Gustavo: A Venezuelan Love Story

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Speaker 3 Alan, this is my dad, my mom, Miauela, and that's Diego, my cousin who isn't related to me. Hi, it's so nice to meet you guys.

Speaker 5 Gringo alert, yeah.

Speaker 5 Hablo un un poco de españols. But you know, I was a little distracted in high school Spanish, so.

Speaker 1 Well, you just need to focus.

Speaker 1 What was that?

Speaker 6 On this episode of the Commercial Break.

Speaker 1 I am now the most famous Venezuelan you know. Right now? Right now.
You? Yes. That you know, that you personally know.

Speaker 1 Maybe you can be Venezuelan, but you have to answer me like three important words from Venezuela. Okay.
Do you think you know the meaning of the three words from Venezuela?

Speaker 1 You give me the words and I'll see if I understand them. Okay.

Speaker 1 What? I'll go easy on you on the first one. If you don't know the first one, I'll stand up and I'll leave the.

Speaker 1 I'm not making it into Venezuela. All right.
Okay.

Speaker 6 The next episode of the commercial break starts now.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, Captain Kittens, welcome back to the commercial break. I'm Brian Greene.
This is the Chicago My Gringo, Chris and Joy Hoadley. Best to you, Chris.
Best to you, Brian.

Speaker 1 Best to you out there in the podcast universe. A special Saturday episode of the commercial break because you didn't ask, but we're giving it to you anyway.

Speaker 1 Celebrating the very first international match here in the Miami Stadium of Venezuela versus the United States this afternoon, 3 p.m. I think you can watch it on Max, TNT, and a couple other places.

Speaker 1 That's big.

Speaker 1 So here we are giving you a special episode to celebrate celebrate this very unique meeting of two lovely countries, the United States and Venezuela, soon to be much more similar than ever before.

Speaker 1 Now crunchier than before. 20% more Venezuela.

Speaker 1 We're here in the studio on this special day. Again,

Speaker 1 we decided to put this out on Saturday because the Venezuela USA match is happening today. And we've got a very special guest here at the house, my brother-in-law, Gustavo.
Gustavo.

Speaker 1 International man of mystery. Gustavo.
He's an international man of mystery.

Speaker 1 Seven and a half feet tall.

Speaker 1 We actually have to adjust the camera angle to get him all in. I'm not sure the whole curtain gets it.
He is really tall. He's a big boy.
I love it.

Speaker 1 And he eats me out of house and home every time he comes. Every time he comes here to my house, I tell Astrid that we have to put an extra $300 in the grocery budget.

Speaker 1 And here's a couple of reasons why. Gustavo will sit.

Speaker 1 Like, I I know I have a bad cream and cereal addiction that rears its ugly head from time to time, usually in the winter because I can hide it with clothing.

Speaker 1 Gustavo will sit and eat an entire family box of family-sized box of cereal in one sitting, which is amazing to me. I don't even,

Speaker 1 I think I was doing too much cocaine to really like go through that growth spurt where I ate a ton of food in one sitting, but it still amazes me that any human being can sit and eat as much food as Gustavo.

Speaker 1 And he's a growing boy.

Speaker 1 He's a growing boy. I think he's like 25 years old.
But when do men stop growing? 30?

Speaker 1 I don't know. When do we stop growing? 30.
And women stop growing at like 26 or something like that.

Speaker 1 And then we start shrinking.

Speaker 1 Our dicks get smaller, our ears get larger, our nose hair gets longer, and we get smellier and less intelligent. Women just age gracefully through the years, and that's how it goes.

Speaker 1 Gustavo is a huge boy, and it's just the amount of food that he eats is immense, Chrissy. It's immense.
But he's here. He's celebrating the engagement, the recent engagement

Speaker 1 with his lovely fiancé, Alley, who has been, I mean, as long as I've, they have been together. I think I mentioned this on the show before.
They have been together. 12 years? 12 years.

Speaker 1 So he was three when they met or something like that. I can't do the math real quick, but they've been together since they were like in high school.
So high school sweethearts. Gustavo comes here.

Speaker 1 It's a love story. It is kind of a love story.
Can you imagine getting married to your high school sweetheart? Yeah. I don't know.
No, I cannot. Christy goes, yeah, I can.

Speaker 7 I mean, I can picture it for some people, but for me, I am glad that I did not marry my high school sweetheart.

Speaker 1 I really

Speaker 1 still to this day have an affinity for my high school sweetheart, but I don't see us being married. I think if we had gotten married, it would have been a hot train wreck of a marriage.

Speaker 1 But she turned out to be a lovely human being, and I still communicate sometimes with her.

Speaker 7 Jeff's parents had been together since kindergarten.

Speaker 1 No. Yep.

Speaker 7 Grew up together, were together, together, together until, yeah.

Speaker 1 Really? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Kindergarten. Isn't that weird?

Speaker 7 The moms were friends. And so then they got to know each other that way.
And yeah, they've known each other since kindergarten.

Speaker 7 Obviously, they weren't boyfriend and girlfriend in kindergarten, but they knew each other and were friends

Speaker 7 from kindergarten. And then that blossomed into a love and into a marriage and three wonderful boys from it.

Speaker 1 When was your first boyfriend? When did you have like your first like

Speaker 1 boy that you would come home and like a crush, you know, like a grade school crush? Fourth or fifth grade? Fourth or fifth grade. You waited a while.
I think I was in first or second grade.

Speaker 1 I can still remember the name of the girl. I mean, I won't say it here on air, but I can still remember the name of the girl.
And here's the funny thing. Like, I'm not going to say it.
Never mind.

Speaker 1 I'll tell it to you off air. I don't want to start family drama, so I'm not going to start family drama.
But,

Speaker 1 okay, fourth or fifth grade. Yeah.
I mean, listen, do you believe that

Speaker 1 if you have a best friend or a soulmate like Jeff or whatever it is, do you believe that it's possible you all were connected in a different

Speaker 1 timeframe, universe, multiverse, whatever? Wrinkle in time. Wrinkle in time, and then you had to find each other or you found each other.
I think so. I think so, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Someone you knew in a past life.

Speaker 1 It freaks me out to think about that because I think it's very possible in this multiverse theory that I have in my head that's kind of crazy and based on many LSD trips.

Speaker 1 I think that it's possible that like Astrid could have been my brother in a different universe or my best friend or a dog that I like very much. Or we were both.
possums or something like that.

Speaker 1 Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I think it's possible that

Speaker 1 it wasn't about some love story that continued, like romantic love story. It could have been something else altogether, a friend, a brother.

Speaker 7 You just recognize that soul.

Speaker 1 You recognize them.

Speaker 1 And so it's amazing to me, as we talk about Venezuela and the United States, it's amazing to me that I found my soulmate, even though she was many countries away, like completely somewhere else doing something else on a different.

Speaker 1 trajectory than I was.

Speaker 1 And then our worlds collided, which is weird. And Jeff showed up as your next door neighbor.
He did, yeah.

Speaker 7 And when we first started talking and getting to know each other, we realized we had a ton of people in common, a ton of friends in common, and places that we had been at the same time

Speaker 7 together, and we just never had met.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so when you think about this, it's either the multiverse theory or Jeff and Chrissy are Ross and Rachel. One of the two when you think about it.
I mean, that's kind of strange.

Speaker 1 I think this same thing about like my best, some of my best friends, like you, maybe we were connected in a different life somehow, some way.

Speaker 7 I think so, because we definitely recognized each other, I think, when we first met.

Speaker 1 We did. I had seen your name on the wall, and so I, and a picture, and I said, that's Chrissy Hoadley.

