Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Mike.
And I'm Nate.
And the awkward pause is we are looking longingly into one another's eyes because for our 20th
episode of season 2, we are in person.
Yeah, yeah.
What are we smoking, Mike?
We are going to start La Gloria Cubana series.
We smoked the series art last year, which was a favorite.
I really like those, but today we're going to smoke the Spanish press.
Now this looks to me to be a box press, Mike.
It is a box press, Nate.
And it smells just fantastic.
It really does.
And it had some good amount of spice on the cap, getting ready to cut it.
So we are sharing a cutter and lighter because Mike's cutter and lighter are previously indisposed
at the moment.
Yes, they are.
Their whereabouts is really none of your or the listener's concern or business, but it
will take us a little bit longer to light up this time than the last time.
And we are coming off of the 4th of July weekend here in America.
Yes, we are.
4th of July was bad here.
It rained.
Very boring.
4th of July was not boring by me.
No, yours wasn't.
Are you going to tell the story?
We might as well.
Before we get into the story, this very good first couple puffs or, you know, puff and
a half, whatever we are into it.
Spicy.
I'm getting a lot of spice.
Yeah, it's spicy.
I think the mixed drinks here will pair nicely.
Yes it will.
Which you probably did on purpose.
Yes, I did.
So for the listeners, we have two mixers.
One is a whiskey sour, my style, and then the other is a blueberry infused Moscow meal.
I am excited.
Yes.
So there we were, 4th of July.
We have a three-year-old daughter and a one-month-old son and we are on the patio out back and it's
fenced in with a cedar fence because we're a corner lot.
And then we can see across into three different backyards back towards, you know, the rest
of the houses through chain link fences, a series of chain link fences.
There is a rental property, a couple of houses down from us that has a whole slew of children
that have kind of free reign over the neighborhood.
My wife and I have never seen an adult with them ever in like an eight-month span or however
long span that they've been there, right?
This speaks a lot to your neighborhood because last time I visited, these children were biking
and one of them abandoned their bike in the middle of the intersection next to your home.
Yes.
And it's a four-way stop, kind of, but there's no stop sign.
They live directly next to some neighbors that we're friends with and the husband in
that house needs to daily pick their bikes up from behind his car when he backs out of
the garage because they just leave them there.
Oh wow.
And they have a dog that runs around off leash, a little puppy that bites people.
They've left basketballs and all sorts of things and they come all the way up into our
yard almost up to the house, the front yard.
And so I've got them on security camera there doing that.
And so we're sitting out there and it's got to be, I don't know, probably, well, the big
incident happened at almost 11 o'clock at night, but there was an incident slightly
before that, maybe around 9 45 or something.
Maybe it was almost 10.
I don't know, but whatever.
There was a mortar or something that exploded in a yard or alleyway and we looked down and
all those kids were down there and they got really quiet and kind of like scattered and
hidden.
So I know for the legal minded of you, that does not prove that they were the ones that
did it, but for those of you that are into men's fashion or classic Disney movies, if
the shoe fits, right?
Exactly.
Men's fashion.
Very nice touch.
So, and we were like, wow, that was crazy irresponsible to somebody have gotten them
some fireworks that are illegal by city ordinance and state codes and things like that to these
unsupervised children.
So we're sitting there and it must not have been almost, it must have been almost 10 o'clock.
It was just about 10 o'clock because we let our daughter stay up late because we bought
two little fountains, right?
To do after dark.
Oh sure.
This is kind of, she's three.
So it's kind of her first 4th of July that she can kind of participate.
And we did some smoke bombs earlier and some little like those little snap popper things.
Snakes.
No snakes.
No snakes?
Just a little, you know, those little like things that look like tea bags and you know,
Oh yeah, snaps.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Snaps or pops or whatever they're called.
Yeah.
Different brand names and things.
So we're sitting there, it's my old time and we're sitting there and I believe I was enjoying
a tequila cigar and all of a sudden a fortunate sun starts playing because a mortar went off
right against our garage from the alley.
So we knew it came from the direction back of those kids and they were all standing out
there and all looking right at us.
And again, for those lawyers, does not prove anything.
But again, for those that aren't lawyers.
So I got upset because we had our, you know, infant son on the patio.
We had Sarah's sister on the patio.
We had our three-year-old on the patio.
So I said, we've been working with our daughter about home words and things.
And so when she hears us say something that's, you know, like a swear word or something,
we'll say, yeah, those are fine to say at home.
We don't say those out in public.
So I definitely shouted some home words across the chain link fences.
I think I started with, because they're all looking and so I yelled real loud in a booming
man voice, you better check yourself before you get fucked at these kids.
Little kids, they're middle school and grade school probably.
Old enough to cause mischief.
Old enough to cause mischief and old enough that they swear on their own out and about
in the neighborhood.
