Episode 128: Roomates

0:09 Welcome back to another episode of Record, My Father. Today we're going to be talking about roommates. I've had pretty terrible luck with roommates my whole life, except for recently. In the past two years I've been living with two gentlemen and it's been going well, it's been going really. It's pretty easy. It's probably the easiest living situation I've ever lived in, whereas prior I've had a little never do the Ren roommates assignment. I think that's crazy. There's things called bungalow. There's something called Bungalow in LA, which is an application for random roommate assignments with complete strangers that aren't even in the universities, which I think is even. That's like playing a Russian roulette with all the bullets and the gun. I just don't think that that's a good idea. What do you think?

0:57 I did it it's it was good and bad. You did random roommate. Yeah, but I think, I think what I when I look at my roommates, I look back to my first roommate was my sister. My sister was my roommate until I was about 8, maybe she was 9 or 10. And then we separated and I went downstairs. She was upstairs, you know, the room, there were two bedrooms upstairs and there was kind of one bedroom downstairs where all the guys. And then my Seth moved out and it was me and Edwin were in the room until he left for college. So that was like 8 years or something. And and then when I went off to college, my first, I mean, I would go down on a Friday after I would, I would take off Friday, go down to Old Dominion as I got accepted to college.

1:50 And this is after I went to Nova for five years. So I was all ready to go. That's not an exaggeration either if you're listening for the first time. And then the I went and I had a girlfriend at the time and she went with me. We went around the different roommate places and we go to this one lady and she's renting out a garage that has a bath in it and all this kind of stuff like that. But she comes to the door and she's probably mid 30s and her job is she paints paracels and she is in a bathrobe because I'd called her from the college because I went there on Friday night, got there, got up Saturday morning, went to housing because I'm moving in.

2:36 I got all my stuff in the trailer, everything. I don't have a place and I'm moving in Monday, right? So I go there and I got to find a place. So it's it's real serious. So I I'm looking and I find this woman that's has a a rent and it's like a hundred 25150 bucks a month, something like that. I'm looking for like the cheapest I can stay. I didn't care. I looked at I looked at one place. It's a frat house and they wanted to rent me a closet. I mean literally a closet. It was a walk in closet that was like half a walk in closet and it was only 50 bucks a month. But I but it was in the main hallway and I was like, there is no way I can do this. This will be this will be the end of me. Like, you know, because being my own drunkenness and craziness. And if I was to stay at a frat House of 14 guys, whatever it would have been, it would have been a mess. Anyway, we're at that lady's house. She shows us around and my girlfriend's like, oh, like what's wrong, man?

3:34 I'm like, what's going on? She goes, I, I don't want you staying there. Like what do you mean I, I don't want you staying there. Why? She's like, I, I think that something's going to happen. What do you mean? She goes, she answers the door in her bathrobe. What do you think's going to happen? And I'm like, oh, so it's going to be rent free. She didn't like that idea. I ended up rooming with another guy, Brian Jackson and Stewart, I don't remember his last name. He rode a motorcycle, Stewart, Little, something like that. But he was a gay guy, which I didn't. Openly gay?

4:15 Well, I didn't know if. He was gay, but he, he, he wasn't gay when I met him, all right, but he, he gave the vibe. And then I realized he was when I moved in because he had boyfriends. And then the other guy was an engineer that had graduated from Old Dominion and was working in the shipyards in Norfolk. So that, and I was a mile and 1/2 from campus and they were great roommates. I paid 110 bucks a month for, I mean, think about that, 110 bucks a month. I could, I could, I could pay for school and rent and everything. Stayed there for the summer. I was there for that whole summer. Then the next year I went, I did the same thing all over again. I go down on a Friday.

4:56 I didn't have a girlfriend anymore. She dumped me. That was a heartbreak. Well, that's a fast. That's a long story. No, that was like her. That was like her third year dating. Second year. Second year, I was in love. She wasn't. You know, you know how that works. You know, we're everybody's. I think most people in life find themselves on the short end of the stick anyway. That was a heartbreaker. But not to go into that, but the I rented a place, I showed up. It was at 860 W 46th St. It was right across the street, one house down from a place called the Q Club. And the Q Club once again was the largest gay club in Norfolk. Well, this is where the Navy is right isn't right. And so the Navy, the Navy guys would come there like they had, they would, they would have big parties on Fridays and Saturdays.

5:52 And then Sunday night was drag night. And we would sit on the front porch and drink beer. And we would guess because the people would park all up and down our street And they'd be walking up the street and you'd see somebody dressed to the nines and spiked heels and all this kind of stuff. And you'd be like man or woman. And we would, you know. It's kind of interesting that you talk about Norfolk like this, because when we went down there, it was nothing of the sort of popular, even populated. It wasn't even really that populated. It seemed like a a ghost town of some sort, like the graduation. It seems like everybody that was there was for the graduation.

6:34 Nobody lived in the town. Very weird. Very, very strange. We lived in that area that is now those office buildings and all those buildings cause all those buildings were like ramshackle houses and warehouses, nothing but warehouses. And the, and the Q Club was a warehouse. I did go into the Q club like twice. I had a buddy from the Navy that came and said we should go there. And I'm like, OK, so we go in there and he goes, we're going together and we could just say we're together so we don't have to worry about being head on. And then they came in and they're looking at him because he's 66 and you're tall. Drink of water. We did not dance with anybody. We went in we had a beer and we said OK, this is not for us. And then we left and but that place there I showed up on a Saturday and I met a friend of mine, current friend of mine today doggy was painting the house and he was painting the house for like the first two months rent or something the whole inside he tried to get me to paint because he had two cases of beer.

