Greed, religion, and Farm Houses

Jeff Himstedt shares his personal journey with podcasting, his thoughts on family property transfer, and reflections on religion, consumerism, and personal growth. This episode offers insights into managing creative projects, family dynamics, and finding hope and authenticity in life.


Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Podcast Journey
00:29 Managing Podcast Production and Challenges
00:56 Shifting Focus to Personal Projects and Cannabis
01:54 Creating a Show to Break Cannabis Stigma
03:38 Answering the Internet: Family Property Dilemma
06:56 Grandpa’s House and Family Dynamics
10:08 Making Memories and Personal Growth
12:44 Critique of Morning Radio and Media
14:32 Consumerism, Advertising, and Environmental Impact
17:53 Reflections on Religion, Hope, and Personal Accountability
23:04 Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks




 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I always want to say welcome back to the People of Peoria podcast. I did is I was a host for uh the People of Peoria Podcast. Austin Savage is the host now. He was the original host who created it, and then I was on the episode for my woodworking business, and Austin had me on. I kind of loved it. Like loved it. I think I've been on a couple podcasts before that. Um and uh he got to the point where he couldn't manage it as good as he wanted anymore, and they're moving out of town. So I took it over for several, I'd say a year for sure, every bit of a year. The problem I had with it is it just became bigger than I wanted it to be. You know, we kind of went all out. I need to find that happy medium. You know, we had a producer, had a co-host, we traveled and we did the podcast on site. Like it was really cool, the vision I had, but I was also trying to do a lot of stuff on my own. Grateful for Tyler to be the uh producer on that and get it edited. But it was just too much and it became too much. And honestly, like the co-host I picked was definitely a lot different than me, had different views, different ways of work, a different lifestyle, and that was so important to me. Uh, it was so important that we didn't have just like two Jeffs in the room because my God, God, can you imagine having two of me in the room? So, yeah, no, it just didn't work out. It was just everyone was on a different page with some things, and it just sucked because it was fun. But now it's just like, well, now I can do it. Now I can do this. So, no, I spent the uh better part of the morning uh marketing to some local dispensaries, uh, just kind of about cannabis, and I really want to create some sort of show and get volunteers to where we have the podcast and it is about someone that's never used cannabis before, hasn't in many, many years. And I would love to break that stigma of what cannabis can do because cannabis has opened things in my brain uh that I didn't even know existed. Um, and it's just done so great for me in the past two years. I'd love to not only make it entertaining because it is funny, like that it is funny, but then also give someone that comfortable space to maybe see something else they like better. Uh a lot of just like myself, a lot of people didn't know all they knew was alcohol, you know, all they knew was going to drink. They didn't understand that there was something else. So, you know, it doesn't have to be that deep. We don't have to get into this like whole psychological effect of cannabis, good and bad. But just it's something I love and it's something I like to promote. And I'm I'm grateful to be a spot in my life to where I can kind of pour into these little projects, other than just kind of going through the day-to-day thing that I've always done my whole life. So, no, I'm grateful for the space. I love the podcast. I haven't really looked up any God, you know what? I am really focusing on my uh. Yeah, why do I do that so much? There is a little all right, back on track. That blueberry Clementine concentrate, new era. I'm looking at you. Love me some concentrate, and I love me some new era. That's the last sponsor, new era. That's the last shout-out I give you. I think I gave you three. There's been three in these episodes, and you know what? I want you to have more. I want you to have more. I want to take on this project with New Era. That is my I would say my most well, it's the closest dispensary to my house. So it's it is where I usually go in Pekin, Illinois. But honestly, location pretty much decides on anything I do. I like to stay close. So, New Era. Thanks for the concentrate. It's losing me a little bit of track of thought, but nonetheless, we're back on track. Let's stop bumbling and get into a little bit of answer the internet. All right, this one was 15 minutes ago. Am I the asshole for asking for my grandpa's house? Couple paragraphs, let's dig in. This is sort of a weird situation. My grandpa owns a