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[0:00] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, this is Tonya Pinkins.

[0:02] Tonya Pinkins: You're listening to You Can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[0:11] Tonya Pinkins: We gotta say we'll see you.

[0:23] Tonya Pinkins: My guest today is an old young friend.

[0:29] Tonya Pinkins: Meaning I've known him for a long time, but compared to me, he's kind of young.

[0:35] Tonya Pinkins: Please join me in welcoming Ari Daniels.

[0:38] Ari Daniels: Hey, Tonya.

[0:39] Tonya Pinkins: Hey.

[0:40] Tonya Pinkins: Where are you in the world?

[0:42] Ari Daniels: Uh, I am in or very near Monterey, Virginia.

[0:47] Tonya Pinkins: But you're like on a mountain or something, building a house or something.

[0:50] Ari Daniels: I am indeed on a mountain.

[0:52] Ari Daniels: Uh, not building a house at the moment, but yes, building a house.

[0:55] Tonya Pinkins: Did you get snow?

[0:57] Ari Daniels: We did.

[0:57] Ari Daniels: We got uh two inches Monday and ballpark six inches or so on Wednesday.

[1:03] Ari Daniels: Um, and then we got, you know, that nice little thin coating of ice on top just to make it all crunchy so it's a pain in the ass for the dogs.

[1:09] Tonya Pinkins: So I know you're building a house. Tell me about building a house.

[1:14] Ari Daniels: Okay.

[1:15] Ari Daniels: Um, we, Jess and I, my partner, um, are yeah, our plan is to build a house, and we're hoping to build one sort of quickly.

[1:24] Ari Daniels: It the our timeline got pushed a little bit by COVID.

[1:28] Ari Daniels: It just seemed like if you're going to set yourself up at some point to be kind of self-sufficient and live in a way that you know you're more independent and things like that, that man, there is no time like a year ago, and then the second best time, of course, is as soon as humanly possible.

[1:46] Ari Daniels: So we started moving on it.

[1:47] Ari Daniels: Um, so far, in terms of actual build, uh, it doesn't look like much of a house.

[1:53] Ari Daniels: Like where the house is going to sit, all you can see is concrete foundation um and a bit of the grading.

[1:59] Ari Daniels: But uh we've done a good amount of work.

[2:02] Ari Daniels: Um, Jess wanted a like a little like a studio, a place where she could do yoga and have her office space and things like that and have a nice view.

[2:10] Ari Daniels: So that we're probably 80% done with, or something like that.

[2:14] Ari Daniels: Haven't gotten through the finish work.

[2:15] Ari Daniels: Uh, but Jess's dad is a builder and he's been building for decades now, and he does great work, knows what he's doing.

[2:22] Ari Daniels: Um, so I'm sort of, uh, you know, I'm grunt work.

[2:26] Ari Daniels: Um, I'm skilled and talented grunt work.

[2:29] Ari Daniels: I don't know, you know, exactly how the build is done, but I take instruction well and I'm very careful, I'm precise.

[2:34] Ari Daniels: You know, I, you know, I'm an engineer, so I come at things in that method, but I haven't built houses from the ground up.

[2:39] Ari Daniels: Dave has.

[2:40] Ari Daniels: So, um, you know, basically just following his lead on that.

[2:43] Ari Daniels: Uh, we just need to finish out the interior now, basically.

[2:46] Tonya Pinkins: And it's just the three of you?

[2:48] Ari Daniels: Well, no, so Jess's parents, Dave and Susan, live uh over at the same place where they've lived since before Jess was born, uh, which is why Monterey, Virginia, right?

[2:59] Ari Daniels: It's like a knot on anybody's radar unless you happen to be somewhere within a few hours of here and just know of this area, which not a lot of folks do, like Monterey.

[3:07] Ari Daniels: Google wants to correct, you know, the autocorrect.

[3:09] Ari Daniels: If you type in Monterey VA, unless it has already been trained that you are in fact looking for Monterey, Virginia, it thinks, of course, it's suggested results.

[3:16] Ari Daniels: You're gonna say Monterey CA because Monterey, California is obviously much bigger than Monterey, Virginia.

[3:21] Ari Daniels: You know, we got like 2200 people in the county here, or something like that.