Oh, for sure.
So, you know, was it the best choice on my part to, you know, drop F-bombs right at kids?
Probably not, but they just torpedoed our garage and I have a newborn and, you know,
other family members that we should not be getting torpedoed because there's a fair amount
of tree cover there.
So go find a field and let your mortars off.
Don't launch them down the alleyway.
Like up, like, I was thinking like an M-80.
Yeah, it was like, they were one shots, whatever they were.
They weren't the huge, huge mortars, but they were like big enough to-
Like a Roman candle that won, like a single-
Yeah, but a little bit bigger than a Roman candle.
Oh really?
Yeah, because a Roman candle is not a huge deal.
No, you can shoot each other with those.
Yeah, these ones were not ones you would be shooting people with, at least without eye
and ear protection, the amount of bang that they made.
So I kind of chewed them out a bit, just screamed at them.
And then I sat down and told our daughter like, yep, that's the wrong way to use fireworks.
And we've been telling you with your sparklers and with these fountains and things and whatnot,
like point them away from people.
And, you know, because even if it's a sparkler, it's not going to hurt anybody, but you have
to learn the safety basics first.
And I didn't think anything of it.
And it was probably, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes later, I get a notification on my
phone, because I moved ever since the catalytic converter incident.
I moved my outdoor camera to the cover of the driveway, people approaching on the driveway.
So I go and it's this older man.
And I can't remember if it was the, I don't know, maybe 12 year old kid or if it was the
older man's wife.
I'm not saying he's married to a 12 year old, I can't remember who was there with him initially,
because at least three or four different people kind of like were his entourage throughout
the let's say heated discussion.
And he was ready to fight this guy.
He came over and he was like, were you telling, were you yelling at my grandkids?
And I was like the ones that hit my garage with a mortar.
And he's like, what right do you have?
What gives you the right to talk to my grandkids that way?
And I'm like, the first amendment, man.
But you know, he wasn't really there to debate legality and things.
And he was upset.
I tried not to be upset because I was holding our one month old son at the time when he's
launching into this tirade.
His whole gist initially was, you have a problem with my grandkids.
You don't go talk to the kids.
You talk to me.
And I'm like, well, they launched a mortar at our garage.
He's like, they don't have mortars.
I would never let them do that.
My man, I saw them like bathing in the church down the streets, water feature fountain in
the front.
Like it's a Catholic church.
Mother Mary knows what they did there or whatever they worship in Catholicism.
Oh, pedophiles.
That's right.
Anyway, that's neither here nor there.
But I kept trying.
He's like, you don't know me.
And I'm like, oh, well, I'm Nate.
You know, what's your name?
And I held out my hand.
He's like, I'm not shaking your hand the way you've been disrespecting me.
And I'm like, okay.
You know, and I just tried to play it super cool.
And he got angrier and angrier.
Like the more friendly I was trying to be.
And he's like, are you telling my grandkids you're going to come over and pop them?
And I'm like, in my head, I'm thinking, well, I told them they would get fucked up if they
kept doing the thing.
But I'm not going to correct you right now because you seem angry enough.
And I'm sure the kids can't swear in front of you because you're an angry fellow.
And I said, well, I'm sorry.
And you're right.
I should, I didn't know you were down there.
And had I known, I would have come down and talked to you instead of talking to the kids.
And he's like, what do you think?
It's okay to tell them, like they're going to get popped and stuff.
And I'm like, nope, you're probably right.
That's probably a bad choice of words on my part.
And he just got angrier and angrier.
And then he's like, you don't know, you don't know me.
You don't know who I am.
It's the hat.
And he was wearing like, I don't know what, like a Straffadora hat thing or like, I don't
know what it was.
I can't remember.
It's some kind of hat.
I got, yeah.
And it's like you wear in the summer.
And he goes, and because I'm black.
And I'm like, okay, well, I mean, the hat is a great disguise.
You know, he took the hat off and I'm like, oh, oh, it's Clark Kent.
It's Superman.
Oh, oh, I know him.
The black thing doesn't really have anything to do with it because I can't remember white
people's names either that I meet.
Right?
Like I can't remember anybody's name and I've never met this guy.
So of course I don't know him.
That's like going to a restaurant or bar that you've never been to and asking the server,
like I'll have the usual.
Yes.
It's like going to a restaurant or bar and telling a waitress, you don't know that you
want the usual.
Yeah.
When they say what usual, you don't know who I am.
Oh, it's the hat.
Okay.
You take your hat off and then they know, even if they never met you before.
So he also mentioned he worked for the state and then he threatened that he could have
my ass fucked up or something.
It was kind of really bizarre turn of events in the conversation called the cops.
I know it's such a bitch move too.
