The Funky Panther

Ben C Jones on Hot Yoga Cults, Billionaire Rockets & Trippy New Tunes

• Chad, Tim, Javier • Episode 197

Share episode

Send us a text

Buckle the f*ck up, because The Funky Panther just dropped an episode that smells like incense, ego death, and pure audio chaos. Musician and part-time sweat demon Ben C Jones is back—flexible, funky, and freshly cooked from his daily 105-degree hot yoga cult. Spoiler: his chakras are aligned, his joints are loose, and he might’ve accidentally joined a tantric death spiral. Enlightenment optional.

While Ben’s finding nirvana in a puddle of his own BO, Chad escapes Fort Worth and dives straight into Asia’s adult playground—Macau and Hong Kong. Between gambling dens, dice games in back-alley bars, and Portuguese bartenders with loose morals, it’s a travelogue that sounds more like a deleted scene from The Hangover 4: Oriental Express.

Then it gets extra spicy—the gang breaks down Blue Origin’s girlboss space cruise, featuring Katy Perry floating around like it’s a zero-G makeup ad. Are these pop stars actually astronauts—or just influencers with rocket-fueled privilege? The debate spirals into capitalism, space pollution, and how much they’d personally fork over to escape this flaming meatball of a planet… for eleven goddamn minutes.

Meanwhile, Ben teases his new psych-rock masterpiece, dropping May 23rd via Amplify 817. It’s like Pink Floyd, Tame Impala, and your weird stoner cousin had a baby and let it record itself in a home studio filled with lava lamps and vintage trauma. Don’t sleep on the June 13th album release party at The Post—expect killer vibes, musical therapy, and maybe a few mild hallucinations.

The episode ends with nuclear-grade “Bad Takes” that’ll piss off astronauts, yogis, and probably your mom. Plus, an “Overrated vs. Underrated” segment that drags Spotify and worships the holy gospel of local music legends.

June 13th. The Post. Ben C Jones, Richer Hall, Dave Cave, and Reagan Beard. It’s not just a show—it’s a sonic exorcism. Be there or stay basic. 

#SexSweatSpace #BenCJones #HotYogaCult #SpaceTourismScam #KatyPerryInSpace #MacauMayhem #TheFunkyPanther #Amplify817 #PsychedelicRockRevival #BadTakesOnly #ZeroGravityEgos 

Fake ad

Fake ad

Fake ad

CALL OR TEXT OUR HOTLINE AND LEAVE US A MESSAGE! 817-677-0408

Fort Worth Magazine
Best of 2022 - Radio Personality/Podcast (Reader's Pick)

Show Links
The Funky Panther
Merch
YouTube

Chad:

Get in here. We gotta start the show. We gotta start the show. Oh, hello everyone, and welcome to the Funky Panther Coming to you from Fort Worth, texas. We have got a hell of a show for you here on episode 196? I think that's right. That sounds about right.

Tim:

Yeah, 196, I think is right.

Chad:

We've got our friend Benzie Jones in the building Want to say hey, he is here for his third go around technically Two and a half, three times. Yeah, yeah, third time on the pod, so so glad to have you.

Tim:

Is it like once, twice, three times, a lady Three times a lady.

Chad:

So sit back, relax, enjoy, let's get into it. I'm Chad, I'm Tim, I'm Ben and we are.

Tim:

The Funky Baby. Third, I was not prepared for that either. I thought I was going to do it, then you were going to do it and I was yeah, whatever, it was your whole thing.

Chad:

We the whole thing. We need Javier. You know, obviously Javier is not with us tonight.

Bencjones:

Rest in peace. If you don't know what happened, I'm just. I murdered him and then I took his place.

Tim:

He's actually below if you don't remember the last time, uh, benji.

Bencjones:

Jones was on.

Tim:

I think he had this whole like uh, wrestler persona.

Bencjones:

I did.

Tim:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Australian guy yeah, this Australian guy, I think that's who killed Javier. Okay, that was okay.

Chad:

That was near Fort Worth like 817 Day or something like that right, I think that was when. I was in Egypt, I believe. So, yeah, yeah yeah, yep, yep.

Bencjones:

There's always one of you guys messy when I'm here, that's weird, I don't know why.

Chad:

Not the first time, the first time we were all here For the fourth time. You come on. Tim's going to be in my episode.

Speaker 2:

Probably will be.

Chad:

Which is going to be unfortunate because I don't know how to run the board.

Speaker 2:

But you know, we'll figure it out.

Chad:

It's fine, so what has everyone been fucking up to? We'll start with you, just kind of like over the past few weeks, what have you been up?

Bencjones:

to yeah. I started hot yoga. Okay, has anybody ever done? That before I have seen women come out of the hot yoga place.

Speaker 2:

I sure have too.

Chad:

Whenever I worked at a retail store, there was a hot yoga next door and we would see all these nice young ladies.

Bencjones:

This is getting creepy, aren't you married?

Chad:

Not yet, and I wasn't at the time either. Calmate, never mind. Go on, hang on.

Tim:

Have you ever seen a little little kid whenever he sees something? And he's got his face pressed against the window.

Bencjones:

That was me yeah.

Tim:

Like the cleaning lady every morning you go by that store.

Chad:

Squeegee, yeah, squeegee, that same spot of the glass.

Tim:

His face is permanently imprinted in that glass.

Bencjones:

now, Dude this thing is like a beat down. Basically, you do these 26 postures and you gotta hold them and you gotta breathe and oh my god, I'm so out of shape. I didn't realize just like how not flexible I am. I have like a horrible bad back. My uh hamstrings are like super tight, so it's just like um, yeah, I've been doing that for like the last like month but that's exactly what you need, right it's all stretching, it's just like loosening you up it's not all stretching.

Bencjones:

There's parts where you're having to like, um, you're like having to hold stuff, like. There's like when we like you lift your leg up and you're holding yourself on one leg and you're trying to balance and one of my legs is just like cramping up and stuff and just uh, so, yeah, I'm learning that I I got a ways to go, but uh, I've been going every day and, um, yeah, it's kind of it's kind of taken over, um, but yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Like compared to today, today, compared to day one, I could do so much more than I could do before. And I do feel stronger and I feel more limber. And people are like, yeah, you hit your 30 days, it's gonna change your life, and I'm like I don't, you know, your 30 days it's going to change your life. And I'm like I don't, you know, so I don't really feel changed. I mean I feel a little bit more healthier.

Bencjones:

But yeah that's about it.

Chad:

What made you want to jump into the hot yoga scene?

Bencjones:

Yeah, the chicks are cool. No, who sounds weird now? I don't know. No, I've been wanting to get into shape. Like COVID threw a lot of stuff off, I was doing jujitsu, oh okay. I did that. I got up to a blue belt, so I could probably put you guys in an arm bar if it went down Fucking, try it. Yeah, that's why Javier's not here. He's had an arm bar earlier.

Tim:

Is that a place where you go to drink? I feel like arm bar would be a really cool name for a bar, I think so too, they have crow bar. They do have crow bar the arm bar, and it's just a Hear me out, okay. You go to the arm bar and it's just a bunch of dudes putting people in arm bars.

Chad:

I think you lost me on that one dude. That's what it is that no longer sounds fun.

Bencjones:

That sounds painful.

Tim:

Well, I mean people will pay for it. Oh yeah, there'd be somebody. Yeah, there's always somebody. I mean there's this whole subgenre. We don't need to get into that, but there's a subgenre on the internet of of certain things that you know, this is like a bdsm type situation, maybe worse.

Bencjones:

Okay, moving on, continuing yeah, so, so, and then COVID came around, disrupted that and then I kind of stopped going and so and then you know you start getting a little bit older. So I guess I hung up my blue belt. I might go back if I can get like healthier with this yoga thing, but I was like I got to do something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Bencjones:

I got to do something. So I was just like, let me give this hot yoga a try. And I went to this place and they were super nice and they've been very supportive. They're like oh yeah, go Ben, you can do it. And I was like, oh, all right.

Tim:

Thanks guys. I think I would do regular yoga first. Yeah, you took it to an extreme.

Chad:

Just do it.

Tim:

Yeah.

Chad:

Let's just put you in the, in the armpit of the sun, and um make you do weird poses. Yeah, do these things, but also get really sweaty and slippery.

Bencjones:

It's 105 degrees god inside there dang it and I'm just pouring buckets yeah and I look over at some of the other people there and they're like not sweating at all. They're hitting all the poses.

Tim:

I'm just like jeez, I'm so out of they're not sweating because they're probably dehydrated it could be and I believe that's a sign of heat stroke. To be honest with you, I don't think you probably should watch out, right?

Bencjones:

I've heard that people have passed out. Really yeah, like if you don't like take it easy, like you go in and if you're not prepared you might actually pass out, and that hasn't happened. You might actually pass out and that hasn't happened. Like the first day I did have to take like a West Texas football practice knee because I was just like dude, this is intense.

Chad:

I was just about to ask what was your first day like going into something brand new like that, knowing that people are probably killing it.

Bencjones:

I hadn't worked out like that in a very long time and it took a minute for me to recover. But yeah, I had to take a knee. Um, and then I also learned like it's good to have water no way in that situation, homeboy shows up.

Tim:

He's got no water, he's got uh you know it's funny, because the original guy who set all this up was like americans are weak like no water and like the americans were like nah, do we need it, man come on like, and so I tried to do no water well, I learned, uh, one of the last times that you were on the show that, uh, we, we are in a uh, what is it uh like subtropical climate zone over down here?

Bencjones:

yeah, yeah, yeah, so humid subtropical, yeah, so I did, did say that I believe good memory.

Tim:

Yeah, I believe, yeah, I believe that you do need water in those environments. You do, it's a fact, you do. I mean, there's a phenomenon whenever you it's so humid that your body can't evaporate the sweat off, and so you don't get cool and you die. What? Yeah, like you have heat stroke because of it, so you can be out there sweating, but like you can't evaporate, so you can't cool because the humidity level is so high.

Speaker 2:

Where does the?

Bencjones:

sweat go. It stays on your body, it just stays on you. I have heard about that Really, yeah, so that's where we're headed With, like global warming, yeah 100%.

Tim:

It's going to be just one big Everyone will be living in, like Antarctica. We're all living our own soup. Yeah, it's gross.

Bencjones:

Yeah, whatever Cool, this conversation is fun, so yeah, so yeah, I've been doing a lot of that, and then, of course, I've been doing a lot of media. This is, I want to say, the third. You guys got the bronze.

Tim:

You're kind of on a media circuit, huh.

Bencjones:

I am, yeah, I'm like trying to you know, be legit and move around and talk to everybody.

Tim:

Hold the fuck on bronze well, we're third, we're the third. Uh, we're the third one. The fourth one doesn't even get get ranked at all. They don't get anything because of what?

Chad:

what criteria? You're on the podium well, based this off of the number in which you've done this. The the order, yeah.

Bencjones:

That's it Okay.

Chad:

Well, you're number one in my heart. Can we end this thing?

Tim:

If we're not gold, he's the fuck out of here. Well, he said we're number one in his heart.

Bencjones:

You're number one in my heart, okay.

Chad:

But you're number three on the-. He's got a gold heart for us.

Bencjones:

On the circuit of local podcasts. You good here, so yeah. I did some of the competitors.

Chad:

Nah, we're all friends, no competitors anymore. I'm over here talking shit. They're probably better. We love them.

Bencjones:

I got a write-up on the Fort Worth magazine. That was pretty cool. That's a first for me.

Tim:

That's great.

Bencjones:

And yeah, I do have. I know I have at least one more podcast. I'm supposed to have another one, but I haven't heard back from this guy. So there's supposedly two more that are supposed to happen and maybe Fort Worth Weekly will reach out at some point.

Chad:

That'd be awesome. Yeah, so you deserve a cover. You know what I mean. You deserve a weekly cover at this point.

Tim:

What would you wear on your cover, like what would be your outfit? Uh, it would be the all white outfit, okay, yeah, that's that's kind of what I. I figured that's what we use for this.

Bencjones:

Yeah yeah, it would be the all white outfit and I actually do have a picture of like. If they're like, do you have a picture? And I'd be like yeah, it's gonna be this one right here oh, that's a good one yeah, thank you.