[3:23] Ari Daniels: The town itself, I think, has fewer than 200.

[3:25] Tonya Pinkins: So wow.

[3:26] Ari Daniels: Um anyway, so you know, I have dreamt for probably two and a half decades or something like that, about getting out somewhere, living in the mountains, you know, building my own place, living it, it started out living off the land, and then I kind of revised my language a little, living with the land.

[3:46] Tonya Pinkins: Um, you know, uh, tell me the difference what's living off versus living with.

[3:54] Ari Daniels: Uh, so it just there was something about the language probably 15 years ago or something like that.

[4:02] Ari Daniels: The phrase living off the land just kind of hit me as exploitative in terms of its connotation and just it was just the angle, whatever it was.

[4:12] Ari Daniels: That the way that it hit me, living off the land is like I'm gonna use that, I'm gonna eat that, I'm gonna take that.

[4:16] Ari Daniels: And living with the land is trying to find that sort of that conversation, you know, some to find the harmony, whatever it is, you know, so that yes, obviously, I mean, you know, I, I mean, I, it's hunting season, I go out, I will, you know, shoot butcher and eat a deer.

[4:31] Tonya Pinkins: Um, or when are you gonna send me some venison?

[4:35] Ari Daniels: Yeah, yeah.

[4:36] Ari Daniels: If I thought that traveled well by carriers, and you know, now I can't get anything unless FedEx, FedEx freezes it up for me and FedEx me some venison.

[4:47] Ari Daniels: There's nothing like fresh venison.

[4:49] Tonya Pinkins: We'll make it so I assume you're stateside then.

[4:51] Ari Daniels: Huh?

[4:49] Ari Daniels: I assume you're stateside.

[4:53] Ari Daniels: I'm in New York now.

[4:55] Ari Daniels: Right on.

[4:56] Ari Daniels: Actually, it might even work.

[4:58] Ari Daniels: We'll work it out.

[5:00] Ari Daniels: Yeah, no, you're right.

[5:03] Ari Daniels: Nothing beats venison. Fresh.

[5:06] Tonya Pinkins: So now I looked at that mustache and I'm like, are you like doomsday prepping?

[5:13] Ari Daniels: So, uh no, I am not that.

[5:16] Ari Daniels: So I, I, the term prepper itself has gotten a bad connotation over the years for various very legitimate reasons because there are some total boneheads that, you know, like the word prepper is their identity.

[5:29] Ari Daniels: But prepper, I, I don't know, I feel like I can break it down.

[5:32] Ari Daniels: One who prepares.

[5:33] Ari Daniels: And so, you know, Jess and I are we are moderately prepared, right?

[5:36] Ari Daniels: Here's here's our level of prep, right?

[5:38] Ari Daniels: And like the sort of the cultist preppers will tell you never, never tell anyone about your preps, right?

[5:43] Ari Daniels: It's like then you've given it away.

[5:45] Ari Daniels: You know, there's a gonna come and they can take your shit.

[5:47] Ari Daniels: Um, but you know, we've got a little generator.

[5:49] Ari Daniels: So if we need to run the refrigerator or the freezer downstairs or something like that, we've got that covered.

[5:55] Ari Daniels: We're on gravity fed spring water, uh, and we have gas heat for our water.

[6:00] Ari Daniels: So we've got good water and we've got hot water.

[6:03] Ari Daniels: All we need are lights basically, so we keep all our batteries and our flashlights and stuff charged up.

[6:08] Ari Daniels: And, you know, uh, I mean, we've got oil lamps as like a total backup if the batteries run out and you know, who knows?

[6:14] Ari Daniels: We're a week out and stuff is still hairy.

[6:16] Ari Daniels: Uh, there's a wood furnace in the basement that we use if we need to, if it's particularly chilly or if the power's out or something like that.

[6:23] Ari Daniels: And, you know, we have enough look these days I feel like anybody who's trying not to go to the grocery store every couple days has at least a few weeks of food.

[6:31] Ari Daniels: And that's like, you know, you know, your prep is have enough food, water, you know, appropriate shelter, which includes shelter from the elements, and you know, the rest is kind of gravy, but you know, that the fundamental needs of the human being, right?

[6:44] Ari Daniels: Food, water, shelter, medicine, tools, education, skills, or whatever.

