The Redacted Podcast
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Murdering Malachi: Part 3 - Here's The Thing, Life's A Bitch
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"Murdering Malachi" is a special limited series by The Redacted Podcast, produced by Matt Bender and Pamela Bender.
In this episode, we go to Lehigh Acres, Florida, where the sun shines on the abandoned subdivisions and the echoes of a turbulent past. Our guide, Malachi, a man of resilience and raw honesty, opens the doors to his life – a life carved out on the edge of existence, with his trailer, his car, and his cat Stinkers.
Malachi's tale unfolds against the backdrop of a landscape that mirrors his own complexities – a place caught between progress and neglect, wealth and desolation. His narrative is a mosaic of struggle, survival, and the search for peace, from the streets of North Philadelphia to the quiet isolation of his Floridian homestead. As we navigate through the potholes of his past, we encounter the demons that haunt the corners of his world.
In a candid conversation, Malachi confronts the nature of trauma, the battle for emotional growth, and the scars that map his body and soul. His voice, tinged with both humor and pain, challenges us to reconsider our perceptions of strength, vulnerability, and the human capacity for change.
Join us at Esmeralda's Cuban Bakery, where the aroma of sweet coffee blends with the bittersweet reflections on control, identity, and the delicate balance between vice and virtue. This episode is not just a story; it's a testament to the indomitable spirit of one man and a piercing look at the America that often remains unseen.
Help Malachi Rebuild His Life (Please note: This is specifically for Malachi's fundraiser - not a donation to the podcast - the link to donate to the show is below.)
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This is my story, this is my song.
Speaker 2:I went to visit Malachi on a perfectly sunny South Florida day in February of 2024. My friend Chris offered to come along and help me record, so he also gets credit for helping produce this episode. Thanks, chris. But anyway, we hopped in the truck and headed the two hours south to visit Malachi.
Speaker 2:About 30 minutes east of all the beaches, resorts, melting margaritas, tiki bars and postcard pictures of Fort Myers sits a town called Lehigh Acres. This area was originally purchased as a cattle ranch by a Chicago businessman. In the 1950s he used it as a tax shelter. Eventually, the area started being developed into residential communities, a haven for northern snowbirds seeking to escape the icy, cold northern winters. That plan failed and thousands of lots and empty subdivisions, complete with roads, sat abandoned for years to come. If you've ever seen land or lots for sale in South Florida at a shockingly low price, chances are it's in Lehigh Acres. In 1992, the area was declared blighted by Lee County and plans were made to improve the development and infrastructure. It wasn't really until the real estate boom of 2006 that any real progress was made. Today the city sits at a crossroads of newer, wealthier developments that are closer to the beaches and Interstate 75, of newer, wealthier developments that are closer to the beaches and Interstate 75, and the eastern edge, consisting of still-abandoned subdivisions and haphazard farmettes. Malachi lives on one of these farmettes where he rents some space from the owner of the property A tiny little spot for his trailer, his car himself and his cat stinkers.
Speaker 2:After driving east from 75 to what seemed like the middle of Florida or maybe even the edge of it, we reached our turn. The road to the farmette property was gravel, or more accurately, dirt, with treacherous potholes that could swallow a small car whole. Seriously, they were huge, but luckily enough I drove my truck. I dodged some fallen palm trees, almost bottomed out my truck a few times and made it to the gate of the property and saw him standing there waving us in. I headed down the driveway and he told me that he lived in a trailer, which I assumed to be something similar to a camper, but it definitely was not. From the Redacted Podcast, I'm Matt Bender and this is Murdering Malachi, episode 3. Here's the thing. Life's a bitch. You're better looking than me.
Speaker 1:I'm not better looking Like one of you got to be ugly. I'm just saying One of y'all got to be ugly, Damn. Give me some balance here.
Speaker 2:Malachi is on the shorter side, maybe 5'7 or 5'8, and stands stout wearing a baggy brown t-shirt, jeans and a tattered hat. Despite being a self-proclaimed city boy most of his life, he actually fits in here, if I didn't know better. He kind of looks like a farmer. He has scraggly gray hair, light blue eyes and smiles warmly through mangled teeth that kind of resemble a bear trap. I kind of get the Dennis the Menace reference he made earlier Makes sense now I can see it. He has a bit of an exaggerated macho stance, sucking in his belly, sticking his chest out and kind of bowing his arms. It's confident but defensive. It's probably a product of years of fighting and street life, all mixed together with a little bit of vanity.