7:35 He said help me paint. I'm like hell no, you know, I'll just drink your beer and I'll talk to you the whole time you're painting because he was amazing. He was just like he'd slop it, put it up, paint it real good. It was a wooden floor house. It had two full baths. 1 bath was what was it was clogged and it was like 4 inches of water and it was muddy. There was there was a rat in the kitchen dead underneath the stove. You can see the tail sticking out and I and all I can think of myself is I said, you know, it was, it was, I think it was a. 100 it was. 110 bucks a month and I can eat out.

8:17 There you go. At least the rat wasn't alive. You know, I'd rather be but. I, I never could afford to eat out. I, I ended up doing the ramen thing and all that and I, I would go to, I would sell plasma for 15 bucks 'cause it was closer to the plasma station. I'd sell the plasma and then come back and get quart of vodka or bourbon and I got a quart of Senators club and I get like 10 ramens, maybe 12. I get a a pound or 22 oz or something like that of it was called cheese type product. It didn't it didn't melt in a pan. I tried it. I I got on the skillet, threw threw the cheese in there, turned black on once I flipped it over, turned. Black in there.

9:06 It would get a little melting, but but, but that's all it would do. And it was like, so it was so comic. But the roommates, I mean, you know, we were, we got along pretty well. Ganter came in. He was a finance guy. There was another guy named Moose. He came in, his parents came and, you know, they were buying him stuff and and he was the rebellious, you know, 18 year old, Oh, I don't want to wear this. I don't want to go to class and, and doggy's over there and doggy is like 27 at this time and I'm like 23 or, and I'm like, dude, if, if you don't want them, I'll wear them. And his parents were like looking at me and he's going like, Oh, I said, those are cool.

9:46 I'd wear those. And then he immediately wanted his shoes. And his parents like loved me right after that because I kept saying, you know, you got to go to class, man. If you can't go to class, don't take 8:00 classes if you can't make it. And you know, I don't think he ever graduated. He kind of fell to the wayside. We had Doggy's cousin moved in, which was, I call him Vito. It's funny, I don't know his name and he moved in. And I mean it was. Just it was like a non-stop party. You know, we would, we would, we had a, we had, the house was pretty cleaned. We had a rule that in the kitchen that every day somebody had a kitchen duty and kitchen duty meant do all the dishes, clean the counters, put everything away and clean the table or you eat.

10:39 And if you don't do it by midnight, you got to buy a case of beer and, and we would buy a case of Milwaukee's best was 599 at 7:11. So the whole time during the year, people would, you know, you didn't want to spend 6 bucks it it was 6 bucks worth doing the dishes and that's what it was. So you'd every so often somebody would skip 1, you get a case of beer and everybody would say party time and so and so's not doing his dishes and then maybe the next day. But if you got him like after two or three days it was horrible. The thing is that during exam time people would like like I had during exam week and the pre week I just bought 2 cases of beer, brought him in and said I ain't doing the next two times.

11:23 Doggy says I ain't doing the next two times. Yeah, well, that's what I was thinking too. Is like what happens after that? Would you have? Like we had every dishes dirty, 6 or 8 cases of beer sitting in there and we drank time but. Then no dish. Wouldn't. And when you wanted food, you had to wash your dishes. You had to pull them out of they were all over the counter because we had more dishes than would fit and, you know, and the skillets was dirty. You know when you'd wash that and you'd make your food and then and I remember I'm eating ramen and like Bologna sandwiches, you know, or I mean that. And occasionally I got a carton of eggs. I think eggs were like $0.99 for a dozen.

12:04 So you would, you eat eggs and dinner was, you know, you get a burrito, it's Speedy's for $1.25. So you had, it was really cheap food. I could, I could live pretty well. I mean not not well. Pretty well, yeah. Better than I did living. Yeah, fair enough. So. The food was there was, you know, you, you, I, I didn't go hungry. Let's just say that, you know, so that worked out pretty well. But the, the roommates were great. And then when I got out of college, I roommate with a, a friend of mine, Leroy, his brother Larry, and we, we got a place at Larchmont Village Apartments in Alexandria.

12:46 And I remember it was 430 No 535 for a 2 bedroom. And so it was cheap, you know, and for me, you know, I was, I, I got a job working downtown DC and it was 13 38th St. by Charles E Simon and Company. And we were right across the street from where the prostitutes were. You know, there's a little pull in right by the church and every night I get off work at like 6 and I walk out there and there was a line forming and there's like a line of like 15 or 20 prostitutes waiting for the guys because the guys would pull in.

13:27 They'd hop in, negotiate a price, and then they'd drive around the corner and go down the alley. And I parked down the alley in the garage there. So I'd walk past people having coitus in or whatever you call it, it was whatever but and then drive home. But that, I mean that he was a good roommate, but the problem with roommates is they get girlfriends And his first girlfriend he brought in was who is this? That was Larry, his first roommate he brought in was OK because it's like he said, oh, I, I have, I, I'm now going to bring her in. So I think I should pay like 1/3 or 20% more or something like that.

14:11 And we negotiate a fee. And I was like, yeah, that's cool. I didn't care because he was, he brought it up. I didn't bring it up. Oh, that's nice. Second roommate, second time he had a girlfriend, he broke it with that girlfriend was really interesting. He she turned into a stripper and she did a show in the house. I remember my brother called me and he goes what you do? And I said, well, my roommate's girlfriend's dancing on the coffee table right now and he's got four of his buddies there and they're giving her dollars, you know, which I mean, that would never have happened if I'd had a different roommate, I think. And, but I mean, he was interesting character. We went to, we went to Canada. And I remember when we crossed the Canadian border and we got money, We got Canadian money.

