Western Railroading, Sobriety, & Male Archetypes

Suntrain headquarters. You asshole Berry. I'm recording already, Lance, Welcome to
the Crime Pays. But Botany doesn't podcast today. I'm I have my friend
Lance Jenkins on here. He's just the way. It's nothing to do with
nothing to do with Botany. We're just shooting the ship like we used to
do at work when we were stealing time from the company that we worked for.
A couple of plants. Wait, don't, don't. Don't fuck with
my poppies, you asshole, my fucking poppies. How are you doing?
Hey, sure, I'm good. How are you just shooting the ship today?
We're not. We're podcasts and I've never done a podcast. Yeah,
we just yeah, you know, I just figured it. I gonna be
fucking famous. I want to be fucking famous. Yeah, I tell like
my my twenty thousand, twenty thousand listards, it's like thirty thousand. Come
on, maybe am I cuts? Wait what so what tell me about the
Sun Train? What were you doing? Can I cuss? Yeah? You
could cuss? You just talk like just at work, like we're literally like
we're stealing time from Union Pacific. We're stealing time from Union Pacific. How
much time do you think you stole from from union to season. It's quantify
it. If I could going in an eight hour so they say, just
down in a forty hour work week, we probably work maybe a total of
four hours. Do you think you say no, it had it was,
it was a little bit more than that. I think I think we we
did work. We probably stole two or three hours a day. Oh easy,
maybe easy. That's not even though that's easy to do from just all
the bullshit though. I mean, you waste so much time on the railroad.
Oh oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, but if you know
what, even you can't even it's hard to steal time there, you know,
when they say you steal time, it's hard because it's the railroad.
Like you said, you get to work. You'd get to work. You
show up. Shit's not ready, power's not ready, your train's not built.
This isn't done. There's no paperwork does it, you know, and
it's like, well, what are you gonna do? You know, Yeah,
you guys are just in here drinking coffee. Well that's why I would
go, That's why I would show up. I made it a point to
show up twenty minutes late every day because I was like, you know,
we get here, I'm not doing anything the first twenty minutes anyway, if
you're on a yard job, you know, so I'm gonna show up twenty
minutes late and fuck around and drink coffee and maybe I'll do some stretches.
I'll go do some push up, so get like a workout routine, and
shit, go steal some gloves from the cabinet, you know, always like
go take some waters. When I worked with you, I was so I
was always happy because I was like, Okay, I don't have to really
be on time because I know you're not gonna be on time and you're gonna
show up with your jug full of full of herbs and juices of green tea
that always look like this. That would be funny. Man. You get
like these dudes from Roseville and they're like, man, what's that? That
guy's kind of weird? What is he doing? Like? Why is he
drinking piss? You know? It's like, you know what, I never
understood from here to Roseville's what an hour and a half away. I never
understood how from a same state you an hour and a half away you change
from talking like us to talking like yes, yeah, we're down here in
the Budgehead and how do you how do you get that accent? It's it's
that it's the central valley man. It's like you know, you like lers,
stock farmbones mane come to more. If I go down to Oakland,
I better bring I got to bring a gun. Man, better bring a
gun. You better be prepared. They'll get you this day. Who's they?
Who's they? Buddy? What are you talking about? Like? Oh?
Speaking of day? Did I ever tell you the time? Remember that
guy? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cannes Because I asked him
what we do before we have to conceal names on here? We can?
Sorry, he was in that of a guy. I am wish him the
best, but no, but anyway, this this guy guy, this guy
named no. One's gonnaj Yeah TJ so he said he was. I was
asking him, what did you do before? You know you're railroading? Because
he has that thick accent, you know, Tennessee. Oh, I was
in the food industry. What was that? I worked at Sonic? I
say, you worked in Sonic like you like roller skating with the tight you
know, the jeans cut off short to the cars. That's kind of he
was no, he was a cook. But this guy one day he said,
oh, just I got a new house. You know, he bought
a home in the Oakland Hills. Right. So we're at work one day
in the shanty just bes and he comes in. He was telling me about
his his house he just bought and he and he said, yes, it's
a great house. And I said, yeah, for the price. I
said, in ten years that thing is going to be worth over a mill.
And I think he bought it for like three hundred and fifty of it
during two thousand, two thousand and eight, right when it took the crash
two thousand and nine. Yeah, he bought it for like three hundred grand
three fifty. Oh yeah, it's two million now right now, for sure.
And I said, I said, you know, he said, it's
a great place, it's a great house. But you know, it's in
the neighborhood. And I was like, what, it's a pretty nice neighborhood.
Yet it's nice, but there's a and he looked around and he cupped
his hand over his mouth. He said, there's a lot of black Jesus
Christ. No ship really in open shit, you're shitting me, right,
I couldn't believe because he cupped his hand, you know, black, and
whispered it to me. I was like, oh shit, you better watch
out, Tony. Well, I got doing. What are you doing moving
here? Did you read about the place before you came? If you don't,
if you don't, if you have a dis taste for Jesus Christ.
Yeah, man, the guy was suffering inside though. Man, I remember
I I I was. I told you about the time I got into it
with him. I was screaming at him and he just stops all of a
sudden. I was fucking with him on the radio. It was like a
few hours because he said something. I forget what. I forget the details
of it. But he was being a dick, the poor bastard. I
mean, he's probably suffering inside too, right, but but uh dick,
And I was. I was fucking mouthing off to him, and I just
started fucking with him, and all of a sudden he gets in the radio
goes, well, you shut up, you shut up, But I just
started. I was fucked. Man. It was as soon as he said
that, I'm sure it got even worse. There were some guys there.
It was like it's like a prison mentality there were people I love working with,
But then there were some dudes who was like, man, you had
to come in there and you had to be like loud as fuck and like
make a presence just so they wouldn't fuck with you, Like don't don't fuck
with me, motherfucker, you know, because you go in and they'd be
all quiet and ship It's like Jesus Christ, loosen the fuck up, you
know this road bill? Yeah, well, if you if you ever read
Lynda Nieman's book, she was that lady that worked for Southern Pacific and she
would talk about you know when they uh because you know, so the woman
with all the patches and stuff, the pins all of her hat and stuff.
Just don't you have a lot of different like pins from like Mopack and
different railroad. Oh I don't. I don't think so. No. She
wrote a book called Boomer Really cool. Fuckingly. I had her on the
podcast like three years ago, really fucking badass. Lady moved to Mexico for
half the year, taught herself Spanish at like age forty five, and just
quit up. But she she used to work for sp and you know back
when because up bought Western Pacific in the eighties, before they bought Southern Pacific
in the nineties, right, and she talked about you know, oh yeah,
like in one of her books, she's like, oh yeah, you
know, the up Whenever they'd have to go take a UP train or like
go to the up yard office, she'd be like, yeah, those guys
don't talk, man, the UP guys don't talk like their soul's already been
ufed out, you know, like they're fucking sod. God. Yeah,
it was so fun. Harder told me, you know, hey, you
know he told me, he said, oh, I can't say names.
We got a man. That guys. We just I don't want to bad
mouth anybody. We're not bad mouthing. You know. That guy's the legend.
I love that guy, he said. He said, you know,
I imagine it's going to be like getting out of Shoshank, you know.
So when I retired, it's like getting out of Shoshank, you know,
getting out of prison. Oh God, that guys I told you about the
time I got Man, this is fucking hilarious. The time that Ray Perry.
You remember that, No, not Ray Perry, was that his name?
Yeah? Yeah, with the hamburger, like the the mustard stains and
stuff on his shirt and the handlebar mustache. She's like the grounds overweight man.
I remember I was. I was just a fucking new Hire. I
was a student bragman. I was in the Shanny. He was LDS right
not to cut you off. Oh yeah, no, I think, yeah,
I think yeah, total yeah, yeah yeah, total creep. But
I was in the Shanny, and I remember, I remember that I was
in the I was a student brakeman. And I'm sitting there and it is
in the old like fake wood paneled shanny and ship, you know, the
old nasty one fucking heinous graffiti on the bathroom and ship and just fucking smelled
like cigarettes and folders. And I'm in there and I'm waiting to tie up,
and someone had taken it. This was the fucking this is back in
the days. Like there's all these old Southern Pacific old heads around and someone
had taken a fucking cutout of Ray Perry's face with that shittating grin like from
a brooch shirt like with this with this big handlebar mustache and wrote like a
word bubble like I eat cocker, like I smoked cock or something. And
I'm sitting there and this fucking pig walks in the guy who's face it is
and sees it, leans over and sees it hated on the wall and goes
huh and and fucking and then he's just on a war path and that ever
since then he went, he was like, we got to get the couches
out of here. I don't want these that why yeah, you know,
but the rock wall wait listen, listen, listen though. This is funny
though, because this is the same day. And then he sees me and
he's like, he's in a fucking horrible mood, and he's like, do
you have your job? Do you have your job briefing book? I remember
it was like the first six months that people had to carry job briefing books
that stupid shit. You remember that fucking shit, right? I got?
I think I got one. Yeah, one hundred and forty years of railroading
before you had to actually write down in your job briefing books and redundant shit
of what you're doing. But now I'm about to get fired because I don't
have it. And so he he tells Bullard, you know, and Bullard
is like, I actually came to like Bullard before he retired. You know,
the old train master, the old train master, old roadmaster, and
he and he tells Bullard, and Bullard's like already probably sweating bullets because he
knows he's got a yard full of fuck ups, all these fuck ups swim
shit and right there, and he's like, go, god damn it,
they're gonna make me look bad. And so Bullard comes in there and he
like he's he knows he's not gonna really fire me, but he wanted to
scare me. He's like, you're fired. You don't have your fucking job
briefing book, blah blah. And I'm like, oh fucking He's like he
yells at me. He's got smoke, Calm's ears and ship, you know,
this old marine, and he's like, just get the fuck back up
in the engine. You're not fired, but you know, just get the
fun back. I don't want to fucking see you. And I'm like,
fucking I go sit up and I'm working with Carter. I'm working with Carter.
Oh yeah, it was fucking awesome. And so I opened the door
and of course all this cigarette smoke comes out, you know, because Carter's
fucking just chain smoking in the fucking GP thirty eight engine. You know,
it just fucking smells like electrical fire and like old man nowhere conditioning drying hot,
just drying out. It smells like old man esophagus and like fucking cigarettes
smoking, and the toy and the toilet, you know, the fucking toilet
and the nose, like every time he comes to a hard joint boom ship
the ship, water in the fing smell like it's splattering all over the blue
splatter. Yeah, and Carter, Carter goes, he goes, he goes.
I was like, oh, the fucking man buller. I could smell
his cheap cologne. And Ray Perry's tried to fucking fire me that fucking pig.
And and and Carter leans over and he goes, kid, you know
what you think? This is bad? Now? When I put those engines
in the river, I had nine of those fucking assholes following me around.
You talk about his perfume and everything. You can smell his perfume, And
we should mention for people listening that Carter was famous for putting two engines in
the fucking river up in Napa County. I don't even how did he do
that? You remember what he did? He like yeah. He he told
me he I just wanted to get a cup of coffee, you know,
he told me. He told me he got off the unit and I guess
he didn't tie him down and they just drifted. But he he claims that
the guy who got the pictures, you know, he said, how is
he there just fishing? You know with a camera? You know, So
he claims that he thinks that he tied the brakes and someone knocked him off
and took the pictures of them, you know, just to get famous pictures,
because he was like, how's the guy going to be fishing? He's
like, how's the guy going to be fishing and have a camera right there?
To see these engines in the perfect spot? You know. Now it
was a setup. You know, he's a man, you fucking like huge,
you right, you didn't even he didn't even put the jam on.
He just parking break. He just hopped off to go grab some coffee,
and there he goes to the fucking engines. Dude, can you imagine getting
your cup of coffee and coming back and seeing them just dumping into it all?
There there they go, God, and there's these pictures are famous.
You know, he autographed I got four of them from Ed Immerman. Yeah,
they had for a while and yeah, and bring him into the Shanny
and he'd have and then he'd sell him the foemers. Yeah, you know
what he gave him to me. He was like, you know, I
usually charged for this, you know, but here, you know, he
was gonna be famous one day. You know. He gave no ship.
I got four, all four of the four shows the progression of the the
one and then yeah, dude, oh man, that's unbelievable. He was
set up. He was set up on the railroad. The ship they used
to do back then. Man was wild though, like saw that the accidents,
you know, like the like the fucking man, I didn't Roosevelt blow
up once it blew up in the eighties or something, and yeah yeah,
and yeah, like big explosion up there. It was a big, big
yeah, I think it was. I've seen pick sures of it and I
yeah, they almost took out the whole yard. What a fucking yeah.
You know, one of the first times you remember the ninety l RD ninety
just as soon yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that fucking so the
first time I I catch the job, the first night is with old this
guy, and then this other guy, well Jesse Anderson because he's a good
guy, he's retired, and the other guys are anybody who were not ship
talking. It's fine. I think, well, I can't I can't say
this guy's name because it involves some illicit activity. So anyway, we wouldn't
want to get anybody indicted either. Yeah. Right, so this is this
guy. I think you I think you know him if I if I get
it, if I nail his voice, right, but we're fucking he comes
up, Hey, what's going on? How's it going? You know?
I'm so so you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you
know what I'm talking about. So he said, hey, you, uh
you fuck around? I was like, what do you mean? He's like,
you fuck around? I was like, uh yeah. He was like
he're open your hand and he fucking dumps like fucking five Viking it in my
hand and then he takes five and eats all five of them and he looks
at me and he said, look fucking Railroad's like oh shit. I was
like, no way, So I I of course I I indulged a little
bit. I didn't take all five, but I took I took one,
two, thousand and five or when did when was it? When did you
play? Around two thousand and five? Two thousand and five, and so
I took one, yeah, man, And I remember getting rocks thrown at
the window, him waking me up. We're David. I'm like, holy
shit, dude, sorry, I'm tired. They don't do what they do
to you. But he yeah, that guy, it's not bad guy.