Speaker 1:Welcome to my humble abode.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks man.
Speaker 1:I got tired of people and I wanted to be older and have as little bills as possible, but it turned out, between this thing and that thing, being a person with absolutely shit credit, I had to rent to own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not off-grid no.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the fuck I was thinking. Man, it's big as shit Because I try to do photography. It's like this balance between I have to get a job, I got to look professional. It's like that balance between I want to be off grid but I really can't afford to yet, so I have to get a job and kind of like, look like a grown up. Yeah, you know what I mean. But then this thing cost. It's a worker trailer but it got tailor made as you can see. There's a window, there's an air conditioner, there's a 220 plug so I have lights and outlets, but there's no 220 here. So I run an extension cord, but it's costing me fucking more than the 220. Those are those who are a millionaire, but I'm living like a pauper. Welcome to America, yeah right.
Speaker 2:His trailer is well just that. It's a construction trailer Like the kind landscapers use. It's small, maybe 8 by 12, and it's kind of hard to believe that a person lives in this. It sits in a small clearing next to a metal building on the property with an extension cord running to it. There's no plumbing, has an air conditioner on the top and a window. There's no plumbing. It has an air conditioner on the top and a window. The inside is messy, dank and, frankly, kind of horrifying. There's clothes scattered on top of a cot along with a laptop.
Speaker 1:It made me a bit uncomfortable to see. To be honest, I kind of just made it messy because I'm a bachelor, but this is a kitty cat. Um, so that's my computer set up and there's the lights and stuff, but they're not hooked up and the kitty cat is. I have to find her. Why are you hiding? Come here, come here, bubba. That's my baby. She's actually a really wonderful kitty. She's just not used to people. Oh, I get it.
Speaker 2:Um what's her name?
Speaker 1:stinkers, stinkers. Because she showed up at my doorstep one day when I was living, uh down the ways a bit. She was one pound, she was covered in mange, basically half dead, smelled like death. I mean, she just appeared, yeah, and I gave her some food and took her in. I caught her mange, which they call scabies in humans, and then I got an allergic reaction to the mange. So it was bad Jesus. I was covered in hives. I ended up in the emergency room like three times Jeez, because it was like four in the morning. I'm just God damn it, I can't take it. So they had to shoot me up full of shit. It was horrible. I took her to the vet the next day and now she's a bit of a mini celebrity. Everyone loves her, so I don't know how you want to do this, but in there it's really small.
Speaker 2:We can hang out out here for a little bit and chat, and then we want to go grab lunch or something.
Speaker 1:Well, I want you. Do you drink Cuban coffee? Absolutely. I don't know what it is about Esmeraldas, I don't know what. I don't know what witchcraft they have, but I've been to multiple because I, when it comes to coffee, there's only two Cuban and Turkish. Nothing else is coffee, and they've got some sort of witchcraft where there is just fucking good.
Speaker 2:I don't understand it malachi, hopped in the car with us and we headed back towards civilization, so to speak, to visit a cuban bakery that he was quite fond of. Now town is about 20 to 30 minutes away from here. I was hungry, and seeing how he was living actually made me pretty sad, so I was relieved to be headed out.
Speaker 1:If it wasn't for the demon, this would be so peaceful. So where's the demon she?
Speaker 2:went somewhere with her man.
Speaker 1:I mean, here's the thing, it's very simple. I call her demon just, and she's not really demon. She's a hurting human being. She just gets on my nerves so much it's hard to have empathy because she does two things and a lot of people do this, and she's one of them and it's the most irritating person to deal with. She's went through her own traumas. She shared some of them with me and they are horrific, but she does something. Let me close the gate that whoever she meets is either they. They are categorized as either the cause for the trauma whether they've ever been there or not, they're the cause for the trauma or they're responsible to be the cure. Yeah, I get it, one of the things that I've been fairly good at. I mean, I think I had my moment in my 20s. Of the whole, it's the world's fault and you know, I think I went through a small moment of that, but for the majority of my life I mean the nature of my demons themselves are self-blaming. So this concept of blaming everyone else is completely foreign to me.
Speaker 2:You know, I think it's kind of immature. It's something you're supposed to grow out of.