And well, it's kind of a bitch move, but you have to understand that I have small kids
and a family and I need to have something on record.
That's also true.
So it's more, I don't think he's going to do anything because it's been, what a week
almost.
I've never seen another adult and the kids have been doing their daily rounds about the
neighborhood on their bikes and scooters and leaving things still where they go.
So I'm sure whatever he was or wasn't on, slept it off for him and he forgot the whole
altercation.
Oh, you know, he was getting liquored up.
Fourth of July, fourth of July.
I wasn't.
I don't know that Mike.
I don't know that.
You know, he was getting liquor.
That's a bold assumption.
I'm guessing that the kids came over and told a version of the story.
See, that's where it gets interesting because he said they weren't doing that with the mortars.
And with as angry as he was when he did show up about half an hour later, and that was
the important bit from earlier, it took him about half an hour to come over and be hopping
mad.
So my guess is, and this is just my guess, is that he was passed out drunk in the basement
and the kids went to wake him up.
And then he came out and said, oh no, my grandkids aren't shooting mortars at people as he stumbled
over the empty mortar casings, which we saw on the alleyway the next day in their trash
bin, not in their trash bin, but in their trash bin area, because why would they put
them in the actual trash bin?
Right.
So anyway, I called the cops and two cops showed up and one was a younger cop and one
was an older cop.
And I kind of told them the rundown of the thing.
And I was like, yeah, you know, he threatened me and stuff with, you know, he said he could
fuck my ass up or something.
And the younger cop goes, so that's kind of a weird threat.
I said, I know, but some people pay for that.
And the cops almost died laughing.
But anyway, and they were like, well, we can go talk to him if you want.
And I'm like, I don't really want that.
I don't really want to escalate things any further because I tried to be nice and calm
and not give him a reason to get upset more than he was.
Right.
You know, and they're like, well, okay, your best bet probably is just to let us file the
report.
And then if he comes back or causes more trouble, we've already got an incident on file and
then we can proceed from there.
So yeah, it's not really, you know, it's not it's not real.
I wasn't trying to do it as a bitch move because if it was a bitch move, I would have had him
go down and like I would let him get wound up in front of the cops and then they could
like tase him or whatever they need to do.
You know, you know, but I just wanted to have kind of a paper trail or record.
Therefore, if something does happen later, it's easier to say, well, look here, see,
right.
If something were to happen, I doubt it because that was the first and only time I've seen
him so far.
So right.
I've seen their mother when I was there.
But one of the times, oh, really?
There's two families like that.
OK, because there's a duplex.
Yeah.
Next to the lawn care guy.
Yeah.
Across our driveway.
Yeah.
And they were so loud and she was so loud because she will she will scream obscenities
or that they put up their own fence.
And then there's this other one that's a couple of houses down from that, like maybe two houses
down from that.
But on like our side of the block, right.
Our side of the alley.
And those kids mostly just run around and leave stuff all over the place, go up in people's
yards and.
Throw garbage in the garbage.
I got those kids throwing garbage in the garbage.
And taking dips in water features in church ones.
I thought those were the kids you were talking about.
No, the other kids are a little bit older and they like to be a little.
The other kids are older, more profane and a little more like you just kind of want to
steer clear of them.
These other younger kids go around and ask.
They ask Dev, one of our guests, if he had a bicycle.
And when he said that he did, they said, oh, well, we need one.
And I was like, well, that's cool.
But you can't have mine.
I think he told me that.
We were talking about it because I thought it was kind of cute.
Because I having it's like Dennis the menace kind of that's how I look at it in my head.
Yeah.
I'm like, oh, that's kind of fun.
You know, like drunk grandpas fill in the garden pool or whatever.
Yeah.
Well, I'm so like so my share has been a little more hostile in attitude towards these kids.
Like she doesn't like them up in the yard and all this stuff.
And I'm like, they're not really harming anything.
And they're leaving their stuff.
And if I find basketballs, like in the street outside of our driveway or in our driveway,
I toss them right in the trash.
You know, like, oh, I would be like kids.
Just if you have to leave it somewhere, put it on the lawn.
Don't leave it in the street.
No, if it's in the street or if it's on our lawn, it's going to crash the eagle.
Yeah.
There's a little patriotism happening at Mike's place.
Yes.
Location unknown.
We're in a deep bunker cave somewhere sitting where Saddam used to hide out.
But they will throw their belongings over the fence of the neighbors that we know that
are direct neighbors of them.
And like those two are terrified because they have a dog and they don't want the kids to
throw something harmful to the dog or like abuse their dog because they're clearly abusing
this puppy.
But ever since like the mortar incident is kind of like, one, you keep giving mortars
and it's not a full blown.
It's not like the big like inch or two inch shells or whatever that you would get in Wisconsin,
right?
Yeah.