Chad:

That's a really good one. Oh, that's great.

Bencjones:

You're gonna have to wait the rest of you. That's great Until it's on the cover Of the weekly. But yeah, so it's a media blitz and I got the idea From Bill Burr. Okay. And I saw him on Jimmy Kimmel in January and he's like, yeah, in March I'm gonna be um, having a thing come out for a hulu, a special. And then in april we're gonna be doing broadway and I'm like, dude, that's like okay.

Bencjones:

February I'm like doing the math here, I'm like that's like a few months away yeah, yeah so I was just like, okay, let me start getting the hype for yeah yeah, you got to get it out there yeah, for the show I got coming up june 13th over at the post.

Tim:

Hell yeah and that gives us plenty of time to make arrangements to actually be there.

Chad:

Yeah, yeah.

Tim:

Have you been to the Post since it's moved? I have what do you think? Is it a good spot? Yeah, it's great Okay.

Bencjones:

It's great it's got the Lola's history behind it Sure yeah. And Birdie's kind of cleaned it all up and stuff so it's kind of nice now Got a nice bathroom.

Tim:

I don't know, man, I like those dingy bathrooms, you know.

Bencjones:

Yeah.

Tim:

Kind of might get shanked, Might get a little stabby stabby. I think you're alone on that one man.

Chad:

You know what I mean.

Tim:

But if you're going to upgrade anything, make it the bathroom. So I'm going to tell you, I got to tell you paid musician. I can say that I got paid one time. Um, we, we played a show up at uh rubber gloves up and didn't. I don't know if you've ever been there I've heard of it it's a cool little venue but it's a very much like diy at the time, like a lot of punk shows is it still open?

Tim:

oh yeah, still open, yeah um, they've, they've made it a little bit, a little bit better. Um, they've got a nice big outdoor stage now it's actually pretty cool, um, and it was cool back then. But I walked into, I was going, I got to go to the bathroom and, uh, this guy comes out as a single, like single bathroom situation, like one door, one, you know, toilet one sink, that's it.

Tim:

And he just opens the door. He's like I won't touch anything in there and I was like, all right, and I'll go in. There's graffiti all over the walls and I do my business and I wash my hands and I go to dry it and I look at the hand dryer and I chose not to touch it because it was the plug, for it was cut and it was two bare wires stuck in the outlet and I was like maybe I don't die today, you know, yeah, so that was my one.

Chad:

That was the one time air drying with your hands flicking water in the outlet that was the one time I was a paid musician wow, that sounds like a lawsuit I'm sure.

Tim:

I'm sure they had to fix it. I'm sure that and that it's, it's better now it's probably fixed now.

Bencjones:

Yeah, go up the rubber gloves.

Tim:

It's, it's a, it's a, it's a cool place who would like it, who was just like.

Bencjones:

Well, let's just plug these in and just see what happens. I bet you anything?

Chad:

it was a customer, I bet you it was anything like, or a patron. Whatever they came in, they couldn't get their hands around. They're like fuck this. And they pulled out their pocket knife, cleaned the thing and stuck it in the fucking wall.

Tim:

That's what it was and then pressed it and it worked.

Chad:

I highly doubt an employee would have set that up like you never know they're trying to.

Tim:

They're trying to trap you, trying to get you. Yeah, give you a little zap. Yeah, I don't know if that's the right method. I don't know either, but I've never zapped anybody, so it's hard to say.

Bencjones:

Yeah Well, what about you? I've noticed that you've been traveling all over the world. Damn it, how come I can't travel to Italy and Hong Kong?

Chad:

Sir, you are a grown man, you can do whatever you want. They won't let me. They won't let me out of the city. It's the government.

Tim:

Yeah, no, we went up to Hong Kong, which I learned a lot about China in general.

Chad:

I went to Beijing years ago. China, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china, china.

Speaker 2:

China, china.

Chad:

You know, I could see that. And then Hong Kong is like completely different.

Bencjones:

It's like the Austin of.

Chad:

Yeah, austin or New York or something like. It's super chill laid back, you still have the culture, but it's it's. It's also a lot more fucking expensive. Like ten dollar beers was the reg, you know, and that was a little much. And there's a bunch of islands like you got Hong Kong Central and Lantau Kowloon, we went to a bunch of islands. Like you got Hong Kong Central then Lantau Kowloon, we went to a few of them. It was cool. I thought beer was supposed to be cheap over there.

Bencjones:

In mainland.

Chad:

China Right Exactly.

Tim:

So you got to go deep in, you got to go deep in to get the Pee Joe. Excuse me.

Bencjones:

You got to go deep in.

Tim:

What the fuck did you say?

Bencjones:

You got to go deep to get the pijo okay, okay, explain well, okay, so uh, mandarin is the main language of most of china? I don't know, I think in hong kong they speak something different uh, it's, it's still, or cantonese or cantonese. Yeah, yeah szechuan's a food, okay, cantonese well done.

Chad:

I'm glad that I paused and let you answer that.

Bencjones:

Um, I want to say that, yeah, they speak cantonese in hong kong, but the rest of, like most of china, they speak, uh, mandarin, and P Joe is the word for beer. Oh, ok.

Tim:

OK, so you got to get. You got to go in the mainland. You get the cheap beer or the P Joe. Yeah, ok, ok, cool, I got you, but we didn't you drink the $10 beers.

Chad:

We drank what we had, and you know we had some really good stuff. Like we went to, this cocktail bar was one of the top 50 cocktail bars in the world and they were twenty five dollars a drink. They were also some of the best drinks we've ever had. Like we were just like we were with our friends Jesus and Crystal, which he's used as a musician as well. He they live in Wong Jo, which is like an hour and a half northwest of Hong Kong, and so where they live is considerably cheaper, right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay.

Chad:

But we decided that we wanted to do kind of the main stuff because we only had a week, so the four of us we were just like passing drinks around. That's what we do. We want to try everything right, Take a sip, pass it around. They're $25 drinks. I want to say I had 12 drinks, so of course, course, passed them around. It was fun, it was good. Then we went to Macau, which is like the Vegas of.

Bencjones:

China Right, right. So it's the former Portuguese colony, right. Very good.

Chad:

Portuguese in Macau and British in Hong Kong Didn't know either one of those things. So yeah, in Macau, and we had tapas because there's a lot of Portuguese bars and restaurants and stuff, we and we had tapas because there's a lot of Portuguese bars and restaurants and stuff, we stayed at the Venetian just because it looked nice for the price, and so that's what we did. We didn't realize that it's the largest casino in the world.

Tim:

I had no idea. Wow, okay, is it akin to the Venetian in Vegas? Yeah, yeah.

Chad:

I mean, there's like Gordon Ramsay restaurants.

Tim:

Okay, yeah, I got you there, there's.

Chad:

Venetian, there's the Parisian Like there's all like it very much is like Vegas, Vegas, but different Like. Okay, Let me give you a few reasons why it's different. One they take their gambling so seriously. I'm talking Well.

Tim:

I could have told you that I had no idea. The Chinese, and I'm not just generalizing this, but the ones that like to gamble? Yeah, holy. The ones that like to gamble yeah, holy crap, dude, we get out onto the-. What is it? Baccarat, that's like one of their big games, or something like that.

Chad:

See, that might have been the one that I didn't know what the fuck was going on. There was a lot of those actually.

Tim:

Baccarat makes no sense to me. It makes no sense.

Chad:

So there's like a you know in Vegas gives a shit, Just walk in, walk out, whatever they kind of like guard the entrance and exit to kind of like see who's coming in and out, and I think there was like a metal detector in some of them. Whatever, that's fine, we're in, and then it's just so quiet. There's not dings and like sirens going off, it's just very quiet and everyone's like. A lot of them are like personal computers and you just see people like looking like they're working, they like they look like they're typing like what are you doing?

Chad:

like I thought we were here to like, have fun. They don't have any alcohol on the casino floor. They have red bull. You can get free red bull, um and snacks, but yeah, it was just so awkward. It just it's a weird. We did a little bit of gambling but it just felt very strange, right, but they had a little old town. You know, it's nothing like old town Vegas, but if you think about something that's a little bit cheaper and a little bit like more divey, then that's what it was.

Speaker 2:

OK.

Chad:

So it was kind of reminiscent of Fremont or whatever. But we go and we find this bar and it was around six o'clock and the bartender or waitress, she was like it's happy hour. We're like all right, perfect. What does that mean? As we're looking at the menu and she said, well, you roll for your drink. If you beat me, then you don't pay. If I beat you, you pay the happy hour price. And I'm like this is the worst business idea of all time. Either way I'm paying cheaper drinks, but half the time I don't have to pay for a drink at all, right. And so we're like trying to verify because it didn't seem right. Like I feel like a smarter business idea would be like full price if I win or half price if you win, something where we're still paying, right.

Chad:

So we got three drinks a piece. I think we ended up getting about 12 shots and we paid for two drinks and two shots. I love it. We got $100 of drinks for free. The girl looked like she was upset. Like I hope she doesn't get fired. She just kept losing. She just kept losing and it wasn't even the first drink, it was every single drink. You play for it. She's gone. We gave her a big tip like we didn't know what to do, like you don't even you don't tip there, but I just felt awful was this bar like inside the hotel or was it part of?

Chad:

uh no, it's, it's part of like. There's this old town where they've got the portuguese restaurants and and some stuff and it's it's close to you know, like the casinos and stuff, but it's about a half mile walk.

Bencjones:

Okay, so it was a standalone place. Yeah, so they're just losing money. I got, I got a better idea.

Chad:

However, I will say at nine o'clock the place got fucking packed and their normal prices were not cheap, so they might've lost money on us, but they're definitely making money. You know what I mean.

Tim:

But it's only during like happy hour six to nine yeah that's okay, okay, I got a better idea okay so you roll the dice and you pay whatever the dice is that's a great idea yeah, it's. Uh, it's a dollar. You know dollar 20, like a two would be. You know 23 would be 30.

Chad:

I've never seen someone lose as much as this nice girl lost at dice. But yeah, it was fun, it was a good time came in with the hot hand sometimes, you know, luck just runs out man yeah, yeah uh, but yeah, that was it just that. And then, yeah, nba classes trying to catch up and wrap up and I'll be done in may 9th and then really focused on the wedding. This summer. That's it been busy. What about you, timothy?

Tim:

no, that's all I got.

Chad:

Just a defeated.

Tim:

I am defeated, but I do want to pose a question for you. Okay, I was thinking about this. You ever go into the bathroom not to do anything other than you're just going in the bathroom. You got to go to the bathroom, whatever, but you start thinking about stuff, yeah, okay, so I was in the bathroom at work and there was obviously somebody in the handicap stall, and so I want to pose this question. I want to see where everybody lies. Okay, so you're in a public restroom, in a very public place, it's very busy, and you use the, the handicap stall, and while you're in there, you uh, you get a little jiggle on the door and someone's trying to get, you're like, oh, it's occupied, you know.

Tim:

And you look and you see wheelchair wheels. So what's your move when you're done? I've seen a video of this exact same thing happening. And you look and you see wheelchair wheels. So what's?

Chad:

your move when you're done. I've seen a video of this exact same thing happening one time and it was a pretty dumb video. To answer your question, I would just get out after I do my business and say I'm sorry, the other one was taken. I'm just going to sit there and stare at you. The other one was taken.

Tim:

I had to go. So me personally, I'm going to act it up a little bit. Of course you are.

Chad:

I'm going to drag my leg. You're a bad person.

Tim:

I'm going to drag my leg until I get out of the bathroom and far enough away, and then never go back Unusual suspects Style yeah.

Bencjones:

Start losing the limp every step.

Chad:

That's exactly what I'm going to do, was it Kaiser?

Tim:

Soze that shit, yeah, kaiser.

Bencjones:

Soze.

Tim:

I'm going to, I'll get better. Okay, you know. All right, but I'm going to. I'm going to ham it up a little bit, Cause that's the man I feel so bad.

Chad:

Ben, what would you do?

Bencjones:

Okay, Well, number one. Let's just all be very clear.

Chad:

Everybody uses the handicap. Well, yeah, 100, because it's larger, more comfortable, right stretch out. You know, ah, take off your pants, wait what? What are y'all?