Speaker 1:Then you kind of go into the other description of when you're traumatized, and I hate that everyone uses that word now for everything. But the authentic definition of trauma is sex violence, especially when you're young. So when you're legitimately traumatized, your emotional growth stops at that point. So if you were raped at nine and it was a very intense I mean not that any rape is not violent, but I'm talking really traumatizing rape. Even some people say you take your smoke first, hit a crack at 11, your emotional growth stops then. So what you may say, is it immature? Is it, though, if you're still just 11? So that's kind of. You see what I'm saying? Like immaturity is such a fluid statement, but if you're still, you're not immature, you're just where you are, and so we have to look at that as a different definition, because now you're telling someone who's 11 that they're immature for being 11, when they're actually 52. So is that helping or is that just damaging even further?
Speaker 2:It's a different way to think of it, man. I never quite thought of it like that. It's interesting. I think one of the things that how do you overcome that? Because you had some traumatic stuff when you were younger.
Speaker 1:My trauma started at six months Since we broached that subject. We'll give you a really I I. My trauma started six months Since we broached that subject. We'll give you a really quick overview. Okay, and there is no quick version of Doron's, but we'll give it. So my biological mother is white. She had five kids by four different men. Two of those men were brothers. One of them was a one-night stand. She. Those men were brothers. One of them was a one-night stand.
Speaker 1:She was the stereotypical white, fat, white woman who just kept having babies by black men. After the first baby, everyone disowned her. This is in the 70s, back when you still weren't allowed to actually fuck outside the race. So her own parents disowned her. Everybody disowned her. She was just messed up.
Speaker 1:When I was young, I looked. I was a middle kid, so there's two above two below. When I was young, I looked. I was a middle kid, so there's two above two below. When I was young, I looked very, very, very white. I remember too yellow hair, pudgy. I looked like super white kid. Her parents wanted me because I could pass. She saw that as them giving me the love they no longer gave her, so she tried to kill me Supposedly, yeah, she like threw me against the radiator or something.
Speaker 1:How old I had a baby. So obviously she did something. That's your six months, yeah something. And long story short, child Protective Services came in, took me and my two brothers away and rumor mill is that her parents are the ones that called on her when she wouldn't let them have me. So your grandma and grandpa yeah, I've never met biological biological, did that?
Speaker 1:Some little black woman who was living in the apartment building at the same time saw this happening and said, nope, give them to me, I'll take them. Because at that time in philadelphia, if you were taken away by cbs, you ended up in a place called Baptist Homes which is basically a rape factory. That was it, and she knew that and she knew this. Everyone knew it. It was a non-secret secret that if you went into the system in Philadelphia in the 70s, you were not coming out with your same asshole Period. You are not coming out with your same asshole Period. And if you are biracial see, this is what people know we're not allowed to talk about this country, the hell that biracial children went through. Still, do you know? We're only allowed to have one oppressed race in this country and it damn sure ain't us. So we went to fucking hell. So this little black woman who had actually married a white man back in like the 40s, so she was really empathetic because her family, like some of them, look white, some of them look black, whatever, and she was this real Christian, if you talk about the traditional black family, even though her family is biracial and somebody married a Chinese woman, somebody married a Puerto Rican, so it was like the Rainbow Coalition, but it was based upon the traditional black family.
Speaker 1:Jesus Christ, martin Luther King, jesus Christ, john F Kennedy. I don't know if you've ever heard that we actually had it. There was literally Martin Luther King, jesus Christ, john F Kennedy. There was hot comb, the smaller hot combs. On Sundays. There was church with the white gloves and the church hats and the you know hallelujahs and the Negro spirituals. You know, this is my story, this is my song. There was Kool-Aid and sweet potato pie with every meal turkey necks and collard greens. You know, if someone did me wrong, the first words came out of my mouth is you got to forgive them, child, they don't know no better. You got to love them, not realizing that the wrong that was done to me was bad.