As a Minnesotan.
Do they sell fireworks like that in Minnesota?
I don't think they sell anything like that.
They sell them, but you can't buy them with a Minnesota license.
And the same in Wisconsin, they sell them.
But if you have a Wisconsin license, you can't buy them in Wisconsin.
So that's why you cross the border.
I see.
Fourth of July time, which I didn't do because we have small kids.
So I just wanted to get a couple of little fountains, everything legal, whatever.
When I was a kid, I remember you couldn't even get black cats.
Yeah.
You couldn't even get M 80s.
We got M 80s all the time, but we used to go to the reservation to get all the stuff.
You could buy quarter sticks of dynamite.
They didn't care.
We had one guy, we had one guy buy one and he's like, oh, this is going to, this is going
to real.
And he got one of those old steel coffee cans and he's like, okay, I'm going to put the
coffee can over the top of this course, stick a dynamite and it's going to launch it way
up in the air.
And right before the thing went off, my dad said to us three kids real quick, he goes,
hide behind the wood pile because that can did not go up.
It went out and fast.
Oh yeah.
Yep.
I can believe that.
I knew a guy who shot a propane tank.
Okay.
That same thing, but it didn't explode.
It just goes in the opposite direction of the bullet hole with all that pressure.
Yeah.
So, you know, not, not, not age appropriate fireworks for that age group or for maybe
any unsupervised children.
Right.
Bottle rockets.
Give kids bottle rockets.
Yeah.
Bottle rockets is fine.
Yeah.
12 year olds can handle bottle rockets.
Give them a bottle though, is a, hold them in their hand and then they'll be hurt.
Yeah.
You only get hurt once that way.
Right?
Yeah, that's right.
I didn't even get hurt.
I saw somebody else get hurt.
Yeah.
Learn, learn through other people's mistakes, I guess.
But I think that brings us, unless there's anything else you wanted to add about that.
I've got a whole bunch of the audio and video from my security cams about that incident.
So it was my only question was, did you get the whole incident before it was saved?
Yeah.
It's saved.
All the, all the bits are saved.
I've got like four clips of video ranging in length.
And the one I sent you was the end, the 30 seconds of the ending.
So I have yet to like, I'm going to stitch them together and maybe try and put subtitles
on there and stuff, you know?
I'd like to see that.
And then just have it.
Yeah, I'd like to see that.
And be like, here, you can see the whole interaction.
Do you have the explosion on video too?
I suppose you should.
I don't know if, I guess if the sound triggered it, but I didn't get really a notification
from that.
So I don't think so because it's more visual tripped trigger.
Yeah.
But you showed me could have been, I was thinking, I'm like, this could be an internet video
that's clearly out of context.
I don't have context for it.
You explained the context obviously, but yeah.
Yeah.
Like me watching it.
I'm like, this is, this could be anything.
It could be literally anything.
Yeah.
And then so in the middle of it, oh yeah.
And then he had his, he had an older, like, I don't know if you saw him on the video,
there's like an older, like 17 year old, like really gangly looking kid that came over.
That was maybe like six, three.
Oh, for like backup or something.
Cause I think this guy really wanted to throw hands and I'm like, I'm not really in the
mood for that.
I don't want to throw hands, despite what I said on our episode with Dev and wanting
to get into a fight.
You know, I figured probably not the best with my sister-in-law and my small children
around.
No, no, not a good thing.
I just tried to defuse it.
Well, defusing confrontations are probably the best bet 100% of the time because you
never know.
But you could have had a gun, he could have had a gun, he could have had a knife and was
willing to use it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Any number of things.
You just never know these days.
There's been people being shot for just turning around in somebody's driveway these days.
So I do have to comment really quick.
Mike has a really nice Ash going.
I do have a nice Ash and this is spicy and delicious.
I was fully expecting this cigar to perform.
Admireably.
Yeah, these Liguria Cubans are generally good.
I don't think I've had a bad one.
Okay.
The Series R is my favorite that I've had so far.
Yes.
How many of them have you had?
Have you had several over the years?
Have you had the other two over the years?
Several over the years.
I've had the N, which we're going to do next.
Okay.
Spoiler alert.
But over the years, I've had a number of Liguria Cubans at different places.
You know what?
The Golden Leaf back in the day when I was in uptown, I had a couple there.
Okay.
Yeah.
Just like standard cigar that you can find damn near anywhere if there's a cigar lounge.
North Dakota, they had a lot of them when they had cigar lounges.
You can find them at golf courses.
You know what I mean?
These are good ones to try because you'll find them if you're at a place that sells
cigars.
They will probably have at least one Liguria Cubana.
Yeah.
Even like, I don't know about a full on gas station, but some of those gas stations or
service stations or little market things have a wall humidor kind of thing about the size
of a soda refrigerator.
