Across the Table

1. From Construction to Clothing: A Journey of Passion

• James Finochio • Season 1 • Episode 1

Share episode

🎙 Episode Title: From Construction to Clothing: A Journey of Passion

In this powerful and wide-ranging conversation, host James Finochio sits down with his son to share the inspiring story of launching a clothing brand while navigating life in the construction industry. This episode of Across The Table explores the intersection of hard work, creativity, family legacy, and the evolving world around us.

From managing language barriers with overseas manufacturers to upholding high standards of quality and affordability, James opens up about the gritty, behind-the-scenes reality of building a brand from the ground up. Listeners will gain insights into the apprenticeship journey, where young workers learn essential skills and safety in the trades—something James deeply values from his own experience.

The conversation then expands into hot-button topics like the role of AI in fashion design and marketing, the double-edged sword of social media exposure, and the complexities of modern identity, religion, wokeness, and political correctness. With honesty and nuance, James and his son reflect on how to remain grounded in purpose while engaging with an ever-changing society.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, a creative thinker, or simply someone interested in the intersections of business, culture, and personal growth, this episode offers thought-provoking perspectives and practical wisdom.


💡 Key Topics Covered

  • Building a clothing brand from scratch
  • The importance of quality and affordable fashion
  • Communicating with international manufacturers
  • The value of apprenticeships in the construction field
  • Why construction safety matters
  • Using AI in creative design and business
  • Leveraging social media for authentic marketing
  • Navigating cultural conversations around politics, religion, and wokeness
  • Understanding identity, acceptance, and personal evolution


🔗 Connect with Rare Intentions and James Finochio:
🌐 Website: www.rareintentions.net
📷 Instagram: @Rare.Intentions.US
🎵 TikTok: @JimmmmmyFinochio



📌 Tags for SEO
clothing brand, construction industry, AI in fashion, affordable clothing, social media marketing, apprenticeship programs, identity and acceptance, religion and meaning, political correctness, wokeness debate, father-son podcast, entrepreneurship journey, small business, AI design tools, marketing with social media, modern masculinity


Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

You're listening to Across the Table. I'm James Fenocchio. And around here, we believe everybody's got a story to tell. Let's get to it. With me today, I have my son, James Fenocchio. Thanks for calling. Yep. So, what have you been doing with yourself lately? Not much, you know what I mean? Just making clothes. Working on different marketing tactics, you know what I mean? Just trying to figure out the best way to sell and get my product out to an audience. And then also just working a lot behind the scenes on getting the quality right, everything. Just figuring out what we want to do to go the extra mile for our customers. You know what I mean? And just make sure it's a good experience when you buy from my brand. What's that been like for you? It's been annoying at times, 100%. It's definitely fun. It's nice to do. I'd rather deal with problems with something I want to be doing other than anything else. But it definitely gets annoying sometimes. And then getting product in from overseas because the prices in the United States are ridiculous. You know what I mean? I don't want to charge an arm and a leg. You know what I mean? A big thing about what I want to do is provide affordable quality pieces. You know what I mean? So I don't want to be charging...$150,$200 for a t-shirt. And then if there comes a time where I do do that, I'd still like to have affordable options for people out there. You know what I mean? So that's just been interesting because the communication with working overseas just gets annoying sometimes. You know what I mean? They have ways overseas where it seems like they're understanding you, but on some things like You just have to make it very direct. So are they using like a translator app or something? I don't know fully because when you get connected with these manufacturers, a lot of the time they'll have a person that's like a sales rep. You know what I mean? So that's what they'll do. They basically do the communication with you, everything. You know what I mean? They make your quotes out. They get you your better prices. But the good thing about having that sales rep is that uh no matter what you can negotiate if prices you know i mean nothing's ever since done you know what i'm saying if you know how to negotiate you can get yourself a better price you know what i mean and that's a good part about that but it's just the language barrier so obviously there's a leverage barrier they go around every day you know what i mean if you're getting yourself from china obviously they're speaking chinese on the day-to-day you know i mean that'd be like if me and you took a second language or say it. Trying to speak Chinese. Exactly. If the rules were reversed and they were texting us in Chinese, that's how it would be. So I'd imagine they're translating them in some way. You know what I mean? But I'm not 100% sure how that goes on that end. I just try to make sure communications are clear and that they can fully repeat back to me what I want. You know what I mean? So that's like the only way you can make sure that you're getting what you want done. You know what I mean?