14:55 And it was like a dollar seven for a dollar. He's like, Oh my God, why, why doesn't everybody do this? And like, what do you mean? He goes, well, we, we just got more money and we should just go get more American dollars and come here and get more money. And I was just like, but but when we go back, we only get a dollar for the dollar seven. No, no, we'll just spend the dollar seven over in America. And I said, but it's Canadian and, and it, and it, I, I, well, it also happened that I took about a quarter pound of weed with us and we were stoned the whole time we were going, you know it. Was this close to discovering a forex like exchange trading like that? He was this close, you know, it was really.

15:37 Close. So funny because he was just like, why wouldn't why wouldn't everybody do this? We would just go across the border and get more money, you know, why would we do that? Well, you know, if you think about it, that's called arbitrage. What you look for is currency trading, where one currency's overvalued and another currency's undervalued and you buy the undervalued and you trade it for the overvalued and then you go to a third currency. Yeah, people that manipulate it. I mean, Soros is the biggest one that did. I think he did it in Venezuela or Brazil where he bought like a billion dollars worth of currency, you know, and he cornered the market on the on the dot on the currency.

16:17 So the currency rises through the roof and then he sells, you know, contracts, he buys short contracts and he makes, you know, $100 million. And they started figuring it out. And then the countries were like, no, you're not going to come and screw with our currency just to line your pockets 'cause they figured a hole in the system. And that's what financial guys do. They figure out a way to make money from doing nothing or, you know, manipulating price differentials. And that's what they talk about arbitrage is that and M&A arbitrage, which is something I did later, was when you're looking for something, you know, you're looking for an undervalued asset. You know, you make a tender off for a company for $30, it's trading at 20. I want to buy that stock, right?

16:59 I want to buy it at 2020220426, 2726. And it's all about whether or not the deal is going to go through because then it'll be 27. It might be raised 28 or 29 or 30, or it might just fall back to 15 if it fails. And remember, my first day was Black Monday so I saw a lot of deals fall apart real quick. But anyway, he was the third roommate, 4th, whatever whatever number. But he cut out like on a Monday before the end of month with his girlfriend and left a note and then. What did the notes say?

17:40 What? What do the notes say? That he was, he was worried and that he, he didn't feel comfortable and he left because we had, I was fighting with her because people were calling there and she would answer the phone and they, and they say hi, it's Phil there. And then she'd say no and hang up. And then I would never know anything. And then people would say, well, you never call me back. I'm like, what do you mean? It's like, well, I called you and some woman picks up the phone and hangs up on me and I'm like, oh, and then I cornered her and and we got in a screaming match and he freaked out that I was yelling at his girlfriend because, well, the C word may have been used and.

18:22 But to not even write a note down to be like, yeah, your mom called. I, I, I work as a secretary all day. It's not my job. And, and here's the thing, they weren't paying any rent for her. So, you know, it was, it was, it was, it was a painful thing, you know, and then his brother wanted me to go with him camping that Friday when and I, I was like, Nah, I'm like, Nah, I don't want to. Go Did you know the brother at all? Yeah, the brother and I were friends since Manny's, so he wasn't. Going to like leave you out in the woods or anything. Yeah, he was. You think so? Yeah, he was going. To leave me to go back. Because his brother moved out when I said no to camping and if I would have gone camping with Leroy, I think his brother would have Leroy would have left me there, gone back, helped his brother move out and then and I never heard from him again after that. That's.

19:12 Such a weird thing though, if he could have just moved out anyway. Yeah, why would he need to leave you in the woods? That doesn't make any sense. Well, because then he could have. It would have been easier. How would it? How would it have been easier? You know, I don't know, I, I've often wondered what the, what the whole deal was because I mean, him and I hadn't been camping or doing anything in years. And then he wanted to go camping. That's hard. And I knew I was in a big stressful situation with his brother. Maybe he just wanted to move out sooner, you know? Because brother said he was going to move out and he's like, OK, we'll move out at the end of the month. That's, I mean, well the lease wasn't up for another two months, so you would have had to pay for the other two months, right? That's fair. You have a lease to the it'd be like you're it's December now. Your lease is up what, end of February? Yeah.

19:59 Let's say that I come out there and I take Alex and Jordan camping and then and then you and and your girlfriend move out to her house while we're out there and then I just leave them out there. I don't really understand the leaving part 'cause if they go to work well then. They'd come back, we'll see you. There was never any confrontation. They might have been worried that there might have been a confrontation 'cause I was thinking that he, he was going to move out over the weekend and that's the reason that he wanted to get me to go 'cause then he would have, he would have had two full days to move out. Instead, he had to move out completely in one day. There we go. When I left in the morning, from when I left in the morning to when I came home, I came home and the electricity was off. No, the phone was off.

20:47 The electricity was on. And I was just like, what? And I had no idea, you know? Wow, and that's in the What was this the 80s? Yeah, I had to pay rent for two months and then and then weirdly, I go in and I have this. I worked at Charles E Simon. There's a girl that was there. What the heck was her name? Oh, gosh, I can see her. They used to call her Glitter, but her and three other girls, two other girls were moving into a house on what is the last Metro line in Maryland, the Red Line? Arundel.