Yeah.
You go to a big ass truck stop on Interstate.
Yeah.
You'll probably find one there.
Yeah.
They're pretty standard, but they're good, I think.
Well, we're going to try some because I haven't had a bad one yet.
Yes.
I wanted to shift over into our topic here.
Oh, okay.
I figured you were going to vamp.
No, I wanted to vamp a little bit.
Kind of like get through the 4th of July craziness.
Yeah.
Well, quick wrap up.
I did an online training course on 4th of July because it was raining and I did chores
because I got up like four hours before my Sarah.
Yeah.
Because of course I'm on, I worked the day before and the day after 4th of July.
So of course I fell asleep at like eight on the couch or whatever.
Yeah.
No.
I got up at five in the morning.
Yeah.
And then I started doing my chores.
And then I went to bed early on 4th of July because I worked all day kind of.
Yeah.
I do feel like last year and the previous year, I mean, this is our third, I guess going
on fourth year in our house.
It's been that long.
Yeah.
It's been that long.
And next year is our 10 year wedding anniversary, if you can believe that.
I cannot.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
But I feel like the past couple of years, the whole month of June and July were firework
fun time down in the cities, right?
Oh yeah.
Every night starting maybe like the second week of June, you'd have people shooting off
fireworks and it's like, come on.
But this year it was really confined to like the 4th of July and maybe like a day or two
on either side.
Yeah.
We didn't really get like the middle of June.
And I think as the restrictions are all gone, the COVID restrictions are all gone and people
can get out and do things still.
So well, I hear even today there are people shooting fireworks off in the middle of the
damn day.
Yeah.
So I think there were fireworks till like one in the morning on 4th of July.
It was on like a Tuesday or something like that.
But yeah, they were shooting fireworks all night long.
Woke me up at like 1230 or something like that.
Like I get, I don't know which, my neighbors are miles away.
So they had them shooting some big fireworks to wake me up.
Yeah.
So I figured we'd talk about a little bit about different kinds of criminal law stuff,
partly inspired by the 4th of July antics, but mostly inspired by something else that
will be made clear to you, Mike and the listener a little bit later.
So in America here we've got, and these are all just American, I don't know what you call
them.
So we're going to kind of go through infractions, misdemeanors, felonies, okay?
For the legal system and what each one is and things like that.
Petty misdemeanors, yeah.
Yeah.
And I don't know how much you know about kind of the definitions of all of these things,
but we're going to start with the least serious, which is an infraction.
So an infraction is a violation of a rule, ordinance or law.
In most jurisdictions there's no jail time with an infraction.
It's not going to appear on a criminal record.
Usually it's a payment or fine.
But the federal law classifies an infraction as a crime with a jail sentence of not more
than five days.
So it's kind of a small thing.
So traffic tickets are an infraction.
There can be other things like trespassing, littering, disturbing the peace and other
kind of petty offenses.
So it's generally, you know, the police officers see something wrong, they write you a ticket
and then you have to pay a fine.
Okay.
And sometimes, you know, you can go to court to contest it the same as you can any other
thing, right?
That ash, by the way, don't break it up.
Yeah.
That's a good solid like inch and a half.
It is an ash.
All right.
And the picture for this episode is going to feature Mike's, is this your Trump or Obama
ashtray?
This is the Trump.
Okay.
Yeah.
And we talked about his fancy ashtray.
You can have a fancy ashtray from any president without pledging loyalty to them or that sort
of thing before anyone gets up in arms.
I got it for free.
For those who are going to be offended.
Yeah.
And for those who aren't, I gladly accepted it.
That's a beautiful ashtray.
That's awesome.
I don't think it doesn't really say Trump on it.
No, it says Gurka and then it used to have the big Gurka symbol on the inside.
Oh, okay.
But then it all washed out because obviously it keep it clean.
Yes.
So after infractions, what comes next, Mike?
Do you know?
Petty misdemeanor.
All right.
Yeah.
Misdemeanors.
It's a whole class of misdemeanors.
There's a whole classroom of misdemeanor.
Yeah.
There's like petty misdemeanor and then gross, right?
Yeah.
So I mean like under here, and this is under the federal sentencing guidelines.
So state jurisdictions might be different.
But under federal, you've got class A, class B, and class C.
Okay.
And typically for a misdemeanor, jail time is served in a local county jail instead of
a prison.
And there's a big difference between jails and prisons.
I don't know if we have enough cigar to go into all of that.
That's not really the point of what we're talking about.
I think everybody knows the difference between jail and prison, right?
Do you think?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, maybe some Hollywood writers, they're like, oh, you're going to jail for
the rest of your life.
It's not really how jail works.
No.
But anyway, that's neither here nor there.
So we got a class A misdemeanor.