Tim:

doing.

Bencjones:

We had that conversation but if the other ones occupied, you're gonna use it.

Tim:

I'm gonna say it's not occupied, like the other ones weren't occupied. You just chose that. That's what I'm getting. I did that today at work.

Chad:

I just grabbed the bigger stall. I know my floor very well. I going to be the most comfortable stall if it's open, okay.

Bencjones:

That's fine. I feel like if you saw the wheels, whatever, and someone's trying to get in me personally, I think I would use it if the other ones were occupied, because honestly, I don't think about it to be honest know I don't really go.

Tim:

let me go straight to that one I've got another idea this, this might be, this might be the move all right?

Chad:

I doubt it no, no, no.

Tim:

It's gonna require you having to get on the floor, though.

Chad:

See you already hear me out in the bathroom.

Tim:

They're jiggling, then whatever, and you, you know, the stall next to you is empty, so you slip, slip under the door, go to that stall, flush the toilet, you come out and you're like man assholes, right, that is such a bad idea.

Chad:

They're going to hear you, you're going to be filthy and that door's still going to be locked, so tell me how that's going to work. That is not the move?

Bencjones:

They don't know it's you Listen?

Chad:

I honestly don't. They don't, they don't know. It's you listen?

Tim:

I honestly don't ever think of it as the handicap stall.

Chad:

You just think of it as the nice bigger nice stall, the bigger than the premium. First class stall hey, if it's open in the same price, I'm gonna take first class every time. All right that I don't think I'm a bad person, for that does. No, I feel like I'm not the minority in this.

Tim:

I'm gonna tell you that 90 of my day is me thinking about stuff like this. Sometimes. You know, it's just you know, just happened.

Chad:

I will also say on the worst day I'm in that stall for three to four minutes. Worst day I'm in and out, you're in and out it's good man, I don't. I don't like spending time in the restroom. There's better places to spend your time in my opinion, some people settle in.

Bencjones:

I know they get. They get the phone out, they start doing their like, their taxes, dude I heard a guy snoring the other day at work.

Chad:

I'm like how long has he been in the big stall? Because this is, this is pissing me.

Tim:

I mean I know somebody who, uh who, slips into the bathroom whenever they don't want to do work at my job in the office. You know they slip in there for about 30 minutes or so. Take a little nap.

Chad:

That's wild you know, to each their own right, because if you're napping, are you bare ass? Are you just sitting is are your pants getting dirty like what's? What's the situation?

Tim:

well, if you had a rig in your own personal stool if it had a regular toilet lid. You don't have to be bare ass, but I feel like you have to be bare ass on a, on a on a public bathroom toilet yeah, because they, because they all have the half seat, there is no seat there, it's just open. They don't have the little lid that covers it. It would be weird to sit there in your pants on an uncovered toilet. It's been a really healthy conversation.

Chad:

I'm glad that we could get into that.

Tim:

Honestly, my life has been nothing but school here lately and it's just. I'm ready to be done. I feel you.

Bencjones:

I'm so ready to be done. Well, may's right around the corner, so you're you know.

Tim:

Are you taking summer? No summer classes other than the class that I'm actually in, but for work.

Speaker 2:

Hey, Dustin said he can't hear a single from the chat.

Chad:

We've got our man from JJTM. He's like, hey, he can't hear a single from the chat. We've got our man from JJTM. He's like, hey, can't hear a thing. He just want to see your beautiful faces. Apparently he's a cannibal.

Tim:

He's seeing the big thumb. If you haven't ever seen a corpse grinder, he's the singer for Cannibal Corpse. He looks like a giant thumb. He's headbang so much that his neck is just massive.

Chad:

Dude.

Tim:

I'm serious man, so much that his neck is just massive shut up dude. I'm serious man. Look him up. He's actually really sweetheart too. He uh does a lot of um uh, charity stuff. Buys toys every, every, every year for christmas he buys toys for um excellent kids and stuff.

Chad:

Wave at jjtm wave at dustin that's what you gotta do. He's probably gone already.

Tim:

Yeah, he's like so right, that's it. But what I wanted to get into and just to let everybody know we're going to get into, Benji Jones has got a big announcement he's going to share with us about some upcoming stuff. He kind of alluded to that. We've got some things to ask him and talk to him about.

Chad:

But I wanted to get into Spoiler alert. It involves very little clothing.

Tim:

So it's going gonna be a good time. Move on. I wanted to get into something that stood out to me recently in in that's been all over the media.

Bencjones:

I want to talk about this it's a little bit controversy, oh shit, um get canceled.

Tim:

Yeah, here we go blue origins all female crew okay, I want to talk about. I want. I want to talk about this for a second. So if you don't know, if you're listening to us, Blue Origin is Jeff Bezos' little rocket thing.

Chad:

Little rocket thing, way to downplay a whole space program, his little rocket program that sends people to space.

Tim:

I feel like Jeff is more into the space tourism. It seems like.

Chad:

Oh yeah, for sure it's moneymaker, Come on.

Tim:

Yeah, all right. So Blue Origin's latest suborbital so not even like a true orbit, but a suborbital space tourism flight.

Chad:

You just keep downplaying the shit out of it. I'm going to downplay the shit out of this.

Tim:

Flight featuring an all-female crew, including Katy Perry, and I don't know if you've seen any of the the news media or any of the stuff that's going on there, but people are just I mean, ripping into them right yeah, so the crew members um. So it launched, uh, may 19th 2025. It was approximately 11 minutes. It wasn't may 19th was it may 19th?

Chad:

no, that's next month. It was the. It was monday, so it had been like the 14th. Yeah, I got the wrong date on there um approximatelyximately 11 minutes total.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Tim:

Including maybe about three to four minutes of weightlessness Launched out of West Texas near the ship. Whatever it was, the Shepard rocket, but down.

Chad:

I didn't know it was out of Texas. Yeah, blue Origin's got a spot down there. Oh, okay, nice. Crew members were katie perry right, yeah, um, that's, that's the that's the big one that's a big one. Yeah, yeah, oprah's best friend was on there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, gail, gail, cbs gail was on there um yeah.

Bencjones:

So I mean, there's just there's some other ladies that we don't care about, just just a whole spaceship a little a little tiny spaceship that barely made it to space with some ladies, with some ladies.

Chad:

Okay, now they could afford going on the spaceship right.

Tim:

Yeah, that's where I wanted to get into, not cheap yeah, but my, the other thing is they're calling them a crew. That's what got me like I, I could care less. You're rich, I get it. You're going up in a spaceship cool, you got the money to do that. Um, us poor people will never get to go. So, gail, I'm going to space. Just by the way, gail was, uh, so someone was like talking to her and she's like they're not going to rain on my parade, um, and then said have you ever gone to space? Well, no, gail, I have it. I don't have 200 and something thousand dollars.

Chad:

Is that how much it was?

Tim:

I don't know it's, it's something, it's gotta be something that's dropping a bucket for them. Sure, Unless they get something, it was never going to go to space, right? But I want to just take a second on the crew. So what did? That was a weird choice of words. What were they crewing? What were they doing? To me it's just a little ride. They took a ride.

Chad:

Okay, so I am very ignorant to most of this. The only thing I know is my coworker. She was pretty excited about it on Monday. She's like, hey, we're going to go to lunch. And she's like, hey, I got to watch this whole spaceship thing happen. I'm like all right, do you Boo?

Tim:

I don't know what you're talking about. I love seeing rockets fly in space.

Chad:

She's like it's an all female. She said all female cast, it's an all female crew. She said that like she was excited about, like she's and I, I was like hell yeah, that's fantastic and that is fantastic.

Tim:

I am, I am here for that, but right, what did they crew?

Chad:

that's what I was gonna ask. Were any of them actually piloting? No, no one. None of them were pushing buttons it was all remote controlled okay, so on the ships.

Tim:

Nowadays, there doesn't actually need to be pilots at all no, I mean that sure on like no, some of them, like for the space missions, yeah, they need to have because you got to connect and dock and you might have to take control of it and things like that, but no, this is like literally, it's uh, it'd be like uh, the equivalent of uh riding in your wago or whatever your we go, whatever the thing is waymo, waymo, waymo.

Chad:

Yeah, I rode a waymo in san francisco I didn't see that.

Tim:

Yeah, that shit was awesome. Yeah, so it's the equivalent of that. Or like in your Tesla you just got in your Tesla, but you want to say they're passengers.

Bencjones:

They're passengers as opposed to a crew.

Tim:

Riders. I could go for that, Right, you know something like that. But to call them a crew, I'm like what was Katy Perry's role?

Bencjones:

What if something went?

Tim:

She was entertainment because apparently she sang, she sang a little song made everybody a little more comfortable, calmed them down. She brought a flower, a butterfly, thing A little flower up there. Yeah, I saw that yeah.

Chad:

I don't know what that was. Gayle King was a whore.

Bencjones:

Yeah, and she was interpreting alien communications. Probably. I'm surprised, wendy.

Tim:

Williams wasn't on this. She's actually not so crazy as we thought.

Speaker 2:

Really.

Tim:

Yeah, she's in this conservatorship and she's being held hostage now. That's a whole other thing we'll have to talk about later.

Chad:

Okay, Seems the opposite of not crazy. But okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bencjones:

I want to say that this goes back to the very first launch, where Bezos was like we're the crew.

Chad:

Yeah.

Bencjones:

And so now, anybody who rides in that is going to be the crew. Well, it's a selling point too, right, like you can say that you crewed a spaceship.

Speaker 2:

You crewed it.

Chad:

Right, you were crewing.

Tim:

Yeah, but so did Buzz Aldrin, hanging out crewing.

Chad:

And he landed on the moon. Okay, listen, I don't even have that big of an issue With being a crew. The one video that I saw that none of this bothered me. I thought people were like making too big of a deal out of it. I'm like this is really cool.

Tim:

This is a cool thing, right. It's a bunch of women riding in a spacecraft, right.

Chad:

But when they came down and they were talking to Katy Perry and they're like how does it feel to be one of the first I don't know 150 astronauts to ever go into space? That was the other thing that bothered me, because I feel like that's like saying you're a scientist, you know, because I feel like that's like saying you're a scientist, you know. It's like you do need some kind of like credentials.

Bencjones:

None of them are astronauts. Some training, you know, Like you know, you're in the little machine that goes in a circle. You're like testing the G-forces and stuff on your face.

Chad:

I flew in a plane to China. I never said I piloted that one Fucking pilot. I never even said I was crew. How does it feel to be a pilot? Listen, I'm one of the first I don't know billion people to ever crew an aircraft, so I'm feeling pretty good about it yeah, I'm just like I read this and you know, and I'm not.

Tim:

Whenever I first read this I was like, okay, am I being sexist? Like?

Bencjones:

I asked myself that because I'm sitting there reading it and I'm sure absolutely, because you didn't give a shit about cruise until this shit went down.

Tim:

And then now, you're like no, some people like so. I never heard. I like, honestly, I've never paid attention to blue origin other than, like I knew he had a rocket. I never understood, I never knew that he called them cruise or anything like that. Yeah, I didn't even didn't know that. And tell this, and I'm like, and I'm reading the headlines, it's like first all-female crew going into space. I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. And I'm thinking like it's like SpaceX, they got the Falcon Heavy rocket. And I saw Katy Perry and I'm like the fuck does she do in space?

Chad:

I will say that being famous, you bring a lot of attention and it's the internet. A lot of that's going to be negative attention. When the first three like. I don't remember I don't even know how many people have gone to space at this point, but I remember the first three it was almost like that race.

Chad:

right, it was like jeff bezos and it was elon musk and it was the guy from virgin, whatever right yeah, yeah, those three guys all set out for rockets in like the same year and I wouldn't even pay attention, because who gives a shit? Right, it was just like this who's got the bigger dick race type situation yeah but you know, no one was really that, I remember was like famous, famous.

Chad:

Now you got some famous, you got that all-female thing behind it, and so there's a lot of there's a lot of hype, and so people are going to be dicks, and so I think that you saw some of the dick things that were people were poached. You're like you know what? That is pretty fucked 100 did not.

