Fundamentals
X: @Fundamentals21m
nostr: npub12eml5kmtrjmdt0h8shgg32gye5yqsf2jha6a70jrqt82q9d960sspky99g
READ THE BOOK: https://zeuspay.com/btc-for-institutions
Jason
nostr: npub19l2muzvelq07kfx8glfqmpf8jdcj2xp733rhjfc05t2g2mt9krjqrae40w
READ THE FCKING BOOK!!^^
Intro: Strange Design, Phish - Surgarbush Fayston, VT 07/03/1995
Outro: Under a Sea of Stars Part 1, Phish - SPAC Saratoga Springs, NY 07/25/2025
HD Video (song included in) Phish - SPAC Saratoga Springs, NY 07/25/2025 Set 2 -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-UsgKRNT0g
Lake Satoshi 2025 podcast episodes:
Sound Coffee - SC07 Lake Satoshi https://fountain.fm/episode/a03QLcNZEiJdR3TNDE92
Ungovernable Misfits - Pure Michigan Meshtadel PMM 15 https://fountain.fm/episode/DVPMREDfDlqV7ttDRFxz
In this episode, we dive into the bittersweet experience of losing a cherished podcast episode and the determination to recreate the magic. We reflect on the technical mishaps that led to the loss of a special recording, drawing parallels to the infamous 'curveball' moments in life, such as the cancellation of the Curveball festival due to unforeseen circumstances. Despite the setback, we embrace the spirit of resilience and creativity, determined to deliver a great podcast episode.
We also explore the vibrant community and culture surrounding Bitcoin and Phish festivals, particularly focusing on the recent Lake Satoshi event. This gathering of like-minded individuals, reminiscent of early Phish festivals like Sugarbush, highlights the importance of building friendships and communities around shared values and affirmative purposes. We discuss the unique offerings and camaraderie found at these events, drawing comparisons to the Shakedown Street of Phish shows, and emphasize the significance of quality and authenticity in these interactions.
[00:00:55]
Unknown:
Can I make a few banging on this ride
[00:01:08] Unknown:
feeling?
[00:01:17] Unknown:
I like that we're just gonna go. Episode 18. Take two.
[00:01:23] Unknown:
Take two.
[00:01:25] Unknown:
Version two point zero. I regret to inform everybody listening to this podcast that we had a very special episode 18, and it was a motherfucking banger, man. It really was. It really it might have been one of the best podcasts I've ever made. That's saying a lot. And, like, it's gone. God God would not allow it. I know you were about to say something, but can I just paint the picture real quick of what Yeah? Please. And what was lost? You know? Please. I'm sure there's a there's a fish parallel here. But, like, basically, you know, Jason came over my ass.
We smoked a joint We did. On my got on my deck. We used one mic. We made sure we set up. We did a sound check.
[00:02:15] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:02:16] Unknown:
And, it just was a no go. Yeah. What we got was, like, what we got was, like, literally unlistenable.
[00:02:26] Unknown:
Yep. Unlistenable to the to the the most severe extent. If we could have salvaged it, we would have. And, you know, to anyone listening that knows what a noise gate is, you'll know that they're very useful.
[00:02:39] Unknown:
They'll just like, oh, that was it. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. And,
[00:02:43] Unknown:
they're very useful, but not when you're not on top of your microphone, which we were not. And it was the one setting we just
[00:02:50] Unknown:
we just missed it. So I know what some people are thinking. Like, maybe if you smoke weed again, you can listen to it, and it'll make sense. And
[00:02:59] Unknown:
I'm here to tell you it's not the case. That that is something that Jason from college college era would have said.
[00:03:06] Unknown:
It's like what was the movie? Beerfest? Do you ever see beerfest? Oh, 100%. You know, where they can't find the fucking they can't find the beerfest because they realized the one time they went there, they were just piss ass drunk, and they're like, well, what if we have to be drunk to find it? Yeah. It's like mister tally. He's like, well, let me get a little hoppers, then I'll remember. Yeah. So, you know, we were pretty bummed out by not we were just really bummed out. We did everything we could to salvage the and it was so painful. Like, we couldn't even listen to the pieces of it just to glean what we talked about.
[00:03:42] Unknown:
Correct. We had to we had to use AI to transcript it, and send them we went through the text because it was too painful to listen to.
[00:03:50] Unknown:
So here we are. You know what? We're like, we're a bit wounded, but you can't knock us out. That's great. We are determined we are determined to deliver a great podcast,
[00:04:03] Unknown:
and we're gonna do it. And we're gonna do it right now.
[00:04:07] Unknown:
So what did I what did I interrupt when you were saying? Let's also try to think as we're talking. Is there, like, an equivalent? There's, like, a fish equivalent of it's kinda like curveball. This This is our curveball. 18 was curveball. Right? We're about to basically
[00:04:21] Unknown:
deliver, hopefully, maybe the cast of Vox that came out of curveball. Yeah. And just know that so I don't know if you remember this, but when after curve ball was canceled, you know, first curve ball was canceled because Watkins Glen, the the borough, or I think it's called a village. They're called villages up there. Their public water supply was compromised because they had storms and flash flooding and it must have breached their water treatment facility. So they And they had to cancel it as people were setting up camp. Like, it was, like, the first official day. They canceled it midday. And they sold a bunch of merch afterwards because they had already made it. And what they did is they gave, I think, most of the profits or proceeds to the village of Watkins Glen, New York, which has dual meaning to me because I'm a huge, American, you know, North American motorsports, auto racing fan.
And that has that track has a lot of, history including a a five to ten year period in F1 in the seventies. All the classic late sixties stuff was at Watkins Glen. They had the big summer jam from a music side. I think one of the biggest concerts ever held in The United States was there. So I bought a bunch of merch because I was like, yeah. Let's give back to the village of Watkins Glen. When I wear that stuff to concerts, I I stopped wearing it to concerts. Dude, I have a curveball hat. Yeah. I have a hat. I bought a hat, like a trucker hat from curveball. And Yeah. Every time I've worn it to a show, people are like,
[00:05:47] Unknown:
boo boo boo boo, man. Yeah. Like, do this, man. Throwing the fucking lettuce at me.
[00:05:51] Unknown:
That's so funny. It's terrible. I actually I got rid of some of it, but, I still have a little bit of it, but I Oh, no. Dude. Yeah. It's like
[00:06:01] Unknown:
it's, here's a side story side story here.
[00:06:04] Unknown:
Yes.
[00:06:05] Unknown:
My local my local supermarket is, they're really great. You know, they sell raw milk. They've, like, they've been around thirty years. Like, they exist to, like, basically use a loophole and sell raw milk to people. Good for them. For true. That's awesome. Great place. One of the annoying things that they do is, round up for, like, some charity. Like, every time. It's basically some it's, you know, I consider it just useless begging. You know? Mhmm. I'm not a fan. I don't like to practice. Right. And, you know you know, I use fold, if you guys know what Fold is. And, you know, Fold has a round up feature. So, like, when I round when I pay something that isn't a full dollar, it rounds into Bitcoin.
Yep. So, like, the app I, like, set it to, like, 10 x. So, like, it'll just 10 x whatever it is, and it'll buy Whatever the change is. $4 of fucking Bitcoin. Right? Wouldn't it with no fees and stuff like that. Right? Right. It's a really cool feature. But, you know, it's definitely reaffirmed how I it it takes something to say no when, like, they want you to round up. And they're always like, do you wanna round up? And I'm like, no. Thank you. You know? And I always see, like, I always see their demeanor change. Like, nobody says no. Like, I'm literally I'm fairly certain I'm one of the only people in the community that ever says no to the roundups.
Okay? How dare you not submit to virtue signaling? How dare you? Well, okay. Well, here's the font. So speaking of, like, just, like, I think it's important to wear curveball gear to shows. The same reason I think it's important to say no and just deal with people's disdain for you. Mhmm. So the story is this morning, right, I went food shopping with my wife, and I go like, I I you know, we had, like I had to take, like, a bunch of the bags to the car and then come back. I came back to see a a perfectly rounded price. I didn't say anything. You didn't say anything. Good. No. But when I walked out, I said, did you round up? She goes, it was only 2¢. I couldn't do it. I said, this is the exact this is the best workout you could get. When it's 2¢, you really feel the hatred.
[00:08:30] Unknown:
Yes.
[00:08:31] Unknown:
Yeah. You know? Like, you really feel it when it's 2¢. Like, come on, motherfucker. It's just 2 fucking cents. No. Thank you.
[00:08:38] Unknown:
Yeah. I believe generational wealth. Sorry. That's right. That's that's right. 10 x, actually. And, gonna 10 x that 2¢
[00:08:46] Unknown:
and then 10 x it again. That basically just told my wife, like, you really missed out. You know, my kids are, so they love when I do this. Cause they just know, like they know, they know what's going on. I think it's hilarious.
[00:08:59] Unknown:
And if, if you and I are wired similarly, it's it's because it's because you don't like being manipulated. Right. Cause that's why I don't, that's my, that's my rub with it. It's a, it's a, it's a predatory, tag, you know, preying on human compassion, basically weaponizing it against them to, to comply. And I don't like complying with anything. I don't like being told what to do. Fuck no. No.
[00:09:24] Unknown:
And by the way, like, a lot of these charities, like,
[00:09:27] Unknown:
nobody knows what the fuck they are. Exactly. It's like the human fund Right. The human fund from from from Seinfeld.
[00:09:34] Unknown:
I know where my my I know where my sats are going. You know, like, you know, they could be going somewhere better than, like, a KYC custodial service. Okay? However, that's still far better than some charity I know nothing about.
[00:09:47] Unknown:
Yes.
[00:09:48] Unknown:
And, you know, I I I would venture to guess that the majority of people you would meet at a fish show, have two things in common. K? Number one, they would spit on you for not rounding up to a cherry, and they would throw lettuce at you for wearing curveball gear. Yeah. Yeah. So I like, you know, spit covered lettuce. I mean, it's not bad. Let's go for it. Let's do it. Yes. It's just Real You know? That's that's a good that's solid lettuce that nobody has to eat. It's I feel like Ron Swanson. Like, you know, Ron Swanson when he goes to the farmer's market, and they ask him if he wants a vegan, like, bacon. And he's like, yes, please. And he just tosses it in the garbage.
He's like, one more, please. And he gives to toss it in the garbage. And, like, I don't understand. And he's just like, I'm just making sure nobody ever has to eat. Nobody yeah. Nobody participates in this. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe this like, you know, the the crossover into Bitcoin, right, for fish that is, are definitely people who I mean, you know, you don't embrace curveball. Right? But you definitely don't deny that this thing existed because it was too painful. Right? Yep. You don't, like, avoid the pain of it. You embrace it because you know what? If we didn't have curveball, we don't get Caswell Voxed.
So, you know, I think you have to I'm not glad curveball happened, but, you know, I have no problem wearing my hat. I like it. You right? Yeah. I'm not gonna like, I don't I'm gonna not wear my hat because a bunch of people are butthurt, are so upset about missing curveball that they, you know, like, they haven't gotten over it yet. Yeah. And and to quote American HODL recently,
[00:11:44] Unknown:
the pain is what's real in this life. Don't avoid the pain that's and the Buddhist always say this, that that's where the juice is
[00:11:54] Unknown:
like lean into that juices and the pain. That's right. Now that's to live. And then the other thing I think Bitcoiners would rally around is basically keeping your money and just stacking Bitcoin with it instead of giving it to unknown. Like, you know, you wanna support charities, do it. Right? Yeah. Do I do that? Give me some systematic drain out of out of my own my own savings. Exactly. Right? That would otherwise go into my that, you know, that would otherwise really go into go into Bitcoin. Like, I think of the roundup. Like, I don't think the roundup feature is that important to an individual. But when I think about it in aggregate from a high level, it's literally just sucking pennies out of the system and putting it into Bitcoin and on Yep. Like, at scale
[00:12:39] Unknown:
Yep. Which is kind of cool thing. Right? It is kinda cool. It's automated speculative attack on, on the dollar or whatever or five zero three c's or whatever you wanna Yeah.
[00:12:51] Unknown:
And so, like, yeah, I I I you know, this this is part of the cultural shift that, you know, I think we are spearheading here. Yeah. And so in the last episode, we talked a little bit about, in the last episode, we talked about my experience at Lake Satoshi.
[00:13:13] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:13:13] Unknown:
And maybe it's been done maybe it's been done, and we don't need to really delve into it. But I know. I don't I think it I I think it would be great for us to,
[00:13:25] Unknown:
continue the spirit of our previous rep in the sense that and what I was saying as we pressed record here was I've had the benefit. I'm trying to make lemonade out of this situation.
[00:13:38] Unknown:
That's right. That's the first thing you mentioned when I hit record. And by the way, lakes to toast, she had some killer killer lemonade. I heard, so I thought there was a Chris Gibbs, some incredible lemonade. There's a good tie in. So I've listened to
[00:13:52] Unknown:
it as, penance for my, when I'm, I'm taking full responsibility for what happened in the last episode. And as penance, I listened to every podcast that exists that talked about Lake Satoshi in full. So that would be,
[00:14:11] Unknown:
I'm only aware of two with Sound Coffee podcast that I did with Otis and Jubilee and Carl. Correct. And then John's PMM episode.
[00:14:23] Unknown:
And I wanna say you you did it on rock paper Bitcoin too a little bit. Is that fair? A little bit of reflection. We did a little reflection, but not too much. But you're It was hard. Right? Because
[00:14:35] Unknown:
you kinda have to do it with people who are with you. I mean, it's although, you know, you and I were able to really we we had such a good conversation, and I really wish I, like, I wanted to come on here and just try to recreate the episode, but we're not. Yeah. That was the reason. This is we're not gonna try to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Because that that would be an authentic and, and, and it never comes out the way you had hoped. It's just, you can't, you can't redo as like anyone in the fish knows
[00:15:01] Unknown:
these, these, these improvisation you know, we don't script any of these pot any of these episodes. We just we just jump into them like the band. And you can't recreate it. The the moment's past or or or or it's in the future and you and you can do something. But, I don't even have a loose idea of what we're gonna do here other than some of the try to really kinda rehash, I think, some of the big
[00:15:21] Unknown:
ideas we
[00:15:23] Unknown:
we we we think we got out on the last episode. Exactly. Like, we might have, like, four bullet points that, at least that I have in front of me of, like, themes, let's call them. But yeah. So I tried to make lemonade. I paid my pendants. Yeah. Theme theme theme from the bottom, which you wrote about. Right? You wrote about that song a little bit? A song about the Cantillon effect. Yes. Correct. The Cantillon effect, which is so apropos. But, so I did my penance. And my takeaway actually, it was really the Sound Coffee podcast that really was insightful to me or gave me a little bit of a peek into how much I assume you and I both, have taken for granted just how great, fish festivals are as it relates to connecting at a subculture level and with people from all walks of life.
And you asserted, I think correctly that any idea that people might have of when you go to an event like, like Satoshi, or if you were to go to a fish festival or a fish concert for that matter, that you're gonna bump into strangers. And because you have this commonality, this common interest, shared principles, that you're more likely to become friends with that person or your your your initial barriers of friction that you socially walk around with are let down to a certain degree. And you asserted correctly. I'll let you speak for yourself actually that that's I I started out with, like, oh, it must just be like fish. Right? We go into the Lake Satoshi that you know, everybody's your buddy because they're a Bitcoiner, and they're there.
[00:17:18] Unknown:
Right. Not the case. But it's just a little different. So I think, like, what we teased out was that, you know, there's a there's something that fish fans have that I think Bitcoiners need to learn from in terms of if in terms of building friendships in like, once you've selected for Bitcoin, it's not enough. And the re you know, the reason is, basically, Bitcoin is uniting against a common enemy. Right? So it's like the enemy of my enemy maybe is my starting point for friendship, but it definitely is not what makes a friendship. And, you know, at Lake Satoshi, our friends were all there, but we're all united by something affirmative, which is building, you know, building a mesh economy.
Yep. Building the mesh todell, building a spur building our citadels, building circular economy around Bitcoin. And that's what like, all of us up on the hill were united by not just an affirmative purpose, but, like, really an affirmative purpose that calls us into being, and we need each other. Right. Now why don't we have a text go ahead. I was just gonna say, whereas, just like, you know, you everyone who is into Bitcoin knows it's not enough. Like, you you could sit be sitting there at the Bitcoin conference in Vegas in that vast room. How many people are you gonna really run into and, like, just befriend?
You know? Like, almost, like, within a minute of talking to somebody, you're probably gonna not wanna be friends with them.
[00:18:47] Unknown:
Right. Good point.
[00:18:49] Unknown:
You know, whereas I've actually met friends in Vegas fish shows like that. People I remember, and then I'll run into at other shows and be like, remember we met in Vegas? So yeah. Yeah.
[00:18:57] Unknown:
Yep. And you're
[00:18:59] Unknown:
It's it's just different, and I think Bitcoiners need that affirmative purpose. So, you know, you end up otherwise, it's like like vegans. You know? Like, vegans to me is the quintessential, enemy of my enemy is my friend relationship.
[00:19:16] Unknown:
Not affirmative. Exclude yeah. Exclusionary, bond.