These are more serious offenses and misdemeanors in most states and under federal law.
It's a criminal offense that carries a potential jail term of less than one year.
So class A is one year or less, but more than six months.
So that's kind of the big guns on the misdemeanors.
Class B is six months or less, but more than 30 days.
So 30, 60 day range.
And class C is 30 days or less, but more than five days.
Remember, under five days or five days or under is an infraction.
Okay.
I've been convicted of a few infractions, but no misdemeanor, I guess.
Yes.
Now that I, I mean, I can either confirm or deny that I've had some violations.
Just like whoever had that bag of cocaine at the White House will never be found.
We don't know who that could possibly be.
I've never been caught with a bag of cocaine.
I can't tell you that.
Well, neither has you know who.
Uh-huh.
Anyway.
So a felony is the most serious type of crime.
We're going to skirt that a little bit.
We can talk about it at the end though.
So a felony is the most serious type of crime.
The term felony is not uniform throughout the United States.
The federal government defines it as a crime with a punishment of more than one year.
States can be less strict with that definition.
Maine and New Jersey do not classify their criminal offenses at all, according to this
website, which is findlaw.com.
Again, Mike and I are not lawyers.
You should not take anything we say as legal or medical advice.
No, not as much.
Or investment advice or anything.
Don't base your life off of us.
Unless you're going to try a cigar, then we would just tell you that don't smoke cigars
because that's bad.
Okay?
First sip I had of the-
Oh, okay.
Oh, the blueberry?
Yeah, the blueberry.
Yeah, I was hitting this pretty hard at the blueberry pretty hard at the beginning because
it kind of balanced the spice off, but then I was like, I want a little more spice and
a little less sweet.
So I kind of shifted to the sour.
But okay, so in most states, the felony is referenced to the length of the sentence or
sometimes the place of incarceration and sometimes both.
So Idaho defines a felony as a crime punishable by death or by imprisonment in the state prison.
And Georgia defines it as a crime punishable by death, imprisonment for life or imprisonment
for more than 12 months.
So it varies depending on where you're at.
Yes.
So we've got class A's through E. So class A felony is life imprisonment or death.
Or death penalty.
And this is the federal definitions.
Class B felony is 25 or more years.
Class C is less than 25, but more than 10.
Class D is less than 10 years, but more than five years.
And then a class E is less than five years, but more than one year.
So if you have any questions about infractions, misdemeanors and felonies, please consult
your lawyer.
All right.
Not chat GPT.
This brings us to the crux of our topic.
Did you hear what they're doing in Michigan or what we're about to find out?
People think what they're doing in Michigan.
No.
Okay.
Michigan, their house, I believe, passed a bill to extend civil right protections to
LGBTQ community with their governor Gretchen Whitmer expected to sign the measure into
law when it reaches her desk.
It passed and it would codify protections from discrimination based on sexual orientation
and employment, housing and other areas.
Now a lot of people have been saying that this bill, and I don't have the full text
of this bill, but the big outrage about this bill is people believe that the way it's written
will convict people who willingly use the wrong pronouns, will convict them of a felony
carrying a five year prison sentence and a $10,000 fine.
Nice.
I don't think that...
In Canada, they did pass a law like that and they are punishing people from what I understand,
at least social media news, which is trash.
Everybody knows that.
Yes.
In the United States, that would be struck down instantaneously.
I can say whatever I want within...
I can't say whatever I want, but I can say many, many things.
As long as I'm not inciting violence or panic or something, there's some limitations.
That article that I just read was from thehill.com.
The Hill is a very reputable source.
Yes.
There's one here, and this is from foxnews.com, and this is one of the top hits that came
up on my Google search when I was first informed of this.
I'm sure this is culture war.
Yeah.
It says, Michigan House passes a bill that could make using wrong pronouns a felony finable
up to $10,000.
Of course, there's a completely different slant on the Fox News site about it, and without
knowing the text of the bill.
Then we've got here the Detroit News, where it says politics, and we've got Chad Levengood
saying that Michigan lawmakers aren't trying to criminalize pronoun use.
Because if you criminalize pronoun use, who's going to say that they even knew what this
person's pronouns were?
Right?
Absolutely.
There's a ton of gray area for abuse by the, air quote, victims of this.
This is an aside.
Yes.
You work in a professional environment, and so do I.
Oh.
From the outside, yes.
Have you found yourself, and I have, outside of my immediate work group?
I don't use pronouns at all.
No.
I just don't use them.
I call everyone a fucker.
It's gender neutral.
Yeah.
I just don't use them at all.
I either don't refer to their name at all, or I refer to their name, or I just don't
refer.
I don't use the first person at all.
Okay.
I just don't.
I avoid it at all costs.
Most of my emails and stuff are really short.
