Doin' it Ourselves

SPEAKER_00 0:15

My business, your business. It's all up in my lady business. With me.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Welcome to uh today's uh episode of All Up in My Lady Business. And we're gonna be specifically just up in my lady business today, uh, in a metaphorical uh way. Uh it's just me today, no Melissa, no guest. I'm just gonna be uh like raw dogging it into your ears about the shit that's on my mind. I'm recording this in the beginning of February, not really the beginning, February 10th, I believe is the day I'm recording this. So um a month and a couple of weeks into the new year, which has felt like 40 years. And um, I've been really hard on myself for the last, I mean, really since the pandemic started, where I haven't been able to like like make my brain work. Like I get really easily distracted and I uh feel like I'm not getting anything done, even though I on paper it looks like I get a lot done and I do get a lot done, but I'm not getting as much done as I would previously been capable of doing. Um I am, you know, kind of sort of addicted to the groom scrolling. Uh, but I have I've done a lot of things to try to get out of that. Um, and I might have mentioned before, but when I when I got back last year during the uh I I was out of the country for the inauguration when Trump came in the second time. Uh and I was at the the annual Panama yoga retreat that I'm constantly talking about, uh, because it's really good for me to be there. Uh but I was out of town for the inauguration. And it was like when I landed from it, I really, I really saw my complicity. And maybe that's too being too harsh, but like just how it all kind of comes together, like how we got to where we are at. And it's been just little chisels and little chisels and changes and things we let happen. And we haven't really, I mean, I think it's bananas that we what women have had the right to choose taken away from us, and we're not all route rioting in the streets. And I am putting myself in that same bucket. I'm not out there rioting in the streets. I'm doing what I can or what I think I can. And I keep thinking, why isn't somebody doing something? And unfortunately, we are the someones that has to have to do anything. But I think about I've been watching, I watched the um the Ken Burns documentary on the American Revolution. And it really pulls no punches, and he really talks about how much of a piece of shit George Washington was, and um, just in terms of how he treated uh not only the the uh Native Americans, but you know, also having slaves and you know, his dentures in his mouth were actually made from slave teeth. Facts no one really wants to really reckon with. Um but, you know, when when we came, it's like, you know, the American Revolution is both amazing and horrifying at the same time. Because and I didn't really, I had I haven't really given a whole lot of thought to American history. It's not something I I really studied too terribly hard. Like when I was getting my degree, like my, you know, art history degree, you know, we I really do believe that my art history degree gave me like a degree in history. It just it just happened to be prettier than uh, you know, a regular history degree is. But I didn't really American art didn't really interest me until the 20th century. So I admittedly don't I didn't really dive much into American history. And we haven't had that much history when you really think about it. We've only been around, you know, 250 years at this point is the length of time we've existed. Back when I wasn't studying this, we'd only been in existence for like 200 years. So uh not really. Not not too much off that though. So my point being is that I don't I didn't really know much about America. I haven't really done I haven't really digested American history the way that I have digested other uh civilizations. History, that said, uh watching the Ken Burns documentary, I was able to learn a lot more than about how we started and all those other things, and kind of really being able to see, like in many ways, like extraordinary circumstances that led to the America happening. Like when America happened, it was um like we made a new country, which is something that hadn't really been done before. Uh, you know, we haven't people don't usually go places and then just start up a new country. And, you know, they came over the the pilgrims came over and then colonists came over and they were all colonists of England, but we had the only way that we could accomplish being here was by stealing the land from the native people that live here. And it it's what it took in order for America to happen. Were people coming over here, killing the native population, or at least pushing them back and taking over lands and just having guns and diseases and um, you know, numbers, I guess, maybe not. I don't even know what our population was like versus the native population of that time. But it just made it possible for us to just steal the land. And that's a big startup cost, right? Like we're if you're thinking about, you know, countries as a business or whatever, like the starting cut, like they didn't have to buy their land. They didn't have to buy the factory, they just took, they just took the land. So that's a huge startup cost that was, you know, eliminated because we stole it. Uh, but we come here, we start it, and then once, you know, we get to the point where we start thinking about how being underneath the British flag without any kind of representation in England is kind of fucked up and that we, you know, want our want to have our own thing and don't want to be ruled by this class across the ocean that takes three months to get here, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like there's it's not, it's not ideal. And so they start using these, you know, amazing, you know, enlightenment era ideals to start coming up with what the country should be and how should we operate. And all men are created equal, except for the slaves, women, and native people. And, you know, there's always asterisks on things uh in that, in that way. Um and we had these high-falutin ideas where we kind of came in to sort of figure out what we wanted this country to be. And one of the facts that came out in the American Revolution documentary um was uh so in America at the time of the colonial Brujaha, the late, you know, the 1700s, let's just say, in America, there were like five groups of tribes that all kind of came together underneath one umbrella of like a federation of the Algonquin. I think maybe was what it was called. I probably should have researched this a little bit better before I started talking about it. But there was a, they all kind of came under these five tribes, all came together. They all lived in their own places. And once a year they would