[00:19:20] Unknown:
They hate friends too. They hate every they hate anything that's good in life. Right? But, like because the thing is, it's it's like you become the thing. Like, you know, so, you know, vegan I make fun of vegans because they're obsessed with meat. Right? Have you ever met a vegan who's not fucking obsessed with meat? They know more about meat than we do. Right? Because they just they they that's all they do is, you know, politicos. People I call politicos are like this too. Right? Now define that for your for People who are just obsessed with politics and they build all their friendships around, they're not really building around something affirmative. They're building around a hatred of somebody else. And I figured this out, like, when I was Trump deranged back in 2016 and through 2020, I was I was deranged throughout the entire I couldn't take it. Many were. And I was watching CNN all the time.
And what I realized was that I knew who all of, like, the villains were. Like, all of, like, the, quote, unquote, like, people who you would be, like, call, like, white supremacists and shit like that. Like, I knew who all those people were. But if I, like, talk to a guy who's an actual republican, they didn't know who the fuck these people were. Right. And they would get offended that I would think they would know these people, and it was very, very confusing. Like, I understand this now. It's in total intended tower of, like, Tower Of Babel situation. So, like, you know, I didn't know really who Maxine Waters was. They fucking do. Right. I mean Right. They fucking know who she is. You know? Mhmm. Like, we I really didn't know who she was until these people started so, like, in other words, they all know who their enemies are. They know who their villains are. They're they don't know
[00:21:01] Unknown:
that's it, though. That's all they're uniting around. Yeah. You're not gonna build anything on top of that. There's nothing there to build on top of is what you're kinda pointing to. Is that fair?
[00:21:10] Unknown:
Yeah. And then and then, like, it's the same way vegans are obsessed with meat. But, like, the reality is if you're a vegan and you take it if you really wanna be the most litigious vegan, you have to not eat anything. Because I could make a case why every food is bad and harmful and Yep. Using their logic. Right? So it's more of like it's just one of these things where you build your life around this negative. And the reality is it's inauthentic to live to thrive if you identify in this thing at all. Right? Right. It's almost like if you're obsessed with being a Bitcoiner as a, hey. I hate the state. You know? Mhmm. It's inauthentic to live in this world and spend dollars and all that shit. Right? You have to figure out how to the way to figure out how to do it is to find an affirmative purpose. We did an episode of rock paper Bitcoin all about this. I think it's called affirmative purpose, and I think that's why this is so fluid for me Yeah. Right now. You know? That's great.
It but, like, you really do like, especially if you're building friendships and you're building a citadel. Right? It's gotta be, like it's it's just gotta be affirmative. Like, something that you love. It's be it's on love. It's love. It always was, and it is, and it always will be love.
[00:22:30] Unknown:
That's true. Yeah.
[00:22:32] Unknown:
It is, and there was. I was gonna keep going. But, like, it is it really is. And, like, you know, again, this is the lessons we take from, Trey. And let me just say, Ghost of the Forest, I think, has some of the most high signal lyrics of, anything he's ever done. There's real and and and these aren't, like, lyrics that, like, foreshadow Bitcoin or anything, something shallow like that. This is really I think I've said this on this podcast before. I'm a sucker.
[00:23:02] Unknown:
Yeah. You said this, like, episode two. Episode two, you asserted that your your love of Ghost of the Forest, which which, you know, shocked didn't shock me, but it was that was news to me. So I yeah.
[00:23:13] Unknown:
But, like, you know, it is the first half of Ghost of the Forest was, like, the first nine songs are essentially a it's like a guide to how to build friendships. True, loving, long lasting, loyal friendships. And it's really just an ode from Trey to, you know, to his best friend who passed. Who passed away. Right. And he just does such a like, for a guy who no one ever took seriously writing lyrics, he wrote probably some of the most heartfelt, instructive, you know, like, instructive ideas on how to be a friend.
[00:23:59] Unknown:
Yeah. And I never I I went to the show at the, I think it was at the, what's the To the Met? To go to the Met. Sorry. I just lost it. I knew it was on Broad Street.
[00:24:11] Unknown:
I was there with
[00:24:12] Unknown:
my daughter. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful time. Yeah. It was a great time. But I, you know, I think I pointed out also early early in our in this podcast, early episodes that I'm not a lyric. I don't I have never been a musician to lyrics. And and not just fish, but anything. I I'd, like, listen to a lot of Wu Tang. You're like Stewart Copeland. Just like Stewart Copeland. Right? I don't know what the hell they're saying. I don't care what they have to say a lot of the time. But, it's good to pay attention every once in a while so you're not, like, listening to some, like, hate genre unknowingly that's that has a good beat. Yeah. What the fuck is this?
But,
[00:24:50] Unknown:
Speaking of that, right, I okay. I was telling the story. You remember George Michaels?
[00:24:59] Unknown:
George Michaels. Remember him? The artist? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Of course. Fucking biggest fan of artist. Wham. Yeah.
[00:25:05] Unknown:
George Michael's wham. Right? But so among among his most popular songs was remember the song, I want your sex? Yeah. And it was like the song itself was like him simulating having sex with somebody, and everybody was really into it. And I think it was, like, fifteen years later that everybody really realized that he was gay, and that song was about him to the man. And everyone was like, ugh. I allowed my I was with him. I was with him during that song, and then he kinda pulled the rug. Right? Yeah. Well, the video was I remember that was
[00:25:42] Unknown:
it was it was great marketing. That album did very, very well with him in the in the tight jeans, the acid wash jeans on the cover.
[00:25:50] Unknown:
The faith. That was the faith. Oh, that was the shaking.
[00:25:54] Unknown:
No, but that was the, I think the, but the album cover, I'm talking about the whole, remember when you used to buy whole albums? Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm joking. But, I remember, I was in because you're a little you're a couple years older than me. Right? Two years older? Something like that. Yeah. Something like that. So I I think I was, like, 12 when that dropped. I want your sex, and I remember it being incredibly controversial and may have been one of the first songs that required, parental advisory labeling on CDs that that was, like, two live crew, which was much a little bit bracier.
Can you imagine, though, how controversial it would have been at the time if they knew how gay it was? Yeah. I mean, if the video wasn't wasn't filled with have allowed it. They just wouldn't have allowed it to be heard at all. It had to be heterosexual. And the video was, I remember was a lot of female imagery. It was definitely a hetero.
[00:26:50] Unknown:
That was the message that I had to go. Do you wanna talk about a super gay Trojan horse?
[00:27:01] Unknown:
Yeah. I don't think that was his,
[00:27:03] Unknown:
well, maybe it worked. Who knows? I don't know. They waited like ten years to let everybody, you know, really. Yeah. Even though even like, they knew he was gay. We knew he was gay right away. For some reason, we just didn't think that song was gay. Oh, nobody thought that was gay. You know what I mean? Like, despite how gay we knew he was, we knew George Michaels was gay, but yet we would think the song was gay at all. A 100%. Same with Liberace. Same with Elton John. Yeah. We're just like, no. I'm buying it. I'm totally buying it. Buying it. It's like, but he's wearing a sequin jacket. It's probably about two other people is you know?
[00:27:40] Unknown:
So
[00:27:42] Unknown:
good. But, So, yeah, it's good to listen to the lyrics every once in a while just to make sure you're,
[00:27:47] Unknown:
just to make sure you're honest with yourself about what's going on in your heart. You know? But I'll tell you, the the beneath a sea of stars, which I had heard a few times, I think, once or twice live, the one at this at SPAC, the one that, you know, we'll link in the show notes, the fish set, set to
[00:28:04] Unknown:
night two. So you wanna talk about a landing spot for a great jam? Yeah. We talked about, on the list, if you if we rank ordered the landing spots for forty minute jams, probably the worst one would be Prince Caspian with the one they chose for, What's Going Through Your Mind. Yeah. I love you know what song I love as a landing spot? And I think I just learned to love this. May it I think the tahu tweezer landed into this. I could be wrong. I'm going out on a limb here. But I love wingsuit as a landing spot Yep. For a big jam. I love, like, these slow they're not like
[00:28:43] Unknown:
you there's they're not low energy. They're just kinda just slow and perfect. Slow slow tempo. Yeah. Like, twenty years later, it was one of those in Mexico that they used after a big jam, and it was perfect.
[00:28:55] Unknown:
But it's that slow tempo thing. Yeah. But I think beneath the sea of stars is the goat, possibly.
[00:29:03] Unknown:
Well, because it's so jammable, and they jam the fuck out of it, a week and a half ago.
[00:29:10] Unknown:
Yeah. SPAC those SPAC shows were absolutely incredible. You know, so beneath the sea of stars, I'm assuming you're talking about it because we've we talked about using it. We talked about using it. So I wanted to use it to, outro Sound Coffee episode. I just thought it was so perfect for that podcast. That podcast was all of us that podcast was basically a recreation of a lot of us that were there, five or six of us, almost hanging out again by, you know, the box. That's what it felt like. And so I felt like that song would have cap just captured our time together so well.
Right? We're all here together, and the weather's fine. And, you know, and we're free of time. That's how it really felt being there for three days and just, you know, being free of time. The weather was perfect. So I didn't you know, I was telling you, it kinda feels it feels like like I'm reaching. I'm just wanna hang on to that moment by using it on this show, but I still we still might.
[00:30:25] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I think it's it's a you know? I brought it up because it's the only song title from Ghost to the Fires that I could pull pull quickly. And it and it did it does it does have relevance as it relates to this tour and and how good that how good the end of that I wanna say the whole summer tour was excellent, but especially
[00:30:48] Unknown:
five years old, and it's already really just absolute banging. You know? It's Mhmm. I the one I'm gonna confess something now that Okay. You know how you have friends and they make they enhance the experience of everything when you have really good friends?
[00:31:08] Unknown:
Absolutely.
[00:31:11] Unknown:
Do you have anybody who you ever see at a fish show who you don't like very much?
[00:31:17] Unknown:
See, this is where being an introvert really pays off. No.
[00:31:22] Unknown:
I don't I don't have any I had a coworker. I just, like, don't know how I just don't understand how he got into fish. You know? Like, I had a coworker who just was, like Poor sounding. Unreprehensible human being. You know? And I always run into him at shows, because God has a sense of humor. You know? He sure does. He just wants to test me. And, I just have this memory of being at the man. It had to be no. It wasn't the man. It was Camden because it was that 2019. Okay. Camden 2019. We're up on the lawn, and I wanna say it was night three. It was the night they played beneath the sea of stars. And, I was on the lawn, and I was near these guys.
And when the song started, right, this guy, his, like, his buddy, his big show buddy, just started flipping out flipping out because he thought it was terrapin. And if you guys know you guys have listened to the episode where we covered the terrapin and we outroed with it. So, like, you can find you can kinda if if you're like if you're like me and you love to, you have a massive confirmation bias with regards to fish, you could see how that could happen. And I it really was satisfying to see the disappointment that he had when he realized that he just embarrassed himself and was wrong about That's embarrassing.
It is. And it's like, dude, like, this song is great in its own right. Like, it's like, Phish isn't trying to play Tariff and Station to please us anymore. Like, they have their they have their songs, and this is one of them. Right? This is a terrapin like song.
[00:33:09] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:33:09] Unknown:
Right? It's in terrapin like in length. It kinda like it may not be as compositionally, like, excellent as terrapin you know you know what I mean? Not as compositionally
[00:33:23] Unknown:
excellent. Yeah. Sure. I mean, yeah, terrapin stations a masterpiece of a song. Yeah.
[00:33:30] Unknown:
Yes. But it is like a, probably the best,
[00:33:38] Unknown:
landing spot for a long jam song. Right? Yeah. And and I love it. Again, you know, I focus on the rhythm section. Mike and Trey have so much room in that song to fuck around and do all kinds of interesting syncopation with each other by themselves.
[00:33:56] Unknown:
And this song sounds like the outdoors.
[00:34:00] Unknown:
Does it not? Does. It the whole album goes to the, you know, goes to the farce, just the title of the band that was temp would you would you call that a temporary band that, like like, they they're they're never gonna do more
[00:34:13] Unknown:
They can't material. They they well, you know, one of the members is no longer with us, unfortunately. But so Ghost of the Forest was, Trey and Fish. Right? So you had those guitar and drums, and then they had you had Tony Marcalas
[00:34:29] Unknown:
playing the I wasn't sure if Tony was part of that or not. Okay. So he was.
[00:34:33] Unknown:
Yeah. So you had Tony on bass, and you had Ray Pachkowski on the keys. And I know the show I went to had Natalie Cressman and Jennifer Hartzwick. I don't know if they were Yeah. Officially considered part of that part of the band, but they were They were they were part of the touring band. They were critical. One of my lasting memories of the show I went to was, like, when when, Trey would, like, really get into a riff, like, really get into one. And I watched Natalie Cressman and Jennifer Hartwick look at each other, like, look how awesome this is. Yeah. Look how awesome it is. Like, who doesn't love Trey getting fucking super into what he's doing? Right? Yep. Yep.
So that was really cool. That was a really cool thing to experience. Right? Anyway, you know, goes to the forest. To to me is they an anchor for, like, fishes you know, I still say it's Fish's, and I think I think the point of having Trey and Fish be the, backbone was the said it was intended to have these songs immediately in Fish's repertoire. Right? Mhmm. I remember. Yeah. But this is their like, it's really Trey's, you know, it's like his his testimonial of friendship. I know we've already covered that, but, like, it really I can't overemphasize it. I would you know, I would highly recommend if you if you're a fish fan and you haven't checked this out for whatever fucking reason, you missed out big time, and you got you gotta, like, you gotta recover this shit.
[00:36:20] Unknown:
You know, like, just this first people, by the I'm one of those people. Based on what you're saying right now, I'm gonna I'm gonna take a deeper dive into that album.
[00:36:28] Unknown:
You definitely should, particularly the first half of it. The second half of it is more of I don't know. It doesn't seem to even fit, actually. The first half is, like, some kinda it's real epic shit. Then the second half is, like, sounds you know? I don't know. It's more do you know those Trey songs that are like they don't sound like anything. You know? They don't sound like anything familiar. It's just Trey kinda, like, wanting to play different styles.
[00:36:55] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. You know? Trying to do a little bit of entropy on his own.
[00:37:00] Unknown:
Yes. So that's what the sec the back half of Ghost of the Forest occurred to me like that. And, you know, it was not as strongly themed. And maybe it was maybe if I think about it, like, he really gets into the just his dealing with loss of this friend. Right? Mhmm. Right. But then he goes on a bit of a journey about his own what's going on in his own head for a while. And then there's the afterlife of him just moving on. And I think if I, like, look from if I zoomed up at this whole album in its entirety, I feel like those are the three acts.
Right? Act one is him saying goodbye. Act two is him dealing with his own shit about it, and act three is just living his life back. Stepping. Yeah. Keep it stepping. Keep it moving forward. Yeah. Well, this was
[00:37:50] Unknown:
the forest episode, but it's No. I just think it's good because I think I mean, I just like like I said, I think that the name of the band was even how to an outdoorsy kind of the whole I remember the you know, we it sounds like we were at the same show. You nailed it with with that that insight that it it it feels like a lot of the songs feel like you're they make you feel like you're outside. There's something, and I don't know what what it is about that.
[00:38:15] Unknown:
That one was I mean, it's called beneath the sea of stars.
[00:38:18] Unknown:
Yeah. I I I but still, I mean, even if you take away the lyrics,
[00:38:24] Unknown:
just the music itself, the composition itself kinda has that. And it's probably because it's very spacious. That's probably what I'm It sounds like birds chirping. The the, like, the landscape of the song is the soundscape of it or whatever. It's, you know Yeah. It's meant to sound like you're outside with the wind blowing and all all of that. And you know what? I guess that's the best way. If I were to tell anybody if there's a way in fifteen minutes outside of listening to Sound Coffee or Ungovernable Misfits, if there's a way to capture what we experienced at Lake Satoshi, go listen to the beneath the sea of stars from, from SPAC. Yeah. Which I'll again, I'll link the YouTube in the show notes. You know, and you'll just get the mood, and they'll you'll get the mood at least. Mhmm.
[00:39:09] Unknown:
But you mentioned up on the hill, Lake Satoshi. Yeah. Up on the hill. You wanna paint that picture a little bit for the audience?
[00:39:17] Unknown:
Okay. So so Lake Satoshi was a lake, and, obviously, it's a man made lake that gets that the, like, drains and refills, and it's beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's such a beautiful site around this entire complex. Right? This entire, like, camping complex. Mhmm. But, like, there is an area where there's a big hill, and we called it Mesh To Hill.
[00:39:45] Unknown:
Which I I learned SolEx named named that. Right? SolEx SolEx and Johnny? SolEx is just yeah. I mean, SolEx is
[00:39:54] Unknown:
he's like the ultimate wise man. You know? It was so great to meet Solx from Europe. You know? We had people travel from Europe, from all over. You know? Yeah. And so here we were up on the mesh to hill. Right? And so the the big symbol up on the hill was the school bus. K? So picture a school bus on top of a hill. Right? Mhmm. And that is a Are we talking like a are we talking like a like a tar card or a real school bus? No. We're talking no. We're talking real full blown school bus. Okay. Okay. That's been sorta outfitted it's been outfitted like an RV. So Otis Bittmeyer of Otis Bittmeyer Coffee.