That's not even like taking fucking opiates on the rail. That doesn't even sound
fun. You just pass out. It sucked for him, It's it must
have had an adversary because it was opposite for him, because he was all
wired up, and I was I was fucking like, ah, I was
like, this is suck. But you know he's he's sober now. Oh
yeah, well that was when did you get sober? After? Like a
year after? When did you get sober? Man? No? At first
ninety eight August nineteen ninety eight, and then you then you fed, You
took a stumble off the wagon. I did in five Yeah. I lost
my mom, Oh, I think, and she slowly died. You know,
she's in a hospital. Her brain had demolinated, you know, all
the covering you know, over her brain somehow she got a virus and then
it was kind of like she had it was kind of like she had sped
up MS. So she lost eventually lost motor functions, lost her kidney functions,
and it was there was nothing you could do. So yeah, dude,
I think after that I kind of I kind of went downhill a bit,
but I never got to overborn. You were just drinking again or what.
Yeah, And but I wasn't doing it a whole lot. When did
you When did you go back to? When did you get so after that?
It was probably two thousand and eight when I lost my dad, because
my dad died twenty five years sober. Yeah, and he was living there
And where was he living in Montana? Yeah he was, he was.
Yeah. He was actually buried on the reservation, the Chyenne Reservation in Montana.
Oh yeah, his funeral was on the reservation. Like they had a
TPE the whole night and like it was Fuck, it was fucking awesome,
dude. I that was the best craziest, coolest funeral I've ever been to,
you know what I mean. And so, but anyway, he was,
he was sober, needed a lot of work for the for the reserve,
for the res he he would he would do like train people to get
their CDL licenses, you know, so guys could have good you know,
truck driving jobs and you know, good jobs because there's not a lot.
There's no jobs, did there, you know, there's no jobs. It's
if anyways, if you've ever been to a reservation, you know, it's
just fucked. You know. The government just they got you know, people
say, oh they got land. It's like the land that they have,
you can't farm it. All you can do? They mine it. They
gave them grigs, right, yeah, you can mine it. And that's
what they're trying to do now, these class ones and the government are trying
to get in, you know, to get coal out of there and other
other minerals. You know. But yeah, after that, you know,
it was kind of like, you know, I don't know, I just
slowly alcohol just not I don't know, just isn't my thing. You know,
it sucks. It sucks. It was fun for a while, but
man, it's like it's I was listening to the AA tapes yesterday, like
kip C. I was, what's that k I p C. That's his
name that I told you about. I was, I was listening to Bob
d Bob do you type in school? He's fucking awesome, He's yeah,
he's that Daryl Bob fucking Daryl to uh what is it? Oh? God?
You know Ryan Smith is sober? Now? I remember that guy?
Oh I think I got They tried to fire me with that guy. For
remember he Loreen? Who was the guy who was the fucking wacky guy.
We can't talk about names. This was a wacky bastard who uh, I
forget what is d He was a fucking weird There's so many fucking weirdos on
the ark No, I forget, but we remember Arkie. I know,
I can't. He had his wife he called Mami Son. Oh yeah that
Yeah, that guy was out to lunch. He was fucking no. But
this guy was an enngin. He was a hog head. He was an
engineer. And we got in trouble and fucking uh not warm Springs was it
Fremont? I forget? Maybe? No, it wasn't warm Springs. Was
the other yard where they had the auto racks. It wasn't warm Springs.
It was Milita, Yeah, Milpitas. We got in trouble with mil Pedias
because he didn't fucking park with the engine. He parked it too close to
like a cut forgetting the terminology even's been did he lean? Did he lean
lean? Was he a right leaning Yeah? Yeah, He's totally someone who
would be like conspiracy theory. He moved to Tennessee, Yeah yeah, but
we yeah, but they and they were coming after his ass. But it
was and it was we can't say we could say manager names, we could
say Engman. Engman really had a heart on for him. They were trying
to fire him, and I was just I got called off the extra board
to work that job and so that by default they came after me too.
But I think they dropped it because they just wanted this one fucking guy,
Engman, And it was weird to Engman liked me. But he was the
fucking manager who would fuck fuck with anyone like he was going after everybody.
He was horrible for anybody anybody listening that what they would do on the railroad
managers would actually hide in the bushes and spy on you. They called it
testing. It was a perpetually It was fucking so weird, just like like
sneaky trying to catch you breaking quote unquote safety. MS Big brother, like,
they want you to be scared. What was what the fucking mentality of
that man? They wanted you to be scared. That's some new ship.
The Southern Pacific guys said that sp never used to do that. That's some
Union Pacific shit. It's like Texas mindset, you know. I don't fucking
know. Oh god, when I worked in Texas, there's so many managers.
Tell everybody what happened because you and Brad Parks went out there, you
went out to work to you borrowed out and borrowed out, and you were
working near where I fucking live right now? Where do you live in?
Yeah? Well you took trains as far as I took trains as far as
McCallen from Kingsville, McAllen or Brownsville, Bloomville, Brownsville, Yeah, all
South Texas, Bloomington, Corpus Christie. But I never got to go to
Corpus Christy, but I was. I started in Houston, and that huge
Wait when'd you go into engine service before that? Right? Two thousand and
seven? Oh yeah, oh that was like right when I hired out.
When did I meet you? I remember the first fucking time I met you?
You ass whole It was fucking hilarious. I was like, who the
fuck is this guy? He's smoking on the porch with this cocky motherfucker just
looking at me and he's like, hey, hey. I was like,
that was funny. It was funny as hell. Man, Where did I
do? You know what? You just had a way about you reminded me
of like some graffiti guys I knew from back in Chicago, Like your whole
demeanor. I was like, this fucking guy is like he's he's not like
the others, Like he's got a like a certain level of like keenness and
like street smarts, you know, awareness about him. That I was funny.
But you know what you also Yeah, and we had a bad run
in and that made me feel bad. Oh the time you almost beat my
ass. Yeah, but I was mouthing off to you, that's fine.
Whatever you kept calling me. You kept calling me a meat and a dummy.
And because I couldn't get my point across, and I forgot I was
being a I was listen. That was before I got sober. I think
too, I was being a dick. It was but you had good You
had a good point, and I think I had a valid point, and
there were two valid points. But I think you went over the top and
were like called me homophobic or some other and I'd be like, no,
what, no, probably yeah, yeah yeah, because I was so you're
twice my size. I thought you were gonna fucking knock me though. I
was just like I think I grabbed you, and I a little bit,
I kind of sh I hit Brad Parks in the faith. No you don't
feel bad, but yeah, Brad Parks was trying to break it up and
I slammed the engine and park right in jack London. Remember, Yeah,
I remember that was hilarious, right in the middle of the It was like,
I told you can fucking snitch on me if you want. I don't
give a show. I was. That's when I was. I was newly
marked up not and I'd worked with Mark Law. I mean this guy and
this other guy, two of the most moors. Mark. You know,
I love I love Lloyd though, motherfucking Lloyd. He's great. Ben Franklin,
Yeah, yeah, And I remember when I was running as an engineer.
First off, we settled the scord. We like made a man.
You apologized like an hour later. I hope I did, because I should
have made amends because I shouldn't have done that, and I was I'm telling
you when I after working with him and this other guy on the seventy two
dude, I had went to the doctor. This was shortly. I think
it was after my dad. The doctor wanted me to take well Putrien because
I was like, I'm having anxiety and weirdness, and I was on that.
But then I got off of that, and then I was I was
just dealing with Mark Lloyd high blood presser. It was bad, dude.
There was so many times, well, yeah, I think there's a lot
of dudes, a lot of because it's mostly males that work. You know,
it's hard to fucking you're caught in the tight spot. You're working for
a job that doesn't appreciate you. You're working all fucking hours, your schedules
all fucked up, you have no life because they're calling all the time.
There were so many times there's so I exhibited so much behavior towards others dudes
I worked with that I regret now that I'm like, ah, I was
a little bit of a dick. I should have chilled out. And then
there's other times where I'm like fuck. Yeah, that was totally just you
know, like totally be an asshole. But the thing is is that you
challenged what it was would I from the outside of my opinion was you challenged
people to use their fucking brains. And most of those guys are not that
smart. So whereas you're very well read, you're very you know what I
mean, you're smart, and you you stand on what you believe in,
and all those guys they don't fuck you, you know, they're all fucking
alpha aggressive, yeah, you know that kind of and whenever you pick at
them, they just don't know. They can't they can't match wits with you,
and they can't talk with you. But I would get but I would
get like, but i'd also get kind of a hard on for that kind
of fucking for conflict with that kind of though too, And because you know
what you're gonna Yeah, it's easy, you know, if you pick a
certain point there, you know him, let me pick, let me let
me flick this dude in the ear, get all pissed off that. Yeah.
Well, also I had to, but I had bottled up like anger
towards that kind of ship. So that's why I already had a heart on
for it because it's like, oh, fuck you, you remind me of
his personality that I've been seeing for the last twenty years of my fucking life,
you know, but I know, oh yeah man, that oh shop.
We shouldn't say name whatever. I'll just come back and edit this out.
But uh, remember one time I was working with him and he had
a fuck. He had a he had been a bad spot for me too
when we got put on the job together and and I remember I showed up
I think it was Benetia and there was who was the real level headed black
dude, real cool dude to work with, excellent railroad and knew his ship,
but also like kind of cocky you could tell you probably had No,
it wasn't him, No, no, no, no, no, it
was he was a Brown. He was a rainman. No, not Fred
Brown. Those are all chill dudes. I remember working with Fred Brown,
like Lafayette, Yeah, is he still there? Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah, anyway, yeah, and yeah Lafayette was there and Freddy said something
and I just fucking let it out. I just started fucking with him and
talking shit, not being aggressive, being like witty and smart and shit,
and everyone was cracking up. But then I kept going, you know,
and Lafyette was on my little gummy bear, yeah, because he looked like
one. And Lafayette kept being like, yo, man, you you take
a couple jabs like, but don't take it easy with like the left hooks.
Man, you don't need to keep going like I get it, like
I don't like to do it either, but just relax, you know.
And but I was all turned up, you know. And then we had
to fucking work together for like ten more hours too. We were like,
you know what I got. I got into it with him. Yeah,
I know you did. I told him too. I told him too.
And after he threw he like threw some ship at me here or said man,
fuck no, Saw, it'll fuck you. And he walked outside,
and so I fucking followed him. I said, here, I am,
you fucking bitch what I'm outside? Jump? Come on, I'm outside.
You puts it? And I just called him all types of names. Yeah,
he's one of those days. He's one of those dudes that was in
the marine for Marines forty years ago and like still clings to that and I
feel bad marine. He's part of the Marine Corps guys that never saw any
kind of battle, I know, but still, I mean, they're just
tough guys that go to bars and fly right, I know. But I
feel bad because I feel like I saw this fucking male archetype and so many
of these like fucking macho dudes where it was like, God, if they
could have just gotten some therapy or fucking you know, like just or had
someone to say, hey, man, I'm not feeling so good today.
Man, I'm up here in my head and you know I'm feeling yeah,
yeah they yeah, or just somebody be like yo, you can talk about
how you feel. It's okay, Like what's that. You know, it
doesn't mean you're a pussy because you talk about it, you know, And
it'd be like, yeah, they could have eased the next twenty years of
their life, you know. I feel it makes me feel bad, man,
because I don't hate these people. I'm just like, oh, it's
so sad. It's like or just funk. What I would have done,
like put them in a fucking rubber room with a shrink and give him m
DMA. That would be like the best, you know, It's like the
best, fucking like just you know, Oh God, I wish what would
come out. Man, it'd be like unclogging the pipe, you know,
like a moment in ducidity. But Jesus it was you know, there would
be laughter and tears and oh he was yeah, And I have I have
no anger towards anybody from that period. I have like sorrow. I have
sorrow and compassion and like, oh man, I wish you could, you
know, I wish there was a way to like easier pain. But but
I think there's a lot of people in America. Man, it's everywhere,
but especially in America, you know, like a lot of right now.
Yeah, well that they're trying to bring after. You know, we we
find out that it's okay to be able to talk and and and and and
you know, it's okay to to say, you know, to have feelings
and say hey, I'm not feeling you know, it's okay to discuss that
that. Now there's the new the new generation of yah pussy's, they're coming.
They're still they're still trying to stand strong's. It's so weird to me,
it's so weird. Well it's also like where I live now, like
that shit is still I'm like Texas, you know, like there's moments where
I'm like, the fuck it, just like the nineteen fifties. It's like
the sixties never fucking happened here, Like no one like loosen up, man,
like what right you know? And I'm I'm like where I live Like
I was asking, I was asking my kids Mom. I'm like, yo,
when you growing up, Like, did you ever see bears? Like
not like wild bears like, but like gay bears, like big fucking bear,
you know, the gay motherfucker, the big you know, cute bear
motherfucker. That's my next door neighbor who's great dude and has big parties and
you know, it's all like other bears to come over whatever, Like was
there anyone that was outwardly gay? And just like, fuck you, I'm
gay And she's like no, And I'm like, man, this like a
big metro area, there's gay people here, Like what the fuck? You
know? Oh? Absolutely? And she's like no, no, man,
it was like no one's out. I'm like, God, so there's motherfucker
still in the closet. That's crazy. There's you know, and you know
it's crazy. That's so sad and reminds me fucking torments. That's when people
motherfucking drink man. That's when people hit the fucking booze, you know,
like, oh god, it's so sad. Yeah, well you know,
And the thing is that it reminds me to kind of piggyback off. That
is like the thing like like with with my son. I have a son.
You know, it's for he's a four point oho student, he plays
football. He wants to go to cal He's gonna go there. And you
know, I've talked to people and listen to you know, you hear the
old man. They need to be out on their own. You know,
I need to go and find out you know what, it'll build character.
It's like, no, what it's gonna do is put a bunch of cortisol
in him that he doesn't need a bunch of added stress and ship that I
I could have done without my life. It didn't build character, traumatized you
know in a way. So it's like I don't I don't feel like I'm
softening. I feel like I'm giving him a better chance, you know,
because people are like nineteen, they need to be out on their own.
It's like out here, no, he needs to finish school. And do
you know I feel like he's going to learn to swim by and you just
throw him in water. Exactly, you got heads up first, exactly.
It's it's it just builds unwanted cortisol levels, you know what I mean,
and stress, and no, why do that to him at a young age.