come together and make decisions that would kind of help everybody else out. So they all kind of worked together to help keep them safe from everybody that was outside of them. And that was what Ben Franklin used as the blueprint for how we operate, how we structured our democracy, um, was that the states were kind of like the five tribes and that we they would all kind of have some loose things that kind of kept them safe and organized and made it so they could easily, you know, travel between the other things, but also have their own identity, but then have protections and things that benefited the whole. Uh I mean, we stole that from the Native Americans. That had that was like our blueprint. And that was part of what we used to figure out how we wanted to structure America at the time. Uh, so in that way, it's like, you know, it is kind of amazing to come in and we want to make this new place. And they had some good ideas, you know, and no taxation with representation, separation of church and state, you know, these things that, you know, being self-governed by the people and not just like a ruling class that makes all the decisions. I'm kind of all over the place here. But my point is, is that it was kind of amazing that we kind of came, we came together, fought off Britain, and started our own country on stolen land. And then the only reason why we were able to make the wealth we were able to make, which was wealth that was never seen anywhere else in the world up until this point, was by having slave labor. And so slave labor comes in, it makes all of our food, it, you know, it, it's, it's all is based the fabric, it's exports, it makes this country super wealthy. Um, but those people weren't equal. Those people, so basically, our startup costs for this country were free. We stole the land and we stole the labor. And so I feel like karmically, like until we kind of come to terms with those two really hard facts, like the karma, the it always comes, what goes around comes around. Like, and we've never reckoned with it. We've never properly apologized, we've never given those people the ability to be able to have the same life, liberty, pursuit of happiness that everybody else, the white people, white men, and somewhat so and to a lesser extent the women, uh, have had uh in this country, which is fucked up. It's it's fucked up. And I feel like until like it's like that's like where we're starting. Is it's like there's that that is a muck that we like really can't seem to get out from under. And, you know, it's like we look at the the Epstein Island of it all, and I'm I'm having a real tough time with the Epstein files. Um and you know, Trump just wants us to get over it and move on. And Pam Bondi was in her thing yesterday with the survivors behind her, and she was just awful to them. And, you know, I'm it's it's there the amount of disgusting shit that we have seen coming out of this. And it's and it's all these, you know, it's like, you know, I and I love how Republicans are like, oh, there's also Democrats in there. Fine, fucking fry them. No Democrat is trying to protect Bill Clinton. You know, no Democrat is trying to protect Bill Gates. Like, they're all disgusting. And the thing that they all have in common is this enormous wealth. There's no poor people on Epstein Island. And I don't think that we are built to have access to this much evidence of evil and depravity. Like I saw a a carousel on Instagram that was from a trial lawyer that was like, you know, when we have cases where there's like, you know, child, you know, whatever, sexual, whatever there's there's really disgusting, like depraved things that are gonna be hard to digest. They have to kind of, you know, they have to pace out how much the images come out, pace out how much because people, your brain is not meant to take in this much information and have some kind of like objective take on it. And so we're getting all these images, we're learning that all these people that we have trusted, that we have believed on both sides of the aisle are fucking monsters. Uh, the thing they all have in common is gobs of money. And, you know, that's that's the only thing they care about. You know, it's like uh Jeffrey Epstein, I really kind of think that part of what his strategy was was these people that he wanted their money, he would get them to the island, get them in their dumb boys' club where they're doing awful things that they can get away with in this place that they can't get away with anywhere else. And then now Epstein has dirt on them. So then they're like, well, I guess I gotta give my money now. But hey, I got a good rate of return. So I mean, I may have had to murder a nine-year-old, but hey, I've got an extra$20 million in my bank account. And so, you know, like it's kind of easy for them, I guess, to like be okay with it or whatever. And, you know, it's everyone's coming out and saying, Oh, it was just social. We were just socially hanging out. And it's like, well, yeah, when you're doing social, like you're only doing sex pest parties in social situations, you're not usually getting paid to do those. So, you know, it's it makes me realize like really it's just it's the money, you know, it's the money is the problem. And, you know, I think that, you know, Elon Musk made a tweet the other day that was like, money can't, you know, if money, money truly can't buy happiness, womp womp. And it's like, and everyone's like, blah, blah, boo-hoo, Elon Musk. And it's like, but it's but it's true. I I can see how he is so rich and he has all this money and everybody hates him. Fucking Epstein didn't even want him on his island. He's like having Gisling Maxwell try to get rid of him. Like, it's it's true. Money can't buy happiness. And what money can do is make things comfortable. Like you can make it so that you don't have to worry about your lights getting turned off or your cable getting cut off, or that if you could afford food. And I think that above that, though, once you have your basic needs met and then you've got enough to also like go on vacations and, you know, whatever, like that's a good amount of money. But nobody needs millions of dollars, especially when somebody's being exploited if you're making that much money. But that's a different conversation for a different time. But I've I really don't think I've ever seen a truly happy rich person. They all seem to have like a like a like a blankness behind the eyes. And, you know, it's like they get all this money and then they realize it's not that great. Like, and I and I I just don't know when enough is enough. Like, why is Jeffrey Bezos still trying to make all this money? Why is he still, you know, like making rocket companies and when they could be making museums and hot like what the robber barons, the Pulitzers and the the Carnegies, they were all