Yep. So, and and the thing is Otis Otis and I had been talking about Lake Satoshi for about a year. Like, we had you know, he really had this idea of a pop up. I could not picture it because I hadn't been there. I just couldn't picture it. Right? Right. But he was really had this ambitious plan that he would just be serving coffee for, like, the majority of the time there. Right? He had his Chemex. He had his Kaleido waves. He had all his gears, equipment, his grinder. Mhmm. And, you know, he just did it. And he was like the you know, it was like, you go to your grandma's house and she never sits down, and everyone's like, come on. Sit down. Enjoy your company. Everybody's here to see you. Right? He, you know, he was just up serving coffee. It felt like he was serving coffee the whole time, but he was loving it. Like, he That's great. He was so in his element. In his name. This then so this bus where the coffee is being served is where all of us were just hanging out and sitting around and talking, and most of us never really left this spot.
[00:41:42] Unknown:
Amazing.
[00:41:42] Unknown:
Yeah. And it was just yeah. You know, SolEx, Barn, John, Carl. Carl is, neck picture Carl next to the bus behind a grill. Carl is working. Carl probably worked his second hardest. Mhmm. Nexo is just grilling, fucking rabbit that he brought.
[00:42:06] Unknown:
Yeah. Lamb, I heard. Right?
[00:42:08] Unknown:
Lamb. Is that him? Yeah. That was him. Yeah. I mean, it's I think I think he was given a lamb, and then somebody was like, hey. You mind cooking this?
[00:42:17] Unknown:
Yeah. That's great. It
[00:42:21] Unknown:
was incredible. Like, it was truly incredible. Like, it was incredible to have Carl sort of feed us because, you know, I mean, if you guys you guys should listen to the Sound Coffee Rib. Get to know Yeah. Get to know Carl. Carl so okay. Now I'm remembering something we talked about. Carl is triggering it. Okay. And this is great because I, after the lost episode, I would I started talking to Carl about, shakedown street. And so this is something I I want Bitcoiners to learn of. Right? We wanna we talked about shakedown street, and all the great events have shakedown street. Right? We all know what that is.
We do. You know, we came to Lake Satoshi to sell our wares. We came there to sell our stuff. We also came to serve you know, to give, you know, to give our stuff to our friends and hang out. Mhmm. Yeah. But we also came with the purpose of selling our stuff. Like, that was, like, actually really important purpose. And so here's, like, this interesting crossover. You know? In Bitcoin, we're all trying to make it. Like, we're all just trying to make a you know, we're trying to make the best of the system we're stuck in with this money we see as superior.
We know it's superior, and we're just ahead we're ahead of the curve. Yep. And we're building, like, a family of people that we're gonna circulate our stuff around to. We're gonna share we're gonna spend our Bitcoin with. Right? Right. Carl, to me, is, like, the absolute leader of what would be Bitcoin shakedown street.
[00:44:07] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:44:08] Unknown:
And it's funny to me because, he told me that two years ago, somebody accused him of trying to set up some cheap ass shakedown street at Lake Satoshi. And then called him out. Oh, he didn't know what it meant. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. But the reality is, like, you know, fish fans look at Shakedown Street as something super cool, but the reality is I would consider it second rate to what we have to what we have at Bitcoin events.
[00:44:36] Unknown:
Oh, I call it I call it an order of magnitude.
[00:44:41] Unknown:
Yeah. Like, in, you know, at fish shows, it only matters that it exists and that it's good enough. And then, basically, people use it it's like you the people really using it tend to be not, like, the leading members of the community. Okay? Right? They tend to be, they tend to be whoops trying to just make it on tour. Right? Trying to pay for their next at least look. I mean, I don't know how it is in the year 2025. Right? But, like, classically, in the nineties and the February and even the last decade, right, it's basically looks going from show to show trying to make their living.
[00:45:20] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:45:21] Unknown:
Right? This wasn't like the you know? In Bitcoin, everyone is trying to make it. And so, like, the Bitcoin equivalent of a fish festival, I mean, even Trey, even Tom Marshall would be selling would be finding a way to sell his cell phones.
[00:45:38] Unknown:
Yeah. Why do you want trying to make it. Yeah. And and by trying to make it for the audience's sake, and, you know, I've had this insight relatively recently, and you were part of that, whether you know whether you know it or not of post Bitcoin, you know, we're basically living in the future as we as we understand it. But the people that I would consider in the mesh to Dell that are already providing products for Bitcoiners to exchange for Bitcoin are seeing the future. Even they're even looking past the future that we're already living, which is what is going to in a world where the idea of value is shifting.
What do we a wanna spend our time doing and be, how are we gonna provide value in that environment if if this, you know, rent seeking economy goes away in the sense that there are we were brought up in the in these established institutions through education. And, you know, I'm an engineer. You have, you know, a bunch of letters to the right of your name, and accreditations and things like that. In a future where
[00:47:01] Unknown:
all that goes either I was a financial engineer for whatever that's worth. A pretty second rate engineer. But,
[00:47:09] Unknown:
I love you know, I love that we're getting thrown around and attached to to everything. So Yeah.
[00:47:15] Unknown:
But but no. But Only in Fiat can you have financial engineer, by the way.
[00:47:21] Unknown:
Exactly. Exactly. It is funny. But you you spent a lot of time in in school. And you know what I mean? Like, I don't wanna I don't wanna, Correct. Yeah. I I wanna maximize I learned. You actually have, skills and and value that you present, in your in your Fiat job. But that being said, it seems like this crew that which we call the mesh to do is trying to really zoom in on what is gonna be valuable in the future and how they can, as individuals or as groups of individuals, provide value back to the human species long term.
[00:48:06] Unknown:
Yeah. And, you know, in with, like, with Carl, it's in the form of maple syrup, cannabis seeds, lamb. Auggie was there with this cheese that was unreal. You know? It's just it oh, Chris and the lemonade? Unbelievable. Right? And so, like, you know, we're all definitely enjoying each other's stuff for sure. Yep. Otis with his coffee. You know? Yeah. We're all in we're, yeah, we're all there enjoying each other stuff, but the reality is we're really looking for a way to make a sustainable living. And I was I was there selling my book. Hey. Did you guys know I wrote a book? I wrote a book called Bitcoin for Institutions. It doesn't feel like it belongs anywhere, but it's actually, I'm, you know, I'm seeing more and more like a Lake Satoshia. I really saw how valuable it is. Like, what do I do? I'm I fucking yap.
And it's actually people like it. You know? People wanna hear me yap. This is, like, the conversation my kids were having with me on the way home. Like, yeah. You know, people like hearing you yap, but that is what I do. Right? I mean, I think of things and we talk. And Yeah. You know, that's hard to sell, but, like, I buy a book and you wanna get my best, like, thoughts organized over the course of a year right now, you can buy my book. You know? So, like, we all have our place. You know?
[00:49:38] Unknown:
We're we're trying to find it. We're trying to find it. Like, it seems like you guys are are a little bit further on the path, let's just say. I I the reason why I brought that up is because I want people to recognize that crew as kind of role model. If you wanna look into that Yes.
[00:49:53] Unknown:
And like I've always said, John is my podcast role model. Like, I will John and Max I love John. Are absolute, John and Max from Ungovernable Misfits. We'll we'll link that episode. We'll link the both those episodes to the show notes. I don't really know like, you know, I don't know John is so funny. Right? Because John's been listening to me yap about fish for a long time. And, you know, it's just hilarious. It I sometimes I wonder if I do it to annoy him. Right? Right. You know, he's, like, basically John's the kinda guy who doesn't suffer fools lightly. You know? But he's got the gigantic like, the most gigantic heart there is. You know? Humble. It's so true. Yep.
And it's almost like I'm watching him go from, like, dude, not everything's about fucking fish to, like, just sort of tolerating the conversation a little bit. You know? Like, well, maybe
[00:50:49] Unknown:
maybe some stuff.
[00:50:52] Unknown:
Maybe there's something about Yeah. Listen. So John is building you know, John is building a culture. Right? The Mastrodell, I finally I've stopped. It's you know, it was really Sol X who was so great to meet. And by the way, I gotta tell you. So Sol X made me a shirt. I couldn't take it. It was too small. But, he made me the coolest fucking shirt that's ever existed. Greaser ended up taking it. But he's been listening to my math podcast, and that, like, actually, like I was wondering if I should stop doing that just because it's so hard and painful, and I didn't think anybody listened to it. Of all the people, like, this guy, Solix, is just such a like, if he's interested, it's like, oh, you know? He's a heady guy, let's just say. He's a heady guy. Very heady guy. Yeah. Well, here's how heady he is.
He makes he he got me a shirt. Right? That, okay, on the it had a symbol. Okay? So you know the hang 10 symbol? That's like your pinky and your thumb?
[00:51:58] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:51:59] Unknown:
But he also had it with the middle finger up. Okay? So he has a hang the shirt has a hang 10 symbol with guy given the middle finger. Like, it's like a hang 10 and fuck you. Right? And then go fuck yourself. So perfect. But here's the thing. This may be over a lot of people's heads, what I'm about to tell you. Okay? But if you look at your hand when you have this activated and you do a if you look at this in binary, right, in binary, the number you have goes one, and then number two is one zero, and the number three is one one. Right? Mhmm. The number one zero one zero one, which is, like, what it looks like from, you know, when your hand is doing the hang to end with the with the fuck you symbol, is the number 21.
[00:52:48] Unknown:
Oh, brilliant.
[00:52:50] Unknown:
Yeah. And can you believe like, you wanna talk about a heady motherfucker? Yeah. Okay. Right? This guy's on another level.
[00:52:58] Unknown:
Another he's just on another level. Yeah. Some people are on the level. He's on another level. He's on the next level.
[00:53:05] Unknown:
Absolutely.
[00:53:06] Unknown:
That's so good. I love that.
[00:53:09] Unknown:
And, you know, man, it's just memorable. I just love I I love everything about what we're doing and with the people we're with, and they're so special. They're so so sick. How special. I never I I really never felt this way about my fish friends. I always like, the closest I came was you know, when I was in college and we were on IRC, and I was talking to these people almost every day, And we were, you know, we would maybe spend the weekend at each other's houses when Fish was in town. Right? So Fish was in Philly, like, 15 of these people would come to my house and crash. You know? That's awesome. Yeah. And Sam would go for whatever, go up to Boston or whatever it was. Right? And then, you know, you you started that was, like, the closest at the time that I ever came to, like, developing close friendships.
[00:54:00] Unknown:
You know, it was fun. Like network of friends. It's a network. Right? Because you're spread out. Yeah. So you have those advantages.
[00:54:07] Unknown:
But I don't think I ever, like, told myself, oh my god. How fucking lucky am I to you can have these people, to know these people. Like, I Right. You know? So, like, I never got that feeling that I get with somebody like SolEx and John and Carl and Otis and, you know, even, you know, Chris and fucking, you know, Greaser and, Rod and all these guys that were up there. Such a just I know I'm leaving people out. And
[00:54:35] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like, you know, they are high level people. I mean, we just we just mentioned SolEx is on is on another level, but I I mean high level in the sense of because I have a high level of people I named all of the people I named are on another level. Yeah. And it's like so it's just so great.
[00:54:56] Unknown:
So, anyway, I mean, I'm I'm I'm not sure where we're going here other than, like, the I I I really, you know, I forgot to mention this guy Asher who I met. Oh, yeah. So I wanted to shout out this guy, Asher. It's like, here's a guy I met at Lake Satoshi. And, you know, you wanna talk about, like, just making friend yeah. This dude's, like, making friends, like, immediately. You know? Like, after talking to him for an hour, we felt like we knew each other from fucking past life or something. You know? Yeah. You know, he can't he basically came up to my table where I was selling my book just to tell me that his, like, his best friend's an actuary.
And how the fuck does Phish even come up? But it of course, it will between two two people. Right? Mhmm. I gave him one of my Bitcoin fish stickers. I don't part with those easily. Right? Oh, wow. And then he's just yeah. But but, like yeah. So I meet him. We start talking about fish and boom, boom, boom. Next thing you know, he's up on the hill, and we're I'm playing guitar for him for the next couple of hours. So wanted to shout him out. But, like, to me, why fish is important in the Bitcoin community is in the realm of friendships. And maybe that's this is the friendship episode.
Last episode, we called the double friend problem because it was a kind of a fun joke. That's a great play on words. Everybody was We really it took us fifty five minutes to figure out this is the friendship episode.
[00:56:28] Unknown:
Yeah. And I I just wanna because I'm I'm looking a little bit from the outside. Like, I obviously, I know you very well, and I'm I'm I'm ex. I focus on everyone that you that you just talked about, their content that I'm that's that is available is accessible to me with via podcast for the most part. But, anyway, so I feel like I you know, you know somebody from a distance, but you're looking you're from the outside looking in. But you guys that whole crew has been such a role model, like, leading by example. Like, they're these people aren't giving out they're not barking out instructions telling you how to be or what to think or but they're just setting a really good example, everyone in their own way, providing value in the way that they can as an individual with their skills and building building relationships built on trust, built on, you know, just high level quality, quality output. Like, the different the biggest difference between what I would consider, you know, Shakedown Street and what you guys were doing up at Lake Satoshi was is we mentioned order of magnitude. Just higher quality.
[00:57:40] Unknown:
Yes. We didn't get out of this yet. And most Bitcoiners
[00:57:43] Unknown:
know that, time per you know, Bitcoin when you have a a money that isn't being debased over time, isn't being inflated away, you realize that holding on to it, is that might might be more advantageous, like delaying gratification now, that month that same amount of Bitcoin will be worth more in dollars or whatever system the future looks like will be worth more over time as more people join the network. So you don't have to spend your Bitcoin on shitty stuff. On shitty You're just not.
[00:58:15] Unknown:
Like, every month, I send, every month, I send a I send, you know, a payment to Otis for his coffee if it like, I do think about it. I'm like, is this still worth doing? Yeah. If you Bitcoin will challenge the buyer to always think about whether or not it's really worth it because nobody wants to part with nobody wants to part with the Bitcoin. We worked way too hard to get it. Right? But in order to get the best, you gladly spend it, and you gladly, like all of these people I was gonna ask you, have you ever had barn jerky?
[00:58:51] Unknown:
I haven't had it yet. No. I'm gonna bring you some on Wednesday. I would love some. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:58:57] Unknown:
Spicier, the better. But Yeah. So I was gonna I was gonna tell you it's gonna be spicy because the barn gave me some samples, and they were all, like, they were the I've had the spicy. It's, like, super spicy. Yeah. And I'm a spicy guy. Yeah. I'm a spicy kinda guy. I'm not. I'm a very watered down kinda guy. I'm a very watered down kinda guy, but I'll try the spicy. Oh, this will put hair in your chest. So, yeah, I mean, just you gotta like, barn jerky is incredible. It's incredible. And it makes Barn a special guy. He's, you know, just us. You know? Like, he is, you know, he's special for who he is too. But, I mean, really, in our community, you're special. It it's not just because you're a good guy.
You know? Everyone I named and everyone who's up on that hill provide something that's the fucking best.
[00:59:45] Unknown:
Yep. And the fact that they accept Bitcoin could be the deciding factor if they have an equal if may may maybe the regular market has an equal quality product, a Bitcoiner will will lean into the the Bitcoiner selling, equivalents or superior products.
[01:00:03] Unknown:
Well, they wanna get Bitcoin in the hands of people in their community. That's what that's the whole point of the mesh to Dell
[01:00:12] Unknown:
Yep.
[01:00:13] Unknown:
And the mesh economy. Right? And, like, what we're we're kinda figuring out how Michigan and Eastern PA are, like, nodes. You know? They're, like, nodes of this economy, and that's what's been built in a short time so far. Yeah. It's impressive.
[01:00:35] Unknown:
And and I just wanted you to hear that and the rest of the crew to hear that that it that they're, it's not going unnoticed. It's important. And and the leadership and the inspiration that comes of it is, is significant.
[01:00:48] Unknown:
Appreciate that. I mean, I feel like we experienced something similar to Pub Key when we played there. Yes. We yeah. I got a taste correct. Yep. Right? You got a taste of, like, just what it is when people come all come up and show out and wanna be together. To the point of You know, really, their pub pub key was the vendor selling something excellent. Their food food is really good. But you know? So you gotta taste. Like, you gotta taste to that, and You got to meet a lot of people. You gotta you you got to meet a lot of the people. So, you know, just back to the shakedown street thing. Right? Mhmm.
To distinguish, When we go on shakedown at a show, it's more that it visually exists. It's more like that grilled cheese. It doesn't have to be good.
[01:01:40] Unknown:
It just has to be to be good enough.
[01:01:42] Unknown:
It just has to be good enough and exist. And it's almost like you were looking for the aesthetic that it's there.
[01:01:49] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:01:49] Unknown:
And what we're building in Bitcoin is just such a different like, that's the opposite of what we're building. Right? Yeah. Good enough is what you pay dollars for. The best you'll pay Bitcoin for. And it motivates people to wanna bring the best. It motivates like, you gotta talk to Carl about his entire homestead and what he does the thought he puts in. Yeah.
