount where it's like almost you're almost flying for free in some some cases, like especially if you buy the ticket like a month before or something, like it's it's dirt cheap, and it was hard. I bought spirit so many times because it's just really difficult not to when you're paying, you know, like we so I flew from Japan back to Chicago, and then we spent some we spent five or six days in Chicago, and then I flew to Florida on the way back from Chicago. One way to Fort Lauderdale was like $25. I actually flew Spirit um three days before they went bankrupt. Oh wow, and closed, yeah. Um, but it was like $25, and it's not like the next flight closest is like $50 or $75, right? If there's an American flight or United flight or Delta for $75, I'd probably do it, right? Even like $80 or $90. But the next flight up is like $150, right? And that's why Spirit always won with with me and Vanessa, because it was like, yeah, it's it's not that it's like $50 cheaper. A lot of cases to be $200 cheaper, $400 cheaper. It's like, whatever, we're flying for three hours. So um, I don't know. It is what it is, whatever. I I didn't I didn't really lose sleep over it, you know. I don't have any family members or friends that work for Spirit, and I think it was inevitable. I will say though, what was weird is in the last couple years, I don't know if you noticed this, but they built that whole Spirit facility up near um kind of by Hollandale Beach. Okay, like an insane big like their whole corporate center, they just built there, okay. Like massive amounts of square footage. So I guess that building is just gonna be sold. I have no idea. It's strange. It's where that mall is when you're when you're driving down 95. Um, and that big mall with the with the theater right off the highway. Is that Hollandale Beach? Are you talking about the Oakwood? Is it Oakwood? Right right when you pass the airport and you're going towards Miami, like a little little past the airport on the left side, there's a big theater. Like you always see the big theater, and then there's that mall there. It's like a big walk, it's an outdoor mall where you like walk. It's a big um, I'm sure I've seen it, but it's not I'm not really picturing it in my head. Um, yeah. Anyway, I I want to go check my check my door. Go see your package. I got no, I think we should just end it here. Um, yeah, we'll just end it here because we had yeah, you had a whole lot to say about Japan, clearly. But that's fine. You know, this is just what we do, especially without Vanessa here. Clearly, this was going to happen. Yes. All right. So uh, oh, I'm gonna do it this time because I actually remembered. Um, follow us on social media, people. You know, search vegans talking shit. Uh, in most cases, it's at vegans talking shit, but just search vegans talking shit. Uh, click like, subscribe, the alarm bell. Um, yeah, follow us on on social media, follow us on Apple Podcasts, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, uh, iHeart, uh, Amazon, Spotify, and YouTube. And, you know, drop us a line. Drop us a line at V. Oh, can we do one more episode up after this? Because I just thought of something. Sure. Okay, we'll do one more episode after this, but that'll be it because I don't want to do too many without Vanessa. But anyway, for vegans talking shit, I'm Joey. I'm John. And we are out of here. Bye, everyone. Bye.