off Rockefellers. They all were, you know, making giant monuments to themselves, but these are things that are still here. Like we still go to Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Mellon Still University, you know, the Pritzkers even, all these people that have all this money, they still do, they do good things, they did good things with the money that is still ricocheting out. And I don't think that, you know, the rocket companies that Elon Musk and and Richard Branson and uh Bezos are making, I don't think these things are like, you know, like this monoliths that are gonna like live on with them into the future. Because I really think the only reason why they're doing the right, I think it's really weird that all the billionaires are making rocket companies. I think they're all trying to get off this country, off this planet, and trying to find a way to get off this planet because they know how bad it is. They know that the climate is distress, is, is falling apart. They know that the the labor class is about to start revolting because you know, no one can afford anything. Like they know that shit is really bad here. And instead of being like, yes, climate change is real and let me be a hero by trying to solve it, they're just like, I'm gonna try to colonize Mars. I'm gonna try to put something on the moon. And it's like, why don't you focus here? Um, you know, it's it's it's super fucked up. And I and I don't think and I and it's all connected, like all of all of it is connected. And it's like you think about, you know, uh like how the how the way that rich people, like the like the truly witch, the you know, the five million and up class, I would imagine. Uh, because having a million dollars isn't that much anymore, which is the sad thing. Like that's that is something that is really fucked up. When I was a kid, millionaires were like the coolest thing in the world. And now it you have to be in the billions or the trillions in order to be considered actually rich, which is fucked up. But uh anyway, the way that wealth happens is that, you know, like one of the things that I kind of hear you hear kind of banded about is like taxing unrealized gains, which is a bunch of gobbledygook in my brain. But uh when I when I kind of my husband's really good at explaining this stuff to me, I should have a podcast with him where he like explains things I don't understand, getting like mansplained by my husband, but it's like stuff that like we'd all like to know. Anyway, uh so like peep, let's say you've got a million like you got let's say you got$20 million in the bank in cash. Like your company actually made some cash. And like Amazon doesn't really make any money. So let's say Amazon, let's say he's got a stock portfolio that's worth$300 million. It's all on paper. Like he bought the stock at$1,000 and now it's worth, you know,$20 million or whatever. He's not paying any taxes on that money between that$1,000 and the$20 million that he just made off of, you know, his Apple stock or his Google stock that he bought 30 years ago. And so he's got this money, this theoretical cash of what the value is of the stock portfolio. It's theoretical. He hasn't, he hasn't sold it, so he doesn't even know if he can get the price that it's claiming he can get. But he takes out a$500 million loan using that unreal, that that money that has never been taxed, that has just grown year over year, theoretically, what it's what it's worth. They can take out a loan for$500 million against that other against the stock, saying that that's the asset that they're taking out that money against. And then they'll buy a rocket company that then the US government pays as a contractor to take stuff to the to the space station or put stuff satellites up into the air that we pay for. We're the US taxpayers are paying the rocket company to do the things because no civilian is paying the rocket company to do anything. And we've probably been defunding NASA and like not letting them make money. And so instead of like having that money go into NASA and you know, him getting taxed correctly, that money gets to go to NASA and then we can do fund space things on a national scale and everybody can believe in it and like have the feelings we had towards the space program in the 60s. Now it just becomes a thing that we are paying a private company that bought the rocket company with money that they didn't have to pay taxes on. And then we it's it's like, I mean, can you see how fucked up that is? Like that shouldn't be a possibility. Like, you know, it's it's it's very uh fucked up. And then you think about how you get taxed on every dollar that you make. So, you know, it's and this isn't, and I'm not talking about your like everyone's got, you know, we're your 401ks, maybe you have a little money in the stock market, whatever you've got for retirement, that's like one thing. And it's something you have to have anymore because there's no way that most people can truly live a good life towards the end of their life on Social Security. You you have to have some kind of outside uh retirement in order to be able to retire comfortably, which most Americans don't have. There's something like the the something like 28% or something of Americans have like enough money to retire on or something. I'm I'm pulling that number out of my ass, but it's like wildly low. Anyway, you know, you have to pay taxes on all your money. And Jeff Bezos pays no m no taxes on all of his money. Like I'm gonna have to write a check in a couple of months or whatever, I don't know, next month, because you pay corporate taxes in March. I'm gonna have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in cash that I've been sitting aside that has been just sitting there waiting for me to and I'm gonna have to write that check and for my corporate, for my for toast and jam. And having to pay taxes is a good problem. It's a high dollar problem. If you are paying taxes as a civilian, as a regular person, that you're supposed, you know, that's good things. That means you made money. Uh but when I know that I'm paying taxes that are just going to pay for, you know, fucking RFK's brain worms or whatever, like the murdering people in Gaza, taking people, child care workers, prisoner in Minneapolis. Like, I don't want that to be where my tax dollars are going. But we don't really have a true say in what our tax dollars are even doing because we have gerrymandered this country to high hell so that, you know, people just get, you know, basically the the the Congress people are basically paying, you know, they're they basically are choosing their electorate. And we'll never get out of this. Like the fact that, like a couple of weeks ago, a uh in Texas, a very deeply red district flipped blue and it freaked all all the Republicans. Now republic now Trump is trying