In which I ramble about Icelandic grocery stores, job search fatigue, generational swearing, Hurricane Sandy, social media burnout, and the origin of my crayon costume collection.

Please show some support for the podcast and get access to some extra content by subscribing to the Patreon page: http://www.patreon.com/onefjef

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You can also call the podcast and leave a voicemail at 1-669-241-5882 and I will probably play it on the air.

Thank you for listening, please do it again, but while eating puffin meat.

Onefjef is produced, edited & hosted by Jef Taylor.

Hello my friends, this is yet another bonus episode, Bing Bing Bing Bing, bonus bonus bonus

I need sound effects.

Another bonus episode of onefjef.

For your listening pleasure, for your ear pleasure, for your brain pleasure.

A lot of people say that you should not release podcast episodes on a Friday or Saturday

or Sunday because people are busy and won't listen to it, so forth and so on.

But you know what?

I don't care.

I'm releasing this on a Friday.

I think I released the last bonus episode on Friday too.

And that one did all right, so to hell with the naysayers.

So yeah, this is just an intro, I guess.

But I guess I'll use it as a chance to talk.

I guess I already am talking.

It's Thursday afternoon, November, something, something early November.

It's starting to get cold.

The leaves are definitely now falling off the trees.

Although it's very late this year, but I took a walk earlier today and, yeah, peak,

leaf peeping, which is a phrase that I really don't care for, leaf peeping.

Who did that?

Who came up with this?

Can we come up with something like a little bit more like, I can't think of anything offhand,

but if you have any suggestions for alternate phrases for leaf peeping, email them to me at

1F Jeff Pott at gmail.com.

I'm trying to think of one right now.

Like, foliage.

I'm trying to not use swear words because of my mother's feedback, which I think you'll

actually hear about later in this episode.

So that's confusing for you, isn't it?

But it's something to look forward to.

It's a teaser of sorts.

The word peeping, right?

"Hello, I'm peeping."

It sounds like a little British boy is, or that you're like a peeping Tom.

It doesn't bring up good images to me.

And if somebody asks me to go leaf peeping, I'll be like, "Yeah, I'll go for a hike with

you and look at the leaves."

But I won't say, "Yes, I would love to go leaf peeping."

Peeping.

What a strange word that is.

Remember in the movie back to the future where Marty McFly first encounters his father.

His father is on the limb of a tree with binoculars looking into the bedroom of his mother.

Marty McFly's mother, not his dad's.

Well, you see in the movie.

I mean, you don't need to.

And then Marty McFly's line is, "He's a peeping Tom!"

And that was a perfect line reading, by the way.

You can go by to the film and check it out.

It's like Michael J. Fox is here.

It's like I'm Michael J. Fox.

Anyway, I digress.

Do I have thoughts about anything?

Yes.

I always have thoughts about a lot of things.

Do I have thoughts on anything that are particularly interesting today?

I don't know.

I've been doubling down on the job search this week.

And yeah, it's not fun because half of looking for jobs is getting rejected more than half.

Like looking for jobs already is hard, especially in this world of the internet when there's

just like a lot of job stuff.

I think, then, upwork, all these different platforms and places.

And it's just hard to, you know, know what to focus on.

But beyond that, it's like, you know, you have to face rejection a lot over and over and

over again.

And yeah, it's not a great job market right now.

You know, everybody's laying off everybody.

And the government is still shut down.

Congratulations, by the way, United States of America.

We have a record, longest government shutdown of all time.

I wish I got any of the sound effects like a, I need the kids cheering, but I don't have

it on a button.

We'll have to add that in post.

I don't like to edit these too much.

Anyway, so combination of factors that is making looking for a job rather difficult.

So that's fun.

I don't know.

I'm still in a pretty good head space.

I've been exercising a lot.

That makes me feel good.

I've been recording more episodes in person, which is really good for my brain.

But yeah, you know, there's the back part of my brain is starting to get a little bit panicky

about the work thing.

Maybe I have to start driving an Uber or something.

I mean, maybe that would be fun.