Tim:

Okay. The first article I saw was uh, it was just a cnn article talking about, uh, the space, the flight, right and, and so I was genuinely curious. I'm thinking, okay, it's, it's like a space flight like I, I thought literally went into orbit, you know doing some sort of like little mission thing, came back and I saw it was 11 minutes.

Tim:

I'm like wait a second here, that's weird and then I I saw katie perry and I'm like, well, wait a second here, that's weird. And then I saw Katy Perry and I'm like, well, I mean, they did try to send that teacher to outer space at one time. What yeah, she died. That was one of the fiascos back in the 80s.

Bencjones:

The Challenger blew up in 86.

Tim:

And so it wasn't like out To me, it wasn't out of the realm that they would. Maybe a celebrity's going up there it's the you know guess whatever to do some sort of mission. She's going to participate. I was like that's cool as shit. But I saw 11 minutes I was like, well, that's kind of weird. And then I actually started kind of understanding what Blue Origin is and I'm like, oh, they kind of went to the edge of space, yeah.

Chad:

That's all it is. Yeah, yeah, Really that's all you need. No, no, no. It's kind of like going scuba diving. You go down 30 feet and you're going to see what you want to see Going down any further. I need to go further. It's just trying to be an asshole really. It is, I will say You're going to lose color.

Bencjones:

Out of there, just leave.

Tim:

It is cool though. I mean it's cool the thought process of being able to go commercial space tourism.

Chad:

I think that's pretty fucking cool If you can see the edge of Earth to me you're space.

Tim:

That's pretty legit. That's pretty cool, it is on my list.

Chad:

It is going to become more and more available in the next 10, 20 years and hopefully at some point I can afford it and it'll become more affordable. 10, 20 years and hopefully at some point I can afford it and it'll become more affordable. I even saw that in 2027 there's going to be a space hotel, did you? Yeah, yeah, I've heard that, yeah and like it's going to be a whole space, so so my, there's a lot of.

Tim:

There's a lot of questions I have about that, but, uh, one of the one of the things that I did see was like this this one space flight used um more co2 emissions than, like a human, any normal person would do in their entire lifetime. Yeah, so there's things like that. So the environmental impact of these little random space tours and launches or whatever the space hotel though to me that's wild They've got to figure out. How do you combat space radiation and all that stuff? How long are you allowed to stay there in a hotel? Can I check in? What? If I go more than 30 days, you have to evict me then who works there?

Bencjones:

who's working at the space hotel?

Chad:

yeah, I think it's gonna be like a mexico resort man, like it's gonna be like you go and they probably have a flight every day and you can't exceed seven days or something like that, and you you're going to spend. We're going to take you on a spacewalk and I don't think they're going to go like get dangerous with it. It's literally going to be you in a room and some alcohol that's overly expensive.

Tim:

I will tell you who would get dangerous, though, with it is that Sir Richard Branson, or whatever?

Chad:

Oh, he's the version yeah.

Tim:

He would get dangerous with it. What do you mean would get dangerous with it? What do you?

Chad:

mean dude, he would dude, he'd have all sorts of crazy excursions. Yeah, that's true, I'm telling you like well, you could do all the things you could do on the cruise, but up there in space yeah, you're up there playing space golf and um you know all right, bensi, do you ever want to go to space?

Bencjones:

like, yeah, yeah, really well, you know, one of the things about, uh, the planes is the mile high club. So what do you like?

Tim:

Yeah, you know where I'm going with this, you know you can do that in Vegas, Like did you know that it's $1,000.

Bencjones:

Oh, there really is a thing you can do. It's $1,000.

Tim:

They take you up a mile high. It's a private plane.

Speaker 2:

That's all the pilot does.

Bencjones:

It comes out.

Chad:

No, it's made for for this. Like the pilot has a curtain, he shuts it, he puts on headphones and you have the plane. So I mentioned this and I was told absolutely not. And I'm like, well, yeah you, you mentioned the wrong person. I told you. Now I don't know how many times I gotta do this absolutely not so then the question is you know space sex, right?

Bencjones:

I mean, if you're there, you spent the money you know they've already tested it.

Chad:

This was a quick turn to really they, they've had to. They've done all these.

Tim:

We talked about this recently. They've done all these space you really talk about. Two episodes ago we were talking about it back. They've done all these, you know, tests and everything. Of course they've had to check, like what sexual relations would be like in space I.

Speaker 2:

I guess it's got to be a tet.

Tim:

It had to have been some sort of scientific study.

Chad:

They've done you can't get like in space. I guess it's got to be a tent. It had to have been some sort of scientific study they've done. You can't get pregnant in space, it's a fact. So, like you're literally yeah, I hear that too. I don't. You're going to a space hotel, of course, baby we don't have to wear a condom.

Bencjones:

I mean, come on, we're in space, everybody, so I'm not wearing one.

Chad:

All right. How much would you pay for that 11-minute rocket ride?

Bencjones:

Oh well, $1,000 would be, I'd pay $1,000.

Chad:

That's the max you would pay.

Bencjones:

I mean I don't have a lot of money. No, I mean, okay, I'm with you.

Tim:

Like okay.

Chad:

so let me ask you this I'm trying to figure out a limit here, right Like at what point does it become affordable to where people would want to go?

Tim:

All right. So I think okay for me like a once-in-a-lifetime thing that I've always wanted to do is to sit courtside and I'm talking like on the floor, not three rows back, but like I want to be where the celebrities sit Right On the floor, not behind the goal, on the side, yeah, on the floor, not behind the goal on the side. Yeah Well, not Mavs game now, but that's a whole other topic.

Chad:

But at a professional basketball game We'll go sit next to Jack Nicholson at Lakers game 100% Watch a Luka.

Tim:

Yeah, just one time.

Chad:

How much would?

Tim:

that be so expensive. I looked into courtside tickets and I found that they were up on like what's that? One of those games?

Chad:

Seat Geek. Yeah, it was like Seat Geek.

Tim:

And I think tickets I found, which were like three rows back under the goal side, was something like five grand or more, and that's resale.

Chad:

I mean, I think you probably have to have season tickets, you do.

Tim:

Yeah.

Chad:

But yeah, probably what.

Tim:

Ten grand, maybe, maybe more. Actually, I saw one. It was like something like 30 grand for a seat.

Bencjones:

For a seat on the court?

Tim:

Yeah, and it was ridiculous and I'm like I can't justify that For my 40th birthday, I could justify spending maybe like five grand. It's like a once in a lifetime. I'm spending maybe like five grand. It's like a once in a lifetime. I'm never gonna do this again. Right, sitting right there on the court watch a whole basketball game, I would be but five thousand just you. You're sitting, five thousand just me. That's fine, you know, I'm okay with that.

Bencjones:

I think you get free popcorn I think, you do, I think actually I

Tim:

think food is honestly worth it right um, so for space, you know, like I don't know, people pay like uh 10 grand to go summit. Uh, mount kilimanjaro, yeah, um, and things like that, and that's kind of like a once in a lifetime thing. I think maybe ten thousand dollars I it'd be like a one-time deal, I saved up for it. This is what I'm doing, right I mean a thousand well.

Tim:

so before like the whole uh, russian ukraine war thing going on, you could go to Russia and I want to say it was like an all-inclusive package for like $10,000. You got to go up in a Russian like fifth-gen fighter and go do acrobats and stuff and actually get to fly it a little bit. That's kind of cool and included your hotel and stuff no-transcript.

Bencjones:

Okay, but if you guys were billionaires, like money wasn't an issue throwing down $200,000.

Chad:

No, big deal.

Bencjones:

You would do it.

Tim:

I think I would want to be a little more responsible, though I don't know. I feel like I would be a bad billionaire because I would just blow my money on stupid shit.

Bencjones:

That's not a stupid thing, man Go to space.

Tim:

That is like 11 minutes though I feel like it's for your personal brand.

Chad:

Look how much publicity katie perry is getting like just because of this.

Speaker 2:

It almost it's a tax write-off, probably for her to be honest with you, like so many, celebrities make it about charity.

Chad:

You know, even at this point in my life which I also am not like full of money, but if they got down to like 50 grand, I'd be saving, I'd be saving, I would try to go to space for 50 grand. Yeah, yeah.

Tim:

For that 11 minutes.

Speaker 2:

For that 11 minutes $50,000 for 11 minutes.

Tim:

Yeah, and maybe I just can't fathom that because I'm poor.

Chad:

Well, me too that could be it. I mean, you have to cut back on everything else in life that you enjoy, sure, sure, for a very long time very long time.

Tim:

Well, I mean you say that but like, honestly, if you had a house you could just take like a you know second mortgage out.

Chad:

Yeah, but like, realistically, you don't want to like have your cake and eat it too, right, you're going to have to like save somewhere.

Bencjones:

So it'd be like no more traveling.

Tim:

That's a bit more in the house no more for 11 minutes I've got enough equity in the house, I could probably pull that equity out and go fly this Blue Origin thing. It's going to take me about 30 years to pay it off, right, but I mean it's doable if it was really that worth it.

Chad:

You can't take that money with you when you die, so actually that's probably a better bet than me trying to save. It's just like fucking put it on credit.

Bencjones:

Who cares? You could default and file bankruptcy.

Chad:

Yeah, easy, it's fine. Would you pay $50,000 to see the Titanic To go?

Tim:

underwater To go underwater If it was 100% safe and not going to implode on itself.

Bencjones:

We saw, how that happened.

Tim:

Yeah, I would be more in tune to do something like that for that kind of money. Or if I was going to go into space, I would want to go into actual you want at least one orbit. Maybe two Couple orbits, call it good. Yeah, for that kind of money, yeah.

Chad:

Did it orbit an entire orbit in 11 minutes? I feel like that's very short.

Bencjones:

No, it just went straight up and then it came right back down. Yeah, hit the edge of space.

Tim:

Yeah, yeah.

Bencjones:

I don't know.

Tim:

That's the move. That's a tough like how much are you willing to spend for something that you truly always?

Chad:

wanted to do. I don't think I'd pay more than $10,000 for the fucking Titanic thing, and I don't even care to see the Titanic. I mean just to go down in a submarine and be able to, like, control it. I'd pay $10,000. I'm not even interested in the Titanic thing.

Tim:

Well, I could get you a sub for less than that that you could probably control, for less than $10,000.

Bencjones:

Yeah, it'll stay. Get a rent one. I know a guy Sure Makes him out of propane tanks.

Speaker 2:

Nice, very safe.

Tim:

Yeah, so now I do have just a couple questions I want to ask, like before we move on to our guest here. But we don't have time.

Chad:

So imagine, imagine like a real turbulent reentry, uh-huh.

Tim:

So what's Katie doing? Is she breaking out in the song like trying to calm everybody down, or is she, you know, terrified herself?

Chad:

I mean she kissed the ground when she got home, like she was that you know, and people are like really, yeah, I felt that was over the top too.

Tim:

But have you seen the other controversy? People are saying that they actually didn't go to space, so there's a whole conspiracy theory on this. Now, okay, here we go. So one of the pictures or one of the videos when they landed, they were able to open the door from the inside, and supposedly, that's like not, you shouldn't be able to open it from the inside, dude it inside.

Speaker 2:

And supposedly that's like not, you shouldn't be able to open it from the inside.

Chad:

Dude, it's a passenger plane. That's kind of what I thought too.

Tim:

It's gonna have to open from the inside but the door is already open and they kind of shut it. And then, uh, jeff went over there with this like key looking thing and stuck it in there and then opened it like there's just I don't know do you think they went to space?

Bencjones:

probably, or to the edge of space. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, I, I mean I think To where they went, yeah.

Tim:

They went to where they went, I agree.

Chad:

I don't think that there's a legitimate conspiracy.

Tim:

I think I would rather spend money. I think I'd have more enjoyment going in a hot air balloon, oh I think, than maybe going to space. That's way cheaper. It is way cheaper.

Chad:

It's fun.

Tim:

Yeah, you've done it.

Chad:

Yeah, with my parents in Egypt and it was considerably cheaper than it was here, but I think it was like 125, 150 a person.

Tim:

See, that's cheap and you just float around man, that's nice.

Chad:

Yeah, it was awesome, it's peaceful and we got like good views of like excavation sites and temples and stuff like in the desert.