Speaker 1 Or what I affectionately refer to as just

Speaker 1 yeah, so amazing to think about all the different ways we are entangled. And

Speaker 1 Astrid and I, you know, obviously two different countries, two different experiences, two different cultures, all those things kind of washed away when we met each other and the love story persisted.

Speaker 1 Yes. And Gustavo.

Speaker 7 The language of love, the universal language of love.

Speaker 1 The universal language of thirst trap. Yes, that's right.
Brian, the

Speaker 1 universal language of.

Speaker 7 I'm just glad that what your heart wanted this time was correct.

Speaker 1 I think even in the worst of relationships, you're still drawn to that person for some reason. They have to teach you a lesson.
Do you know what I'm saying? That's true. That's true.

Speaker 1 So, like, you know, I had Nacho Potato, the dog, before

Speaker 1 when Astrid and I met. She got me a dog, I think, mainly to keep me in the house for some, you know, I had to come home to feed the dog.
She was smart. She was smart in that way.

Speaker 1 She said, let me get the guy a dog, and that way he can't be out.

Speaker 1 Being a dog, he has to go take care of the dog.

Speaker 1 I put Nacho Potato down because he was a danger to himself and other people. I've told that story on air.
It was a terrible thing. It was one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever done, actually.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 yeah, that gives me like a chill just to think about it. But anyway, then a year later, we get Blue.

Speaker 1 And so part of me believes that Blue is just nacho potato ruining the rest of my life for making that terrible decision to put him down in that particular life.

Speaker 1 He has come back to haunt me in the form of a female. We call her a Yorkie, but I don't think that is.
Trailer Park Yorkie.

Speaker 1 Blue the Trailer Park Yorkie.

Speaker 1 And so, and in some way, I think that Venezuelans in general, at least for me personally, Venezuelans in general were meant to be a part of my life. That culture

Speaker 1 has taught me some things that maybe I missed because of

Speaker 1 where I was born and the household I grew up in.

Speaker 1 No fault of theirs because they're a product of the way that they grew up.

Speaker 7 Well, and weirdly, another connection, you know, is that when you first started dating Astrid and

Speaker 7 were telling me where she was from, that is where my dad lived.

Speaker 1 That's right. When he was young.
He lived in Caracas. He did.

Speaker 1 That's so strange. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Why was your dad living in Caracas?

Speaker 7 Because

Speaker 7 my grandfather, his oil business? He was, yes, in the oil business. He was a geologist.
Yeah. So they lived in Venezuela.
That's where my dad was born.

Speaker 7 And then they lived in Africa and different parts of the world.

Speaker 1 Wow. Through that.
Your dad had an interesting upbringing. He did.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it's not strange that there's a lot of Venezuelans here in Atlanta either because Georgia Tech is a place where a lot of Venezuelans went to school to learn about engineering for the oil business.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, the Venezuela, I think the government would sponsor them to go to some of these more technical schools to learn some of this stuff so they could bring that knowledge back and drill for the oil out there, which has made that country very rich.

Speaker 1 And I'm not going to get into the politics because there is the politics of talking about politics about Venezuela.

Speaker 1 And we do still have family down there. But, you know, it's just, it's, it's all

Speaker 1 like, it just seems weird to me now that I look back on it after some time. Now that I'm in my late 70s, I look

Speaker 1 I'm reflecting on my life and I'm thinking about all the different ways that Venezuela,

Speaker 1 like the word Venezuela and the Venezuelan culture kind of made a runway up to where I am today,

Speaker 1 including just being placed here in Atlanta. Like it's just kind of weird.
And

Speaker 1 so yeah, so I think we've been trying to do this for a long time.

Speaker 7 He has finally nabbed him.

Speaker 1 Been scared shitless.

Speaker 1 You're like, you're doing it. I'm doing it.

Speaker 1 Only after we had that reel go viral did Gustavo make the decision that he wanted to come on because he said, well, I want followers too.

Speaker 1 So after a long time of poking and prodding Gustavo, we have finally gotten him to agree to come on the show.

Speaker 1 He's a highly interesting young man, currently living in Houston and going to school with his fiancé, Alley. Why don't we do this? Let's take a short break.

Speaker 1 If it's okay with you, Chrissy has volunteered to

Speaker 1 give the chair up. And this is not because we don't want Chrissy Chrissy here.
This is because, honestly, we are

Speaker 1 so technically challenged in the first place. Yeah.
Adding another microphone and a chair.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no. Let's just pretend.
Let's just pretend it's Chrissy for a minute. So, Chrissy's going to step out.

Speaker 1 When we get back, it'll be Gustavo and I chitting and chatting about all things Venezuela. And I think you'll find that conversation interesting.
And if you don't, fuck you.

Speaker 1 Go watch the game after this. All right.
We'll be back.

Speaker 1 I have a wild idea. Go to our Instagram and follow us at the Commercial Break.

Speaker 8 And then go to our TikTok and follow us there at TCB Podcast. And then go to our YouTube, youtube.com/slash the commercial break and follow us there.

Speaker 8 And then text us at 212-433-3TCB and tell us that you followed us on all of those other places. And then go to our website, tcbpodcast.com, and browse, I guess.

Speaker 8 Well, those are all the ideas I have for today. So see you tomorrow.

Speaker 1 Bye.

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Speaker 1 And now Chrissy has stepped out of the room so that we can have a, just a chat, him and I, because I think he's a little bit nervous. He doesn't want a crowd here.
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 But the very lovely, always welcome in my studio, probably the first commercial break fan ever, I would assume. Yeah.
Gustavo. He's even got a song about him here on the show.
That's right. Gustavo.

Speaker 1 Officially

Speaker 1 the man of mysteries here, right? You are a man of mystery in a lot of ways.

Speaker 1 And I find you to be mysterious. There are some things, you such an open book in so many ways.
There's really not a lot to be hidden.

Speaker 1 But then in other ways, you are a complete mystery to me.

Speaker 1 Here's a mystery that I have that I've shared with the listeners on the show, but now that you're here, this is my brother-in-law, by the way, is talked about a lot on the show. You better be careful.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 Who do you think would win? If you and I got in an argument, who do you think your sister would favor?

Speaker 1 Matthias. She would run away.

Speaker 1 It's probably a smart thing to do, actually. I wouldn't pick sides either.
I'd be like, I'm out of this one. I'm out of this one.
That's what she would do.

Speaker 1 You were here over Thanksgiving, and you had an engagement ring burning a hole in your pocket. You didn't help me.
And yet you didn't ask me for you didn't sell my signs. What's your name?

Speaker 1 You could have said that in front of my fiancé. You couldn't have just pulled me away.
I was telling you.

Speaker 1 What were you thinking about? Giving me the ring finger like this.

Speaker 1 He was dropping secret notes in my late night cereal and cream bowl, and I just didn't get it. I ate them.

Speaker 1 You can check your phone. You can answer me.

Speaker 1 First of all, congratulations on the engagement. Thank you so much.
Oh, Allie is a wonderful woman, and you're lucky to have her. You're lucky you have her.
What do you want? What's that?

Speaker 1 Because I know you. Because I know you, and I know her.
You know, there's a saying in English, you've outclassed it, right? You've

Speaker 1 married up. You're going to marry up,

Speaker 1 so to speak.

Speaker 1 And I hope I get a good place at the wedding. I just want a front row seat to see if this actually works.
It'll depend after this episode. Okay, we'll see how that goes.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 How did you ask Allie to marry you? Is the question is the question that's burning everybody's. Okay.

Speaker 1 So we went to a lake really close to our place. In Texas.
Yeah. Yeah.
A beautiful lake, which I have. What's the name of the lake? Do you even remember? Do you even know?

Speaker 1 It has a silly name.

Speaker 1 Lake Brian.

Speaker 1 Somebody.