21:31 No, no, not that far up north of Bethesda. What's the very next woman, honey? No, not Huntington, north of Bethesda. Real big one. Oh, I know what you're talking about. Colesville. No, Colesville's up there. No, no, no, Metro and Metro and Maryland. But anyway, I moved in with her. Chevy Chase North Chevy Chase is north of Bethesda, right? Or is that kind of the same area? Kind of the same area, honestly. Chevy Chase and Bethesda are like, right next to each other. Fun fact about that Chevy Chase, MD, named after Chevy Chase's the famous actor's father.

22:15 Actually funny enough. Yeah, and the reason why it's called Chevy Chase, MD is because he owned a large amount of car dealerships in Chevy Chase, MD and that's why it's named after him. Funny enough, I'm. Trying to remember this because it's interesting story. Metro Red Line. Yeah, I can't remember off the top of my head, 'cause I used to drive to Colesville. I remember that and even which. Was far. This was not. This was not that far up. It was Metro, North Grove, Nerbessa Medical Center, Friendship Heights, Silver Catoma, Wheaton, Glenmont. Glenmont wasn't there.

23:05 I don't remember. That one. No, I I would gosh, this is so weird N something It was north of Tacoma. It was. It was. Tacoma. I forgot about that one. Yeah, it was 17 stops. Yeah, 17 stops well. Yeah, it was 17 stops to get to the what was OK here I have, I have the metro in front of me. I won't. The metro in front of me well on the. Shady Grove. Shady Grove. Shady Grove, Last stop and Shady Grove and I would come in and I would go all the way to Judiciary Square and that was 123456789101112131415.

24:01 That's the transfer too, right? Where was 15/16/17? No, no transfer. Oh, no transfer. So, but if you didn't get a if you didn't get a seat at Shady Grove, and a lot of times if you didn't get there early enough, the whole train was full. And so you're standing for 17 stops and usually, you know, you're in your 20s, so you're hungover. That's just the way it was. And you know, and I remember giving up my seat like in in you'd see people from Rockville was the very next stop, which was a big stop and old people would come on or Bethesda.

24:42 And but anyway, I live with the, the them for a little over a year. And then I was talk, I was friends with doggy cause doggy graduated and he said, hey, we should get a place. And I'm like, yeah, well, let's get a place. And then I moved out of there and moved to Huntington. And I lived in Huntington with with doggy for probably 2 years. Oh wow. And then wait. Huntington, Maryland. Huntington Metro, which is in. Is that Maryland? Alexandria, Alexandria Just outside the Beltway and the Yellow line and the Huntington was the last stop there. And that's when I started dating Valerie.

25:24 It like a year into it, a year and a half into it. I dated other women, but you know, they were all youthful and or not in this country and anyway or not in the state that I lived in. I was really good at dating people at a far distance at that point in my life. So it was very different, but, but I lived with doggy for a year, maybe 2 years. I think it was, it might have been just a year. Maybe it was 2 years, might have been two years. And at the end of two years is when I like four months in six months into the second year I met Valerie and then we were dating and then we, I remember we were at the, we got serious pretty quick.

26:10 You know, I remember we were at Red Hot and Blue and, and we're sitting here talking. It's like, well, you know, my lease is coming up. She goes, yeah. I say, well, you know, maybe we should like she goes live together. I'm like, yeah, I'd be at that. And she goes, well, you know, it would be something that we're like, it's going to be more permanent. And neither one of us would say marriage. We say, yeah, you know, something more permanent long term, but let's let's move in together because for the most part, I wasn't in Huntington. I was at her. I was at her place because she lived and South Barton St. which was like 15 minutes from my work. Huntington was like 45. So I pretty much married her because you live closer to my work.

26:54 But that's. You were 38. 38 What? By this time. No 3729. Oh, really? 29 You knew her 10 years from now. You had a kid. We were 38 or 39 when we had you. We got married when we were 30. OK, so was it about a decade later? OK, gotcha. I never really thought, but she. Was my last roommate so far, you know? Yeah, well, you had me. I was kind of a roommate. Yeah, you were kind of a roommate too. There was. Some probably the. Worst, you were the hardest one to live with. But yeah. And then of course, we had the cats and the dogs. But they're, I mean, they're a little different. They they, they give you a lot more love than kids do.

27:35 Yeah, kids are terrible. I'm not going to say. But we know it's, it's, it's, I think it's the 7030 rule, you lose 30% or 7040 and you gain 70. So, well, I just. Think the ages from 14 until about 22 are just probably the worst, hands down. Oh my. God, I I think you need to ratchet down that 14 to around 12. OK, gotcha, late twelves. Late twelves is when you start to, that's when a lot of people start smoking cigarettes. That's when they get introduced to weed, that's when they get introduced to different drugs. And it's not that that's horrible and alcohol, but then they're becoming they, they know more than you. And that doesn't dissipate until probably 20. Well, sometimes it never does.

28:29 Too. Yeah, yeah, that's true. The ignorance. Kind of just lays down and exists for the rest of their lives, right? Depending on how educated you. Are because you, you know you it, it's you are unaware of my experiences or the, the the child is unaware of the parents experiences and the parent is not going to tell the child every nasty dirty thing they ever did and got caught for and was horrible. They just don't want the kid to go through that kind of stuff. Exactly. So you're kind of what I realized later on is that you guys were trying to protect me from the world to some degree, right?

29:09 And that's what, And then what I kind of went off on my own and went through a bunch of experiences that I didn't even really need to go through, but I subjected myself to, you know, like I realized much later, I'm like, wow, I could have abstained. I could have not seen this part of the world that nobody ever really should see, you know well. Do you do you? I, I think that that there's something about that that allows you to grow. You know, I think from when I was when I graduated high school to when I was 19 or 20 when I started to go to Old Dominion or 21, something like that. I was doing Nova, but I was also working construction a lot.