Is it lucrative?

I don't know.

I think it depends on where you are.

Maybe I could do a podcast in an Uber like I could ask people when they get in if they'd

like to be on my podcast.

And then like if they say yes, I could just record the conversation we have going from A to

B.

It'd be like that cash cab show.

Remember the cash cab show when they get in the cab and he'd ask him to review questions.

There was also like a taxi cab confession show on HBO years ago that did a thing, but

they even had cameras.

So yeah.

This begins the bonus episode.

You know, bonus is also the name of a grocery store in Iceland.

True story.

There's like a pig as the mascot.

Very cute.

I may have already mentioned this, but yeah, it's true.

Bonus.

That Iceland story when I went to Iceland, that's a whole story in itself, which we don't

have time for here, but it is a beautiful country with not great food.

And I ate puffin meat and I went to the penis museum and blue whales, I think it is, have

enormous penises.

Uh, enormous, intimidating.

They also have a like a cast, you know, like a clay cast or whatever of Jimmy Hendrix's penis.

And yeah, yeah, that's also intimidating, but not even close to the whale because that

is what I'm saying.

And then more, even then, like special underwear, special pants, all sorts of different things.

So I'm grateful personally that I don't have a whale size penis.

Wow.

We've really, yeah, this is really gone into an interesting place.

Well, and then I'll put this episode out and then it'll always be out there me saying, I'm

happy not having a whale penis.

Yeah, I'm comfortable with that statement, but would a future employer be comfortable with

that?

I don't know if they're going to do that deep of a dive, but well, it was good at video editing.

He seemed to be very good at this podcast producing and hosting thing, but he says he is comfortable

not having a penis the size of a whale penis.

Yeah, maybe they'll ask me in the interview.

Maybe I should be prepared for that question.

Maybe I should ask chat GPT what an appropriate response to.

Why don't you want to have a penis the size of a whale penis is for a job interview?

I mean, I think it's apparent once you see it in person, but most people have not seen a

whale penis in person.

So they have no idea of how intimidating it is, but believe you me, actually, you know,

what Patreon subscribers I will put.

I believe I have a photo of it.

I will put a picture of the whale penis that I saw at the penis museum in Reckyvik, Iceland

a few years ago in there for you.

And if you yourself would also like to see that picture of the whale penis, you'll have

to subscribe yourself.

I mean, if a photo of a whale penis isn't enough to give you to subscribe to my Patreon

page, I'm not sure what I can do for you because that's pretty amazing.

I'll put the Jimmy Hendrix one in there too, just to some gravy, you know, but really the

whale penis should be enough.

And now I'm thinking of that start-night life sketch back in the '80s or '90s and they

were like a nude resort.

And yeah, I'm going to describe the sketch.

There's a new guy at the nude resort and he's feeling uncomfortable.

all the people, all the people who are like regular.

They're like, "Hey, penis looks great today."

(audience laughing)

Well, thanks Jack.

Yours too.

Hey Bob.

Hey Ted, how's your penis?

And then they sing a penis song.

♪ Penas, penis, penis, penis, penis, penis, penis, penis, ♪

♪ Penas, penis, penis, penis, penis, penis, penis, all they long ♪

Anyway, enough about penises.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

My New York Times subscription just expired.

And of course, they're offering me another year for $50

because that's, you know, subscribers

are the most important metric for these things

because of advertising dollars.

But, and I haven't renewed it.

And I feel like I will at some point, but like, eh?

I don't need more of that.

I don't need any more of that.

So, I don't know.

But it made me think that I'd like to delete social media.

And this has come up many times over my life.

This desire to delete my social media.

And I have for periods of time, of course.

But like, now like, I have to be on them

'cause I feel like I'm promoting this podcast on them.

It's kind of a catch-22.

Because that's where things get promoted now, isn't it?

I mean, that's Facebook, Instagram.

I mean, I deleted the Reddit app off my phone,

which was a good thing.

Even though I think that's probably the best social media

of them all.

The most useful at any rate.

And the least toxic, right?

I don't even think I look at Instagram all that much.