Speaker 1:So my brothers ended up being sent away because she was too old and fragile and couldn't take care of all of us. So she sent them away but said they can come on weekends or once a month or. I want to give them some sanity, but I'm 80, I just can't do. All three is 80. She was 72 when she took us. Yeah, something like 75. She took us in and she's taking care of her 80-year-old senile sister All on retirement. Yeah, she lived alone too, so it was just her senile sister, three young kids. She couldn't do it. She had to send them away. She told me later she kept me simply because I was the youngest. It was like I just won the jackpot of being the youngest. That was it, and I wasn't as acting as crazy as they were beginning to. They would come back at home visits and spit in my food, try to fuck me in the ass. All the shit that's being done to them. They did to me. So they were at a. They were there. They were at Baptist. They were there. Is that what you called it? They were suffering everything, and everything that they suffered they tried to do to me.
Speaker 1:When I went outside, the little kid who looked white in a black neighborhood put it this way my very first fight was 13 years old. I had to fight three kids One of them was supposedly her friend and I beat all their asses. Matter of fact, they had to pull me off of one arm. I was scraping his arm across the ground, which would become part of my identity, as I hate, hate, hate to fight. But if you make me fight you, I'm scarring you. I'm leaving you with a scar. It's just. If you take me to that dark place, I'm leaving you with a scar. Did that in jail? Did that? I'm scarring you Because you're taking me somewhere I never, ever, ever want to go. So there is that.
Speaker 1:The only time they wanted me around was when they wanted me watching them fuck somebody, or watching some girl suck their dick, or they wanted to watch me with two girls and I didn't even know what I was doing and they were all standing around watching. It was just sex, sex, sex. Then I got very violently forced to suck a dick at the threat of death, 10, 11, something being hung over the side of a well, and then one time. Then it happened again on top of a building. I went to explore some abandoned building and some other kid grabbed me. I went over the side of the building and he forced me to suck his dick Very violent. And that's when I died and that's when I was born.
Speaker 1:Were these just kids in the neighborhood? Just kids in the neighborhood? I don't even know who they were. What part of Philly was this? North Philadelphia 13th and Wyoming the hood? So I? What was the neighborhood like? The ghetto? Give me a visual of it. Have you ever seen a black ghetto on television? Yeah, that's it. You know dad's not around, mom's strung out. The old ladies have really nice front yards that are like the size of a post stamp. They have candies in their bowls. They'll send you to the store for a quarter.
Speaker 1:There was a very small pocket of time when I kind of got along with everyone. I was young Before the kids started listening to their parents and we would play street football. You know like literally I bust my head open, running into a car once Wide open, and didn't go to hospital because I had a black grandma. She just put some spit on that thing, this Band-Aid, and was like we can't afford the hospital. And now, instead of a scar like that. I've got a scar like this. But then as I started to get older 13, 14, the kids started picking up on society. They started learning and they started realizing I look white, I'm to be hated, and I basically spent my whole time alone. I was scared to go outside. I would hide in my house, so not to go to school.
Speaker 2:So you feel like it was a learned behavior. This wasn't something naturally.
Speaker 1:How is racism natural? Put two little babies together? They don't give a fuck. How is I mean? In what sense is it natural? Your skin color doesn't brown me? We're only allowed to talk about one side of it, though. Then they've got this new thing out colorism where they're like oh you treated us so bad, like no bitch. Almost every light-skinned person you talk to, if you give them a chance to tell you the honest truth, will tell the dark-skinned ones, blame them for everything and bully them and ostracize them and then, but if you ask the darker-skinned ones, they'll go it's color, we don't get a shit, no bitch, everything you. We go through hell, but society doesn't want to hear that, especially not if you got blind hair and blue eyes like me. You're talking about light skinned black. Right, light skinned black. But I'm talking about not just light skinned, I'm talking about light skinned Like what we call high yellow. That's what our phrase is high yellow.
Speaker 1:I have a friend, a friend who's actually really respect. He's a he's a very big muslim imam in new jersey, and I just met him one day going to the bank. He was selling some sense that I love their sense and we started talking. We hit it off. I noticed he was feeding the community like he was, and he was sharing with me like his, his I don't know that's, just people talk to me and he was sharing with me like his, his, I don't know, just people talk to me and he was start sharing with me his doubts and like is he doing the right thing? And it doesn't mean it, you know that sort of spiritual crisis, even though I'm not muslim and we start sharing. He's half white too, but he looks more black, but he's still like a shade darker than me, and so we share, like the understanding.