Speaker 1 It's Lake Brian. Look in your honor.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 I appreciate it. Yeah.
So.

Speaker 1 Has most lakes in.

Speaker 1 So I had to work a lot for that. Yeah.
Because, yeah, I had to invite her her like 20 times. You had to invite her 20 times.
She did not. She did them on invitations.
I was going to do it.

Speaker 1 You were going to do it here. Yeah, but Astrid and her, like, they both were like,

Speaker 1 why are you going to go there? That's like sad. You're so romantic.

Speaker 1 We don't like that shit anymore.

Speaker 1 I think this is the funniest story. I really do.

Speaker 1 Gustavo's here, and Gustavo is, his intention is to get Alley to the waterfall, which is quite beautiful, by the way, to get her to the waterfall so he can romantically propose to her in a natural setting, you know, by themselves.

Speaker 1 Like a romantic, having a romantic moment. That's right.
But Gustavo cannot convince Allie to go, and Aster does

Speaker 1 him no favors because she's also like, ah, why do you want to go there? It's cold. It's cold.
No one wants to go there. They prefer to play board games with me.

Speaker 1 You could have asked her right there at the board games. Well, congratulations in any games.
Congratulations. You're now here in the United States on the student visa program.

Speaker 1 We'll see how long we'll see how long you get to stay.

Speaker 1 But I'm rooting for you. I'm rooting for you.
I'm rooting for you. You're rooting for me also.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I have some doubts about me. Yeah.
Well, I have some doubts about whether or not you're going to stay past January 21st. We'll see how it happens.

Speaker 1 So, you know, true or false, I am now the most famous Venezuelan you know. Right now? Right now.
You? Yes. That you know, that you personally know.

Speaker 1 Maybe you can be Venezuelan, but you have to answer me like three important words from Venezuela. Okay.
Do you think you know the meaning of three words from Venezuela?

Speaker 1 You give me the words and I'll see if I understand them. Okay.

Speaker 1 What I'll go easy on you on the first one. Are these slang words? Do you know what slang means? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 If you don't know the first one, I'll stand up and I'll leave the room.

Speaker 1 I'm not making it into Venezuela. All right.
Okay.

Speaker 1 What is chevere? And give me a sentence.

Speaker 1 Chevere.

Speaker 1 Chevre, Chevre.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 Uncle Google? Uh, no. Uh,

Speaker 1 Chevre.

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 1 How do I use it in a sentence? Um,

Speaker 1 let's say that we went to the Braves game, okay, right? And the Braves won. I would be like, man, that's Chevre, right? Yeah, that's cool.
That's awesome. Awesome.
Congratulations. Like, we did it.

Speaker 1 Like, it was awesome. Oh, Hannah.
Okay. Is that fair enough?

Speaker 1 Yeah, you are not Chevre. No.
That's right? No, I'm a 48-year-old white guy. What is that? That's right.
You're not Chevre.

Speaker 1 You're right. You're good.
I haven't been Chevre in 10 years. You're good.
Okay.

Speaker 1 What is a Roomba?

Speaker 1 It's the thing that cleans your floor.

Speaker 1 Roomba.

Speaker 1 On your wedding? Yes.

Speaker 1 After

Speaker 1 the official wedding, like the ceremony? We had a Roomba. A Roomba is like a little get-together with cocktails.
A little informal party or a formal party? A really good party. A really good party.

Speaker 1 Oh, a really good party. Like a ho-down.
Yeah. A jam.
I don't know if you passed that one. I think that one.
No, I don't think I passed that one.

Speaker 1 I honestly thought Roomba was the thing that closed. No, I thought Roomba was like, I didn't think it was a party.

Speaker 1 I thought it was like a festival. I thought Roomba was like going to a festival.
Roomba could be any like

Speaker 1 a party. Okay.
All right. All right.
Give me another one. The last one.
That's easy.

Speaker 1 One of your girls knows this word really well. Coñaso.
Coñaso. I don't know.
I have no idea what coñaso is. I'll give you a coñazo if you don't behave.
That's what we always say.

Speaker 1 A spanking, like a hitting? Like a slapping?

Speaker 1 A beating? Yeah. Coñaso means a beating.
That's right. Really? Yeah.
Like, I'm going to.

Speaker 1 I'm going to give you a ton of money.

Speaker 1 That's why I always ask it yells to you. Like, I'm going to give you a coñaso.
It's not a gift. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 think the first Venezuelan slang that I... Okay, so you know Raphael.
Yeah, of course. Raphael's mother.
He's my cousin almost. Yeah, he's your cousin.
Yeah, he's your cousin.

Speaker 1 Raphael, just to put the like the kind of the family tree together for those listening, Raphael is my best friend, is kind of the connection, the reason why I met Astrid.

Speaker 1 And Raphael and I have been friends for 30, almost 30 years. Raphael's mother, I would listen to her.
She was like one of the first Venezuelans that I knew besides Raphael.

Speaker 1 And she's like from Venezuela, right? Really from Venezuela. Spent most of her life there.
She uses this word ekte. Ecte.
Ecte. Ekte.
Ecte. Do you know what? Do you know what this means?

Speaker 1 I think you forgot the real word. No, so listen, here's the story.

Speaker 1 So then I would go around when I was using Spanish and I would say ette, ecte, ecte, to Raphael. And he was like, why are you using that dumb word? What does that mean, dude?

Speaker 1 And I go, doesn't it mean okay?

Speaker 1 And he goes, no, that's my mom's terrible way of saying este. She says ecte, ecte, ecte, este, este, this,

Speaker 1 this, okay. which is a word that she would use to like like a punctuation on something like this, you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 Ecte sounds a lot like you speaking Spanish. That's meracaiben, I think.
Can you explain what nosotros is?

Speaker 1 You have a good story with that one.

Speaker 1 Tell me the story about nosotros.

Speaker 1 So you were in Spanish classes, right? I was. I did take Spanish classes for a while.
For like two hours. For two hours a day.

Speaker 1 Because you thought that teacher was like hard? Like she was explaining in the Venezuelan way?

Speaker 1 She was very difficult. Yes.
So you understood the word nos otros. But you could have pronounced it.
Oh, that's right. You could have pronounced it.
You're reminding me of it.

Speaker 1 It was like nos nos otros. Otros.
So I would say nos otros. Which means we, right? So I would say nos otros.
That's right. And she would go,

Speaker 1 do I say pra en? Do I go praen? That's not how you say it? She was about to give you a conas. coñasa.
Oh, she was insisting. Gustavo, this lady was fucking insane.
Yeah, I remember.

Speaker 1 I remember you came scared of

Speaker 1 classes. And the thing was, is we were in this with your

Speaker 1 notebook

Speaker 1 with only no sotras reading

Speaker 1 on the first day.

Speaker 1 And it's like a child's Spanish book, right? She's giving like these children's workbooks. And here's the craziest thing about this lady: we would meet at a Starbucks most of the time

Speaker 1 because when we met at the library for a while, but she was so loud and aggressive that the librarian asked to

Speaker 1 take it somewhere else. So then I would get a conyasin or coñoso, coñose, whatever.
I would get it at the Starbucks. Those were your days trying to convince ASRI that you were interested in

Speaker 1 Venezuela. Now I've just given up altogether.
Now I speak English and the Venezuelans like me more. What's going on? I tried to speak Spanish to get in with the Venezuelans.
They didn't accept me.

Speaker 1 Now I speak English and they love me or hate me, I guess, depending on what it is. That's right.
You've got to be careful. So, you know, I didn't have AI when I first met Astrid.
The what? AI. AI.

Speaker 1 Like Chat GP. Oh, yeah, no, it didn't exist.
No,

Speaker 1 that's new for you. I don't even think the iPhone existed when I met.

