Jake Burchyett is a personal trainer, white water rafting guide, EMT, musician, and US Air Force veteran. Here we discuss his life growing up in rural Missouri, adventures on the rivers of West Virginia, his gradual dip into a years-long struggle with alcoholism, the experience of living with it while serving in the military, embracing sobriety, and becoming a father.
Jake on the back porch ;)
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Chapters
00:00 Start
2:24 Rock and Roll Awakening
8:08 Growing Up in Small Towns
18:36 Father Figure
23:55 Military Life Begins
37:31 Alcohol and Adversity
1:13:03 The Road to Rehab
1:49:31 Reflections on Upbringing
2:11:48 Sobriety and Parenting
2:30:47 The Future of Education
Transcript
Music:
[0:00] Music
Jake:
[0:33] In a, uh, door at church. That's the first memory I think I ever have, and maybe it wasn't, you know.
Jake:
[0:40] But, uh, but kind of segues into, uh, there was a lot of church where I was from, the Bible Belt, you know.
Jake:
[0:48] Grew up going to church every Sunday, going to Grandma's house, getting fried chicken or something. Uh, so yeah, definitely surrounded by a lot of, uh, Baptist church. Got baptized young um those are probably my first memories watching veggie tales uh
Tyler:
[1:08] Yeah veggie tales bro i remember the larry boy and the jonah movie like those were epic dude come on yeah.
Jake:
[1:16] My uh yeah my son is dancing to veggie tales now shakes his butt to it yeah provocatively love
Tyler:
[1:27] Songs with mr lunt.
Jake:
[1:28] Yeah you
Tyler:
[1:30] Are my cheeseburger oh.
Jake:
[1:32] Man yeah they started dancing recently i just started taking his first steps he just and then he just went for it he hasn't he barely sits down anymore he just walks around but yeah uh but besides that where did it all start um i uh trying to think uh i mean i played a lot of guitar growing up my dad played a little bit uh from what i remember you know uh i guess that's where i first got like hooked on guitar which is something that we've spent a lot of time doing you know uh which i still play a lot today i just bought a new pedal about a um tremolo pedal i got a new amp which i showed you um Um, so yeah, uh, rock and roll still living strong in my life since a kid.
Tyler:
[2:24] Um, what was the first music that you remember that like made you a rock and roll person versus a regular person?
Jake:
[2:34] Um, Led Zeppelin. So I know that sounds pretty standard, but, uh, I, uh, I just kind of liked Led Zeppelin. I guess like I had shown like I must have said that to somebody and then my uncle got me like this DVD that had all of their live performances and I would just sit in my room and watch that like all day long and just like dream about being Jimmy Page and just like man I just love that so much. Yeah. I started getting like Led Zeppelin magazines and stuff people would give me.
Tyler:
[3:08] Moby Dick drum solo. Yeah. Yes.
Jake:
[3:11] Yes. Exactly. dude i loved that so much and you know i didn't have a phone for a long time so like that was my only source of entertainment like a lot of kids was just like throwing on whatever dvds or vcrs you had i mean i remember like the transition from vcrs to dvds um but yeah the led zeppelin one was a dvd and it was pretty kick-ass
Tyler:
[3:35] I think for me, like it was the Tony Hawk Pro Skater, I want to say two soundtrack had TNT by ACDC and Blitzkrieg Bot by the Ramones. And that was like, I knew when I heard those two songs, I was like, I want to do that. And then I went straight to school, started a band. I didn't even know any instruments or anything, but I knew a guy with a guitar and I knew another dude that knew how to play like the harmonica or some shit i was like we're starting a rock and roll band right now and yeah that was just that was it for a long time like i didn't think about anything else until i think.
Jake:
[4:17] I was like
Tyler:
[4:17] 17 before i changed course at all.
Jake:
[4:21] You to uh or uh pro wrestling
Tyler:
[4:25] Yeah i got really into pro wrestling right around the time i was like i mean i was already into pro wrestling but like decided i wanted to do it when i was probably 17 hell yeah for real yeah and i'll still pull.
Jake:
[4:39] Up that uh that montage video you have sometimes just for kicks
Tyler:
[4:42] Don't tell anybody my listeners will go find it start making fun of me they don't know, oh they can probably find it it's okay um but yeah man those were the days that was like backyard shit too then i like actually went and got in a ring and like when i went all over the southeast doing that stuff like that's just the the people that you meet you know it's just similar to musicians but maybe a little bit darker like you know musicians it's like you know arrogant lead singer sleeping with somebody's girlfriend like wrestlers are psychos they're crazy people you know they're just the rejects of society and they're my best friends it's like you know i i was the responsible one i was like i i had a car and a driver's license and then just like five dudes all fucking taking pills and doing crazy stuff in the back and i'm like please don't do that in my car guys i don't want to go to jail and they're like ah shut up kid be okay i'm like okay, sir, you know, like, whatever.
Jake:
[5:47] Can't even imagine.
Tyler:
[5:48] Get taken advantage of so much. Get fucking, that's just weirdness. Like, I remember this one dude who's probably dead named, uh, I don't know. I hope he's not. But his name was Damien LeVay, which is already, uh. Scary name to have he he was just a whacked out gay meth head wrestler guy and he was also like, no matter how bad these people seem to be like no matter how fucked up they were all the darkness and you know the kind of people who would probably stab someone for like looking at him the wrong way all had my back it was like dude if somebody because i was kind of smaller too you know and i still am oh obviously you're like somebody fucks with you dude we're gonna hit the ring and shank them motherfuckers we got your back forever and it was like real gang
Tyler:
[6:36] brotherhood and i loved that i felt safe even though i was definitely not so like.
Jake:
[6:42] A circus show i was just watching like steve i was talking about whenever he was in the circus just so much cocaine every day i feel like that'd be similar to like traveling with pro wrestling folks like drugs barreling down the road
Tyler:
[6:57] Lots and lots and lots of vices of all assortments everything you can think of but also there's a lot of soul in those people they've been someplace, they've seen some shit we're talking about people who are, parallel to anybody who travels for a living period life on the road is a tough life and then life on the road when you're constantly getting beat up is even worse, brain damage Yeah, a lot of brain damage. Yeah, a lot of folks whose job requires them to put.
Jake:
[7:32] Their self in
Tyler:
[7:33] Bodily harm who do not and never have and never will have health insurance don't even consider that as an option. Uh, and then especially the people who are like for real traveling, like we'd have dudes come up from Mexico and shit, you know, like all kinds of crap.
Jake:
[7:49] Like, yeah, a lot of, a lot of craziness. Nacho Libre stuff.
Tyler:
[7:53] Yeah, for sure. You know, like I would send all my money back home to an orphanage. Um, all of it. But I think that's a great part of growing up,
Tyler:
[8:04] dude. Like just, and, and so where you were, you were near St. Louis, but like kind of in the country.
Jake:
[8:11] A little bit. I think about it. Like, I feel like everyone grew up in a small place, like where I came from, but then I think about it and I'm like, probably not honestly, just cause like more people are more populated areas like, and you know, bigger cities and different places. Like where I'm from, it definitely is just like, just a, just a dot on earth. But uh like it was really small but you know i think that uh it was good like good humble beginnings you know uh then i really like i kind of like it you know i wouldn't really wish that upon benny my son but uh you know but he might it might end up like that i don't know it's cheap dude like you can get a house out there with a yard like a good starter home for you know two hundred twelve thousand and then you know you're looking at houses here we're looking at like i don't even know you can't find anything affordable for less than like a half a mil and it's insane
Tyler:
[9:13] In colorado springs right yep yeah.
Jake:
[9:16] Yeah so we're looking at our budget right now is like 400 000 and below and like between 300 and 400 and it's just crazy like i don't know i'm doing really good with money right now but at the same time like it just sucks like the only benefit would to that would be just what building equity um then you know having something of value you can sell and make money like i'm sick of paying the same amount as a mortgage would be in rent and never seeing that money again like it kind of bugs me because you're losing up to like thirty thousand dollars a year just you're never going to see it again and i i hate it so like we just want to buy a house uh you know with the va we can cut all the you just went through that didn't you yeah
Tyler:
[10:01] I did it all the VA shit i'm still like i don't have the final final stuff back for them yet but i mean i did the whole process.
Jake:
[10:09] And that's what it is yeah we're trying to get someone to pay like so our realtor knows how to cut the uh i mean this is really boring stuff i don't know talk about anything else i'm sure but uh uh they're trying to find someone that'll cut the uh uh was it the uh closing costs or whatever um so a lot of people pay for that right now just to sell their house so they're finding these houses on the market that like you know used to be like meth houses and stuff like that which sounds bad but they have to come in and like fix the whole house and stuff and then they'll pay like the initial cost and stuff and the va covers the rest so then you're just going straight into your mortgage so then you know you get a good percentage and then maybe you're only paying you're paying something affordable from there so that's what we're trying to do but i don't know man adulting you know it's really uh it went from literally just being just some drunk kids to freaking everything man you know yeah so you we
Tyler:
[11:11] Were we were still in your childhood and we were talking about music and and such.
Jake:
[11:16] Yeah no digit um yeah so uh i went to so i went to the tiniest school in uh the tiniest town you know which was uh whenever I was growing up like elementary school uh there was this little private school my mom so my dad was like a druggie and she was trying to like protect me from that so she put me in this uh like little cheap private school that had I think 150 people from the grade kindergarten to eighth grade so like my class had like 11 kids that I grew up with completely like those were the only kids I knew for like a long time which I feel like really built in my like just who I am today which is just like
Jake:
[12:07] Very bad social skills generally which like I mean I think they've gotten better but like it was bad for a while like I I feel like my only real uh like identity was like was like being weird I would say or just like playing guitar like I remember times where I'd feel uncomfortable like and I'd just be like I'm just gonna play guitar in this social setting you know what I mean just because yeah it was weird like there I just feel like I did not grow up around a bunch your kids which i don't know i mean yeah you know good for my mom for like keeping me from like trying to keep me from like drugs and stuff but like i mean i don't i wouldn't do it that way personally now that i'm a parent but i can't hold it against her like she was stressed out
Jake:
[12:56] Whatever but it was good it's still good i mean i i have some friends i still remember from those times uh i haven't really talked to him i guess but i don't know me and my sisters make fun of them like there's these kids that played with like stuffed animals from like until they were like probably like 13 or 14 pretty bad like pretty bad you know uh but yeah i at some point i was like this is weird mom like let's go somewhere else so i went to high school at jackson quite a bit bigger you know uh got my footing there got my first girlfriend first kiss first love you know uh yeah and uh dated her for two years then we broke up because i i couldn't stop smoking weed i've
Tyler:
[13:48] Never understood why that's like.
Jake:
[13:50] Like, I've known so many dudes,
Tyler:
[13:52] Their girlfriend just hates that they smoke weed. I'm like, of all the fucking things.
Jake:
[13:56] Yeah.
Tyler:
[13:57] You know?
Jake:
[13:57] I know. Brooke's like, hell yeah. She's like, smoke with that weed, because she's seen how bad it's gotten. She's like, I don't give a shit. Whatever it takes
Tyler:
[14:07] To keep you off the worst things.
Jake:
[14:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, I mean, hell yeah. I showed her as bad as it can get, so now I can get away with a lot more, you know?
Tyler:
[14:19] That's how that's how you know she really loves you man she yeah um.
Jake:
[14:23] For real it's wild i mean you
Tyler:
[14:25] Said you're how many siblings did you have is you and your sister yeah.
Jake:
[14:32] I had three older sisters we're all four years apart um
Tyler:
[14:36] I know.
Jake:
[14:37] So my oldest sister is what 12 years older than me all the same parents yep wow one of them one of them's iffy my sister emulation we're all trying to you know we're all dark reflected like dark hair and then there's emily which is like pale as fuck and blonde but uh i don't know but i'm pretty sure i mean she resembles other people in the family i mean i'm sure that come from my mom but my
Tyler:
[15:02] Sister i didn't even know i had a sister until i was like i was 13 and then she was 16 when i met her my dad like he's like i gotta tell you something i was like i knew it i'm adopted and he's like worse than that i'm like really what worse than that um yeah so yeah my my dad had had a you know one of those one night stand kind of situations that would just all everyone in the family agreed to never talk about but the thing was that like everyone in town did know this just not me and my brother so it was just eventually gonna come out kind of thing but.
Jake:
[15:38] Yeah yeah you're a small
Tyler:
[15:40] Place too right well that's complicated yes and no like you know like i'm from mobile county but i'm not from like the city of mobile so like i i my parents were separated you know when i was really young so i like my dad lived in this little town way up in the north of the county called citronelle and my mom lived in a place called wilmer which is kind of midway in between neither of these are large towns but i mean like i went to a fairly big high school you know like in the in terms so there was like i don't know 2 000 people in my class and uh yeah.
Jake:
[16:20] Say hi brooks here hello
Tyler:
[16:23] And don't you just like a rootin tootin cowgirl yeah oh my gosh you're happy saint patrick's day yeah.
Jake:
[16:32] Yeah you're ruining the pod okay all
Tyler:
[16:35] Right you're not ruining it do you want to join like, I bet she's got some horror stories to tell We want to get the real dirt on you Jake Bruchette I.
Jake:
[16:45] Know she probably does I'm talking to Ty I'll see you She said bye.
Tyler:
[16:53] Jesus.
Jake:
[16:54] I mean, Brooke hasn't gone out in so long. Yeah. It's interesting. For sure. Yeah.
Tyler:
[17:02] Yeah. But growing up, I mean, it was definitely like redneck rural as fuck. Like there's basically nothing to do.
Jake:
[17:11] It's all just
Tyler:
[17:11] Nurseries and farms and, you know, land and woods. And so like, I didn't have a city life, but I wouldn't say that I was like isolated. Isolated there were other people around.
Jake:
[17:21] For sure yeah well yeah i mean i had people around for sure it wasn't it wasn't crazy like you know it's a cute town you know and and i've seen way worse like cape trara is obviously one of the bigger areas uh bigger like towns in the area uh so i mean yeah it wasn't bad there's like a river walk there's a lewis and clark like lewis and clark wrote yeah it's on the mississippi river like it was a yeah uh what like a port town or no that'd probably be ocean but whatever like you people stop and unload cargo there off the river so you know it it's it's it's not like extremely small but uh my so my mom remarried to a guy named tom Tom, it's like the perfect stepdad name. Hold on.
Tyler:
[18:09] Shut up, Tom. We're going too fast. So you and your four sisters all allegedly at least with the same parents, and then your dad passed away.
Jake:
[18:21] Yeah. Well, so my dad passed away right before I joined the military.
Tyler:
[18:25] Oh, later. Okay.
Jake:
[18:27] Yeah. So yeah, he was still like around, but he just like, I would get a random call sometimes and answer it and be like, hello, and be like, it's your dad, son.
Jake:
[18:37] And I'd feel like oh hey I didn't really have like a relationship with him but it's it's weird because like I mean I think about my son right now like if I was to if I was to leave him like my dad left probably around the age of uh like five or six I'm just thinking about how much we already have like built up right now and I'm just like that's still something that I feel like sticks with you you know I don't I don't really like I don't get emotional about it but I feel like whenever I was younger like whenever I was a boy it was something that like I thought about a lot like I was like who is my dad you know um and uh um and you know you I'd see him every once in a while I'd really like look forward to it uh but he blew you know he blew me off a lot it made my mom upset because like you know like I'm just a little boy like is my dad coming you know like my uh soccer games and stuff but um he'd go sometimes i remember one time he got me a little like uh this little like screen thing that literally just played like one episode of spongebob i'd watch that thing all the time it's the bubble bowl yeah it's a good episode great song yeah yeah but i i feel like he like um I feel like my dad is, like, I feel like I'm a lot like him, or at least in stages of my life I've been a lot like my dad.