to, you know, remove the ability to have um midterms. And my less informed people in my life are like, oh, this is all gonna change at the midterms. And it's like, you think? Because I I don't know. I don't really know if we're gonna have midterms. I and I'm not saying that from a like, well, if it doesn't happen, I guess it doesn't happen. I guess we're just in I like I really think that right now they're doing everything they can to keep the midterms from happening. And so if not even if they do happen, he's sewing so much, you know, lack of faith in the voting machines or whatever. He's and one thing that I hope that everybody's aware of is that yesterday the SAFE Act went through, which is um an act that uh all 50 Republicans voted for and like a Democrat voted for, uh, that's a Texas Democrat voted for in the Senate, that makes it so that um you can't vote unless you have um uh your birth certificate. Um and if you changed your last name, you can't vote. Like, so basically it's a way to keep women that change took their husband's last name from being able to vote. Like it's your identification has to match your birth certificate. And no, then any woman that changed her name or trans people that changed their name, or anybody that changed their name can't vote. And uh that just went through. Another thing they did is that they made it so that um online or uh mail-in ballots have to be in by the election day. It used to be they have to be postmarked by the election day, but they have to be in by the election day. So if you mail in your ballot less than a week before election day, there's not any, there's no guarantee that it's going to be in by election date. So all of those, anything that's received after after election day isn't going to be valid. So that means that people who are liber are in the military that live overseas, they won't be their votes unless they vote, unless they vote and send it in like a month earlier, they can't guarantee it's gonna go through. So there's all these just little, they're and they're purging voter rolls. If you haven't voted in like the last like three elections, they're gonna take you off the voter roll. There's all these shitty things. And all elections are run by states. If one of the things that Trump's trying to do is trying to nationalize the elections, so that the elections are being run by the federal government instead of state by state to make it easier for him to be able to uh be able to control it. And I I know this sounds like a compar conspiracy theorist, but whatever. I mean, Elon Musk and Trump have both basically said out loud that he stole the election in 2020, that he or 2024, that. Uh he he won by the slimmest of margins in a bunch of swing states. And I think that they they just fucked with the machines enough to get enough votes so that he would technically win, even though he didn't even get 50% of the vote. I believe that. And I don't think there's any way that you can try to convince me otherwise. And I know it sounds like tinfoil hatty, but I mean, Trump Elon Musk tweet, go look. There's so much evidence that they are basically admitting, and every single accusation is a confession with them. So if they're saying because I I remember even when the Hillary when is it 2016 where, or no, I guess it was 2020, uh-huh. When he's like, they're gonna steal the election, they're gonna steal the election. I never really thought about I guess he was saying that in 2016 too. He was saying that if he didn't win, he was gonna, it was because he the the Democrats stole the election. And I don't feel we've ever really had that conversation about people about elections being rigged. That's never really been a big part. I mean, I think it could have been said uh it I think I guess we've heard it said, but it's not been on the level of like the presidential candidate saying if I don't win, it's because the votes were rigged. And then if he does win, then could Hillary have then said that the votes were rigged? Like it's she wouldn't because that's not a normal thing that ever really happens. Every accusation is a confession. So yeah, I don't I don't think we're gonna have a fair election in November unless there is enough of Americans coming together to try to defeat it. I mean, I I do, I really think we're ripe for a revolution here. Like I, I, I really feel like every woman I know acts as though bees and lightning are about to come out of their mouth at any time. Uh I am all of a sudden deeply aware of how unfair the women in general, the things that I have had to deal with and other people haven't had to deal with, I see, I mean, I see, I get told to my face when I go to DJ conferences that I am a gimmick and that I am an outlier, that I am not normal. And it's like, why? Because I've got boobs and I'm successful? Is that I don't know, I don't know. There's only four women at these things, so I have to assume it's my vagina that is the problem. Um but it's like in order for us to be able to have the revolution, in order for us to protest as a group, it in order to have a general strike, we all have to come together. And this country is so fucking large that it's hard to even imagine that everyone in this country could come together, at least the ones that are. And the reason why we can't is healthcare is tied to our jobs. And because healthcare is tied to our jobs, we can't lose our jobs. And if we and if we go to protest or if we go to do a general strike, we could lose our jobs. And so if we and there's and the union membership in this country has declined. If you look at a graph on income disparity and participation in unions, it's like the unions go down and the wealth goes up. In order, and you know, I'm very pro-union. In fact, I one of the if I had the energy and to do it, I would love to find a way to unionize the wedding industry because it's like all my problems that I've had with my business are around that kind of like not having any kind of regulation within the event industry. I would love to unionize it. I would love it if all my DJs were in a union. I would love if they because then there was like a standard of pay. You would know what I don't know, I whatever. That's a different conversation again, but I am very pro-union. Uh, I would love to figure out a way to unionize. I wonder how hard that would be. Um, anyway, the lack of a union makes it so that people don't even have the kinds of things to be able to uh they don't have the money in their bank to be able to take some time off of work to have a general strike. They can't lose their job because they're gonna lose healthcare. And, you know, it's like we we don't have any protections in this country. That's and that's all by design. Like I was watching an episode of The X-Files last night. We're watching the X-Files with with Sebastian. Uh God, it's that show's