Tim:

It's pretty neat, yeah, so I think this was like a whole uh publicity stunt, just to get more attention to blue origin, and they should have did it last month for the women's month number one.

Bencjones:

Well, sure, oh yeah, I think that yeah, but then you know, katie perry, her schedule was busy and so she had a lot going on.

Tim:

At least give them some button to push, and then you could call them a crew, like they launch it I mean from what heard.

Chad:

I don't know where I heard this, but I'm pretty sure that they open the door from the inside. So maybe crew, that's a thing.

Tim:

But everybody gets a key. They all have to turn the key If they open the door that's a thing they all have to simultaneously push the button yeah, and then it launches.

Chad:

Could you imagine just sitting there like it's a decoy button button that does nothing.

Tim:

No, no, no, look at me, it actually does something, but you're getting pissed off because we're like on three and nobody can hit it. Yeah, you're just like stuck there on the thing you have to actually, okay, go ahead and push the other button.

Chad:

How awesome would it be if they had a button that literally just like made some weird noise back at like the control?

Tim:

center or whatever, and they're just like haha, fuckers.

Chad:

And they're just like pressing a button and it just, I don't know that would annoy people. That'd be fun to me.

Tim:

It feels like I'm almost like like one of those uh, what that's, uh, what was that? I think you should leave. I'm thinking like this is like a whole sketch that he would end up doing, you know has this ever happened to you like I I think I've said this before.

Chad:

I think there's this concept that I have for a reality TV show, and it is to attract people that want to go to space and then you put them through this excruciating training process. You get them actual training for space.

Tim:

I've seen this? No, no, it fucking is man.

Chad:

No, Hold on, wait. This is the twist. So then you put them on a rocket ship and you send them to space. But this is all fake. Like you're in a studio.

Tim:

It's 100% real. I've seen this.

Chad:

This is not real.

Tim:

It's 100.

Chad:

Yes, this is not a thing. It is a thing. And so they like I'll find it Okay. And I'm thinking like they shake the room, they make like the windows look like TV screens and make it look like you're in space.

Tim:

This is exactly a thing. No way they pulled this whole prank on these people. They did.

Bencjones:

This sounds familiar, Like yeah.

Tim:

I think subconsciously you saw this. It was on.

Bencjones:

Fox or something over the summer. I'm pretty annoyed by this. If it's real.

Tim:

I'm going gonna find it. I'll find it. I won't find it right now, while we're in the show, but I'm gonna find it because I I saw this. I was like this is fucking great, like it was the best thing ever. And then that then, and then when they land, um, there was an alien. Oh, wow, okay so they did this whole thing and it freaked people out.

Bencjones:

That's the twist. Yeah, you bring an alien at the end. He was just going to probe people.

Tim:

That's what his. I'm the alien. It's a thing. It's a thing. I saw it.

Bencjones:

It does sound familiar. I think you're right. I think this was a Fox Summer thing, like a couple years ago, five years ago.

Tim:

Alright, I want to get into. Uh, we got mr bency jones here yeah and if you heard earlier um while he was, uh holy fuck it's a thing, yeah, why he? Was. I told you why he was doing, why he's doing hot yoga. Um they, they're in your subconscious.

Bencjones:

That's what it is I swear you probably that's that's, fucking that's a good name.

Chad:

It's a great. It's a great name I would have picked, like fake space, you know.

Tim:

Yeah, space cadets look at this fucking space cadet. So good, um, if you heard, uh, mr, uh, ben c jones, here he, uh, he said while he's doing hot yoga they're cheering him on and saying way to go, ben.

Bencjones:

So first question is that your name is not Bensie Jones? Well, I mean, that's my stage name. Oh well, for those who don't know.

Tim:

Spoiler, how'd you pick out your stage name? It's funny.

Bencjones:

Yeah, dude, I tell this story all the time. I guess I didn't tell it to you guys before.

Tim:

I don't remember it story all the time. Uh, I guess I didn't tell it to you guys before. I don't remember it?

Bencjones:

yeah, I don't think I asked. I don't. Yeah, I don't think you guys asked before. Um, well, basically I was in the studio, I was working with, uh, sarah sellers. We were doing some pop stuff and sarah, she used to be on american idol a couple years back and we were working on some stuff and I brought my brother in and my brother and I also brought my friend Picasso. So my brother and Picasso, they were in this group called PPT back in the day and anyways, both rappers and they weren't doing anything. So, like, dude, come on in, man, just you know we'll be cool. And Picasso was there and he's watching me, you know, and I'm just kind of like you know, telling the engineer oh, we need to do this, we need to do that, whatever. And he's like damn Ben, you're like producing your ass off.

Chad:

You're like Quincy Jones and he goes okay, and so he's a C Jones.

Bencjones:

Quincy Jones and he's like he's a rapper, so immediately just goes Ben C Jones we all looked at each other like, oh, that's a fucking cool name fantastic yeah and

Speaker 2:

and the rest was Ben.

Bencjones:

C Jones was born at that moment.

Tim:

yeah, so the reason why I ask that is I came across a video talking about the country artist Conway Twitty and he came up with his name. He was racking his brain trying to figure out this name or whatever, and he literally just looked at where he's from, which is like around Memphis area, and saw in Arkansas there's a Conway, arkansas. So he's like okay. And then he found Twitty, Texas, and then Conway Twitty.

Chad:

Put it together. Yeah, love it.

Tim:

Nothing special, right? It just happened to come that way, and then he's known as Conway Twitty. All right, so you've got a new album coming out.

Bencjones:

Yeah.

Tim:

Via Amplify 817, right.

Bencjones:

Yeah, shout out, amplify 817. They're going to be exclusively putting this album out.

Tim:

That's awesome, and when does the album actually drop on their streaming?

Bencjones:

So supposedly it's supposed to be May 23rd okay so next month wow.

Tim:

So we're looking at may 23rd and you get an album release show in june 13th yes, correct okay, and that's gonna be at the post. I'm going through my notes here now. You had several, several people collaborating on there, right? So how did that all come about?

Bencjones:

as far as as the album.

Tim:

Getting these artists to collaborate with you on this album.

Bencjones:

Did you?

Tim:

seek them out.

Bencjones:

I did, yeah, these are guys that I've worked with before. So traditionally I kind of work on my albums by myself and then I'll occasionally pull people in. I'm not a really good drummer, so I can find a drummer for some stuff and I'll pull them in. And then when I play live, I'm not a really good drummer, so I can find a drummer for some stuff and I'll pull them in and then when I play live, I have like a full band Right.

Bencjones:

So one of the things that I wanted to do was to actually capture, I guess, a moment, because I've been working with these guys now for the last couple of years. I want to have something where you know we all would record a song together. So the 817 Day show that we did. I was able to get all those guys on this record.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Bencjones:

And part of it was just like I knew that some things were changing. We're kind of going through a change with the drummer, so he got a job working for Adobe and I was I was like man, I really want to get him on the album because I just want to have this, this moment where I just have, you know, all the guys from the band for the last couple years on this record. So I was able to pull it off and so that's part.

Bencjones:

that's like the majority of the people right there gotcha it's those guys, and then there's a couple other guys that I brought in that I found on like Fiverr.

Chad:

Nice, really.

Bencjones:

Yeah, to do, like you know, bongos and drums, and I got a guy that I use who does steel string, and I've used him a couple times.

Tim:

So how does that all work out? I mean, you send them kind of like this is what. These are the tracks here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Tim:

And they just kind of come up with their little thing and send it back and you kind of go back and forth. We've used Fiverr before to do some cartoon pictures for us. Yeah, random stuff, yeah.

Bencjones:

It's been it's. When I first started, it was hit and miss.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Bencjones:

Like you'd hire these guys and like some of the guys, it would just be horrible. And then some of the stuff you're like, oh, this is great. You know I love this great, you know I love this, um, and then so the ones that you love, you keep and you keep going back with those guys and the ones that you hate.

Tim:

You're like all right, well, good luck. Yeah, all right. So when we first met um, I feel like that was right at uh. Just one gun came out.

Chad:

It's 2019 that's when we had a playlist. It was like right after we had our first amplify 817 playlist right, so you just put binti jones on. I think it was the opening, one of the first few tracks and we had not to be quite honest with you, listened to you at all until that point and and we fell in love like that, that album you know.

Tim:

So that was, that was 2019, right, that came out in 2019,.

Bencjones:

Yeah, but I'm actually class of 2022,.

Speaker 2:

I think for the Amplify 817.

Tim:

It was three years later. All right, yeah, I'm trying to get my timeline. When we did our playlist, it probably was yeah, right around 2022.

Bencjones:

So 2022 is when I came on the show.

Tim:

Yeah, there we go okay there you go amplify 817, bringing music to people. You know I mean absolutely now listening to just one gun in that that era of of ben c jones, and we were able to listen to um. By the way, I shared the shit.

Bencjones:

I'm just kidding and I was like, don't share, I shared the shit out of it.

Tim:

No, um, we got to listen to the, to the new album, and I feel like, um, listening to your older stuff, there's always this kind of like the way I I look at just one gun is. It sounds like it should have been in the soundtrack for, like baby driver or oceans 11 or something like that. And this album carries that kind of classic-ish 70s, 80s kind of vibe to it that reminded there's a lot of songs I was listening to and I thought of Quentin Tarantino movies that just kind of played in my head. I was like, oh, this would be good. There was one song I think it was first the first track I envisioned it being played in uh on uh quentin tarantino's movie, jackie brown, which is one of my, one of my favorites um but it is very, it's very different, but there is some.

Tim:

I mean you can tell it's benzie jones right so this evolution from that to this, um, what are we seeing here?

Bencjones:

well, there's, I think with all artists you kind of go unless you're acdc, right where it's just like the same thing on every album uh, you go through, you go through a change and um so with with this evolution of ben c Jones.

Bencjones:

It's just kind of where I want to go. I want the songs to be a little bit more yeah, 70s, 80s. I mean I try to keep it to where it was, like kind of the some of it, a theme, but of course I failed at that, so it's a little bit all over the place. I mean, I've got people saying like some of the stuff sounds like Paul Simon and then like I'm like, yeah, could I could see that for one of the songs. Um, and then some of the stuff sounds like pink floyd and I'm like, so I got that on the. Uh, I'm like, yeah with the the pink uh sky, pink sky or pink

Tim:

fly so I got pink floyd kind of vibe on pink fly yeah but not just pink flo Floyd, but like a little bit of Zeppelin, uh, just that kind of. We're getting kind of psychedelic a little bit, yeah, but we're not quite to that level. Um, it was definitely something that you know. One of my favorite albums is Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd.

Chad:

I put it on.

Tim:

I can just sit there and listen. It's very airy and open and kind of this like that's a facial thing right.

Tim:

So that's what I was getting from listening to your album was this kind of like very airy, very open, very spatial, but also a little bit like kind of teetering on the psychedelic. But then it would, that would go away and then we'd come back into it. So there was just there was definitely like this whole vibe to it, and there were a couple songs that I was like everything had this like kind of same feel, but you hit, you threw in like two songs and I think that the two that had the different album or a little artwork, that didn't. It didn't quite feel like the rest all right.

Tim:

Yeah, it's very different it's very different and so, um, I'm listening to it and it's kind of one of those things. It feels like you're just kind of shaking things up a little bit in the album and getting you kind of back into more maybe active listening or something.

Bencjones:

But like, yeah, it's just good to have variety and that's something I've always done is do a lot of different, you know, genre mixing things and whatnot. So, yeah, yeah, probably I noticed things which kind of has that kind of a tropical vibe to it Right, and then violet, which is more I don't know, kind of has a little bit of a country vibe to it.

Bencjones:

I mean that does have steel string on it, Whereas the rest of it of it has a little bit of a country vibe to it. I mean, that does have still string on it, Whereas the rest of it, yeah, it's a little bit more, it's a little different.

Tim:

Right, yeah, okay. So you recorded this at Nile City Sound? I did not, okay, no, no, yeah, I record all my stuff at my house, all your stuff, okay, okay.

Bencjones:

So I have a home studio, I record it all at the house and I produce it all there and I did a little bit with Pete Waringa. He's got a weird last name and I do the vocals with him. But other than that?