They're either informational from me, or requesting information from them.
Yes.
I can avoid any sort of first person, generally speaking.
Yes.
If I am writing something, or maybe speaking at work, I'll try and remove a lot of gendered
terms from my lexicon, as it were.
I also try not to make sport analogies when I'm talking, because I went through a HR sensitivity
training, or it wasn't really sensitivity training, because that has a bad connotation,
like I did something wrong.
Yes.
We watched a video, or watched a speaker, or somebody.
There's a female speaker talking about just the differences between how women are raised,
and how men are raised.
A lot of it comes down to sports versus tea parties.
In sports, you can get really mad at the other team, and then go out for a beer with them
later.
Absolutely.
Be best buds.
In a tea party, if somebody upsets you, you have to be polite, and you can't get all your
anger out.
Then you hold a grudge, generally.
That's the watered down cliff notes of the spark notes of the summary.
That probably holds for their entire lives, for some people.
As somebody who's not hugely into sports, I just try not to use a whole lot of sport
analogies, because ever since I was... A lot of people don't understand them.
In college, I was an English writing consultant for the college athletes, but all the tennis
players were Romanian.
Sure.
I had to explain in one of the books, one character calls another character a pumpkin.
Like, oh, hey, pumpkin, how you doing?
The Romanians thought it was hilarious.
Why are they calling them a gourd?
It makes no sense.
It's not a term of endearment over there.
I find generally it's better to not use specific analogies and things.
We got to hit this one out of the park.
What does that even mean?
I think it took a respectful workplace training recently.
That was a refresher or whatever.
It was mandatory for everybody.
I found one thing interesting, probably the only thing I took away from it long term,
was that when speaking in a group setting, you should avoid using idioms.
Because the origins of many idioms, which we covered, I think, before, are sometimes
unsavory or perceived to be unsavory at the very minimum.
I don't know if those were full on idioms, they were more the etymology of common phrases,
which I suppose could be an idiom.
Not everybody understands idioms the same way.
I was just talking about this, I don't even remember now with who, but we were talking
about how it might have been, I think it was with another one of our guests, Dave.
He was the one incidentally that told me about the Michigan felony thing because he is moving
to Michigan at the end of the month.
They're moving back to Michigan to be closer to their family because his parents are getting
older and whatnot.
He told me about this and he said, yeah, they're making it a felony to use pronouns incorrectly.
According to the chart news and the Hill, that wasn't really the gist of the legislation
that was passed by the House.
I would have to read the full bill because as we know, the Affordable Care Act wasn't
in a bill called the Affordable Care Act, it was some kind of housing referendum.
Would there be something in this bill that makes it a felony?
Possibly.
I haven't read it.
I don't live in Michigan, so it doesn't really affect me or bother me.
I bet you that nobody in Michigan's ever read it.
I'm just guessing.
I'm guessing.
Going back quickly to the idioms is that even within America, where you would think all
of these phrases and terms and things would make sense, you've seen those maps where it's
like, what do you call it?
Soda, pop, cola, or Coke.
It will light up the areas that call it certain different things.
One that I know from my childhood is my dad always called the water fountain a bubbler.
He grew up on the east side of Wisconsin, so it was for all intents and purposes, the
east coast.
A lot of people on the east coast call it a bubbler.
A lot of people on the east coast call it a four-wheeler quad instead of a four-wheeler
ATV.
Even within America, and America's just huge, so it makes sense that different dialects
and different phrases and different things would come into the modern.
One that threw me, I remember this, was snowmobile versus snow machine.
That threw me.
Okay.
First time I heard snow machine, I was like, oh, what the hell is that?
Sounds Canadian.
Bubbler was, I thought it was a drink.
I thought it was a mixer or something.
First time I heard it, I was like, what is that?
I didn't even change it because I used to say pop.
Now I say soda pop for the most part because I just added the soda to the front of the
pop because people weren't understanding what I was saying, where I was living at the time.
I lived there for so long.
Well, I had a lot of good ones and luckily I only lived in Oklahoma for five years.
They had some good ones.
There was some interesting, mostly it was pronunciations.
I remember my freshman roommate or dorm mate or whatever you call it, roommate I suppose,
one day he was asking me, hey, do you have a pen?
Do you have a pen?
I'm like, what do I look like?
I know what that is.
A sewing person?
No, I don't have a pen.
He's like, no, a pen to write with.
I'm like, oh, a pen.
Then of course I say bag and that's really one of my only phrases that squarely puts
me up north in there.
A lot of the other stuff that I say, I was told multiple, multiple times throughout my
five years living down there that I didn't have much of an accent except for when I said
bag.
Any A word, bag, rag, I say them all along.
Then I picked up oil.
I used to say oil and now I say oil.
I do do the ope when you're passing somebody in the supermarket.