UNKNOWN:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

That makes sense. That's got to be challenging. It gets to be. It gets to be annoying, too, when you put all this time, effort, and money into a certain product, and then you communicate. You communicate it clearly how you want it, and it doesn't come out that way because there's a language barrier. You know what I mean? Right. That's how it happens. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. I'd rather be annoyed at that than be annoyed at my 9 to 5. Yeah. So everyone knows what do you do at your 9 to 5. Yeah, I work construction. I'm a commercial painter, commercial drawable finisher. I love it at times. At times, I hate it and would rather do anything else. But it keeps me busy, you know what I mean? It teaches you you got to work hard every day doing that, you know what I mean? You got to do stuff you don't want to do. So it teaches you that work effort, you know what I mean? puts money in the bank. Especially when it's 90 degrees outside and humid and you're spraying a bunch of paint. Spraying a bunch of paint. You're mixing stuff with crazy chemicals that get you high if you don't wear a respirator. You know what I mean? Working in those big-ass lifts, getting around stuff, not fun. Yeah. Or dealing with just annoying people up your ass all day. Annoying contractors up your ass all day. You know what I mean? Right.

UNKNOWN:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

It's definitely different than how it used to be when I first started. I can only imagine. So you came into the union. I got you into the union through the apprenticeship program. Tell me your thoughts on the apprenticeship program so far. You have all your stuff done. Yeah, all my training done. I just don't have all my on-site hours. But I think the apprenticeship program is really good. You know what I mean? I feel like I liked all the instructors that were up in Carnegie. I think they all do a really great job. You know what I mean? They run it good up there. They're very professional. And they get you a good feel for what they have of what it's like to be on site. You know what I mean? And obviously, there's a bunch of stuff that you might not agree with as a student, that you might be annoyed that you have to go out for a week, miss out on paying stuff. But that's just part of the process. You know what I mean? It makes you a better... It makes you better in whatever trade you're in. I don't know. You think some of the stuff you learn is pointless, but then you get out and you see it has a real effect. We're learning about paintbrushes, how they're made, what types of paintbrushes. I'm like, man, this is stupid. I'm sitting in the class, but then you get out and you know that, hey, maybe this brush works good for latex. If I'm using an oil-based brush, I want to use... the brush that would go with oil-based paint. You know what I mean? I haven't painted in a little bit, so my mind's a little scattered when I'm thinking, but if I walk in the showroom, you know what I mean? But yeah, there's definitely that. A china bristle. Working, teaching you safety, you know what I mean? Because there's a lot of stuff you do that no matter what, it's unsafe. You know what I mean? But if you follow the right safety procedures, you're not going to hurt yourself. It is safe that way. And most companies will not care if you are unsafe. Yeah, most companies won't. It's up to you to know the standards of what it is and what you can do. You know what I mean? There's a certain point in time where sometimes you got to man up and do it. But it is safe. You know what I mean? And I feel like that's a big stigma from the older generation in the construction industry. Is that like, to put it frankly, you're a little bitch if you don't do certain stuff. And I just feel like... I just feel like that's stupid. At the end of the day, we're all here to collect a paycheck. Nobody would be here doing this every day for fun. I'm going to do it the safest way possible. I don't want to hurt myself and then put myself out of pay. Or hurt somebody else. Or hurt somebody else. The goal is to go hunting. Yeah, the goal is to go hunting. That would be everyone's number one. Uninjured, yes. There's always a better building. Uninjured and not dead. Did you know a guy just got killed up at State College like a week ago? No. What was it? For mid-state construction on the, I want to say the Tyring building. Tipton building. I forget, but he fell off the roof. Kill him, son. I believe he got dead. Mac was telling me about it. Mac is another finish. He's a drywall finisher in our union. But yeah, he's telling us a guy from mid-state drywall fell off the roof. And I seen it on, because I keep up with, you know, things going on at Penn State, especially construction. Right. Because it affects us. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's not good. Not good. That always sucks. Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, definitely. My prayers are out to his family. Yeah, me too. I don't even know who it was. Mid-state construction was from right up on Brush Mountain Road. Right. So I'm hoping it wasn't near Scott Porter. I met a couple guys. I was still in that job for mid-state. Yeah, that's sad, man. That's sad. So have you been using any AI to help you? Yeah, 100%. All my designs and everything, I do a lot of them myself. But on this t-shirt specifically, we wanted to do a newspaper font. We're doing an end war campaign because I think it's very cool, like old war stuff. So on this, we put an old stamp from World War II in it on there. And as you can see, we put end war on it. And then 808, that's our motto. That's the letters we use in a lot of stuff. What's 808 about? That's actually, what that's for is about my brother that has struggled a lot throughout his life. And basically to me, that's his birthday. Basically, what that means to me is it just symbolizes, it goes right along with intentions, you know what I mean? And that's part for him. And it just basically symbolizes that if you get your intentions in the right place, you know what I mean, at the right time, anything you want can happen. You can flip your life around. Completely from bad to good, you know, I mean from good to bad no matter what so, uh, wherever your intentions are That's where you want to keep them. Yeah, I mean But uh with this shirt what we were going for was like an old newspaper style And uh, we wanted to just get our message across Um about that is end war because there's a lot of clothes going on right now Um, and I like a lot of them, you know what I mean? I think the designs are great on a lot of them all that shit And some of them might be symbolizing other stuff, like the war. I've seen a lot of brands do different stuff, how they symbolize war. It's very popular right now, especially in the streetwear community. But I think a lot of people just almost misrepresent what it should be. And I think a lot of it should be to end war, you know what I mean? To bring peace, you know what I mean? But there are certain companies that I see... um that they're like fighting war within themselves what it's about you know what i mean maybe they grew up in uh poverty poverty stricken towns where the crime rates high you know what i mean so useful useful war and everything like that but me personally that's what i'm against you know i mean um you fall into the trap when you're when you're in those when you're in poverty stricken towns when you're in anything so even if that is like a symbolized war uh man you got to be different you know what i mean it's up to you to see through all that bullshit, you know what I mean? There's all kinds of wars. There's all kinds of wars. Mental wars. Yeah, and across the world, you know what I mean? It's about ending war, you know what I mean? Coming up on top and above everything, you know what I mean? But how we integrated AI into this was I used ChatGBT for this prompt on the side here, and it just helped get us... get our message across a little bit better and helped us deliver in the newspaper style writing for that time and everything. It just helped a lot. So obviously, I was around in the 1940s to see how they see newspapers around that. Right. Obviously, you did it all. Yeah, obviously. So it just kind of put us... Put us back in that era and we're able to get in that mindset to write a prompt that we wanted to put on this shirt. And on this one, I would love to read it. And this is a sample right here. But the text came out blurry. So we're going to make sure we definitely fix that in our finished product and everything that goes out. You know what I mean? It's going to be 100% visible. You're going to see everything. The text isn't going to be blurry. Yeah, it is a little bit blurry. Yeah, it is, 100%. You think it kind of came because this kind of reminds me of like an old newspaper, the material, like the look of it. Yeah, yeah. And the coloring and the way it's like a little bit tattered and distressed. That's what we wanted to do. I love the distressed look on all my clothing. You know what I mean? I love that vintage look. And I think this was like the perfect way to do it. You know what I mean? It looks like that vintage style newspaper. It gives you that vintage look. It gives you that distressed look. And we're going to change up the distressing a little bit on the final product and everything. But for now, this gives you that idea. But the way this was distressed, it doesn't look natural to me. So that's why I've taken over. I'm going to be doing all the distressing from now on so that it can have that natural look, that worn-in look. Because it would naturally be over here. Yeah. Around in here. Yeah, it didn't. Definitely at the bottom, but different. Yeah, I see what you mean. But it's the same, at least you're getting that. Right. And that's one thing that goes with that language barrier there. You know what I mean? We have a realistic mock-up with a realistic distressing on it. And I guess just like pants, you know, they're going to wear at the knees. Right. 100%. And that's like I started distressing this. First place you're going to see a distress hat is around here in these seams. Seams, yep. Seams to stress a lot. You know what I mean? Definitely around the pockets. Like I had that one Saints hoodie that's already stressed out right there. Yeah, that happens. The threads falling out of it. Right. And I love that natural, that distressed look. You know what I mean? I love vintage clothing, all that stuff. So we're trying to find ways to really incorporate that into our product naturally. You know what I mean? Nice. So where can people go to buy their clothing? We have an Instagram. It's rareintentions.us. And basically there. We have our website right now. We're getting everything set up with it, getting ready to go. But if you click on my website, put your email in, you can sign up for our SMS letter. And you'll get 10% off your first order and you'll be notified anytime we drop anything like that. So you'll be notified about everything. You'll join the family when you're in that SMS. And you'll join the community that we're building. And you'll get early access to every single drop that we have. And then there will be ongoing deals and promotions that our SMS people will get access to before anybody else. So that's interesting. That's interesting. When do you think your first launch is going to be? And