I'm not like a power user or anything.

Like, I won't spend hours sitting there scrolling.

But, nevertheless, I do spend more time on there

than I would like to.

And I don't know that the feelings

that it brings up a lot of the time.

Sometimes, you know, I really like to find poems

and so forth on Instagram.

I repost those a lot.

But then why?

What is the whole thing?

So what?

I don't know.

50 people can read the poem that know me.

And then we can't discuss it

because we're not in the same room.

I don't know.

Or maybe it's just me saying, look, I have good taste.

Look at this profound thing that I found.

It's my tight smart.

Maybe it's that.

I don't know.

And I've got a TikTok podcast thing

which I barely touched, but I feel like at some point,

you know, I should do some dance videos

or something to promote the podcast on there.

And then people will come to the podcast

and be like, this is not what I expected at all.

This is not, there's not even video.

It's a paradox, my friends.

It's a paradox.

Look it up, kids.

So yeah, I was thinking about that.

I talked to my mom earlier,

had an ice conversation with my mom this morning.

And she was towards the end of the conversation.

She was like, I have one, you know, small piece of feedback

for your podcast.

And I was like, sure.

And basically in so many words,

it was like stop squaring so much.

Which I get it.

And it made me think that I had to swear too much.

Patricia brought it up when I saw her in Columbia.

She talked about at one point how much I was squaring.

And why do I swear so much?

Well, I mean, my father swear it a lot.

It's a cycle of swearing, you know, it's the endless cycle.

His father probably swore a lot and his father probably

swore a lot and so on and so forth.

And the swearing gets passed down from generation to generation.

But feedback accepted and appreciated.

I will both on the podcast and in my life,

try to not have such a filthy mouth.

Because what's the point of that?

I don't think I've sworn during this little segment here.

So that's good, right?

It's somewhat ironic because my mother is also the person

who feedbacked to my 9/11,

my film about masturbating to 9/11 footage.

It's more than that.

It's a bad description, but you know,

I'm just trying to get to the point.

As you said that I nailed it.

So I guess the masturbating to 9/11, okay.

Saying fuck too often.

Nah, not so much.

But mom, I love you and I will stop swearing so much.

And thank you for liking my 9/11 film.

I think happened today.

Somebody got killed yesterday.

I don't really want to go into the details,

but it's a long story.

But somebody got killed because they were outspoken

about bad people and then the bad people killed them.

Because of course they did.

That's what bad people do.

And then other people will be afraid to criticize

the bad people because they don't want to get killed.

So cycle of fear there.

But it really, it broke my heart a little bit, to be honest.

You know, we live in such heartbreaking times.

It's hard to really say that, but it's true.

I think that, you know, we can say,

oh, these are dark times, of course, they're dark times.

But really, they're a little bit heartbreaking

or a lot heartbreaking.

And I've been pretty good about keeping my heart break at bay.

And I don't know what it was about this

'cause it happened in a foreign country.

And I don't know what it was about this

that hit me so much, but it did.

'Cause it's just like an example of evil.

Taking away the good.

Like again.

All the good people, you know, that say,

oh, maybe we should all just not shoot each other

and love each other and I'll be friends.

And it seems like there was get shot by bad people.

I mean, starting with Jesus, they hung him to a tree.

He was just saying, hey, money's bullshit.

That's all just be nice.

I hang him to a tree, boys.

Martin Luther King.

I mean, JFK is an iffy one because,

I mean, he was an inspirational president,

but I don't know that he was necessarily being like,

hey, we should all get along.

I wouldn't compare him to Jesus or MLK, to be honest.

Maybe that's controversial, but I don't think it is.

But, you know, there's definitely other figures

in the history of the world that, you know, these people

who were just like, hey, let's all get along.

Nope, boom.

Now, what's the point really?

Does some people out there just want to spread hatred

and fear?

Like, does that make them feel good?

It must in a way.

Or is there denial?

Do they not believe?

Do people start to believe?