Jake:
[20:02] Just, you know, I look a lot like him. I feel like my mom looks at me and, like, she gets glimpses of my dad and is like, fuck you, dude. No, but I look a lot like him.
Jake:
[20:16] And, yeah, I would say I've definitely taken some, there are some things that I say to Benny that remind me of something that my dad used to say to me, like, you know, like, like monkey butt, like, come here, monkey butt, you know, like just weird things that like little, little things that, uh, you know, that kind of, you know, his spirit lives on.
Tyler:
[20:36] But he just, he just couldn't stop with the, with the, was it heroin or?
Jake:
[20:41] Yeah. So I, I mean, I think he, I really don't know. My, my mom is like, I've had so much trouble picking her head about like my dad and maybe, maybe I just need to sit down and like talk to her about it I feel like there's so many things in my family that I just don't know like I don't know like what like uh like how Native American I am I probably could have gotten school for free or something potentially because I have people ask me all the time like uh like Jake are you white like yes uh but like I get dark complected you know and especially with the beard I look freaking uh like I don't know I look like somewhere like i don't know like from rome or something i
Tyler:
[21:24] Don't know yeah you look like mediterranean to me i've always always thought you're like roman or or like greek or i don't know italian something like that.
Jake:
[21:33] Yeah and so like i don't know uh and then my mom's super white so i don't know i uh but uh where was it going Oh, yeah, just a lot of things I don't feel like I knew, like my dad's story. I don't know if he had any good times, but my sister told me that whenever I was a baby, I was crawling around syringes, so it must have been pretty bad.
Jake:
[22:00] But I feel like I knew my dad. He was able to take us every other weekend, so I'm sure he got clean at some point to get you know uh to get a court and like be able to see us you know what i mean but uh because i remember we go on like fun trips uh and like but it's funny because like there's a lot of these memories that you don't know until you're an adult like my dad was like we we'd meet a friend and he'd roll down his window and be like oh you know my buddy uh whatever and then like then they would talk for a second and leave and then later me and my sisters were like oh he was buying drugs yeah yeah um but you know he he was never i don't think he was ever abusive uh unless that's something that i like i've shut out of my brain but even my sisters i don't think i've ever said they just hate him because he left you know what i mean but i don't think he was ever an abusive person i think he was just like you know belligerent uh and uh then just you know I couldn't get his shit together basically like never wanted to just take life seriously you know like he told me whenever I joined in the military he was like yeah I thought about doing that once and I'm like man you should have you know like he just worked in kitchens like his whole life
Jake:
[23:19] Um which I mean I could have done that I remember remember I was like 19 years old before I joined like I was working in kitchens and I was like man like I was so depressed I was like is this going to be what life is like I didn't know any different no one in my family was in the military at any point like I'm not from a military family whatsoever but I had some friends that joined and I was like man like I'm just gonna I'm just gonna go do it like I need to out of here you know and I barely even thought about it and just joined uh Which, yeah, I mean, that changed my whole, like, trajectory to where I am today,
Jake:
[23:54] which I'm pretty happy about, you know? Like, I could have very easily just fallen into drugs because I did a lot before I joined the military, you know? That's probably something. I hope this isn't used against me.
Tyler:
[24:07] It won't be.
Jake:
[24:11] But, yeah, I, yeah, so that's how my dad was. I feel like I've got a lot of his addictive traits. Um i'm still trying to kick a bunch of bad habits like smoking um which is hard it's just in our blood and i think it's i know native american blood has a lot of like addictive traits you're irish right
Tyler:
[24:30] Oh yeah very irish.
Jake:
[24:33] Too you know i mean everyone's kind of seems addictive and then there's people like brooke that like never got addicted to anything ever in their lives and like you you i'll talk to her about like addiction and like she has no idea she literally has no idea what addiction feels like really you know like maybe maybe like her coffee in the morning you know
Tyler:
[24:54] No it's really hard to explain to somebody who hasn't experienced it like all they can really do is kind of trust you and give you grace but it's like yeah yeah if you don't know if you don't know like i feel like when people are you know i've been drinking too much i'm like how much you've been drinking like oh well i had like three drinks last night with dinner and i just don't feel 100 today i'm like okay you know that's cool like i hope you get better and all that stuff but it's not the same thing as when you're you're the first thing in the morning the first thing you do is just get hammered and fall back to sleep for fucking two two weeks in a row and then you're like you know wake up.
Jake:
[25:33] You know one
Tyler:
[25:34] Day and you're like fuck i've fucked everything up and then you just try to you try to like get better all in one day like I'm gonna go make up for lost time, and you know what I need something to pick me up and it's literally like it's being kind of insane for a long period of time it's like like the solution to all of my problems is to adding more things instead of taking things away somehow but yeah, I dodged a lot of bullets, I think.
Jake:
[26:06] Dude, same. God must have a plan for me is all that I can think because I've seen people go to prison for way less than the shit I did. You know what I mean? I could have been barreling down the road and ran over a family or something like that or something.
Jake:
[26:22] So many bad things could have happened and somehow just unscathed besides some of my friends being like, you're a piece of shit. You know what I mean but like that's it like I feel really really lucky because I did a lot a lot of dumb stuff I really did like all the time uh and that could have ruined my life like like Brooke's uh brother like man he is just like he's he's just been like fucked over so many times like he was dating a girl that like remember he was like 19 he was dating like a 17 year old and the uh the family like press charges on him uh and i don't even know why but so and like that's a normal relationship that's like a two-year difference you know but because the laws like technically he's an adult and she's not i don't know if they got in some sort of fight or something and the parents were like pissed about the relationship so he's still he is in his mid-30s he still cannot uh be within like what i don't know a thousand feet of a school or whatever which is pretty crazy he has two little girls uh that he married into uh and uh he can't take them to school he can't go watch their events or anything at school and they don't know why but like and that's just so like that has still fucked up his life at this like today and he was he was just like a kid you know
Jake:
[27:52] Like, it's just crazy. Like, that's just messed up, you know?
Tyler:
[27:57] But your dad left you with music, at least. So you picked up the guitar.
Jake:
[28:03] How old were you when you started playing? Well, I remember I first, like, touched a guitar when I was, like, six or eight. But, like, and, like, my dad showed me a few things. But, like, I didn't get my first guitar, like, that I actually, like,
Jake:
[28:20] Really honed in and played, like, constantly until I was I think 10 or 11 and then I played non-stop I was watching Led Zeppelin and I was just like playing all the time and that's where like the majority of my skill that I have today is just from playing from 11 and then
Jake:
[28:40] Like to like 13 and then kind of fiddling around and then like taking it seriously again around like 16 to 18 like super serious about it probably 19 as well tried to play like some bars and stuff um and then yeah and then plateaued for a long time but dude i'm getting back in it like crazy like uh i'm playing some folk stuff i'm getting all sorts of stuff for my guitar learning new scales getting like i got like this scale book and i'll just kind of like go in there and try to find some new things to make new sounds and stuff and kind of get away from like i feel like i play like honky tonk blues mostly which like i kind of want to get away from uh you know still fun but like that's the only thing i'm like actually have like speed in and whatnot and that all just came from like led zeppelin i guess like they they played like a lot of bluesy riffs and so like that's where i started i wouldn't even say that's like a majority of the music that i listen to now is like honky tonkish like i could talk to someone be like you know we're listening to music all day and then i'll pick up the guitar and play something that doesn't sound at all like what we've been listening to and just because that's the only
Jake:
[29:50] Style that i really like honed in on for so long um
Jake:
[29:55] Get more creative with it i saw uh billy strings and uh so now i'm trying to play like crazy bluegrass music which i first got into whenever i uh lived in west virginia so this this could be a good segue so uh yeah it was a raft guide for a while that was
Jake:
[30:14] Right out that was before military after high school so um i don't
Jake:
[30:20] Know if there's any other uh places you wanted to hit before we got to raft guide days but um i think it's a pretty good one but yeah i got i got a lot of uh yeah really good inspiration for uh like folk music and bluegrass uh whenever i was out there rafting uh that was like my favorite job i've ever had i'm actually thinking about getting back into it i'm getting my emt so like i could probably you know raft like a lot of emt jobs like say I do firefighting or something like that in the woods a lot of them are like 48 hours at a time so you drive to the woods for like two days and then you're off the rest of the week so you can side hustle or do whatever so you know as an EMT you'd be a pretty good I mean it doesn't take a lot to be a raft guide like I wouldn't need like I'm an EMT and they'd be like oh hell yeah we were looking for one of you like I mean they hire literally anybody you know what I mean like just any bums that want to like you know are willing and at least like can flip a raft you know uh but i'd love to get back into it but but that was those were like those are summers that i still like they it makes me sad that i'll never be able to live that again is those days in west virginia like those are truly the most like peaceful like serene and wild that simultaneously easily like just some of the best times of my life jumping off
Jake:
[31:47] A bridge naked at the same time like just just
Jake:
[31:51] Me and this old man chad funk uh
Jake:
[31:55] Like in our own canoes like we we didn't there were these so it was a part of like a boy scout program and uh uh we just totally we put these two we only had two boy scouts this week and we just put them in the same canoe didn't teach them anything and uh so we would ditch them you know we'd like pet like paddle as hard as we could uh down the river and then we'd like light up a bowl uh and then just like lay in our canoes and just like zen out you know and just float down the river and just like so serene and beautiful
Jake:
[32:29] West virginia is like a gorgeous place you know i would i would love to have a house just on the river out there but at the same time west virginia is pretty uh pretty pretty bad you know like the people like the people that actually live there it's probably better to visit you know but Yeah, I love those summers. I did two summers out there. Yeah, Chad Funk, actually. I know I was just talking about the sweet story of us smoking a bull, but he fucked me up my first season. We did something called double guiding. So this is a video on YouTube somewhere, but I can't find it. I know someone that has the video, and I need to reach out to them. But yeah, we were double guiding. He was confident he knew the river.
Jake:
[33:14] I'd been studying the river, you know, but like he was like i know it and he totally paddled both of us and then a boat of eight kids into this huge thing called barry's hole and like no one's head popped up from the water for a total of 15 seconds which is a long time you know if you're watching it on video you're like okay where are they and then uh finally you see the first kid pop up and we had to like rescue all of them and uh yeah just wild man just life-threatening you know like just a thrill like I love rafting you know it is so fun uh and yeah those were some good days got introduced to some drugs during that time I actually I would say that was the first time that I started having alcoholic tendencies was probably that summer because we drank so much uh because everyone was older than me like i was like young 18 everyone was like you know doing like you know
Jake:
[34:17] They were they're in like college or just graduated college and they were doing this as a way to segue into other outdoor rec jobs so like you know everyone could buy beer uh everyone is smoking cigarettes really hard yeah i i started smoking really hard then uh but like it was so fun like I wouldn't take it back you know at that time it wasn't really a problem and it was just so fun for an 18 year old kid to just get wasted and jump off bridges and all that stuff you know
Jake:
[34:49] So, yeah, very, very fond memories for me. My first time leaving Missouri. Well, not like, I mean, I'd left the state a couple of times, but like I moved out on my own for like three or four months and just like lived in West Virginia. I thought that was so cool. Then I was just hooked on like leaving my hometown, basically. Like I was like, I want out of here. I see how easy it is. You just land a job somewhere else. You know, that's all you got to do. and then so yeah i i just felt like how am i gonna move like where am i gonna go i don't know anyone necessarily that lives anywhere else besides here you know so uh naturally yeah two years after graduating high school joined the military um and yeah became an alcoholic like
Tyler:
[35:40] Yeah yeah it's like it's one of those things is like people are trying to like get sober and they're like i'm gonna join the military it was like not not necessarily what you yeah because it's just like the culture is so like it's i mean there's everything but don't get me wrong but like alcohol is like the culture it's like if you don't drink you're an outlier and people will call you a pussy for it too like i i knew very few people in the air force at all who's like i don't drink and i was like what do you molest kids or something like what do you do like my first thought is.
Jake:
[36:17] Like what vice do
Tyler:
[36:18] You have yeah.
Jake:
[36:19] Like yeah i know i think the same thing sometimes i'm like people that don't spend their time drinking like what do they get up to it's probably nothing good you know
Tyler:
[36:28] It's not necessarily true but it's like yeah if you don't drink you don't smoke you don't cuss you don't gamble if I don't if I can't see what your vice is I assume it's something really bad like you know.
Jake:
[36:41] But, um, well, and you got to think about it like nobody, I feel like there's no one that's like that age that actually has money to spend like that, you know, like I, I think about it like, you know, to go out like that, I feel like you either have to come from money to be able to go out like downtown or, you know, and just go out like that all the time. Unless you're literally like a young person in the military, like bum college kids can't really, I mean, they're just going to like shitty places. Like frat parties i guess but i don't know i feel like we just had bountiful money to just spend on booze and shit and uh yeah it was just bad as soon as i turned 21 like part of grocery
Tyler:
[37:24] Shopping is like whatever i'm gonna get and also this 30 rack of beer and a
Tyler:
[37:28] bottle of vodka somewhere and it's just part of the shop.
Jake:
[37:31] I think about it all the time like it's good that i don't live we don't live in the same place like as soon as I decided to get sober uh went to rehab and yeah I don't even know did I tell you that no
Tyler:
[37:46] Let's let's get to that so let's let's walk through the military career so you you go to the recruiting office you sign up they give you weather there or did you get that.
Jake:
[37:55] Later so uh the recruiter's office they gave me a choice of a bunch of things and like I grew up with women like I kind of wish I would have done like uh like there's like a there's like chief uh there's some like mechanic job i could have done which would have been kind of cool like
Tyler:
[38:14] I think you would have made a good seer like yeah i think that would have been cool for you because you're already like outdoors you know you know like how to swim how to do river shit you know like just basically just being a professional.
Jake:
[38:24] Voice out yep yeah yeah yeah dude no i i really that's kind of what i was looking for in the military was doing something which I picked the wrong one like I went I should have gone like army or something like that really I mean I think my problems would have still followed me anyways so like I'm just blessed that I made it here now where I'm at because I don't know if it would have been better necessarily I mean the culture there's probably worse you know but I needed something active you know and outdoorsy like uh that's just how I'm built like I spend almost all my time outside truly like at work i'm i'm picking outside you know not picking my nose but picking the guitar you know okay it's a dumb one but uh you know i and i and i walk i walk like i walk all of my patrols i walk for like um like i walk probably each patrol is probably about three miles and i do about four of them a day and i just walk the whole thing and uh i just spent all my time outside and that's what I needed whenever I got sent to the hub it was just like the worst place ever you know just stuck inside on night shift you don't even have energy during the daytime to do anything so I'd sleep
Jake:
[39:36] And, uh, I just got so depressed, man. Like, I, I really wish I would have done something more like active hands on, you know? Um, I think even mechanic, you know, whether my idea was like, pick something that, uh, you can turn into a career afterwards, you know, like that was the idea, which you can, I guess with this level of weather, but it's not like, it's not very much. And it's not going to, it's probably going to pay a lot less, you know, realistically
Tyler:
[40:04] Is like either you're going to be a military contractor or you need to go get a.