[01:02:15] Unknown:
I I got my I got my first taste through the last couple of weeks. Me me listening to some of his, him talk about he didn't get into the the thick of it, but I got a taste of that. He's a permaculture guy, and he's got a lot of, circular ecology going on at home and a lot of thought and just a lot of thought. A lot of thoughtfulness has gone into everything that that guy does.
[01:02:39] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's like we're you know, that's the we're all aspiring to be the best. Nobody on Shakedown Street is aspiring to be the best. No. No. Right? You know, the band does is that. The band tries to be the best, and that's enough for us. Yeah. That's not enough. That's we don't have a band like that in Bitcoin. We're not building around a band. Right? We all went to this festival with no fucking band. Like, who does that? That's Right. Insane and ridiculous. Right? We there was no band. There was a really fucking cool motherfucker named Mark.
Oh, I can't figure I can't remember his last name. He was there to do entertainment. This is so great, dude. This guy, apparently, I didn't even know this. Like, he's played with Billy Strings and people have had ilk. He comes up there. I see I see this is a guy this guy gets out of a VW bus, and he looks exactly the way you would think a guy stepping out of a VW bus with a guitar strapped to his back would look. Okay? Yeah. He looks and acts like do you remember Wavy Gravy?
[01:03:47] Unknown:
100%. Okay. Like like a a slim version of Wavy Gravy. I was gonna say because Wavy Gravy was was very wavy.
[01:03:56] Unknown:
He gets out of his car. I see him. I'm I'm sitting selling my books in a sea of, like, vendors. Right? And I see him get out of his VW bus with wavy gravy persona. And, like, he pulls a guitar out, and I just, like I'm I'm standing there. I say, hey. Mind if I see your guitar? He's like, yeah, man. No problem. Forever. Right? And I just I put it on. I start playing I start playing, like, an original song, dude. Dude, he starts dancing literally right there. And he's like, right on, dude. What was that? And I was like, oh, it's just original. He's like, that is fucking rad, man. That was awesome. You did Sky's energy is so incredible. Okay? Yeah. And it turned out, I didn't even realize that he was the guy they hired to sort of play to play at the lake at night.
Yeah. And, he also had this flatpicking guitar. And that's when I realized, like, okay. This guy is like a fucking ringer. He's a pro. Right? Yeah. But what what energy? Right? This is like the guy that just treats the bellhop the same way as he treats the CEO. Right? He just got he like, some dude just grabbed his guitar and started playing music, and he's just sitting there, like, dancing. Like, incredible, incredible energy. And this is again, dude, I don't know, dude. The it was magical. Everything everything about this experience was was really, really magical.
And now he's, you know, now he's part of it. This guy's part of us now. He's not gonna be the backing band or anything like that, but he's, like, awesome and legit. Right? He's not gonna, like, draw anybody to, like, Satoshi, but he's just he's part of us. That's it. He's sorta like one of us. And what does he do? Dude, he fucking plays music, and he's excellent. And he's really, really excellent. I might have to link one of his I gotta link a video to show notes. Yeah. That's the first I heard about that. I'm glad I'm glad this popped in your in your memory banks. Well, I heard, John talked about it. John talked about it on his podcast about how, like, he really was at the soundtrack of the campfires at night.
Okay. Now I wasn't there at night because I stayed at a hotel.
[01:05:57] Unknown:
Right.
[01:05:58] Unknown:
You know what? I think when you mentioned that, I thought he was talking about you. I don't know if you called him out by name, but I was and then that makes sense. I forgot to write that down. I mean, there we I had my moments.
[01:06:10] Unknown:
I had my moments playing guitar Yeah. At the, you know, sitting around the bus, school bus.
[01:06:16] Unknown:
Sure.
[01:06:17] Unknown:
I think I had a special moment where I was playing, my favorite bugle theme song. And I was I was trying to sing it, but it is really hard, dude. It's like three octaves and a billion songs. Girls on spaces? Girls on spaces? No. It's called Under the Creme Trail Skies, and it's absolutely my favorite bugle song. I think it needs to be their theme song. It's like it it is like, the Beastie Boys type of attitude of, like, we're just the fucking best thing that's ever existed. That's what the song you know, the song is about how, like, they are just journalistic heroes. Yeah.
Well, the title was courageous.
[01:06:57] Unknown:
The title is a bit of a foil to beneath the sea of stars. I think we have to we have to close the show with that.
[01:07:03] Unknown:
But, Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. I like it. So, yeah, I had my little moments of playing, you know, like, where, you know, Richard got to hear me play. Like, you know, I remember at the time a year ago when I first heard it. I remember saying to Baseload, like, I really wanna learn the song. Like, I want Richard to see how much time I I put into it. I want him to see how much I care. Yeah. You know, how much I love it. Like, it's really like, that's actually important. And, so it was pretty satisfying moment to be able to be up there with my guitar.
I didn't bring the Taylor because I, like, I I don't think I I thought about my car getting stolen somewhere, and I just wouldn't be able to live with myself. Yeah. Yeah. That's such a hard thing to hide in a stealable
[01:07:48] Unknown:
item, like, you know, easily Like, I wouldn't it's irreplaceable.
[01:07:52] Unknown:
Like, the Taylor is irreplaceable. Yeah. So I brought, like, cheap
[01:07:57] Unknown:
orange wood, which plays fine. You know? Yeah. But it's kind of a if you lost it or something happened, it wouldn't be in the world. $150
[01:08:03] Unknown:
guitar.
[01:08:05] Unknown:
Well, it's funny. I I don't know why this popped into my head, but there was a recent picture of Trey with the RZA in a guitar shop setting. Are you aware of this? I am not aware of this. It was it was prior to this summer. It was recent. Let me just put it that way. But you you mentioned, putting the effort in to learn to learn, you know, you know, Richard's song. My buddy, when I was at Clemson, was in Atlanta one weekend and was at a guitar shop, similar to, like, the story you told about the place up by the cube in Harrisburg.
[01:08:37] Unknown:
Yeah. Tone Taylors.
[01:08:39] Unknown:
Shout out. Yeah. Shout out to Tom you said Tom Taylors? Yeah. Tone Taylors. Tone Tone Taylors. Sorry. Yeah. And so he's in his guitar shop, has a guitar and a hollow body. He was buying his first hollow body, I think, in Ibanez or something. But, Andre from Outcast walks into the guitar shop. And my Is your friend in college? This is my friend in college. He he's, like, 21 at the time. Their junior year, senior year. And he's like, oh my god. It's Andre from Outkast. And we loved Outkast down there. Like, I was a I was a huge fan. Like, the first album when the first album came out in the early nineties Everybody was obsessed with fucking Outkast. And and they weren't that popular up here, the first album. AT and T aliens is really what got them on the map, which was a couple years later. But, anyway, he was like, what can I do to impress this guy?
Kinda like this. And the way he tells the story, he played the riff from a song if I played it. I don't know how the title in the in off the top of my head, but he played the riff to a pretty long, like like like four bar riff that's in, one of the songs. I think it was on, ATL. Yeah. And, he immediately Andre immediately recognized what he was doing and came over and talked to him. So it was like one of those things like, you know, the guy's like, oh, he put in the he put in the work here to to learn, you know, like, one of my songs on on his guitar, and he's playing it for me right now. So I gonna give him some love.
[01:10:08] Unknown:
You know yeah. You know what I would play if Trey ever walked into a guitar store? I would play life I would play life boy. Like, that's probably the one that I would it kinda you can't fake it, and it it really proves, you know, like, without having to spend, eight minutes, like, that you learn you enjoy myself. You know? Like Yep. You could prove it in ten seconds that you put a lot of work in. You know? And he would definitely notice.
[01:10:39] Unknown:
Yeah. God never listens. Right? That song. Correct? Yes. What I It's that beginning of
[01:10:45] Unknown:
a. It's like you know, that took me a long time to learn how to play it and I don't know. Because particularly in acoustic guitar.
[01:10:53] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:10:54] Unknown:
That's probably the one I would go to. I mean, I might you know, I wouldn't even try to impress him on the guitar.
[01:11:01] Unknown:
Yeah. But I probably would. You know, that's what guitar players do. You know? Yeah. Yeah. That's apparently, I I learned that when my friend told me the story that that that's a thing. It's like, I gotta figure out how to impress this guy, this famous person with my guitar somehow. So you gotta figure it out. You know, Trey had Hey You in the rotation for quite a while. I remember that. Yeah.
[01:11:22] Unknown:
Right. Great version. Really great version. I loved it. You know, I loved Jennifer Hartzwick's, you know, kinda
[01:11:30] Unknown:
And if you have a horn section, you gotta you gotta use it. You know?
[01:11:34] Unknown:
Yeah. So there's the connect there's there's the connection there. What so the one thing I didn't get to talk about yet, right, that I wanted to.
[01:11:46] Unknown:
I I'm looking at it,
[01:11:48] Unknown:
but I'm It's the I'm guessing it's Sugarbush connection. Yeah. That was the other big thing we talked about in our lost episode. So we're an hour and ten minutes in, and I feel like alright. Let's just fucking let's just do this. Let's do it. Let's do this now, and maybe we'll do it more in other episodes and tease it out more. But, like, I felt the most so, like, it episode 18 was gonna be like, oh, Lake Satoshi reflections, and let's talk about fish festivals. Now we seem to have done that here. Like, we I didn't well, we've we've talked about curveball a lot, but we haven't really dug into any of the other ones.
By the way, it is the twenty one year anniversary right now of, Coventry, which I was at, and you somehow for some stupid reason, you regret missing it. But '21, bro. Yeah. '21. Hang on. We're gonna go fuck yourself. We're we're in gang sign now. Yeah. So we're sitting here on the twenty one year anniversary of really, right now, it's 09:15PM. We are winding down probably the third set second or third set right now. It is bad times. Bad. It is bad motherfucking times twenty one years ago. So, you know, you have the curveball is the ugly. Coventry is the bad.
There were a lot of good festivals, and we fish invented the modern festival, really. You know, you start with Amy's Farm, which which I figured out. For some reason, it never occurred to me, but now I figured out Amy's Farm was August third nineteen ninety one, and that is really that's the date of Lake Satoshi. Lake Satoshi is always every year will be the August. And so we we were there on the thirty five year anniversary of Amy's Farm.
[01:13:41] Unknown:
Mhmm. Pretty good stuff. So when there's a when there's an event in the future that's, not at Lake Satoshi, but somewhere else that's 10,000 people surrounding Bitcoin, you can always point to lakes this past year's Lake Satoshi as the Amy's farm of of Bitcoin.
[01:13:59] Unknown:
Yeah. I think so. I think I I think there's a real deep connection. All these connections are deep. But the the festival that I was at that I felt Lake Satoshi reminded me the most of was Sugarbush nineteen ninety five. Wasn't really a festival. Right? But Sugarbush Right. For anyone who doesn't know, Sugarbush is a mount is like a mountain in Vermont, probably about an hour outside of Burlington. It's a summer ninety five. Sorry? Ski resort. A ski resort, just to clarify. I don't know if it's a ski resort. Oh, okay. I don't I'm I'm not sure if that one is a ski resort. It's not like the ones up in Stowe or, you know, those big ones. This is more of I don't know. I think more of a I really don't know. I would have to know Vermont to know what people do up there at Sugarbush, but definitely had a concert stage.
And so, you know, they played there in '94. It's pretty famous. It was pretty epic. You know, there was a Harpua. It was pretty epic show in '94. Yep. And when they did they closed the tour. They closed their summer ninety five tour with two nights at Sugarbush. So we went two nights at Greatwoods, June 30 and July 1, and then we drove right to Sugarbush for July for the tour closer. You know, Sugarbush has basically the stage is like, the lawn the audience is on a mountain. Right? Mhmm. And the stage is, like, at the bottom. I think I wrote about I wrote about a scene from Sugarbush in my essay because it was where I saw somebody, like, crawl in through the fucking sewer, and Trey watched him crawl in his left.
Right? Just basically getting in for free. And he's like, really? You're gonna crawl crawl through a sewer grate? Good for you, dude. You know? And they just thought it was hilarious. I bet. But but it was that kind of vibe. So you had the mountain where you watch the show, and then you the other side of the mountain was where the camping was, and there was a lot of camping. It was a great time. One of the best times I've ever had.
[01:16:14] Unknown:
There was no lodging there. It was all camp it was it was it was camp or bust. You had to camp. Yeah. Yes. Camp or bust.
[01:16:21] Unknown:
And, yeah, I was 19 years old. I think I had I really think this was one of the greatest times. Maybe at that time, the greatest time I had in my life.
[01:16:31] Unknown:
Right.
[01:16:34] Unknown:
Just so just incredible. And it I don't know. Like, I had a very similar feeling, but the reason why I'd like to talk about it is I like to think about Sugarbush a lot. So it ends on 07/03/1995. You know, it was the last innocent experience anyone on the scene would ever ever remember because we were a month away from Jerry Garcia dying, and nobody nobody knew. Right? Yep. Nobody knew what was just, like, about to happen. Nobody knew the tidal wave that was on our back.
[01:17:14] Unknown:
Mhmm. Right? I mean, there's Which we've talked about. We've talked about that that that baton pass, but in previous episodes. But now you're like, wow. The significance of,
[01:17:25] Unknown:
capturing that moment in time right before that happened. And nobody it was a black swan event. Let's call it. Let's call it one. And you know what? I struggle to recall the show that was, like, the dead last show, and you would think I would have done the work between the the failed episode and now to look that up, but I haven't. I still think they failed. I still think sorry. I think the last dead show was, like, 07/09/1995, I wanna say. You know, now that I'm behind the computer, you're not stoned.
[01:17:55] Unknown:
Yeah. We weren't we weren't huddled over one mic with the, when the noise gate turned up.
[01:18:03] Unknown:
Pretty impressed. I I really feel like I was I'm yeah. 07/09/1995. I shouldn't and first guess, right guess. So, like, okay. The last Dead Show was a week away still Wow. At Soldier Field. Okay? Like, so we're sitting here on this mountain for two days, blissfully unaware. You know? We're just basking in how wonderful
[01:18:30] Unknown:
this really is. Right. You know? The fish and, you know, what that what fish was at that moment. Right?
[01:18:37] Unknown:
Yeah. And if you went to shows in the 9093, '94, '95, that's all you talked about was, like, how great this thing is and how we can't believe how we're able to just see them in these small places. We just can't believe And there's not and there's not people breaking down doors to to join you. Yeah. I mean and even as crazy as things got in '95, I remember the fall tour still being, like, I remember going to Hershey on December 1, which is a legendary show. Absolutely legendary. One of the all time legendary shows. Wasn't it was still pretty man you know, it wasn't like it didn't it didn't get nuts right away.
[01:19:16] Unknown:
Right. I'm sure it wasn't a step function. Yeah. It took some time.
[01:19:19] Unknown:
But a year later, though happening. Yeah. What's that?
[01:19:24] Unknown:
As people realized what was that the gravity, the gravitas of what was of what was happening.
[01:19:29] Unknown:
What what really happened was that the scene the scene just sort of adopted a bunch of people who would no longer prioritize Fish's music. Mhmm. Okay? And that's just the bottom line of what happened. And they went away over time. They went away over time. Immediately. But also at the same time at the same time, a year later, Phish was able to do the Clifford ball, which is, like, their first real festival. And, like, it's worth watching videos from the Clifford ball and watching them look out in that crowd, that massive crowd, they probably got fifty, sixty thousand people to come to the Clifford ball. Okay? And they really that was the first official fish festival.
Right? And they would do it every year. Ninety six, nine you know, '97, Great Went, '98, Lemon Wheel. I think '99 was what? Oswego.
[01:20:21] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:20:22] Unknown:
Shout out Jer in our chat who I think Yeah. Tapped out after Oswego. I tapped out '98. I couldn't Yeah. Like the scene any I don't like the scene anymore. We've talked about this. I was just getting into it. I was like, what do you mean? Scene seems fine. Yeah. Yeah. So we're sitting yeah. So, like, basically, what we we're sitting here in 95 at Sugarbush, not realizing how overwhelmed we're about to get by, you know, by this massive you know, and this is like when you realized why Trey and the band were so careful never to really let the never to open that door to begin with. Right? We've talked about that. We had a whole episode then, you know, episode 14. How they kept the lid on that because they never wanted to open that. They never really wanted to open that door. And even when the door got opened, they got things got really fucked up, and they didn't wanna open it anymore.
[01:21:18] Unknown:
Yeah. Right? Very smart.
[01:21:21] Unknown:
So I was saying so here's a new little thought. I I had that so is there a Bitcoin equivalent to Jerry Garcia dying? You know, is there equivalent to Arsene? And I think maybe the ETF approval
[01:21:31] Unknown:
No. I saw what I was gonna say. Paper Bitcoin.
[01:21:34] Unknown:
A similar well, you know, the ETF approval is bringing in a lot of people that don't care about the things we care about. Correct. Which is why it's even more important to do these things and to build with our friends and to make sure it's like I it's again, like I said, in theme from the bottom. Right? Toss away stuff you don't need in the end. Keep what's important and know who's your friend.