Like the mythology they've created about whatever

circumstance they're in to believe that whatever they're doing

that's clearly by almost any metric, a horrible thing to do

that they believe it's the right thing to do.

I think there's some of that, for sure.

I don't know though.

It seems like some people just like to be bad.

And I hate this example, but let's take Donald Trump

because he's an obvious one right now.

You know, I've seen videos of him around his grandkids

and they seem to love him.

And it always kind of like strikes me as,

it's almost like a, it's like, what am I looking at here?

Like Donald Trump has children that love him.

And I'm not saying Donald Trump is a demon,

but he's not a good actor and he's a bad man.

He's even talked about it recently.

I think he said something like about how he knows he's not

going to go to heaven.

It was like a week or two ago, which is a weird moment of

like self-awareness by Trump, which makes me wonder if he's dying

or something.

But he knows he's doing bad things.

So it's almost an admission that he's, that he's an asshole

like that he's doing bad.

He knows he's doing bad things like that he knows he's not

following the 10 commandments, which he probably doesn't

even know the 10 commandments anyway.

So no, definitely doesn't know the 10 commandments.

Just see that video.

Remember the video back in like 96 or 2016 rather when that

reporter is like interviewing Trump and he asked him like,

what's your favorite book and he says it,

Trump says it's the Bible, of course.

And then the reporter asked like, what's your favorite passage

in the Bible and Trump kind of stammer for a second?

He's like, I like all of it.

I like the whole thing.

And then his other good Bible moment was when this is what

Fort, four and a half years in politics does to watching on

the media.

So I have all these memories now.

But after the, it was the George Floyd riots in DC in 2020.

So he came out with what was the name of the fat guy who was

like his attorney general Bill Barr and a few other people and

like walked out like boldly, you know, they had the national guard

whoever just like completely clear the protesters with tear

gas and knee knockers and you know, all this shit.

Just so they could do it, do a photo op in front of a church that

had burned or something, I forget the whole story.

Anyway, Trump standing awkwardly in front of this church,

holding a Bible because it's a good photo op, I guess.

And like they're interviewing him as he's holding the Bible up,

getting his picture taken awkwardly.

Like at one point, the Bible's upside down.

So he has to turn it over.

But one of the reporters asked him, is that your Bible and Trump's

responses, it's a Bible.

Like what a strange response that is.

Like you're literally doing a media like a staged photo shoot.

And the correct answer to that is for any politician, yes, it's my

Bible. And I love it or whatever, you know, but Trump, no, it's a

Bible.

I don't know, keeps you guessing that one.

Anyhow, so then I watched Amalee, which was my homework for therapy

this week, which I'll take is good homework because it's a long story.

Why that's my homework.

I'm not going to get into it.

But it was.

So I watched that paid $4.

And I hadn't seen it in years.

And I've listened to the soundtrack to that film more than I've seen

the movie by far.

The soundtrack's like one of the best soundtracks to any film ever made.

And I hadn't watched the movie in probably 20 years, 15, 20 years.

I don't know the last time I watched them if it was.

But it holds up.

It's a real joy, joyful movie.

I cry every time I watch it.

Different parts usually, but most of the time it's been the part where she

leads the blind guy around the neighborhood and it describes everything to him.

It just gets me.

Anyway, Amalee churned me up a little bit.

It's a strange, wonderful, joyful film.

If you haven't seen it, I mean, what are you doing with yourself?

Amalee is an interesting movie because like it's about someone who is kind of hiding

from people in the world.

Like she likes to watch the world from outside, but then realizes that the real joy

and the fear and the scary and all that comes from being inside.

From joining the world and all the peril that it involves.

Because it's easy to stand on the outside looking in.

And I think I do that.

Nick, I do that.

I stand outside looking in a lot in a matter of speaking.

I kind of wish I dressed up for Halloween.

And I think I should do that next year.

I think back to other Halloween that I've dressed up and I've always had more fun.

Like I've had a great time.

It's fun to be dressed up.

One time it was like my second Halloween in Columbus, maybe maybe my third.

I was dating this woman and we and a bunch of friends went dressed up and went to this

like bar crawl thing.