house that has been in the family for over 50 years. My great-grandpa built it and I lived in it for 20 years or so. He signed it over to my grandpa who lived there for 10 years or so. He moved out, but retained ownership. And my parents moved in rent-free. Again, those boomers. Got them made. I grew up most of my childhood in this house for the better part of the last decades. My parents haven't lived there anymore, and we've and they've been renting it out. Okay, so the parents are renting it out to a stranger, they still own it, got it. Now I'm married with kids and I want to move in. I currently own a nice home, but it's pretty small, and which and this one is much larger and much nicer. I told my parents I wanted to ask him for it since he has no interest in the property other than his name on the deed. My parents have been paying insurance taxes, etc., and collecting rent on the property for 20 plus years altogether. It's basically their house with his name on the deed. Okay, so grandpa owns it, mom and dad are rented out, daughter's got a family wants the house, but it's legally still grandpa's on paper, right? So I tell my parents that they're so I tell my parents, and they basically said he won't do it, but sure you can ask him. Okay, fair. So that's what I did. Well, he immediately said yes because he doesn't care about the house. Now that I have a yes, my parents are pitching a fit saying that if he signs it over to me, it's not fair to my siblings and cousins. My rebuttal is no one wants to live there besides me, anyways. Everyone has moved away from our town besides me. I see the point, and I'd be getting a $300,000 asset from him while nobody's getting anything, but nobody wants it anyways. It'd all be in a trust, anyways, so it can't be sold after it is transferred to me. My thinking is if someone doesn't want it and it can't be sold as to keep it in the family, then it has no effect worth if that makes sense. Oh yeah, basically Shane, you can't sell it anyways, it's not worth I get it. Okay, we're following, we're following. It would be different if he was giving me 300k in cash. Alright, last paragraph. I don't know. I'm pretty pissed off about the whole deal because I want my kids to grow up where I grew up. This house has all my core childhood memories, and I want to share that with them along with selfishly. It's a big, big, nice house, and I'd love the comfort of being in a house that size. I can't afford to buy or build a house like that. Well, no one can. I know this is champagne problems, but give me your opinion. So am I the asshole? Let's break it down. Grandpa owns a house. Old Grandpa Don. Grandpa Don owns this big dog house, or what does it call it? In my family, my youngest son. When he started talking, he'd always say, Oh dad, that's a big dong. Any because I'd always say, Oh, that's a big dog, ain't it? That's a big four-wheeler, big rock. Oh, that's a big don. Well, he started saying, Dad, that's a big dong. It cracks me up. So now I don't say big dog. I say big dong. Alright, so Grandpa Don has got this house. It is his house on the deed in the family land. Right now, Grandpa Don doesn't have much to do with it, but and I'm trying to think of the author from my point of view. I am the child. So now my mom and dad pretty much rent this house out to a stranger. They don't officially own it, they're more or less the property managers. Okay, so it hasn't been lived in uh by anyone in the family for 20 years. My parent my parents have been paying insurance taxes and collecting rent on the property for 20 years. Okay, cool. So, granddaughter, me, this is the POV. I go to grandpa, I'm like, hey, grandpa, let me get to his house, you know, and he's just like, Yeah, awesome, love it. He's probably, I'm guessing, I'm speculating, that uh they have the closest relationship and that he knows her the most because she is still home. So staying home, get your perks, you know, get whatever you want out of, especially if you got some land, my God. I'm just now understanding how close this story is to my own. Interesting. This was not on purpose. I see what she's saying. No one's gonna live there anyways, but they are making rent on it. Grandpa said it's okay. I think essentially the best thing would be to make an agreement with your family, anyone in the trust, anyone that's listed in that trust, is everyone come together and you say, Hey, let's why don't I why don't we rent this from the trust? Or even like a maybe a contract for deed or something in the verbiage of the rental that says like this is your home. You are welcome to do whatever you want to it. It is just like home ownership. You're not a traditional tenant in the sense of they can't just kick you out whenever. I think there's some sort of agreement that could be made in um just as a renter or a contract for deed. And and something else I'd and I know this just answered the internet. I'm