29:50 And I had a lot of experiences that taught me how to manage people and how to deal with people that were, I mean, they were bright in what they did, but they were not bright about finance. They were not bright about, I mean things like that, which I knew a lot about and I knew about like why people were selling to you and marketing to you and all that. And and it just like it just it just made me like wow. I mean, I always tell that story about the Corona, remember? Yep, you've heard it, I think. Have I told that on here? Yeah, a couple times, but only, only. A couple times. Only a couple times, yeah. That's what happens when you're old. You keep reliving your youth and telling stories where you're like, Oh my God, I'm going to have to pay for those people. Yeah, I'm thinking my last roommate, it's probably going to be these guys, right?

30:41 Because I think we'll move in with what's her face if all goes well at the age of 28, probably because I think 28 is moving out. So we're going to have to take over this MF for together or we're going to have to move out one of the two. But our landlord currently is looking for places through Wiseman that are are local so we don't have to fucking pack EU haul and drive it 40 miles or something. Also the further W you go here in LA it it gets quite expensive. It gets quite expensive. The further W you go, the further. Now you tell people what is it like you pay twelve 1500 bucks a month each. 3100 between three of us. So it's about 1200 per person, 1234, which is unheard of right now 'cause we were consulting somebody, a Wiseman, he was, Alex was, and they're like, you're paying 31 for that. And they're like, oh wait, sorry, it's not pretty. It's whatever 1200 is.

31:41 It's like 1234. That's 37. I thought you paid 37 and 3837? And she's like, that's unheard of. Like that doesn't exist anymore. Ever since the fires, that doesn't exist. But it does, Only you would have to ratchet down the idea that you wanted glass windows. Yeah. Or you didn't want to live in Compton. Yeah, something like that. Like you don't like the because the further SE you go, the cheaper it's going to get. But even in Compton, in those areas, it's not that cheap. Like, it isn't, it's not that cheap unless you're getting government money for Section 8. That's the only part where you're really going to find that it's cheaper. And it's not even that much cheaper.

32:22 It's kind of crazy. Like they were going over what it is to pay rent in the Tenderloin in San Francisco, and I was amazed that it was still $1000 a month. Like, it's it's still quite crazy. Yeah. It's like 900 to 1000 for government housing and that's why. People live outside. Yeah, exactly, 100%. I mean, that's just so crazy. So what other you got roommate stories? Give me a roommate story. I. Remember moving in with Grant and I remember getting a phone call at 2:00 in the morning and saying that Austin had jumped off the balcony and I said what? Who's Austin? And then I remember that was Grant's friend. And then I, I remember that phone call so prolifically, 'cause then I called Jordan, who had been called earlier that day.

33:06 And then because he called Jordan first, 'cause I didn't answer the first phone call and I called him back. No, that's, that's what it was. Jordan texted me. He says you should really call Grant or something like that or Austin jumped or something of the sort. And then I called Grant, cause Grant called me late at. Night. What floor were you on? The 4th floor, the 4th floor and that. Was and he landed on. Concrete, concrete. He was in the hospital for 70 days, 80 days, something like that. He moved 4. Stokes and then went to grad school after, which is pretty crazy. Went to Comm school. I don't know what he's doing now, but that's pretty insane. Probably not those quantities of drugs and alcohol. No, no, I heard he was naked or something.

33:47 I don't know. But everybody was not having a great time during the pandemic because I remember him. He was working at Walmart for about a year and a half during the pandemic. And he's like, well, that would really make me wonder why I went to a public Ivy League school, right? If I was gonna go be a greeter at Walmart, I, that would nothing short of make me extremely suicidal. That would, Oh my gosh, yeah. And the world is gonna end and all I can do are drugs and alcohol, you know, And you really have no course of action in your life. You really have no direction, which is really, really upsetting. And not not to shame people for working at Walmart, cause no, no job should ever be shamed, right?

34:28 But at the same time, it's like you go to four year school, you go into all the student debt to just go to an entry level position that you could have done to begin with. Out of high school. Yeah. And it's like you're not even. I don't know. Yeah, what you learned, you are not applying to that job and that's I think that's kind of the thing. But you also got to look at yourself that it, I think that it used to be not always, but it used to be that you would you would go to school. Some people go to school to broaden their horizons and learn about life and things and live with other people because they've always lived with their family. And then that would be the first shot that they got to move out and live with somebody else and learn what it was like to interact with people.

35:09 Interact with people from all over the, all over the state, all over the country, all over the world. So then now you're getting exposure to people outside that have different viewpoints and different things. So you learn how to deal with that. And I think that that is a, that's a way to grow. Some people can grow, some people, some people just lock themselves in the ruse and you know, and do what they do. Intellectual due diligence is kind of what you're talking about. And at the same time now it's like, do you, you look at it and you're like, well, is intellectual due diligence worth $120,000? And I'm not going to be able to pay it off until I'm 60 years old. Is it worth it? I don't know. You asked me. Could you get it from your own interests? Say before going into college that you knew that you wanted to be a writer and you were already an avid reader.

35:52 Is college worth it? I would say no, it's not worth it. People that go to school for creative writing will only see themselves creatively castrated time again. The actors that I have seen that have gone and gotten Mfas are worst actors coming out. They just are. I think that that's what it is. You, you need to establish a process and you need to establish a way that you can creatively work in your kind of vocation, right? And then there's a lot of people learn that from people that have failed doing that in because they're teachers. Those that teach acting are failed actors. That's a fact. I mean, it just is. Same with writers. I mean, actually that's not always true because I had a poetry professor who was published by Simon Schuster 10 or 15 times. And I'm like, there you go, OK, that's a writer that is actually published.