You know, as long as he's doing what he's doing. I told
him, you can stay here as long as you want, you know,
And it just goes to piggyback off that type of mentality. It's like,
I don't, you can't. It's not the nineteen fifties anymore, and that's
never going to come back. You can't just go out and get a job
and start paying rent for five hundred bucks a month, dude, especially you're
you're having five roommates. But that kind of macho shit, I mean it's
it's I say, it's like American, but it's not just American. I
saw that ship in Brazil when I was down there. I've seen it in
fucking Turkey. I mean, you see that ship is it's some human shit.
It's like some regressive human shit that's just like God, I just see
it. I'm like, one, it's not it's not the mark of a
fucking enlightened civilization. Let's put it that way. And I'm not saying everybody
should be super soft. It's you got to know when to be soft,
no one to be hard, and also just be be fucking smart, having
like a radar for human behavior and an awareness of yourself and you know,
it's not just this meat headed shit and it's not just oh, let's be
super soft and you know it's whatever. Man, I always like the ballot.
Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. I always like like the
you know, I've met many of the people who embody what like the keen
characteristic I'm looking for it. I've met many a bush lesbian who I admire
because they've got like the hardness of the fun. This is a total generalization,
but they got the hardness and they got the softness, and they know
when to exercise both. To you. Yeah, I mean, yeah,
well rounded, and they probably grew up getting fucked with too, and so
they got like a little bit of a thick skin. So that's you know,
anyway, basically my friend howie, you know, like basically my faith
anyway, like a like a thrice convicted felon from Boston who's a she lives
in the Bay Night he's living North California. But anyway, oh geez,
Yes, she's a rough neck. Yeah, yeah, she's fun. Yeah,
she quit, she quit drinking. She's been hitting at vape pen a
little too much though. But uh from Boston. But but no, but
I want to she's got a Boston accent. Yeah, but but uh,
but man, there was well I want to ask you, I want to
talk about Texas too, but but the fucking should the Mark Lloyd thing.
That guy he was like the big Lebowski. He was like the big Lebowski
of the fucking switchman, you know. Oh yeah, he was always in
a good mood and he was all And I remember one time I was running
as a hog and he was. He was, he was my switchman,
and we were hauling those big ass grain cars together, and this motherfucker wasn't
I think I don't think he was using airs and they were loaded too,
so it's like one hundred and thirty four tons of car. And I was
like, Jesus Christ, Lloyd, it doesn't take that much to turn an
angle cock and use air, Like, you don't have to fucking declare a
red zone or anything with me. Just let me know. I'm going in
whatever, you know, And and he wasn't using air and so it was
taking me forever to stop. And I'm like, Jesus, what the fuck?
And he was doing these backwards ass switch moves weren't East Oakland, and
I'm just like, what the fuck is he doing? What the fuck is
he doing? Like the dialogue, if you could record sound in that locomotive
cab, you'd think like I was dying because I'm just like, what the
fucking what is he telling? What the fuck? I'm freaking out. I'm
not zen at all. I'm losing my shit, acting like a fucking nine
year old, you know, with its lego blocks having a tantrum. And
I look in Lloyd's I Lloyd. I look in the mirror and the engine
and Lloyd's just big smile on his face, riding the end of the shove,
you know, big smile just looking at me. But he wasn't being
a dick. He was genuinely in a good mood. I'm just like,
this guy's totally where is he? Man? Like, you know, mentally
himn that guy, the other guy. I'm telling you, we dug.
We needed to set over two cars that were in a group of like six
or seven cars. We used four rails. They kept going ahead back here.
I was like, what are you fucking doing back there? Two cars,
dude, But then there were one over you know, go grab the
other. But there were four rail But there were the people who loved working
with them too, because they're like, I know, if I work with
Lloyd, I'm gonna get overtime because he's gonna here overtime. And some people
would try to sugarcoat and be like he knows what he's doing, and I'm
like, no, man, he doesn't. But still it's working for everyone
because you're gonna be there five hours longer than you need to be and you'll
get paid. You know. Yeah, he's absolutely clueless. Well, but
he was, like you said, he's so nice. The guy's always like
you could be. He was like a dog, like you could just scorn
him, get out of here, you piece of ship, and then call
him back come here, and he'll come back, waggon his dell like,
oh man, this guy. And he was he could never disrupt him,
like I wish I was like that. Yeah, remember I'm conscious about I
did that drawing of him. I think he got bummed out about the drawing.
But I was like, Lloyd, I don't think you get I was
like, Lloyd's that's like a that's like in an endearing drawing, Like I,
it's a tribute. I like you a lot. You know. Yeah,
you know, I saw him the other day the other day, you
know, yeah, we had Oh man, so I have an endangered have
an endangered owl burrowing owl that lives in my yard. Oh they're still there,
They're still there. Yeah, I remember the burrowing owls in the west
Oakland yard. Yeah, man, yeah, yeah, well he's here.
He's well, it's basically Westland because our yard, you know, the O
t R Is right there, connected to up by that kicking Charlie or whatever
that place is. Well, yeah, they you know, they they're doing
some construction because they're going to allow BN to come in our yard. Now
is what the port wants. Well, anyway, long story short, I
get a call from a scientist, a biologist, and she's like, hey,
man, we caught wind of this owl. I said, yeah,
owli, And so I sent her pictures. She was like, she was
like, is they have to halt constructions for the tracks if he's there?
Well, yeah, that's nice. There's in Texas. They'd be like,
oh, you got an endangered species. Fuck, now, we got to
get this done in a week, all right, hurry up, come on,
bors, let's like just to fucking ruin every real even if they're protecting
yeah Texas. Now Texas doesn't give a fuck. They don't give a fuck.
They don't give a fuck. No. Yeah, the the attorney general
who's in charge of uh, like he was in charge of the border wall
thing, and there's an endangered plant there when when he heard about it,
suddenly that project went from tentatively being done in six months to being done in
two weeks because he wanted to squash any Yeah, any liberal liberal tears right,
Well he went, and they would worried it would stop it or something.
Yeah. Man, there's like there's no protections for shit here. That's
why it's like it's a yeah, that's why. Like when I got when
I moved to Texas, I saw botanists would dig plants occasionally, like you
know, like this endangered milky before it was federal or would federally protect and
everything. And I was like, Jesus Christ, what the fuck, Like
the fucking hey, why do people do that because can California, there's no
need, there's not as much need to protect anything be cuz there's already protections
there. But in Texas there's not shit. Nothing's protected, and so in
federal can't come in and protect it. No, No for plants. Now
for animals, maybe it's a little different, but but no, in Texas,
no nobody gives a fuck. No one fucking cares. And it's weird
because you made all these like redneck dudes no offense. I'm not saying that
in the mean way. Just redick you know who would be like, I
don't want someone coming on my land and finding an endangered plant. And I'm
like, man, that's not that's not a reality. What happens in Texas,
Like they're could be nine endangered species of plants on your land. It's
not gonna stop anything. Texas doesn't. That's like, say, you know
you're taking plants, you're tak them good, that's against the ideology to state
you're right, yeah, so anyway, but but yeah, I would see
botanists. I would see botanists digging plants on the side of the road and
ship and I'd be like, oh fuck. But then I you know,
I'd come back a month later and that fucking road side the road got widened
and that population is destroyed. Now, So then I started to realize.
I'm like, oh, they're moving them all right, but you gotta be
careful because well they yeah, well they'd take them and then treat them as
stock plants to get seed and then propagate, you know. And these were
like, these weren't collectors or horticultural people. These were like native plant project
people who you know, I know, are good human beings. They're not.
They're not making no money off this. They're losing money. This is
what they do, you know. They just are so in love with the
flora here. But it was it took me a while to get that because
I was like digging. We never dig plants in California, that's fucking saying,
but here you have to because because there's no protections for the stay career.
It's fucking nuts. It's another world down here. So when you moved,
so you came out here to borrow out in twenty eleven, right,
they're twenty six. How long were you out here? Like nine months?
Explain to everybody what borrowing out is. It's when like the same railroad company
needs people in another part. Yeah, yeah, lack of manpower in a
certain area. They'll they'll ask if you want, they'll they'll offer you an
incentive, like, you know, one hundred and we got one hundred and
twenty five a day plus per diem which I think was fifty or forty or
something for a food, you know, and then lodging. And they needed
people desperately because they were in a meltdown in Texas at the time. They
were hiring off the hook and they were just i mean, the yards were
just just overflowing. There were dead there were dead trains all over, you
know, the main line because they didn't have cruise for them. Right,
Yeah, I didn't have enough people. So you go, you know,
that's the bar. You know. You go in there and then they train
you for a couple of weeks, you know, and then set you set
you free there to work where you can. And most people stayed in those
yards. Well, when I got there, I looked at the yards when
we were working them and training, I'm like, dude, this this is
a fucking disaster waiting to happen. Dude. The yards are huge and there's
fucking signals in them, and there's just every I was like this, someone's
going to go on the ground. Here, these guys that I'm working with
getting trained by I mean, I have years and years of experienced over these
I'm getting trained by guys who just marked up right and go on the ground
yard. The railmen like, going on the ground means you pick a switch,
because you know you you run the railmen switch. Yeah, the way
the switches you can you know the way a switch runs. You know,
facing point, that's okay, you take the wrong curve, you just take
the wrong curve, but if you're going through it, you fucking split the
switch, and then if you try to back up over you go on the
ground. Now you got to get the crane out there. And this used
to happen all the time in the seventies and eighties. No big deal,
we get maintenance away out there. But now it's like, oh, pearl
clutching moment, because now the company's got to spend they've cut all the maintenance
away jobs. So now they've got to spend money to get a crane out
there, and got to time. Oh how dare you you fucking you horrible?
How dare you do this? Yeah, try to make you feel like
the dumbest person on the planet, you know, when you're just human making
and the yelling a yeah, and the manager that comes out to yell at
you is dressed like a fucking used car salesman and smells like cheap cologne and
probably dressed like what's his name, uh, Jake from State Farm. You
know, you know that's exactly always a polo tucked in, you know,
yeah, very seldom had worked for the railroad, and if they did,
they were kind of a dick when you worked with them. Anyway, Like
this guy's going to be a manager, he's an asshole. Yeah, totally.
They love the asshole managers. That's they love that. Any any of
the managers who are knife. It's like if you're if you're a nice manager,
you get fired, you know, oh yeah, most definitely if you're
just and good and kind and interfair and you you know, yeah, we
don't need that, right, what are you doing? Who is the manager
that was in an ozel yard that everybody just thought of him? I just
thought of him on ship hand, right, Yeah, just I just thought
when you said that, I thought about him. That's That's what I thought
about. God, I can't even think of his name. He owns a
cigar shop, now, oh wow, he's owned a cigar shop for a
while. Like he has a nice a nice like he has does really good
business, Like I guess he's he's doing really well so, which is good
because he's a good He was a good guy. And they were always hiring
managers, like they hired some dude that used to manage an Applebee's in his
former job, Like they'd never hire anybody came from the railroad. It came
off the ground, knew what was going on. God, unless you can't,
we can't use the names. That was the teche I got into with
that guy. That was another time. That was another time. That was
another time he came up. I was running the engine. I was with
JP, and he came up to fuck with JP because he had a hard
on for JP. And I started being like, you can't fucking come up
here, man. Everyone knows you were that time you came in here drunk
his ship. You pissed your pants in the Remember when he did that about
I feel bad same thing, man, fucking alcoholic. Felt so bad for
him. I gotta go through and lead all these names. I don't miss
any you have to leave him. I got to edit him out because I
don't want to put anybody in. There's no way that he's going to listen.
But I don't want to put anybody on a spot, you know what
I mean. It's okay, it's fine, he's doing good now. I
guess he lives in Reno and took his own transfer and now is running a
locomotive as an engineer. He's not a manager. Oh that's a good pool
too. If he's got a divorce, because he was. He was drunk
and got a divorce, lost everything and he went through the ringer. I
guess he's okay now, you know that alcoholics shit. It's so real,
man, It's yeah. It's got a long history on the railroad. It's
got all history. Yeah, right, absolutely absolutely. I talked to old
heads. I guess I could say this guy's name is. He's probably passed
on. I'm pretty sure remember Rex Duval. Do you ever remember old Rex?
Rexy was an old w P guy And he told me when I was
working with he said, you know, man, when I got here,
nobody would talk to me like he said. They sat me down on the
switch and just wouldn't talk to me. And I sat at the switch all
day for like the first week. Nobody said anything. And then one guy
came up and said, Hey, you want someone to show you what to
do. You bring a pine of Pinal whiskey tomorrow and I'll show you what
to do. So he brought a pine of whiskey. And that's when he
was a brakeman. So he was in the caboose and he said, that's
when they started showing me how to switch. I had to bring alcohol,
Jesus. And once I brought alcohol, they accepted be He said, you
couldn't work without a guy. He always had a pint in his back pocket.
God, that's so especially when you get when you get like forty and
you're still drinking like a fish, like Jesus. Man. Oh dude,
they're well. You know the old sp used to be the cards where they
played cards and drank. Well, the old up shanny that was down by
the Amtrak what is that called that area over there? There used to be
that shanny down there back in the day. It was an old up I
guess that's where they smoked weed. So that was like where the weed.
Weed heads would be down there, and then in the shanny that there was
like the one we we hired out, you know that area right there was
the old that's where the gambling and the alcohol was weed. Everyone's just staring
at their phones. J Oh, that's that's like Texas. Yeah. But
anyway, back to Texas. When I get to Texas, everybody's on.
Everybody wants to you know, they're they're all, you know, training as
these these guys they're telling us, Oh, you got to stay in the
yard. You know, they're telling you, well, you're here to just
help in this yard the day. So what I started doing is picking the
brains of the guys who had been there a while, like, Hey,
what's the road board here? And then he would tell me like the So
I just started putting in bids on road jobs, trainman boards, because if
I'm getting one hundred and twenty five extra day on top of my what I'm
making, you know, dude, I'm going to make a killing here and
I'm here to work. I'm not here. I'm not going to stay in
the show. I'm not here. I'm not on a work vacation to fucking
I have a time table. You know. Yeah, I have a timetable.