not saying this person hasn't done it, but I'm putting myself in their shoes. I would probably find some sort of maybe like a real estate attorney. This has happened before. This isn't a new problem. Like this is not watching my dog try to lick her. This isn't something new that's so wild that it's never happened before. So I think there's probably an easy solution there. But the part I really wanted to hit on is she talked about wanting to make the memories that she had. So you memories, in my opinion, cannot be repeated. You can share your memories, you can share those feelings you had, but that doesn't necessarily that means that your kids are gonna feel them. But what you can do is kind of encompass those feelings. What made you feel like that? Was it safe? Was it safety you liked? Was it comfort you liked? Was it excitement? Was it a thrill? And you can kind of cater that to your kids. The house is just a house, it's kind of obsolete in the view of the whole world if we expand all the way out. The house is just a place that is not necessarily going to translate to your kids. So I know that's not the question, but that's just something that caught me when I was reading. You can make really, really, really good new memories with your kids no matter where you go. But I do understand being a kid from the farm myself and being someone that lives in the country now. Yes, I think there are a lot of memories to be made as a country kid and allowing them the freedom to have space. That was my, I guess I can kind of answer that for myself. It was never so much that I wanted to raise my kids on a farm, but I wanted to allow them to have the freedom to just go outside and do. That was so important to me as a kid to go outside and just do things. Primarily, I had an older sister that we did play quite a bit together, but we also fought a lot together. But most of my memories from my childhood come with being by myself at the creek. We had a creek about a half mile from my house, and I would often take the lawnmower there or my bicycle, and it, you know, it kind of started just by like throwing rocks off the bridge. Then I'm like, well, I can go underneath this bridge. And then all of a sudden it was like a whole new world underneath that bridge. It was almost like, wow, this is like a little, I remember having like a little grill down there. I'd take hot dogs. Um, just spent a lot of time down at the creek by myself, and I got real comfortable being with myself because it was the only option we had, but at the same time, we had space, and I loved having this space to ride four-wheelers and get dirty and you know, all the country kids stuff. So back to the story, you can and I've I've been able to create that. That was one of my goals for my kids was to get a property or get room for them to run. So I did create those memories for them, but in their own story, you know, I didn't have to take them back to the farm, or I didn't have to have those memories on the farm. I was able to capsulate that and kind of give it to them on my own. And so it's my story, and there is something really good about being able to have your own story, you know. This isn't uh, this is I'm not I'm not my dad's son where I live. I'm Jeff. Like I don't have ties where I'm at. I I've moved a hundred miles away many, many years ago. So it is kind of nice to have my life, but then it's just like, yeah, I can kind of curate my kids' life a little bit better in our own comfortable space. So yeah, that got deep with kids and stuff, and I know that's not part of the story, but you're you're listening to me. All right, you're listening to me. You oh God. I'm really all over the place today. One more all over the place. I'm gonna go. Is morning talk shows. What are you doing? It is the most obnoxious thing, and I don't I would like to hear a morning show with anyone under the age of 31 because I I am an FM radio guy, you know. I streaming's fun when I'm wanting to feel a certain way, but for the most part, I put on FM radio and I just kind of don't really listen, but I just kind of scan, constantly hitting the next button. But this morning that FM radio was on, and I just like was listening to the radio, and it was the most cringe worthy, like hey, they am 16542. Let's make a prank call. That's not funny at all. It's like, good God, like it's terrible, it's terrible. Why are they doing that? If I was a major radio corporation, I would probably get rid of morning shows, replace them with a podcast, throw advertising on top of the podcast, then they're not on payroll, they're 1099. It's just the morning show is it's dumb. It is so dumb. I've never been a fan. You know the last time I listened to a Howard Stern? When I went to town to have a sleepover when I was like 12, 13, and it opened up a whole new world to me. But in my adult life, Bob and Tom, Howard Stern, dude, fuck those guys. Sorry, that's very, very but