so good. I it it really, and if and it, you know, it's like set, you know, the the two main characters work for the FBI. And so a lot of stuff is like showing like how the federal government operates. And I'm just like, wow, it just does not, it's like there is one episode, this guy, Eugene B. Tubes, it's kind of a uh a classic episode where he is a uh he's been in a mental asylum and he's about to get out, and all of the people are like, Yeah, you're do you're doing great. And like he's in this like federal, you know, uh mental health facility. And they're going forward of a board to see if like he's good enough to get out. And, you know, they're deciding that he is good enough to get out, but if they but if he might have to come back to the asylum and just and it's like all this stuff that's like paid for by taxpayers that like doesn't exist anymore. And it's like, I don't know, at the time those things did exist in the 80s or the 90s when that show was on, and we just have peeled all of these things that used to be around to help us, even if, you know, spoiler alert, he gets out, converts, commits some murders. It's not cool. Uh, I think he steals livers. Um, but um we just don't live in a world anymore where this country can support it. And so, in order for us to be able to have the revolution that we need to have, getting back on point, we need to be able to do that. And we can't do that if we can't afford to lose our jobs or we can't afford to take a couple days off. And so that's where, like, you know, going to the community and making sure that people are, you know, trying to have like, you know, in Evanston, we've got Evanston Cares, which, you know, collects m food and money to be distributed to poor people. And we're using the one of the ways we're using it is like kids that are on free or reduced lunch for school. We know how to target people that can, you know, get access to these things. We've got love fridges in around Evanston where you just bring, you can either buy groceries or bring like leftovers that are labeled and dated, and people can just go and take the food and it's like, you know, no questions asked. I use I use that a lot. But anyway, my point is that we have to we'll have to come down to the community level in order to be able to make these things happen. And that is just really hard, especially when, you know, the only thing we're looking at is our phones. And, you know, it's in the algorithms are made to separate us and make us feel like we are just alone with our phones. And it's hard to build community when you're just looking at your phone. You need to get out in the world, you need to get off your phone. And everything on Meta is a nightmare. It's like it's you're just participating in your own demise by just, and I'm as guilty as anyone else. I am on Instagram, I am on Facebook, still kind of uh I go on threads occasionally. Um, Reddit finally to get something outside. Um, but is Reddit owned by some nightmare? Who knows? Uh I had to put an app on my phone that I pay$100 a year for that basically locks all my apps down. Instagram is only open on my phone from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m., but I still have ways that I can like overwrite it. It's hard to overwrite it, but I can still do it. But I so I'm still it's like an addiction. I can't get out of it. Um, but we need to be looking more at the community. We need to start seeing how how we can participate in the revolution in the ways that we can. I feel like I sound like a crazy person when I say this, but um, but we need that, we need to figure out how to fix this. No one's coming for us. We have to do it ourselves. And I think that, you know, one of the main ways to extract ourselves from this is getting rid of the corporate overlords. And the thing that I think has been, if I try to distill it all down, is convenience. Like we have gotten addicted to convenience. And convenience comes with a price every single time. And prior to the pandemic, I would maybe order maybe one or two things a year off of Amazon. Um, I would only buy things that like I couldn't get the store. Like, why would I, why would I go, why would I have it ordered and sent to me? And like it just felt so princessy to have someone like bring me things that I could buy at the store. I I really didn't use it very much. But then once the pandemic happened and we couldn't find things or you couldn't go places, um, you know, I started using it like crazy. And uh, and I knew that Bezos was evil. I knew that by having someone bring me a tube of toothpaste, it was the the the carbon footprint of that tube of toothpaste paste was crazy. But I just kind of got used to it and everybody was doing it. And it's really easy to just, and it's and it was so far away from like who I was like when I was younger, when when I was poor, like when I was, you know, before I started toasting jamma and I was just like a poor college kid and I was, and then after college, I was just like scrapping together. I just, you know, I didn't make much money, but I had everything I needed. Like I never had to go without with my hour, you know, I was making, you know, we I was waiting tables and I never felt like I mean, sure, did I want a car? Okay. Yeah. I mean, there were things I didn't have. I rode a bike until I was 28 years old. I didn't have a car until I was 28. Um, but that didn't, but I it wasn't like, oh, I'm too poor to have a cause, like, I don't, I don't need a car, I've got a bike. And I and I borrowed my friends' cars if I really needed to do it, uh, if I really needed a car. But you can't be poor anymore. You can't live an easy life. I don't think. I I mean, I can say that I don't, I mean, I'm not in that position anymore. Maybe I'm, but it feels like you can't have a cheap life anymore. Like your phone bill is$100. Your, you know, all the things, the Amazon Prime, all you have to, in order to watch TV, you can't even just have a TV turn it on and watch it. You have to have a streaming service, or you have to buy an antenna, and the antenna only gives you four channels. I mean, it's like this. Anyway, my point is you can't live a very cheap life anymore. Um, and it's because we're all paying for the convenience. And that plus the fact that there's just a monopoly on so many. Like I managed last year to buy two things at Target. And then at Christmas time, I had to cave because there was all this tradition that I wanted to keep being able to do for my son that involved like candy that I could only get at Target. Like I couldn't find it anywhere else. And it's like there's no mom and pop version of Target. Like there's certain things that you and I've and I've been buying a lot of my stuff at Costco, which is seems like the lesser of a lot of evils. Um, but I couldn't buy those stupid like storybook lifesavers boxes that