If I go somewhere, I a subdivision, I have a timetable that
tells me where everything is. And plus I got an engineer that's probably been
on the you know, on on this run a few times. So that's
what I did. Was I just I just got on the road. I
laughed. I started the cool old engineers, like that's what I have to
see. Like those old motherfuckers. They're all gone now, I'm sure,
but like motherfucker's had stories like you know, hired out in the seventies,
like saw much mister Jorney who was he got mister Jorney was a Creole guy
and he's from Louisiana. And I was, I was taking trains from Houston
to not Shreveport, but Lafayette, Louisiana. Oh wow. And he said,
we got on the we got in the yard office, we got on
the train. I got on the train with him. He said, hey,
I said, yeah, he said, I'm Creole. I said,
okay, he said, I'm not Cajun, I'm Creole. I thought,
I gets the difference. Thro all, I understand, what's the difference between
Cajun and Creole. Well, Creole is black in France, he's black.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Cajun is just a big white guys,
French white guys. You know. He wanted to make sure I knew he
was he was black, really, is what he was saying. He wanted
to make sure there you go, you know, And he was telling them
he said, hey, he said you uh, because he listened to sid
to Go music. You heard the Zaida Go Is that like with the Yeah,
yeah, that's really beautiful music. Oh it is. It's man and
I he he he took me to a place and I ate shrimp and crawfish
budan, which I'd never had budhan before. You had budhan sausage. No,
it's like balls. They made these balls sausage budan literally like supid crawfish.
It was phenomenal. I had never had anything like that. But he
he said, you want to buffet? I said, what, you want
to go to buff I said the bofe? What the hell? I said,
oh, the buffet. Yeah, we could go down there and eat.
You know, you go to the buffet. But he man, that
guy, that's like. I went in the room and he was he was
dancing with his shirt off, no ship with his shirt off, dancing the
Zidergo music like that where where like in the sham in the hotel. I
was next to him. He wanted to go to the buffet. Oh yeah,
So I was going over to his room, you know, and knocked
on the door to come in. He opened up the door and he was
dancing to Zeidago music with his pants on, you know, and just a
shirt off. Away from home, tournament, away from home. Termo.
Yeah, that's all swamp too, going through there. Huh oh yeah.
Yo. I remember being on a fucking freight train when I was a bum
and like two thousand and four, and we sided out just outside of Lafayette,
Louisiana, and I heard fucking noises in that swamp that I had never
heard before. Man, it was it was beautiful. It was beautiful.
But I was like, damn, what the fuck we're out of We're in
the fucking novel right now or something. This is like, oh yeah,
you were in the cuts that dark you womp railroad siding in a fucking swamp
in southern Louisiana, damn, you know, because from Lake Charles to Lafayette,
Dude, it's a swamp. Yeah, it's it's the yeah cut like
shit, that's got to be beautiful during the day though, man ah,
I was, I know, and every time I caught that Lafayette train,
dude, it was at night. Really every time I was fucking pissed.
Every time I couldn't see what was it was? Just what was the hotel
scene in Latte? Like? Was that one was actually really cool? That
one was put? No, this one had like a had like a I
had like a ballroom and and you know a conference room for people, you
know, conferences, Like it was a big I forgot it was a big
name hotel. But it was a decent hotel. They had a woofe you
know what I mean? This guy did this guy higher out with? Was
he a Mopak guy or what was he? Yeah? No, no sp
guy. He was an sph no ship. Wow. Yeah he was an
old because you know the Mopack guys Missouri Pacific, everybody Missouri Pacific, I
think, and they became mostly the management is what from what I read that's
I heard all that like the Empire you know from Star Wars type ship came
from a up it was the former mopen Well you know, I guess the
SP guys hate the Mopak guys and they're just the yard away. You know,
Setagas and Inglewood are like right, you know, you can drive Houston
both of them. They're right next to each other and they're large. Well,
I guess the Mopack yard was the Setagas yard and the Inglewood yard was
the SP yard. And I guess when they did the merger, I guess
a lot of those guys from SP had been out there, you know,
twenty twenty five years, and this fucking guy from Mopack that about their five
has more seniority now than he does. Yeah, I guess they had a
discrepancy with that and they hated each other. Yeah, they would talk shit
to each other's. Yeah that's bad, but they they kind of they kind
of just stay in their respective yards. You don't usually have a guy coming
from Setagas to bump someone. I mean, SP was always the fucking fun
that was always fun. Those were the funnest guys. The work man,
those old Southern Pacific dudes. Culture was just fucking cost You and I both
are we hired out at the wrong time era. You and I should have
been back in the sixties and seven and we'd both probably be dead. Now,
yeah, we would never would have gotten sober, would have developed cancer,
you know, much much earlier. Yeah, man, I that was
but god, that was so what stories did that guy? He must have
had some cool stories to tell, but that he just told me about the
Black Rodeo that's out in Lafayette, like it's a camp thing. Oh really
him? Yeah, I'm trying to think of of who else that had good
like all black cowboys or what. Yeah. Yeah, I forget what it's
called. In Lafia. It's a big thing. It's like two or three
days a camp out, some some crazy. Yeah. He was telling me
he should go. I should go to it. There's supposed to be some
cool plants. So my friend Ashley, she she has like a Native plant
landscaping company, and I think it's in Lafayette. She used to she used
to be out of Baton Rouge in New Orleans. But she was always talking
about like the Cajun prairie out there by La Fayette, Like there's some cool
there's some cool ship man, centipedes. I've never seen a centipede like I
did that, like one of the long ass ones, like a skull appear
like the ones. Yeah, those things you have, those stinging ones,
man, those are yeah, the beautif the hell out of me. I
had a big lizard in my room too. When I went in. There
was just in my room. He was up by the curtain, you know,
the top of the curtain. I had to draw it over the whole
ship. Oh, probably a gecko or something gecko or yeah. Well,
he was so big to wear. If I grabbed the ice bucket, I
would have like, if I would have tried to trap him with the ice
bucket, I would have got his head and his tail. That's how big
he was. Oh Jesus Christ. Yeah, he was pretty fucking big dude.
Where I was like, you know, I'm gonna leave Malone, and
I just hung out with him in the room. Did you see did you
see a bunch of cool old infrastructure there? Like the you know, the
old abandoned towers that haven't been knocked down yet, like the interlocking towers,
and the old old shanties and shit like that. Or what I was trying
to think. I was gonna say that I was trying to ink of a
yard that we had to go to. But it was at night and it
was so like there was so many, so many, so much overgrown.
It was so green, and everything looked overgrown and wild, you know,
around it. And and it was like eerie, you know, because it
was almost like foggy. It was so eerie, and I wish it was
a daylight. But I think it was a KCS because you have to go
on the KCS too to get there. The Kansas City Southern. Yeah,
that was a railroad that was from Beaumont to Lake Charles. You had to
cross this bridge and that was all KCS up until a certain point. I
I spent I know, the yard in Beaumont when I was riding. When
I was riding, I got off, We got off there. There's nothing
cool about that yard, no, no, But there was this dude that
lived there who was giving He gave us a joint. He came by he
saw that we were riding trains. Yeah, it's just this uh like middle
aged black dude. He came by with this kid and he was like he's
like I see, you know, he saw we were riding trains. He
brought us like three bags of food and flick the joint out the car at
us and we was like two thousand. It was like two thousand and four.
We were like, we were so fucking thankful because we took the wrong
train. We thought we were trying to get to like Austin or Houston,
and the train the train went to Beaumont instead, and we're like, man,
what the fuck? It went to Silsby. Yeah, and we're like,
what the fuck. And this this dude was like he felt for us.
Like that would happen all the time. It was always the working class
people too that would would hook you up, you know, everyone in a
while. Once in a while it'd be like some cool, cool rich person
or something, you know, and they We had one engineer that really liked
me and and took a liking to me because I jumped on a job with
him. It was a seven day a week job. And and and after
the first week he exposed who he really was well because he was like he
was bringing me food like his wife cooked, Like I know, you don't
have a home cooked meals. I'm like, wow, man, this guy's
pretty cool, bald guy. Right, and we were we were shoving in
the yard and and some dudes because right in Inglewood Yard, dude, right
in fifth Ward, you know what I mean? So showed really was he
was racist or like super religious? Yes, oh yeah, I'm sure.
I'm fucking sure, like white in the South, white guy and something.
Yes, what do you think he was going to be like a like a
socialist or I thought he would be cool? He was cool. He never
did it, never really slipped until these guys. Because you know the Inglewood
Yards right there in the Fifth Ward in Houston, you know what I mean,
that's a rough, rough neighborhood and it's kind of like West Oakland,
so that the guys were driving car if you drive your car from one side
to the other through the yard, like you could just bring your car and
you know what I mean. And the guys were driving through the yard and
we almost I stopped and we almost hit him. And I walked up,
you know, I stopped the engine and off. I said, that'll do,
that'll do. And I got to say, hey, man, what
the fuck are you guys doing? And they're like, oh sorry, And
then they were smoking weed and they were like you want to hit this.
I'm like no, I'm at work. Man, drove them off. They're
like, all right, man, we're sorry. I was like, okay,
it's cool, and I get up there, and that dude was like,
what they say? I'm like, what do you mean? What did
they say? They said they wanted me to hit the joint, and I
said, no, wuld they say they say anything? And then he just
started with some racial ship and I said hate, yeah, you know what
at the time, you know. And as soon as he started with the
ship, I cut him off right away. I said, hey, man,
you don't really know who the fuck you're talking to right now. I
said, right now, you're you're fucking pulling the line right now. He
was like what his eyes were big, and I just let into him.
I said, you stupid son of a bitch, fucking bumb fucking you know
what I mean. I said, you have no idea who you're fucking talking
to. Like, I'm not your brother, I'm not your fucking I'm not
into that dumb I don't. I don't, I don't subscribe to any of
that bullshit. I don't, I don't do hate. I'm sorry. It's
just it's just disappointing too, when like someone becomes yeah, and but also
someone becomes like the cartoon the stereotype that you think they would be, and
it's like, oh, I thought you were like your own independent person.
But you're just you're just absorbing the ship from your social group. That's all
right, whatever, you know, you're just another You're predictable, Yeah,
just predictable and just depressing, you know. Get those guys, and then
we got the guys that there was a lot of cool guys I got.
I got to be. It was really it really was segregated there though,
And that was really the worst, you know, the weird thing for me
because you know me, I'm talking about everybody intimidamn, right. And and
you would you know, I'd go to Daryl Porch was one of the one
of the engineers. It's repressed here, man, it is so repressed,
you know. And Beryl would tell me, he was like, hey,
man, look at your brothers over there. They don't like it. And
I would look and be the yard office, like say the Roseville yard office,
a big old yard office, and I'd look over and all the white
dudes would just be mugging me. Yeah, I'm like, why are you
why are they have he said, Man, I don't like that ship here.
Welcome to the South. I'm like, get the fuck out of here
in Houston. Yeah, I was in Houston from Oakland. This is like,
right, this is regular, dude. And that's what I told him,
I said, I said, which I said. The only nice surprises
here, Darryl is that is that in Oakland, we can probably count the
amount of black people on our on our on one hand who work with us.
Here, I said, it's like fifty to fifty. I said,
there's this is pretty cool, you know what I mean. Back in Oakland,
you know, you can you got this guy, this guy, this
guy. But there it was just like brothers though they did they hadn't.
Yeah, you know, and you go to Roseville, Houston is like Houston
is, dude. Tons of black folks working on the realm, which is
pretty cool because it's a but it's it's weird how people can work together and
they get along together and then someone goes away and they hate that person.
It's like, that's so fucking weird to me, how you can pretend but
just this simplistic, fucking tribalism based on minimal understanding and minimal minimal self awareness.
And I think with the most depressing part to me is that it's like,
oh, you want to you want to think people are all like these
I mean, this sounds ridiculous, but all like individual intellectual like well round
or just they don't they don't just they don't just do what the what the
herd around them does with their social medagy. They all do high. It's
the it's the lowest common denominator ship. And that's why when you meet the
people that aren't like that, that that snap out of that, Like the
dude over there reading a book alone by himself or fucking whatever, you know,
that's not you're like, oh, this is cool, al right like
that, And when then you wonder like what made him break with the neurological
the primate neurology that puts us in in these groups, you know, these
like tribalistic, small minded, fucking groups, you know, like what made
that person break with that? You know? Right? I think it's weird
because it just seems like some of it could be genetic, Yeah maybe maybe,
or shit that happened like with me with me, like I was,
I grew up getting fucked with and getting in fights, and I was always
pissed off and and I kind of hated the larger society above me, and
I was like this, this is fucking whack fuck these motherfuckers, you know,
and I hated like I was told like do as I do as I
tell, you know, obey authority. Never like like that's one thing I'm
never going to teach my daughter, like be obedient and listen to authority.
No, because half the authority figures are full of shit and just trying not
to look and not try just trying not to look dumb. That's all they
want. They just try not to look dumb. They're full of shit.
They haven't thought through any of this. You're smarter than most of these motherfuckers,
you know, at least half of them, at least half, she's
gonna happen. And because my daughter is bright. Yeah, and so don't
don't just follow the rules, understand why the rules exist, and follow the
good ones that make sense because you've thought about them, and throw out the
ones don't get caught breaking the ones that don't make sense, that are stupid,
that are just you know, and there's plenty of those too, you
know. But but be ethical too, you know, and be ethical and
have compassion and have exhibit self awareness all that shit. So that's been pretty
good parenting right there. Yeah, there you go, you know, well,
I haven't done it yet. But she's only four. She's only four.
I've got plenty of time to you know, fucking traumatize her. And
you know she's man. We were watching David Attenborough the other day. I
put it on because I was working on some ship and I was like,
I'm not gonna she wants to watch these toy shows. I'm like, I'm
not fucking lend you wad the Mindless Ship one. You can watch one of
those a day, and that's there, one of those every other day.