36:39 But be able to teach creative writing who aren't published, I don't have any respect for. I don't understand why you're teaching me a failed kind of schedule or a failed kind of way about you. Would want to learn from well see in theory. I mean, I remember my dad telling me the story about he went to Alabama, then he went to Harvard and he said when he went to Alabama and this is when Paul Barry Brown was there. So this is a lifetime ago. If anybody knows that is. Anyway, he said the difference between the two is the book that we used in Alabama was being taught by a teacher with a four year degree and the and we used the same book in Harvard. But the guy teaching the class wrote the book. Yeah.

37:23 And that was it. You got you got some insight and intuition and, and and that and that certain brain power of what they had. And a lot of those people that are there are really successful on their own, you know. Well, that was they. Think at UVA is you had all the teachers, they graduated from Harvard or Yale and they taught at UVA, which is interesting, but also the roommate situation at and then I live by myself that second year, which got to say that was amazing. Yeah, that was incredible. I had Roly polys on the ground all the time because it was a fucking basement apartment and I didn't think about that. Never live on a ground floor ever again. An apartment complex, never again.

38:05 Yeah, that wasn't even ground. That was. Base roaches. Roaches go downhill. Yeah, exactly. They don't go up. They never do. And what was I thinking about? Yeah, I lived under the Realtors, and this woman wore heels every day, and there was no carpet on the hardwood floor, so she'd come in at 6:30 in the morning and wake me up every day. And that was great. And many times I was hungover and I thought about setting the whole fucking building on fire, but that other than that, no, I never did never set the building. What about Denver? How was Denver? That was kind of a nightmare. I mean, that was random. Roommate Adam was nice. Ronan was a good guy, but he was a recovering addict as well as well. Not I mean, Grant wasn't recovering at that point.

38:45 He's kind of just active. And so I got kind of double down there. I mean, first with Adam, then with Grant, then I was like, wow, the world is just a magnet on my forehead for fucking drug addicts. It's crazy. And then. But Adam kind of reignited his drug addiction and I kind of discovered mine there and then. Yeah. And then he left on medical leave and then so on and so forth. But no, he was good for the time being. I wouldn't say good for me. But was he violent? No. Was he clean? No. Was. But he was. He was nice. He was pleasant to, yeah. Yeah, we had good. I mean, we had good. I, I, I mean, I've been lucky that most of my roommates have been pretty good and pretty reasonable.

39:29 I've never been like. A violent altercation, Yeah. Which has been great, you know, because I've heard stories, stories, stories, stories about confrontation that leads to violence and things like that. Just the other day, when I got my wallet stolen, I went to the police station to report it after going to LA Fitness. And this guy was talking to me. I was talking to him. And then he steps up after me, files a police report. He's like, yeah, I'd like to report a, an assault on me. My roommate just punched me in the face and I'm like, Oh my gosh. And I me and Alex get back in the car because Alex got his wall and stolen too. And I was like, man, isn't that great that we just donate each other? And he's like, yeah, that's fantastic. I thought that was funny. Yeah. Well. What's a shocker because you, I mean it, it, The thing is, is that people, when you learn how to give, you got to be able to give and take.

40:11 And I think The thing is, yeah, reciprocation. You got to have reciprocation because a lot of people don't understand it. They just take and then other people are they're just givers and then they just wait and then they explode. And I think that's the whole idea about rules and saying this is what we should do and we're all going to agree to this. And you have each other in the room and you talk about it and you make sure that you have clear idea of what's going to happen and who has to clean what because you have to have some sense. We never. Agreed on that. And I think that that's interesting. I don't know. I always thought when I did that at at the college one, that was really good. When we were at the first college one, everybody was pretty clean. I mean, I didn't live with pigs and I've been, I've been kind of blessed with that.

40:57 Larry was somewhat of a pig, but they were only a pig when we weren't doing the dishes and stuff. You know, as long as it as long as the kitchen's clean, It's like the whole place we were, we were supposed that is, I mean, you know, yeah, he was a pig. But as long as we as long as we would have agreements to do the dishes and we were doing, we would do schedules and stuff like that. And, and I found that the bit, the biggest deal was to make a schedule in the beginning and to be very, you know, and be flexible and say, well, OK, how do you want to work this? And then and I, and The thing is, is I'm known. And one of the reasons that I think a lot of people get along with me is because I like to lay out what's going to happen and anticipating, you know, what's going to happen ahead of time.

41:43 OK, we got 2 rooms. One room's bigger than the other. It's only fair if someone has a bigger room, they pay a little more or they get something or something else happens. You know, there's, there's, it's only fair that, that somebody cleans the kitchen every day. We have to do the dishes every day, you know, I mean. People just do their own dishes where I live. I mean, that's kind of the way it goes well. We, we just, we just did it all together because he, he had some dishes, but he didn't have that many. And I had dishes that were nicer. And, you know, we kind of, we coexisted everything we're. All coming from places where we live by ourselves. So I mean, we all have our own kind. Of all your own. Stuff. Even though everybody loves to use my fucking cutting board. I don't know what that is, but everybody enjoys that.