I always put in Sebastian's um uh stocking. And when I went online to try to find, it was just another, it was like I was either getting them at Walmart or I was getting them on Amazon, or it's like we we we have convenient we've we've let mom and pop stores disappear, and we've um made it so it's impossible to not have to use a company that you don't want to use in order to get things. And so then what it comes down to is then is the convenience and then just going without. Those are the only other things that we can because money is the only thing they care about. It's the only thing they care about. And the only way to make them listen is by withholding your dollars. I mean, the Jimmy Kimmel thing when he got um when he got canceled or whatever, taken off the air after he made that comment about I don't even remember I can't even remember what the controversy was because there's been so many fucking controversies. Um, I really can't, I cannot remember it. But it was bad as far as Trump was concerned. He gets taken off the air. We all canceled our Disney Plus memberships, and then five days later he's back on. And that was a huge, that should have been the biggest wake-up call to everybody. Like, oh, okay, so if we just like, if we all just canceled Netflix and we like on one day, we all just canceled all of our subscriptions. Like, I think that would be a thing that would help us get what we need. Um, but there's too many people that don't that whose algorithms are not serving them that information. And they also just cannot, they're so addicted to screens and online that they couldn't even imagine they can't do it. They just can't. And that's the problem, is that we've all been led to think that we have to be able to watch the the show that everybody's watching. As long as that shows hated rivalry, I'm obsessed with it. Like obsessed. Like I cannot, I can't believe how obsessed I am with hated rivalry. Uh, that's a different conversation at a different time. So horny. Um, but uh it's it's unplugging. It is not shopping on Amazon anymore. It's not going to Target. It is not buying Apple products. It is not um canceling any subscription, like all subscriptions, just like because subscriptions basically are saying you don't even own the thing you own, which is very fucked up. Uh, you know, when you buy a printer and it turns off and you just like didn't, you don't have a subscription to use the printer. Like, what the fuck is that? You don't even own the things that you own. I, you know, I tried to use a DJ rig when I was in Panama and they'd bought this DJ rig, and like I had to download like the the rig was like$300. And then you had to buy a monthly subscription software to make it work, which might I don't have to do that on my like Serato Pro, but like it's weird that like you don't really own anything. You can't just use the things that you own. This is fucked up. And I the convenience, if there's a convenience attached to it, you need to get rid of it. And I am as guilty as I'm not saying that I am perfect or I'm even close, but this is how we're gonna have to do it is by getting rid of the conveniences, shopping, no, only shopping with cash. Like I think it is really fucked up when there's cashless places because that means it will always cost money to spend your money. Someone is always making money off that transaction in addition to whatever it is you're buying. And I can say myself, you know, the amount of money that we have to pay a year in merchant fees is insane. And so when I think about Visa getting 4% of every transaction that I process, and then if that person, if that transaction is not on a credit card that is getting paid off every month, and they're making, you know, 10 to 30% on that transaction. Like, why? Why is that happening? You know, like like why, why are we allowing that to happen? Why is that allowed? And it seems like there was moves being made by like Elizabeth Warren during the Bush administration to try to eliminate these kinds of things and make it so that there's not just this naked capitalism. And it feels like everything is just naked capitalism. It's like everybody at this point is like, well, you know, everybody else is doing it, so I might as well raise my prices. I might as well charge a subscription fee. I might as well put a bunch of junk fees on top of this because everybody else is. And so it's, you know, it's order for me to compete. And I was just talking about this yesterday with Melissa. Like at work, we were talking we on Wednesdays we have our big, you know, weekly meeting where you go over the numbers and you know what we're charging. And, you know, we, you know, this is like, I don't even talked about this when we were on the air. I don't think we did, but um, you know, whenever I go to like DJ conferences, people are always talking about how much they're charging for things and it everyone's always talking a big game. And I'm like, well, God, these dipshits that live in, you know, markets that are a fraction of the size of Chicago are charging twice what I am. Like, why are they able to do that? And I get kind of sucked into this like way of thinking where you know it's all about how much money I'm charging and can I look baller and can I, you know, be, you know, like I'm I'm technically one of the bigger company, biggest companies in the country. So why shouldn't I be charging as much as everybody else's? But I get into this like weird rat rady thing around money, which money has never really been my my my my North Star, you know, like I and it seems like post-pandemic, it's like that's all anybody thinks or talks about. But my point is is that like, you know, a couple of or I guess it was last year, we um we kind of raised our prices kind of astronomically, like I guess maybe it was two years ago, but I raised my prices kind of a lot, like by like$500, which is was it was a lot, was more than I'd ever charged. And when we raised our prices to that, um it became harder to sell our DJ services. So, like, you know, when it was first of all, the number of people that wanted to have meetings with us dropped, which whatever I'd rather have them drop out and, you know, not waste my time having a meeting when they know they can't afford us, which is annoying. But whatever. Sometimes I think that there are so there's less people having meetings with us. And then when we would have meetings with people, they would take like they would, we would have to have like two or three calls in order to land the sale. So I was taking me like three to four hours just to get people to go to contract. And then there'd be a lot of emails. There was way more handholding because we were like a much more expensive product. And then our complaints went up because I think that they were expecting the rehanging of the moon because we were charging so much