Speaker 1 So when I met Astrid, you know that one of the first things that I wrote her is basically a Spanish sentence on Facebook.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it said, hey, Amiga, you know, hola, Amiga. Did someone help you or you used Google Translate? No, I don't even think that I knew what Google Translate was at the time.

Speaker 1 I think I went to the internet and searched out the words that I wanted to say, the words I didn't know in Spanish.

Speaker 1 And when I put those words together, it apparently sounded so incredibly dumb that Astrid responded to me. Can you imagine? Yeah, she was like, listen, I speak English.

Speaker 1 You don't need to speak Spanish.

Speaker 1 But one of the,

Speaker 1 if I had...

Speaker 1 Known and I think I found Google Translate pretty quickly after that, but had AI been around. Oh, I think I probably would have gotten with your sister already.
It would be much more easier.

Speaker 1 It would have been much easier. Well,

Speaker 1 you're a good

Speaker 1 speaker. How do you say that?

Speaker 1 In Venezuela, we say lavia. A lavia? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like bullshit flowing out of my mouth like a volcano? No, but in a good way, you know, like

Speaker 1 when you want the confidence of the people, like you engage people easily speaking. Yes.

Speaker 1 You have that talent.

Speaker 1 I think in English you would either say affable or like you might be referred to as a people person okay yeah um but i think that's kind of dumb because i don't know too many people that aren't people persons you know like who doesn't like people or who doesn't have at least have one other person

Speaker 1 i know some people that don't like people so yeah listen you take me to a place like great wolf lodge and i quickly don't like people yeah that's that's it that's right so i asked ven so i asked chat gpt earlier today

Speaker 1 I said, hey, ChatGPT. It's not really ChatGPT.
It's a different one, but I'm not going to say the name here on air because they're not the sponsor. It's like ChatGPT.

Speaker 1 It starts with a guy. What's that? It starts with a G.
No, I'll show it to you after you get that.

Speaker 1 I said,

Speaker 1 hey, if I'm dating someone from Venezuela and I want to

Speaker 1 know who they are, like I want to, I want to impress them.

Speaker 1 What are some of the things I need to know about to impress them? That's good. Right.

Speaker 1 And so they put out a list of things, and I think it's pretty dead on. I want to share it with you.
This is 20 things we'll go through a few.

Speaker 1 Number one, family values. Family is extremely important to the Venezuelan culture.
That's right. Expect to meet family members early on and be prepared for family gatherings at a regular pace.

Speaker 1 What it doesn't say is prepare three or four extra bedrooms in your house for another

Speaker 1 flow of Venezuelans. That's what I was going to say.
You know about that. That's true.
That's sort of true. Venezuelans, we love to hang out with our family.
We're like...

Speaker 1 a whole group together always.

Speaker 1 We hang out together. And when someone comes to the family, you better become part of the the family.
You have to become part of the family.

Speaker 1 And I think that is why, quite frankly, I feel so

Speaker 1 indebted and ingrained in the Venezuelan culture is because when I met Raphael early on,

Speaker 1 here's the story. You ready? Yep.
Raphael and I met at a restaurant.

Speaker 1 I was working at one restaurant. He was working at the other.
They were the same restaurant, two different locations, two little Italian restaurants.

Speaker 1 The owner wanted him to come work at the one over where I was working. And I'd been working at this restaurant for for like four or five months.
Didn't know Raphael, never met him. He comes over.

Speaker 1 He's sitting at the end of the bar. I'm bartending.
Quickly, we strike up a conversation. And fast forward to six or seven hours later, we are incredibly intoxicated at the bar across the street.

Speaker 1 And his grandparents, where he was living at the time, lived in the townhouse behind that bar, like half a mile behind the bar.

Speaker 1 So the bar closes, three, four in the morning, bar closes. We are 30 drinks into it.
I mean, we are just shithoused. And I'm like, I got to call a cab home.
And he's like, no, fuck that, dude.

Speaker 1 Let's, we'll go to this gas station. We'll grab a six-pack of beer.
We'll go to where I, to my grandparents' house, where I live. Place.

Speaker 1 So I said, oh, your grandparents are going to let me stay there? And he said, my grandparents, they wouldn't have it any other way. You need to come to my grandparents' house.
They'll cook us food.

Speaker 1 And I was like, they'll be happy if you go there. I go, this is like Waffle House.
I had no understanding of Venezuela. Kind of, kind of, yeah.
We walk to the townhouse.

Speaker 1 We open up the door. We're trying to be quiet so as not to wake up his grandparents.
We go up these little stairs. We turn the corner.
He opens the door. There's a bed, TV, fan.

Speaker 1 Looks perfect for me, right? Place where I can sleep with a little bit of air blowing on my face and the TV.

Speaker 1 So he says, go ahead, brother, go ahead. Go to bed.
I'm going to go brush my teeth and stuff. And I'm like, cool, bro.
See you later. Good night.
And he's like, good night, bro.

Speaker 1 And I jump in the bed.

Speaker 1 And I jump in the bed.

Speaker 1 And a couple of minutes later, I hear the door open. You woke up the grandpa because he was sleeping in the bed.
No.

Speaker 1 I hear the door open. Didn't think anything of it.
Maybe somebody forgot something. They don't know me.

Speaker 1 Us Irish people, we just play dead. We're like possums.

Speaker 1 So if someone comes in, we just play dead. That's why you do it in that situation.
Yeah, you just don't move. That's what I do with Astrid a lot of times.
I just play dead.

Speaker 1 I hope that she doesn't realize you're not. Close your eyes with your phone.

Speaker 1 Raphael slides under the covers. And I jumped out of that bed so fucking fast.
I jumped out of that bed and I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he goes, What's wrong?

Speaker 1 And I go, dude, dude, it's not like this. And he goes, like what? And I go, it's not like this.
Like, I'm sorry. I think you got the wrong impression.
First, I need to go to the movies or something.

Speaker 1 You need to take me out of the date. You lured me here with food and grandparents.
And now you're trying to, and I don't know what you're trying to do.

Speaker 1 And he was like, dude, don't freak out. And I was like, can I just please use the phone? I just need to call a cab.

Speaker 1 And I left. I literally left at like six in the morning, left.
And that was a shame because when I was leaving, his abuela was making arepas for us to eat because she heard us go to eat.

Speaker 1 That's very mean of you. It was beautiful.
It was wonderful. That was very mean of you.

Speaker 1 How can you not trust a Venezuelan?

Speaker 1 A dude?

Speaker 1 If you were in the same situation, what would you have done? He was using a beautiful piema. I know.
You should have to trust him. He came in like two, three, four days later.

Speaker 1 He came in for his first day of work.

Speaker 1 I totally understood. You know, Rafa.
He was like, dude, what's your problem? And I go, what's your problem, bro? I go, You, we didn't even, I didn't know you were gay.

Speaker 1 He goes, Gay, what are you fucking talking about? I'm not gay. That's what we do.
Yeah, he said, We're Venezuelan. Yeah, yeah, how many, how many? He goes, What do you think?

Speaker 1 Did that look like a mansion to you? Do you think we had a bunch of bedrooms? He was like, You're sleeping in my bedroom? Yeah, we treat everyone as a family member. Correct.

Speaker 1 That's right. So, yeah, and you treated me like a family member since day one.
Well, yeah, and we almost slept in the same bed, too. Yeah, yeah, you took me, you took me on a jet ski, yeah.

Speaker 1 So, I had to treat you like a family member.