what do you think it'll be? Because I know you have a few more clothes ready to go. Yeah, we do have a few more clothes ready to go. And I'm hoping for... It'd be nice to do the 4th of July. You know what I mean? To kick your ass off all of that. It'd be nice to do the 4th of July. Right. And I would love if we can get this shirt right and ready to launch by then. That would be great. But... We're looking at, I think I'm looking at launching a different shirt and a different pair of shorts and bundling them to launch for my first job. Because a lot of it, like nothing has to be changed on it. They came out great. You know what I mean? Oh, wow. That's a good place to start though. Yeah, 100%. So they kind of go hand in hand together. I'd like to talk more about it, but I'm going to leave that for the Instagram. Yeah. definitely follow there. You know what I mean? Get updated on our latest drops and everything. And definitely those pieces came out great. I'm very excited to drop them. You know what I mean? So, and it'll be George in a t-shirt. So cool. Awesome. So, yeah. Well, we're hoping to launch this on the 20th. That'd be awesome. First day of summer. Right. So definitely kick it off your summer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely, I'm interested being your generation. Do you guys even watch cable news? No, I don't personally. I can't speak for my whole generation, obviously. But I don't really pay attention to much stuff in the news. Obviously, I do see stuff that's going on in social media because I am on social media. And that's something I want to work on is because I feel like I waste so much time scrolling on social media. I could do way more productive stuff within that time. You know what I mean? But that's basically social media is basically how I get all my news. You know what I mean? And then obviously I always take out the grain of salt because there's so much stuff on social media that is like essentially yellow journalism back in the day. You know what I mean? There's so much fake news on there. The kind of stuff AI can create looks insanely realistic. And my biggest thing with social media is that I feel like it's a platform that it gives everybody a platform to express their own opinions and not everybody has good opinions. You know what I mean? I'm sorry. A lot of people talk on stuff they don't know about. A lot of people don't use it I feel like for the way it's supposed to be used, you know what I mean? To share your life, maybe share a part of your life that you want to do. You know what I mean? I find it awesome for clothing. You know what I mean? I love seeing other creators on there create cool ass clothes. You know what I mean? And I like seeing creators that I follow. It's cool to see people getting paid off that to entertain people. You know what I mean? Other than making like TV shows and stuff like that. Now you can sit down and watch multiple creators. I love how much stuff there is. Like when I was a kid, you never had, you had three TV stations. Yeah, that's it. And so whatever. But now you got wealth. Look at how many artists like Oliver, Oliver Anthony. Nobody'd ever found him.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Bunch of artists. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I love the things that are happening now and the way that you can just discover things and you don't have to be sold by people with big money. Right. 100%. And I feel like that's how it should be. I think it gives a lot of power more to creators. You know what I mean? Whether that is whatever type of content you're creating, whether you're creating a product, creating art, you know what I mean? I think it gives more power to them that you get influenced out there. And then you can also market on social media for 10 times cheaper than it would be to market anywhere else. Oh, my God. Imagine buying a TV commercial with WTAJ or on the radio. I think the radio is like$1,000 a month. Yeah, and if you just put a picture up on the commercial, nobody's going to want to buy that. You know what I mean? So also the amount of money that would go into production to get a good commercial that would convert. You know what I mean? There's stuff like that. It just makes it a lot easier. You can put pictures up. You can definitely, you can just get your idea of how you want to, of the content you want to create out there for a lot cheaper than it would be paying to a lot more eyes. You know what I mean? You can set your exact audience that you want to get to. So, you know, you don't have to waste views of people that wouldn't be interested. You know what I mean? Well, that's it. When I, did the construction business. Marketing was not a problem. I spent$10 per weekend to, because I would kick it off on Friday. And this was running meta ads on Facebook. It wasn't even meta back then. It was, but yeah, just Facebook ads. And I would run an ad, come up with the content. I used to have, you don't even need someone to build your website or do your media stuff anymore. You can do it all with AI. You can, you can do it all yourself. There's so much education out there that you can educate yourself to do so. Yeah. And if you don't want to, if you want ads, I'm sorry for cutting you off. If you want ads that, uh, that there's, there's ad agencies out there that you can pay that have success, you know what I mean? That will get your product converting. They know how to advertise it and market it. And, um, in ways, you know what I mean? They have complete strategies. They have everything for you there, so. Yeah. It's nice. Yeah. That way you don't have to worry about it. You can just worry about, see, I have Katie. Yeah. Katie is my wife. And she's a genius. Yeah. Yeah. And she is very good at, she came up with some stuff. I'm not going to put it up here until she wants me to. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing the most things you can do. 100%. It's awesome. How do you feel about the end of wokeness? I like it. That was the stupidest thing ever, dude. Yeah, I don't feel like many people are very woke. Me personally, I don't... You know what I mean? I don't want to jeopardize anything. Obviously, like I said, my opinion... is my opinion. You know what I mean? That's not what I specialize in. But to be honest, if somebody comes up to me telling me they're woke, telling me about something I did that's un-woke, I don't give a fuck. Yeah. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I'll be, I'll sleep then. It is. Handsoming people. I'm just doing, that's just weird. It feels too much to me like it's a small percentage of people that we're, Just ganging up on people. Think about all the people that got canceled. 100%. And there's canceling people that died in the 70s. Certain stuff like that. Come on. Back in Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. And George Washington. Come on, dude. Yeah. People always need to remember history, dude. 100%. Yeah. And I feel like if you're that into history and want to dive that deeply into it, then monetize that. Don't just come out on the internet and do that. You know what I mean? There's ways that you could be woke and monetize it and get paid to do it. You know what I mean? Maybe put out a book on how woke you are on this situation. But the whole culture just... I don't know. I basically consider myself an old school Democrat. Until... Trump, I would have never voted for a Republican. I would have never ever, but I grew up with him. I knew what he was about. Like every day of, there was always something that was Trump involved on TV, Raphael Donahue, Oprah. Like he was just always around for me as a kid. And I always looked at him and was like, wow, yeah, that dude should be running for president. He's a little bit crazy. 100%. But I don't think you could be not crazy and do that, John. At least a little bit. Scott is awake at 2 in the morning giving media interviews after the UFC fight. Yeah, I've never seen somebody the way he does shit. I don't know when he sleeps. And that's the other thing too, dude. With Biden, how often do you think we go to press conferences? Not that often. This motherfucker makes one every couple of days and he doesn't care what he says about it. Dude, he does them daily. What did he call that dude when they did that drone trick on that one dude? He got up and said, he died like a dog. Bad daddy. Yeah. Oh, bad daddy. He died like a dog. I think that he thought it was funny. That he was. Bad. But something that I feel like is interesting with... With that, I don't find too much interest in politics and everything. You know what I mean? Obviously, it's different when it comes to the state of our economy and how people are getting treated and certain stuff. But other than that, I don't really get too heavily into politics. I kind of just focus on what I like to do and try to put all my effort and energy into that every day. It gets distracting and it's so tribal. And it's like they take... things that we disagree about and try to make them huge. They're not that huge. They really are. It's because the media is making so much money off of politics that they'll paint any picture that they can get to give more money. You know what I mean? To create a narrative. Yeah. Well, if you look back through time, like I've had a lot of years to look back, and plus, you know, I'm a history buff. Yeah. to think that the United States doesn't use propaganda. Oh, they definitely see. Didn't Barack Obama pass some law about that? Yeah, they allowed it. The media is allowed to give us, they're allowed to lie now. Yeah, so. Yeah, so there's that. Maybe we could go on to a brighter subject. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I'm curious with the way that AI is going. The... it can either be a force for good or a force for evil. I'm not. I think it's always been coming. You know what I mean? Artificial intelligence has always been out there. But the way it is now, it's very mainstream. You know what I mean? Everybody has access to it. And I feel like it's a tool. You know what I mean? I don't feel like... A lot of people are scared that it's coming for their jobs and everything, but I just think it's a tool. You know what I mean? The way you integrate it, it's the way you integrate it. You know what I'm saying? I don't... I don't foresee it anytime soon taking people's jobs and doing certain stuff because I feel like you always need the human brain there to create, you know what I mean, deal with certain issues and everything. And you still have to check your AI. Yeah. You have to check it. 100%. And... So it's not always right. No, it's not. And that's what I feel like. I feel like right now what it is is just a tool. And I feel like if you don't want to use AI, if you don't want to incorporate it into your stuff, then you're going to fall behind. Simply as that. So you're... coding is going to be gone shortly. The way I see it coming down is that we'll be the technicians for the AI and keeping up with the AI. So it's like, well, I'm going to fix certain things. But that's probably at least a few years down the road. But I think software writing and coding, Those are all pretty much over. See, I don't know that much about that. You know what I mean? I don't really pay too much attention to that, so I can't really speak too much on it. But I could see that happening. Yeah. Well, like, KD's up on AI, too. And yeah, do coding. It's pretty much done. I think software is probably... max programming. And those are big time job producers. So it is kind of scary. Yeah. But there's always, that's what I'm saying. Maybe there'll be less demand for those jobs and everything. But I feel like you're always going to need actual human brains in there to fix that AI, work on that AI. You know what I mean? They know Christian very well. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's not a point. It's just like all that stuff with the electric cars, I feel like. Um, I feel like everybody's trying to get too much out of themselves at one time. I don't think, um, there's so many issues with electric cars nowadays and there's, and, and there's, um, with the Tesla's too. Yeah. They're just, they're a pollutant as well. Those Tesla chargers. I forget exactly what it is, but, um, but I, I know they pollute just as well, but you know what I mean? Well, making the batteries. Yeah. It's terrible. It's not good. No. So it's just another issue in itself with those. But I think we try to integrate them and then they try to make a mandate on them way too fast. You know what I mean? Everybody gets ahead of themselves with certain stuff. Our electric grid can't even support that. That makes sense. Look at California. There are brownouts all the time. If you live in California, there are brownouts all the time. Oh. where Katie lived in Homer City, they would have brownouts during a certain period of time once Homer City shut down. What's that? Brownouts when everything kind of dims down. Oh, okay. It's like, wow, how's your big drain on the system? Well, that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, you have to have the proper structures in place. Yeah, because we're not fully ready to integrate it. I mean, I feel like it's a good idea if you can produce it right. Right. Yeah. Well, do not show us a bunch of data on like these windmills. Can't get rid of them. I don't know why. I'm still learning about that. But it costs so much petroleum to make them. This stuff just burned over the coal. It's silly. Like, Then, did you see that Spain had a big blackout? Weaned small and blackout. No. Because they went to solar. You mean wind? Wind. That's all they had. Well, what happens when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine? You don't get power. You don't? Makes sense. I was listening to this guy on Jordan Peterson's podcast. He's a big energy guy. He knows a lot. Nuclear is the way to go. If we're going to produce massive amounts of energy to support these AIs, every data center needs a gigawatt of power, which is a huge amount of power. And if this is the future, then we have to be able to produce that power. Nuclear, coal, but you have to have, you can't just rely on wind and solar because they're affected by things. Like solar in Pennsylvania is like, last year you might have did good, but this summer you're not going to do great. So far this spring. And I feel like you could integrate it, you know what I mean? Yeah. so that when you can use solar, you use it. You know what I mean? But you can't just cold turkey energy. That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard in my life. And our electrical grid is suspect. It needs help. We need to do something with that. I'm surprised we haven't done that yet. roads and bridges like dude when you got bridges falling down in pennsylvania where did all the money go yeah that makes sense 100 percent oh here's another thing that i was hearing about uh your generation and maybe you recently started like going to church and thinking more of a christian way so Well, you're 21 now. When did you start thinking, like, towards a Christian way? Because I never taught him to be a Christian. Probably about half a year ago. Obviously, I grew up on the other side of my family. It was Christian. So I did go to a Christian church. I did do a lot of stuff. I was really young, and I hated church. Every day I went, every time we went, I didn't like church. That's where you shifted, didn't you say? Church? No, I was like... That's where you busted your head. No, it's Nathan. but uh with church it was yeah i mean it was just a drag for me i was a little kid but uh now that uh obviously i have a developed brain and uh just getting to think my way and everything i feel like it's very great in certain ways but i feel like there's ways that you could work on it too you know what i mean because there's certain stuff that i don't agree with within the religion and that i feel like um People just use it to feel a purpose in themselves because that's the thing with humans. We're so smart. We're smarter than any other... What's the word I'm looking for? Any other breed out there. Any other animal. Yeah, we're the smartest animals ever. And we have like... Our conscience is crazy. So I feel like people will... use that for their purpose so that um their life now has a purpose you know what i mean i would like people will abuse religion and stuff and i feel like religion shouldn't be your only purpose you know what i mean i feel like it's great i feel like it teaches you great lessons you know what i mean it does give people that needed that purpose too you know what i mean but um there's certain things that that i don't agree with within it and and and just like the all sins are created equal i think if i go get a tattoo that should not be on the same level as somebody murdering somebody you know it is not and it isn't but i don't think that giving a tattoo is a crime uh i don't think it's a sin either you know what i mean but uh obviously if you're a christian and everything then it is a sin so now seeing here here's the one thing that's growing up but uh is that i do believe that what Christ was teaching