There was really kind of a stupid bar crawl, but it was kind of fun.

But we were all dressed up and I was wearing one of my crann costumes, which,

yeah, I guess I should go down that rabbit hole too.

So I have 20.

Well, I think there's, I think there's like 18 or 17 left now.

Crann costumes.

It was 2008.

No, it's probably 2010, 2011, maybe I was living in Brooklyn, New York and me and my sister were

going to fly home and surprise my father for his birthday, which is right after Halloween.

And we were also going to be there before Halloween and it was going to be my nephew Owens first

time trick or treating.

So Owen was going to go as a pirate and I thought, oh, it'll be funny.

I can get a parrot costume.

So I'll be like this giant parrot walking around with my nephew this tiny little cute pirate.

So ordered a parrot costume, probably, I don't know, two or three weeks before Halloween at

where did online.

And it was like a week or two for shipping.

It said, and then a week or two went by and there's no costume.

I didn't even get a confirmation.

I don't think I don't know.

Maybe I handled it badly.

I should have probably reached out.

But anyway, so I call the place and I get somebody on the phone and I'm like, well, I don't

order my orders and the guy's like, whoa, yeah, it's crazy this time of year.

And I'm like, is it?

And he's like, yeah, it's, it's crazy.

And I'm like, was it crazy this time last year?

He's like, yes.

I'm like, how about the year before?

Yep.

He's like, I get your point.

You see, got my point costume store busy before Halloween.

Anyway, he basically said he didn't know where my order was, couldn't find that there

were just boxes everywhere, whatever.

So I just hoped and prayed, right?

And then hurricane Sandy was coming in.

So whatever year hurricane Sandy was hurricane Sandy was approaching.

And me and my girlfriend at the time, we're going to go to Cleveland.

I think we were going to fly.

Maybe we were going to drive.

I forget what the original plan was.

So hurricane Sandy is about to come and I get back to my apartment after like,

because we had to all like, you know, expecting a hurricane.

So we have to go inside.

But we had been out that day going out.

I think we had dinner with friends or something.

I get back to my apartment.

And there's a package from a costume company.

And I'm like, oh, hooray.

You know, I'm thinking, you know, the costumes here, they seem like a big box.

I thought it was a, I remember thinking this is a very heavy parrot costume.

It's, it must be a substantially good parrot costume because it's got some heft.

So I just took it upstairs to put it in my office and then, you know, just went in my room and didn't open.

I thought I opened it later when the storm's happening.

So hurricane Sandy comes in and it's nuts.

You know, there's crazy rain.

It was quite a thing.

You know, the subways were all flooded.

It was nuts.

Only hurricane, I think I've ever been in.

But legit hurricane.

And at a certain point, I go down to open up the box.

And the box, instead of having a parrot costume in it, it has, you guessed it, 20 crayon costumes of different colors,

which were apparently intended for some middle school or high school.

I imagine like a cheerleading thing.

I don't know.

But it was about $300 worth of crayon costumes.

And the parrot costume was like, I think $60.

So I just kept them because I knew I wasn't going to get the

parrot costume back or at least in time for Halloween.

So, you know, I thought I can do things with these crayon costumes.

I can do some sort of like a bus B Berkeley number, you know, with people like pitting around.

I haven't done that yet.

But what I have done and the springs me back to that Halloween five years, six years ago, the bar crawl.

I'm wearing one of the, I think we both were wearing crayon costumes.

I mean, not just the crayon costumes because they're, they're a little bit, um, they're revealing.

Let's be clear.

They're sexy crayons, right?

That they, they're cut high on the, on the leg.

You'll want to wear underwear when you're wearing these crayon costumes.

That's, I guess, the best way of saying it.

So we met up with this other friend of ours that was with this guy that she'd been

dating. She dated him once.

She was like their second date.

And we all ended up going back to my apartment.

And we, everybody put on crayon costumes.

And then we did like a photo shoot on my couch, all of us, the four of us in crayon costumes.

Yeah, it was pretty, pretty ridiculous.