Tim:

yeah. So you're doing this all at home? Yeah, Putting it out there and then are you mixing it? I don't mix, yeah.

Bencjones:

I don't mix. This was mixed by Ty Macklin and Kent Stump out of Dallas and Ty's out of Fort Worth. So, yeah, I would love to learn how to mix. I think that's the next level. I could probably even get some business mixing some other people's stuff if I could figure it out, but I just haven't actually taken that step yet who said man I can't think of his name now Paul Rubin, Paul Rubin.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm.

Tim:

That's who. He's got the life right, this guy. He sits there and he doesn't.

Speaker 2:

He said he doesn't know anything.

Tim:

Rick Rubin, there you go. Paul Rubin. Rick Rubin Doesn't know anything. Paul Rick Rubin, rick Rubin, there you go, paul Rubin, rick.

Speaker 2:

Rubin Doesn't know anything. Paul Rubin isn't that Pee Wee yeah.

Tim:

Rick Rubin. He doesn't know anything about music, really, and he just knows what he likes and he listens and does that. It takes a very special person just to be able to. Yeah, he's like we need to tweak this here.

Chad:

We need to tweak this here. We need to. I've got this. I don't. I never really known what it was, but like I have this love for full sound, you know what I mean. Like something that, like Hans Zimmer, is one of my favorite, because, like, whenever you watch one of those movies, it's just there's so much sound and it just makes you feel right.

Chad:

And like I noticed that whenever I listen to music, whenever I was in Iceland and our buddy Lance was making me listen to metal music I loved atmospheric rock and metal because it was just so full and so much going on and I feel like I get so much of that from your album and I don't know if that was. Is that all you? Is that coming from the mixing, or is that just kind of part of that sound that you're wanting to go for?

Bencjones:

I was kind of going for like a fuller, fuller sound, that kind of in you know, for several of the songs that just like engulfs you, you know like where you? There's just nowhere to run, there's nowhere to hide and um, yeah, just trying to like expand and just you know, just uh just be an artist and uh just take it to where it goes. And I tried some um instrumental songs on this album. They're great I was inspired by Karangaban.

Chad:

Yeah.

Bencjones:

I was like genius, so like you just get rid of like no vocals, no lyrics, you don't have to worry about any of that stuff, it's just the music. I was like, all right, I'm going to do that for a couple tracks.

Chad:

Can I be honest with you, I could listen to an hour's worth of that, like I feel like sometimes I'm at work and I want to just concentrate, and sometimes it's that sound that puts your mind at ease and gets you into this focus mode. And you, but you don't want to listen to lyrics because you're going to concentrate on the lyrics, and so it's just that sound that just takes your brain and melts it and makes it better. I don't know. But yeah, like I love I mean I love the ones with lyrics too. You're a beautiful singer, but for certain occasions I just love that.

Chad:

There's two of those right.

Bencjones:

I do have two of them. Yeah, my brother goes. Man, you should have just made the whole album, just that.

Chad:

I definitely. I still would have been in, and you know what?

Tim:

There's been some bands that have done that, where they released just the instrumental as a as another album and dude. I absolutely love that. Sometimes I you know, sometimes I want to just hear the background music and I don't want to listen to the lyrics necessarily. I want it as just kind of like my yeah what's the word? Uh, like my theme music for the day I'm walking around, I just have you know, whatever, um, and sometimes that that's.

Tim:

That's really nice, I mean, and it's an opportunity to to put other things out too, um, if you so choose to go down that route, um well, shout out to uh, to vol thompson on drums and glenn wallace on the guitar, who helped me out with those songs, yeah, so I've got, uh, let's see, uh, we've got you doing vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, drum, synth organ, just a little bit of everything.

Bencjones:

Yeah, all this stuff.

Tim:

Glenn Wallace electric guitar. Tony Cox electric guitar. Mike Eisen.

Bencjones:

Eisen.

Tim:

Eisen Bass, claudio Zavala drums, vol Thompson on drums as well, eve.

Bencjones:

Roger.

Tim:

Roger Vocals, Reggie Duncan steel string that's one of your fiber people okay, ray solo that's. That's a fun name yeah, like that electric guitar, and then, uh, alejo, did I say that right?

Bencjones:

I think so. He's one of the guys that I hired also okay also. Uh, I left off the z win z win okay, and uh, okay, and he's in a country band called Hatcher County, but I had him play keys. He played keys at the 817 gig, oh, okay. So I had him play keys on a couple songs that we did.

Chad:

What's your favorite song on the new album?

Bencjones:

My favorite song is the one that nobody likes, which is Violet. I just love that song. I love the guitar parts. I just love that song. I love the guitar parts. I just get into it. And I ask everybody else you're like, oh dude, no Pink Fly, or she's Fancy. She's Fancy's my favorite yeah, all we really needed was a chance. They're like, oh, we like those songs. I'm like, all right, everyone's a little bit different, yeah.

Tim:

What makes that one, though? Why that song? What? What is it about it that you just, I guess when you were recording, you're like this, is it I?

Bencjones:

don't know, it's like the lyrics. I feel proud of the lyrics on that one and then I like the cool guitar part and guitar many that's on it and I really feel like it kind of ramps up with the organ at the very end. I was just really proud of it and I just really like it. I think it's a fun tune.

Tim:

Sometimes your favorite isn't everybody else's favorite, and that's okay yeah, I think it's funny like, uh, we've talked about this with like doing social media videos, and you put all this effort into a video and you're like, oh, this is gonna be great, it's gonna, we're gonna get all the views and it's a flop. And then you got a video of you just like look at that dog over there trash you put on the internet, yeah, and all of a sudden it just goes viral and you're like the fuck for it.

Bencjones:

Okay, the one EA, the one you don't care about. That's the one that people are like.

Tim:

Yes, maybe it is that Maybe it's just because it's not necessarily it's low. I mean, you put your heart and soul into everything, whatever you're singing, making music, but maybe it's just because it's not. Yeah, I don't know.

Chad:

But you also, as an artist, I'm sure have like your love for the amount of work and time and, like you said, the lyrics and things like that, the things that you notice that someone else might not right, and so, yeah, everyone's got the different perspective, but I mean, I like that one too, but it's yeah, it was not my favorite, yeah but you know. I'm sure my favorite is different than Tim's favorite.

Tim:

Yeah, Well, I mean Fancy. Yeah, she's Fancy.

Chad:

Damn it. We have the same favorite. She's Fancy was mine.

Bencjones:

Got some cool stuff coming with she's Fancy. I don't want to announce it yet, but yeah it's supposed to be on an album coming up here.

Tim:

Well, I mean it's going to be on your album.

Bencjones:

Well, it's obviously on my album. Be on another little collaboration thing. I can't get into too much detail about it yet.

Chad:

Are you going to be like a feature or like a sound clip?

Bencjones:

I'm not the feature, it's just a collection of songs that should be hopefully out here at the end of the summer.

Tim:

Tell me about this 91.7 KXT Homegrown music show.

Bencjones:

Yeah, that's going to be fun. It's going to be over at the Post on June 13th. Uh, we got uh reicher hall opening the. He'll be doing like a cool acoustic set and then dave cave uh will be playing uh with his full band and then my band, and then reagan beard will be closing it out and she'll be doing a kind of a cool down closer yeah, now are they going to be, is it, uh, kxt?

Tim:

are they going to be broadcasting live, or do you know, or?

Bencjones:

no, they're just promoting okay, just promoting, okay cool and so, yeah, I got a thing for my friend today. He's he listens to kxt. He's like man, they've been like talking about you, like so constantly.

Tim:

That's awesome. If I'm listening to the radio, it's funny. I happened upon the station on accident. My dyslexic, you know this. I tried to do 97.1 yeah, and I put 91.7 I was like man, this is weird what they got 97.1's changed, but I'm like, I'm here for it because you know they put all sorts of stuff so I kind of it's actually one of them. If I'm listening to the radio, that's one of the one of the primary radio stations I'm now on. It's good, that's Denton, right, it's their radio station.

Bencjones:

No, they're out of Dallas. They're out of Dallas.

Tim:

Okay, I couldn't remember where exactly, but they play all sorts of interesting things, just kind of span the gambit of local artists and whatnot.

Speaker 2:

It's nice, I like it. The word's gambit, gambit, gambit of local artists and whatnot.

Tim:

It's nice, I like it, the word's Gambit.

Chad:

Right, all right, it's not.

Speaker 2:

Gambit, gambit, gambit, whatever.

Tim:

Gambit.

Bencjones:

Gambit.

Tim:

Gambit was the guy with the my favorite Marvel character.

Bencjones:

So, yeah, I reached out to them. I was like, would you guys like to be involved?

Tim:

And they're, oh, so yeah, they like you so far.

Bencjones:

And then four of them have made their way to their local rotation. Right so you'll hear them like every like 10, 11 days. They'll play my music.

Chad:

That's a smart move, though, because you get them involved. You got that promotion, and then you got you know they're already playing your music. They're probably going to be playing it more Right, and so smart move.

Bencjones:

Yeah, I, I went to the 530.

Chad:

Clear brain.

Bencjones:

Yeah, 530 in the morning class and I'm like leaving it's like 645 in the morning and I hear Benji like we got a lot of cool shows coming up. We got Ben C Jones. I was like oh sweet.

Tim:

That's awesome. Nice to hear yourself on the radio, right.

Chad:

Yeah, I hear your name. Are tickets already on sale for it?

Bencjones:

They are and I would recommend everybody To get them online. I think it's gonna be like 12 bucks after tax and it's 14 at the door stupid cheap, wow okay yeah, so we're trying to make it very accessible for everybody to come on out all right, so I've got a.

Tim:

I've got a question here for you, because I've seen that you played the visit fort worth which we didn't go to. Uh, this, this year we this is the first year in a couple years we didn't do the annual meeting um, so you got to play that that.

Bencjones:

That was cool. They had me positioned right at the escalators going up to the actual event, and so everybody walked by.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Bencjones:

And I'm out there doing my thing and then I see Abraham Alexander, who? He's riding a high. He got nominated for an Oscar. Yeah, he doesn't know if he's going to win or lose yet, but he's like, you know, he's got people around him and stuff and I'm like hey, I got a microphone and speakers. I'm like it's Abraham Alexander, oscar nominated. And he's like Turner, hey, what's up, man?

Chad:

And he paused for dove the?

Bencjones:

epiphone dove and I learned later that's like his like brands that he promotes or whatever.

Tim:

Oh, wow, so that's kind of cool. That's awesome. Yeah, I seem like a pretty nice guy. Yeah, yeah, we, uh, we have been around him a lot um, so he used to host uh, so far sounds um back in the day and our friend zeus used to host shows at his house for so far, and so you had abraham out there and he's always dressed in nine. So we, we became all crazy dress.

Tim:

Yes, yeah all the time. He's got the best fashion sense out of anybody I think I've ever met um, but he's, with all this stuff going on, I'm gonna tell you if you ever, if you ever get a chance to just you, you see him out, say hi to him. That man is one of the most humble people I've ever met and he was an Oscar nominee and that's fucking crazy.

Chad:

Unlike. I don't know if you've heard of this guy, ben C Jones. He'll just slap you in your face. You approach him on the street. He won't say a word, he'll just slap you in your face.

Tim:

Well, that's the Australian wrestler version of Ben C Jones.

Speaker 2:

That's the Australian wrestler version of Vincey Joe. That's the shtick. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim:

All right, so you've got all this stuff going on. Anything else that we're going to be looking out for coming up?

Bencjones:

Yeah, those are the two main things that I have happening. You know you did mention Nile City Sound. We just recently went over there to record three songs. They're older songs but just to try to help promote the show that we have coming up and I brought in basically all the people that I had at the 817 gig, a couple of new people and then we also brought in Chris Watson on the keys on that one from the Retrophonics. But yeah, that should be coming out here next month and you know, shout out to, to, to waffles for for coming out and recording that and taking some really cool pictures. I'm also doing a um open mic review, so just kind of going around to all the open mics in the DFW area and oh yeah, I saw you at Gusto's the one time, right and promoting, yeah, yeah.

Bencjones:

I'm on episode seven, so I've been around and it's going actually really good. I mean, I'm learning a lot of how people run the open mics and I feel like it's a really cool cross-promotion. I'm promoting the venue, I'm promoting the host.