SPEAKER_01:

was

SPEAKER_00:

that you can reach paradise within yourself while you're still here on earth. I agree with that fully as well. You find that within yourself. It's not for heaven because you spoke of paradise and heaven. I don't know that I get a little bit confused on it because you know what? I don't read Hebrew. And so I don't feel confident that these people that interpreted writings like i can have ai interpret what i wrote the poetry i wrote it doesn't come out to say but And just like the language barrier. Do you see what I mean? You can't fully interpret that. You know what I mean? Yes. It's just left up to someone's discretion within the person what's interpreted. Right, 100%. And I feel like that's the whole thing with dinosaurs too. How are we to fully interpret what the world was like back then? Obviously, we have science and everything like that. And I might sound like an idiot saying this, but I think just because that you, that's not like, whatever it is that they could assume how the world was like back then. I don't agree with that. Not fully, at least. Obviously, I agree that there is science there. I agree with what? Just science has done amazing things for this world and for modern day technology and everything. But I just don't see how you could do that. You know what I mean? I don't. And how were they to interpret how people built those fucking pyramids? I don't do that. I don't think fucking six. We can't do it today.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So I don't know. There are some things. And dude, did you notice that the guys always, there's always guys carrying these purses and all like you go to the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Egyptians. Everywhere, dude. It's everywhere. Yeah. They don't have the same looking purse or handbag or something. What the F is that about? I don't know. I didn't know about that until you were saying about it. Yeah, it's crazy. And then you go to Sumerians, which is the oldest civilization that we know of. They have a terribly accurate list of kings.

UNKNOWN:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00:

But then they have ones for like 270,000 years before that. Yeah. Now the list of kings after that, that they know

SPEAKER_01:

of, all accurate. Why wouldn't those ones be accurate? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know either. Like, I'm still, there's more questions to ask. The more questions there are. Think about how advanced those civilizations were back then, too. That's crazy. We think we're advanced. Yeah. And how language was created. You didn't just randomly one day start making sounds with your mouth and that's what they meant. Yes. And then start writing them on paper. Yeah. Something's different. The chimpanzee is the closest thing to us, and they're not even close to us. No.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I can't necessarily agree with evolution in the way that in like a Darwin way. The evolution theory. Yeah, I don't think about it in Darwinian terms. I think the most likely explanation for me in my head, and I know this is going to sound crazy, is that, yeah, somebody from outer space came down and Something started fucking with our dna Something dude Yeah, because it I mean, it's definitely not us like we didn't evolve from a fish No, no effing way, dude. There's nothing obscene To support anything like that. Yes evolution. I do support evolution that that things work Change that yeah 100 But Yeah, they have adapted, and they do adapt. But you can't tell me that we made that jump from a fucking chimpanzee to a human being without something. God, alien, whatever. I guess it's important to believe in that. Whether you're able to find out the truth or not, it's a truth that does present itself. what you believe in. Yeah. And all I cared about is that they're happy with themselves. Like, I don't care what religion you are. I don't really carry sexual orientation. If your trainings are, but I don't care. It doesn't affect me. Well, I don't want to be mad because someone's a trans and I'm just, you know, my cup of tea necessarily, but you know, I've met some that are and it's um let's take you as who you are there's a lot of people that are regular that I don't want to be around either I just find them annoying yeah and I feel like that's like my biggest thing with that is uh is that when you're gay trans whatever it is I don't personally mind you know I mean you do you do whatever you want to be you know I mean it's not my life to live but when people start treating you regularly and you start fitting into society regularly, however you want to, you know what I mean? Then you ask for like special treatment and then wonder why people have problems with it. You know what I mean? Because if you come around me and you're trans, cool, you can be trans. You can do that. Maybe I don't feel that same way. I don't agree with it. Whatever. I can respect you for what you are. As long as you're not in my face and you don't want treated specially because of that. Yes. You know what I mean? And that's what I, that's where I feel like the problem is. I don't have a problem with gay people. I don't have a problem with trans people or any of the LGBTQ community. I don't have a problem with it. I don't myself. I'm not, I don't associate with any of that. So I'm not gonna, you know what I mean? I'm not gonna do any of this stuff. But you can't just act like you deserve special treatment for that. You know what I mean? I think you should just be treated as anybody else. You know what I mean? Merit. Yeah. Yep. You're, you're, quality characters 100% because I'm not going to treat you differently because you're trans unless you're trying to come on to me or do something you know what I mean but what do you call it but don't come around me trans and then act like I need to go out of my way to support your lifestyle because I'm not doing that unless you're doing something cool that I'm interested in then I'll be like hey I'm interested But if you're like coming at me and being like, making up shit in your own head, that I'm being transphobic. Dude, you just don't interest me. You just don't interest me. Yeah. And I'm not, not to be a dick, but how am I supposed to sit here? If, say I was working a job making coffee, you know what I mean? And somebody that looks like a girl comes up to me and gets a coffee. You know what I mean? Or, or whatever. How am I supposed to know that they like to prefer to go by data? I wouldn't know. That's what I just, I just don't agree with them. And, uh, like me personally, I don't agree with that. And how are we going to get mad at random people for not, I'm referring to as the pronoun you want to go by. When I have no idea. Yeah. And there's pronouns put in place for a reason. If you want to be a girl, go ahead. You can be a girl. If you want to be a boy, go ahead and be a boy. But that means you're referred to he, him, she, she, she, them, and they, she, her, whatever. Yeah. That's so, can she, that's way too, can she? Yeah. I just, I don't know. Oh, God. Yeah. Pick a song. Yeah. Then maybe that sounds, you know, Right. Maybe it does to certain people, but I just, I don't feel like there's a problem with that way of thinking. Like you should, you know what I mean? Love yourself. Yeah, love yourself. But don't expect other people to go out of their way to accommodate to your needs. It makes you feel uncomfortable. Yeah. I feel uncomfortable every fucking day. Exactly. So maybe that's something that you need to get used to doing is being uncomfortable because Like, okay, back in my day, there was the, well, no, it was more the golf stage back in my day. It was, you know, ran around on black nails and black, well, you're putting yourself out of society on purpose. And I understand it, especially a teenager and trying to revolt. You'll always have to fit into society. Yeah. But don't expect society to accommodate to you because of that. They never did. Yeah. Because I don't have any problem. You won't be gone. I think that's cool. You know what I mean? You want to stand out? I think that's cool personally. But just like, just because you want to stand out, don't expect me to go buy black hair dye and black lipstick tomorrow. Yeah. It's not me. It's not for me. Exactly. I'm not saying that what you're doing is wrong. What I'm saying is it's not for me. Right. And I can still treat you as I'll treat any other person. Unless you're an asshole. If you're still an asshole, I'm going to treat you like an asshole. That's just how it is. Everything's become so, I'm trying to identify yourself and marginalize yourself. Like, nah, we're pretty much all the same, bud. Right. And we all got to get up. We put our pants on the same way. Put our boots on the same way. Let's get out and get it done. Yeah. Like you said, you're not special. Yeah, do whatever you love. You know what I mean? Just don't expect people to always agree with what you do. Great, son.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. On that

SPEAKER_00:

note, I think that's a wrap.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

it was pretty good. Thank you for having me. Thank you. Love you, too. Good luck. Thank you, sir.