And so I put on David Attenborough and there was a scene wherever was a
lion taking down a water buffalo or something. She started crying and I was
like, oh fuck. I was like no, and I'm like, baby,
it's just how it It's just it's what happens. It's okay. And
then I just fast forwarded it too, like some fucking sea lions or something
nice had some colorful fish and yeah, I was like, but I remember
when I was there, I got sensitive about shit like that, like she
like that would mess mess with me, you know, when I was like,
oh my god, yeah, I hit a cat the other day and
I fucked. My god, I felt so bad. Well, was it
a feral cat or what? It? Then score one for the team.
But it was at that No, but it was at the it was at
the port. Yeah, grabbed a cut of cars. No, I grabbed
a cut of cars and I pulled over it. And I didn't know until
Myles there's a cat here, and he was like, oh god, that
thing it was. It was probably hunting your owl. If it was someone's,
then you feel bad. But I went well, I went and looked,
and I had ran right over its back, so it was like looking
at me and cutting half still stuck to the reil. Yeah, it went
quick. It's fine. The thing was hunting birds and fucking you know,
I know, but I feel you. I feel I commend you both on
your sense of compassion. And you're killing of a feral cat, you know,
poor thing. Hope it didn't Hope it didn't suffer. But you know
my take on that, my take on that, Oh god, I feel
bad about that. Still, Yeah, I know, what's what is it?
Wait? Wait wait, okay, so but no, I know for
sure, But but okay, so talk about because you're not working for UP
anymore, they've they fucked with you the same way they fucked with me.
For some hellship when I discocated my shoulder, they wouldn't let me back you
it was a color you were sending that guy videos, So that's fucking I
scared him. I scared him because I sent them a video myself doing Yeah,
I sent them a video myself doing pull ups, and that's when that
law firm got all excited and it scared that doctor. Remember that doctor had
like three chins and a fucking mustache that's sketch to day. Yeah, oh
god, and he saw that and he was like, I think they were
like, we can't just keep this guy disqualified. He's like doing pull ups.
Dude just did twenty pull ups. We can't keep him disqualified. We
weren't you throwing rock to and shit like you were, like, I like
a whole bunch of and I just went to the gym and just asked someone
there. I was like, you just film mem my job is trying to
fire me. Just film me doing this, and you know, And so
I did that. Great, that's so great. Yeah, that's the only
reason I got back and got to work as an engineer for two more years.
Because they were trying to. I couldn't believe it. Man. I
was like, man, fuck upe, this is unbelievable, Like they're really
I went out for a for a dislocated shoulder surgery, and when I tried
to come back three months later, they not only they didn't first off,
they weren't straight up with me. They just kept postponing it until it had
been like, I haven't worked in seven months, What the fuck is going
on? And then I found out that's when they finally said, no,
you can't come back because this surgery has an eighteen percent rate of failure.
And I was like, eighteen percent, you fucking piece of shit, Like
that's that's nothing, you know? Yeah, I was like, oh,
you fucking that was it, you know? And and then I found out
they'd done it to some a whole bunch of other people in the union.
Put me in touch with some dude in Kansas who didn't fight it, who
just was like, well, I guess I just lost my job, same
thing, dislocated shoulder, whatever. Oh, I know who they put you
against. I was borrowed out with that guy in Texas. Cool. He
was a cool guy. He sounded like a really chill guy and he signed
really bombed. I felt bad for him, hopefully. Yeah, that guy,
I think he's I think he's still he still has the lawsuit, he
said. I just talked to him. You know, you remember his name.
We can't say names, but I remember. It was so long ago.
But Goldener I can't remember. Man, I can't remember, but it
was. But he got fucked, you know, and his shoulder too,
right, Yeah, it was a shoulder. But then they were doing shoulder
in Houston. They were reported they were doing it everybody. Man, Well,
make us on the color vision thing with the light cannon test, which
they do not use any longer. That doctor has retired, probably passed away.
He was old, so he's retired. They changed their whole color vision
format. Now they're testing and everything. Scott something, Scott Holiday, Yeah,
that's it was holiday. It was I think it was holiday. Had
Yeah. It was a horrible John oh John John Holloway or one of those,
that guy. But after the only thing that was bad was when I
applied for like fifteen different jobs and they didn't. You know, there's reasonable
accommodation. If you say I have a said disability, you should really you
know, you have to reasonably accommodate me because of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
You know, it's federal. You got to find reasonable accommodation for me.
So they didn't they. So I applied for all these jobs and they
denied me. So I applied for a management job, which all of a
sudden, the lady calls me back, and then I go through the process
and then they want me a panel interview in Roseville. So I go up
to Roseville and you know, I'm at this point, I don't give a
shit, that's in my attitude. But I went in the interview and I
fucking crushed it because after, you know, when they were like, do
you have any questions for us? I fucking asked each individual person a question
or about railroading, about you know, and they were just like, wow,
man, we'll give you a call. Within a week. I was
driving home and I was like a half hour outside of Sacramento and they call
me, Hey, do you want the job? I'm like yeah, So
they hire me. I go through all the process. I get my plane
tickets, I do a return to work physical. It's the Thursday before I
leave on Sunday to start training on Monday. That Thursday, the nurse calls
me and tells me you can't go. I was like, what are you
talking about? Hired? She was like, no, you're on permanent eye
restriction. I was like, that doesn't make any sense. You guys already
hired me. I said, how how is it that that those people all
thought I was great and hired me. The superintendent of my area of where
I work hired me. Yeah, he he knew. He even asked me
in the interview. So you're still going through that eye stuff. He's like,
yeah, that's it was. John Holland was yeah, John, I'm
looking him up now. Yeah, MISNA versus Union Pacific. Oh, he's
yeah, he got depositioned. He was, well, why were they trying
That's what I wondered, Like, why were they trying to let go of
all these people? Like why were they so insistent on firing everybody? Because
they can hire new We all had pretty good seniority, we all had pretty
good sites. And that's the thing though, too. We should mention how
the union is, like what we should mention her fifteen years? Yeah,
we should mention how the union threw everybody under the bus though too, because
with that contract in two thousand and four. The new hires got paid eighty
five or ninety percent for the first two years, so that incentivized that's crazy
that the union even did that, because that incentivized the railroad firing people because
they could just hire hire new guys to do it, and it didn't matter
if they didn't know what they were doing, because in Union Pacific's mind,
this was an unskilled job anyway, which is as long as you follow as
long as you follow the rules that we've written for you, you could walk
like a duck and just don't get off moving equipment. You know, anyone
can do this job. It's like really really, like it's one of the
most guys they hire now, like you have to like there's you know,
they're bad. Like that whole concept of like being able to tell whether a
joint made just by the feel of the engine, like whether you were able
to couple two box cars together just by the feel of the engine, like
that concept, like that's an acquired skill and there's thousands of those on a
railroad and I work that. I work like that every day. Yeah,
And the idea don't work like that day. The idea of that just flew
over these fucking pencil pushers heads man, because they never worked. You know
what's crazy is they after after this? I said, well, she said
well, the nurse said, well, you can file an EEO complaint.
I said, goddamn right, I am. Yeah, so I filed EEO
and EEO actually a couple a year and a half ago interviewed me, called
and interviewed me, and they were like, because I have my Class one
engineer license now, I've had it for six years. You know what I
mean? The same job I I you know, I take the easy horror
tests. I passed it. I go, you know, I have and
I'm a general manager now, so I basically run that whole little operation here,
a little short line, which is pretty cool because we're small. But
it's a cool job, like you know. But anyway, we they after
the EEO interviewed me, they were shocked. They're like, wait a second,
you have your license. I'm like, yeah, federal you know.
They're like, that's what are you to get a license? If they're saying
that you're discribed color right? Because I couldn't. That's that's the reason I
couldn't work at UP because I couldn't get a license, and now since they
licensed conductors, they wouldn't give me a conductor's license either. So after that
said and done, I think a couple months ago I read that Union Pacific
was getting sued by the federal government over that the color vision test. Over
the color vision test, so it looks like over faulty cannon light tests,
the one they got rid of us all on using it. They were using
it to filter through people and get rid of people, which is they're trying
to slim down train crew sides. They must have had orders from above before
Precision scheduled reil running went in that like we need to cut costs and slim
down our workforce by any means necessary. And so that's probably what they were
doing, because people started just jumping ship after that too, because it got
so miserable to work there. But my mom, my mom was talking to
she's friends with someone else who had a lawyer that was handling the case against
Norfolk Southern for East Palestine, Ohio. And she was yeah, and she
was talking about like Norfolk Southern, same ship, like those what this lawyer
saw, you know, you know, they put this face on that we're
fully accountable to East Palestine. We're going to compensate all the families that were
affected, are they? And it's like, why don't you tell everybody why
the accident happened in the first place, Because you cut so many fucking costs,
and you cut maintenance of Whey, and you cut the car department,
which is supposed to inspect these fucking cars that derailed, and the rail like
you don't know if there should be a flow order there because the rail is
probably wide games and you and the detector wasn't working because you're not paying for
upkeep and the fucking rail car break was sticking because you're not paying for people
to inspect it anymore. You've slimmed down everything. You're stepping over a dollar
to save a dime, you know, and and and uh yeah, and
also the train is twice the length of what trains used to be massive crates.
Crazy, what are you doing? You don't even have unit trains anymore.
So greedy, yeah, so greedy, so greedy. And what they
uh, I guess they put a bomb on that rail. And what this
doctor saw or what this Biden put on? God bath, Thanks badness,
there's more proof of bidens America. But but what that lawyers saw with Norfolk,
So the conspiracies against that. Because we're railroaders, we know exactly what
the fuck happened. Yeah, I know. I know the rest of us
know what happened because we'd see that all the time, and we saw the
cost cutting and it's like, you know, suddenly we're getting letters like wait,
they're not going to pay for half of our required boots anymore, Like
what the fuck are really like what are you saving? Like thirty bucks?
And you're come on, man, I'm like, what the fuck. But
this lawyer, the ship this lawyer saw on Norfolk Southern is then like you
know, because she saw the behind the scenes, she read all the ship
that she was blown away. She was like, they're fucking scummy, scummy
They're like cartel style scummy people like you know, just pumping, you know,
pumping the fucking pumping, like the fucking dog food with lead or something
to save or you know, like just just dirty ship, like dirty ship,
like really dirty business practices. She was blown they pay for those people?
Like did they No? There's I think they came up with some settlement,
but it didn't go I don't know if it went through or or what
it's nothing. I mean, it's they ruined that whole town. They've poisoned
the water. They you know, there's the cancer rates are probably going to
be through the roof all because so they could you know, for what the
like police shareholders to save how much money they save on that. You know,
it was combining two trains and one you know, and there was something
I forget there was something, you know, and then they're trying to keep
trying to go to like one person cruise. Yeah, it's just it's it's
mind blowing, man, how dirty I think that just that just that just
Buddha Jagg just announced it. I think the said FRA it's two man crews.
They're not going to do the one man crew. They're not going to
do it. I guess it's mandatory now it has to be two men.
Well, Trump will get in and trouble people, not man, two people,
two people. Trump will get Trump will get a well we just you
know, yeah two man too human, but two human crew. But but
Trump will get in it. Yeah, change all of it. I just
found out there was a there's a fucking widespread chemical used in oats on oats
all over you know, and it was only allowed in twenty eighteen. It
was because of some Trump regulation that got Trump throughout the regulations on this chemical.
The chemical is used. This is hilarious. This is sypathetic. The
chemical is used in mass on on on oats because it helps the oats stand
up straighter so it can get harvested, so it's easier to harvest, so
they save like what do they say, like like five cents on the dollar,
you know, and they're they're poisoning which bad? Yeah, yeah,
wacoachs. It's some cheerios, like unless you're buying organic, and even then,
who the fuck knows? You know, it's but you've poisoned by the
organic oat steel cutouts from uh sprouts, But I don't know if they're Are
they good? What was it called chlora quad I mean, if it's organic,
it's supposed to be. Yeah, it's regular chlora quand no chlorma quat.
Yeah, that was it. It just sounds nice, right c H
L R M e q A pro a little bit of klormaquad on that it'll
be good. And it was in like eighty percent it was in the urine
of eighty percent of people that consume cheerios or oatmeal. Oh my god,
it's fucking the name of capitalism, right yeah, like this like there's like
right wing fucking capitalism on steroids. Like you know, cut all regulations.
Get the government out of the of my business. We should be able to
do whatever we want. They don't want they want, but unless it's their
business, they don't. It's abortion. We want the government the end,
right, right, But if it's anything else, you want them out right,
Yeah, exactly. They want small government until they want government. What
they want government. But this is this, I mean, it's the ship
that it's it's just like it's you know, it's like ship you see in
Mexico where there it really is no regulation, where like anything goes, you
know, and this is it's like what the US. That's what it's the
US is going to be. It's it gonna be third world country with a
Gucci belt, no offense to Mexico. Mexico's not even country. Saying but
even though I did read, I don't know if you read this. I
read this today. They're they're looking in the fruit loops and a bunch of
other ship like that. They're banning and federally I guess unless they can change
their change their ingredients. Yeah, with the red dyes and all that stuff
that they're cancer causing, they're they're banning at all. I thought you were
going to say it was like some new like right wing conspiracy, conspiracy that
the turning the kids gay. Probably got that. I told you to tell
her stop eat in front loops. Yeah, you're gonna get that way.
No, but yeah, I read that that that could twenty twenty seven.
I mean, yeah, bye, they have to change their ingredients or something.
I don't know. You could look at this shit is nasty, man,
But why even have it in the first place. You go to other
countries and that ship's far fucking ban It's out like unless Mexico, where like
everything you know Mexico is chemical. You can't get shit without sugar in it
in a corner store in Mexico, you know. Oh dude, Yeah,
it's it's fucking it's gnarly, man. But you're close to Mexico. Yeah,
I'm right in a border. Yeah, they have a garbage fire.
I could smell it, definitely. Are you that close? Yeah, I'm
like I'm like two miles from the border. Yeah. Yeah, man,
it's going crazy down in Texas at the border. There's people everywhere. Is
it just as bad as it always has been? Because they seem like they
focused just as No, there's there's more people. There's more people coming.
I had a who lives in uh Hakumba in California, and he was saying,
but it's you know, he was like bringing people because the people would
cross and border patrol didn't have the resources to process them, so they would.