Jake:
[40:08] Master's degree and i was like there
Tyler:
[40:10] Was no way i was going to.
Jake:
[40:11] Go finish
Tyler:
[40:12] A master's degree in meteorology to like to what to work at the national to do the exact same job we're not making that much money national weather service yeah yeah.
Jake:
[40:22] Like no there's no future in it really which you would think maybe and like which yeah you could get your degree in it i guess but you know but um yeah i wasn't gonna do that uh but what i'm trying to do now kind of coincides with weather hopefully uh i'm trying to get my drone license or i guess it's not a license but like a certification for using drones and i'm wanting to use that with uh the firefighters that's kind of a new thing that's coming up where they're sending drones out to uh like you know with first responders to get their first and get an idea of what the scene looks like before they go there and like you know just using drones for all sorts of things so i'm thinking if and then also like if you go into firefighting you get uh whether like you know i could also get like an associates in fire science and finish my associates in weather or whatever and just have those two paired together probably pretty nicely and just basically like firefight for the rest of my life uh and if i'm just doing drones like that could be uh pretty chill like i might not even have to get my hands too dirty which i want to though that's the problem but i'm hoping i just find the sweet you know the sweet gig in the sky where i'm just like happy with everything uh career-wise but right now that's basically where i'm headed um so maybe
Tyler:
[41:48] So you graduate BMT at Lackland, and then she went straight to Biloxi.
Jake:
[41:54] Yep.
Tyler:
[41:55] So what was your Keesler experience?
Jake:
[41:59] Dude, my Keesler experience was crazy.
Tyler:
[42:02] Was this like 2017, 2018, something like that?
Jake:
[42:05] Yeah, 2018 into 2019. Yeah. And it was insane. I mean, that's where I met Brooke for the first time before we were dating. Yeah. Classic. but yeah we were dating at the time so it wasn't quite uh what's it you know textual marriage she almost got textual married
Tyler:
[42:23] Did you know that did you know.
Jake:
[42:26] That is brooke i mean
Tyler:
[42:29] When you met her did you know she was like um did you have it in your mind like i'm gonna end up making babies with that lady later.
Jake:
[42:36] Or okay i did i actually had dreams at night about her fucking crazy but every time she's like she gets on to me like uh you know i'm like brooke i i like obsessed about you i really did um yeah yeah i remember well and they were like sweet dreams like i remember i just had a random like like dream that like we were just laying in bed and uh she was just like there you know but it wasn't like sexual it's just like sweet you know and then uh um yeah and i i really yeah i really liked brook a lot um then whenever we got stationed in the same place i was like all right here we go you know we both got stationed at tucson but i want to dive more into keys there yeah
Tyler:
[43:23] It's a good place you're talking earlier about like being a bunch of young kids with with money and.
Jake:
[43:29] A place
Tyler:
[43:30] Where you can get into some trouble like biloxi mississippi if you've never been there it's the las vegas of the south and it's just like.
Jake:
[43:36] The air force
Tyler:
[43:37] Base is like right there like you walk off base and you are like within 15 minutes of as much human debauchery as you want and if you're 21 even if you're not you know.
Jake:
[43:48] Like yeah no i wasn't for a while i turned 21 while i was out there but i got in trouble uh a week before i turned 21 and i'd heard so many stories of this but like i've been getting away with it so much like my buddy would buy me alcohol and you know we just drink a 40 down the road or whatever you know and then go hang out at the beach or whatever i
Tyler:
[44:08] Don't know exactly when it changed but like when i was in mississippi there was no like open container law like as long as you weren't over the limit it didn't matter.
Jake:
[44:16] Same it was
Tyler:
[44:17] Wild it was same thing in denmark by the way.
Jake:
[44:20] Really yeah we always said uh you know if a pop pulled you over and you didn't have an open beer in your car they'd be like Peter pop you one open go on your way now like it's just abnormal to not have a bud light open in the console you know my uh one of
Tyler:
[44:40] Our instructors I don't know if you had Mr. Teague hey Mr. Teague I hope you're listening to this uh was like best friends like the guy that owned the Biloxi Brewing Company was a former Air Force weather guy so like we had connections and like we would be there all the time or at the Chandelier Brewing Company there were so many brewing companies right there you had i mean i don't want to get i'll start my mouth i'll start watering and i'll have a relapse or some shit but so much good just beer everywhere like.
Jake:
[45:07] All over the place
Tyler:
[45:09] There's no place you go where they don't try to serve you something or like some kind of wildness. It's insane down there.
Jake:
[45:16] Yep. I love Biloxi. I would go back for sure. And you lived by Biloxi originally, like Mobile area. So, I mean, you've probably been there a few times maybe.
Tyler:
[45:25] I had been to Biloxi many, many times. So, I didn't go straight from basic there though. I went from basic to California.
Jake:
[45:33] Yeah, because you did a linguist for a while. Yeah. How long were you in linguist school?
Tyler:
[45:39] I mean i think i i think i got booted out of the school around the six month mark and then i was there for a few more months after that so it was like eight or nine months before i actually made it to keesler so like i the they they booted me out of arabic school because i was incompetent and they were like dude this is not working i was like i've been telling you all that the whole time like um i just i'd never been so like up to that point like i had never been so like I'd never been bad at school. You know what I mean? Like, I would always just, like, ease right through school. And that was the first time in my life that I was, like, challenged. Like, I don't know if I could make it through this. And I got super depressed. And I ended up on, like, you know, the doctors, they just stuck, you know, did the Wellbutrin and then Prozac. And, oh, you'll be okay. You know, just get in there, kid. And I was like, this isn't working for me. Like, seriously.
Jake:
[46:34] Yeah, it's ridiculous.
Tyler:
[46:35] I still love linguistics and everything. and I still, I consider myself to be good at it. It's just that the pace that they wanted to go at was not working for me. And I had, and I was like, most of the kids there are like, young single have nothing else going on probably have autism you know and then i'm like married trying to have a social life study is it was too much.
Jake:
[46:56] Yeah not no life in it
Tyler:
[46:58] I thought i was just going to get out of the air force like i thought they were just going to kick me out for real for real like uh that's how they keep.
Jake:
[47:05] You in because they they tell you that you know they're like they're like you have to pass or you go to prison like i mean they make it scary i feel like you know but yeah and then you get washed into weather which is fucking crazy just another long school
Tyler:
[47:21] It's like the the second hardest thing it's like if you can't do the hardest thing what about the other hardest thing all right i i took it in stride like by the time i got to keesler i was like overconfident i was like if i if i fail this i'm done like you know you know what i mean like i just put so much pressure on myself.
Jake:
[47:39] To do well
Tyler:
[47:39] And and i i felt like personally, everything you learn especially in the first like three months of weather school is shit that you learned in fifth grade like and i pissed a lot of people off by saying that too they're like i don't know any of this stuff i'm like dude you know what the fucking planets are you know what the north pole and the south pole is they taught us what the four seasons are in fifth grade like this is basic earth science i i'm telling you and yeah but whatever.
Jake:
[48:07] Yeah that was good yeah it yeah the end was pretty hard i feel like that was whenever it got pretty real i mean it was never like terrible but i was also like towards the end you know you're like established with your friends and all you want to do is go out and drink and stuff and like because at first you know you get there and you're like woo like let's let's study you know like you
Tyler:
[48:27] Want to prove.
Jake:
[48:28] You know do your country right you know initially and you know study and do all the good stuff and then yeah you meet a whole bunch of freaking crazy people just want to go out and yeah dude i i went hard at Kiesler. I got in trouble a week before Uh, my 21st birthday, uh, I took, I took a shot, uh, out in my car and then I poured the rest of it in that Coke bottle and brought it in with like some Taco Bell or something. And, uh, of course they're doing breathalyzers and I was, I don't know, I saw them doing it and I was like, I'm too far in and I didn't want to seem suspicious. So I just kept walking, do the, did the breathalyzer and blew a 0.02. And i was like shit and i was like fuck i'm just not gonna say anything uh i went back in the room i had my i still had the alcohol fucking soda which i'm sure they could fucking smell like it was like liquor
Tyler:
[49:25] I feel like that shit is just straight up entrapment like the way that they would do because i never got i was over 21 the entire time i was there so that i could just show up drunk and they were like hey and then there would be like 15 kids right next to me just getting putting handcuffs yeah like this is so crazy it's it's just entrapment it's like you know you put a bunch of fucking 19 year olds in like the most tempting place to get drunk in the world and then you're like just i'm like why why would they even come home that's the other thing like why did you even come home yeah i just don't come home like you get a hotel i know which.
Jake:
[50:01] Sucked yeah Yeah, but I know. Yeah, I got carried out in hand. It was so much drama. Everyone's like, oh, Jake's getting carried out in handcuffs. I'm like, fuck off. But yeah, so one of the what are they called? MTLs or something.
Tyler:
[50:24] Military training leader for folks listening. Was Sergeant Miller still there? Technical Sergeant. i want to say glenn but i could be wrong something miller blonde haired guy like five foot eight crazy i'm.
Jake:
[50:41] Pretty sure i'm pretty sure and i think that's the one who i talked to i i just can't i'm just so bad with names so i think it's one of the ones i talked to uh whenever my dad died while i was there uh i'm pretty sure that's who that was but no so uh what one of the mtls was like um uh whenever whenever i got pulled to the side for blowing a 0.02 they were like i strongly suggest this and it was like ask for a lawyer so i was like okay so i circled that and then they never pressed anything uh so i
Tyler:
[51:15] Think i still have the airman defense council number in my phone yeah.
Jake:
[51:20] Uh i so the only i don't know they i was afraid every single day after that, they were going to call me down to the office. I would just listen for all the names. I was like, ah, shit, this is going to be the day. It's going to be the day, you know, they're going to pin me, you know, but yeah. Basically, they just made me put up these, like, how many days since an incident cards, you know, in the cafeteria mess hall. What is it called again?
Tyler:
[51:52] The DFAC. D-FAC. Dining facility.
Jake:
[51:56] Yeah.
Tyler:
[51:56] The Air Force has to be different than every other branch, too. Yeah. It's always, like, yeah, like the Chow Hall, Mess Hall, whatever. The Air Force is, like, D-FAC. Like, why? Bmt instead of basic training or mti instead of uh drill drill sergeant.
Jake:
[52:11] All that stuff yeah so yeah i had to do that which was embarrassing i guess but uh yeah that was it so i got away with that one then i turned 21 uh i went to a strip club for my 21st birthday because no one it was like a weekday and i don't know that was like the only thing open and uh and it was a sketchy one too i don't think i had any i don't think i had any fun there really but uh yeah just a really shitty uh strip club in biloxi like not not one of the good ones for sure uh yeah so that's how i spent my 21st there and then after that like yeah being able to buy alcohol like that's whenever i feel like it became more of a problem for me you know like i was already drinking quite a bit with my friends before I was 21, you know, but once you can buy it and just drink on your own time, you know, like no one has to go out and get it for you. And like, you're like, Oh, well, I guess we're going to drink together now. Whenever you're just drinking by yourself just to drink, you know, that's whenever I feel like it gets bad. So, uh, it really picked up whenever...
Jake:
[53:19] Uh, we got to Tucson. Um, yeah, I, uh, um, yeah, me and Brooke, we drank so much together. Uh, it's funny. Cause like, that's how our relationship started was like, um, we just wanted to like hang out and party, you know? So we'd have like a margarita Monday, uh, uh, tequila Tuesday,
Jake:
[53:43] Uh, wine Wednesday, like, and we'd actually call it that. Like I found any excuse to drink literally every day and like, she loved it because I made it like a theme, you know what I mean? Like we'd make like tacos on taco Tuesday and tequila, you know, and like, it was always fun, you know, but like we drank literally every day. I mean, Brooke was always probably more like not drinking as much as me, but she drank. She really did. Uh, yeah. In tech school, actually, we, before we were ever a thing, uh, we had this friend named Jackson, which he's just a crazy alcoholic. Uh like it's really bad and uh he we'd all just like sit in the back of the car and brook would freaking chug some liquor which was pretty crazy thinking of her now like you know she she drinks like a little fruity drink and she's like ew i don't like it's too strong but dude she would down she would guzzle some liquor which is crazy to think about now you know uh but she loved she liked drinking she just wanted to party for a while and uh you know i was party jake you know and that's how we lived for a long time you know which was fun but yeah i mean she was always more mature you know about it uh yeah i finally came around you know No more drinking?
Tyler:
[55:06] Yeah, you were in Tucson, and you said it started to get worse. Is this like after you got out of the initial weather training stuff or once you're in the operational side of things?
Jake:
[55:20] I would say as soon as I got to Tucson, one of the first things I did was go to, because I couldn't have liquor in my, or like alcohol in general, in my dorm in tech school. So, you know, once I got to, uh, uh, once I got to Tucson, you know, your first duty station, you can have your own alcohol, you know? So, uh, like in your room. So I was like, hell yeah, that's like the exact thing I'm going to do right now. So like, I went to the store, probably got like a couple of things to eat and then just like, just a bunch of liquor, you know, I was like, man, I'm fucking loaded now. I'm going to buy all this liquors. Like, I don't know. I just wanted to make it a party, uh, in my room, you know? I just bought a bunch of liquor, a bunch of beer, and I was just having fun because I'd never had that freedom before. I turned 21 while I was at tech school, so this was the first time I could buy whatever I wanted and just keep it in my room, try different liquors and stuff like that. And you know so yeah i just i started drinking you know i had a lot of i had a lot of alcohol to try you know so i just would sit in my room and try stuff and then like go do my laundry or whatever or uh yeah freaking hickman uh the first one of the first weekends i got there he invited me to go out and i got fucking trashed whenever i saw you the first time yeah and yeah so
Tyler:
[56:47] You came to my house and we play guitar and yeah i was like who the fuck is this guy like i was in love i mean i knew i loved you right away right away but yeah he was like apologizing he's like i'm sorry this guy's so fucked up like no i love this guy he's great it's like bring him around more yeah well.
Jake:
[57:02] He he pre-gamed so hard uh i mean i wasn't on that level yet uh i really wasn't like i i like to drink but like he was i mean he was drinking heavy which i eventually got to that point where like i'd put those numbers would be like nothing to me you know but like we drink like two of those huge ass like beer things at the bowling alley and then he's like you want to go out i was like already fucked up and it's like okay like i don't know i wanted to fit in or whatever
Tyler:
[57:29] But this is just something about like that i don't think people really know this about the military like even because it's so even even though it gets talked about it's like you know when you go to the va you don't tell them how fucked up you were you know when you go to mental health you don't tell them everything you did and all that kind of stuff so even like the records are all skewed but it's like the truth is it's it's as soon as you're on the ground everyone there is just like dude you want like every day yeah every single day like it's just get tore up and then you know you wake up the next morning at four o'clock and go do pt or whatever and you sweat it all out and you just keep going and and it's just normal and that's what's so hard for i think a lot of people on the outside to like understand it's like because you think of we're all proper and you know under cute little uniforms and shit i'm like no we're just a bunch of fucking useless drummers, functional alcoholism at its highest level.