[01:21:58] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:22:14] Unknown:
We're all here together and the weather's fine. Dancing in a dream and we're free of time. The lights are flashing and the waves aren't crashing. Dancing in a dream beneath the sea of stars. We're all here together and the weather's fine. Dancing in a dream and we're free of time. The lights are flashing and the waves are crashing. Dancing in and dreaming beneath the sea of stars. We're all here together and the weather's fine. Dancing in a dream in a fear of time. The lights are flashing and the waves are crashing. Dancing in a dream beneath the sea of stars.
And we're free of time. And we're free of time. And we're free of time. And we're free of time. And we're free of time. And we're free of time. And we're free of time.
Can I make a few banging on this ride
[00:01:08] Unknown:
feeling?
[00:01:17] Unknown:
I like that we're just gonna go. Episode 18. Take two.
[00:01:23] Unknown:
Take two.
[00:01:25] Unknown:
Version two point zero. I regret to inform everybody listening to this podcast that we had a very special episode 18, and it was a motherfucking banger, man. It really was. It really it might have been one of the best podcasts I've ever made. That's saying a lot. And, like, it's gone. God God would not allow it. I know you were about to say something, but can I just paint the picture real quick of what Yeah? Please. And what was lost? You know? Please. I'm sure there's a there's a fish parallel here. But, like, basically, you know, Jason came over my ass.
We smoked a joint We did. On my got on my deck. We used one mic. We made sure we set up. We did a sound check.
[00:02:15] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:02:16] Unknown:
And, it just was a no go. Yeah. What we got was, like, what we got was, like, literally unlistenable.
[00:02:26] Unknown:
Yep. Unlistenable to the to the the most severe extent. If we could have salvaged it, we would have. And, you know, to anyone listening that knows what a noise gate is, you'll know that they're very useful.
[00:02:39] Unknown:
They'll just like, oh, that was it. Yeah. I get it. Yeah. And,
[00:02:43] Unknown:
they're very useful, but not when you're not on top of your microphone, which we were not. And it was the one setting we just
[00:02:50] Unknown:
we just missed it. So I know what some people are thinking. Like, maybe if you smoke weed again, you can listen to it, and it'll make sense. And
[00:02:59] Unknown:
I'm here to tell you it's not the case. That that is something that Jason from college college era would have said.
[00:03:06] Unknown:
It's like what was the movie? Beerfest? Do you ever see beerfest? Oh, 100%. You know, where they can't find the fucking they can't find the beerfest because they realized the one time they went there, they were just piss ass drunk, and they're like, well, what if we have to be drunk to find it? Yeah. It's like mister tally. He's like, well, let me get a little hoppers, then I'll remember. Yeah. So, you know, we were pretty bummed out by not we were just really bummed out. We did everything we could to salvage the and it was so painful. Like, we couldn't even listen to the pieces of it just to glean what we talked about.
[00:03:42] Unknown:
Correct. We had to we had to use AI to transcript it, and send them we went through the text because it was too painful to listen to.
[00:03:50] Unknown:
So here we are. You know what? We're like, we're a bit wounded, but you can't knock us out. That's great. We are determined we are determined to deliver a great podcast,
[00:04:03] Unknown:
and we're gonna do it. And we're gonna do it right now.
[00:04:07] Unknown:
So what did I what did I interrupt when you were saying? Let's also try to think as we're talking. Is there, like, an equivalent? There's, like, a fish equivalent of it's kinda like curveball. This This is our curveball. 18 was curveball. Right? We're about to basically
[00:04:21] Unknown:
deliver, hopefully, maybe the cast of Vox that came out of curveball. Yeah. And just know that so I don't know if you remember this, but when after curve ball was canceled, you know, first curve ball was canceled because Watkins Glen, the the borough, or I think it's called a village. They're called villages up there. Their public water supply was compromised because they had storms and flash flooding and it must have breached their water treatment facility. So they And they had to cancel it as people were setting up camp. Like, it was, like, the first official day. They canceled it midday. And they sold a bunch of merch afterwards because they had already made it. And what they did is they gave, I think, most of the profits or proceeds to the village of Watkins Glen, New York, which has dual meaning to me because I'm a huge, American, you know, North American motorsports, auto racing fan.
And that has that track has a lot of, history including a a five to ten year period in F1 in the seventies. All the classic late sixties stuff was at Watkins Glen. They had the big summer jam from a music side. I think one of the biggest concerts ever held in The United States was there. So I bought a bunch of merch because I was like, yeah. Let's give back to the village of Watkins Glen. When I wear that stuff to concerts, I I stopped wearing it to concerts. Dude, I have a curveball hat. Yeah. I have a hat. I bought a hat, like a trucker hat from curveball. And Yeah. Every time I've worn it to a show, people are like,
[00:05:47] Unknown:
boo boo boo boo, man. Yeah. Like, do this, man. Throwing the fucking lettuce at me.
[00:05:51] Unknown:
That's so funny. It's terrible. I actually I got rid of some of it, but, I still have a little bit of it, but I Oh, no. Dude. Yeah. It's like
[00:06:01] Unknown:
it's, here's a side story side story here.
[00:06:04] Unknown:
Yes.
[00:06:05] Unknown:
My local my local supermarket is, they're really great. You know, they sell raw milk. They've, like, they've been around thirty years. Like, they exist to, like, basically use a loophole and sell raw milk to people. Good for them. For true. That's awesome. Great place. One of the annoying things that they do is, round up for, like, some charity. Like, every time. It's basically some it's, you know, I consider it just useless begging. You know? Mhmm. I'm not a fan. I don't like to practice. Right. And, you know you know, I use fold, if you guys know what Fold is. And, you know, Fold has a round up feature. So, like, when I round when I pay something that isn't a full dollar, it rounds into Bitcoin.
Yep. So, like, the app I, like, set it to, like, 10 x. So, like, it'll just 10 x whatever it is, and it'll buy Whatever the change is. $4 of fucking Bitcoin. Right? Wouldn't it with no fees and stuff like that. Right? Right. It's a really cool feature. But, you know, it's definitely reaffirmed how I it it takes something to say no when, like, they want you to round up. And they're always like, do you wanna round up? And I'm like, no. Thank you. You know? And I always see, like, I always see their demeanor change. Like, nobody says no. Like, I'm literally I'm fairly certain I'm one of the only people in the community that ever says no to the roundups.
Okay? How dare you not submit to virtue signaling? How dare you? Well, okay. Well, here's the font. So speaking of, like, just, like, I think it's important to wear curveball gear to shows. The same reason I think it's important to say no and just deal with people's disdain for you. Mhmm. So the story is this morning, right, I went food shopping with my wife, and I go like, I I you know, we had, like I had to take, like, a bunch of the bags to the car and then come back. I came back to see a a perfectly rounded price. I didn't say anything. You didn't say anything. Good. No. But when I walked out, I said, did you round up? She goes, it was only 2¢. I couldn't do it. I said, this is the exact this is the best workout you could get. When it's 2¢, you really feel the hatred.
[00:08:30] Unknown:
Yes.
[00:08:31] Unknown:
Yeah. You know? Like, you really feel it when it's 2¢. Like, come on, motherfucker. It's just 2 fucking cents. No. Thank you.
[00:08:38] Unknown:
Yeah. I believe generational wealth. Sorry. That's right. That's that's right. 10 x, actually. And, gonna 10 x that 2¢
[00:08:46] Unknown:
and then 10 x it again. That basically just told my wife, like, you really missed out. You know, my kids are, so they love when I do this. Cause they just know, like they know, they know what's going on. I think it's hilarious.
[00:08:59] Unknown:
And if, if you and I are wired similarly, it's it's because it's because you don't like being manipulated. Right. Cause that's why I don't, that's my, that's my rub with it. It's a, it's a, it's a predatory, tag, you know, preying on human compassion, basically weaponizing it against them to, to comply. And I don't like complying with anything. I don't like being told what to do. Fuck no. No.
[00:09:24] Unknown:
And by the way, like, a lot of these charities, like,
[00:09:27] Unknown:
nobody knows what the fuck they are. Exactly. It's like the human fund Right. The human fund from from from Seinfeld.
[00:09:34] Unknown:
I know where my my I know where my sats are going. You know, like, you know, they could be going somewhere better than, like, a KYC custodial service. Okay? However, that's still far better than some charity I know nothing about.
[00:09:47] Unknown:
Yes.
[00:09:48] Unknown:
And, you know, I I I would venture to guess that the majority of people you would meet at a fish show, have two things in common. K? Number one, they would spit on you for not rounding up to a cherry, and they would throw lettuce at you for wearing curveball gear. Yeah. Yeah. So I like, you know, spit covered lettuce. I mean, it's not bad. Let's go for it. Let's do it. Yes. It's just Real You know? That's that's a good that's solid lettuce that nobody has to eat. It's I feel like Ron Swanson. Like, you know, Ron Swanson when he goes to the farmer's market, and they ask him if he wants a vegan, like, bacon. And he's like, yes, please. And he just tosses it in the garbage.
He's like, one more, please. And he gives to toss it in the garbage. And, like, I don't understand. And he's just like, I'm just making sure nobody ever has to eat. Nobody yeah. Nobody participates in this. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe this like, you know, the the crossover into Bitcoin, right, for fish that is, are definitely people who I mean, you know, you don't embrace curveball. Right? But you definitely don't deny that this thing existed because it was too painful. Right? Yep. You don't, like, avoid the pain of it. You embrace it because you know what? If we didn't have curveball, we don't get Caswell Voxed.
So, you know, I think you have to I'm not glad curveball happened, but, you know, I have no problem wearing my hat. I like it. You right? Yeah. I'm not gonna like, I don't I'm gonna not wear my hat because a bunch of people are butthurt, are so upset about missing curveball that they, you know, like, they haven't gotten over it yet. Yeah. And and to quote American HODL recently,
[00:11:44] Unknown:
the pain is what's real in this life. Don't avoid the pain that's and the Buddhist always say this, that that's where the juice is
[00:11:54] Unknown:
like lean into that juices and the pain. That's right. Now that's to live. And then the other thing I think Bitcoiners would rally around is basically keeping your money and just stacking Bitcoin with it instead of giving it to unknown. Like, you know, you wanna support charities, do it. Right? Yeah. Do I do that? Give me some systematic drain out of out of my own my own savings. Exactly. Right? That would otherwise go into my that, you know, that would otherwise really go into go into Bitcoin. Like, I think of the roundup. Like, I don't think the roundup feature is that important to an individual. But when I think about it in aggregate from a high level, it's literally just sucking pennies out of the system and putting it into Bitcoin and on Yep. Like, at scale
[00:12:39] Unknown:
Yep. Which is kind of cool thing. Right? It is kinda cool. It's automated speculative attack on, on the dollar or whatever or five zero three c's or whatever you wanna Yeah.
[00:12:51] Unknown:
And so, like, yeah, I I I you know, this this is part of the cultural shift that, you know, I think we are spearheading here. Yeah. And so in the last episode, we talked a little bit about, in the last episode, we talked about my experience at Lake Satoshi.
[00:13:13] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:13:13] Unknown:
And maybe it's been done maybe it's been done, and we don't need to really delve into it. But I know. I don't I think it I I think it would be great for us to,
[00:13:25] Unknown:
continue the spirit of our previous rep in the sense that and what I was saying as we pressed record here was I've had the benefit. I'm trying to make lemonade out of this situation.
[00:13:38] Unknown:
That's right. That's the first thing you mentioned when I hit record. And by the way, lakes to toast, she had some killer killer lemonade. I heard, so I thought there was a Chris Gibbs, some incredible lemonade. There's a good tie in. So I've listened to
[00:13:52] Unknown:
it as, penance for my, when I'm, I'm taking full responsibility for what happened in the last episode. And as penance, I listened to every podcast that exists that talked about Lake Satoshi in full. So that would be,
[00:14:11] Unknown:
I'm only aware of two with Sound Coffee podcast that I did with Otis and Jubilee and Carl. Correct. And then John's PMM episode.
[00:14:23] Unknown:
And I wanna say you you did it on rock paper Bitcoin too a little bit. Is that fair? A little bit of reflection. We did a little reflection, but not too much. But you're It was hard. Right? Because
[00:14:35] Unknown:
you kinda have to do it with people who are with you. I mean, it's although, you know, you and I were able to really we we had such a good conversation, and I really wish I, like, I wanted to come on here and just try to recreate the episode, but we're not. Yeah. That was the reason. This is we're not gonna try to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Because that that would be an authentic and, and, and it never comes out the way you had hoped. It's just, you can't, you can't redo as like anyone in the fish knows
[00:15:01] Unknown:
these, these, these improvisation you know, we don't script any of these pot any of these episodes. We just we just jump into them like the band. And you can't recreate it. The the moment's past or or or or it's in the future and you and you can do something. But, I don't even have a loose idea of what we're gonna do here other than some of the try to really kinda rehash, I think, some of the big
[00:15:21] Unknown:
ideas we
[00:15:23] Unknown:
we we we think we got out on the last episode. Exactly. Like, we might have, like, four bullet points that, at least that I have in front of me of, like, themes, let's call them. But yeah. So I tried to make lemonade. I paid my pendants. Yeah. Theme theme theme from the bottom, which you wrote about. Right? You wrote about that song a little bit? A song about the Cantillon effect. Yes. Correct. The Cantillon effect, which is so apropos. But, so I did my penance. And my takeaway actually, it was really the Sound Coffee podcast that really was insightful to me or gave me a little bit of a peek into how much I assume you and I both, have taken for granted just how great, fish festivals are as it relates to connecting at a subculture level and with people from all walks of life.
And you asserted, I think correctly that any idea that people might have of when you go to an event like, like Satoshi, or if you were to go to a fish festival or a fish concert for that matter, that you're gonna bump into strangers. And because you have this commonality, this common interest, shared principles, that you're more likely to become friends with that person or your your your initial barriers of friction that you socially walk around with are let down to a certain degree. And you asserted correctly. I'll let you speak for yourself actually that that's I I started out with, like, oh, it must just be like fish. Right? We go into the Lake Satoshi that you know, everybody's your buddy because they're a Bitcoiner, and they're there.
[00:17:18] Unknown:
Right. Not the case. But it's just a little different. So I think, like, what we teased out was that, you know, there's a there's something that fish fans have that I think Bitcoiners need to learn from in terms of if in terms of building friendships in like, once you've selected for Bitcoin, it's not enough. And the re you know, the reason is, basically, Bitcoin is uniting against a common enemy. Right? So it's like the enemy of my enemy maybe is my starting point for friendship, but it definitely is not what makes a friendship. And, you know, at Lake Satoshi, our friends were all there, but we're all united by something affirmative, which is building, you know, building a mesh economy.
Yep. Building the mesh todell, building a spur building our citadels, building circular economy around Bitcoin. And that's what like, all of us up on the hill were united by not just an affirmative purpose, but, like, really an affirmative purpose that calls us into being, and we need each other. Right. Now why don't we have a text go ahead. I was just gonna say, whereas, just like, you know, you everyone who is into Bitcoin knows it's not enough. Like, you you could sit be sitting there at the Bitcoin conference in Vegas in that vast room. How many people are you gonna really run into and, like, just befriend?
You know? Like, almost, like, within a minute of talking to somebody, you're probably gonna not wanna be friends with them.
[00:18:47] Unknown:
Right. Good point.
[00:18:49] Unknown:
You know, whereas I've actually met friends in Vegas fish shows like that. People I remember, and then I'll run into at other shows and be like, remember we met in Vegas? So yeah. Yeah.
[00:18:57] Unknown:
Yep. And you're
[00:18:59] Unknown:
It's it's just different, and I think Bitcoiners need that affirmative purpose. So, you know, you end up otherwise, it's like like vegans. You know? Like, vegans to me is the quintessential, enemy of my enemy is my friend relationship.
[00:19:16] Unknown:
Not affirmative. Exclude yeah. Exclusionary, bond.
[00:19:20] Unknown:
They hate friends too. They hate every they hate anything that's good in life. Right? But, like because the thing is, it's it's like you become the thing. Like, you know, so, you know, vegan I make fun of vegans because they're obsessed with meat. Right? Have you ever met a vegan who's not fucking obsessed with meat? They know more about meat than we do. Right? Because they just they they that's all they do is, you know, politicos. People I call politicos are like this too. Right? Now define that for your for People who are just obsessed with politics and they build all their friendships around, they're not really building around something affirmative. They're building around a hatred of somebody else. And I figured this out, like, when I was Trump deranged back in 2016 and through 2020, I was I was deranged throughout the entire I couldn't take it. Many were. And I was watching CNN all the time.