more. And it was like, this isn't worth it. Like it's not worth it to me to say that I'm charging, you know, a lot of money for a service that, you know, is worth it. I think it was worth the money. We what we what we were able to do and provide is absolutely worth that money. But the the luxury level and the amount of work we had to do just to get the job. And then when we got the job, them expecting, it was like it our clients became lamer and it was, and so then we wound up um, we did that for like three months. And then I was like, I hate this. This is making it's not fun. Like I used to love doing sales calls and I was like hating them because they would just I had to keep having them for the same thing. And it's like, I don't know, it sucks. We lowered our prices, and then when once we did, once we went back to what we were charging, it was like everything got fun again. And it's like not everything. I mean, you know, there's still hard things with it, but it got better. We were able to convert sales faster, people were happier. And it's like, I don't, and and but then the other, the other thing is that, you know, that year, I guess we must have done it longer for three months because we had mostly a year where we were at that rate. But like our average dollar sale obviously was higher. We did like a frack, like like 25% less events. So we it it's interesting because we made more money on less events, which would, which is like kind of the like the, you know, that's what you're wanna do is make more money off of doing less work. But to me, what's important as a business owner is being a job creator and giving people a place to work where they get to be in the music industry and be DJs and make good money. And so if I'm doing less weddings, that means I've got less DJs working and I've got less people that are able to make a living doing this job. And that is that is that was always the way I did things. That's how I was always able to do things. And uh it's harder to do that when you're trying to be a capitalist at the same time. And I don't think that there's I think there's a difference between commerce being part of, you know, the fabric of the world and capitalism. I don't, I am not pro-capitalism, but I am pro-commerce. I think that we all need to be part of the world and doing things that were that are good for us and you know wanting to be a part of society and you know, being busy and and having a purpose, scrolling on your phone is not a purpose. And when we when we after in the 90s, when NAFTA went through and all the comp all the manufacturing companies like went overseas, and now everybody we went from being a company, a country that made things to a mu country that consumes things. I don't know when we started referring to people in America as consumers, but like when you it's like, you know, the consumer index and they refer to Americans as consumers. They don't refer to us as citizens or, you know, I don't know. It's it's there it's really weird. Notice whenever you're watching the news, they refer to people that live in America as consumers, and it's gross and weird. When we went to the point where everybody had to start consuming things, everybody started getting desk jobs. You had to go to college in order to be able to get a job, even a job that doesn't even really require, like really doesn't require a degree. So it's forcing everybody to get college degrees, which they then have to overpay for, which they then have to get a job that can justify the amount of loans they have at the end. So I think there's a lot of people that are in desk jobs now that would be much happier as a gardener or much happier as a, you know, a you know, a construction worker. There's no there seems to be no dignity left in manual labor. Like we don't think of those jobs as dignified, but they absolutely are. And they are skilled jobs that require, you know, physical activity. And then we end up getting fatter as a country because we're not doing any jobs that actually move us around. It's just, it's like it's all kind of just chunked together in this like gross miasmic ball of nightmares that we are all kind of living within, and we're all like, this sucks. Nothing, everything feels sad and weird and gross. Women are being completely devalued. We don't have the same rights as men at this point. You know, people of color are being snatched off the streets and putting put into warehouses. You know, it's like everything that we're happening right now is everything that happened during World War II. And everything that's happening during World War II happened during the slave times. And everything that's happening during the slave times was happening at the when we were colonial. And everything that's it's like, you know, it's like the best of times and the worst of times. Like in many ways, the way we're living through right now is the best. It's it's like, in theory, the best time to be, you know, to be a gay person, to be a woman, to be, you know, we've we've there's there were so many strides that happened, and they're all just getting peeled away because all of the rich guys were like, wait, we're not making as much money off of these people. We need to have them feeling sick and sad and slow and unbehind. Uh, let's defund education and make everybody kind of stupid. So they don't understand how gerrymandering works. So they don't understand what a senator is versus a congressperson. They don't understand what a midterm election is and what does it mean versus the national election that happens every four years. You know, like I think about how lobbyists, you know, lobbying, I think like lobbying, lobbying is probably the worst thing that's ever happened to this, not what the word, I mean, there's a lot of terrible. It's one, it's a really bad thing. Lobbyists are very bad in my mind. I think lobbyists are good when you've got a tiny organization that needs to have representation. Like the wet the wedding industry, for example, doesn't have a lobby uh in Congress. And I think that's part of the reason why it has been so fucked over the years uh in terms of being treated as a real job or whatever. But um like when you think about how whenever There is a big push in this country for paid time off or maternity leave. You know, whenever the concept of paid of parental leave comes up and it's a hot bush issue and they're voting on it, you want to know what happens, is that the lobby for the companies that make formula, which are pharmaceutical companies, make formula, BTWs. Those lobbyists will go and lobby against those laws getting passed because the more people that have parental leave, the longer women breastfeed. And that that reduces their profits on formula because they're banking on women who have to go back to work after two weeks, three months, you know, six months if they're