Jake:
[58:19] Yeah one of so in tech school one of the uh i i got like drunk as hell the night before we were taking a pt test and i ran my best time ever i was so hung over yeah i ran my best time i ran an 858 because you just wanted to be over yeah i wanted to be over and then i i was about to shit my pants so after i crossed the finish line rang in 858 i kept running all the way to my dorm and just kept running like a like a forest gum thing like it's like you know like i ran past the end zone and then just like i had to shit so bad i nearly shit my pants because you know how liquor does
Tyler:
[58:55] I'm i'm lucky i never did the the dorm thing thank god like i was just yeah not really in the.
Jake:
[59:01] Dorms and then
Tyler:
[59:02] You know like the shit that goes on in those places it's just you know you take a bunch of fucking 19 year olds and stick them in a fucking basically like little hotel and tell them they can't do anything you know it's debauchery it's absolutely just like i said earlier entrapment and just the sheer amount of like you know like they would publish those fucking letters all the time with like everything that everyone did that month or whatever and it's like people would act all surprised it's like oh this guy said he did this drug and that drug or whatever the fuck and i'm like and then all of them every single one of them was like when they plead to the deal there for an article 15 or whatever it's like well I don't know who the my source was I would just go to the, Safeway parking lot and meet a stranger to buy cocaine and I'm like, I feel like that's what the Airmen Defense Council has decided as the get-out-of-jail-free card for not rolling on your dealer in this area or whatever, because it's like it can't be everyone. There must be a line of, like, it's like the Home Depot parking lot in the morning kind of shit, you know, just a pile of people off the Air Force Base, like, sitting in the Safeway parking lot waiting for the drug dealer guy with a mask on to come by.
Jake:
[1:00:13] With his trench coat
Tyler:
[1:00:14] And be like, hey, what are you guys, upper-sounders? There's just so much of that shit. And it was just so much it was like people fucking doing you know every every drug you can fucking name like pills like uh benzos speed like acid mushrooms whatever like they it was all.
Jake:
[1:00:32] Just i'm
Tyler:
[1:00:33] Like and then meanwhile i'm like i'm not even driving on base if i had if i've had like a fucking beer or whatever um get me wrong i did but you know.
Jake:
[1:00:43] I snuck out of i wasn't supposed to leave base at some point because i guess i got in trouble or something this may have been after the alcohol incident i don't know but i snuck out i was hiding in the bed of someone's truck and like they just drove off base and like it was just so funny and it's funny because brooke saw me i stayed in the bed of the truck all the way to this like airbnb that someone uh got and uh funny because brooke was in a car like not doing at all the same thing she was just with some other friends and she saw me in the bed of this truck just hiding behind a bunch of shit and she was like is that for chat i was like hey that's just so funny like in brook's story is pretty hilarious like how we just knew each other for a while uh just says friends in tech school wild dude those are wild times like yeah those are those are times i definitely you know cherish for sure but i don't know
Tyler:
[1:01:43] I always felt like I was everybody's big brother or something. I was just older. I wasn't that much older either. I was just more mature. I was not getting involved in a lot of the debauchery. I was drinking a lot, but I was mostly the kind of.
Jake:
[1:02:00] Guy who would
Tyler:
[1:02:01] Be at home on his computer drinking beer, not going out and getting fucked up at the club and shit. It just wasn't me.
Jake:
[1:02:10] Yeah, we did some dumb shit. yeah like house parties um yeah there's just i'm sure there's a bunch of really shitty videos like i can't get famous at this point i feel like there's some fucked up videos of me out there that'd be good i'd be canceled so quick you know but uh yeah it was fun it was definitely fun and tucson was its own thing but and like i kind of love tucson like tucson's like now that i'm out of there like there was a lot of good about it and it's really like pretty area and stuff but i'm sure like it's just rosie you know retrospect is so strong you know it was also some of my worst times you know like the worst like depression ever fucking yeah hating work but like i remember a lot of fun times especially at first like going to discover like sedona for the first time and all that stuff and like yeah yeah you
Tyler:
[1:03:06] Just you never seemed happy at work you were always like quiet.
Jake:
[1:03:09] Yeah dude i was very anxious and a lot of that was from being so absolutely hungover that like i was just like fucking like yeah just like uh quick and almost like i don't know i would drink so much every night and then go in and just feel like shit you know and uh yeah i just didn't feel good i was always nervous like the military has always given me this little like edge of like i feel like i'm about to get in trouble you know for something uh and yeah i just feel like uh towards the end uh i really it got way better like after i got sober my time like i started like making friends and stuff and it was a lot better but uh yeah yeah i mean i was just like always hung over and um Yeah, like I just felt like a bad entrance into the hub. Honestly, like, I just never felt comfortable there. Initially, like, I just felt like a young airman, everyone there was like clicked up and stuff. And I just felt like, like, I don't know, I, I have like a, I, I have like a low, I feel like for a long time, I had a very like, bless you.
Jake:
[1:04:23] For a long time, I feel like I had a very like low opinion of myself.
Jake:
[1:04:26] Like, I feel like that's something that I've struggled with a lot uh it's like a low opinion of myself which like you know like that i mean it just sucks because then everything that you go into you're like oh this is gonna fucking suck i'm gonna say the wrong thing or whatever you know which is like something that i feel like i've grown out of a lot more now like like my text or like my uh like emt class i'm like the fucking dude there you know like everyone loves me i love them and like it's just a beautiful thing you know where like I feel like once I first like there was just so much change in my life you gotta think of how I came from such a small place you know and then like you're just getting shipped off and you're around all these people like I felt just like I don't know I was just I was just kind of uh trying to figure like get my bearings from like all this movement and stuff but like I also at the same time I had a great time in tech school like I was very social there but once I got to the hub like I don't know I think I think honestly I think the thing with Hickman like set me off wrong I know I like probably made him upset by getting so drunk and a lot of people I was like man I'm I fucking suck you know and then like I go to the hub with all these people that I got trashed with and like felt bad I was like well damn like I mean fuck my life like all these people hate me like that's what's running through my head you know what I mean and I just I just lived up to that like I just kept getting drunk and and like felt like no one liked me the entire six years like
Tyler:
[1:05:54] There's no like work-life separation or balance or what it really like there it's like you the people you hang out with or the people you work with and you know like it's just you're isolated with that it's like a little a little school all over.
Jake:
[1:06:08] Again everybody
Tyler:
[1:06:09] Knows what everybody did though you know all that stuff.
Jake:
[1:06:11] Yeah yeah dude there were some crazy stories i feel like it tamed down towards the end but whenever we first got there everyone was getting in trouble for crazy shit like for real but yeah I always felt like I was on the outskirts of it I think yeah I just felt I don't know I guess embarrassed from that and then like just like that stuck with me and then while I was like training I was with this guy Reyes I don't know if you know who that is but
Jake:
[1:06:40] He was just like a very quiet dude and like so I had no one to talk to my entire training time there because he just like didn't want to talk so like I don't know I just like kind of secluded and so like everything was set up for me to just like hate it and I already hate like computer work like that's not me so like there was no there was no redeeming qualities at all the most redeeming thing was like all right whenever I get off I can drink you know what I mean and so like that's what I do and you know me and Brooke had a lot of fun on our off time and I was I feel like I was a different person outside of work but work itself like I I just felt like I don't know
Jake:
[1:07:20] Unliked I guess the whole time which like I I changed that after I got sober like I was like fuck it I don't care what anyone thinks you know and I didn't have that anxiety like sitting on me anymore you know which was nice like I was like fuck it like you can hate me you can talk about the things that I used to do like it doesn't matter I'm about to be out of here and like I'm gonna be nice to you guys you can be nice to me if you want to it doesn't matter to me you know and like that was a beautiful thing getting sober was like the most freeing thing for my soul ever like alcohol had me entrapped in like this constant anxiety like just trying to run away from my problems with alcohol where like you know I was like I hate work I hate the people there I hate everything you know and uh and like alcohol is the one redeeming thing but once you don't have that you know it wasn't even like I was I hated alcohol so much at that point like it was it was just like it was so easy to stop you know I was like this has ruined my life like it makes me feel like shit and like I just stopped and then all of a sudden like I didn't have that horrible crutch you know It was good.
Tyler:
[1:08:27] So what led up to you making the decision to go to rehab?
Jake:
[1:08:33] I got in trouble at work. We had some admin day.
Tyler:
[1:08:38] This is after you went to Europe?
Jake:
[1:08:42] Yes.
Tyler:
[1:08:43] Okay. So you were on a deployment for like six months to Romania, right? Yeah. And then you came back. Okay.
Jake:
[1:08:49] Yeah. Romania was... Oh, yeah. We'll get back to Romania, I guess. but uh yeah so for this we we started having like admin days uh for some reason like uh we were well i guess we were getting ready for like deployment ready schedule so we'd have random admin days where we weren't supposed to technically work but like we were just supposed to check our emails for like eight hours straight and then go to the gym at some point like so i like i was like I could probably sneak out of here. So I straight up just left. I already didn't have a computer on the main floor. I was in the back training floor, the old training floor. And like...
Jake:
[1:09:35] I i was like no like it had been hours and like i was just hung over as shit so i just went home
Jake:
[1:09:41] Uh it was like fuck it like i just don't give a shit like what are these admin days even for like there's no point to them like we're not even doing work and we're doing these admin days all the time like i could be spending time at home you know so i just left uh i'm pretty stupid move but then they were like where are you at i was like already drunk at home and like passed out you know by the time they figured out that I wasn't there so then someone knocks on my door and is like hey and I was so confused like I had just passed out you know and they were like hey what's going on like why are you here it's like oh I was tired or whatever so then I'm in trouble and like I already had a reputation for being an alcoholic that the squadron you know what I mean like everyone knew I was like miserable drunk person you know what I mean like that was my persona was like that guy looks like he's hung over his buck every single day and he's gotten in trouble a few times for it like it's obviously alcohol you know like I wore it so hard on my face that I drank like crazy you know which I did like I really really drank a lot I was like it was like suicidally drinking every single night is
Jake:
[1:10:50] Horrible uh and painful you know and then like I don't even know how I was I don't know how I got to work every single day on time and like just toughed through the day I remember staring at my computer feeling like my fucking eyeballs were gonna fall out of the sockets like just staring at these screens like horrible headache just awful dude i hated being there so much i hated it at the end you know
Tyler:
[1:11:16] I think what my saving grace was is that i rode a bicycle to work and i like it was like by the time i got.
Jake:
[1:11:22] There you know
Tyler:
[1:11:23] I was like worked off the hangover somehow.
Jake:
[1:11:26] Yeah that'd be great uh fuck hold on uh hold on hold on what's going on you
Tyler:
[1:11:35] Take a break for a second.
Jake:
[1:11:35] Sure i'll be right back sounds good okay i'm back all right um so yeah so what made me stop was yeah basically I got called into the shirt's office after leaving work and like they were like you know why did you leave they kept pressing me like why'd you leave and my excuse was like uh I had to go pick up Brooke from the bars or something she'd gone out that night or whatever and uh I was like I didn't think anything was going on so like I went to go pick her up and And then they were like, well, we think that, you know, you need to go to ADAP, basically, or we're going to send you there. It's like, okay. I, I had already, me and Brooke were already fighting all the time about how much I was drinking. Like, ADAPT was something that I had intended on doing at some point, you know? Yeah. Uh, I, I, I really like needed to go to ADAPT and me and Brooke would talk about it all the time. Like, you know, it was in a rough place. Uh, so this was like, I was like, okay, like, this is it, you know, I have to go and it's time, you know? And, uh, yeah, I guess it wasn't like, you know, some magical like
Jake:
[1:13:04] You know, I had been ready for a long time to be sober. I just couldn't, I was just so stuck in addiction. Like, you know, like I needed to just check myself into ADAPT a long time
Jake:
[1:13:44] DUI, but not really a DUI. Like it's like an on base record thing, but it was off my record really quick. But during that, like I lied I was like I I don't drink that much like honestly So, like, I got out of ADAPT completely then because I was like, oh, I really don't drink that much, you know. ADAPT is, by the way, like, for the folks listening, like, we've said a few terms
Tyler:
[1:14:25] First sergeant in Air Force terminology. and so it's like the highest ranking NCO that's supposed to be the liaison between enlisted members and the officer corps so they're basically like they're the one who makes recommendations to the commanding officer on behalf of all the rest of the enlisted members and then ADAPT is basically like the Air Force's version of Alcoholics Anonymous or like Narcotics Anonymous so it's like a drug or alcohol program uh for service members so it's it's not like a punitive thing it's like a try to help you get better thing just to be clear yeah although it does feel like a punishment when it happens but.
Jake:
[1:15:11] Yeah so um so the second time you know like the first time i got out of it completely like i didn't have to stop drinking or anything uh and then the second time i yeah i was like flat out like this is how much i drink you know like fuck it i'm ready to get better you know you're like based on what you're telling us i think you need to go to a rehab or they called it like a something else i don't know
Tyler:
[1:15:38] Because hello alto rehab has like a palo verde.
Jake:
[1:15:41] Or no they call it like a um Uh, well, I was just saying like, they, they call it like, you're going to a facility. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Something that doesn't sound like rehab, you know what I mean? Uh, cause they were like that, that's bad connotation or whatever. I don't care. Like it is what it is,
Tyler:
[1:16:00] You know? Did you go to Palo Alto or Palo Verde or whatever the.
Jake:
[1:16:03] Fuck it's called? So this is what's crazy. Um, so because it wasn't even in, uh, what was it called? In, inpatient or whatever. Yeah. It wasn't even that. it was like legit like they were sending me off for like uh like a month or two you know like however long it takes until i feel better which i was already over alcohol like i didn't even need that really and i tried to i was like i don't think i need like i already like don't want to get in trouble i'm already i've already made peace with not drinking like i don't think i need to go to rehab they're like we recommend you to um and they're like you don't have to but you can get out of work and i hated work so fucking bad i was like i'm going they were like you get you get paid vacation like out of work and i was just so done i was so ready to be out of the military that i was like all right let's do it like this will be nice i'm sure there's something i can learn from this and like talk to counselors and stuff and so i was like okay yeah like i'll go um so i got a call for a facility that could take me dude this is actually a fucked up story so um so i at the time i was drinking so much and like i would also uh yeah so i would just like you know you know i'd get off work i'd eat a bunch of food and then i'd drink myself like you know so many beers and then i'd end up getting sick a lot
Jake:
[1:17:28] Because of that, the facility that was going to take me said that they couldn't because I got sick from drinking so much. So I had to go to an eating disorder place in L.A., which is, dude, that was not where I needed to go at all. Like the people that were there, it was in L.A. Like it was literally like these like women and men that like don't.