And what I realized was that I knew who all of, like, the villains were. Like, all of, like, the, quote, unquote, like, people who you would be, like, call, like, white supremacists and shit like that. Like, I knew who all those people were. But if I, like, talk to a guy who's an actual republican, they didn't know who the fuck these people were. Right. And they would get offended that I would think they would know these people, and it was very, very confusing. Like, I understand this now. It's in total intended tower of, like, Tower Of Babel situation. So, like, you know, I didn't know really who Maxine Waters was. They fucking do. Right. I mean Right. They fucking know who she is. You know? Mhmm. Like, we I really didn't know who she was until these people started so, like, in other words, they all know who their enemies are. They know who their villains are. They're they don't know
[00:21:01] Unknown:
that's it, though. That's all they're uniting around. Yeah. You're not gonna build anything on top of that. There's nothing there to build on top of is what you're kinda pointing to. Is that fair?
[00:21:10] Unknown:
Yeah. And then and then, like, it's the same way vegans are obsessed with meat. But, like, the reality is if you're a vegan and you take it if you really wanna be the most litigious vegan, you have to not eat anything. Because I could make a case why every food is bad and harmful and Yep. Using their logic. Right? So it's more of like it's just one of these things where you build your life around this negative. And the reality is it's inauthentic to live to thrive if you identify in this thing at all. Right? Right. It's almost like if you're obsessed with being a Bitcoiner as a, hey. I hate the state. You know? Mhmm. It's inauthentic to live in this world and spend dollars and all that shit. Right? You have to figure out how to the way to figure out how to do it is to find an affirmative purpose. We did an episode of rock paper Bitcoin all about this. I think it's called affirmative purpose, and I think that's why this is so fluid for me Yeah. Right now. You know? That's great.
It but, like, you really do like, especially if you're building friendships and you're building a citadel. Right? It's gotta be, like it's it's just gotta be affirmative. Like, something that you love. It's be it's on love. It's love. It always was, and it is, and it always will be love.
[00:22:30] Unknown:
That's true. Yeah.
[00:22:32] Unknown:
It is, and there was. I was gonna keep going. But, like, it is it really is. And, like, you know, again, this is the lessons we take from, Trey. And let me just say, Ghost of the Forest, I think, has some of the most high signal lyrics of, anything he's ever done. There's real and and and these aren't, like, lyrics that, like, foreshadow Bitcoin or anything, something shallow like that. This is really I think I've said this on this podcast before. I'm a sucker.
[00:23:02] Unknown:
Yeah. You said this, like, episode two. Episode two, you asserted that your your love of Ghost of the Forest, which which, you know, shocked didn't shock me, but it was that was news to me. So I yeah.
[00:23:13] Unknown:
But, like, you know, it is the first half of Ghost of the Forest was, like, the first nine songs are essentially a it's like a guide to how to build friendships. True, loving, long lasting, loyal friendships. And it's really just an ode from Trey to, you know, to his best friend who passed. Who passed away. Right. And he just does such a like, for a guy who no one ever took seriously writing lyrics, he wrote probably some of the most heartfelt, instructive, you know, like, instructive ideas on how to be a friend.
[00:23:59] Unknown:
Yeah. And I never I I went to the show at the, I think it was at the, what's the To the Met? To go to the Met. Sorry. I just lost it. I knew it was on Broad Street.
[00:24:11] Unknown:
I was there with
[00:24:12] Unknown:
my daughter. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful time. Yeah. It was a great time. But I, you know, I think I pointed out also early early in our in this podcast, early episodes that I'm not a lyric. I don't I have never been a musician to lyrics. And and not just fish, but anything. I I'd, like, listen to a lot of Wu Tang. You're like Stewart Copeland. Just like Stewart Copeland. Right? I don't know what the hell they're saying. I don't care what they have to say a lot of the time. But, it's good to pay attention every once in a while so you're not, like, listening to some, like, hate genre unknowingly that's that has a good beat. Yeah. What the fuck is this?
But,
[00:24:50] Unknown:
Speaking of that, right, I okay. I was telling the story. You remember George Michaels?
[00:24:59] Unknown:
George Michaels. Remember him? The artist? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Of course. Fucking biggest fan of artist. Wham. Yeah.
[00:25:05] Unknown:
George Michael's wham. Right? But so among among his most popular songs was remember the song, I want your sex? Yeah. And it was like the song itself was like him simulating having sex with somebody, and everybody was really into it. And I think it was, like, fifteen years later that everybody really realized that he was gay, and that song was about him to the man. And everyone was like, ugh. I allowed my I was with him. I was with him during that song, and then he kinda pulled the rug. Right? Yeah. Well, the video was I remember that was
[00:25:42] Unknown:
it was it was great marketing. That album did very, very well with him in the in the tight jeans, the acid wash jeans on the cover.
[00:25:50] Unknown:
The faith. That was the faith. Oh, that was the shaking.
[00:25:54] Unknown:
No, but that was the, I think the, but the album cover, I'm talking about the whole, remember when you used to buy whole albums? Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm joking. But, I remember, I was in because you're a little you're a couple years older than me. Right? Two years older? Something like that. Yeah. Something like that. So I I think I was, like, 12 when that dropped. I want your sex, and I remember it being incredibly controversial and may have been one of the first songs that required, parental advisory labeling on CDs that that was, like, two live crew, which was much a little bit bracier.
Can you imagine, though, how controversial it would have been at the time if they knew how gay it was? Yeah. I mean, if the video wasn't wasn't filled with have allowed it. They just wouldn't have allowed it to be heard at all. It had to be heterosexual. And the video was, I remember was a lot of female imagery. It was definitely a hetero.
[00:26:50] Unknown:
That was the message that I had to go. Do you wanna talk about a super gay Trojan horse?
[00:27:01] Unknown:
Yeah. I don't think that was his,
[00:27:03] Unknown:
well, maybe it worked. Who knows? I don't know. They waited like ten years to let everybody, you know, really. Yeah. Even though even like, they knew he was gay. We knew he was gay right away. For some reason, we just didn't think that song was gay. Oh, nobody thought that was gay. You know what I mean? Like, despite how gay we knew he was, we knew George Michaels was gay, but yet we would think the song was gay at all. A 100%. Same with Liberace. Same with Elton John. Yeah. We're just like, no. I'm buying it. I'm totally buying it. Buying it. It's like, but he's wearing a sequin jacket. It's probably about two other people is you know?
[00:27:40] Unknown:
So
[00:27:42] Unknown:
good. But, So, yeah, it's good to listen to the lyrics every once in a while just to make sure you're,
[00:27:47] Unknown:
just to make sure you're honest with yourself about what's going on in your heart. You know? But I'll tell you, the the beneath a sea of stars, which I had heard a few times, I think, once or twice live, the one at this at SPAC, the one that, you know, we'll link in the show notes, the fish set, set to
[00:28:04] Unknown:
night two. So you wanna talk about a landing spot for a great jam? Yeah. We talked about, on the list, if you if we rank ordered the landing spots for forty minute jams, probably the worst one would be Prince Caspian with the one they chose for, What's Going Through Your Mind. Yeah. I love you know what song I love as a landing spot? And I think I just learned to love this. May it I think the tahu tweezer landed into this. I could be wrong. I'm going out on a limb here. But I love wingsuit as a landing spot Yep. For a big jam. I love, like, these slow they're not like
[00:28:43] Unknown:
you there's they're not low energy. They're just kinda just slow and perfect. Slow slow tempo. Yeah. Like, twenty years later, it was one of those in Mexico that they used after a big jam, and it was perfect.
[00:28:55] Unknown:
But it's that slow tempo thing. Yeah. But I think beneath the sea of stars is the goat, possibly.
[00:29:03] Unknown:
Well, because it's so jammable, and they jam the fuck out of it, a week and a half ago.
[00:29:10] Unknown:
Yeah. SPAC those SPAC shows were absolutely incredible. You know, so beneath the sea of stars, I'm assuming you're talking about it because we've we talked about using it. We talked about using it. So I wanted to use it to, outro Sound Coffee episode. I just thought it was so perfect for that podcast. That podcast was all of us that podcast was basically a recreation of a lot of us that were there, five or six of us, almost hanging out again by, you know, the box. That's what it felt like. And so I felt like that song would have cap just captured our time together so well.
Right? We're all here together, and the weather's fine. And, you know, and we're free of time. That's how it really felt being there for three days and just, you know, being free of time. The weather was perfect. So I didn't you know, I was telling you, it kinda feels it feels like like I'm reaching. I'm just wanna hang on to that moment by using it on this show, but I still we still might.
[00:30:25] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I think it's it's a you know? I brought it up because it's the only song title from Ghost to the Fires that I could pull pull quickly. And it and it did it does it does have relevance as it relates to this tour and and how good that how good the end of that I wanna say the whole summer tour was excellent, but especially
[00:30:48] Unknown:
five years old, and it's already really just absolute banging. You know? It's Mhmm. I the one I'm gonna confess something now that Okay. You know how you have friends and they make they enhance the experience of everything when you have really good friends?
[00:31:08] Unknown:
Absolutely.
[00:31:11] Unknown:
Do you have anybody who you ever see at a fish show who you don't like very much?
[00:31:17] Unknown:
See, this is where being an introvert really pays off. No.
[00:31:22] Unknown:
I don't I don't have any I had a coworker. I just, like, don't know how I just don't understand how he got into fish. You know? Like, I had a coworker who just was, like Poor sounding. Unreprehensible human being. You know? And I always run into him at shows, because God has a sense of humor. You know? He sure does. He just wants to test me. And, I just have this memory of being at the man. It had to be no. It wasn't the man. It was Camden because it was that 2019. Okay. Camden 2019. We're up on the lawn, and I wanna say it was night three. It was the night they played beneath the sea of stars. And, I was on the lawn, and I was near these guys.
And when the song started, right, this guy, his, like, his buddy, his big show buddy, just started flipping out flipping out because he thought it was terrapin. And if you guys know you guys have listened to the episode where we covered the terrapin and we outroed with it. So, like, you can find you can kinda if if you're like if you're like me and you love to, you have a massive confirmation bias with regards to fish, you could see how that could happen. And I it really was satisfying to see the disappointment that he had when he realized that he just embarrassed himself and was wrong about That's embarrassing.
It is. And it's like, dude, like, this song is great in its own right. Like, it's like, Phish isn't trying to play Tariff and Station to please us anymore. Like, they have their they have their songs, and this is one of them. Right? This is a terrapin like song.
[00:33:09] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:33:09] Unknown:
Right? It's in terrapin like in length. It kinda like it may not be as compositionally, like, excellent as terrapin you know you know what I mean? Not as compositionally
[00:33:23] Unknown:
excellent. Yeah. Sure. I mean, yeah, terrapin stations a masterpiece of a song. Yeah.
[00:33:30] Unknown:
Yes. But it is like a, probably the best,
[00:33:38] Unknown:
landing spot for a long jam song. Right? Yeah. And and I love it. Again, you know, I focus on the rhythm section. Mike and Trey have so much room in that song to fuck around and do all kinds of interesting syncopation with each other by themselves.
[00:33:56] Unknown:
And this song sounds like the outdoors.
[00:34:00] Unknown:
Does it not? Does. It the whole album goes to the, you know, goes to the farce, just the title of the band that was temp would you would you call that a temporary band that, like like, they they're they're never gonna do more
[00:34:13] Unknown:
They can't material. They they well, you know, one of the members is no longer with us, unfortunately. But so Ghost of the Forest was, Trey and Fish. Right? So you had those guitar and drums, and then they had you had Tony Marcalas
[00:34:29] Unknown:
playing the I wasn't sure if Tony was part of that or not. Okay. So he was.
[00:34:33] Unknown:
Yeah. So you had Tony on bass, and you had Ray Pachkowski on the keys. And I know the show I went to had Natalie Cressman and Jennifer Hartzwick. I don't know if they were Yeah. Officially considered part of that part of the band, but they were They were they were part of the touring band. They were critical. One of my lasting memories of the show I went to was, like, when when, Trey would, like, really get into a riff, like, really get into one. And I watched Natalie Cressman and Jennifer Hartwick look at each other, like, look how awesome this is. Yeah. Look how awesome it is. Like, who doesn't love Trey getting fucking super into what he's doing? Right? Yep. Yep.
So that was really cool. That was a really cool thing to experience. Right? Anyway, you know, goes to the forest. To to me is they an anchor for, like, fishes you know, I still say it's Fish's, and I think I think the point of having Trey and Fish be the, backbone was the said it was intended to have these songs immediately in Fish's repertoire. Right? Mhmm. I remember. Yeah. But this is their like, it's really Trey's, you know, it's like his his testimonial of friendship. I know we've already covered that, but, like, it really I can't overemphasize it. I would you know, I would highly recommend if you if you're a fish fan and you haven't checked this out for whatever fucking reason, you missed out big time, and you got you gotta, like, you gotta recover this shit.
[00:36:20] Unknown:
You know, like, just this first people, by the I'm one of those people. Based on what you're saying right now, I'm gonna I'm gonna take a deeper dive into that album.
[00:36:28] Unknown:
You definitely should, particularly the first half of it. The second half of it is more of I don't know. It doesn't seem to even fit, actually. The first half is, like, some kinda it's real epic shit. Then the second half is, like, sounds you know? I don't know. It's more do you know those Trey songs that are like they don't sound like anything. You know? They don't sound like anything familiar. It's just Trey kinda, like, wanting to play different styles.
[00:36:55] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean. You know? Trying to do a little bit of entropy on his own.
[00:37:00] Unknown:
Yes. So that's what the sec the back half of Ghost of the Forest occurred to me like that. And, you know, it was not as strongly themed. And maybe it was maybe if I think about it, like, he really gets into the just his dealing with loss of this friend. Right? Mhmm. Right. But then he goes on a bit of a journey about his own what's going on in his own head for a while. And then there's the afterlife of him just moving on. And I think if I, like, look from if I zoomed up at this whole album in its entirety, I feel like those are the three acts.
Right? Act one is him saying goodbye. Act two is him dealing with his own shit about it, and act three is just living his life back. Stepping. Yeah. Keep it stepping. Keep it moving forward. Yeah. Well, this was
[00:37:50] Unknown:
the forest episode, but it's No. I just think it's good because I think I mean, I just like like I said, I think that the name of the band was even how to an outdoorsy kind of the whole I remember the you know, we it sounds like we were at the same show. You nailed it with with that that insight that it it it feels like a lot of the songs feel like you're they make you feel like you're outside. There's something, and I don't know what what it is about that.
[00:38:15] Unknown:
That one was I mean, it's called beneath the sea of stars.
[00:38:18] Unknown:
Yeah. I I I but still, I mean, even if you take away the lyrics,
[00:38:24] Unknown:
just the music itself, the composition itself kinda has that. And it's probably because it's very spacious. That's probably what I'm It sounds like birds chirping. The the, like, the landscape of the song is the soundscape of it or whatever. It's, you know Yeah. It's meant to sound like you're outside with the wind blowing and all all of that. And you know what? I guess that's the best way. If I were to tell anybody if there's a way in fifteen minutes outside of listening to Sound Coffee or Ungovernable Misfits, if there's a way to capture what we experienced at Lake Satoshi, go listen to the beneath the sea of stars from, from SPAC. Yeah. Which I'll again, I'll link the YouTube in the show notes. You know, and you'll just get the mood, and they'll you'll get the mood at least. Mhmm.
[00:39:09] Unknown:
But you mentioned up on the hill, Lake Satoshi. Yeah. Up on the hill. You wanna paint that picture a little bit for the audience?
[00:39:17] Unknown:
Okay. So so Lake Satoshi was a lake, and, obviously, it's a man made lake that gets that the, like, drains and refills, and it's beautiful. It's so beautiful. It's such a beautiful site around this entire complex. Right? This entire, like, camping complex. Mhmm. But, like, there is an area where there's a big hill, and we called it Mesh To Hill.
[00:39:45] Unknown:
Which I I learned SolEx named named that. Right? SolEx SolEx and Johnny? SolEx is just yeah. I mean, SolEx is
[00:39:54] Unknown:
he's like the ultimate wise man. You know? It was so great to meet Solx from Europe. You know? We had people travel from Europe, from all over. You know? Yeah. And so here we were up on the mesh to hill. Right? And so the the big symbol up on the hill was the school bus. K? So picture a school bus on top of a hill. Right? Mhmm. And that is a Are we talking like a are we talking like a like a tar card or a real school bus? No. We're talking no. We're talking real full blown school bus. Okay. Okay. That's been sorta outfitted it's been outfitted like an RV. So Otis Bittmeyer of Otis Bittmeyer Coffee.
Yep. So, and and the thing is Otis Otis and I had been talking about Lake Satoshi for about a year. Like, we had you know, he really had this idea of a pop up. I could not picture it because I hadn't been there. I just couldn't picture it. Right? Right. But he was really had this ambitious plan that he would just be serving coffee for, like, the majority of the time there. Right? He had his Chemex. He had his Kaleido waves. He had all his gears, equipment, his grinder. Mhmm. And, you know, he just did it. And he was like the you know, it was like, you go to your grandma's house and she never sits down, and everyone's like, come on. Sit down. Enjoy your company. Everybody's here to see you. Right? He, you know, he was just up serving coffee. It felt like he was serving coffee the whole time, but he was loving it. Like, he That's great. He was so in his element. In his name. This then so this bus where the coffee is being served is where all of us were just hanging out and sitting around and talking, and most of us never really left this spot.
[00:41:42] Unknown:
Amazing.