But also, you know, a wonderful memory.

I still got these pictures on my phone.

That was a weird night.

I don't think that the guy that our friend was on a date with that night.

I don't think they went out again though.

I think that might have, uh, I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, it's a weird second date.

That's for sure.

And there's an iconic photo that I brought one of the crayon costumes home.

Oh, so that story continues actually.

So we were supposed to leave the day after Sandy and the day after Sandy, the entire city was a mess.

So the airplane like LaGuardia was like a swimming pool, like it was all the things.

So we couldn't, I couldn't fly out.

I was going to fly out that trade.

And then I think either my girlfriend or I thought we should risk rent a car.

So we made the smart move to like rent a car before Sandy just in case.

So we had this rental car.

So I think it was the day, maybe it was two days after Sandy.

I had to go all the way to JFK because that's where the cheap rental car was to get the rental car.

And that was a hike from where I lived in Brooklyn.

It was probably like an hour drive.

And, you know, there's, there's shit down everywhere.

There's trees and debris everywhere.

The gas station lines are down the street.

It was nuts.

And then I finally get my car and the, of course, the rental car places

in Madhouse because everybody wants a rental car.

And I was just fortunate to have a reservation.

So I get the rental car and I had to drive from JFK to the upper east side.

If you're familiar with New York, it's a hike to pick up my girlfriend at the time.

And it took me, it should have taken me like maybe an hour, hour and a half.

Maybe I think it took me like four or five hours because like there was debris

down everywhere.

There was traffic.

It was just like the most nightmarish drive.

And then it took a while for us just to get out of the city because it was, uh, it was so bad.

But once we actually got out of the city, it was pretty good.

Anyway, so we get home.

I don't know what night it was.

We're having dinner.

Maybe it was the night of my dad's birthday.

I think it was late after his birthday party.

Um, and it was just like our family and my aunt and uncle, their family sitting

around the dining room table, like drinking wine and whatever.

And I tell the story or it comes up somehow that I got these crayon costumes instead of a

paracoustume.

So, you know, people have had a little bit to drink.

So they're like, hey, try it on.

Put it on.

Put it on.

And so I did.

I put it on.

I had sky blue was the color that I had.

And yeah, and it's, it's revealing like I didn't, I mean, I wore underwear, but I, it's,

it's, it's revealing.

It's, it's a high cut dress kind of a thing, like a crayon dress, I would say.

So yeah, I come downstairs and this crayon dress.

And, uh, you know, the look on my father's face, um, you know, it wasn't one of pride.

Everybody else was laughing, but the look on my father's face was, uh, uh, I'll never quite forget

that.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's got to be hard to see your like, I mean, I was early 40s at this point in a sky blue

crayon costume, but, you know, what was a unique sun?

So I mean, I dressed up in all sorts of costumes when I was doing theater.

So it shouldn't have been that much of a shock, but, and then I have this great picture of me.

I picked up my nephew who was very young at the time.

I think he was three or four.

And I picked him up.

And so I'm like holding my nephew with in wearing this crayon costume and he loved the crayon

costume.

He thought it was hilarious.

Yeah, I should give him one.

I should see if he wants to wear one now.

Maybe we can both wear one next time.

I mean, although my dad's past, but, you know, just for old times sake.

[Music]

When are we going to get rid of this ridiculous daylight savings time?

Whichever permanent daylight savings time, whichever one is the good one, I forget.

When are we going to take care of this?

They talk about this.

They tease us with it every few years.

I mean, Trump talked about it a lot.

I thought maybe that'll be a thing I'd like that he did along with the pennies.

He got rid of the pennies.

He'd get rid of daylight savings time or made it permanent daylight savings time, whichever

the people want.

But then it just fades into the distance again.

Like, why can't we do this?

Let's just do this.

Please.

I guess it's not important anymore.

And the government shut down anyways, so they can't do anything about it now.

Everything's going just fine in this heartbreaking world.

[Music]

That's all for now.

I hope you're all thriving.

Very good, Jeffrey.

[BLANK_AUDIO]