[6:47] Ari Daniels: So the last one takes care of the others.

[6:49] Tonya Pinkins: Will you tear down the house you're living in when you go into the house you're building?

[6:54] Ari Daniels: Ah, we are living in a rental.

[6:56] Ari Daniels: Oh, okay.

[6:57] Ari Daniels: No, I didn't think the landlord would be happy with that.

[7:01] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[7:01] Tonya Pinkins: I didn't know any of you were meaning.

[7:03] Ari Daniels: No, we got lucky.

[7:04] Ari Daniels: It's not like this is a real thick rental market, you know.

[7:07] Ari Daniels: You know, uh, I'm sure there are plenty of uninhabited places out here.

[7:10] Ari Daniels: I'm sure half of them are dilapidated.

[7:12] Ari Daniels: You know, this is a very rural area.

[7:13] Ari Daniels: We're in the Appalachians.

[7:15] Ari Daniels: Uh, we're lucky, you know.

[7:17] Ari Daniels: This is good internet, you know, we can have a couple video calls at the same time, and you know, everything's peachy, but we, you know, we are way the hell out there.

[7:25] Ari Daniels: Um, and just like I said, happened to get lucky.

[7:27] Ari Daniels: There was a house that wasn't actually like made available for rent, but we knew somebody that wasn't inhabiting their house, we're like, hey, would you rent that to like only because it's you so you're on virgin land that you're building your house?

[7:43] Ari Daniels: Yes, yeah.

[7:44] Ari Daniels: Jess's folks had a little piece of property next to theirs.

[7:47] Ari Daniels: I mean, it was all sort of one property, but it was divided as two parcels.

[7:50] Ari Daniels: Uh, they just deeded one to Jess, and we're building on that one.

[7:54] Ari Daniels: Um, I heard something about Legos.

[7:58] Ari Daniels: Um, our original plan was to try to build as basically cheap but good and fast as possible so that we could get in, because once you're actually in your own place, you know, especially if you don't have a mortgage, then you can save money.

[8:14] Ari Daniels: And saving money is everybody's good as making money as long as you're making, you know, if you're making money.

[8:18] Ari Daniels: And I realize that not everybody is.

[8:20] Ari Daniels: I'm very privileged to have the work that I do, which has allowed me to work from home long before COVID.

[8:25] Ari Daniels: Same same thing with Jess, you know, we're just we both set this up.

[8:28] Ari Daniels: It's actually the only reason that we're even able to live out here, because the closest thing that you can call a city is an hour away in perfect weather, and a lot more than an hour away if the weather's shitty.

[8:38] Ari Daniels: So, um, but you were telling me about the Legos.

[8:44] Ari Daniels: The Legos, they, it was literally just a sort of a side conversation.

[8:48] Ari Daniels: I was talking with Jess.

[8:50] Ari Daniels: There's a material that I've been interested in for a while.

[8:52] Ari Daniels: Um, it's, it goes by a hundred different names, but aircrete or foam crete, it's, you know, air entrained concrete.

[9:01] Ari Daniels: And even concrete is a bit of a misnomer.

[9:03] Ari Daniels: Technically, concrete has aggregate and sand in it.

[9:05] Ari Daniels: This is just cement and water and foam, like soap foam.

[9:10] Ari Daniels: And if you mix it up well and you're careful with your proportions and your weights and your densities and things like that, you can get a concrete that's light enough that it floats in water, has incredible insulating properties.

[9:23] Ari Daniels: And I mean, grand scheme, it's pretty cheap and it has a very low carbon footprint relative to concrete, which has an incredibly high carbon footprint for what it is.

[9:32] Ari Daniels: The cement itself is very carbon-intensive in terms of its production.

[9:36] Ari Daniels: So what you do is you take this cement, you know, just cement and water, a slurry mixture, and you basically pump it up to six times its volume using, you know, dish soap and water pumped through, you know, basically like steel wool or something like that.

[9:50] Ari Daniels: This I'm, I'm, this is sort of like the low-tech version, but it's, you know, you stretch that cement a lot further, and where you don't need the strength of concrete, why pay for it?

[10:03] Ari Daniels: Why deal with that much weight?