Jake:
[1:17:58] Like they don't eat because they're afraid of bananas literally like uh and i i was like i'm not i don't have an eating disorder i'm just an alcoholic and they're like okay they didn't believe me at first at this facility right because they're like oh everyone probably says that but i was like just kept eating all the food i was like oh i don't usually bananas but you know i'll eat a banana today prove that i can eat a banana you know like and i just kept doing all the stuff we get like it's crazy like these people wouldn't eat takeout because they're afraid of like what's in takeout food like you know like fast food and all this stuff and it's weird i met like a lot of really nice people there's this one guy that's from the army that was in there uh he got addicted to like tiktok trends like he like he kept like he did this like transition thing of like him going from like being super like fat to like buff and then he like just kept getting addicted to losing weight and getting skinny and then he needed to go there you know but i was like i don't he was really nice like we were buds because we were both just like military folk there um
Jake:
[1:19:05] But yeah like a lot of people with like crazy trauma which i honestly feel like i've had a blessed life like some people i'm somewhere in the middle like of like you know my i guess my upbringing had its fucked up moments but also like it wasn't crazy you know what i mean like i had nothing i really wanted to share necessarily that was like deep to me or like you know like i'm sure there's a lot of subconscious things that go through my head because of my upbringing but like something like there was this girl that would like dissociate on the couch which i don't know if you've ever seen anyone dissociate before but it's crazy like it's just scary you know like she'd be sitting there and then all of a sudden she'd get quiet and just stare off and then she would melt down and like cry forever and like you know you just feel so bad and
Jake:
[1:19:54] Whatever. She, I don't know. Her story is crazy, but I don't know. It was just wild. Like that's not where I was supposed to be. And then finally after like three weeks, they were like, okay, like we need to get you to like somewhere else. Like you, you're ruining this for everyone else. Not really, but like, I just, I didn't have a problem and everyone else was wanting to talk about their eating disorder problem. And I'm like, I, I just, I'm just an alcoholic. Like that's all I've got for me here. So yeah, no, we, I, I liked it there a lot. Like we all got along really well and stuff is just like, I just wasn't, I didn't have an eating disorder, you know? So, but towards the end, they let me like go on runs where people couldn't even go on walks because people are so addicted to like losing weight and stuff like that. Like it's a real disorder of theirs. But I was like, I'm in the military. Like I got to train and stuff. Which this is what I hate. My rehab experience was robbed from me because I could have like, I wasn't allowed to smoke because smoking is like, you know, keeps you from being hungry, keeps you like satiated, I guess.
Jake:
[1:21:03] And like, I couldn't go on walks, you know, like I was saying, like, or workout, like, you know, and like most rehabs, like you get to work out, you get to smoke and like, you know, like something, some sort of vice, you know, and like, it's you know like it's more catered towards that so it kind of sucked um but you know it's also in LA I got to run around this like neighborhood that was all like you know two million dollar homes like beautiful you know which was cool but I don't know it's all sort of embarrassing but you know it's just a I mean that's just what it was you know uh
Jake:
[1:21:47] And uh got out of it i i really they asked me like after the three weeks like most people go for like maybe two months to rehab or something like that but after the three weeks i was like you know i'm not supposed to be here and i really don't want to go to another rehab facility and start this all over again like can i just go home so if i just i just went home uh and uh i was good you know i just started working out like i wanted to i gained like a shit ton of weight muscle which was awesome i was like freaking buff dude like i don't even know how i gained that weight dude i eat like a maniac right now and i cannot gain any weight anymore i think it's just drinking like this is literally what i weighed in high school um this is like what my body naturally wants to weigh but like for a while i think my body was getting used to the alcohol like i'm sure some of my organs were like fixing themselves you know and now I just have a crazy fast metabolism and it doesn't matter how much I eat like I can't gain weight so and that's pretty cool sure you're kind of the same you know Yeah, I don't know.
Tyler:
[1:22:55] I like, I never get like, I don't know. There have been times when I got kind of fat, but it was mostly just because I was drinking like too much beer or whatever and not working out enough. But I've always been about the same size. I think I was really skinny in high school until I started wrestling and then I got like more muscly. But even for the most of the time you knew me too, I was like,
Tyler:
[1:23:20] I wasn't lifting weights. I was just running. like i was like my job is not to lift heavy things my job is to run a mile and a half really fast so that's all i did.
Jake:
[1:23:28] Um yeah
Tyler:
[1:23:30] There have been times when i had like a little beer gut or whatever but not anymore i've looked sexy every time i take my shirt off now i'm like you are just gorgeous i just love you like i just i just want to eat you up.
Jake:
[1:23:39] I feel the same yeah i'm literally like five percent body fat right now which is crazy which it feels i'm it seems wrong i don't know but like i've gone to the doctor i got blood work done i was like i'm skinny what's wrong with me like it's so abnormal i lost 60 pounds like really fast you just
Tyler:
[1:23:57] Don't think about how many calories are in alcohol like people just skip right yeah that shit like you know and it's like when you're.
Jake:
[1:24:03] Drinking that much yeah like one shot of vodka is like a hundred calories you know yeah you drink in a whole fifth you know that's a shit ton of calories and
Tyler:
[1:24:12] It's like betty's lemon vodka too like whatever like.
Jake:
[1:24:15] Just and it's like toxic calories too like yeah just visceral fat and shit uh so i think because i weighed i had some weight on me from drinking i think i was able to gain weight still at that time so like i racked up the pounds like purposely and that was my addiction that you know i didn't have alcohol anymore so i'd spend like four hours in the gym and just work out i became a personal trainer um it just like was you know that was like the only thing i did basically until baby was born um so yeah then baby but i don't we could probably cover some other things uh the deployment let's
Tyler:
[1:24:54] Talk about romania and then we'll get to a little need to.
Jake:
[1:24:57] Yeah what was that like romania was uh probably one of those i had so much fun honestly like it's kind of uh like shitty like i probably should have taken my job more serious and stuff but like i i had a lot of fun i had friends out there for the first time like i i had had such a bad time at the hub like it felt so good to have friends you know what i mean like i felt like i didn't talk to i mean i was friends with like you and a lot of people but for a while like after you had left and stuff like that like i was just kind of there you know what i mean um yeah and uh Yeah.
Tyler:
[1:25:37] And that's like the hardest part I think about being stationed somewhere you don't like is that like you have people you're really close to and eventually they just leave and you're like, so like, I mean, before you guys, I had, uh, John Malachi, it was my guy. Yeah. And then when he left, I was just like lost for a long time. I was like, I don't have any friends here. Like it sucks.
Jake:
[1:25:55] Yep. Um, and, uh,
Tyler:
[1:25:58] I think I was a lot more comfortable just occupying my time. Like when I was at home, I was working, you know, on, in the keep and stuff. So. Yeah, you had a lot of.
Jake:
[1:26:06] Stuff going on. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, I, yeah, and you, like, get so close with the people that you deploy with, too. I mean, I didn't deploy, I mean, I didn't really get close with Leahy or, you know, Sergeant Lapp. I'm not saying them, but. I went to her retirement ceremony,
Tyler:
[1:26:28] Actually. Yeah. completely by coincidence i had uh gone to tucson for like a little vacation when faith and i were first dating and it just i got there it happened to be on the day of sergeant laps going away so i went and.
Jake:
[1:26:46] Yeah i it's funny because i probably gave sergeant lap so much hell from being there But I think Sergeant Lab kind of got me and like kind of liked me, you know, as a person.
Tyler:
[1:27:00] She's a good one. She liked broken toys and people who were a little crazy.
Jake:
[1:27:05] For sure. And so like that was kind of cool. Like I feel like she always liked it. Like even after we got back from deployment and I was like, you know, just a shitty person there probably. And she still would talk to me all the time and enjoyed seeing me genuinely, which was cool. She was cool. Leahy hated my fucking guts.
Tyler:
[1:27:28] I missed that guy.
Jake:
[1:27:31] Yeah. Leahy was... We got along at first, but it got nuts. It's funny. I set him up with this... I don't even know if he knows this now. I think he sort of does. but he uh yeah there's this uh friend of mine uh and uh she found him on tinder and i was like oh that's leahy and i was like just just you know swipe right on him and she swiped right and they matched and i was like you should fuck him but she's like messed up i mean it's just like i don't know but like he had no idea that i basically set that up for him and like he that was his first time getting laid in a long time like literally a long time and he told her that and like and then she told me all the things that she told him it was just bad like i don't know it was really bad but like i got him laid though i mean so but it was kind of nuts like he had no idea like he thought was just some random romanian chick you know but like i was like you should you know swipe right on him i don't know but uh yeah pretty pretty wild stuff i uh i had so much fun like uh there's this guy don that we hung out like all the time um once he left he kind of sucked but we go out uh to cluj which is like a uh it's probably 30 minutes north of where we stayed we stayed at turda
Jake:
[1:28:59] Literally like a turd hole like it's a pretty small place but it was all i love
Tyler:
[1:29:04] Eastern europe it reminds me of like mississippi and alabama like this it reminds me of the american south it's like the people are just real.
Jake:
[1:29:11] Yeah i completely agree and i liked a lot yeah people talk shit on romania because it's kind of like old style like like i don't know like stuck in old ways i guess but it was cool like you could just go fishing if you wanted to there and like whatever you know there's a lot of um like just open uh open lands and you go on hikes and stuff i went on some cool hikes um but i'm gonna grab a hoodie real quick that good yeah oh yeah but uh i had a lot of fun some things i'll probably i wouldn't even bring up in this podcast just wild like times you know uh it was truly like but it was it was a lot of fun you know europe just going to europe is like a treat you know always uh but yeah being there for a long time is also kind of shitty you know i
Tyler:
[1:30:11] Think it's it i would not knowing what i now knew i want to live anywhere in europe but if i had to live in.
Jake:
[1:30:18] Europe if
Tyler:
[1:30:19] I had to pick a place i mean i i really really really love the netherlands i like the culture i like the people i like the way they do business um they're very assertive very direct straightforward they don't fuck around about nothing.
Jake:
[1:30:34] I like yeah um yeah it's hard
Tyler:
[1:30:37] Then i like just eastern europe in general like i loved the time that i spent in like slovakia and Czechia, that area is amazing. Germany, I could do without. I like a lot of German people, but I wouldn't live in Germany. And I wouldn't live in Scandinavia. I did for, you know, the time that I did. And it's not like I dislike it necessarily. It's just like if I'm optimizing for what culture makes me the most happy, it is not Scandinavia. They're too insular. They're too, like.
Jake:
[1:31:15] They keep to
Tyler:
[1:31:16] Themselves too much. Which I respect, but it's not for me. Like, I need to talk to you. I want my neighbors to like wave at me when I walk.
Jake:
[1:31:23] Down the
Tyler:
[1:31:24] Road and stuff like that that makes me happy.
Jake:
[1:31:25] Yeah I think I think that's a hard thing about you know if you're to be like in your case where you're an American and you go try to live somewhere else like I feel like it's just it's hard to get away from home you know what I mean even in the Vegas uh like sense of that like like where you could just live anywhere in America and feel more like comfortable I guess than you do anywhere in Europe mostly like and it's just like little things you know what I mean that just like you know America is just like it just feels like home you know it's hard to like be away from permanently I would think you know I think some people do but I mean I know a lot of people do but I think I don't you have to be a certain type of person like I I had a great time there but to just like be like I'm just gonna live in Europe I feel like I would be giving up something like inside of me a little bit that's just like leaving what i know what i know is home and what i'm comfortable with like um but i don't know it's also tempting i mean politics are freaking crazy right now they're worse
Tyler:
[1:32:32] In europe oh.
Jake:
[1:32:33] I'm sure yeah that's
Tyler:
[1:32:35] The thing is like i have so many people tell me like oh i'm just gonna go live
Tyler:
[1:32:38] somewhere else other than america i did i said exactly the same thing and i'm like no you don't want.
Jake:
[1:32:43] That it's
Tyler:
[1:32:44] Worse it's like like we we.
Jake:
[1:32:46] Know who our evil presidents
Tyler:
[1:32:48] Are and they're like a bunch of countries with their own individual presidents that are equivalent to, they have no say in and i'm like yeah it's this is worse it's fucking terrible like there's so many issues over there like like with just the sheer amount of immigration from the wars going on and stuff. It's exactly the same complaints that you hear in America, but they feel even more helpless to do anything about it.
Jake:
[1:33:23] That's true.
Tyler:
[1:33:25] England is depressing. I like England and I like the people in England, but what they're dealing with is just horrendous. I couldn't do it. Live there if i had to i guess i guess i could live anywhere if i had to yeah.
Jake:
[1:33:41] I don't know i mean europe's like charming and i just feel like the people the actual people in europe i feel like are like smart generally and like just like kind of charming folks where i feel like america's lost a lot of that but it does it depends on who you talk to and where you go you know what i mean yeah
Tyler:
[1:33:59] I mean if you're hanging out next to a liberal arts college in california or new jersey or some shit you're gonna have a certain type of people and if you're but for me it's like i walk i live in columbia south carolina i walk outside there's other people like me we all get lost we all have basically the same values you know and it's like like a basically a cookie cutter neighborhood so i'm about to you know be just like everybody else pushing my stroller down.
Jake:
[1:34:22] The street you know go
Tyler:
[1:34:23] To the pool whatever yeah.
Jake:
[1:34:25] Um yeah we gotta definitely talk about dad stuff you know i I know it kind of dove into my past and whatnot, but.
Tyler:
[1:34:32] No, it was good to get all that.
Jake:
[1:34:34] I guess that leads up to fatherhood now and where I'm at, you know.
Tyler:
[1:34:39] So you and Brooke were like power couple the whole time I knew y'all, and y'all dated for so long. And then it was like when you finally decided to have, well, did you decide to have a baby or did it? Okay.
Jake:
[1:34:54] I hope Benny never sees this. you're gonna be yeah you're gonna be the wild uncle to benny one day and we're gonna pull this podcast up but i don't know you can always bleep this out but no i'm kidding but yeah he wasn't necessarily planned uh but we never like we also never tried not to have kids like we weren't really afraid of it we were at that point in our relationship where like anything really went like if we had a kid great you know which like i'm surprised she was comfortable with that i i was always sort of down to have a kid honestly like and i'm so glad that we did like my life has changed like you know how i said like i i've always had kind of a low uh like uh uh idea of myself or something you know i feel like being a dad has like given me so much purpose in life like it is uh it's pretty awesome like i feel like if you know if anything you know i've got my son to just try to raise and be the best person he can be and uh i don't know it's crazy once they're born they're literally like it is a different world all of a sudden which you're about to experience like just the world is a different place i feel like that's the best way to explain And it's like...
Jake:
[1:36:17] Yeah everything was just different instantly like whenever you just look at them and you're like holy shit this is like this is my kid you know and like every i mean of course everything's gonna change like you can't just leave them somewhere like obviously like the rest of your life you're lugging this around this baby you know and not even in a bad way but like you know it's really a lot of responsibility you know and it's important like it's an important job to raise a human being you know like they can turn out to be a freaking mass murderer or they can turn out a president you know i mean or somewhere in the middle you're just aiming for somewhere in the middle you know you want to cover all the right bases give enough attention be starting when you have to be you know like all these things and um i'm reading books uh on that so there's this one how to how to raise a strong-minded child or something like that yeah i forget but it's really good it's these two uh it's this uh like uh neuroscientists and then this psychologist talking about like the and they're just like meshing um like how to raise a child based on like, you know, like statistics and stuff like that. So I'm kind of, I'm just reading that. Like, I feel like, um,
Jake:
[1:37:40] Honestly, I feel like this has got to be one of the best day and ages to raise a child as far as knowledge goes. Like you, you know, I feel like you could just get a baby and you're just doing what your mom did or something like that. But I can, we can literally break from what our families did by just watching YouTube videos and, and reading books. I mean, I guess there's always books out there, but there's so much new knowledge that's out here of how to raise children, you know, like, and, uh, I mean, for all we know, like science could change again, but, uh, I think it's, I think it's a cool time, especially cause there's going to be a lot of parents that don't try,
Jake:
[1:38:17] You know, and to be a parent that does try and like, it's going to, I feel like it's going to go further than like your kid It has the potential to go way further in life, you know, if you really put in the time and effort because people just don't care anymore or they don't want the kids in the first place because they can't afford them and all this stuff. And it's just like it just leads to horrible parenting or just not parenting at all, you know, and having all this knowledge, I feel like and just putting in a little bit of effort into it, like I feel like it can go a long way, you know.