Speaker 1 when when gustavo and i first met we went down to aruba yeah and uh and you had a couple of beers on i had 12 beers because you were there yes i didn't know i had like that

Speaker 1 that appearance you i wasn't so worried about it was more your father who astrid had warned me about and to be fair your dad had kind of freaked at least if i was you i'll do the same yeah totally with my dad i know my dad that's an intimidating man that's the the the other part of venezuelans like we are very nice, but sometimes

Speaker 1 coming from Europe, some people, it's a machine,

Speaker 1 and the men in the family, the men in the family, the only girl in the family, the only girl in the family.

Speaker 1 And this guy from America is going to take you, this old bald guy

Speaker 1 texting me in Facebook,

Speaker 1 sending me a message. Hi, Dad.

Speaker 1 Yeah, still to this day. Number one phrase your dad says when he's at this house.
Hi, but I am. Hi, Brian.

Speaker 1 Hi, Brian. Be careful.
Yeah. When we went to Aruba, out of respect, and because I'm Irish Catholic and I think this is like a universal thing for fathers, no matter what religion you're in,

Speaker 1 I understood that I would not be sleeping in the same bed as Astrid. That certainly wasn't going to happen.
We were just dating,

Speaker 1 not engaged, nothing. And so Astrid slept on the couch, and then Gustavo and I slept in these two single beds in this second bedroom.
Yeah, my dad told me, like, you better watch this guy.

Speaker 1 Did he really? Did he say keep an eye on me? No, I'm just kidding. Just kidding.

Speaker 1 But every morning, his dad would come in, he would knock on the door, and like eight, you know, seven o'clock in the morning, he'd knock on the door, he'd open it up, and he'd be like, I gotta go.

Speaker 1 I gotavo, yeah,

Speaker 1 and Brian. And Brian.
You better wear copy. He's looking for a drinking buddy.
Yeah. He still does that till these days.

Speaker 1 I think the other thing that it's important to know around family values and the family, the kind of the Venezuelan ever-expanding family, the extended family, is the fact that if you're married to a Venezuelan or if you're with a Venezuelan,

Speaker 1 you better be ready for any and all family members to be in your space at all times. When Astrid started inviting

Speaker 1 all family members to the house, I already understood this was going to happen because of Raphael's family. And I've never complained, not once.
Not once. I've always been afraid of the people.

Speaker 1 I always say we were speaking about it. Like on the wedding, we had like 20 people in this house.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. We had like

Speaker 1 air mattresses, air mattresses all around the house. Futons, couches.
There were people sleeping in the attic.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think there was someone. I think some dude came in.
Hey, Brian, he's Rafael again. Hey, Brian.
Hey, Chamo.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 That's right.

Speaker 1 This AI application also tells me that there's warmth and affection with the Venezuelan people. They tend to be warm and affectionate.

Speaker 1 Public displays of affection are common, and expressing feelings openly is is appreciated. I think it's generally true.

Speaker 1 I don't think it's like universally true, but I think it's generally true. You guys like to give a high-profile

Speaker 1 high five. We like to touch each other and yeah, hang out, kiss us, hugs.
Yes. Music and dance.

Speaker 1 Oh, a lot. Yeah, you're always.
Every kind of music. Yeah.
You're always mostly Latin music, reggaeton, salsa, merengue. What's your favorite, that country, uh, Venezuelan country music that you like?

Speaker 1 Oh, Yaneta? Yeah,

Speaker 1 the one you were listening to yesterday? Yeah, man. That's not my favorite.
I like some. But my favorite will be like

Speaker 1 Merengue, I think. Merengue? Yeah.
Merengue Tongue. Merengue Tongue.
There was a mix between Merengue and Tregueton, which was really nice. Do you know Chino and Nacho? Nacho and Baco.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's right. The ones you know.
Nacho and Taco. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was a great duo. Yeah.
They did a lot of great music. I think we went and saw Nacho.
Did Astra like Nacho? You went.

Speaker 1 I think as we saw Nacho, you were on your phone watching Pearl Jam or something. I wasn't.
I actually watched it. He's taken me a number of Venezuelan concerts.
I've enjoyed all of them.

Speaker 1 I went and saw the five brothers. What were they? The five guys? The Backstreet Boys of the Venezuela.
Vos Bass? Vos Bass. Yeah.
Vosbase. That's really good.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And then I saw the old guy up in Chicago, the very famous Venezuelan. The very famous old guy who sings like ballads and love songs.
And

Speaker 1 Astrid will have to tell you who it is. You don't remember the name? I don't remember the name.
The old guy. Yeah.
Dio Simon?

Speaker 1 tio sim yeah tio simone is that his name one of the most famous venezuelan famous singers i think you might be right about that i don't know i have no idea no no i don't think it was tio simone

Speaker 1 google tio simone uh reggaeton reggaeton and merengue yeah you're into reggaeton oh yeah yeah what's your who's your favorite reggaeton reggaeton singer yeah you had it here in in the tv show you don't know how

Speaker 1 I was proud of Brian for the first time in my life

Speaker 1 when he had Nikki James. This This is a moment of great pride for Gustavo.
As a matter of fact, I don't think Nicki Jam would have even been on this.

Speaker 1 Actually, my favorite is like Nicki Yam, Wisney and Dale. Daddy Yankee.
Yeah, and Daddy Yankee.

Speaker 1 Those were like the real creators of Reggie Ton. But right now, I like a lot of Reggaton's thing.
Are you guys getting into American music? I mean, I know you're into a lot of American.

Speaker 1 You know, Taylor Swift.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm a Swifty right now.
You made me a Swifty.

Speaker 1 No, this house will be a swift. This house will make you a Swift.

Speaker 1 You enter here, everybody's crazy about Taylor Swift.

Speaker 1 I really like country music. No.

Speaker 1 Every time I go hunting, we play some country music, which is pretty nice. But you know, country music in America is not really country anymore.
Are you listening to like the newer country music?

Speaker 1 You don't know what you're saying. I can't even tell you.

Speaker 1 But I like the rhythm and the songs. I like a lot of country music.
I also really like rock, but not like heavy metal stuff.

Speaker 1 I got to know Michael Jackson. Yeah.

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 gathering to reggaeton. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Into rock. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry

Speaker 1 Into rock this year this last year. Michael Jackson.
So I started to understand that I like some rock music. Michael Jackson is more pop music.
But it has some it does have rock elements into it.

Speaker 1 It's got heart. It's got guitars.
It's got solos and stuff like that.

Speaker 1 One of the other things that's very important to the Venezuelans, if you find yourself looking to data Venezuela, by the way, some of the most beautiful human beings in the world are Venezuelans.

Speaker 1 The women there are beautiful. You're saying that because of your wife.
I'm definitely saying that because of my wife.

Speaker 1 You don't want a conas

Speaker 1 after you finish the show.

Speaker 1 I don't want to be spending the night in Raphael's bed.

Speaker 1 But the cuisine, of course, is important too. You've got your ayacas.
You've got your pande.

Speaker 1 Your favorites, the ayacas. Ayakas.
I just can't stand them. I don't know.
Why do you have to put raisins in it? Why raisins? She put a little bit of everything, and everyone has to touch it.

Speaker 1 Do you like raisins in

Speaker 1 your ayakas? I'm talking to LA off camera. Do you like raisins in the ayakas? I eat everything.

Speaker 1 I know you do, but you're a young man. You're growing.
When I was very young, I didn't like raisins or olives. But right now, I just understand you have to eat it all, and it's good.