[00:41:42] Unknown:
Yeah. And it was just yeah. You know, SolEx, Barn, John, Carl. Carl is, neck picture Carl next to the bus behind a grill. Carl is working. Carl probably worked his second hardest. Mhmm. Nexo is just grilling, fucking rabbit that he brought.
[00:42:06] Unknown:
Yeah. Lamb, I heard. Right?
[00:42:08] Unknown:
Lamb. Is that him? Yeah. That was him. Yeah. I mean, it's I think I think he was given a lamb, and then somebody was like, hey. You mind cooking this?
[00:42:17] Unknown:
Yeah. That's great. It
[00:42:21] Unknown:
was incredible. Like, it was truly incredible. Like, it was incredible to have Carl sort of feed us because, you know, I mean, if you guys you guys should listen to the Sound Coffee Rib. Get to know Yeah. Get to know Carl. Carl so okay. Now I'm remembering something we talked about. Carl is triggering it. Okay. And this is great because I, after the lost episode, I would I started talking to Carl about, shakedown street. And so this is something I I want Bitcoiners to learn of. Right? We wanna we talked about shakedown street, and all the great events have shakedown street. Right? We all know what that is.
We do. You know, we came to Lake Satoshi to sell our wares. We came there to sell our stuff. We also came to serve you know, to give, you know, to give our stuff to our friends and hang out. Mhmm. Yeah. But we also came with the purpose of selling our stuff. Like, that was, like, actually really important purpose. And so here's, like, this interesting crossover. You know? In Bitcoin, we're all trying to make it. Like, we're all just trying to make a you know, we're trying to make the best of the system we're stuck in with this money we see as superior.
We know it's superior, and we're just ahead we're ahead of the curve. Yep. And we're building, like, a family of people that we're gonna circulate our stuff around to. We're gonna share we're gonna spend our Bitcoin with. Right? Right. Carl, to me, is, like, the absolute leader of what would be Bitcoin shakedown street.
[00:44:07] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:44:08] Unknown:
And it's funny to me because, he told me that two years ago, somebody accused him of trying to set up some cheap ass shakedown street at Lake Satoshi. And then called him out. Oh, he didn't know what it meant. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. But the reality is, like, you know, fish fans look at Shakedown Street as something super cool, but the reality is I would consider it second rate to what we have to what we have at Bitcoin events.
[00:44:36] Unknown:
Oh, I call it I call it an order of magnitude.
[00:44:41] Unknown:
Yeah. Like, in, you know, at fish shows, it only matters that it exists and that it's good enough. And then, basically, people use it it's like you the people really using it tend to be not, like, the leading members of the community. Okay? Right? They tend to be, they tend to be whoops trying to just make it on tour. Right? Trying to pay for their next at least look. I mean, I don't know how it is in the year 2025. Right? But, like, classically, in the nineties and the February and even the last decade, right, it's basically looks going from show to show trying to make their living.
[00:45:20] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:45:21] Unknown:
Right? This wasn't like the you know? In Bitcoin, everyone is trying to make it. And so, like, the Bitcoin equivalent of a fish festival, I mean, even Trey, even Tom Marshall would be selling would be finding a way to sell his cell phones.
[00:45:38] Unknown:
Yeah. Why do you want trying to make it. Yeah. And and by trying to make it for the audience's sake, and, you know, I've had this insight relatively recently, and you were part of that, whether you know whether you know it or not of post Bitcoin, you know, we're basically living in the future as we as we understand it. But the people that I would consider in the mesh to Dell that are already providing products for Bitcoiners to exchange for Bitcoin are seeing the future. Even they're even looking past the future that we're already living, which is what is going to in a world where the idea of value is shifting.
What do we a wanna spend our time doing and be, how are we gonna provide value in that environment if if this, you know, rent seeking economy goes away in the sense that there are we were brought up in the in these established institutions through education. And, you know, I'm an engineer. You have, you know, a bunch of letters to the right of your name, and accreditations and things like that. In a future where
[00:47:01] Unknown:
all that goes either I was a financial engineer for whatever that's worth. A pretty second rate engineer. But,
[00:47:09] Unknown:
I love you know, I love that we're getting thrown around and attached to to everything. So Yeah.
[00:47:15] Unknown:
But but no. But Only in Fiat can you have financial engineer, by the way.
[00:47:21] Unknown:
Exactly. Exactly. It is funny. But you you spent a lot of time in in school. And you know what I mean? Like, I don't wanna I don't wanna, Correct. Yeah. I I wanna maximize I learned. You actually have, skills and and value that you present, in your in your Fiat job. But that being said, it seems like this crew that which we call the mesh to do is trying to really zoom in on what is gonna be valuable in the future and how they can, as individuals or as groups of individuals, provide value back to the human species long term.
[00:48:06] Unknown:
Yeah. And, you know, in with, like, with Carl, it's in the form of maple syrup, cannabis seeds, lamb. Auggie was there with this cheese that was unreal. You know? It's just it oh, Chris and the lemonade? Unbelievable. Right? And so, like, you know, we're all definitely enjoying each other's stuff for sure. Yep. Otis with his coffee. You know? Yeah. We're all in we're, yeah, we're all there enjoying each other stuff, but the reality is we're really looking for a way to make a sustainable living. And I was I was there selling my book. Hey. Did you guys know I wrote a book? I wrote a book called Bitcoin for Institutions. It doesn't feel like it belongs anywhere, but it's actually, I'm, you know, I'm seeing more and more like a Lake Satoshia. I really saw how valuable it is. Like, what do I do? I'm I fucking yap.
And it's actually people like it. You know? People wanna hear me yap. This is, like, the conversation my kids were having with me on the way home. Like, yeah. You know, people like hearing you yap, but that is what I do. Right? I mean, I think of things and we talk. And Yeah. You know, that's hard to sell, but, like, I buy a book and you wanna get my best, like, thoughts organized over the course of a year right now, you can buy my book. You know? So, like, we all have our place. You know?
[00:49:38] Unknown:
We're we're trying to find it. We're trying to find it. Like, it seems like you guys are are a little bit further on the path, let's just say. I I the reason why I brought that up is because I want people to recognize that crew as kind of role model. If you wanna look into that Yes.
[00:49:53] Unknown:
And like I've always said, John is my podcast role model. Like, I will John and Max I love John. Are absolute, John and Max from Ungovernable Misfits. We'll we'll link that episode. We'll link the both those episodes to the show notes. I don't really know like, you know, I don't know John is so funny. Right? Because John's been listening to me yap about fish for a long time. And, you know, it's just hilarious. It I sometimes I wonder if I do it to annoy him. Right? Right. You know, he's, like, basically John's the kinda guy who doesn't suffer fools lightly. You know? But he's got the gigantic like, the most gigantic heart there is. You know? Humble. It's so true. Yep.
And it's almost like I'm watching him go from, like, dude, not everything's about fucking fish to, like, just sort of tolerating the conversation a little bit. You know? Like, well, maybe
[00:50:49] Unknown:
maybe some stuff.
[00:50:52] Unknown:
Maybe there's something about Yeah. Listen. So John is building you know, John is building a culture. Right? The Mastrodell, I finally I've stopped. It's you know, it was really Sol X who was so great to meet. And by the way, I gotta tell you. So Sol X made me a shirt. I couldn't take it. It was too small. But, he made me the coolest fucking shirt that's ever existed. Greaser ended up taking it. But he's been listening to my math podcast, and that, like, actually, like I was wondering if I should stop doing that just because it's so hard and painful, and I didn't think anybody listened to it. Of all the people, like, this guy, Solix, is just such a like, if he's interested, it's like, oh, you know? He's a heady guy, let's just say. He's a heady guy. Very heady guy. Yeah. Well, here's how heady he is.
He makes he he got me a shirt. Right? That, okay, on the it had a symbol. Okay? So you know the hang 10 symbol? That's like your pinky and your thumb?
[00:51:58] Unknown:
Yep.
[00:51:59] Unknown:
But he also had it with the middle finger up. Okay? So he has a hang the shirt has a hang 10 symbol with guy given the middle finger. Like, it's like a hang 10 and fuck you. Right? And then go fuck yourself. So perfect. But here's the thing. This may be over a lot of people's heads, what I'm about to tell you. Okay? But if you look at your hand when you have this activated and you do a if you look at this in binary, right, in binary, the number you have goes one, and then number two is one zero, and the number three is one one. Right? Mhmm. The number one zero one zero one, which is, like, what it looks like from, you know, when your hand is doing the hang to end with the with the fuck you symbol, is the number 21.
[00:52:48] Unknown:
Oh, brilliant.
[00:52:50] Unknown:
Yeah. And can you believe like, you wanna talk about a heady motherfucker? Yeah. Okay. Right? This guy's on another level.
[00:52:58] Unknown:
Another he's just on another level. Yeah. Some people are on the level. He's on another level. He's on the next level.
[00:53:05] Unknown:
Absolutely.
[00:53:06] Unknown:
That's so good. I love that.
[00:53:09] Unknown:
And, you know, man, it's just memorable. I just love I I love everything about what we're doing and with the people we're with, and they're so special. They're so so sick. How special. I never I I really never felt this way about my fish friends. I always like, the closest I came was you know, when I was in college and we were on IRC, and I was talking to these people almost every day, And we were, you know, we would maybe spend the weekend at each other's houses when Fish was in town. Right? So Fish was in Philly, like, 15 of these people would come to my house and crash. You know? That's awesome. Yeah. And Sam would go for whatever, go up to Boston or whatever it was. Right? And then, you know, you you started that was, like, the closest at the time that I ever came to, like, developing close friendships.
[00:54:00] Unknown:
You know, it was fun. Like network of friends. It's a network. Right? Because you're spread out. Yeah. So you have those advantages.
[00:54:07] Unknown:
But I don't think I ever, like, told myself, oh my god. How fucking lucky am I to you can have these people, to know these people. Like, I Right. You know? So, like, I never got that feeling that I get with somebody like SolEx and John and Carl and Otis and, you know, even, you know, Chris and fucking, you know, Greaser and, Rod and all these guys that were up there. Such a just I know I'm leaving people out. And
[00:54:35] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, it sounds like, you know, they are high level people. I mean, we just we just mentioned SolEx is on is on another level, but I I mean high level in the sense of because I have a high level of people I named all of the people I named are on another level. Yeah. And it's like so it's just so great.
[00:54:56] Unknown:
So, anyway, I mean, I'm I'm I'm not sure where we're going here other than, like, the I I I really, you know, I forgot to mention this guy Asher who I met. Oh, yeah. So I wanted to shout out this guy, Asher. It's like, here's a guy I met at Lake Satoshi. And, you know, you wanna talk about, like, just making friend yeah. This dude's, like, making friends, like, immediately. You know? Like, after talking to him for an hour, we felt like we knew each other from fucking past life or something. You know? Yeah. You know, he can't he basically came up to my table where I was selling my book just to tell me that his, like, his best friend's an actuary.
And how the fuck does Phish even come up? But it of course, it will between two two people. Right? Mhmm. I gave him one of my Bitcoin fish stickers. I don't part with those easily. Right? Oh, wow. And then he's just yeah. But but, like yeah. So I meet him. We start talking about fish and boom, boom, boom. Next thing you know, he's up on the hill, and we're I'm playing guitar for him for the next couple of hours. So wanted to shout him out. But, like, to me, why fish is important in the Bitcoin community is in the realm of friendships. And maybe that's this is the friendship episode.
Last episode, we called the double friend problem because it was a kind of a fun joke. That's a great play on words. Everybody was We really it took us fifty five minutes to figure out this is the friendship episode.
[00:56:28] Unknown:
Yeah. And I I just wanna because I'm I'm looking a little bit from the outside. Like, I obviously, I know you very well, and I'm I'm I'm ex. I focus on everyone that you that you just talked about, their content that I'm that's that is available is accessible to me with via podcast for the most part. But, anyway, so I feel like I you know, you know somebody from a distance, but you're looking you're from the outside looking in. But you guys that whole crew has been such a role model, like, leading by example. Like, they're these people aren't giving out they're not barking out instructions telling you how to be or what to think or but they're just setting a really good example, everyone in their own way, providing value in the way that they can as an individual with their skills and building building relationships built on trust, built on, you know, just high level quality, quality output. Like, the different the biggest difference between what I would consider, you know, Shakedown Street and what you guys were doing up at Lake Satoshi was is we mentioned order of magnitude. Just higher quality.
[00:57:40] Unknown:
Yes. We didn't get out of this yet. And most Bitcoiners
[00:57:43] Unknown:
know that, time per you know, Bitcoin when you have a a money that isn't being debased over time, isn't being inflated away, you realize that holding on to it, is that might might be more advantageous, like delaying gratification now, that month that same amount of Bitcoin will be worth more in dollars or whatever system the future looks like will be worth more over time as more people join the network. So you don't have to spend your Bitcoin on shitty stuff. On shitty You're just not.
[00:58:15] Unknown:
Like, every month, I send, every month, I send a I send, you know, a payment to Otis for his coffee if it like, I do think about it. I'm like, is this still worth doing? Yeah. If you Bitcoin will challenge the buyer to always think about whether or not it's really worth it because nobody wants to part with nobody wants to part with the Bitcoin. We worked way too hard to get it. Right? But in order to get the best, you gladly spend it, and you gladly, like all of these people I was gonna ask you, have you ever had barn jerky?
[00:58:51] Unknown:
I haven't had it yet. No. I'm gonna bring you some on Wednesday. I would love some. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:58:57] Unknown:
Spicier, the better. But Yeah. So I was gonna I was gonna tell you it's gonna be spicy because the barn gave me some samples, and they were all, like, they were the I've had the spicy. It's, like, super spicy. Yeah. And I'm a spicy guy. Yeah. I'm a spicy kinda guy. I'm not. I'm a very watered down kinda guy. I'm a very watered down kinda guy, but I'll try the spicy. Oh, this will put hair in your chest. So, yeah, I mean, just you gotta like, barn jerky is incredible. It's incredible. And it makes Barn a special guy. He's, you know, just us. You know? Like, he is, you know, he's special for who he is too. But, I mean, really, in our community, you're special. It it's not just because you're a good guy.
You know? Everyone I named and everyone who's up on that hill provide something that's the fucking best.
[00:59:45] Unknown:
Yep. And the fact that they accept Bitcoin could be the deciding factor if they have an equal if may may maybe the regular market has an equal quality product, a Bitcoiner will will lean into the the Bitcoiner selling, equivalents or superior products.
[01:00:03] Unknown:
Well, they wanna get Bitcoin in the hands of people in their community. That's what that's the whole point of the mesh to Dell
[01:00:12] Unknown:
Yep.
[01:00:13] Unknown:
And the mesh economy. Right? And, like, what we're we're kinda figuring out how Michigan and Eastern PA are, like, nodes. You know? They're, like, nodes of this economy, and that's what's been built in a short time so far. Yeah. It's impressive.
[01:00:35] Unknown:
And and I just wanted you to hear that and the rest of the crew to hear that that it that they're, it's not going unnoticed. It's important. And and the leadership and the inspiration that comes of it is, is significant.
[01:00:48] Unknown:
Appreciate that. I mean, I feel like we experienced something similar to Pub Key when we played there. Yes. We yeah. I got a taste correct. Yep. Right? You got a taste of, like, just what it is when people come all come up and show out and wanna be together. To the point of You know, really, their pub pub key was the vendor selling something excellent. Their food food is really good. But you know? So you gotta taste. Like, you gotta taste to that, and You got to meet a lot of people. You gotta you you got to meet a lot of the people. So, you know, just back to the shakedown street thing. Right? Mhmm.
To distinguish, When we go on shakedown at a show, it's more that it visually exists. It's more like that grilled cheese. It doesn't have to be good.
[01:01:40] Unknown:
It just has to be to be good enough.
[01:01:42] Unknown:
It just has to be good enough and exist. And it's almost like you were looking for the aesthetic that it's there.
[01:01:49] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:01:49] Unknown:
And what we're building in Bitcoin is just such a different like, that's the opposite of what we're building. Right? Yeah. Good enough is what you pay dollars for. The best you'll pay Bitcoin for. And it motivates people to wanna bring the best. It motivates like, you gotta talk to Carl about his entire homestead and what he does the thought he puts in. Yeah.
[01:02:15] Unknown:
I I got my I got my first taste through the last couple of weeks. Me me listening to some of his, him talk about he didn't get into the the thick of it, but I got a taste of that. He's a permaculture guy, and he's got a lot of, circular ecology going on at home and a lot of thought and just a lot of thought. A lot of thoughtfulness has gone into everything that that guy does.
[01:02:39] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's like we're you know, that's the we're all aspiring to be the best. Nobody on Shakedown Street is aspiring to be the best. No. No. Right? You know, the band does is that. The band tries to be the best, and that's enough for us. Yeah. That's not enough. That's we don't have a band like that in Bitcoin. We're not building around a band. Right? We all went to this festival with no fucking band. Like, who does that? That's Right. Insane and ridiculous. Right? We there was no band. There was a really fucking cool motherfucker named Mark.