Tyler:
[1:38:53] I don't know. I'm really not worried about it. I think I had that initial month or so of being, oh my god, oh my god, I got about it, but I don't feel unequipped.
Jake:
[1:39:04] So to speak. I didn't worry about it at all for the longest time. I really had no worries about it. Brooke was just pregnant, and that's just how it was. It was just me and her. But it's after they're born, I feel like you're like, oh shit. Like they're just they're real you know like all of a sudden it's you you know your girl and then the baby too and it's like man like what am i like you don't realize how much you just don't know how to do like there's so much to learn like instantly you're like okay you're trying to feed the baby and like just feeding the baby is really hard it's got to eat so many calories per day so it can grow and like i mean that sounds easy but that's actually like hard dude babies are hard to feed and benny was premature so it was like pretty difficult uh he had to have a tube for a while and we were going to the NICU every day um but after that you take them home and you're like oh am i really like can i really take this baby home like i don't feel like we should like i don't it's just like a scary thing like they're just little they're so fragile and like it's scary like you're gonna mess something up or you're gonna sleep and they're gonna be crying and you'll just sleep right through it or something like i mean that probably wouldn't happen but some people sleep in separate rooms from their babies as my mom did i guess but i mean we most people sleep right next to their kid now you know but even then i feel
Tyler:
[1:40:32] Like a lot of folks.
Jake:
[1:40:34] Eating or who
Tyler:
[1:40:36] Like don't have other babies like in their family or around them a lot they you know it's like, overwhelming like i don't know what to do but i just i have so many nieces and nephews and i grow with so many like little brothers and stuff that i i just i feel like i know how to take care of a baby like it's yeah it's not i realize that it's complicated but it's not that fucking difficult it's like you know you you pick them up you fucking you know you don't let their head drop off you burp them after you feed them like it's you know they just want attention and they're pretty straightforward.
Jake:
[1:41:08] To me
Tyler:
[1:41:09] But i have like been around so many babies whereas i think my my wife is going to struggle more because she you know nobody in her family has a baby you know what i mean like she.
Jake:
[1:41:19] Didn't know around that that was exactly how it was for me and brooke i i felt like i was getting it really quickly and she was like like why can't i do this and even now like I had to watch Benny allow issues in the military and like me and Benny bonded like we were like best friends and she was just like I'm not getting like she was like I feel you know and it's hard like Like she wasn't making a connection with Benny. Well, she was, but it wasn't the same as like what me and Benny had. Like she couldn't put him to bed without him losing his mind. Where just give me baby, you know? And then I'd go set him down, instantly falls asleep. Like we just had this like connection, me and Benny, you know?
Jake:
[1:42:02] But it's just overwhelming. Like you're so tired at first and it's like, and then you don't get a break for like the first month for sleep, you know, which is the hardest part is that you're trying to function and like you're trying to make this baby stop crying like you know and it's just like you know there are times where nothing is working you know and you're just sitting there and you're the thing is it's not that it's hard it's that your nerves are up here you know like you're just like uh you know like it's it's so much work at first and you're so tired you know and like and the baby just won't stop crying you know then like yeah it's just it's just hard you know that's where you know parents do horrible things you know if you're not a good person it's i mean that's why it that's why it drives people to shake babies you know and it's fucked up you know but it's it's hard it's hard and that's why people do they get frustrated you know i don't sympathize with it but i like that's why because it is it is like your nerves are just so high you know and uh it's just difficult you know it's you're tired and And yeah, it's just constant. Like it's constant because at first, especially they'll wake up every couple hours, you know, like through the night. So you're just constantly getting up.
Jake:
[1:43:29] And yeah, it's just like it just doesn't they don't get a decent sleep until like three months in until then you're just like, you know, suffering. But also our son was a he had colic so like he was throwing up all the time you know so that wasn't good like he couldn't keep his food down so that was a big struggle for us and then he wasn't latching onto brook because he was in the nikki for so long um so like feeding in general was just really difficult but uh and that was our case like benny was just kind of a difficult baby I think for a lot of reasons, you know, um, just, yeah, he, he had colic, uh, and yeah, he just, he was in the NICU so long. So that kind of like halted a lot of things for us trying to feed him because he was too small to feed, like, like just breastfeed instantly. So, yeah. So we never really did. That would be the dream if like Brooke could have just popped him on and then fed him. And then that was it but like it was always this whole feeding him was such a difficult thing every three hours like oh man so you know i pray you don't have to go through anything like that uh specifically i mean it's going to be hard in its own way you know but that was tough yeah you know what colic is oh
Tyler:
[1:44:52] Yeah for sure yeah yes we have like the little anti-colic bottles already nice and all that stuff.
Jake:
[1:44:58] But yeah we did everything we could and uh it just didn't help he was just as long as he was on his back he would just all over his face you know i
Tyler:
[1:45:08] Feel like you just gotta like you just have to like let all the anxiety go and just kind of like accept things as they come and just respond like it's almost like a kung fu like kind of thing where just be like water and just respond as.
Jake:
[1:45:21] Oh that's exactly that's where I ended up getting to I was like I I can't handle all these nerves like I have to just find inner peace you know and that's I think that's whenever me and Benny started clicking because they can feel you like the babies it is you know there's like a science that can't be explained but you know it is like it's like telepathy or something you know or like just vibes or whatever you know it's like the baby can pick up on things like that you know have you
Tyler:
[1:45:49] Listened to the podcast the telepathy tapes yet.
Jake:
[1:45:53] Dude uh my friend was telling me about that i want to check it out yeah where they're yeah dude the very interesting kids are uh like have or like severely autistic or something and the way that they communicate like somehow they know what they're i need to watch that dude i'm gonna write that down again yeah it's very like i'm
Tyler:
[1:46:13] Not gonna say it's a hundred percent convincing because there's always ways that you can, you know, fuck around with shit. But if everything they're saying is on a level, then it's like the idea here is that these kids genuinely have, like, the ability to, you know, like their mom can be in a different room with the doors closed and think something or have a cue card and the kid will just... Know right off the bat what they're talking about.
Jake:
[1:46:37] Dude i believe it like i you get to a certain point with your baby where like you just like they you obviously can't communicate with them for so long but you end up knowing the slightest thing and being like okay they they aren't just hungry they want this as well you know or they're uncomfortable and like you can pick up on it like um even now like i'm telling you all this is so weird but i'll wake up in the middle of the night um and like on my own you know and then all of a sudden baby will also be up like we're like connected in the brain you know it's really strange but like i have these moments with benny all the time where like he can pick up how i feel from different places you know and truly like it's it's like uncanny it's strange you know aside
Tyler:
[1:47:30] From like you know the infant raising part of it like what is your kind of vision of the future for you know education and all that stuff like how do you think you're gonna go about that.
Jake:
[1:47:40] Yeah so the book i'm reading right now that's really cool uh just how to you know have a strong-minded kid basically like um i don't want to just be like they can do whatever they want and you don't want to do that necessarily like it goes into like you know the lack of parenting is also parenting you know what i mean any form of parenting you can't just not do anything and be like uh it'll be fine like like you have to do something you know and uh it was talking about how like you have to teach kids to learn their own mistakes so like you can't do their homework for them and then like you know if they don't do it last minute you have to let them fail
Jake:
[1:48:20] It's a affordable like uh failures for the kid so that they know oh i have to do my homework or else i fail this class and i'm embarrassed and i have to go back to the grade prior you know so you have to like you have to be like you know oh it's up to you you can do your homework or not you know but uh you know you you just have to pay the consequences for that you know so like it's a way of they they learn by their mistakes so it's it's not a way that like um you know uh where you know you're not like a helicopter parent but you're also like you're trying to teach them valuable lessons that they can teach themselves so that they can be independent basically um so that's what i want to do and uh you know uh and obviously just have a really fun like probably sporty relationship with Benny and music for sure. Like, I feel like he's going to get into something really cool really early. Cause that's just the type of people that me and Brooke are. We, we rock climb, we, we snowboard, we, you know, I have a whole band room
Jake:
[1:49:28] in my house. Like I'm thinking he's going to be a drummer personally. That's what I would think. He just has that kind of a,
Tyler:
[1:49:34] You know, uh, yeah.
Jake:
[1:49:38] He does. He's dancing. Like I was telling you, shakes his ass. The veggie tails uh but uh no yeah like i feel like he's gonna be a little drummer kid and um he uh yeah i think he's gonna be really sporty and do some like cool sports you know i always love sports and he he seems like he like he already loves climbing things like and he seems sort of athletic i mean i'm a i'm his dad like i'm like here's a freaking you know but uh he seems like he'll be good at some stuff hopefully or like we're just I'm just excited to get him involved in stuff and basically let him choose what comes naturally to him but like I feel like something that my parents didn't do was like like get me involved in so many things I always had to do it on my own I'd be like oh I'm interested in this which like is good
Jake:
[1:50:31] But also like I wish like I wish I would have like had a guitar earlier maybe you know I'd always wanted one and i didn't get one until like way later like i just have guitars laying around which i didn't have in my house like he could literally just come downstairs and be like i just want to mess around and take it as far as he wants to like it's not that i'm gonna force him to do anything it's just that it's all there already it's already things that me and brooke go and do like we already like going to snowboard uh and like we like going climbing and doing stuff like this so it's just like whatever he gravitates towards we're just going to like encourage that as much as possible you know and uh yeah not make it like a stern thing for him you know
Tyler:
[1:51:18] Yeah, I was listening to, I think it was Rick Beato, the music producer, and he was talking about like, he has this theory that like if you expose a kid like really, really early, like in the first, you know, eight or nine months of their life or whatever to all of the different tones and sounds, like even of different languages, but like musical scales and stuff. Yeah. yeah like so like when you're older and you hear like a an indian scale for the first time it doesn't make any sense to you you've never.
Jake:
[1:51:47] Heard anything like it
Tyler:
[1:51:48] But if a kid has heard that.
Jake:
[1:51:50] Early in
Tyler:
[1:51:50] Life that actually like even if they don't consciously think about it it's familiar to them later and they can understand it or like the tones of like the chinese language or yeah uh.
Jake:
[1:52:01] Book uh the i don't know if you ever read it it's like this is your brain on music whatever he goes into depth on like that and it's pretty cool like even in the womb like they're they're starting to get their familiarity of like their culture that they're in just everything is familiar like whatever they're introduced to like yeah just like you were saying like it it will forever be like what they like basically because it's familiar it's home to them you know yeah
Tyler:
[1:52:29] I'll put like my headset on face belly with like holst the planets or something on just like make the baby listen to that and the the kid is like you know like the doctor said.
Jake:
[1:52:42] Uh you
Tyler:
[1:52:43] Know every night try to count the kicks you should get like 10 kicks in two hours i'm like dude this kid is getting that in like five minutes like this this little baby is is kicking all the.
Jake:
[1:52:52] Time like bass pedal ready
Tyler:
[1:52:54] To get out here and do some life bro.
Jake:
[1:52:57] Um yeah that's how benny was he came out early he's running dude he's ready to start living yeah
Tyler:
[1:53:04] You gotta you going to do the public school preschool all that or what's the plan.
Jake:
[1:53:09] Uh yeah i don't know i would like him to just go to um probably a public school i mean i don't know that there's a lot of reform going on it seems like and it's like maybe like a charter school or something would be good uh maybe not necessarily like i don't know if we're going to pay for him to go to private school like but i just don't i just had a bad experience with private school personally Definitely. Was it was a cheap little private school that like i feel like robbed my childhood so
Tyler:
[1:53:40] Yeah not.
Jake:
[1:53:41] Really but uh like i just want them to have a normal like kid experience you know but like you just hear so much crazy shit that happens in schools or like they could they have so many more people they could end up hanging out with that are bad people you know like i guess i mean if you pay for them to go to school like they have a chance to maybe be around people that have money which maybe means that they're not like bad I don't know I don't know how to judge it I mean I don't even think that's necessarily true they would still get in trouble you know like I just I would rather like probably the public school system if we're in it but like just going to a part of the city that we think is good you know but that's tough like i already hate thinking about it because that's just a hard thing it really is
Tyler:
[1:54:33] Yeah we we've gone back and forth on it you know we have different opinions i guess about what's important um i'm definitely like not trying to limit any kind of social behavior like i think you should meet as many different people as you can get to know them and all that i've always liked crazy people so it's not necessarily what i'm trying to get away from but i think being surrounded by other people who actually like have ambition is good as opposed to like a percent my public school experience was just like i didn't learn anything in school i just i learned how to like skip class and fucking, smoke weed and shit so i'm like yeah.
Jake:
[1:55:09] I don't know if that's necessarily
Tyler:
[1:55:11] The best thing either i i kind of wanted at least early on do like homeschool because i'm like i'm at home like i'm here so it's like it's not that hard to do and and not necessarily just like i feel like when you say homeschool people picture like you know the you know just sitting in your room with a fucking worksheet or whatever but i want to do like one of those kind of like co-op programs where like it's a bunch of different parents you know and you take them on field trips and do sports and stuff but also like have more control over what they get taught because the last thing i want is for like you know spending all this money to send a kid to school and they're like not learning anything yeah and then with like the biggest things like faith was like well i mean you don't even have like a degree in teaching i'm like i don't need a fucking degree in teaching to be smarter than a fifth grade teacher like i all i need to teach fifth grade is a sixth grade education, but i don't know i mean i've got a long time to think about it yeah.
Jake:
[1:56:09] That's exactly how i feel it's that's a tough one brooke's family like once in like uh brooke's stepdad jerry he like wants to homeschool Benny
Jake:
[1:56:21] And uh it's just funny like he's just a funny guy I mean he definitely could he's smart you know I uh just don't know uh i wanted to like have competitive like like sports and stuff like that it's tough though like my idea and this is my idea is if i can build my son on a solid foundation i would hope that he would surround himself by people that are like him you know because he wouldn't he wouldn't even relate to something that was foreign to him in that way you know but like kids are you just never know it could be just it's like the butterfly effect just something small happens and it leads him to this person and this person's a piece of shit you know and then like he goes down he's in prison something like that you know like it's tough and i think at some point you just have to like you just have to try you all that you can do is just raise them and get them to have your foundation built in them you know so that they can carry that and know right from wrong and truly believe it and not not like and you have to do that at such a young age to like get them to not rebel against you but like learn from their mistakes and then be able to share your wisdom with them and then actually soak it in you know and uh i feel like uh and like i don't know i'm not like a pro at anything like i didn't go to school for
Jake:
[1:57:49] Child psychology you know like i don't know like it's i don't know if it'll be successful but i mean i guess as we get to that point we'll just have to pull the trigger on something i would say initially at the young ages i don't think it matters too much where they go i wouldn't think like all kids are fairly innocent even if they're not like they're just saying cuss words and shit and like pushing people down but like it's not like they're like all right i'm i'm five years old and i'm smoking meth out back or anything like
Tyler:
[1:58:19] There's definitely like you know there's there's that side of things and then there's the other side of things where it's like you would be blown away what kids are getting into like there's you know fucking elementary school kids like having sex and shit and like smoking cigarettes and all kinds of craziness and it's like i that's the last thing i want i'm like no i don't want that i fucking hate like a lot of public schools now are like they're talking about sex shit like way too early.