Speaker 1 I had this conversation with Joanna Hausman, and she said, I don't like the mix either. I don't like,

Speaker 1 but it reminds me of home

Speaker 1 and for that reason I like it is the ayakas kind of throw out the garbage food like let's take all the stuff we have left over no no families spend a lot of time like cooking no I know they do but did it like originate as kind of like a throw out the garbage food

Speaker 1 you don't know I I know a story from from my school I don't know if it's true but some some like

Speaker 1 Indians from Venezuela how do you say native native

Speaker 1 Venezuelans

Speaker 1 used to have

Speaker 1 a switch. So they used to have the plantain leaf

Speaker 1 and they will ask like their

Speaker 1 they were slaves. So they were asking like their people like

Speaker 1 a ya there? Aka.

Speaker 1 So like they were start putting some food on the leaf. Yeah.
And so that's what they told us in school. I don't know.
That was like the slave version. Yeah, they were started using

Speaker 1 the plantain. It's very interesting.
I don't know know if it's true, but

Speaker 1 the indigenous who were slaves would ask their masters for whatever food was left over.

Speaker 1 Can you put it here? Can you put it here? And they would roll it up, steam it, eat it. I don't know if that's true, but it makes some sense.

Speaker 1 At least for kids' story is good. I hate to hear about the slaves, but you know,

Speaker 1 the ayakas is generally the only food that Astrid has ever introduced me to, or anybody Venezuelan has introduced me to, that I don't care for. I just generally don't like the ayakas.

Speaker 1 But everything else, remember

Speaker 1 your face the first time we were like cooking ayaka. Yes.
You were like, I'm running out of this place.

Speaker 1 I need to go to Starbucks and McDonald's. I did both together.
Give me some cream and some cereal and a cheeseburger, please. That's right.
I can deal.

Speaker 1 The reason why I ran out of the room, the reason why I turned my nose in disgust was not because I didn't, I saw that everyone was doing this with love and with care. It's that I had had them before.

Speaker 1 Maybe you guys make them better. Maybe I should try them all over again.
Maybe it's

Speaker 1 family to family. Of youth.
I know.

Speaker 1 It's like a yearly.

Speaker 1 But I understand that you were afraid because we were all like in a yellow oil with bags and gloves. And it was like, what are you guys doing here? I understand that.

Speaker 1 We went to drop something off to go send it to Venezuela. And at the time, you, you know, and still to this day, you can't just send something directly to Venezuela from the United States.

Speaker 1 It's got to go on a boat or it's got to go through another country because of all of the trade restrictions around Venezuela.

Speaker 1 So, when you want to send something, you box it up and you go to a guy that lives in a shack, and that dude in the shack boxes everything up with other stuff that's going to Venezuela.

Speaker 1 Then he rents out space on a boat, he puts it on a boat, and it gets there seven weeks later.

Speaker 1 So, we went one time to this place,

Speaker 1 and I'm telling you, Gustavo,

Speaker 1 the guy gave us a box of frozen, this was like February one, gave us a box of frozen ayakas. There must have been 600 ayakas as a gift.

Speaker 1 He just gave it to Astrid, and it had, it was a box full of ayakas. Those were leftovers, those were leftovers, and they weren't very good at all.
I can imagine

Speaker 1 no one liked that. All right, let's continue this conversation.
We'll take a break. We'll be back.

Speaker 8 Have you got a hankering down deep in your soul to tell us what's up? Well, I am encouraging you to do just that. Text us at 212-433-3TCB and tell us what's going on.
Give us the haps.

Speaker 1 Tell us the dirty secrets of your life.

Speaker 8 That's all we've ever wanted to hear. You can also leave us a voicemail at the same number that's 212-433-3822.

Speaker 8 And also follow us on Instagram at thecommercial break and on TikTok at TCB Podcast.

Speaker 8 And if you want to see any video episodes, you can go to youtube.com/slash the commercial break and they are all right there.

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Speaker 1 All right, and we're back here with my brother-in-law, Gustavo, joining us in the studio. Chrissy has stepped out for a few minutes to allow Gustavo to take the throne.
Thank you. Congratulations.

Speaker 1 You don't get Chrissy out of that throne very easy. Thank you.
Jesus is an honor. Yeah.
Thank you, Chrissy.

Speaker 1 Actually, lots of people have said

Speaker 1 we wanted you to be out of fear, but

Speaker 1 I didn't give that sit to anyone. You know, the funny thing is, is that Chrissy came in today and she was, and we were trying to figure out how we get all three of us in this camera angle.

Speaker 1 I just couldn't work it out. We didn't have an extra microphone and stuff like that, an extra good microphone, stuff like that.

Speaker 1 And Chrissy said, well, I'll go or you can step out and I'll talk to Gustavo. And I was like, you're going to let my brother-in-law.

Speaker 1 We all want you to get out of the studio for like an hour, especially my sister

Speaker 1 that's my i think astrid really does want me to be out of the studio for an hour

Speaker 1 we're talking about things that are important to know if you're going to be in a relationship with a venezuelan now uh you know astrid la and gustavo are taken so they're not none of us are on the block but just in case and we've been talking through some of the things we just got done with cuisine tequenos are my favorite Venezuelan import to this house for real more than cachapas

Speaker 1 because

Speaker 1 you're a cachapa lover. There was a time during the pandemic when I ate cachapas every night,

Speaker 1 probably for three or four months, every single night. A cachapa is a corn cake that is fried, and then you put butter and you put cheese on it.
So it's like cornmeal, butter, cheese.

Speaker 1 You can put lots of different stuff on it, but that's how we prepare them here. The classic one.
The butter and the corn. I want to tell the Americans what this is like.

Speaker 1 This is like going and getting a really good corn on the cob and then smearing it with salted butter. And it's so delicious and juicy and wonderful.
And then you put on top of that the white cheese.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like a fresh cheese. Yeah, like a fresca cheese, like something that's native.
Sometimes they put some pork in Venezuela also. Oh, they put pork on cupcakes.
Sometimes.

Speaker 1 The classic one is just with cheese. But the ones with pork are really good.
What is your favorite Venezuelan food? I'll say pabayan for sure. Pabillón? Pabillón.
What's a pabillón?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like shred meat with tajadas, plantain. You know, the tajadas.
Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 Beans, rice, and I'm missing something. No, that's it.
Okay, those four, yeah, it's the four. All together? It's mixed together? You can mix it, but it's like they sever it separate.

Speaker 1 Okay, so it's like a dish. It's a dish.
It's a dish. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's really good. So let me ask you this: the shredded meat that's like marinated in something? Yeah, they they have like this seasoning, this Venezuelan seasoning that is really good.

Speaker 1 Have I had that? Yeah, that's like the shredded meat. Yeah, I used it as well.
That's from my mom and I'm not sure. Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 You You know, the other thing that I don't care for is plantains. I know a lot of people love plantains, but...
Man, that's really mean of you. I know.

Speaker 1 I think if Asterid had to claim a food, you have to work for food. You have to work on that.

Speaker 1 Start eating just plantains.

Speaker 1 It's a hole yourself. Just start eating plantains.
No, that's like one of the favorite foods for Venezuelans. I one time told...
We always eat plantain

Speaker 1 in barbecues. Like every time we're eating plantain for real.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I think plantains is a is a staple, but to me, it's a sweet food, so it doesn't go in the like the hardy category, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 Do you prefer having a chocolate with the plantains?

Speaker 1 It's more dessert for you. I prefer having ice cream with plantains rather than meat with plantains.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I see Aster can meat steak and plantains, and I'm like, that's like putting chocolate on a hamburger. I don't get it.
But some people like that combination while they're sitting there.

Speaker 1 I prefer to split my meals up, and that is a very American thing to do. You have your salties, and then you have your sweets, or you do it the other way around, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 You don't mix those two together. Very rarely happens.
And I think as close as that comes for me, it's a cachapa because it's a little sweet.

Speaker 1 It's got the butter that's salty. Yeah.
And then you've got the cheese that adds a little bit of flavor to it. I one time made them.
Have you had roti? Do you know what roti is?