It was just really weird, like unofficial, like stay here, if
you leave this area, stay here till we can process you. And like
you know in the mountains, it's like a little spot they set up that
was just over the border on the US side forum stay here till we can
process you. If you leave, we will pick you up and you'll go
to a detention center. But just stay here if you don't want to go
to the detention center and then we'll come. We'll come back with a bus
in five days or six days, you know, and take you to the
processing so we can process you. But he said there were there were people
coming from China, from Russia, from all over the place. And that
guy Andrew Callaghan who did Channel five, he does the Channel five news.
It's a good fucking thing. Like I guess they just say Channel five because
or it's called Channel five because people, you know, they it's a it's
like a a DIY news thing. He's got his own YouTube channel. But
when people would fuck with him and be like, oh, I want to
be in the news, they'd be like, oh no, it's it's who
you. They'd be like, who are you with? He's like Channel five.
They just say Channel five, So it became kind of a joke.
That's why it's their name. But he's done a bunch of cool videos.
He did one on SF and they filmed a like live carjacking in SF.
They did one in Philly, like the bad fentanyl ship, and they he
got arrested by border patrol for paying coyotes to cross him over the border.
They filmed it, you know, but uh oh no, but he was
pretty cool. He's like the better version of Vice. Yeah exactly. He's
like what Vice was like ten years ago before they started. Yeah, whack
articles and just goofy shit. But but it's cool. Yeah. Uh.
And so anyway, he he was filming a bunch of stuff about the border
and one of the points he was making. He's like, I kept wondering
why people wanted to come to the US because you know, we would film
in these cities that are just so fucked up. The fentanyl problem really bad,
the political division is really bad. Uh. You know, he didn't
say this, this is my thake, but people are just kind of getting
dumber and more turned up and aggressive. Yeah, like you know, and
I got it, And why would people want to come here? And it's
like it's just pop culture telling them? And I asked my friend who was
working in Hukumba. I was like, why the people? And he's just
a good dude. He's like an artist that lives in the mountains with his
girlfriend and saw people in need and was like, I'm gonna go hook him
up and help him out because it feels good. And so I'm like,
why do people? Why are people coming here? And he's like, because
I think it's just pop culture. Man. I think they see shit and
they have this like, you know, fantasized ideal of what the United States
is like and don't realize sold the American exceptionalism by their phone huh right,
And it's like, damn, man, why the fuck? Like go to
Australia or something where they got free healthcare. You know, like there's yeah,
like you got a whole generation that's priced out of owning a house because
investors bought up all the housing stock. There's no health care. The population
is getting dumber. We turned all this beautiful land into a big shopping mall
and freeway, you know, full of low intellect and high rate of metabolic
diseases. You know, it's just like a landscape of pre diabetes. And
uh, it's just like you know, it really is, it really is.
I mean, you make walking obsolete, you're stuck in a car.
Especially in Texas, it's like the fucking obesity things really bad. And it's
not even like that's what I noticed when I was in Hu. And it's
not even like I'm not saying like like super fat. It's like unhealthy.
It's like you're not huge, but you're unhealthy. Like you look pre diabetic,
you look like you're your gut. Yeah, like eating garbage, food,
driving everywhere. You don't walk much because you can't you can't walk.
There's nowhere to walk, you know. It's like that's why gym culture is
still big, because like there's nowhere else to get physical activity but the gym,
you know, but the box, Yeah, with that plastic smell.
Shtop us for you, because today, dude, when I when I I
ran hills over here and it's like fucking seventy two. Well, I'm I'm
at my buddy's house west of Austin now, and I was I was running
around to Edwards Plateau. I mean, there's nowhere to run. You have
to like every time a car comes by, you're gonna risk getting hit.
But it was beautiful, And of course they're demolishing part of it to build
a fucking golf course. I couldn't believe it there, but they're building a
fucking golf course here. That's why I see that shit. I'm like,
is this the fucking nineteen fifties, Like really, you're building a fucking gold
It's twenty twenty four, Like how are you building course a fucking you're demolishing
pristine ash juniper woodland to be on the Edwards Plateau. The incredible fucking beautiful
like Lake Travis. You could, you know, west of Austin like smells
incredible. Oh yeah, I know, I know Lake Travit to build a
fucking golf course. Where the fuck are you gonna get Where are you gonna
get the water? Where you gonna get the fucking water, you fucking dummies,
Like, this isn't an arid climate. It's one hundred and five degrees
for four or five months out of the year. Where the fuck are you
gonna get the water, you fucking numbskulls? Like, and you're exposing all
this land to the sun. It just becomes a heat island. Now,
Like, why would you now just came in here and heard you. He's
like's going off now, fucking he's laughing. It was great, Yeah,
But you know what's crazy is that that I thought about you too. I
was I was just reading they're building this fucking humongous outside of Fresno, a
humongous like two hundred, two hundred and thirty five thousand square foot costco.
Jesus Christ, I forget how many gas pumps fifty gas pumps. That's gonna
be nice in that central valley heat, all that black asphalt just getting cooked.
Oh god, yeah, talk about pre diabetes, Jesus fuck. And
going there by your Kurkling signature pants so you look like a fucking vacation,
Bible school teach. You know, like the Costco clothing because I had a
Costco. I used to go to the Costco in Richmond. Uh you know
Bacon Human. What is the Costco that's up there in the North Bay,
not as Richmond. It is Richmond. Yeah, right out by the water.
I had a Costco U for a you know, for a year subscription
or whatever. Yeah, you get some good produce. Yeah, I'd go
in there and I'd steal the juice. They had those big juices, those
like nine dollars suja or you know, like drink like three quarters of it
and put it back or something. It's just my text, you know,
I gotta do it. Do it once every visit. You eventually make back
to around shopping around your shop and just drinking some juice, buying like fifty
rolls of toilet paper and like three It's so it's so like American, fucking
it's so fucking suburban American, like mega church style like juice. I don't
know, man, And it's just got such a vibe. They treat their
employees well eric, which is today supposedly Yeah, I mean it's you know,
yeah, I don't know about that, right, like Texas is that's
where they game everything, you know, like Texas, Texas will have a
seven dollars minimum wage for the next fifty years. But yeah, my sister
lives in Kentucky. I was like, how the fuck can you live?
And you know what's crazy? Well, my brother, I'm telling you you
need I've already you need to go to his farm. He has I He
strategically planted all these different species of plants and trees just to have because the
university would come out used to come out there and do soil samples and ship
you know, I'm telling you you would have a great show if you want
to. Man, it's see, it's it's well. Where I live,
it's fucking the culture is depressing as Oh fuck, it's depressing as fuck.
But would be a Kentucky too though, right of course it would. But
but where this land I was, we were on this is land we're trying
to purchase, was some of the most beautiful intact thorn scrub like you know,
with the habitat used to be here, you know for right. Yeah,
however, many thousands of years, you know, post place to scene.
How did you find this place? Just hiking Yeah, a friend found
it and so it was for sale, and we've been trying to purchase parcels.
You know, we already went through like three, they all fell through.
The first one I was gonna get. I realized, this fucking guy
wants way too much money for what this land is, and if we try
to plant anything, it's gonna get poached. And it's infested with buffalo grass,
which is this like invasive exotic grass that evolved with megafauna. So it
gets big as fuck and smothers everything, and you've basically got to use erba
side for you've got a weed wack and then use erba side and it's just
a be a perpetual fight. So I was like, and that'd be fine
if it was like it's like a fenyl kind of yeah, like for what
fenel is out there for in the bay, you know. But but fennel
at least has a benefit to like some butterflies or some shit at least,
you know. But right anyway, So I was like, and that would
be fine if it was affordable, but this guy wanted seventy five hundred acre,
and I was like, fuck that that's insane. Yeah, for fucking
se No, it was like there was water, there was city water,
but it was like man for South Texas, Like it's such a dirty,
greedy culture in that region too. Like it's again I was, it feels
like a hooker motel. It does no offense to hook of course, it
feels like a hooker motel, but it's like my next hotel, but it's
next to a buckets, you know. So like the neighborhoods, kind of
the neighborhoods kind of like coming up, but it still feels dirty and everyone's
hustling, and there's some dude trying to sell you fucking you know, like
you know, and there's like, you don't know where he's like this dude's
there's like Mike Mansions there, but it's like a huge illiteracy rate and poverty
rate, and you're like, oh, there's totally where. It's the cartel
connection in the fucking uh Star County, Texas. I guaranteed it's south of
Laredo and west of Yeah, it just feels dirty, like everyone's hustling,
everyone's fucking on them, you know, everyone's hustling hard. It's just like
a money worshiping culture in a lot of ways. I was like, fuck,
so this is kind of like farther out, farther away from that,
and I was able to stand on a hill and look out and there's just
not see anything, like not see some rich douchebags Branchet that they built.
But you know, I made a bunch of money in banking and I'm gonna
try and be a rancher. You know, that's a big thing. But
they they plow land down here, They plow land just to fucking plow it,
like just to get rid of because they were attractive, because it's more
attractive when it's got nothing. You're not even you're not planting anything, you're
not making anything sustainable, and they just plow it. Yeah, we're gonna
sell, We're gonna sell this parcel. We got to get rid of the
brush. It's not a brush, it's a making the woods. Please.
Yeah, it's a fucking woodland. It's like a woodland, thorn forest of
plants that have spent millions of years evolving to tolerate this heat and these long
dry seasons. Hottest place I've ever been. This is hotter than Phoenix.
Phoenix has hotter days. Phoenix has an individual hotter days but the heat throughout
the year, the cumulative heat is way hotter in South Texas, in the
borderlands. And so this it's just this moron culture that just that wants to
get that that says, we're gonna plow this ship. This is just what
you do. We're gonna sell this parcel to the land is more valuable when
it's already been cleared than when it's got intact vegetation on it. Meanwhile,
there's the fucking Texas tortoises, a ton of cool endemic plants that don't grow
anywhere else, tons of tons of peyote, tons of they're like the size
of a football. They can live like seventy years. Yeah, they're not
as big as the like doing like my dad used to do payote meetings and
sweat, yeah, up on the reservation like payote like that, all that
po he comes from here. All the payote for any Native American church meeting
anywhere in the United States or Canada comes from South Texas. No ship,
Yeah, comes from South Texas. There's a small population in West Texas,
but it's way it's farce. It's exponentially smaller, like it's just meeting.
Yeah, but yeah, I've got it. I've gone to three three so
far. Yeah, they're special, man, They're like on its own.
Payote on its own is like I wouldn't probably do it. It's not you
know, but when when in the meeting with the drum and the rattle and
the prayer and the blessings and the fucking the cedar and the fire and everything,
that's you know, but that but again, that's someone else's ship.
You only do it if you're invited that you can't get like some harm trying
to be like but psychedelic, you know, it's like the fucking age for
that, right for like the psychedelic You know, remember when those white guys
sweat lodges and they died? When was it? This was probably happened.
That probably happened a few times, a few times. Do I remember Hanky
Hankyman? Yeah? Do a musical called Hanky Shaman. Yeah. I get
it. Everyone's hurting and looking for an answer. But I feel like there's
a lot of phonies and charlatan's in that world, not in the Paote world,
but in like the New Age spirituality world, you know, there is
there. Yeah. Yeah, so your your dad was doing Yeah, yeah,
that and and sweating. Yeah, you know. And I said,
well, Paoting, I said, was it crazy do? I asked them
the questions because Paote mescaline Paoti, and he was like, he was like,
no, that's what the white man does that. You guys do the
over you know. White men are the ones who fucking abuse it. That's
why he use it for what it's supposed to be, to treat it like
it's a drug, right, it's that drug war mentality. It's so now
I want to do it, do it right. But that's like no,
that's the way I feel about it though, too. It's like if it
wasn't illegal. First off, it's only illegal because of a culture war against
the hippies in the late sixties and because of racism, you know. And
I feel like if it wasn't illegal, it'd be like there's a number of
other plants that are perfectly legal, Scaladium tortiosum that can get you make you
feel really fucking weird, you know, like Salvia divinorum, Scaldia tortiosum,
whatever, and and but you know, and there's like a little you can
get them in smoke shops whatever. But people aren't. People are like manh
whatever, I feel like you've heard of sala. Yeah, well, I
feel like if peyote was legal, that would be the same thing and be
like nah, all right, whatever, you know. But when you make
something illegal, now it's taboo and now it's there. But now there's like
this movement among like native parts of like Native American the culture that like want
to keep it illegal, which is like, that's the dumbest shit. I'm
sorry, but it's fucking studid. Like no one's gonna come out and poach
peyote, you know, no one's gonna go trespass on some crazy motherfucker's land
who's certainly armed in South Texas in one hundred and five degree heat to go
poach peyote when you can just you know, if you can just grow,
if you can like go buy it in the mail, like a live plant,
because I think a lot of people just want to own it too,
like have a paoty Oh it's my paoty plant, you know, right.
So it's like they're beautiful plants. Yeah, they're beautiful plants. They need
a lot of heat, Like in the Bay Area, you need to grow
in a greenhouse for sure, otherwise it just it wouldn't grow. It would
grow. It only grow during the really hot times of the year. And
you know, but I had someone I lived in the Bay Area, would
and I grew like six or seven ceilings and they they wouldn't move unless I
when I finally got a greenhouse, like a little cheap plastic greenhouse, and
it would get hot as fucking there. Then they started actually growing. But
you know, the bay is so cool, yeah, because well where they
grow. Like I was just out there two days ago. It's ninety five
degrees. It's like mid April ready, it's already ninety five. I'm sweating
like a pig. And it was overcast. It was fucking over if the
sun had been out, and I'm carrying I got this one gallon insulated thermos
with ice in it, you know that saw it because you need to drink
cold water. It's not not drinking water, it needs to be freezing so
you can cool your internal core down. And it was overcast, and I
was still sweating like a pig. You know, I was just I was
out there for five hours. I came back. I was lightheaded and just
like man and just you feel worked out, you know. Oh see,
I would probably not enjoy that's used to it though. Well, I got
I got acclimated a little bit when I was in yeah, Houston stuff because
I had never man that heat there was unbearable, especially walking you know,
in between two rails full of auto racks on each side and it's one hundred
degrees outside. That seems insane because those those auto racks, all those railcars
become like giant radiators. You know. Oh, it was awful, holy,
and then get rained on. People got to get rained on. Don't
people die a heat stroke railroading in Texas? Oh yeah, I'm sure,
especially because some railroaders tend to be kind of hefty and out of shape.