[10:05] Ari Daniels: I mean, we did the foundation ourselves, and it was just standard classic concrete.

[10:10] Ari Daniels: And we poured about, we mixed basically by hand, you know, we had a powered mixer, but otherwise, you know, we were basically moving all the material by hand, pouring it and placing it all by hand, we delivered by hand.

[10:19] Ari Daniels: It was eight cubic yards of concrete.

[10:21] Ari Daniels: So three feet by three feet by three feet, and eight of those in concrete.

[10:28] Ari Daniels: Now, as it's stretched over a bunch of days, it doesn't seem like an awful lot.

[10:31] Ari Daniels: When you look it on the ground, you're like, that's not a lot.

[10:33] Ari Daniels: Um, but it's an incredible amount.

[10:38] Ari Daniels: So I forget the exact where's it got 150 pounds per cubic foot?

[10:42] Ari Daniels: Uh, it's a couple tons.

[10:43] Ari Daniels: It's over, no, it's over a ton per yard, probably ton and a half or something like that.

[10:50] Ari Daniels: Anyway, so I mean, I moved 12,000 pounds of stuff.

[10:55] Ari Daniels: So concrete is a bear to work with.

[10:58] Ari Daniels: I, this aircrete, you know, there's some work in it too.

[11:01] Ari Daniels: But um, anyway, I, I would, I was talking with Jessica, that was a very long aside.

[11:01] Ari Daniels: I was talking with Jess about just kind of bouncing ideas off her, you know, hey, what if we, you know, the floor frame system this way, what about this for the roof line?

[11:12] Ari Daniels: You know, like we've, we're designing the house.

[11:15] Ari Daniels: She mostly designed the house, or you know, architectural.

[11:18] Ari Daniels: She got, I've got the engineering side, and we're, we're kind of, we're putting it together.

[11:23] Ari Daniels: And so anyway, I was bouncing ideas off, and I told her that, you know, there are, I believe it's a Scandinavian company that I saw, but that manufacture essentially interlocking blocks, kind of like giant Legos made out of this, you know, either aircrete, whatever, cellular lightweight concrete, you know, this stuff.

[11:39] Ari Daniels: And as I was telling her this, you know, most of our conversations are pretty kind of pretty level. Um, and then as I was telling her about basically giant Legos, her eyes lit up and she turned and she's like, ooh, I'm like, I guess that's what we're doing. It's it's not something that's feasible for us if we're buying, um, in part because very few people in the US actually make them. It's a special thing to try to make them mix. There, there's just a lot to it. Everybody makes concrete. Jess will hear me harp on this a lot. Uh, there's there are a few things I dislike more than hearing it's the way we've always done it. Yeah, yeah, that's why you should do something else. Exactly why you should do something else.

I mean, uh in in its most classic and kind of in its most real definition, I am a progressive. I'm sure there are people who would argue that I'm not. On some issues, I'm crazy left, I'm crazy right or whatever. But progress, right? The root of the word progressive, you know, I'm continuous improvement is is uh it's just it's something that I hold. It's like it's part of my core. Hey, this thing could be a little bit better. Let's do it a little bit better. Right. I'm with you. Um so anyway, Legos. Uh, but because the the actual Lego design itself is tried and true, and if we were to buy these blocks from some other manufacturer, get them shipped here, whatever, it would be outrageously expensive.

Um, we're gonna make them ourselves. Uh found uh Dome Gaia, D-O-M-E-G-A-I-A. Um, they they produce and sell some relatively inexpensive and very accessible tools for making this stuff in sort of you know appropriate consistency. Um and we're gonna build the formwork ourselves. We're gonna make them actually like Legos. So we bought uh a giant custom set that somebody put together for us on Etsy of Legos, and we're gonna build a scale model of our house with actual Legos, and then we're gonna form up a bunch of these lightweight concrete blocks that are the big ones are gonna be the same size as like a standard cinder block, but they're gonna weigh about 15 pounds, maybe 20 pounds or something like that each instead of the 35, and never mind if they were you know full and solid.