Speaker 1:Like man, we went through hell. They think we're gay. They think we're weak. It's just like we're. Nature's weird balance. But yeah, we're automatically assumed to be sweet. Well, we have to be twice as tough, because if you're light-skinned in a black neighborhood, you are automatically victimized, targeted, berated, bullied, in my case, raped a couple of times. My brother's trying to rape me, my mother's trying to kill me.
Speaker 2:I guess what kind of catches me is just like the amount of homosexual rape. That's something I I mean I've heard ghetto stories. I've lived by ghettos, near ghettos, in ghettos, ghetto friends I haven't heard that much about like I've heard about beating up, mugging, shit like that Jumping, but not homosexual rape In the ghetto. I've never heard that.
Speaker 1:Because this is what I'm going to tell you. I had flash forward like 30 years later and I'm working at a uh, a prison halfway house. I was kind of working as a drug counselor, even though I wasn't licensed as one because of my brain. They're like you got the paperwork but you got the brains, or here you go and the black guys there would. Well, they were mostly all black. It just happened to be because it was in the ghetto, so it isn't race-based, but it just happened to be that this particular location 99% of them were black but also feeds into the ghetto. Almost all of them experienced some type of sexual assault. 0.1% of them talk about it. So that's the issue. That's the issue, they would tell me, because I'm non-threatening, so that's sort of like oh, he's light-skinned, he's smaller, even though I'm freakishly fucking strong and I can fight because I've had to and I've done some training. So I'm not just some dude who fights like a wind. No, I've done some training.
Speaker 1:I made the national team in Sambo when I was 19. Do you know who Sambo is? No, do you know who Khabib is in UFC? Yes, what he does. I made the national team when I was 19. I can fight.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know you wouldn't think it. No one ever does. There's a whole other side, but I hate it. There's a whole other side, but I hate it. It's a complicated issue. It makes me sick to my stomach If you and him start fighting. I mean, now I'm old, I'm a little better with it. I'll try to break you up, but as far as like sitting watching it, no, ew, disgusting you know. But like last year there was some crazy, some guy. Crazy guy with a razor blade was at a farmer's market. I was, I was managing and he's a little guy, but he still poured out a razor blade and harassing old ladies. Every guy there was your size, guess you tackled him and put him in a fucking chokehold. Guess who jumped in after I had him down? The rest of the fucking guys. I'm the smallest guy there. I'm the one that has him down in a fucking rear, naked choke, with the blade over there.
Speaker 1:Did you think?
Speaker 2:about it, or did you just react?
Speaker 1:No, I'm very good. My thought process in the middle of an emergency is very, very fast. I'm that dude who calculates exactly what's happening. A friend of mine was trying to attack me once because he got drunk and I was protecting women from him, which meant I was protecting him from going in prison for 20 years. You know, like vice versa, and he pulled a knife and I was calculating, like if I do this and I do that, he's still. And I'm like blub, blub, blub, blub, like no, I don't want to kill him, so I put down. And I do that, he's still. And I'm like blah, blah, blah, blah, like no, I don't want to kill him. So I put down what I had, I don't want to kill him. And you know he ended up getting stabbed twice and going to jail. And I looked around like I'm probably the only person here strong enough to hold him down without hurting him. Because when you're actually strong, weak people use force. Strong people use control. A weak person. A strong person knows his strength. It can. Just you ain't going nowhere, dog. Now let's calm down. You see the difference. So I had to hold him down until the police came, until the paramedics came. Same thing Last year guy was on the ground, purple, not breathing.
Speaker 1:Somebody was trying to cpr weekly. There was no life left in him. It was actually a dark alley. I heard I heard the conversion. I pulled out my rambo knife because I knew there were some druggies involved and I backed him off like y'all, try something. That's all I ask, right? They backed off and then I compressed his chest down to his fucking back and after a few compressions he gurgled and then he started breathing again. The paramedics came. Rambo knife yeah, I had a big one. I carry a machete in my car. Listen, I'm a pacifist, but not everyone else is, and I will not be a victim. I will offer to buy you a coffee first. I even had people hit me and I'm like dude, I'm still standing, I didn't even quake. Can we talk about this now? Because you see, it's not going to end well for you. I don't even need the punch back, it didn't even hurt. Let's go have a coffee. I've done that more than once. You just want to?
Speaker 2:de-escalate it Get out of it.