Right, well, water burger at fucking lunch time and then going out.
Yeah, but you know, you get in here, you got we were
walking the set and it damped right on me like cloud burst. I'd never
seen a class anybody walk in the city. He's doing a Class one.
He's doing a Class one. Air brake dead. That was such a sham.
Yeah, that's car department ship. Yeah, totally right, So you
know, doing that and then and then get a cloud burst and then immediately
be hot again. But I'm soaking wet. Now the mosquitoes were off.
Oh it was bad. I was I was riding a shove, which means
I'm riding on the back of a car, directing the movement of the car,
riding on a rail car, engines pushing the cars, engines pushing the
car, and I have it was a tank car. It was fifty cars
of of of it's not very bad bad chemical. It's called liquid vinyl.
Sounds terrible, like liquid vinyl is not toxic at all. So I'm shoving
this liquid vinyl car and I'm like, god, man, I start feeling
like, man, I need to change my you know, I have the
green vest On safety vest I'm like, I need to change my fucking you
know, my detergent man itchy. And I look and I've got just a
shit ton of mosquitos on my shoulder and back just fit. So I start
smacking them. And when I'm when i'm smacking them, I can feel the
you know, mosquitos. A lot of times you smack it, you can't
even feel them. These ones, I can feel them under my hand,
like they're like sturdy, They're like heavy duty mosquitos. They're like bench.
Yeah, it was awful, and I ran, I stopped the movement.
I went all the way up to the head end and grabbed my offs brand.
Just the heat, the heat down here is you get you get used
to it. I get like when in this in this type of habitat too.
I mean, it's good for six months out of the year, it's
good, but then the six months in the summer, you might as well
be living in Minneapolis in the winter because you just don't want to go outside.
It's the same thing, but the brush is all spiny too, So
you've not only as the hottest fuck You've gotta wear pants. You've gotta wear
a thick, long sleeved shirt or like a thicker coat, like a like
you know, a carhartshack, because you're gonna get cut up. There's fucking
and you're just sweating like a pig and soaking wet. And I kind of
wanted to go with you on an out and now I don't. Well,
it's just the time of year between April and between April and November, you
don't want to be out here, that's right. Like we're trying to get
this land and people are can I come visit? And I'm like, you
don't want to. You don't want to come before November. It's shitty,
it sucks, it's dangerous. It's fucking dangerous because if you don't have cold
water. Sheah, you're gonna fucking die. Yeah, totally. The rattlesnakes
out there too, huh yeah, but they they're they they're nice enough to
let you know if you get too close. And and it's more the sun
man is the worst. The sun is everything like you just during the day
you don't want to go outside. And but also that's why the plants here
are so cool, because everything's adapted. It's got a strategy around. It
goes dormant, drops its leaves, it fucking's gotta it dies back to the
root, it whatever, you know, it's got stem, succulents whatever.
That's why it's it blows my mind that these plants are so cool and they're
just so disrespected. They're just like dumped in the fucking alley like a dog's
corpse, you know, Like that's crazy because you're like in the hood when
people like the people dump like dog bodies. Ship like I remember like the
West Oakland trailer raind trailer excuse me, find like a like a dead pit
bull, just like dumped. It was used in fighting like that. That's
what like the yeah, the whole point. Yeah, that's what The plant
life here is like, like just get it out of the way. It's
clear everything. It's man, it's so fucking twisted. Man there. The
plant life is super fucking interesting because how do you survive that ship, you
know, and with limited water? And I don't know, that's so interesting
and people don't. It's so people, Yeah, how can you survive that?
And you know, people just bulldoze right the fuck over it. Yeah
they don't. They love bulldozing down here. They love clearing land. They
love it. And that's crazy too because you think like it's like watching you
liberals cry liberal tears. Well it's not. It's not like I said,
it's not even like this. It's all like it's all it's all Mexican and
Mexican American down where I live. But it's just the culture. It's just
like you know, and people. It's weird too because people can be super
nice, but it's like that Southern niceness. I mean, it's genuine too
to extent, but I think it's also just like as a matter of politeness
and just that's what you do, just being cordial. Yeah, but also
it's like everyone's packing heat too, so there's like a you want to keep
you want to keep the tension low, and there's a stability. But but
I think people just don't we people, You know, I don't. I
don't want to. I don't want to indict it too much. I mean,
I hate it, but I want to diet it too much. I
don't want to be too like convicting of it, because it's just it's ignorance.
That's all it is. It's it's just ignorance. It's not everyone.
And that's not how you change shit by by shiitting all over people. It's
though I certainly run my mouth a lot, you know, you change people
by being like, man, why are we doing this? This isn't the
best this isn't the best way to do it. Let's think of it.
Well, there's the difference. You can vent about it and be like vent
and then and then after you then after you, you know, you come,
you calm down, you start, you really start thinking about it.
Then you can actually take action, you know, but you can you can
have that moment where you're like ah, then you're like, Okay, I've
been planting. I've been planting native plant gardens everywhere, I think, and
I think it's good to see for people here, especially to see someone like
me doing this instead of like some fucking super blonde, you know, like
college student who's all soft and blah blah, And they're like, who the
fuck is like yelling, shrieking Italian covered in fucking tattoos who looks like he's
out of a you know, working in a fucking you know, midnight gas
station, or like a fucking homeless or you know, yeah, or just
a railroader, you know. But he's like, he's like ranting about how
much he loves butterflies and wants to like blow up a bank too, you
know. I mean, he talks about how he wants to blow up a
bank, but then he also talks about much he likes butterfly, so it's
kind of butterfly. He cancels each other out each other. He's a good
guy. Yeah, yeah, but uh but if they can't read between the
lines of why then then but you know, and most people can't. Well,
Lance, before we go to tell me about the sun train, tell
us all about the sun we're getting off leaving an hour. I know we
I would love to fucking remember that time I fucking you had me come out
and work with you a year ago, yeah, two years ago, just
before I moved out of Oakland. It was like one light and any time
you want to come work, you can fucking come work. Could you?
Could you have gotten my locomotive license renew like legitimately? Yeah? Really yeah,
but not now it's already expired. Well you have to go through the
I'd have to like basically hire you or right, you know what I mean,
Like I would have to put you like as it you know, I've
hired you, you know, and that would be like like, but that
wouldn't I mean, that's not I get tired of botany shit sometimes I was.
I got I was getting trolled by these fucking like twenty three year old
kids a year and a half ago, and I was just like, man,
fuck this. They were like trying to cancel me. I don't know
what the fuck they were, all these like uber honky fucking academic but I
was like, man, and I was just so tired of the bullshit,
and like the I was like, man, fuck this, you guy just
want to go back to working for the railroad, and I like had this
moment, it's like momentary dream where it was like just to be like a
nasty switchman again. I regret getting my locomotive license. You know when when
you worked with me, I would always tell you, dude, you're wasting
your ballents here this place. But that was but it was it could be
a fun job though at times it could be a really fun job. It's
a great job. It's a I would do. It's a great fucking job.
It is what the gig you got now though too especially is like you're
you're out of up. You're on your own with this small with this small
outfit, but you're still in Oakland and you know, yeah, yeah,
so what the sun train does, because what they're trying to do is utilize
the sun train is a massive What it's doing is it wants to bottleneck.
It wants it's like a massive battery, right, It's like, yeah,
the whole energy development development, you know. And what it does is it
stores green energy from like remote solar or wind turbines or even even hydro electric,
you know, hydro And that's what they're trying to do and they're trying
to store it in these batteries, so they charge up in Every railcar is
a battery. You got one hundred and twenty cars. It's like a unit
train. It's like a novel idea. I mean, I'm I'm sketched out
of all these like super you know, fucking it's a large class one railroad
company, super capitalist, you know. But I'm as sketch up. But
like it's still the idea of it is still interesting to me, Like that
you can treat car unit train, one hundred and twenty cars. Each car
is like basically a giant battery. You charge it up and then you bring
it where there's a bunch of different batteries. So what they're trying to do
all these they're they're they're containerized batteries all in the sun train and they they
they can I think they can deliver more than like a gigawatt an hour of
green energy per train trip jeuz. So it's say it's cost effective and it's
a wrap up solution to you know, but the train, the train brings
electricity, where do they bring it to? I don't get they bring it
from like the solar plant to a fucking generating station. Yeah, and then
plug it into the grid. Yes, Wow, that's so weird. I
guess, I guess it works, but you know, it's nuts that it
was like these solar farms are like destroying pristine desert to build these massive solar
farms. It's like, well, they want to do that. They want
to they want to work toward creating like a modern like efficient sustainable energy you
know, transmission network, you know what I mean, that's what they want
to you know, they want a greener, more sustainable future. So it's
like a lieu of power lines this. You know, they're using the elect
the same way that like an oil unit oil train car is for foregoing oil
pipelines. Yes, the same thing. So they yeah, they store the
green energy from all those power sources, like we're saying, the big fucking
solar and the you know and customized little battery containers and they're you know,
and they and you're supposed to transport like a unit train over like existing like
rail lines. Yeah, those cars got to be heavy as fuck too,
because if they're batteries, it's what are they using lithium? Well, no,
they're they're they're they're iron phosphate. Oh well that's I'm sure that's the
heaviest. Fuck. But that's that's crazy, right, they're super fucking heavy
iron phosphate batteries versus lithium batteries. Well, because you can, you can,
you can mine iron phosphate. It's a lot easier. Yeah, right,
but the lithium still, I mean, I mean the the what McCall
it, lithium iron phosphate battery. But maybe there's not as much lithium.
No, there's only five I think he said five percent. Yeah, so
you don't need as much lithium, which is somewhat rare. Yeah. Wow,
But but I don't know. But Mariel was you know, Mariel immediately
was asking so where's this lithium? Mind out of you know, Mario goes
straight for the nice questions like how where we getting this? Who's being utile?
You know, who's getting exploited? Yes, yes, fucking yeah,
Australia I think mostly right, Is that what he said? Yeah? Yeah,
yeah, I think Australia. Yeah. Yeah. Got to see the
thing with all the solar farms that drives me fucking nuts. That was like
they're they're you actually could use that shade cover over any of the like nine
million square miles of parking lot in the United States. But instead they're going
to build it over like the fucking desert, like you know near the like
Nevada border in the eastern Mohammi, like the Clark Mounds or something, you
know, the Ivan Pross Solar project or something. It's like they just did
that down here in South Texas. They destroyed all this thorn scrub, thousands
of Payoti plants, destroyed thousands, well hundreds of astro fight on this other
rare cact. This plant, destroyed tons of desert tortoises probably killed, and
to build this giant solar project. Meanwhile, you have like literally shopping centers,
just oceans of asphalt that become a heat battery in the summer because you
know, the asphalt gets hit with the sun, charges up and continues radiating
heat until two am, long after the sun goes down. Why don't they
build solar over that and shade all those cars, you know, and shade
the fucking ground from getting hit and then also generate electricity. It's so fucking
wild to me that they're not doing that, you know, right, Why
are you not doing that. I've only seen only one time have I seen
a parking lot in any of America's soul crushing parking Uh you know strip malls
with a solar panels over it, and that was there was some we're in
like the San Diego suburbs. I've never seen an earlies. Yeah, it's
crazy. It's like why, it's just like it's a it's so it's such
a you know, it's such a like why are we not doing this moment?
You know, like what the fuck? Like that's such a it just
makes so much sense. But I don't know, there's probably some red tape
or something that they'd have to do. I'm sure, you know, I'm
sure. Yeah. Well, I mean you know one of those cars that
I guess you know you could you could you can with one of those rail
cars. You could charge with the guy had he had, I mean,
there's some tons of ports on there and he could charge. He was charging
three vehicles at one time, a big van, a regular car, and
then something else demo of it today or semo. Yeah, and you can
charge like like all the heavy, heavy equipment on the port along with a
lot of stuff on the berths, you know, what I mean. So,
I mean it could you know it replaces? Did that guy walk up
when you said this guy you hit me on speakerphone and I was like,
I was talking about how man railroad managers looked like used car salesman. Did
he hear that? Yeah? He laughed. Okay, it's like he's like,
well, I'm kind of dressed business schedule. Yeah, these guys.
Yet, these guys they were I mean, there were nice enough guys.
I could tell. The one guy's like a venture capitalist. He has a
lot of money, yeah, you know, the CEO the guy. But
the other guy was a younger guy that had he had some because you know
that where they where they keep their their their demo and stuff parked is right
there at the old Harbor Belt in San Francisco. You know, yeah,
that old railroad by Hunter's Point. Yeah. Now I get the younger guy
because the one side that's painted on is like it says, you know,
train train something. It's just and I was like, it looks terrible.
Well, apparently paid somebody. He said, oh, somebody from the community
said what he said, Yeah, he was a drug addict. He kind
of fucked this whole thing up. It's a fucked up the Yeah that the
artwork is horrible, And I was like, dude, I know a guy
that can fucking probably do a way better job than that. You know,
Yeah, it was bad. I guess he was like some you know,
he's like just you know, heroin addict or something, a graph artist,
you know. But how they did it, it was it was really bad.
Did you get the picture? I think I said you a picture.
It was really bad to have to work again. I don't look like I
mean, my my, you know, my kids can do better. Yeah,
there it is. I did send you this. If I did.
If I did, I'm gonna send it to you now so you can see
that the old sucking it's horrible. Do you be like what really? Yeah?
The cords all well, it's fun. It was paint or what.
Yeah, it looks like he did it in in spray paint. But he's
I'm surprised nobody's tried to steal any of that ship down there that would Oh
yeah, I can see it. Oh yeah, what the fuck? What
is that? God? That Jesus Christ. It's a snake. I don't
know. It's supposed to be a power cord plugging into a you see it
says it says the trains, the train Jesus trains mission. It's the trains
mission. Oh yeah, Jesus got a sun train there you go. Train
at least the trains mission. That's the trains mission. It's like a nice
play on words, you know. Look at it. I can see the
ballast, then I can I could see the ballast. Then I can smell
the West Oakland yard, like that smell of diesel mixed with maritime. I
need to I should have taken pictures I have like the spreading of it.