42:26 But other than that, it's because it's wooden. And you know, in the last year or so, people were like, oh, if you use a plastic cutting board, it scrapes off and it gets in your brain or something. Yeah, I eat the plastic. Yeah, I swear I got plastic. That's. Always good, man. I I've got so much stuff in my brain. It's like plastic's not a thing I'm worried about. It's all the other stuff I got in the brain. No, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you think about all the different roommates that that like Doggy is somebody I met in college and he's still a friend today and I still have, I still meet him and I and I'm going to meet him in a couple weeks and I meet him every quarter and we go out and have lunch and I meet him. He lives up in Colombia. He grew up around here where I live now.

43:08 And that's what it is funny. And he knew my aunt, my aunt and my uncle when we came in and it was like a really interesting thing. And he likes to drink beer, and I like to. Drink. He knew your aunt and uncle? Yeah, I didn't. Know that his dad was an artist and his dad taught the levies which were really good friends with the hoof knuckles. Interest. I never knew that well and. There was always some rumors about things that happened there, but we won't go into that. Oh, I see what you're talking about, Yeah. You know, there's, there's all those things, you know, you, you, you hear the scuttlebutt about this, that and the other and who did what to whom and how they did it and all that other kind of stuff like that. And we're old people, you know, they're all, they're all pro creators, you know, whatever you want to say. But as far as like other roommates, that's, that's like all my roommates.

43:56 I've been, you know, I, I think I've been pretty lucky with the number of roommates. I think there's the, the whole, the end of the Larry thing was bad, but for, for so long it was great. It was, it was a good situation. It was him and I, I mean, we, we had a road trip. We went to, I don't remember going when we went to Canada and he had his, what the hell was that? A Mustang 2? And we drove that up and then it broke down on the way back and, and we, we just, we drank and got stoned and smoked the whole time and lived in the woods and camped on a lake and all this kind of stuff like that. It was just a great time. And, you know, and, and in college with Doggy and the guys, we, I mean, we had keg parties at the house. The police came and raided once and arrested a bunch of people. I wasn't one of them.

44:51 They arrested my roommate. He was taking cash at the door and he got arrested and then two other people got arrested. What are you? Arrested. For he will sell alcohol. We had a, we had a weekend party there and it was Greek week, right? Which is Greek is this big fraternity for colleges and stuff like that. And we had a, a Saturday night party and we, and we put out all these things GRWK ladies free. And we, we were charging guys 2 bucks at the door and we had 18 kegs. We had two kegs in the back and we were, and we were, and we had a runner who would run to the local store and bring another keg back when one got empty. So we didn't have to pay for them as as we got money, we would get another as we got money, we'd get another as.

45:36 And it was so cool. And at, at like in the afternoon, the head of the Greek organization came to our house and Ron Gander's in the front. No, it wasn't afternoon. It's like 11:30 in the morning. He started drinking at 9. I had a few beers. I wasn't. And he had a stamp on his forehead that said paid and on each cheek that said paid. And he was wearing a, you know, like a fighter robe, didn't have anything underneath it. And the and the and the guy comes up and he's telling us that, you know, why are we having an unsponsored Greek party? And we say we're not having a Greek party. And they say, well, what it says GRWK. And we're like, that means great weekend. And and he and he is, he's pissed. And his girlfriend's like right behind him. Yeah, you better not.

46:25 You know, she's like, she's she's doing the mean look, but she doesn't really say anything. And he turns and he starts to walk away and as he turns Ganner and I are sitting on the front porch and Ganner just flops open his robe and just flashes her, which I'm sure that's that's not good now, but at the time she just went and I of course tapped him and I said he's already paid for. Anyway, they left alcohol board shows up at 10 with Paddy wagons, probably 10 police cars, you know, and they, they, they arrest a lot of people. They, they took my wallet. I saw one guy in the front front that was actually pointing at him.

47:11 He was a bartender. And he said they can't arrest people for not doing anything. And the guy and and it's Norfolk Police. Yeah, they're not. They've all got clubs, there's dogs, there's everything. He points at one of them because the guy goes, give me your ID. He goes, I don't have to show you an ID. And he goes, you and he goes, you can't. And when he said that, the cop grabbed his finger, twisted it, turned, dropped them down to his knees, whips out his cuffs, cuffs, cuffs them and starts dragging them across the lawn. Have you ever been handcuffed? Yeah. You know what happens when they pull and they carry you by? The tighter it gets tighter. Yeah. And I know that. I already knew that.

47:51 And they never dragged him girls along. I already knew that. And the cop, the cops yelling at me. Give me your ID. What you do, do do do you live here? Do you do this? And then he's on one side. And then there's another guy with a German Shepherd who's jumping at me barking. And he's yelling in different orders at me. And I'm just like. And then and then when I would answer one guy, the other guy was like, shut the hell up. You know, he's cussing at me. Give me. And I hand him my I pull out my ID and he grabs it and he just takes off. And I'm freaked out. And that's when they told me. They said if you don't, you have. And I said, everybody's inside, you know, so you can't come in the house. We wouldn't let them in the house. And they said, OK, we're gonna camp. We're gonna camp outside.

48:33 And anybody that comes out, if anybody's underage, we're gonna come inside in force and we're going to write everybody a ticket. And I want you to know that if, if it's a $5000 fine to serve alcohol to underage people per person. So I go in the house. So I go in the house and our house is literally it's a 5 bedroom house. It's huge. There's probably 150 people stuffed in the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, all the way up the stairway into the back, the bedrooms. And I said, anybody underage here? I said the cop is anybody underage here? And like 20% raise their hands like fuck. And I said, he said we could all leave if we leave immediately. But if we don't and we stay here, he's going to write a ticket to each and every one of us for all the people serving, for us serving underage.