Jake:
[1:58:45] With kids i'm like i 100 agree the
Tyler:
[1:58:47] Last thing that should be on a six year old's mind is like how do I sexually identify like shut the fuck up teach them how to do their math like yeah we should be talking about chopping down cherry trees right now not.
Jake:
[1:59:01] Yep I feel exactly the same about that like that is one thing that bugs me a lot like why why why you know like it's just yeah I hate it and but yeah well I don't know Trump's doing something I don't know what he's doing but he's
Tyler:
[1:59:22] Doing something I.
Jake:
[1:59:23] Would think after you know have you seen that video where he's like there's only two genders male and female I wouldn't think that he would I would think that you know with this whole school reform that he's doing that would at least be cut out you know you don't know how long it's gonna last you know yeah I know there's a lot of crazy shit going on but uh yeah no I feel the same way that is tough and I really yeah I just want a kid to be a kid and yeah like even uh like you know whenever they started sex education in school they saw an instant spike in teen pregnancies like because it was in their heads you know I
Tyler:
[2:00:06] Think I was in the 5th grade when they did sex education and it just freaked me out I was just like I don't want this information. I don't want to know this stuff. I was like crying. I was like, this is just traumatic. Like, stop talking about this. We should be, we're supposed to be on the playground. Like, you know, it's, it's just, it's insane. I don't know. I mean, I'm not the fucking expert either. I just think that it's, it's like, there's some stuff that I would rather me as a parent get to decide how I have that conversation with my child rather than some fucking, you know, weirdo at school who probably doesn't even have sex like deciding when my kid is ready for that or whatever it's just weird.
Jake:
[2:00:52] No, I totally agree. Yeah, well, I just think if they statistically know that whenever they introduce something like the D.A.R.E. Program or they introduce sex education and then you see the numbers spike of people doing drugs and having sex at a young age, you would think... So it's almost like they already know these statistics and then they still want to introduce this stuff to kids at such a young age because they want it in their brains.
Tyler:
[2:01:20] I yeah not right I don't have it anymore but somewhere out there is a picture of me like in high school with my dare shirt on like smoking a joint like like it was like an iron iron iron thing like huh like so I dare to do drugs bro like that's all I didn't why do you need to be in school for eight hours a day that's the other thing is like like you could just you could do like all your fucking you know with if you just get rid of all the attendants and the marching through the hallways i had to wear uniforms i don't know about other people but like i had we all had to wear uniforms from kindergarten all the way through and if you just cut out all that bullshit like i feel like you could get it all done in like three or four hours and then just like hey what are you interested in like i want to paint i'm like all right well we're gonna paint for the rest of the day or whatever and like do kid stuff yeah.
Jake:
[2:02:19] I mean yeah and there's so many statistics on even that like how much school that kids can tolerate like and actually learn something from like at some point it's just a daycare almost for a while like just somewhere for kids to be until their parents can get off work like but there's a certain like threshold of how much you can learn eight hours a day five days a week like just hitting school hard you know
Tyler:
[2:02:45] And uh i don't even do that for my job like yeah i don't i don't fucking work for eight hours straight and turn all that shit like i just sit down and like work what i feel like it and get shit done when the ideas occur to me and like you know if there's a meeting there's a meeting but it, Who wants to? I know I hated it the whole time. So it's like, I'm not going to expect my kid to like it.
Jake:
[2:03:08] And your brain isn't like developed at that age either. You know, like you can only take so much. But I don't know. School is, that is a tough one. That is a really tough one. I don't know. I don't know.
Tyler:
[2:03:23] Are y'all going to do like church and stuff or? You said you're already doing the VeggieTales. So get that in early on then.
Jake:
[2:03:31] Brooke plays a lot of christian stuff and like you know i see i've seen it as it's probably gonna be like a classic thing where like dad's the cool one he's like church and brooke's gonna be like we gotta go to church i don't know like i i like i said i grew up in church and like you know i i like that like i feel like i learned a lot about religion in general from being in church which are stories that you can take with you for whatever you'd want to use these stories for Or whether you want to use the stories from having a vast knowledge of the Bible so that you can decide, okay, I've learned all this. I think I don't want to follow this or something like that. Or instead of it being just people who are like, I'm Christian, and then they don't know anything. They don't ever read the Bible. They don't do any of these things. And they'll just claim it. And it's like this just emotional thing for them where they go to church and cry and, you know, get into the worship of it or whatever. But it's like, but it's not based on anything really, you know, it's just, it's just emotions where like, you know, I would like for him to know a lot of stuff about the Bible for sure. And like, I think it's always religion is something, you know, that people just,
Jake:
[2:04:49] Built their like foundation on for so long you know i think it's and it's technically like whatever spirituality is is like everything you know what i mean like whatever the world is i think that like you should search in your heart for whatever you know what all this is like what are we here for what what is your purpose you know um and i think that uh religion in the vegas dance like can help you kind of reach that understanding if there's something greater than just me you know um so i don't know i i will probably get in church you know i uh but i'm not crazy on like just christianity in general i i'm more spiritual now than i ever have been well than i have been in a long long time you know like i spent a lot of time on my patrol just
Jake:
[2:05:46] Walking uh and like praying about my family and stuff but it's and i really feel like i have a connection with like spirituality like or god or i don't know what to call it because i just don't know i don't i don't know for a fact like you know but like i feel a connection to it i feel like it speaks to me and uh i mean that's just i don't know i could be skits but uh i don't really care like to me it comforts me and to me I I get wisdom back from it whenever I ask for wisdom you know whether it's just coincidence that something that I prayed for happens and then I get shown something because it's just on my mind or something like that but I truly feel like it's helpful to me you know and so I want Benny to be able to have something like that you know yeah um I
Tyler:
[2:06:44] Think I want I think I want our kid to just, like, get exposed to all of it. Like, I feel, like, on one hand, it was cool. Like, I went.
Jake:
[2:06:54] To church with
Tyler:
[2:06:55] My dad's side of the family, but my mom was not really into, like, going to church and stuff. She was, like, there was never any, like, outright atheism or anything, but it was just, like, you know, she didn't, like, organize religion, and I get that. But I definitely want the kid to, like, just know all of the things that are out there like all of the like i'll probably spend just as much time being like okay you know this was jesus and this was buddha and this this is the you know the eddas and this is the greek mythology and like you should just know all the stories because they're stories and like get everything you can from it and find your own way to understand that you know and i'll be i mean i'm obsessed with that stuff anyway so it's like if you want to know something all you.
Jake:
[2:07:38] Gotta do is ask
Tyler:
[2:07:38] Me. Or I'll have a big stack of books and be like, start reading kid. Catch up. But yeah. I don't like the idea. They're just... Was always frustrating for me growing up that like there was only one option you know like yeah this is this is it this is all of it and then i got i got older and i learned more about it and i'm like even even if you're just a christian there's so much more to christianity than just like what you get at sunday school um so yeah i want them to read the chronicles of narnia and like all that stuff too and harry potter why not like get it all in there um see what you make of it and then i'm hoping you know that the kid will be wicked smart i think that's the number one thing i'm afraid of is if like i have a dumb kid like no faith uh faith already gets on to me she's like you're gonna struggle if our kid like learns how to read at an average rate like if our kid is just normal you're gonna think they're dumb and i'm like that's not really how it's gonna be but i would prefer you know if.
Jake:
[2:08:38] I i want
Tyler:
[2:08:39] Us to have some stuff in common read some books kid come on.
Jake:
[2:08:43] Um yeah i um yeah i i think that yeah it's really hard just not once you have a kid like you do not know how they're gonna turn out it's there's so much that you're not in control of as a parent that's like that's gonna be really challenging i feel like as they get older like and there's a lot of things i can control right now and in the household and stuff like that but yeah even even just whatever's going on in their brain like say that they are a little slower for some reason like that's just something you have no control over you know and it's just like sucks man sucks to think about you know you just got to hope for the best you know and like in the end like he's got all 10 fingers 10 toes uh he's a happy baby you know and i'm just like this good for right now you know and uh yeah but i know it's gonna get to some point where i'm like i feel like it's just gonna get harder like the beginning is so hard because they need so much from you you know like and you're just tired as hell but at some point it's gonna get so much more complicated you know like that's what's uh scary man you know
Tyler:
[2:09:50] Yeah i've also begun to like think about the art that i consume differently now like i as soon as i kind of like maybe before that to some extent but like really once i had a kid i'm like i think a lot more about like what the rapper in the songs is saying and like what the you know what's on the what's on the screen and what are like what are the what are the lessons being taught here i remember like when i was really young you know you always hear people say like there's always this argument like kids can you know like watch rated r movies or they shouldn't watch this stuff and like it'll get into their head or they won't and like or like if you listen to music about drugs and pimps and shit you'll grow you know you'll want to be like that and i i'm leaning more and more towards like you know i definitely did all the shit that i saw on tv like as soon as i saw jackass i was right outside like jumping off of shit and like trying to break my legs and stuff and uh i don't know i i i just want my kid to be a good person above all else i wanted him or her to be a good person and like have good morals and like think about things i don't want them to be a fucking follower that just goes with the.
Jake:
[2:11:01] Crowd i'm like yourself for sure like that's what i'm saying like i feel like we have the opportunity for our kids to go far as long as we put the time into it because there's going to be a lot of parents that just don't you know like it's just crazy i feel like uh it's a time to raise good kids i feel like you just have to try a little harder than everyone else and they have the potential to be better yeah maybe everyone's equal you know but like they have a chance to uh you know really thrive in life and they're
Tyler:
[2:11:37] Not i i know people who i think are terrible parents i'm not going to say their names but i'm like you suck you you really you're dropping the ball in too many
Tyler:
[2:11:45] ways for my teacher like and your kid's gonna suck because you suck.
Jake:
[2:11:49] Yep exactly yeah and that's what yeah sobriety is so good about because you have nothing else to think about besides like just the good things you know like there's no you're not running away from any problems you're just in the moment always and like it just makes you think about the right things more often you know yeah i feel like a parent should at least have some sort of sobriety for a while or just in general i mean at this point like i'm just like a diehard sober from drinking and like that's how i just want it to be you know but like i can't even imagine being distracted with alcohol right now maybe not even at the extent but like looking forward to like all right this weekend like i'm just gonna get drunk daddy's gonna get drunk you know i
Tyler:
[2:12:36] Just don't want my kid to see me like that you know like.
Jake:
[2:12:39] Yeah i
Tyler:
[2:12:40] Had this moment when i was pretty tore up and i had promised my niece i would go to her dance recital and she she i'm her favorite.
Jake:
[2:12:52] Person like by
Tyler:
[2:12:53] Far her dad is like jealous but that's okay and like i i'd promised like months ahead of time like i will be at your dance recital you know i'd never got to go to that shit while i was in the military or overseas so it was like really important and i just i wasn't even thinking about what day it was I just got shit hammered the day before and like.
Jake:
[2:13:13] I
Tyler:
[2:13:14] Show up to this thing and I am feeling like what you're saying earlier like my eyeballs are going to pop out like I just feel terrible but I I muscled through it because I was like I was imagining like if this was I mean first of all I care about my niece a lot he came in I love you if you ever listen to this when you're older but.
Jake:
[2:13:31] Yeah
Tyler:
[2:13:32] Was thinking like if if my daughter was like counting on me to be somewhere and then looked out into the crowd and i'm not there because i'm fucked up somewhere like how do i justify that you can't like you're just a piece of shit so don't do that i mean if you're out there and you're struggling first of all i i empathize i've been there uh just try to try to do better, um but for me the only thing that like worked was just having that mindset change of like i just knew i was like i.
Jake:
[2:14:00] Don't want to live like this anymore
Tyler:
[2:14:01] I just can't and i'd gone back and forth i tried to quit so many times and then i would make up some dumb excuse to get back into it and fall right back in the same hole and then yeah i just like i.
Jake:
[2:14:13] Mean how my dad was like you know like i don't want to be like my dad you know that's like once i turn to a parent like that was always my goal is to be a better you know i think that's every parent's goal is to be a better father than theirs but like you know like that's for me is just like being sober you know just because like yeah my dad wasn't present because of all that and then whenever he was he was like fucked up you know like that's not i don't know i just i just want to be there for my son you know more than anything i want to
Tyler:
[2:14:46] Be an example of like what a good man is like that's that's the best way i can do it like i don't i don't even want my kid to be like i want to be a better dad than my dad was i wanted to say like i want to be the kind of dad my dad was like yeah because he was awesome, um you know he spent time with me and like encouraged me to do the things in life that i wanted to do and taught me lots of things and didn't smack me like that um but yeah i mean you're gonna make you're gonna make mistakes and it's that's always like one of those things where it's like oh oh permanent trauma right there well we'll talk about that years from now i'm sure, but i had a my i don't know i don't know what to call her she's like i guess my niece cousin what is a cousin of like what is your cousin's daughter.
Jake:
[2:15:32] Is there a
Tyler:
[2:15:33] Word for that i guess my cousin like she's she's a little girl yeah her name is kennedy she's like three years old now she's so adorable but we were at this birthday party and uh i guess she got somebody took her babied all the way or something like that and she she says the f-word and this you know all the little kids are like uncle tyler she said a bad word i'm like really which one did you say, she was adorable she's really articulate for a three-year-old so i'm like well what did you say and then she didn't like she didn't try to lie or anything she just like explained to me, the circumstances that led up to her saying fuck and i was like not even mad i was like you know what just don't do it at school and i don't care like i think that's great i'm gonna go tell your mom this now.
Jake:
[2:16:24] Dude um yeah a lot of pressure but i feel like yeah being sober just makes it so much easier to not make as many mistakes like you know i don't yeah like you were saying i don't want him to see me like fucking up you know like yeah i just i want to be like his hero in a way you know not even in too cheesy of a way but truly like yeah you know and it makes you look at yourself in the mirror and be like this is someone that i want my son to see like you know like if you you know if i didn't respect myself before like now i'm i am willing to put in the work to respect myself you know and like be respected in general
Tyler:
[2:17:04] I don't want to be one of those old dudes that like tries to give you advice and then just does exactly the opposite of what they said like don't do you know like the do what i say not what you see me doing and all that kind of shit i'm like i don't kids don't learn like that way you know if my kid sees me fucking cracking up in a beer at 12 30 in the afternoon they're gonna do the same thing they're gonna be like oh well my dad did it he's fine i'm not fine.
Jake:
[2:17:27] So true um yeah dude that's crazy dude you got like a month left don't you six weeks roughly and yeah it'll be give or take uh usually the first one they say is a little bit later uh but benny was early you know which yeah they say that's going to be a trend now so if we if you know uh rickett's pregnant again it'll be an early baby too it's kind of scary you know but we're still going for it what do you think like
Tyler:
[2:18:01] The age gap you can aim for.