they're idiots. That's not normal how they talk. It's so maybe it's normal to them, maybe, but it's just like this can't be entertaining to your consumer. This can be entertaining to like your target audience for consumerism. Like we're much younger. The the age group you're wanting to hit is not listening to Bob and Tom. And maybe the advertisers are just as old as them. I don't know who's the major advertisers for Bob and Tom. Let's look it up. Who is Bob and Tom's top three advertising advertisers? Advertisers, Steven Singer Jewelers, Simply Safe, which yeah, it's a lot of podcasts have Simply Safe and Home Surf. I don't know what HomeServe is. Let's look up uh who are Howard Stern's top three advertisers. The world is an advertisement. If you guys haven't noticed that, just everything. You can't go on your phone without an advertisement, you can't watch TV without an advertisement, you can't go anywhere without seeing billboards. Like it's the most obnoxious thing in the world. There is a show, if you just Google consumerism show on Netflix. If there is one thing that has painted a picture of consumerism for me, and not even just what you buy, but the trash that goes with it as another mind-blowing thing, watch that and tell me it doesn't make you think about buying shit. I don't want to sound like one of those fucking people, but when I buy something from a thrift store or when my whole outfit costs $6 and it had no packaging, it had very a much smaller carbon footprint. Now get me, I I don't know if I said goodwill or thrift, but goodwill, I understand that's a huge gross company, but again, it's almost too easy not to go there. Uh, but it's getting there, it's getting to be almost like kind of gross. But when you watch that, it's kind of eye-opening to how much shit we have and where does it go? You guys don't understand like how much garbage is on this world. Like, it's unfathomable. And yeah, that movie kind of changed it all for me. Howard Stern top advertisers include Snapple, Heineken, Trim Spa. Alright, so Snapple, Heineken, Trim. I mean, but why I don't know. Maybe I'm just in my own world and everyone loves Howard Stern. Maybe they do. Maybe they I just think he's a complete buffoon. Like the stuff he's saying should have ended at 20 years. It's like he never really got to evolve. Like he never evolved as a human, the microphone and the headphones. Wherever he w started that is where I feel like he's gonna finish. But either way, talk about all the old heads and Hollywood and all that shit that goes on. It's just a fake world, and how it's still supported, it is beyond how it's still supported, just like how's a Catholic Church still supported? Shots fired. How's religion as a whole supported? No, I love me God. I think God created me. I'm you know, I'm not certain of that, not a hundred percent certain of that, but in my beliefs, I feel like I God is something, right? I don't know what God is, I don't know if God is metaphoric. I don't know if you know it's something about the 12 disciples and all the stories. I I have a hard time on, and it's all good. Love the Bible, love the stories. Okay, we're gonna lean into God. I think the essentially as a whole, God is real, and just like anything else, through his course of time, what is this 26 years? I think the story may have stretched it a little bit. And the most disgusting part is churches that make money off this. Hate it. I hate organized religion. I'm gonna come, I'm gonna say it on the record. I hate it. As someone that's been in it, as someone that is a believer, someone that has dedicated a lot of time to his church and faith. On the other side now, looking in, here's what I love about it. I'm not gonna sit here and say what I hate about it. Here's what I love about churches. This is genuine and from my heart. I love what most churches have to offer when it comes to hope. I think church is a place you can go for hope. Church isn't a place where you have to go and learn about all the ins and outs of the Bible. I don't think you need to memorize scripture the way they say. I don't think you need to do a lot of things they say, but if you need a place for hope, if you are by yourself and you're struggling with something, if you're going through something, if you have questions about something, you can find support at a church for that. And I love that because I was that guy one time, and that's what I needed. I needed a place to talk and open up and understand that other guys are going through the same thing. The problem that I have with it is it is set up to keep you there. Of all the things that I've done through church, of all the work I've put in myself, of all the people in my life that I've seen are the quote unquote church people, right? You never see an end. School, we we study and we take these tests so we can receive something for that, so we can show that, oh my gosh, it's good, and then