Speaker 1:I'll take that. It didn't even do nothing to me. Yeah, I got hit with a brick from behind in the ghetto because I looked white. Somebody snuck me from behind with a brick, broke my jaw. I didn't even flinch. I turned around. They were running down the street. God just knew I was going to take some punishment in my life. And it's ironic and I find it weird because my whole life people have looked at me as like I'm probably the weakest guy out there, the softest guy out there. The reality is I'm not the strongest motherfucker you'll ever meet, but I'm the most passive. I don't want no smoke, but I'm the guy that I don't want no smoke, but I'm the guy that will run to the gunman. Is there a conscious thought behind that? Because I believe I'm the one that will survive. There's just an understanding in me that there are certain things I can accomplish and I'll survive. I'll run to the gunman and somehow come out that bitch alive.
Speaker 2:So you maybe. Maybe you feel kind of invincible.
Speaker 1:Not invincible. Like I'm not going to run straight to the gun barrel, like I understand that because of the as fast as my mind works and I'm strong, that there was no guarantee I'll survive, but of all these people standing here, I probably have the best chance. So no, I'm not invincible. I'm calculating in chaos and most people freeze in chaos. And why don't you? Probably because I've been through enough of it. I got chased home every fucking day, got beat up, got raped twice, got my own brothers trying to put dicks in my ass. I think I had to figure some things out pretty early. I've been conditioned to survive in chaos because I was born in it.
Speaker 2:When did the chaos stop? Did it ever stop? No, it hasn't.
Speaker 1:Not. Yet it got worse At my worst, when the chaos and everything else is finding its new identity and I'm trying to figure out how to survive. And they said that you're not that part of that. You're not supposed to exist Because someone like you, when the doctors and you read it, when I was in the psych ward and the doctor said someone like you doesn't exist because you're supposed to Like, all we ever hope for someone like you is to get them to be able to feed themselves, to be functioning, and you're sitting here reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. There's no book on you. There's no book on you.
Speaker 1:What I remember was when I took a lighter and about eight different times burned my flesh and watched it burn. How long ago was that? I think the last one was 10, 15 years ago, a little longer than that, maybe 15 or 20. So that's like a bunch of different times. These are different times. The first one was almost my whole. No shit, I lose track. It was this one, because I didn't have it quite under control yet. So I lost a part of my arm and it was just a lighter. That's fucking horrible. This is the remainder of. I don't even know what happened, but I just did it and I had a steak knife and one of them was really bad. I had to go to the emergency room because it was going to bleed out Just took the steak knife and did that. Once here my leg almost got cut off and there's a couple here.
Speaker 2:Just like self-harm, Like were you unconscious and aware of it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, why Were you unconscious and aware of it? Yeah, why that level of self-hate, that level of psychosis, that level of holding too much in, that level of self-punishment and self-blame for being weak, for being right, for being druggy, for being? I mean, I was taught. Another lesson I was taught very young is that I'm completely worthless, I'm not shit, I'm nothing. That the pain on the outside was actually alleviated the pain on the inside. So imagine what the pain on the inside was if setting yourself on fire was less the diagnoses. I mean they have a drug death a couple of times. That's a whole other psychiatric system in America. It's fucking insane. It's all bought and paid for, it's all corporate, it's nothing has to do with actually helping anybody.
Speaker 2:Esmeralda Cuban Bakery sits in a little unassuming, slightly run-down mini-mall in Lehigh Acres. The windows are covered with vinyl sheets showing generic pictures of cakes and desserts. You can't see the inside from the outside. Some would say it was a hole in the wall, but these are always the best places in my experience.
Speaker 1:Okay, come here for a second. Hello, my love, hi, hi, baby, hi, do you want a coffee?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you gotta get a coffee.
Speaker 1:You gotta get a coffee. The one they're going to give you is not like mine. This is my special blend. They make this for me.
Speaker 2:Malachi is loud and charismatic when he enters. The ladies who work there seem to know him and they smile back as they greet him. I order some Cuban braised pork, yellow rice and mashed yucca from a buffet-style counter.
Speaker 1:This is the spot. As you can tell, they're very sweet, they humor me, the service is great, but the coffee is the best.
Speaker 2:I've never quite had anything like this. It's different. I couldn't drink it all the time, so I got like a sweet meter. Like this it's different. I couldn't drink it all the time, so I got like a sweet meter.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why I say it's really sweet for anyone else.