So um we're gonna end up with what's likely going to be a very quiet, cozy, warm house for probably cheaper than we could stick build, and we're gonna get to stack the whole thing as Legos. Now forming the Legos is gonna take probably more time than actually like building the house, like stacking them. Um, and there's some things we have to figure out as we're going along. The floor frame is gonna be standard, um, the the roof is gonna be basically standard framing and and and whatnot, but the the wall framing and insulation is all replaced by these blocks. We're not gonna do, we're not gonna fur out and frame the inside. We're not doing drywall and stuff like that. You know, we're going to do plaster on both sides, outside and in.

Where will the electrics go? So that's a great question. A lot of it is going to be routed through the blocks. We're going to be forming basically, you know, if you take a Lego, we're going to basically have two holes to go all the way through vertically, and they should align. So if you've got you know one block here and one block here, you know, and then one straddles to two. The blocks, the holes on the outsides of the one up top are gonna line up with the holes on the other sides of the ones underneath. So we should be able to route things down. And to go across, I've been trying to decide whether to basically uh chamfer the corner so that there's some space between the blocks where where the blocks stack on top of each other.

So that's me trying to figure out what I look like on the camera here. So where the blocks sit together to basically like make a bit of a depression there so that I could basically run a little piece of conduit or pipe, you know, or wire or something like that along that. Um what I was gonna do is lay a piece of wire over that before we plaster everything so that I could basically hit it with a magnet to figure out where any lines were running. The blocks themselves, the the material itself is also workable. It's not malleable. You can't like bend it, you know, once it's sort of cured. You can shape it into anything just like concrete, but like once it's nice and solid, you can still drill through it or cut it with a saw or something like that.

It's a very workable material because it's not full of the aggregate. So what about septic? Septic system, uh, because of the weather we got uh the installation of that's gonna get delayed a little bit, but we've got somebody that's gonna just install it's a very it's a conventional septic system. I was really hoping to do something unconventional, uh, somewhere between composting toilets and wastewater wetlands or something like that out here. But Virginia, the Virginia Department of Health is very much a this is the way we've always done it kind of organization. Uh hang on one sec. Um so basically the alternative systems are all alternative within a fairly kind of narrow, you know, range or or scope, and anything has to be pre-approved, and I'm sure you have to jump through, you know, myriad flaming hoops in order to get there.

So rather than try that right now, you know, that may be something to shoot for for the you know the house that we eventually build. You know, we're we're still our our original idea was to build something modest, live in it while we build, you know. I I mean still modest, but you know, our dream house. Really take our time with the design, you know. Still we're talking two bedrooms, you know, 12, 1600 square feet, but not this is the practice house. It was gonna be essentially the practice house if you will. We're gonna live in it. And I I mean she's uh my idea was that at some point my mom would live in it. You know, she's at some point going to, you know, perhaps need a bit more help than I can give her from a distance.

I'm trying to get your mom to come to New York and stay with me. I'm in a building that's a naturally occurring retirement community that she should come live here all the 30 years of kidding. I keep telling her to come here. Well, she uh all right, maybe I'll push on her for that. Because like, I mean, you know, my mom, my mom's a city girl, right? She's never she's never lived out in the country. I think that's arguably one of the biggest things. You know, one, she doesn't like change. She doesn't like certain kinds of change. She doesn't like change in her specific life. You know, I'm sure she would love big change socio-politically, but in her life, she doesn't like change, um, resistant to it.

Uh, and you know, I I know that the idea of living out the middle of frickin' nowhere doesn't do it for so uh I'm gonna push on her. Yeah, if you're serious about that, look I'm serious. New York's a city. New York is a city. I live in a building where all the social services for older people are in here because most of us are older people in this building in this club complex. So keep it in mind. So your mom said ask you about water, water as a life interest. So I I will be perfectly honest. This is something my my mom, I don't remember when she thought of this or made this connection, sometime in the last 10 years, I think. But you know, there's you've got the life, liberty, you know, property, pursuit of happiness, or whatever.

And then there are also you know, legal things attached to those called interests. Like I guess a property interest is your ability to have property or something like that. It's not property specifically, but you know, access to something is I I think I'm not a lawyer, absolutely not a lawyer. Let me I'm not a lawyer. Uh, but that's that's my limited understanding. Um, and nobody's really spent much time or much focus, much energy, uh, really, and the life interest. Of course, you have a right to give your your life, you know. Somebody takes your life and somebody else, obviously not you anymore, has you know, whatever, some legal recourse there. But maybe the life interest, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it depends on who you are.