we move on in life so we can grow. That's the goal. That's been the goal, that's the goal for everything. That's the goal for every single animal on this planet, every single person on this planet is to be born. You have the stretch of, you know, obviously it's different for us versus any other living thing, plants, animals on this planet, but it's our job to grow and mature. Everything matures, right? And then the point of maturing is to finally uh branch off. I don't see the end in anything in church. Of course, there's these classes, of course, there's these support groups that are so good. I'm not diminishing any support group, whether it's church or AA or a celebrate recovery, I'm not diminishing what they're doing for people. It is such a good place for hope. But I wish it was structured a little more of give yourself credit to. Yes, we want to give these higher powers credit. Yes, we want to acknowledge them and say thank you, but thank you for allowing me to figure this out. They say change comes within, but how do you find that when you are supposed to say all glory be to God? What is wrong with giving yourself glory and saying, I fucking did this? Right? If that is not the right way to live, then I will continue to live wrong. I am not this antichrist. I don't hate the church, I don't hate what it's doing, I don't hate how it's helping people, but I do hate how money always muddies the water everywhere. Anything in my life, thinking back and things I'm dealing with now, money has ruined more people than anything else, I believe. I think money at the at the core is the root of all evil. And if that's not true, then why aren't we taxing churches? Like if it's not money, then why? Why are we not taxing? I don't understand. There's a lot I can go down that, and I'd love to. I'd love to talk more on it, but I try not to be too specific on my dumping grounds here. Again, we're just getting our feet wet here. But I'm not I would never discourage anyone to not go to church. We have plenty of friends that go to church, they go every Sunday. I've known plenty of people that go to church, and there's too many examples in my life to not necessarily trust the over exuberant church person. This is speaking from an over-exuberant church person in his past. So I only speak for things that I've kind of put together for myself. But if that's your thing, if that's your sense of hope, if that's your sense of life, that's your sense of belonging and being alive, I love that for you. I love that because I know how powerful that can be when you need it the most. I've been there a thousand percent. Hands up during worship, baby. Been there, and I loved it, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was so amazing for me to go through that and I. I feel like without that perception, without going through that life, where I'm at now, I wouldn't have the same outlook. It's like I had to go through that to see it. It's almost like I was a spy. I had to go in the inside and get all the intel undercover. But no, I'm I'm grateful for all the I'm grateful. I'm grateful for everyone that was able to help when I needed it. Previous marriage, you know, we leaned a lot on religion and trying to find the answers. But at the end of the day, as an individual, if you don't heal yourself without any other entity making that decision for you or persuading that decision for you, I there's just something about accountability for yourself that is so huge. Not just accountability to your church, but accountability to yourself. I I don't know. I wish I wish there was a magic, magic eight ball that we could all snort. No, I'm kidding. I would never, ever. Uh anyways. Uh yeah, no, church talk's good. We got a little weed talk in there. We had an answer to the internet. So let's answer the internet. Is she the asshole? No, she's not. Honestly, I don't how old did she say she was? Either way, I'm guessing. Yeah, I don't know. 27 to 34, probably. I don't blame her one bit. I think there can be some communication there with the uh the trust fund. You know, grandpa's word is honestly the end. If he says it's good, it's good. Whatever. But no, I think it's a pretty basic problem that probably sucks having family involved. But yeah, no, I get it. I think you're on the right track. Answering the questions and just reaching out. But yeah, no, I hope you can create the same childhood that yours felt like for your children, regardless of what house you're in. That's the best advice I got for you today on shut up and listen. So thanks for uh listening along. I'm sorry there wasn't like wacky sound effects or like just locker room talk from a an old man that's trying to be relevant still. Maybe I'll try the next episode. Maybe next time I'll I'll pull out my my Howard Stern. Alright. Thank you for the six people that are listening. It's not going anywhere. We ain't going nowhere. Alright, guys. Love you. Bye.