Speaker 2:But this is for me, it's like my grandma's, my grandma's. She's sweetened my sugar.
Speaker 1:Give you an example. You notice, I had to stir more sugar in there. I had to stir the bottom because it wasn't sweet enough. Really have you?
Speaker 2:always liked coffee, your whole life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. I think one time I had a bit. I remember one time I had a little too much control over me. I was late for work because I couldn't stop to get my coffee. I stopped and I missed my bus Years ago and I went okay, let's mess it with my money. So I switched to tea for like a couple of years. Somehow I got to tea for like a couple years but somehow I got back to coffee. I I do need it in the morning. Um, it does have a certain level of control over me, but then of all the things that control me, I'd rather coffee than anything the hell else. There there was a very, very powerful truth in the simple methods of picking your battles. You know, sometimes you gotta take the L, save the strength for a more important battle. And the simple methods of picking your battles. Sometimes you've got to take the L and save the strength for a more important battle. So if caffeine is going to be my L, so be it.
Speaker 2:You've got to have something.
Speaker 1:Right In American culture.
Speaker 2:yes, You've got to have advice.
Speaker 1:I watch a lot of and it's it's been soothing and it's helping me get gratitude and it's grounding and it's bringing me to a better place. Recently I've been watching a lot of people in different countries, say, say, russia, china, a lot of the former Soviet Union countries, kazakhstan, where people are like living in mountains or they've been living in some Arctic village and they live off of the most basic necessities and just the most basic existence and they find such a peace in it like there was one I watched last night. The guy had been alone for 20 years, you know he pretty much lived off of like rabbits, that he caught, fish that he caught. He would go walk five, five hours to the village, like once a week, to tell stories and people would give him food and he would use that and like reading the newspaper, like he would get a bunch of newspapers in that that trip, that was it, that was his life and he would make some homemade bread. No vice, that was his thing, just the simplicity of existing, the gratitude in existing.
Speaker 1:So I I really have to question do you really need a vice? You know, I think that we've. Really, the more I look at it, the more. I wonder if we've been conditioned to think we all need a vice Because that keeps us the door open for other weaknesses. Like, as long as you have a vice, I can use that door to get to you. I know that there's a crack in your armor and I think a lot of society now is being conditioned to make sure that there's a crack somewhere that someone else can use.
Speaker 1:Control Everything is about control. I mean, that's just not to sound like some really weird weirdo, but in the past, with the whole Trump and it probably started with Obama and Trump and they're really starting to look at how much control we are really under and how much we're being lied to, or how much we take or how much we disbelieve under, and how much we're being lied to and how much we take or how much we disbelieve. Like they pointed out something about obama. Like I knew something about obama a lot of people don't talk about, especially being a vegan. I understood this was obama and the mazonto protection act. Like he literally said, we're going to poison your food, but no one can tell you about it.
Speaker 1:And half of his cabinet worked for masanto. I think almost all of his cabinet. I think it was. Almost. All of them worked for masanto at one point in their life. Obama decided to protect them, decided that anyone who brings any of masanto's products products into Russia will be convicted as a terrorist. That's just when I started waking up like wait a minute. Obama dropped more bombs than any president in the history of the United States, but he was given the Peace Award.
Speaker 2:Wait a minute.
Speaker 1:Make that make sense. That's when I started waking up and going wait a minute, something's going on here. Donald Trump, you ready for this? The only president in history whose descendants never owned slaves? Obama's did.
Speaker 1:We are told so many things to manipulate and control us. I think one of the biggest ones right now is the black community. You know, you're being told you're born victims because that way you'll stay victims and we keep your votes. You're being told that you have a right to commit crimes because that way you'll keep committing them, won't rise up, you will keep your votes. We're being told math is racist because you're too stupid to do math. Because you won't rise up, we'll keep your votes. Lowest number of black and hispanic support among democrats in history. Because they finally said at least the Republicans really don't give a fuck about us. They're not actively trying to keep us down, they just don't give a fuck.