Jake:
[2:18:03] Uh yeah so basically like right now you know like we're thinking we were thinking a year and a half to two years so we're already in that bubble right there so yeah we're kind of trying but also our lives have been fucking hectic and we've been so tired with benny like benny is a lot of work we're always like at the end of the day we're always like fuck because it's so much work dude like there's i'm just glad that she's getting out today you know and i'm doing this like she's really nice for us uh i mean And yeah, things have slowed down a lot, but it still is like, he cries a lot.
Jake:
[2:18:40] You know, he's a baby and you can't go anywhere with him. You can't take him. This is like whenever, this is like whenever Jake was drunk, you know, you can't take him anywhere.
Jake:
[2:18:51] But seriously, he just cries everywhere you take him. I mean, not terribly, but you have to like get him happy, you know, dance for him, swing him around and stuff. And then like and then he's instantly back to being like all right and yeah dude so yeah us getting some freedom back now that Brooke's out of the military is pretty nice like she's having so much fun I'm sure we saw her in a freaking cowboy hat like she's having fun you know if she got back to where she was like physically she lost all that baby fat and stuff like so quick crazy she literally looks like she didn't even have a kid pretty wild yeah
Tyler:
[2:19:39] It's crazy too because you guys like Brooke is a little bit I'm not going to ask a lady's.
Jake:
[2:19:44] Age she's a little
Tyler:
[2:19:46] Bit older than most girls are when they decide to have kids so it's it's interesting that she bounced back so quick and that's good.
Jake:
[2:19:51] Nowadays a lot of people have them late which is pretty crazy there's actually in like freaking uh like there's a shortage of people like they're saying in uh in i don't know the next like decade or so like there's going to be such a shortage of people because no one can afford to have kids right now you know like until they're older i
Tyler:
[2:20:15] Feel like that's just nonsense like my parents couldn't afford to have kids but they had four of us you know like my mom did anyway and then my dad had five and he couldn't afford any not a single kid and we that's just a excuse people are making you can afford to have a kid that's.
Jake:
[2:20:31] True yeah you'll always find a way to make it work yeah but people aren't having kids though it's crazy like it's actually gonna actually fuck with shit here soon i think people
Tyler:
[2:20:39] Are not having heterosexual sex. I think that's the problem.
Jake:
[2:20:47] I feel like, what
Tyler:
[2:20:49] Is wrong with us? You're not wrong. I'm almost 32. There's just so much of this in our mind. I feel like it's put in our head by our institutionalization or some shit. You can't afford to have a kid or whatever. My parents had lots of kids. Couldn't afford it. It worked out.
Jake:
[2:21:11] It's just like a lot of the wealth right now is just in the older like you know are just a lot of older people are holding a lot of the wealth right now you know we got into this crazy like capitalistic point like the end of capitalism where like it's just taking a crazy turn and every house is monopolized by these companies no one can afford to buy a house everyone's spending all their money on this expensive ass rent you know and like just don't live
Tyler:
[2:21:39] In places where it's so expensive.
Jake:
[2:21:41] Man that's true that's true i feel
Tyler:
[2:21:44] Like if everybody is just like going on strike at a job like if you can't afford to live in fucking.
Jake:
[2:21:49] Vale everyone
Tyler:
[2:21:51] Should just leave.
Jake:
[2:21:52] Vale like
Tyler:
[2:21:53] For sure fuck this place and i get it i really want to ski every day but i mean like if you want to have a family you must make sacrifices.
Jake:
[2:22:01] Which i mean this is what yeah it sucks just because her family lives here. And also, where I'm from is depressing. So it's like, do we want to live next to her family here or do we want to live in Depressingville where everyone smokes meth? It's like the freaking origins of meth where I'm from.
Tyler:
[2:22:20] Dude, come out here. You can get a brand new house for like 200K.
Jake:
[2:22:23] Right next to her.
Tyler:
[2:22:25] They just built a house right behind me. Just move in. It'll be great.
Jake:
[2:22:28] Can you watch my son?
Tyler:
[2:22:30] Yeah, I'll homeschool your kid. I don't give a fuck. I'm going to be doing it with my kid anyway.
Jake:
[2:22:34] Like i don't
Tyler:
[2:22:36] Go anywhere for like i mean other than you know i go to like my meetings and shit you know every uh first saturday of the month or whatever and then like other i don't i like i work from home it's epic it's like it's the best thing ever.
Jake:
[2:22:49] I just i
Tyler:
[2:22:51] Run the whole company from this garage.
Jake:
[2:22:53] Once yeah once i'm uh firefighting or some sort of emt job i should have a lot of time honestly because like i was saying you work all of it up front then you have the rest of the week off so yeah but dude that's pretty fucking tempting brooke brooke would be like fuck no we
Tyler:
[2:23:11] Can jam every.
Jake:
[2:23:12] Day dude i would fucking love to i'm i'm ready to make an album i know i've been saying that for a long time but i feel ready you know i've actually written some songs read some songs i've got the idea of it and everything even just for fun you know you're like
Tyler:
[2:23:28] The best guitar player I know who's not a professional musician. Like, it's kind of ludicrous. There's no way. I have seen you play the guitar many, many times. And, like, I think you are a really, really good guitar player. And then I'm like, why are you not doing that?
Jake:
[2:23:44] Why?
Tyler:
[2:23:46] I think you're technically a better guitar player by far than I am. I might have a little bit more of that hip gyrate and soul or whatever, but yeah, you're good. You should cut a record or something.
Jake:
[2:23:58] Yeah, I've been freaking working hard on it right now. Thanks, man. Seriously.
Tyler:
[2:24:02] I'll be your whole backing man. I'll play everything you don't play.
Jake:
[2:24:06] Hell yeah.
Tyler:
[2:24:06] I'll play the drums. I'll play the bass.
Jake:
[2:24:08] I'll play the keyboards. Yeah, this is a freaking spiritual thing, but my friend that I went to high school with, he lives here well he lives in boulder colorado uh and uh he went to school for uh for uh
Jake:
[2:24:25] Um that music production and he just like lives right up the road and like he records all the time and i'm like dude let's freaking do it he's a kind of hard to get a hold of which is understandable like anytime you're asking someone a favor i i feel like you know it's like you know hit or miss we've hung out a few times uh but like you know and we live kind of we live like three hours away from each other so it's not like we're just like you know neighbors can always like record and stuff but yeah um and fuck i've been so busy myself like i would actually be recording if i wasn't so fucking busy like we just had somebody quit so i've been working every single day 60 plus hours a week right now and it's as soon as brooke got out of the military like i was just like yes i got some time like me and brooke are gonna spend time with each other so now like you know she can take baby and like you know we'll get it all out of our system and actually have some free time and whatnot then i get fucking hit with work so now i can't like record or anything but i've been playing so much at work uh like it's getting to another level honestly like i don't know if you thought it was good i feel like i've actually made a lot of progress which crazy i don't i don't ever see myself as a good guitarist like i feel very limited you know which i don't know i appreciate the compliment honestly
Tyler:
[2:25:46] I mean it's a never-ending thing you know you never you never master any instrument you just get better at it like i got for the longest time i only played by ear and i didn't like i knew scales and shit but i didn't like really practice that stuff i just played the guitar solely and then i think i did that for like 12 years and then my friend was like, know why he was just like dude you really should just like focus on learning specific scales or whatnot and so then I started practicing and it was like I got like 30 percent better in a week I was like oh yeah but I felt like I also like I had all of that foundation and then just added a new tool and then I made more progress but it was I didn't feel like it I shouldn't say like it made me better it just gave me more tools like it was like I can do different things now um exactly, because I like the way that I play like I like the sloppy like Jack White shit I got.
Jake:
[2:26:42] On hell yeah no you're like you're just a solid player like I feel like you that you know a lot of songs and it's always like the perfect fucking song for the situation and it's just badass like it's so fun you're a good jam guitarist where I don't feel like I jam very well like I feel like in a jam setting I never know what to play where like I feel like a lot of my playing has always just been without music like or drums or anything like that so it's just me trying to do as much as i can with the instrument itself to make it interesting yeah where like i feel like you played you know a lot of like band type music and it just sounds good you know you throw some drums on there and it just sounds solid you know
Tyler:
[2:27:22] I was just in a lot of bands that's why i learned a lot of songs but i mean it's also from just learning to play by ear it's like i i can just pick up on shit where i don't go like sit down and like look at the tabs and shit you know whatever but i think it goes a long way just to like like i said like learning your keys and scales it's like if i if i was just like walking to a room like all right guys blues e minor let's go or not e minor but you know whatever like blues in d i don't care and just knowing how to if you can stay in time just noodling around and shit but like writing songs that's a real talent that's a that's a totally different fucking animal.
Jake:
[2:28:01] That's what I'm trying to do now. I've got a few written. And I just need to get all of it on the computer. But yeah, dude. What was I going to say? About jamming. Fucking tired. But yeah, I forgot what I was going to say. Whatever. But yeah, I'm trying to make a sound that's kind of like... I kind of want to make like a shoegaze type album, just like a lot of heavy distortion, you know, synthesizer in there and kind of like, I don't know, like a hypnotic, like psychedelic type thing. But also like kind of hard rock at the same time. Like it's going to have like, you know, fuzz and, you know, just all sorts of stuff.
Tyler:
[2:28:52] I like Sergio Simpson's way of doing it where it's just like every album is completely different.
Jake:
[2:28:57] Just yeah yeah
Tyler:
[2:28:59] You can't pigeonhole this guy yeah um like i want to do like a country album and then i want to turn around and just do like a black metal album and.
Jake:
[2:29:07] Hell yeah yeah 100% yeah i uh and you know that and you know it's all just kind of for fun like i want to make an album that's maybe just like acoustic for benny you know just like a little relic uh just because i think it'd you sweet you know one day you know way in the future he's like my dad made me this you know like whenever he's like my age yeah you never know like my dad's not around if he made me something like that i'm sure i'd listen to it um and i mean it you know since i'm in his life maybe it means something you know there's things like that but uh yeah am trying to think of what i was going to say
Tyler:
[2:29:46] I think i think about like my time distribution a lot especially with the baby coming and like how how do i spend my time and i'm trying i've been trying a lot to get better at it like i've kind of limited myself to only doing podcasts during certain hours on certain days like when it's quiet around that kind of deal and like scheduling work meetings is another big part of that like you know me and my business partner have to like coordinate that kind of stuff but i.
Jake:
[2:30:17] Think the hardest thing for
Tyler:
[2:30:18] Me like knowing that i'm gonna have the baby all the time is i really really love reading like i read a lot and that's gonna get eaten up it's gonna be like i'm gonna have to wake up early in the morning to read before everybody gets up or something but yeah because i like to just sit alone in my big comfy dad chair and like just open a book and read it until i pass out or whatever but yeah.
Jake:
[2:30:41] No yeah there's a lot of things that'll change for sure. Um,
Jake:
[2:30:45] and you're not going to want to wake up early.
Tyler:
[2:30:47] That's for sure.
Jake:
[2:30:48] I mean, you'll, you'll be up probably, but like, you'll be tending to baby. And as soon as they go down, you're like, Oh, two more hours, please. You know, uh, it's painful, but definitely rewarding. Um, yeah, I'm really hoping Benny likes music. Um, I mean, he already seems like he likes music a lot, which is crazy how much stuff I've shown him. I mean he's too young to ever remember this shit but i've shown him a lot of music so you better appreciate it i
Tyler:
[2:31:20] Think it'll impress you how much that stuff sticks you know and we're gonna you know just end up being like i don't know where i heard this before but i heard it before kind of thing.
Jake:
[2:31:29] Yeah we're gonna end up just being lame dads for like rock and roll buddy you know and our kids are just gonna be like shut up dad you're fucking lame Yeah,
Tyler:
[2:31:39] I just want to go listen to my laser techno. I like mommy's music better. Mommy listens to YNW Melly talk about shooting people in the streets. Your music's lame. I'm like, okay, that's cool. Whatever, man. I'm just going to go out in my garage by myself. Losers.
Jake:
[2:31:59] Yeah.
Tyler:
[2:32:00] Nah, it'll be fine.
Jake:
[2:32:01] I do feel like we have the potential to be pretty embarrassing dads, you know? You know i just think about my uh uh my uh uncle uncle greg he's like he's like super into like you know the who and all this stuff and i think he's the one actually bought me the blood zeppelin thing he was like so happy that i was into rock and stuff but he's still got like you know like long hair and like he's still living like he's in the 80s you know
Tyler:
[2:32:31] I kind of want to go like the full khaki pants with the plaid shirt and dad like with pocket on the front kind of shit. Like, just, just, I almost want to do that. Maybe I'll do that like on a certain day of the week. It's like, I'll just confuse them like every day that we come in different kind of thing.
Jake:
[2:32:49] Dude, being a dad, being a dad's pretty awesome. Just the title dad. Like he says, Dada. Now, you know, I'm like, that's me. You know, it's crazy. Like, it's not even cringy. Like you would think like, uh, dad, like, you know, uh, but it's pretty awesome to be a dad, you know, and, uh, where the title, and it means something to somebody, you know, pretty cool it's all right it's a big thing what's up um was there any any
Tyler:
[2:33:19] Like plugs or shout outs or i.
Jake:
[2:33:22] Was hoping to maybe have uh i was hoping to have a song recorded by now but then i got fucked over at work so no plugs just uh you know till next time hopefully i'll have something out actually i mean you just you just hyped me up pretty hard to make an album so i guess i
Tyler:
[2:33:39] I definitely want to do. If you record something or whatever just send it to me I can even sit on this for like a week or two if you want.
Jake:
[2:33:45] That'd be sick.
Tyler:
[2:33:47] I'll play it on the show.
Jake:
[2:33:49] I'll tell people where to go get it.
Tyler:
[2:33:50] You have to get a Bandcamp and a SoundCloud and a Spotify and all that.
Jake:
[2:33:54] Shit set up. Hell yeah. I would love to. I probably should. Yeah I mean I kind of have I set up my mic for this so it's kind of ready to record. I feel like I need some better stuff but I don't know. We'll get there. Yeah. Sometimes you just got to work with what you got.
Tyler:
[2:34:09] You know that's how i've always done it yeah all right man i'm gonna go to bed it's like yeah dude two o'clock in the morning out here yeah.
Jake:
[2:34:20] Dude no it was fun uh it's good talking to you
Tyler:
[2:34:23] Catching up and uh.
Jake:
[2:34:24] Yeah gotta do it again sometime yeah
Tyler:
[2:34:27] Man let me know when you're ready.
Music:
[2:34:29] Music
Tyler:
[2:34:36] Definitely want to thank jake for coming on the show uh finally he's one of my oldest friends really great guy just someone who took me in and took care of me during some of the darkest times of my life and i hope y'all out there listening have a friend like that um just great to hear him you know doing well in life and everything and yeah let's look forward to him putting out some cool music. That'd be cool.
Jake:
[2:34:58] I hope so.
Tyler:
[2:34:59] I'll definitely feature it on the podcast. Thank you to our Patreon supporters, and to everyone who supports. If you would like to support the show, remember you can head over to inthekeep.com, click on the support tab, and there are various ways for you to do so. But the most important thing you can do is to tell a friend how much you love this show, because you do, right? You listened all the way to the end. Congratulations. And just share. And, you know, leave reviews, comments, likes. Those are more important than you think, I guess. I love you. God love you. Stay in the key.
Music:
[2:35:50] Music