You know. As a matter of fact, if you zoom in underneath that
railcara, you see those little patchy what are those little they have little flowers
on them. Wait, those little those little plants, little flowers. See
underneath the railcar and off to the side, it looks like little patches little
I see the little red ones. Yeah yeah, send me a picture when
you're at work. What are the red what are those? I can't I
forget. I haven't been in that. My yard is covered in those.
Everything there was a weed basically except for I think there was heterotheca. There
was a telegraph weed they call it. But uh, and then there was
coyote bush in that yard to the yard actually had a few natives. Yeah,
there's coyote bush everywhere, and the scrub jays were always planting acorns everywhere.
There was oak trees. But oh yeah, this is because I gotta
have you know, they they come and they have to do weed abatement because
the f RA comes through. And if there's a plant, you know,
if there's a plant, is there something covering like a switch that you can't
see, and yeah, it'll catch fire and some some guy will sit fire.
And I think I think, I actually, I think I accidentally set
that that I could statute of limitations. I can say I think actually set
that yard on fire. When I was hammered once with a like tears over
the desert yard. I was with a friend. We were hammered and we
were we had a small fire. And then before that, yeah, I
was driving that beater Honda Civic and we had an old toilet and we put
it on the hood and we're driving down Wood Street. This was before any
of the homeless camps were there. We were driving down Wood Street with the
toilet on the hood, you know, because the car was a beater anyway,
I didn't give a shit, right, and we got it up to
like sixteen miles per hour and then slammed on the brakes and sent the fucking
set the toilet. Yeah, like launched the toilet flying like what. It
was like like fucking one in the morning on Wood Street. You know,
this is Dustry just laughing our asses up. We smashed it. We did
so much dumb shit. We had potato guns and we're being drunk and shooting
guns off at the fucking condo across the street. One There was no one
living in there. There was no one living in there. It was empty,
it was under construction. We were shooting the security cameras out. And
this dude down the block. I remember this guy on the block. He's
like, Yo, the fuck you shooting it. We're like, no,
no, we're not shooting. You were shooting at the building. Don't worries.
Oh okay. It was. It was totally like in the Sweat God,
the damn Ship we used to do. Yeah, it's great, man.
It was. Yeah, but West Oakland used to be the wild wild
West. But there was some It was pretty pretty damn cool it was,
and there wasn't any homelessness. Man, what is this? What is the
did this guy lives up here? This is how disgusting? God, it's
such so disgusting. What I took a picture of this because I see this
guy all the time and these are cameras and lights. Dude, this is
how disgusting. You know. Oh you know what someone told me? Someone
told me they're building condos in the fucking homeless camp. Like like, yeah,
it's coming right across the street. Yes, yeah, there's like the
home the homeless camp is still there, but they're like erecting a condo development
in the middle that's just got really high fences. And I was like,
this is out of a fucking sci fi dystopio. What the fuck? This
is insane? Man, Like yes, And the crazy thing is too,
is that that's their their dilemma. I think. Is that that old sp
uh that old sp depot or that old that depot, because yeah, that's
a beautiful building. Because they can't osprey. Where was this in the yard?
Dude? He's always there. Oh yeah. If you see him flying
with the fish ever, that's cool. Is that what that is? Is
it osprey? Yes, an osprey? They see him flying around carrying fish.
It's funny, man. He was loud as ship. Yeah. Oh
yeah, that's cool. Holy shit in West Oakland, now, wow,
right on the fucking yeah, right on the lamp. You know, there's
this guy did grain. My my customer did did grain one Like it wasn't
a unit train white. It was like seventy or eighty cars, but they
all came in at different times, like twenty would come in or ten would
come in. But he was doing grain there for like a month. And
I think all I think that brought a lot of you know, because I
saw redtail hawk fucking you know yeah around Well, yeah, the pigeons and
rats would go for that, and then the redtails would come and eat the
pigeons. Yeah right, and the ravens peregrine. Yeah, the ravens were
chasing Ali around, dude, And I was like, hey, man,
ravens because he was flying during the day, which was weird, Dude,
Like, why ravens are dicks? I'm supposed to write a book about the
train yard. Botany I gotta fucking I might even go back to Oakland for
that. It's too soon, it's too like to dick, But I should
go back, though, I should go I should fucking go back to the
yard. Man. I gotta I gotta cut I gotta cut it short.
I gotta go fucking eat. It's it's almost eleven o'clock here. What are
you eating? We got a pea burger with my guy hovey and a fuck
No, I've never eaten Waterburger in my life. That's what a burger.
That's such a Texas That was someone almost hit me the other day like worst
drivers in the world on it. Someone almost hit me the other day,
cut me off, and then fucking pulled in the water Burger like one hundred
and fifty feet in front of me. I was like, I was like,
Jesus christ man, this is like a fucking Simpsons episode. They hated
me when I first go I'll tell you this before I get off. They
hated me when I borrowed out. They kept saying, you ever hate water
Burger? You guys had water Burger yet I suggest at once you get over
the water Burger. Best burger you'll ever Have you ever had water Burger?
Water Burger, water Burger? That's all I heard. We go to Waterburger,
I eat it. I'm like, dude, this is fucking garbage.
You guys go to water Burger? Do you guys go to Waterburger? Everybody
go to Waterburger. Everybody did. And there was some people like, oh,
yeah, it was great, And I was like, that fucking place
is garbage. They hated me, hated me, or you can tell they
hated me. I was like, the fucking place is horrible. This is
terrible for you know what I do with them? I Taco Polenke hard.
Did you ever been to a Taco Polunke They maybe you weren't. I don't
know they have one in San Antonio. I think they maybe have one in
Austin. It's like a local chain, like taco chain with a salsa bar
that's fucking divine, Like I want to like, I want to take a
bath in their salsa bar. They got the radishes, the fucking cut lines.
Yeah, seven different kinds of salsa, cabbage, shredded cabin. You're
not getting a burrito out there like you got out here, though, are
you. No, They've got little burritos, but it's not the SAME's.
There's no California burritos its own thing. Man. You can't get a California
burrito like Chipotle. But it's not that's like change. You can't get that,
you know, and Chipotle is like a sodium tablet. You know.
I did go to Taco Cabana. Oh that's that's like a honkey. That's
kind of a they got a nice salsa bar. But it's kind of like
a it's a it's a phrase of Spider the taco peas like, well,
we were, we were. We went down there and you know, we
we had went out and stuff and hung out and everybody was late night and
I think Brad Parks was kind of drunk. I don't know I was driving,
but I think we they all wanted it, so that's why we got
it. I was like, good, I'm eating it before in the morning.
It wasn't that good. I mean it was okay. It was better
than the Taco bell for sure, but good. There's a diarrhead that I
haven't had that. Yeah, do that once in a while, Like when
I'm like really hungry there's nothing else and I'm on the road and I'm like,
oh fuck, all right, I can get a bean brito, And
every time I do it, I regret it. It's like there's no beans.
It's just like sauce. It's like a flaccid bag of diarrhea. It's
like a flash and it's like a flash and colon like colon kilosophy bag whatever,
it is a colostoma. Yeah right, it's so terrible. They're terrible.
What are you eating now? Pizza? Yeah? We got I got
like a little pizza thing. I'm gonna go. I'm in my my guy
Hoavier's house. I gotta drive the West Texas tomorrow. And I was doing
botany stuff here and I had to finish a drawing and I've got to work
on this fucking book and get the photos together, which every time I get
every time I think about the book, I get like anxiety. I'm just
like fuck, I just it stresses me because I really want it to be
nice and come out. It's I have to learn in design. I'm like,
I got the writing, dumb, but now I have to do the
fucking So you're it's already written. Yeah, it's like half autobiography and then
but there's like science education in there too, which I hope doesn't fly on
people's heads or born. And then it's like half photos. There's gonna be
ship tons of photos and they're really good stuff. But I'll read it.
But uh yeah, I'll send you a copy. Man, No, i'll
buy it. I want an autograph, all right, like Carter's gonna be
famous one day, you know, Curd. Uh well, thanks for doing
this. I appreciate it, man, I really appreciate you. You fucking
I was good enough on this. Yeah, it was fun. It's always
fun talking to you. Man. It's I wish we were, you know.
I wish it was like trying to recapture like the vibe like seven six
seven years ago, sitting in a fucking locomotive parked somewhere killing overtime, you
know, but right going to get a brito with the gas or we would
the best of when we would park it and go to Guadalajara and sit down
all the fucking way up there. I did that to receivers one time,
me and Tim Gibson after Prick. Oh yeah, and he's like, I
didn't know you were going to sit down. I thought you were going to
go to the truck. And it's like you go in and sit down for
later you come out. He's like that guy was to say names or whatever,
but yeah he was. He was. He was an odd one.
Holy shit, he's still on. He still lives with mother and he still
posts rabbits all over here. I saw Brian Lewis a few uh weeks ago.
He was out here for the eclipse. That guy is still great.
He's doing great. He's like super, How did you fucking run into that?
He just hit me up out of nowhere? And I was like,
or maybe I hit him out here, Tony. Yeah, And he's like,
am I we're out here for the eclipse. I'm like, oh,
ship, we got gottam. You know when the other guy is fucking great?
Man, he's Oh, he's fucking fucking awesome. He he asked me
at that. I went to that because you know, what's his name?
Always JP always invites me to the union ship the big barbecues at his because
they're at his house. Yeah, And I ran into Brian there and he
was like, dude, if you want me to come, I'll come switch
for free, just to give me off this damn skunk train. He's on
that skunk train or whatever. He is on that wine what's he on the
Yeah, give me off the stamp thing. I want to Yeah. He
was like, I want to fucking switch. You know, I said,
you know what, if I got some switching to do, I'm gonna call
him and have him come. Hang. He said, I'll do it for
free. I don't. I just want to get up. Yeah. That
was a guy who loved railroading, so like he fucking he rode trains for
a while too, do you know that. Yeah, that guy has a
good story. I remember the first time I really started you know he was
great, was when he came in one day. He came with a tight
eye tight as tight ice shirt on, some cutoff jean shorts, really short
jan shorts, and some boots on, and a candy necklace. I was
like, what the fuck are you crying? He's going to Burning Man.
I was like, oh shit, that was so funny, dude. Oh
shit. He's like, yeah, you got a candy necklace on. He
was full of stories, man. I used to love all these great full
of stories, like crazy stories Western Pacific, you know, working for Western
Pacific and yeah, they worked out a girlock for a while, like when
it was a town like thirty years before Burning Man even existed, twenty years
riding. Yeah, because he was out there and win a muck. I
guess he had a good friend that when they when they did the merger,
he got caught on the Elko side and had to go to Utah work hey,
because he was in Utah for a while too, and Brian was and
he said that he got back over to this side, but when they did
the merger and cut it, the dude was stuck in Utah and had to
move his whole family. Fucking can you like that? Terrible culture shock?
Yeah you talk about I mean, he's probably did all right out there and
Utah ship I went, man, girlock used to be cool. I remember
going to that fucking Bruno's bar, and you know the first time I went,
and they sell those little they didn't sell them, they had for free,
those little mash box that says you know where uh fuck where the pavement
ends in the west begins. Well I have a yeah, yeah, And
you go in there and Bruno, this old a tang guy be sitting in
the corner. You're like, eh, hey, Bruno, did you did
you go there like a lot for like No, it was in twenty eleven
because that's when I was learning to run run locomotives, and we'd stopped there
and I remember one time our fucking train like the engine almost blew up there
we had the park it there was like oil leaking up, like just spewing
out of the fucking back. It was terrible. And I was with this
one, this one cool engineer who he was be like, oh man,
you're learning. He was like kind of like took man. He was had
like a father figure. He's like he'd call me bubba and shit and let
me run and show me how to run the train. And then the conductor
that we were working with. The conductor we were working with was like this
fucking dirty old man. Like he pulled out this Duffel bag at one point
and it was full of all this pornography and he's like you want to see
this, And the guy was like no, I'm good man. He's just
sitting there like I'm like, you're just reading, just reading pornography, like
Roub went out on the like rear engine or something like that. What are
you doing. It's just really just like reading pornography, like it's like fine
literature or something, just like Jesus, what's on your hard drive? But
with this dude didn't break, but still it was you know, yeah,
But but I remember going to to Bruno's and seeing him there and that place
had class. And then I went back ten years later when I was just
showing Botany there and they had changed. It looked like a fancy redneck bar,
like you know, like the kind of like BUCkies home furnishing style that
that like you see in that like a like a redneck man cave. And
like I could tell Bruno was dead, Like they want it to look like
it's old and authentic, but it looks new and kind of yeah kind of,
and it's just well lit, and the decourse super whack, like it
looks like Airbnb decor almost. You're like, damn you guys, like movie
prop type shit, Like yeah, it was like this was a fun and
some of those old Novada bars, like when I used to drink, that
was a nice place to drink, like a dirty fucking dark bar with a
wooden, like a nice wooden and you go in there and and run yeah,
and there's like a one dude at the end of the bar. Are
you going to like one pm and get an ice cold beer? And there's
like one guy sitting there, this old frail guy who like just stares straight
ahead and doesn't look it's like wearing a hat and like a plaid shirt and
smoking in there, and you're like, Jesus Christ, what the fuck you
know? And that, yeah, they killed the vibe. They killed.
The vibe was a fucking awesome vibe. That bar was like damn, I
would go in there and you know, something out of like my places like
that don't exist anymore, not in the United States. You know, everything's
polished like a turd and just fake and phone yeah yeah, yeah, no,
you're not getting it, but at least you had those experience. Oh
yeah, yeah, man. But you know what, next time, man,
we need to touch more on on being sober and some of those old
heads like that guy look up keeps man. As a matter of fact,
I'll just send it to you because you'll forget. I'll send and listen to
his story. I I gotta get some like my blood sugars get. I'm
gonna thanks for doing this. Yeah you too, brother, all right,
I love you, all right Bye,