Speaker 1 Row tea, the soup, the spicy soup that's made.

Speaker 1 I'm not much into spicy flavors, but I think I haven't tried that. I think that's the one thing that surprises me about you and your father, and I guess Venezuelans in general,

Speaker 1 including Raphael, is you have such an aversion to spicy foods. I don't know.
My dad likes a little bit of hot sauces and stuff, but for me, it's not like... I prefer sweet flavors.
Yeah. You know.

Speaker 1 No Venezuelan man that I have known really well has liked spicy foods. It's just one of those things.
It's not a Mexican thing.

Speaker 1 It really is a Mexican thing. And if there's one thing your dad loves, it's Mexican food.

Speaker 1 That's right. There's one thing that Daniel loves, it's that Mexican food.
That's right.

Speaker 1 What did he tell me one time? He said he was working in Mexico. Yeah, because he used to work in Mexico and he was a little bit more.
What's the story he told? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, he used to travel like six months to Mexico, and he was like eating tacos all day. So he was like, he became a real fan of Mexican food and spicy stuff.
Oh, he did? Yeah, yeah, he he did.

Speaker 1 Your sister has always told me that he's not a fan of

Speaker 1 tacos. Yeah, he likes tacos.
Oh, yeah. Like

Speaker 1 he's always talking about the tacos al pastor, which is like the

Speaker 1 lamb tacos. Oh, he loves that.
Very good. The street tacos.
I think Astrid has been secretly saying that because she doesn't want me to go have tacos. I'm talking to Astrid about that.

Speaker 1 I think Astrid is using Daniel as an excuse for

Speaker 1 Venezuelan girls' strategies. So you can eat her food.
She doesn't know how to prepare a taco.

Speaker 1 Not only are they beautiful, but they tend to be pretty intelligent, too. That's right, for sure.
They do, they do. That's right.
All right, moving on.

Speaker 1 Social life. Venezuelans enjoy socializing and often gather with family and friends.
I find this to be true, and here's why I think this is so important to the Venezuelan people, especially now.

Speaker 1 Why it's so important, like Astrid, I'm sure Ale feels this way. I'm sure you feel this way, is the Venezuelans are a displaced people.

Speaker 1 They're a displaced people, and they have been a displaced people. The indigenous have lived there, but the Spanish came over.
They were a displaced people.

Speaker 1 And now many Venezuelans, most of them, it's kind of been a brain drain, is a displaced people also. It is so important to keep that connection through socialization.

Speaker 1 Family members are not family members. Absolutely.
Because that is the connection to home. Home is a thought right now for a lot of Venezuelans.
It's not a place.

Speaker 1 And because Venezuelans, we were like kind of forced to move all around the globe. Yeah.
So it's not been easy. Like we have a brother in Spain.
We have family in Florida.

Speaker 1 We're in Texas you're here in Atlanta so it's all around

Speaker 1 it's it's a real challenge in Mexico yeah all around the world so yeah and I think you also know that because every time we come visit you

Speaker 1 your wife stay with us like till

Speaker 1 three in the morning and we're just like speaking through the same stories

Speaker 1 one

Speaker 1 and again I get it I have a real longing for that in my own family because that is not how we operate our family

Speaker 1 I've said this on the show I've told Astrid this. I've probably told my therapist this a million times.

Speaker 1 In my culture, and by culture, I mean the family that I grew up in and the people and the family members, the extended family members we have, gatherings are not a thing you linger.

Speaker 1 It's not a place where you linger. It's a place where you get together for a minute and then you go, right? And then you're out.
You don't linger. No one spends the night.

Speaker 1 You know how many times I spent the night at my grandma's house on my mom's side?

Speaker 1 Twice? Really? Maybe. Maybe, twice.
That was weird.

Speaker 1 we would literally go to a hotel before we would spend that's weird it's very strange now now that i've been embedded in this culture for so long i see just how strange that really was since a young since a young age i love to spend time like with my cousins yeah i love to stay like do you know you know my my sure godmother yeah so i always loved like to stay at her place like i was like please mom and dad i want to stay here i want to spend the night here to spend time with my cousins like playing games talking making yokes or i think it's the biggest

Speaker 1 i think it's one of the biggest blessings you can give a child oh yeah it's one of the biggest blessings you can impart on someone like me who doesn't have it is the longing for connection with family in that way now it still takes some getting used to and it doesn't mean that you're always you're ever like a hunt like as someone that is an outsider i might always be just a little bit outside the actual like the actual culture in that way but i long for and I love that Astrid gets to stay up till three in the morning hanging out with her family.

Speaker 1 I think it's beautiful. I really do.

Speaker 1 I always loved your face like trying to understand us and

Speaker 1 not even understanding a 10% of what we were saying because we were like

Speaker 1 here's that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 First of all, can you guys stop fucking talking over each other just for one second?

Speaker 1 I mean, honestly, you walk into a room of Venezuelans and everybody is having six different conversations at the same time. How do you even operate in that manner? How do you do it?

Speaker 1 A lot of times we make fun of you and you don't even know. Oh, I get it.
I hear my name all the time. But when three of you are saying it at the same time, I can't understand.
And we know the way to

Speaker 1 make it destructive. You're playing a game with me.

Speaker 1 We love to see your face.

Speaker 1 I think it's very difficult to understand Venezuelans if you're trying to learn Spanish whenever, and I've said this many times.

Speaker 1 You're all talking over each other. That's impossible.
It's hard. I need one person saying it relatively slowly to me, and then I can.
I will tell this story to Ali.

Speaker 1 One of my favorite moments from your face is when my mom approaches to you and starts speaking to you in English or Spanish or that combination.

Speaker 1 I love your face, like making me sound like, come here and help me. I don't understand anything.
And you're just doing like, yes, mom. Yes, mom.
Yeah, but can we be fair to me?

Speaker 1 Is that your mom's English needs a little work, just like my Spanish? She has her own dictionary. But But I think your mom's Spanish

Speaker 1 also needs a little bit of work. She's not that good at that Spanish sometimes either.
It is. It is.
It's really hard to understand. Your mom complained to me a couple of years, like last year.

Speaker 1 She complained to me. She goes, you know, in Spanish, you know, you don't talk to me anymore.
You don't want to listen to what I have to say. You used to talk to me.

Speaker 1 And I was like, I think you're remembering that in Carlos. I used to try, but I gave up.
I used to try, but I don't understand. Now,

Speaker 1 I think me and your mom have this understanding where we try to slow down for each other a little bit more because I really do sometimes have a hard time understanding your mother.

Speaker 1 But, you know, listen, again, I think probably one of the greatest gifts that's been imparted to me is the gift of the Venezuelan family. Because without that, I'd just be stuck in my miserable

Speaker 1 Irish Catholic family. And they're not miserable people.

Speaker 1 We just don't operate on the same level. No, your family is great, but yeah, we see

Speaker 1 different traditions, different groups.

Speaker 1 We would never think to sit up till 3 in the morning playing board games. I think we'd get way too irritated with each other for that.
We just all would be irritated.

Speaker 1 You can do that by watching football games without sharing a lot. It's just like watching the TV.

Speaker 1 And you go to your space, we are all touching ourselves

Speaker 1 with our legs on top of the other.

Speaker 1 I think, too, is that

Speaker 1 you're right about this, is that Americans, by and large, grow up with the television as the center of attention. So when they grow older and they have families of their own,

Speaker 1 the television is the center of attention. So are you trying to say that Venezuelans, we don't have TVs? I don't know what you guys have down there.

Speaker 1 I haven't been and I'm probably not going to get to go now.

Speaker 1 I'm probably out.

Speaker 1 You won't. No, I'd love to.
I can't wait to go.