Chad:

And then also it's like bringing you know interest to me at the same time, of course, yeah.

Bencjones:

So yeah, look out for some uh DFW open mic reviews as well all right.

Tim:

So, um, one of the last segments. We've been trying to do some different things and, um, I want to. I want to do a segment called bad takes. Okay, so this is going to be a Bad Takes Only Space Tourism Edition. We're going to bring it back in there.

Chad:

All right, full circle.

Tim:

We're going to do one through ten. I want you to just pick a number Chad.

Chad:

I'm going to say three.

Tim:

Okay, You're going to say three and you're going to pick a number.

Bencjones:

Okay, five, five.

Tim:

Okay, five, five, okay, all right, so three. And the way this works is that you've got to give a bad take. You basically have to defend the worst possible opinion. Okay, all right. So you said three. If Katy Perry can go to space, so should Guy Fieri. Let him open the first intergalactic flavor town.

Chad:

And so.

Tim:

I've got to, yeah, you've got me. What like why? This is why defend it defend what guy fieri dude?

Chad:

this is a pretty fucking obvious slam dunk. All right, the reason that guy fieri should go into space first off rocket what is? Propelled by it's fire, fire.

Tim:

What do you think he's gonna be wearing his?

Chad:

shirt. Of course he's gonna be wearing his flame shirt. Okay, so it goes hand in hand.

Tim:

It goes in hand.

Chad:

He needs to be on every fucking ship. Obviously they're going to get hungry. It's an entire 11 minutes that they're in space. Do you think that you could go 11 minutes without a Guy Fieri burger?

Tim:

No, I can tell you I've been on a cruise and I could definitely not go 11 minutes without wine. I'll be honest, they slap on the cruise Every 11 minutes. I was eating a Guy Fieri burger. Guy Fieri does have a burger and they're legit.

Chad:

They're like half bacon, half beef. Whatever, I've already sold my point. This guy needs to go to space and it's pretty fucking obvious why.

Tim:

Should they rename the Rocket?

Chad:

to like that's it, that's the whole thing.

Tim:

Case closed. Rocket is called Flavortown. I mean, I think that's good, all right, sure, all right. Number five NASA is outdated. Let influencers and YouTubers take over human exploration.

Bencjones:

More views, less math, hell yeah.

Tim:

Okay.

Bencjones:

And that's because there's going to be some crazy stuff going on People taking some awesome selfies, yeah, and you know NASA's just so overrated with all the math and the money and the science and stuff. Just let these guys get out there with like a weather balloon, and you know Well, I will tell you, I I mean, we had the whole celebrity boxing matches and stuff like that.

Tim:

It's. I mean, I see it, I think, uh, you make a reality tv show, you put them on a rocket ship, you tell them figure it out and see what happens.

Bencjones:

I guarantee you were five years or less from that exact thing that's gonna be happening, yeah, well, it's gonna be in the freaking hotel.

Chad:

I can't think of my name now bitches, the one we hate. Take advantage of it, make it a fucking. The one that everybody hates uh, that boxed.

Tim:

Uh, mike tyson, uh, oh uh jake paul, yeah I could see jake paul, you know um doing something like he will be one of the first influencers in space.

Chad:

For sure, him.

Tim:

And mr beast, for sure those two are going to space man, there's a whole thing about mr beast and, uh, resort resorts world right now. I don't know if you saw that. No, they had this whole like mr beast experience that all these people paid for to go to resorts, resorts world and in vegas and they were thought, they thought they were going to be a meet and greet and they were going to get to meet him and do all this stuff, and now it's like all these people are like pissed and wanting to demand money. Um so, anyways, all right, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, uh, pick mine real quick.

Chad:

Uh, let's see yours is gonna be seven, mine's gonna be. You don't get to pick yours.

Tim:

If we don't get to pick it, you don't get seven all right if your band hasn't played a zero g concert I don't want to hear about your artistic vision. Yeah, I actually believe that Zero-G is the only vision that all bands should be striving for this. Okay, could you imagine? Take notes, sir.

Chad:

Just imagine, not Benzie Jones, okay.

Tim:

Just imagine the Rolling Stones. Okay, they're up there, they get launched into space Number one. They're going to look younger because their skin is going to go back. Yeah, naturally tighten Naturally going to tighten because they're going to be up there and it's the G forces, right, so they're going to look younger. Number two sound is different up there. You know this to be fact, I know this to be fact. Sound is different up there, so they're gonna sound youthful oh, oh so not only sound different.

Tim:

It's younger, yeah they look younger, they sound younger number two or number three number three and d they're not you too, because bono sucks. I'm still on that whole kick, all right. So I I think you know if you're gonna play and you want to do your artistic vision or whatever, the only way to do it, the only way to win in this game is playing a zero g concert that sounds really challenging, all your people all your people up there just floating around dude, if you were serious, that'd be like the most douchey thing.

Chad:

Fuck your art. You're just shitting on everybody you play drums.

Bencjones:

You hit the drum and the drum flies away.

Chad:

You ain't seen shit until you've been up in space watching the Rolling Stones play. I mean, there's been plenty of bands I can think of Godsmack that have the drum set attached to something and they spin upside down and they can, just you know, go there you go. We're not doing that, no it's just gonna be everything floating around.

Tim:

Yes, okay, I'm sorry my bad now the drums are gonna be your artistic. The drums are all gonna be attached. Your seat's gonna be attached to the drums. So you're gonna have this thing and you're just gonna be.

Chad:

It's just like one single drum set floating around the room. Yes, just pinging and ponging across the room.

Tim:

What's nice about it, though, is that, because sound is different up there when the amps move, you're not going to get the feedback as if you're standing directly in front of the amp or the PA system.

Speaker 2:

Is that fact?

Tim:

It is fact, you're saying a lot of things.

Chad:

It's 100% fact. Is that fact? It is fact a lot of things. It's a hundred percent fact.

Tim:

Feedback does not exist in space.

Bencjones:

Feedback doesn't exist um there's no feedback in space. The only way to.

Tim:

The only way to get feedback is that you got to get a bunch of metal zone pedals and you got to put them in a daisy chain together and nobody will do that that's crazy.

Chad:

The daisy chain's also floating. You're trying to choke some people out with this daisy chain, you know no, there's gonna be.

Tim:

You got to keep the. You got to keep the public separate. Oh so, you're gonna be floating in this like cage thing and the public's gonna be just floating around that you lost me on that.

Bencjones:

I do have some concerns. There's the guy who pees in the cup who doesn't want to go to the restroom during the show.

Tim:

Oh yeah.

Bencjones:

And then now that's floating around.

Tim:

That's an issue for other people.

Bencjones:

There's the guy who pukes.

Tim:

That's for a lot of people.

Bencjones:

That's part of the artistic vision. There's the puker guy who drinks way too much before he shows up to the venue.

Tim:

Again.

Bencjones:

Now that's floating around.

Chad:

I want to see what this mosh pit looks like. To be quite honest with you, though, Because now you're just going against the wall and kicking off like you're in a swimming pool.

Tim:

Yeah.

Chad:

And just trying to headbutt someone else.

Tim:

I guess Imagine that Stage diving.

Chad:

There's no stage diving, there's just stage floating. There's no diving, everyone watch out and nothing.

Speaker 2:

It's very anti-climatic and nothing. It's very anti-climatic.

Tim:

Oh man, why fund? I've got a bunch of these why fund climate change solutions when we can just vacation off world? I mean that's where that's where the riches are going. It is.

Chad:

The riches are like fuck this place.

Tim:

I'm still trying to figure out why we're not just sending our trash, you know, out of space. I don't know, why haven't we been doing?

Chad:

that there's been a lot of things about Mars recently. Have you seen some of these things about Mars Like they saw in one of the pictures? I don't know and I only get on the internet through social media. I don't watch the news or anything, so it could very well be fake, but I'm usually pretty good eye on these things. But it appeared that and I think it was actually a news article from whatever there was like this tic-tac looking thing that was floating above the ground at the back of a picture that was taken and it was like this little mini space shuttle type thing and they couldn't figure out what it was and it was floating because there was a shadow.

Chad:

But a shadow, but it was like very like smooth, like a giant.

Tim:

You know, they said the aliens come from the ocean.

Bencjones:

That's where they live.

Chad:

That's where they live. Well, this is, I'm talking about Mars at the moment, I know.

Bencjones:

But they go to Mars, they hang out there, they used to have an ocean, from water to Mars. They used to have an ocean from the ocean to the movie.

Chad:

They used to have an ocean.

Tim:

Yeah, until all the nuclear war yeah that was something else I saw about mars is there apparently there's actual evidence of like a previous nuclear yeah, there's um, well, there's, there's a certain like uh element or something that's only present, like after, like you see it, and like the yeah how wild would that be?

Chad:

what, what? What are the chances that the two of you think that there was actually life on mars and they blew themselves up, like basically what we're probably going to do someday?

Tim:

but they did it first and then just it's like Superman you know the world's coming to an end, so they just launch your you know your alien baby off the planet to go somewhere else here, he came here. What if they did come?

Chad:

here. What if that was what, like the monkeys and fish that we evolved from? Maybe they were just like from Mars and they just blew each other up because they were just a little dumb. And then they came here and we slowly evolved into what To eventually probably do the same thing.

Tim:

Oh no, we've already de-evolved and now we're trying to evolve again, because I mean the whole pyramid thing with all the stuff underneath it, the spirals.

Chad:

What do you think?

Tim:

that's about. It's all chocolate. Well, I wasn't asking you for a reason.

Bencjones:

I am a geography guy and the thing that I learned about the pyramids, which is so crazy, is that the coordinates of the pyramid have you heard this? The coordinates of the pyramids, to like nine digits deep is the speed of light? No way.

Tim:

That's wild man.

Bencjones:

Yeah, the latitude of where it is is basically the speed of light, down to like nine digits deep.

Chad:

That's just a chance.

Bencjones:

No, so we were yeah, I agree with you, we were at some point, you know, atlantis, and we were like kicking ass. We had the whole world thing going on. And then some war happened the pyramid wars, whatever and it blew stuff up. And then next thing, you know, here we are like tariffs, and then we better clip that and we're trying to get back. We're trying to figure out how to get back to it. You know, we're just so dumb, we can't figure it out.

Tim:

Oh yeah, yeah um, have you seen all the so I've been? I've been getting my, my four, my for you page is all about, uh, china, right now china and how to get how to get uh name brand stuff from the same factories that these places. They're saying that uh air mess and uh like lulu this is. This is a fucked up one, because you know why lulu lemon is. Is lulu lemon right?

Tim:

no so it's a racist thing because the guy who and he legitimately the guy who created lulu lemon thought of, like the, what would be funny to hear someone of asian descent say wow yeah, they make all their clothes over there at this, at this factory and so there's the.

Tim:

So this guy was one of these guys in china was saying like you want, you like lulu lemon, you buy from this factory. This is how you do it. You can get the exact same thing. It just doesn't have the logo on it. Wow, like they said Aramis and Louis Vuitton and all that they make the bulk of the product in China and then they send it off to there and then they stitch the logo on or whatever, and then it's made in France, or it's made you know, it's all made in france, or it's made you know yeah, it's all made in china.

Tim:

That's wild. You can get these electric cars in china now. That are like uh the byd dude?

Chad:

yeah, I saw one finally. It was on my last day in hong kong. I was like I there was a ton of teslas. I'm like, why am I not seeing a byd? And um jesus crystal said that in mainland, that's almost all you see. Apparently there's. There's a lot of gas-powered BYDs. That's how they started. I didn't realize. I thought it was like this new electric Tesla competitor. But yeah, there's tons of them. But I saw one. It was pretty.

Tim:

And you get them for a fraction of the cost of what you.

Speaker 2:

Like a third of the Tesla it's crazy.

Tim:

Maybe we've been lied to this whole time, I don't know.

Bencjones:

So are we going to bring all that back here? Is that the plan To bring, to have our guys stitching up?

Tim:

Louis Vuitton and Lululemon. That's what they've been already doing, man, that's what they're already doing.