[19:11] Ari Daniels: Who died, all of that jazz. And who killed them dislikes you, who killed them, all of that shit. Yeah, we know. We know. I listen, you uh you you told me that you had interviewed somebody with a perhaps unpopular position on Trayvon, considering all things. I I listened to a bit of that. It's it's fascinating. Uh I mean I'm I'm with you. Wouldn't wouldn't have been a band aid. Wouldn't have been a band-aid. But anyway, um so water is a life interest. I mean again the the fundamental needs of the human being and and I really I'm I'm I'm big on people redefining or sort of re-learning almost what the term need means. You know I need X. I need Y. Well I a lot of people refer back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

But just from a strictly kind of like measured scientific perspective what the human organism needs, right? I'm not talking about everything all you know all the complexities that make us who we are what we are and and human especially if you think that we're special but the human organism if you were to step aside all of a sudden you're a more evolved human and you're looking at this animal you're like what this thing needs is food, water, shelter and you know if we want to keep it alive medicine. And we we know that even even lower life forms or what we'll call lower life forms need more than that but just you know there's your first level fundamental needs. And water you know it had always been my understanding you can't go more than three days without water.

Um I I met somebody who uh has supposedly gone for seven day uh food and water fast. Um I think has you know one piece of fruit or something like that right in the middle or something like that. But if that's all the water you're having in a week it it bends my two to three day idea or whatever. I I don't know what's going on but maybe not when the air is so dry like it is out here, but um water water should be a fundamental right, and it's one of the things that fascinated me most. It's this weird kind of scary argument. Um, and if you if you catch one headline, um, you know, I I'm sure I'm sure that most of my media sources for a long time were you know somewhere between neutral and left-leaning.

And now I try to stick neutral uh as much as possible or just uh unbiased. But I'm you know, I was reading a lot of stuff that came on you know, Daily Coast or Huffington Post or something like that. That's you know, a solid left and and not ashamed of it, and nor should they be. Um, but that basically the CEO or whatever the you know equivalent is there of Nestle, which this is flat out evil corporation. Evil corporate. Nestle is part of the evil empire. Yeah, you've done I'm on record saying it. Nestle is as an organization, as an entity, it is evil. And I do my very best not to support them in any way. I I don't keep the the list of all the Nestle associated brands in my pocket. I should, but we we're so limited in what we actually buy just in terms of range and stuff like that.

I'm I'm not too concerned about it. We're not we're not into Nestle's brands and Unilever's brands and things like that. Um not necessary to lump those two. I don't know about Unilever. But they keep buying up the water rights in states. Nestle keeps buying water rights up. Do you want to own the world? Own the water. It's yeah, I mean it's a it's a brilliant evil plan. Um yeah, everywhere, you know, some little some little mountain town, they buy the water rights, it's all the all the springs and streams or something like that. And you know, it's and they buy it again. This is this is how the big folks do, right? You take from the little people, it's so much harder for them to resist, right?

And they sell it for you want to run an oil pipeline? Yeah, yeah. Well, but that's only because right now it's only worth pennies. The next wars will be fought for water, and at a certain point, water will not be worth pennies. Um, it is, it's it's truly evil. That's some of the most interesting work that I've I've seen and want to get into is basically water access for everyone, for anyone.

[23:02] Ari Daniels: That's actually one of our big challenges at the other house. Where we are right now, there's a spring on the mountain that's above us. And so, you know, gravity fed, right? We don't need a pump or anything like that. When I lived in Keswick, it was, you know, in my trailer. Uh, my water came from a well, which was awesome. It was mine, but I didn't have a manual backup. At that point, I didn't even have like a generator. So if the power went out, I had no water because I gotta pump it, you know, a hundred feet up. And, uh, hurricane, was it Isabel? I can't, I've lost track. I mean, we have so many damn storms, but somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 years ago, that's how my perception of time is now.