Oh, I can't figure I can't remember his last name. He was there to do entertainment. This is so great, dude. This guy, apparently, I didn't even know this. Like, he's played with Billy Strings and people have had ilk. He comes up there. I see I see this is a guy this guy gets out of a VW bus, and he looks exactly the way you would think a guy stepping out of a VW bus with a guitar strapped to his back would look. Okay? Yeah. He looks and acts like do you remember Wavy Gravy?
[01:03:47] Unknown:
100%. Okay. Like like a a slim version of Wavy Gravy. I was gonna say because Wavy Gravy was was very wavy.
[01:03:56] Unknown:
He gets out of his car. I see him. I'm I'm sitting selling my books in a sea of, like, vendors. Right? And I see him get out of his VW bus with wavy gravy persona. And, like, he pulls a guitar out, and I just, like I'm I'm standing there. I say, hey. Mind if I see your guitar? He's like, yeah, man. No problem. Forever. Right? And I just I put it on. I start playing I start playing, like, an original song, dude. Dude, he starts dancing literally right there. And he's like, right on, dude. What was that? And I was like, oh, it's just original. He's like, that is fucking rad, man. That was awesome. You did Sky's energy is so incredible. Okay? Yeah. And it turned out, I didn't even realize that he was the guy they hired to sort of play to play at the lake at night.
Yeah. And, he also had this flatpicking guitar. And that's when I realized, like, okay. This guy is like a fucking ringer. He's a pro. Right? Yeah. But what what energy? Right? This is like the guy that just treats the bellhop the same way as he treats the CEO. Right? He just got he like, some dude just grabbed his guitar and started playing music, and he's just sitting there, like, dancing. Like, incredible, incredible energy. And this is again, dude, I don't know, dude. The it was magical. Everything everything about this experience was was really, really magical.
And now he's, you know, now he's part of it. This guy's part of us now. He's not gonna be the backing band or anything like that, but he's, like, awesome and legit. Right? He's not gonna, like, draw anybody to, like, Satoshi, but he's just he's part of us. That's it. He's sorta like one of us. And what does he do? Dude, he fucking plays music, and he's excellent. And he's really, really excellent. I might have to link one of his I gotta link a video to show notes. Yeah. That's the first I heard about that. I'm glad I'm glad this popped in your in your memory banks. Well, I heard, John talked about it. John talked about it on his podcast about how, like, he really was at the soundtrack of the campfires at night.
Okay. Now I wasn't there at night because I stayed at a hotel.
[01:05:57] Unknown:
Right.
[01:05:58] Unknown:
You know what? I think when you mentioned that, I thought he was talking about you. I don't know if you called him out by name, but I was and then that makes sense. I forgot to write that down. I mean, there we I had my moments.
[01:06:10] Unknown:
I had my moments playing guitar Yeah. At the, you know, sitting around the bus, school bus.
[01:06:16] Unknown:
Sure.
[01:06:17] Unknown:
I think I had a special moment where I was playing, my favorite bugle theme song. And I was I was trying to sing it, but it is really hard, dude. It's like three octaves and a billion songs. Girls on spaces? Girls on spaces? No. It's called Under the Creme Trail Skies, and it's absolutely my favorite bugle song. I think it needs to be their theme song. It's like it it is like, the Beastie Boys type of attitude of, like, we're just the fucking best thing that's ever existed. That's what the song you know, the song is about how, like, they are just journalistic heroes. Yeah.
Well, the title was courageous.
[01:06:57] Unknown:
The title is a bit of a foil to beneath the sea of stars. I think we have to we have to close the show with that.
[01:07:03] Unknown:
But, Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. I like it. So, yeah, I had my little moments of playing, you know, like, where, you know, Richard got to hear me play. Like, you know, I remember at the time a year ago when I first heard it. I remember saying to Baseload, like, I really wanna learn the song. Like, I want Richard to see how much time I I put into it. I want him to see how much I care. Yeah. You know, how much I love it. Like, it's really like, that's actually important. And, so it was pretty satisfying moment to be able to be up there with my guitar.
I didn't bring the Taylor because I, like, I I don't think I I thought about my car getting stolen somewhere, and I just wouldn't be able to live with myself. Yeah. Yeah. That's such a hard thing to hide in a stealable
[01:07:48] Unknown:
item, like, you know, easily Like, I wouldn't it's irreplaceable.
[01:07:52] Unknown:
Like, the Taylor is irreplaceable. Yeah. So I brought, like, cheap
[01:07:57] Unknown:
orange wood, which plays fine. You know? Yeah. But it's kind of a if you lost it or something happened, it wouldn't be in the world. $150
[01:08:03] Unknown:
guitar.
[01:08:05] Unknown:
Well, it's funny. I I don't know why this popped into my head, but there was a recent picture of Trey with the RZA in a guitar shop setting. Are you aware of this? I am not aware of this. It was it was prior to this summer. It was recent. Let me just put it that way. But you you mentioned, putting the effort in to learn to learn, you know, you know, Richard's song. My buddy, when I was at Clemson, was in Atlanta one weekend and was at a guitar shop, similar to, like, the story you told about the place up by the cube in Harrisburg.
[01:08:37] Unknown:
Yeah. Tone Taylors.
[01:08:39] Unknown:
Shout out. Yeah. Shout out to Tom you said Tom Taylors? Yeah. Tone Taylors. Tone Tone Taylors. Sorry. Yeah. And so he's in his guitar shop, has a guitar and a hollow body. He was buying his first hollow body, I think, in Ibanez or something. But, Andre from Outcast walks into the guitar shop. And my Is your friend in college? This is my friend in college. He he's, like, 21 at the time. Their junior year, senior year. And he's like, oh my god. It's Andre from Outkast. And we loved Outkast down there. Like, I was a I was a huge fan. Like, the first album when the first album came out in the early nineties Everybody was obsessed with fucking Outkast. And and they weren't that popular up here, the first album. AT and T aliens is really what got them on the map, which was a couple years later. But, anyway, he was like, what can I do to impress this guy?
Kinda like this. And the way he tells the story, he played the riff from a song if I played it. I don't know how the title in the in off the top of my head, but he played the riff to a pretty long, like like like four bar riff that's in, one of the songs. I think it was on, ATL. Yeah. And, he immediately Andre immediately recognized what he was doing and came over and talked to him. So it was like one of those things like, you know, the guy's like, oh, he put in the he put in the work here to to learn, you know, like, one of my songs on on his guitar, and he's playing it for me right now. So I gonna give him some love.
[01:10:08] Unknown:
You know yeah. You know what I would play if Trey ever walked into a guitar store? I would play life I would play life boy. Like, that's probably the one that I would it kinda you can't fake it, and it it really proves, you know, like, without having to spend, eight minutes, like, that you learn you enjoy myself. You know? Like Yep. You could prove it in ten seconds that you put a lot of work in. You know? And he would definitely notice.
[01:10:39] Unknown:
Yeah. God never listens. Right? That song. Correct? Yes. What I It's that beginning of
[01:10:45] Unknown:
a. It's like you know, that took me a long time to learn how to play it and I don't know. Because particularly in acoustic guitar.
[01:10:53] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:10:54] Unknown:
That's probably the one I would go to. I mean, I might you know, I wouldn't even try to impress him on the guitar.
[01:11:01] Unknown:
Yeah. But I probably would. You know, that's what guitar players do. You know? Yeah. Yeah. That's apparently, I I learned that when my friend told me the story that that that's a thing. It's like, I gotta figure out how to impress this guy, this famous person with my guitar somehow. So you gotta figure it out. You know, Trey had Hey You in the rotation for quite a while. I remember that. Yeah.
[01:11:22] Unknown:
Right. Great version. Really great version. I loved it. You know, I loved Jennifer Hartzwick's, you know, kinda
[01:11:30] Unknown:
And if you have a horn section, you gotta you gotta use it. You know?
[01:11:34] Unknown:
Yeah. So there's the connect there's there's the connection there. What so the one thing I didn't get to talk about yet, right, that I wanted to.
[01:11:46] Unknown:
I I'm looking at it,
[01:11:48] Unknown:
but I'm It's the I'm guessing it's Sugarbush connection. Yeah. That was the other big thing we talked about in our lost episode. So we're an hour and ten minutes in, and I feel like alright. Let's just fucking let's just do this. Let's do it. Let's do this now, and maybe we'll do it more in other episodes and tease it out more. But, like, I felt the most so, like, it episode 18 was gonna be like, oh, Lake Satoshi reflections, and let's talk about fish festivals. Now we seem to have done that here. Like, we I didn't well, we've we've talked about curveball a lot, but we haven't really dug into any of the other ones.
By the way, it is the twenty one year anniversary right now of, Coventry, which I was at, and you somehow for some stupid reason, you regret missing it. But '21, bro. Yeah. '21. Hang on. We're gonna go fuck yourself. We're we're in gang sign now. Yeah. So we're sitting here on the twenty one year anniversary of really, right now, it's 09:15PM. We are winding down probably the third set second or third set right now. It is bad times. Bad. It is bad motherfucking times twenty one years ago. So, you know, you have the curveball is the ugly. Coventry is the bad.
There were a lot of good festivals, and we fish invented the modern festival, really. You know, you start with Amy's Farm, which which I figured out. For some reason, it never occurred to me, but now I figured out Amy's Farm was August third nineteen ninety one, and that is really that's the date of Lake Satoshi. Lake Satoshi is always every year will be the August. And so we we were there on the thirty five year anniversary of Amy's Farm.
[01:13:41] Unknown:
Mhmm. Pretty good stuff. So when there's a when there's an event in the future that's, not at Lake Satoshi, but somewhere else that's 10,000 people surrounding Bitcoin, you can always point to lakes this past year's Lake Satoshi as the Amy's farm of of Bitcoin.
[01:13:59] Unknown:
Yeah. I think so. I think I I think there's a real deep connection. All these connections are deep. But the the festival that I was at that I felt Lake Satoshi reminded me the most of was Sugarbush nineteen ninety five. Wasn't really a festival. Right? But Sugarbush Right. For anyone who doesn't know, Sugarbush is a mount is like a mountain in Vermont, probably about an hour outside of Burlington. It's a summer ninety five. Sorry? Ski resort. A ski resort, just to clarify. I don't know if it's a ski resort. Oh, okay. I don't I'm I'm not sure if that one is a ski resort. It's not like the ones up in Stowe or, you know, those big ones. This is more of I don't know. I think more of a I really don't know. I would have to know Vermont to know what people do up there at Sugarbush, but definitely had a concert stage.
And so, you know, they played there in '94. It's pretty famous. It was pretty epic. You know, there was a Harpua. It was pretty epic show in '94. Yep. And when they did they closed the tour. They closed their summer ninety five tour with two nights at Sugarbush. So we went two nights at Greatwoods, June 30 and July 1, and then we drove right to Sugarbush for July for the tour closer. You know, Sugarbush has basically the stage is like, the lawn the audience is on a mountain. Right? Mhmm. And the stage is, like, at the bottom. I think I wrote about I wrote about a scene from Sugarbush in my essay because it was where I saw somebody, like, crawl in through the fucking sewer, and Trey watched him crawl in his left.
Right? Just basically getting in for free. And he's like, really? You're gonna crawl crawl through a sewer grate? Good for you, dude. You know? And they just thought it was hilarious. I bet. But but it was that kind of vibe. So you had the mountain where you watch the show, and then you the other side of the mountain was where the camping was, and there was a lot of camping. It was a great time. One of the best times I've ever had.
[01:16:14] Unknown:
There was no lodging there. It was all camp it was it was it was camp or bust. You had to camp. Yeah. Yes. Camp or bust.
[01:16:21] Unknown:
And, yeah, I was 19 years old. I think I had I really think this was one of the greatest times. Maybe at that time, the greatest time I had in my life.
[01:16:31] Unknown:
Right.
[01:16:34] Unknown:
Just so just incredible. And it I don't know. Like, I had a very similar feeling, but the reason why I'd like to talk about it is I like to think about Sugarbush a lot. So it ends on 07/03/1995. You know, it was the last innocent experience anyone on the scene would ever ever remember because we were a month away from Jerry Garcia dying, and nobody nobody knew. Right? Yep. Nobody knew what was just, like, about to happen. Nobody knew the tidal wave that was on our back.
[01:17:14] Unknown:
Mhmm. Right? I mean, there's Which we've talked about. We've talked about that that that baton pass, but in previous episodes. But now you're like, wow. The significance of,
[01:17:25] Unknown:
capturing that moment in time right before that happened. And nobody it was a black swan event. Let's call it. Let's call it one. And you know what? I struggle to recall the show that was, like, the dead last show, and you would think I would have done the work between the the failed episode and now to look that up, but I haven't. I still think they failed. I still think sorry. I think the last dead show was, like, 07/09/1995, I wanna say. You know, now that I'm behind the computer, you're not stoned.
[01:17:55] Unknown:
Yeah. We weren't we weren't huddled over one mic with the, when the noise gate turned up.
[01:18:03] Unknown:
Pretty impressed. I I really feel like I was I'm yeah. 07/09/1995. I shouldn't and first guess, right guess. So, like, okay. The last Dead Show was a week away still Wow. At Soldier Field. Okay? Like, so we're sitting here on this mountain for two days, blissfully unaware. You know? We're just basking in how wonderful
[01:18:30] Unknown:
this really is. Right. You know? The fish and, you know, what that what fish was at that moment. Right?
[01:18:37] Unknown:
Yeah. And if you went to shows in the 9093, '94, '95, that's all you talked about was, like, how great this thing is and how we can't believe how we're able to just see them in these small places. We just can't believe And there's not and there's not people breaking down doors to to join you. Yeah. I mean and even as crazy as things got in '95, I remember the fall tour still being, like, I remember going to Hershey on December 1, which is a legendary show. Absolutely legendary. One of the all time legendary shows. Wasn't it was still pretty man you know, it wasn't like it didn't it didn't get nuts right away.
[01:19:16] Unknown:
Right. I'm sure it wasn't a step function. Yeah. It took some time.
[01:19:19] Unknown:
But a year later, though happening. Yeah. What's that?
[01:19:24] Unknown:
As people realized what was that the gravity, the gravitas of what was of what was happening.
[01:19:29] Unknown:
What what really happened was that the scene the scene just sort of adopted a bunch of people who would no longer prioritize Fish's music. Mhmm. Okay? And that's just the bottom line of what happened. And they went away over time. They went away over time. Immediately. But also at the same time at the same time, a year later, Phish was able to do the Clifford ball, which is, like, their first real festival. And, like, it's worth watching videos from the Clifford ball and watching them look out in that crowd, that massive crowd, they probably got fifty, sixty thousand people to come to the Clifford ball. Okay? And they really that was the first official fish festival.
Right? And they would do it every year. Ninety six, nine you know, '97, Great Went, '98, Lemon Wheel. I think '99 was what? Oswego.
[01:20:21] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[01:20:22] Unknown:
Shout out Jer in our chat who I think Yeah. Tapped out after Oswego. I tapped out '98. I couldn't Yeah. Like the scene any I don't like the scene anymore. We've talked about this. I was just getting into it. I was like, what do you mean? Scene seems fine. Yeah. Yeah. So we're sitting yeah. So, like, basically, what we we're sitting here in 95 at Sugarbush, not realizing how overwhelmed we're about to get by, you know, by this massive you know, and this is like when you realized why Trey and the band were so careful never to really let the never to open that door to begin with. Right? We've talked about that. We had a whole episode then, you know, episode 14. How they kept the lid on that because they never wanted to open that. They never really wanted to open that door. And even when the door got opened, they got things got really fucked up, and they didn't wanna open it anymore.
[01:21:18] Unknown:
Yeah. Right? Very smart.
[01:21:21] Unknown:
So I was saying so here's a new little thought. I I had that so is there a Bitcoin equivalent to Jerry Garcia dying? You know, is there equivalent to Arsene? And I think maybe the ETF approval
[01:21:31] Unknown:
No. I saw what I was gonna say. Paper Bitcoin.
[01:21:34] Unknown:
A similar well, you know, the ETF approval is bringing in a lot of people that don't care about the things we care about. Correct. Which is why it's even more important to do these things and to build with our friends and to make sure it's like I it's again, like I said, in theme from the bottom. Right? Toss away stuff you don't need in the end. Keep what's important and know who's your friend.
[01:21:58] Unknown:
Yeah.
[01:22:14] Unknown:
We're all here together and the weather's fine. Dancing in a dream and we're free of time. The lights are flashing and the waves aren't crashing. Dancing in a dream beneath the sea of stars. We're all here together and the weather's fine. Dancing in a dream and we're free of time. The lights are flashing and the waves are crashing. Dancing in and dreaming beneath the sea of stars. We're all here together and the weather's fine. Dancing in a dream in a fear of time. The lights are flashing and the waves are crashing. Dancing in a dream beneath the sea of stars.
And we're free of time. And we're free of time. And we're free of time. And we're free of time. And we're free of time. And we're free of time. And we're free of time.
The Lost Episode and Podcasting Challenges
Curveball and Fish Festivals
Round Up for Charity: A Discussion
Lake Satoshi Reflections
Building Friendships and Affirmative Purpose
Mesh Economy and Shakedown Street
Sugarbush 1995: A Nostalgic Look Back