Chad:

It's crazy that the cost of the manufacturing and the amount of time it would take to replicate what is already done in all these countries, it's like it was if you were to take the iphone and start manufacturing it in the us. Not only is it going to go up from like 1 000 to 30 000, because it is going to be that big of a difference, they also have to create. It's going to take five years to create a facility, because it's not just, you know, machines putting on chips and stuff they're gonna get the specific people that have been doing this for so long that you can't just like train someone to just do what they're doing.

Chad:

It's crazy and it's just like no, we'll figure it out. You.

Tim:

It's fine, we will not. It's fine. All right. We got this To wrap this up. This is the closing segment. Overrated versus underrated Music streaming platforms.

Bencjones:

I'm going to have to say overrated.

Tim:

Yeah.

Bencjones:

Because they exploit man. There's something really cool about we just had Record Store Day I don't know if you guys are familiar with that Just a couple days ago. I've been going around a couple of these record stores man, they're so cool and we've kind of gotten away from that. I'm thinking how can we get back to going in there holding like a record?

Tim:

yeah, I mean, that's how I feel about, uh, that's how I feel about like movies and stuff like that too. Yeah, um, you know the days of going to blockbuster and picking out the perfect movie to watch, or you go to a movie trading company and you're uh finding that used video that you, that you know you can't find anywhere else, um, and having that physical media. Man, I collect uh records. I'll be. I kind of stopped for a little while, but you know, having those products like cassette tapes, things like that.

Bencjones:

Have you ever seen Dune the Dune movies?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Bencjones:

And people were like, well, why is there not like all this technology everywhere? And they're like, well, because people got to the point where they rejected the technology they just kind of embrace like tactile stuff.

Tim:

Yeah, yeah, embrace like tactile stuff, yeah, yeah, I think, uh, I mean music streaming platforms in one way is nice because it makes it accessible and gets the you know, gets the music out to them, to the masses I can kind of discover. I've discovered new music via that and uh, I've discovered a lot of new music through tiktok yeah, um and I do.

Tim:

It does have its advantage, but I do know they exploit uh, we are, we are uh distributed musicians um right now and we're being exploited. I feel we haven't gotten a single penny.

Chad:

I think there's an exploitation, for sure, and I do think that it's overrated, but it's also just almost like that rated, because the exploitation is definitely there. However, you can't play a record in your car. You know what I mean, true, you?

Tim:

can't just go and play.

Chad:

I've got a nice little record collection. That's what I prefer to do at home. I'm not going to ever listen to like my streaming at home. I'm always going to put on a record. However, you can't do that everywhere?

Tim:

yeah, that's true, and to your point, you can't. If you try, it gets more music places yeah, yeah, skip around a lot, but I think in a bump I think it is a little overrated in the sense of that and there needs to be a happy median um that we can come up with. And I don't know they need to pay their artists pay the artists paid more money.

Bencjones:

I'd be like it's great yeah, because it's.

Tim:

It's like. It's like pennies on the dollar right, or even less than that.

Bencjones:

It's less than that it's like you get like 0.00345 cents yeah, I mean it's it.

Tim:

it's similar to like your, like YouTube and things like that you just have to. I mean, and you have to just get massive numbers in order to make any money.

Tim:

It's crazy because a lot of your artists are. You know you get these touring artists that used they used to make money off of. You know Metallica's got more money than Sin, but you know they made money off of physical media sales and things like that, and that's gone now. Money off of physical media sales and things like that, and that's gone now. And so you really rely on your cut from the door and your your merch sales, and merch is a you know huge thing and I don't mind going to these shows and spending yeah, I might be buying a t-shirt for 40 bucks I don't mind spending you know a little bit extra money to get that to help support that band right, as long as the cuts not go into the venue.

Bencjones:

Right.

Tim:

That's a whole man, and that's a whole other thing.

Chad:

When it's merch.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that sucks.

Tim:

Like I don't agree with that. I get like, okay, we're going to give you a percentage of the door or whatever, but all your merch sales should be yours.

Bencjones:

I will say that the smaller venues are being squeezed by the Ticket Guys. Ticketmaster and. Live Nation. Those guys have basically said we're just going to focus on these big giant arena acts and stadium acts and then everybody else. It's like a smaller venue. It's bad.

Tim:

It's difficult. Celebrity activism.

Bencjones:

Overrated.

Speaker 2:

Overrated.

Tim:

Local music awards Overrated, overrated, overrated, okay, local music awards.

Bencjones:

Overrated.

Tim:

Really, I think sometimes I don't know much about the ins and outs of the local music awards scene, but sometimes I feel like maybe it's just I don't know, maybe it's a little rigged Could be. I think we need to the ones that we vote on. You know, I think it's kind of cool but you know, if you're not voting it's just some dude picking, you know.

Chad:

I think it's underrated. I think they need to be consolidated some, because there's so many and it just becomes noise. If there was like a local you know award system thing, then cool. But there's just so much going on it's hard to keep up with it all I think if I had more success in that realm I'd be like it's great so it's a selfish over because I don't and nobody votes for me, then I'm like whatever overrated.

Tim:

We got to get your. We got to get your name out there cheers to that sometimes I feel like it's just a.

Bencjones:

I mean, it is a big popularity contest, it's a popularity contest and it's like who knows who and then, like I've noticed in the on the music side things at least here in our town, it's a lot of people.

Bencjones:

It's the same people who win every year yeah, yeah and so it's just the friends all vote for each other and I'm like, well, they haven't really released any new music, any you know, recently. Uh, you know what are they really doing and so they're cool. They are cool and I think it is. It is an honor to be kind of in that in that world and have people think about you. I mean, you know, I got for our local setup. I was on the initial list. I didn't make it to like the actual, like final nominees, but I was on the initial list, that's. That's cool, yeah.

Tim:

I think I would rather, instead of having local music awards, just having like local music showcases and like, like, not like. Oh, we're presenting this band, you know, tonight with some supporting acts. I'm talking like full-on, um, like almost like local music festivals, like this south side thing that they do.

Chad:

Yeah, a few months, which is awesome.

Tim:

I mean not, but I mean that's a little spread out. I'm talking like more of just like one location, yeah okay, but I mean and it's it's really trying to get like that you put a couple of like big like maybe either not necessarily local acts but maybe national acts or maybe just a little bit bigger regional acts or whatever to draw in some of that crowd. But then you stack the shit out of all the support stuff with your local and so you get these crowds that are coming for that national or bigger acts.

Speaker 2:

But they get to see what you know Like Frontier Fest. Yeah, getting more.

Tim:

Fortress.

Speaker 2:

Fest Fortress.

Tim:

Fest. Yeah, getting more exposure that way, you know. Yeah, I would love that Fort Worth's weird when it comes to the music scene.

Bencjones:

Fort Worth is. Yeah, it's a weird one, because I mean most of the people in fort worth they love national acts. Yeah, they're like, they're like they will come out in droves, yep, but then our local music scene is very um segmented and 100 it's uh, it's a lot of friend groups and stuff, but you know, it is what it is.

Tim:

So, yeah, I've been to um, you know, it's funny, like I, I ran into that. It's not just fort worth, though. I ran into that in dallas I went and my cousin invited me out to see a band and, um, you know, I didn't know any of the, I didn't know any of the you know artists, but I was like, well, my cousins, you know, asked me to come out, so sure, I'm gonna go out with them. And we got out there and there was a big showing for like one band that was opening up. Uh, actually, I didn't, I didn't know them. It was dispositions, which is a local fourth kind of like metal band, and as soon as dispositions was done in the headliner, who my cousin was actually there to see it, comes on. There's nobody there everybody everybody left

Bencjones:

yeah, yeah, so they should have been the headliner?

Tim:

sure, yeah, and I've seen that also. Um, there's another. There's a hardcore band in Fort Worth, ozone, kelly Onionberger. Joe Kelly is the front man for it. They did a show out at Herman Hall Sons of Herman Hall out in Dallas and they were the act before the headliner.

Tim:

And again, same thing Everybody showed up to see ozone and then, as soon as over, a lot of people left and so you know you're seeing a lot of, you know there's some stuff like that. But you're really you're, you're right, it is very segmented and then depending on, like, what part of town. So I mean, if you're playing on the west side or something like that, you're probably not gonna get that big of showing and like, tulips seems to get quite a you know of their shows. They get a lot of people out there, it seems like. But some of your other venues they just don't get the crowd and we don't know why. Talking to Jason, one of the biggest complaints Jason, the owner of Tulips one of the biggest complaints that he got from people was their drink prices and things like that, because it is a little more expensive. I mean, they're a venue and you've got people who aren't just necessarily going out there to have drinks or whatever. So you raise your price, make a little bit of money because you've got to make. You're a business owner.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Tim:

And so a lot of people complain about that. But man, I don't know, I don't know what the answer is for Fort Worth.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Tim:

Dallas has got the music scene. It seems like it just people do mostly show up for those. But Yep.

Bencjones:

Yeah, I don't know, I don't know what's going to take it to the next level. I'm trying, trying to just you know.

Tim:

Yeah, I think a lot of our artists Put out good music and that's all we can do.

Bencjones:

And you know, hopefully we can get some people to come out on June 13, 13th to the post 13th to the post.

Chad:

Bring it back around.

Tim:

Yeah, so I mean, that's all I got.

Bencjones:

June 13th, june 13th at the post, june 13th at the post, june 13th at the post guys, $10 plus tax for tickets if you pre-buy them $14 at the door. Yeah and yeah. You guys can go to thepostatrivereastcom to get those tickets. Just click on the shows and scroll down until you see mine.

Tim:

Don't get confused though, because they're not at the River East anymore. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2:

That is very confusing.

Bencjones:

They are off of 7th Street and Foch yeah.

Tim:

Yeah, birdie Social over there. It's a nice place. Our favorite barbecue place used to be their Dane's. Dane's has got his own spot. Shout out to Dane. They're open for dinner now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's pretty cool, all right.

Tim:

Thank you for coming on, ben.

Bencjones:

C Jones. Yeah, guys, thank you so much.

Tim:

I do apologize that Javier was the one who ran into you and y'all got this all worked out. He's being a real Javier tonight.

Chad:

Where can people find you on social media?

Bencjones:

man, I got the where can people find you on social media, man, yeah, guys go to at Ben C Jones music and yeah, and then also WW, ww, ben C Jones music dot com.

Tim:

And then look for Amplify one seven, his album release May 20,.

Bencjones:

May 23rd. Yeah, and stream it there exclusively.

Chad:

And if you're going to be at the post like we are, we'll see you there on June 13th, yeah. And if you're going to be at the post like we are, we'll see you there on June 13th, yeah. If you want to do so, please make sure you follow the Funky Panther on all things social media. You can find it at thefunkypanthercom Call text. Leave us a voicemail 817-677-048-0408.

Tim:

040,. I was like there's not enough numbers there, there's not enough numbers, anything else to close it out with anything else to close it out with no, I mean, I just think, just love each other and be kind to everyone and listen to good music and support your local artists. And remember I've got like five cats right now. If anybody's interested in a kitten, we might be able to make that happen and support your local podcast support local podcasts support local businesses support everything here, because businesses are closing.

Chad:

Okay, turn the music off for a second the most important question of the entire show.

Bencjones:

Oh shit, I got serious.

Chad:

You have now been on three podcasts in a month. Who takes the gold you do? You're goddamn right we do that's right baby, don't hurt me. Woo. Thank you all for hanging out with us. Stay good everybody. I'm Chad, I'm Tim, I'm Ben and we are the Funky Panther.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Javier

Host
Head Shot

Chad

Co-host
Head Shot

Tim

Co-host

Podcasts we love

Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.

Corks In Cowtown Artwork

Corks In Cowtown

corksincowtown
Tales From The Fort Artwork

Tales From The Fort

Jarrod Johannesen
Forever Reckless Artwork

Forever Reckless

ForeverReckless
My First Million Artwork

My First Million

Hubspot Media
KILL TONY Artwork

KILL TONY

DEATHSQUAD.TV & Studio71
Bad Friends Artwork

Bad Friends

Bobby Lee & Andrew Santino
The Jerry Jonestown Massacre Artwork

The Jerry Jonestown Massacre

Matt Stubbs, Dustin Schneider