I don't know, it's between 10 and 20 years ago. It's definitely before the virus. Um, the hurricane knocked out power for a week for me. You know, other people they were back on in a day, some people were out longer, but I was out for a week, and what that meant is that I would have to take five-gallon jugs into town and fill up water and come back out. And even that one little extra step, right? I still had water. Shoot, I had, you know, there was my drinking water, it was easy enough to get. Um, you know, doesn't take a lot to flush a toilet. I mean, it takes a lot, but it doesn't take a lot, you know. I mean, a five-gallon bucket of water can get me through a day without any real trouble.

Um, I had various advantages and I recognize those advantages. You know, I live out in the middle of the woods, I can just walk outside and pee. Not all y'all can do that. Um, so anyway, uh, water, life interest. I think that it should be a fundamental human right. But I watched this little video translated, and I assume the translation was about right, that CEO of Nestle, don't know if it's the same guy there now, um, but was saying that yes, humans have a right to water, but they have a right to, a right to 25 liters of water a day. And for the rest of us, that's something like six gallons. Beyond that, it's a commodity. So you have a right to enough to live, right? Enough to drink, enough to wash what you need, like just barely, right? Six gallons? Could you, could you, Tonya, deal with six gallons of water a day?

[25:10] Tonya Pinkins: For some days, but you couldn't do your laundry. You couldn't, oh my God, in my house, the whole house, or just per person?

[25:19] Ari Daniels: Per person. But even still, right? If I drank a gallon. You did the washcloth like, you know, have to do a whole bath. Pit pits and fun bits, right?

[25:30] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[25:33] Ari Daniels: You know, it's the very idea, I mean you could ration, right? It's like going camping. You go camping, you can do that.

[25:39] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, you could.

[25:40] Ari Daniels: I mean, but we do use too much water. We all use too much water.

[25:43] Tonya Pinkins: We absolutely do.

[25:43] Ari Daniels: We all go. Oh, and you asked me about the septic system. The septic systems in Virginia, and this may depend on locality. Um, but when I was in Albemarle County, the definition of a bedroom, right? I had a three sep, uh, three-bedroom septic system installed for that home. And three bedrooms was defined as or basically like calculated based on three bedrooms, two people per room, one hundred gallons of water per person per day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. So just think about that.

[26:17] Tonya Pinkins: That's wow.

[26:20] Ari Daniels: You got Americans, and then you got this guy who wants to sell you every drop of water you use over your, you know, bare minimum drinking and washing needs. Somewhere in the middle there is what we do. You know, we're fairly conservative about our water. We're, you know, observing what we do. I mean, where we are right now, it's six and a hundred gallons. That's a huge difference. Now you keep saying you're liberal, but you like me are a lefty with firearms.

[26:47] Tonya Pinkins: Uh, right, never reveal your preps, right?

[26:51] Ari Daniels: Uh, yes. I mean I do have to. I'm a lefty with firearms as well.

[26:54] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[26:55] Ari Daniels: Well, but so I don't, I dislike labels. Okay. I think that they are fundamentally constraining, and that those constraints are harder to overcome than they are to apply. And that those constraints often, and this is, I hate the slippery slope fallacy more than the next guy, but you know, it has the potential to create at least undesirable, if not dangerous situations, right? If like a lot of people I know, they immediately label a person a thing, and then all of a sudden, boom, they know everything they need to know about that person.

[27:29] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[27:30] Ari Daniels: Every person who identified as a Republican 10 years ago, not the same as people who identify as Republican now. And look, for various reasons, including there we're absolutely the narratives we are fed. You know, we get into a certain place and it's what it is. I dislike labels. Am I liberal? Am I conservative? I think that both of those words are meaningless now, actually. Voltaire is my favorite author. If you wish to converse with me, define your terms.

[27:56] Tonya Pinkins: Okay.

[27:57] Ari Daniels: Voltaire. And what does conservative even mean? They're not the ones who are trying to conserve our national parks and our wildlands. Like, what the fuck does conservative mean now? Right? Liberal. Well, liberal with what? If you want to constrain a lot of these other things in order to make a lot of these. So my mom talks about freedom, right? Your freedom to at some point needs to stop as it comes up against my freedom from. Your freedom to do whatever the hell you want does not include shitting all over me. So, you know, where we set that line and how we set that line is whatever. There's a lot to the dynamics and the mechanics of that. But anyway, um, sorry if I'm rambling.