Speaker 1:The powers that be who matter. Now I'm not going all the way down the rabbit hole, going like the Illuminati and probably it's true but I'm not going down that rabbit hole. Alright, probably some truth there, but I'm not going down that rabbit hole. Alright, probably some truth there, but I'm not going that far. I am just going to say the powers that be want to keep powering and we don't fucking matter. I mean, it's just for me.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing. Life is a bitch. This eight hour a day work week I've never done that. I've never kept a permanent job my whole life. Because I get bored as fuck, my mind wanders. I start going into my crazy place. So I figured out what works for me is short projects and for a while I did good. There were some times I was making $400 a fucking day but doing nothing. So I'd build a retaining wall and people just liked me. So I'd cut bushes and be like here's $300, cut those bushes, you know. Or I'd be inside stripping a roof and be like here, we'll come back in three weeks, we want it done. Okay, see you in three weeks. And I pretty much made my life during that. I don't know how. And again there were times when I was younger and stronger Because again, I was physically freakishly strong. If you leave me alone and tell me this needs to be done, it'll be done. They didn't have to worry about me and I spent my whole life that way.
Speaker 1:This concept of going to the same job day in and day out, eight to 12 hours a day for 10 to 20 years. I would end up on a roof. I don't know how people do it and I also understand. It breaks your soul. You don't have a brain for anything else. You come home, kids scream, wife screams. You get maybe 15 minutes to yourself a day. Most people walking these streets right now are so fucking insane. But they're insane from pure exhaustion. And so if you give them a simple story to believe, that's all they want. That's all they have a strength for. They want a leader, because they don't have the strength to lead themselves, they're completely exhausted and beaten.
Speaker 1:What was your first job that you ever had? Well, when I was 13 or 14, I actually this is funny. Here's a part of Americana for you. This is about as American as it gets. Actually it was a Muslim black guy who boy talk about a short Hercules this guy was just right who owned a little newsstand on the corner in the ghetto and I would stay it up in the aisle and sell newspapers to cars. That's about as a mass of newspapers, as a kid for a Muslim, you're right. But then you add the Muslims so that you kind of add that Americana melting pot. Add that little bit, add that little melting pot. It's not rock well Americana, it's real life Americana.
Speaker 1:When you had that first job when you were that age, what did you want to be when you got older? I was a child genius. I was studying virology at 13. University of Pennsylvania Medical School wanted me to come audit a class for the semester on infectious diseases when I was 14. Medical School wanted me to come audit one of their audit semester. They wanted to start teaching me at 14. Yep, I got a scholarship, full-ride scholarship to Germantown Friends, which is one of the top ten schools in the entire fucking country. They paid.
Speaker 1:I wanted to be a research scientist. I was groomed to be a research scientist. I was supposed to be the kid who cured diseases. I found microbiology just absolutely fascinating. I found immunopathology fascinating the concept on so many levels.
Speaker 1:The simple virus to me is it just encompasses everything in existence and I'll tell you why. Very simple, okay. It is the border between life and death. They still haven't decided whether a virus is alive or dead, depending on what scientists you ask, because it doesn't really do anything until you activate it. It's just a clump of nothingness until it bumps into you, then it activates. So is it alive or dead? They still depending on who you ask. Right, that's fascinating. What it does is fascinating. And I also think it's fascinating in the sense that to me it's proof of God as great as we are, as powerful as we are, god's simplest creation, right, mr Fucker? I think that's God's little reminder Don't ever get too big for your britches, because I might turn that switch off. It can't be by accident that we are the most advanced living being that we know of and that little don't even know if it's alive or not. Like you said, one little switch, we're done. That can't be by accident.
Speaker 2:Somebody's looking up.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, somebody once said you're always a hero of your own story. Some of them stories. You ain't the fucking hero, but yet you are. That's another problem with society that they're always the hero of their own story. The truth doesn't allow that, so they don't allow the truth. The truth needs to fit me being the hero. If your truth doesn't make me the hero, I don't want to hear it, and the truth doesn't fucking matter.
Speaker 2:Do we need the stories? Do we need help?
Speaker 1:Only if we learn from them. If we don't learn from them, they're fucking fodder.
Speaker 2:On our next episode we find out whether or not Malachi thinks OnlyFans models are the heroes of their own story, the true origins of his gay uncles, as he calls them, and we hear Malachi's own secret recipe on how to make the perfect male stripper. You won't want to miss this one. The Redacted Podcast is produced by myself, matt Bender, and my wife, pamela Bender. Make sure to go out there and give us a like, a share, share it with your friends, rate us. Every little bit helps. Thanks for tuning in.