49:29 And it's a $5000. And I never got the word fine. Out the door pops open, everybody leaves. Like it was a huge pool of people. They all went out. You know the cops in the back, they took the taps from the they took. We had one tap, we had two kegs. They spiked the other keg and they dumped them all on the ground. So they're all leaving. They left, the music's blaring, the cops take off. They gave me back my ID. I'm the only one there. And there's a 12 pack in the corner on the front porch and nobody saw it. Nobody did it. And somebody must have brought it. And I went over and I just sat there drinking a beer. And then Ganter came in at like 12:30 and goes, where is everybody?

50:11 I'm like jail, jail. Because it was a lot of his, his, his, his graduate, because he was ahead of me in college. He was a he was a finance major accountant. But yeah, that was a great, great, wild, wild time. But we had those. I mean, he was the one that I had. I see. I was 22 or 23 then, and I bought my gun with me. I had 357 Magnum and it was in my top drawer. And you know, if somebody's going to mess with me, I was going to blow them away. That was my kind of attitude, always was. Anyway, he'd never shot up a magnum. So we go in Norfolk, downtown Norfolk. We're not 2300 yards from the campus in the backyard. And it was, and we were drunk.

51:03 It was like a Sunday drunk, you know. So we started drinking about 10:30 in the morning and, and we were really pretty wasted by about 3:00 in the afternoon. And he goes out there and he pulls off. He squeezed off a couple rounds. He squeezed off one round. It, it lights up his whole area. He freaks out. I take the gun, I go inside and we're inside and we're smoking weed because Leroy's there and a couple others and he has like a four foot tall bong and all this kind of stuff like that. And we don't think any of it. We're listening to music and I put the gun away and we all laughed and thought it was crazy and we're getting drunk and everything. And then there's a knock on the door and it's and it's and I look at and I go to the door and I look and there's an intersection here. And there's an intersection down here. There are three police cars at this intersection. There's three police cars at this intersection. There's cops everywhere.

51:59 And they're going from house to house and they're going. We had a report of a disturbance in the neighborhood. Somebody's fired a gun. Did you hear anything? And I'm so stoned. I'm like, no, I didn't hear anything. And and I go back inside. You're like, OK. And then they smile and then I shut the door and then they go. And then they come back and there's like 8 of them at the front door now because they realized that everybody on the block. And he goes, I just want you to know that the guys next to your left, they heard it. The guys to your right, they heard it. The house behind you on the next street, they heard it. Why didn't you hear it?

52:41 And we had put a cowboy hat over the bong, so we didn't get him to see it. We thought that hit it. And he's looking at us and we're and we're, we're gassed, didn't know what to do. Moose, our roommate who was, was just coming home from I think he was working, he was working at a gas station and then he dropped out of college, but he was still living there. He, he comes in, he sees us there. He knows what he knew that I, we fired a gun. He runs, he goes upstairs, he comes down and he goes, you lit off my last M80 man, you suck. And he says that right in front of the cop. And the cop goes, oh, and I said, well, and he and he turns to Moose and he goes, do you have any more up there? And he goes, no, I just had that last one and I was saving it.

53:23 And these assholes lit it off. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm sorry. And we're like, don't you do that? You're not allowed to do that, you know? And he, he gives me the, the hardcop thing. And then they turn around and all the cops go away. And I was just like, I think I bought Moose a bottle of liquor for that. That was, I mean, he just, he saved us from jail because, you know, firing off a firearm in. Was it a registered firearm or it was unregistered? Yeah, yeah, it's registered, but it doesn't matter. Yeah, I I mean, I bought that one. It was 21. But it didn't have like serial numbers scratched off or anything, right? Well, yeah, a couple of them are messed up. That was the. Well, that's that can be conspiracy to murder. That's I got. Well, no, it's just I got, I got arrested for me and a guy. We're doing target practice in Dale City in the in the woods power lines, but not far back enough. And the cops showed up and they asked me, they said people are firing back.

54:19 And I said yeah, yeah, we're doing target practice because you got a gun. And I said, yeah, he goes, where is it? And I said, it's under the seat in my car, you know, oh, can I see it? And he show it to me and they look at it and my, my serial number is messed up all my 357 Magnum and he's trying to run it and he can't run it. And this is like before computers and everything. And he said, and he, and he took, he didn't take a picture of it. What did he do? He wrote it down and wrote a little report and all this kind of stuff like that and said, you can't do that. I said, I didn't realize. I thought we, we just came out here and we, and I showed him, I said, we, we loaded up, we put some cans and they're against a hill. So he knew we weren't going to have any problem. And it's a cubby, so there's no way anybody's going to get hurt or anything.

55:01 And he didn't see the beer that we had. And because you never go, you never go shooting without beer. It's just a it's, it used to be a law. I think the law has been changed since then. But that was that's what we did then. It was just, that was one of those stories. Roommates, aren't they fun? They sure are. Well, I think we're wrapped up here. That's a great note to end on. Oh my gosh, roommates are fun. Wow. They sure are well as always record of myfather.com go check us out. The websites updated as per last week so go check that out. New clips. I need to start uploading on the YouTube again. We're about like 50 episodes behind on the YouTube. I know, but I did. I did a bunch of links to all our shorts. A lot of people haven't seen a little shorts on YouTube, and there's probably 40 of them and they're like comical things of me doing stupid stuff. And some of it's funny, some of it's crazy, some of it's just probably against the law.

55:54 Yep, it sure is. It sure is. All right, we'll catch you next Friday. See. You party on bye bye.