[28:39] Tonya Pinkins: No, no, no. I love that. You know, I love a smart conversation. So we were talking about definitions. So, you know, a lot of we had a lot of definitions about Antifa and Antifa's a terrorist group, and you know a, you certainly know a little more about it than I know about it. What can you tell us about it?

[28:53] Ari Daniels: Uh, probably only a little bit, honestly.

[28:54] Tonya Pinkins: Okay, I'm, I don't know anything.

[28:58] Ari Daniels: Okay, so to the labels, real quick. Am I liberal? Most people would call me that, I think. Um, if you want my socio-political alignment, I love eight values on GitHub. It says quiz, it's about 75, 80 questions. And depending on really how you think about a lot of the questions and the answers, I think that it did a very good job of nailing me. Libertarian socialist. And people are like, what the fuck? Those two words don't belong together. They kind of do. You're free to do what you want, you know, how you want or whatever, until what you do starts to negatively affect other people. And negatively affect other people, a lot of people think is very subjective. If you, not you, Tonya, you wouldn't do this, I assume, but like whatever.

Right. I could do that. Maybe you would, who knows? But like someone calls me a kike, right? Did they harm me? Well, that is not just a function of them. That is a function of me too. I don't give two shits what somebody says to me, thinks about me, and I realize that I haven't received the same kinds of abuses and the same kinds of everything that other people have. But this is me, right? I know that, you know, two people raised in the same house will react to the same stimulus two very different ways. You know, we're maybe 50% genetics, we're 50%, you know, 50% H or 50% urge or something like that. Who knows? But you, I think that we need clean measures, clean definitions of how something is an actual attack or a hurt.

And I would love to be the fly on the wall watching those definitions get formed. And when you get to the point where there's no longer a fly. Because they're getting deformed and they're getting created right now in Clubhouse, this new social media app that's all audio 24 hours a day. I think these kinds of things are happening. I actually was listening to a conversation where Lakeith Stansville was being attacked because they said we thought you were pro-black women and you let this person get up and diss black women, and then you let this other person do this, and you stood for their right. And he said, Look, you we all have to learn to hear the opinions of people who we don't agree with.

They have the right to have their opinions and they have the right to speak them. And you know, I was like, I was very proud that he took that position. So, but you know, we're not gonna with everybody that I'm like, if you want to call people niggas and whatever you want to call, you can use them ever language you want. Now you might not get some jobs. That's the thing. Right?

[29:32] Ari Daniels: Uh, actions have consequences. A lot of people want the freedom to act a certain way, and then they want the freedom from the consequences. Well, you can't have both. You can't have both. Call me what you will, you call me the wrong thing, maybe you get punched. Then I realize this I'm, I'm that's not me, because I'm not gonna risk that assault charge for my license, but you know what I mean. It's gotta, it's what it is. Gotta take the consequences, right?

[31:57] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[31:57] Ari Daniels: There are consequences, right? You know, I mean I studied the physical world and I know that very much the same way, uh out in this weird kind of ethereal fuzzy buzzy world. Like, we're the same. You push people the right way, and they're going to push back. It's the equal and opposite reaction thing. Like, there's only so much you can do, and a lot of people have analyzed this from, you know, 30,000 feet a million times over. And anyway.

[32:21] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, this is Tonya Pinkins. That was part one of my conversation with Ari Daniels. We were talking house building, but come back for part two.

[32:32] ♪ Musical number ♪

[32:32] Tonya Pinkins: You was kind, you was smart, you is important, you is dead.

[32:39] Tonya Pinkins: My horror film Red Pill brings African American perspective to the progressive movement. We are a majority in this country. And we're gonna win the election. Do you know what the red pill is? A red pill is someone who infiltrates a group and then destroys them from the inside. This place is spooky. Some people like to live dangerously. Yes, why are you so jumpy tonight? You know what, guys? I'm gonna go back tomorrow. Did you hear about the creature woman that attacked a father and son hunting down here? I don't see the case. This place creeps me out. I think we should call the sheriff's office. The only people missing or dead are brown people. They're after all of us. What do we do, Amelia? We die. But we take some of them with us.

[34:04] Tonya Pinkins: Hi, I'm Tonya Pinkins, and I would love to hear from you. You can text me at 917-724-8998. Tell me what you're up to, and I'll let you know what I'm up to. Text me.