Speaker 1 Venezuelan was also a big part of TV, of families.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because we had a lot of very important TV shows like funny TV shows Radio Rochella has Saturday told you about this one listen this is so crazy because when I ask

Speaker 1 hold on one second

Speaker 1 chat GPT told you this chat JPT told me this or AI sorry

Speaker 1 yeah AI told me this

Speaker 1 I told all that I wanted to make you react like play like show you some some Venezuelan TV show

Speaker 1 I'll be the next level Venezuelan

Speaker 1 I saw this somewhere.

Speaker 1 What did you call this? Radio Rochella. Okay, tell me about this.
It was like

Speaker 1 a TV show made of all of funny sketches. Like I said,

Speaker 1 that's right. Okay.
So Venezuelans were waiting for like I think it was on Mondays night, so it was like perfectly because your week was starting. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So all families were like waiting for this TV show to

Speaker 1 start.

Speaker 1 And we love like also like for Venezuelans like the TV was a center of attraction for some time, but we also like after that we were just like spending the night making jokes, like repeating those jokes and and having fun off the

Speaker 1 T V show. Do you think part of the reason why Venezuelans turn inward or turned inward to to family is because the outside world was kind of a scary place? So

Speaker 1 I don't think so because at least what I remember when I was a kid, it wasn't that scary.

Speaker 1 Of course, it's not like here you have a lot of thieves and it's not a place like you can be with your iPhone in the streets, but I think it's just something like Venezuelans like Venezuelans like to share.

Speaker 1 Like, I always remember our weekends were like spending time with the family. Like, okay, where's the meeting?

Speaker 1 They're like, Tia, are we going to Tia's or they're coming here? So it was like that. We are just like family members.
God damn, fuck all you. You're so beautiful.
What the fuck? We are.

Speaker 1 What the fuck? You're going to make me want to restore faith in humanity just when I'm losing all faith. Just when I think I've got it pinned out.
Now I have

Speaker 1 Venezuela. You were born in the wrong place.
I probably was born in the wrong place. And listen, I think that's the thing, too, is sometimes people just feel like they're born in the wrong place.

Speaker 1 You'll have an opportunity, a chance to visit Venezuela. Hopefully, not very soon.
Or I won't.

Speaker 1 When's the next election? Isn't there somebody was writing on one of those comments that we'll figure this out in the next couple of days? So today is

Speaker 1 the 8th? January the 8th. So on the 10th?

Speaker 1 Maybe something's going to happen in Venezuela. Hopefully, we're hoping for a change in Venezuela.
Okay. Because we had elections this last year.
We heard. You heard.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the person who supposedly won was recognized by a lot of democratic countries as the winner. Right now we are like waiting to see what's going on.

Speaker 1 Is this one of those WhatsApp buzzy-buzzy things are going to happen? Things might go down kind of shit. Anyway, you know what? Let's not talk about it here on the show.

Speaker 1 I hope everything goes really well. Me too.
I am rooting for Venezuela. Viva, Venezuela, Libre.
I hope, Baban,

Speaker 1 hope, actually, one of the things that I

Speaker 1 silently meditate about is that my children get to understand who they are in a more meaningful way by visiting the place where their mom

Speaker 1 lived. I'm waiting.

Speaker 1 I can't wait we came this close to pulling the trigger this year we came this close to pulling the trigger and then we just backed off I can't remember I was saying like yeah guys come come come

Speaker 1 from one day to another it's like okay cancel the plans your dad said to me when I first met when we were down in Aruba I said oh I'd love to go to Venezuela because I know Americans do go down there and there's a whole category of travel agents that will get you down there and take you know make sure that you're safe I guess as much as they can or whatever and your dad said I I won't bring you to my house if I don't think I can keep you safe.

Speaker 1 Getting you there. He's like, once you get there, fine.
He's like, but outside my house, if I don't think I can keep you safe, I won't invite you. Yeah, anything can happen.

Speaker 1 But I guess it can be said, the same can be said about a lot of places in this world, including the United States of America. So who knows? Anyway, listen, Gustavo Boquete, you are a dear friend.

Speaker 1 I love you as a brother. You've been a long time friend of the world.
I love you sometimes too.

Speaker 1 I do love you. I love you.
And

Speaker 1 as my Venezuelan brethren, you're welcome here anytime. Thank you.
Yeah, this is an awesome moment for me because you were like, like your kids, when they start asking for a cookie. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, last year you started like, do you want to come to the show? I was like, nope. I just

Speaker 1 keep going. He keeps going.
I did your same strategy. At the end, I gave you the cookie.

Speaker 1 I'm smarter than I look, and I know that no one's going to do anything they don't want to do. That's right.
So you just have to keep pecking the head off.

Speaker 1 Just keep tapping somebody on the shoulder until they turn around. That's right.
All right, let's take a

Speaker 1 look at it. We did have fun.
Good job, buddy. Best to you.
Best to you.

Speaker 1 We'll be back.

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Speaker 1 Well, that is well worth the wait. You won't hear it until everybody else does, but man, was that good?

Speaker 1 Gustavo.

Speaker 7 I love hearing his opinion.

Speaker 1 He is

Speaker 1 a gentleman and a scholar, not necessarily in that order, but

Speaker 1 I could have gone on forever with Gustavo, but he is my brother-in-law, so there is a level of comfort, and I'm so proud of him. He came in and he did it.
He faced his fears. He faced his fears.

Speaker 1 He did it well. He's hearing himself for the very first time on a microphone, which is really strange to do.
It is. And he did it well.

Speaker 1 And we only had to pan out 10x to get him, get his entire body into

Speaker 1 the frame.

Speaker 1 It's a large boy. Anyway, you can check this special out on YouTube, out available today as you're listening to this youtube.com slash the commercial break

Speaker 1 for all the episodes. Chrissy and I, all the interviews, everything.
All of the interviews are actually out there.

Speaker 1 There's lots of older episodes, and then all of the episodes since the beginning of the year certainly are there and available. So check that out.
We certainly would appreciate it. 212-433-3822.

Speaker 1 That's 212-433-3TCB. Questions, comments, concerns, content, ideas, we are taking them all at that phone number.
Voicemail also, but just be wary of that voicemail.

Speaker 1 Because you know, Chrissy, I'm a gangster. And I will put that up here on the show if you leave me some snappy little message.
You can better believe.

Speaker 1 That's why I think very few people actually call the phone number.

Speaker 1 Maybe I should stop threatening to put it on air. Maybe more people would call if I stopped threatening to put it on air.
Maybe I can bait them into doing it by saying

Speaker 1 feel free to call.

Speaker 1 I promise I won't put it on air.

Speaker 1 I'll bait a bunch of people to do that.

Speaker 1 Also, if you would please add the commercial break on Instagram, TCB podcast on TikTok, if that's still around tomorrow, actually, as we release this episode tomorrow, we'll see whether or not TikTok is still available to operate in the United States.

Speaker 1 I think it will. I think there'll be an injunction while people work it out.
There's people claiming they're going to buy it. We'll see.

Speaker 1 And the website, tcbpodcast.com. All the information about Chrissy and I, the audio, the video, it's all right there from one location.
And your TCB swag. Hit the contact us button, drop-down menu.

Speaker 1 I want my free sticker. Send us your address and it away it will go.

Speaker 1 Also, if you would, please, Roy Wood Jr.,

Speaker 1 go check out his new special available today on Hulu. Okay, Chrissy, I guess that's all I can do for this special episode of the commercial break.
I think so. I'll tell you that I love you.

Speaker 1 And I love you. Best you

Speaker 1 and best of you out there in the podcast universe. Until next time, Chrissy and I will say, we do say, and we must say, goodbye.
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