lucky. Um, but that's very rare. But most women breastfeed it for three months, maybe six months, um, if they can make it at all. And it's because the formula companies are keeping it from you being able to have that leave so they can still make money off of formula. Like how fucked up and insidious is that? And we just let that happen. That just happens. Did you know that happens? I didn't know that happened until recently. I I found out recently that formula companies lobby against paid parental leave because if it happens, they don't make as much money because too many women are pay feeding their babies with the free milk that's inside their bodies. And it actually isn't free because I would say when I was breastfeeding, it was I that's all I that's all I thought about and it's all I did. Uh it was, you know, how am I pumping enough? Can I pump enough? Where can I pump? Like it was, it was a lot. I mean, the amount of labor that went into making breastfeeding work is it's a part-time job or a full-time job, depending upon how much your kid wants to feed. But my point is, is that like we're kind of we're getting fucked at every turn, you know, it's and it's it doesn't help. So I don't really know what the point of this screed was today. I don't really know. I'm just freaking out. And I, you know, it's like I feel like I'm depressed and I feel like I'm sad all the time, and I am legit a Debbie Downer. Like I am, I feel like anytime I hang out with anybody, like, how you doing? I'm like, fine, despite the fascism. Womp, womp. I was actually listening to Amy Polar had uh Rachel Dratch on on her podcast a couple, I mean, I'm really behind. I just listened to it, but I think it was from last fall. Uh, and she was talking about the way that Debbie Downer happened was she was on vacation in Costa Rica and uh it was like 2004, and the she mentioned that she was a an actor in New York City and she and they're like, Were you living there during during 9-11? And she's like, Yeah, but like we're on vacation. Why are we talking about this? And I'm like, I'm that guy. I am the guy that's like, Were you living in New York during 9-11 when you're trying to like just talk about your fun time in New York City when you're in the early 2000s? Like, that's me. And I and I feel like if I'm not bringing up the problems, then I'm like complicit in them. Um, and I also feel like there's a lot of people who aren't being educated on what's actually happened, the algorithm's not serving them anything. All they're seeing is, you know, heated rivalry and Olympics footage. They're not seeing anything about, you know, what's happening in Minnesota. Um and I I feel like I have to say something. And then I'm like, well, am I I'm Debbie Downer? Okay, so clearly I'm the person that's bringing everybody down, but I don't know how to not be Debbie Downer. And then I'm like, am I depressed or am I just not fit to handle fascism, or at least fascism in this form? And had the fascism's then I start thinking about it, and obviously I'm thinking the fascism fascism's already been there. Like, think about, I mean, you know, Monticello, like Mount Vernon, those places were Epstein Islands, if you really think about it. They were buildings where people were raped and awful things happened. And we've always it's always been it's always been this way. And it really, it needs to change. And I can't, we I it's like I I I can't live through like this anymore. And I the future freaks me the fuck out. I live in the future in many ways. Like I'm, you know, in the wedding industry, you're always thinking about the year ahead. You know, I'm always I'm always aware of what's happening in my life for a year, whether I'm DJing weddings or not. Like it's it's it's just my brain is programmed to think ahead and plan and try to, you know, combat, you know, uh bads, bad scenes where I can. And I don't know if I'm depressed or if I just can't handle the fascism. And I'm anxious all the time. And are you? Are you anxious all the time? Are you freaked out? I don't have the answer. But when I start thinking about all the ways, it's so fucked up, my brain starts kind of collapsing in on itself. And I don't, I it's like I I'm paralyzed. And so, you know, it's like the fact that this podcast can even come out at this time is literally by the grace of Shiraz, my producer. He's really helping me get my stuff out there because I I can't, I'm so stymied. I need help, but then I also don't know how to how to ask for help. I don't know how to make, you know, it's like I don't know anyway. I don't know how to wrap this up. I don't know how to end this, but I don't know. It might be kind of cool if you commented on, you know, the post about this on the Instagram feed that keeps it in meta. Uh, don't like that. Um, you know, send me a voicemail. There's a voicemail pop option where you can send a voicemail. There's also you can send me a message through the website, open myladybusiness.com. I don't know. I just I'm I'm feeling trapped and I'm feeling scared and sad and helpless and hopeless. And I don't know how to get out of it. So that's sort of that's sort of where we're at with that. I think that maybe that's what it is. Maybe you guys just need to join the conversation. Maybe I just need to be in community more with the people who are listening, the dozens of people that listen to my show. Like maybe we need to all start talking and find a way to do that. And if you have any ideas, I'd love it. I'd I'll do maybe, maybe we do Zooms, maybe we meet in person, maybe we just talk in a comment section. But I'm so alone, it feels like, but I'm not, you know, like I I know that they're that there's a lot of me out there. And I we've got to figure a way through this because we can't just wait for the midterms and be like, okay, you know, the Democrats are no, the Democrats are gonna be doing apparently nothing because we've they've been we've known what's but what's been in the Epstein files for years during, I guess the first Trump administration was when the ex-files or the ex-files, when the Epstein files came out. So I don't know. Help me get out of this. Help me, help me. Uh and uh, I don't know, sound off in the comments. Smash that subscribe button. Give me some likes. Okay, bye. Thanks for listening to Oliven Millity Business with me, Mary Easty. Uh, we'd love for you to like, review, subscribe, follow us to Olive and Millady Business on the RAM. And if you're a female identifying person and you want to dance, you can follow. I mean, everybody can follow us, but if you want to be a part of the magic at hot watch dance party, I'm not working on the radio anymore. You know, money, things called everywhere, quiet, and comb. And listen to my radio show. It's your radio show that's Monday, every Monday. Um five, we get Shira Data. All right, guys, peace out.