Did I tell my potato au lait story on the podcast yet?
You remember?
You don't know that one?
All right.
Growing up, my dad loved Taco John's because it was a fixture of his high school life.
They would go and they would get burritos and the au lait and then just scarf them
down.
He wouldn't call them au lait, he called them potato olies.
He didn't know.
He didn't know and I didn't know.
It was actually the first time I went into the Taco John's here.
I went in and I was like, yeah, I want a burrito and I want a big thing of the potato olies.
The guy goes, you mean au lait?
I'm like, yeah, au lait is definitely a Mexican, Spanish term.
Olee is like Svenan-ole and not the right cultural background.
That makes sense.
But now I'll still find myself when I'm trying to talk about them, it's been so ingrained
for 20 some years that there are potato olies that I have to stop and force my brain out
of that habit, out of that rut from childhood.
I'd be like, oh lait, oh lait.
Don't stop it.
Let it go.
For whatever reason, I call them antibiotics.
Why do I say antibiotics?
I have no idea.
You don't want no biotics in your bloodstream.
I have no idea why I say antibiotics.
I'm an idiot, I guess.
I figure I'll bring back the potato olies when I get a little bit older than I can be
the eccentric old man.
The eccentric young man.
Fuck him.
I'm already eccentric enough.
I felt kind of silly.
I mean, not really because I don't care.
I don't have a huge ego, but I'm wearing a really bright, kind of Hawaiian-esque tropical
button down shirt.
And flippy floppies.
I wear shorts, flip flops, and I've got blue painted toenails that my three-year-old did.
I didn't notice the toenails.
Mike's there had a bunch of people over to shoot some guns.
He was like, oh, I got to come back.
They got an eagle back here to shoot.
I go trudge him back and I'm like, all these guys are looking like... This is not meant
as a slight, but the people you'd expect to see at the gun range.
They're wearing appropriate clothing for shooting guns.
I'm just like, I'm here to look fancy.
Yeah, I dress like a slob right now.
I wanted to get nicer clothes on, but- Yeah.
For all of our listeners at home that can see us now.
Right.
Yeah.
I'm wearing a work shirt and Carhartts, which is my typical day-to-day, but a very used
work shirt, as you can see.
Yes.
So anyway, I guess, to bring this back is... Oh, here we go.
Here we go.
So it says here, this guy says, the guy from the Detroit News, some conservative critics
have taken a couple of words in the Bill's texts that say, any action that threatens
by word or act or interpreted it to mean that addressing someone as a he, when the individual
identifies as she, would be a threat punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000
fine.
The county prosecutor, the Democratic sponsor of the Bill, and two Republican lawmakers
who voted for it said critics are leaping to a legal conclusion that is nonsensical
and not rooted in fact.
This is where everybody can say your Hail Marys and praise Jesus.
It doesn't criminalize words set in the pulpit, said state representative Graham Filler.
In other words, preachers will still have the First Amendment right to criticize homosexuality
and gender identity without fear of prosecution.
But I don't know what that means for the rest of us.
They can't violate the First Amendment.
You can criticize people for whatever you want.
Yes.
I mean, come on.
But now it says here, the intimidation is defined as a willful course of conduct involving
repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual
to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened.
And that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, threatened, or frightened.
Which I think the definition is fairly loose.
But what I don't know this and I'm not going to look it up because I don't think there's
enough cigar left, I mean, maybe to look it up.
How is hate speech for race defined?
Is it defined the same way?
Are they just adding pronouns now in some of this gender stuff to the umbrella of hate
speech?
To be fair, I think hate speech can easily go too far one way or not far enough, right?
Depending on the context.
And that's the whole thing, I think, is the context.
I'm going to take a really strong take on this and people will not like it, possibly.
I'm sure I'll like it.
I think that hate speech is First Amendment protected speech.
Not that your employer, you know, there's limits to that, obviously.
Your employer definitely should be able to limit your hate speech.
Yeah, your employer is not bound by the First Amendment.
No, your employer is not.
And while you are at work, you generally don't have your rights.
You don't have a lot of rights.
You know, you can't carry a gun at most places of work.
You know, there's limits on...
Well, that was one of the...
For example, at my place of work, I can carry a knife, but it has to be less than four inches
long.
You know, there's other rules like that.
Consistent with Minnesota state law?
No, I'm pretty sure that you can carry longer than a four inch knife.
Well, the episode got crashed.
That's OK.
Is we're done with the cigar anyway?
We're damn near done.
Our eagle friends came into the house and now they want to hang out.
So we will.
And I highly recommend the Spanish press.
If you see it and it's a reasonable price, give it a shot.
And you like spicy round things in your mouth, talk to Mike or get this cigar.
So does a party want to wrap up the episode?
You've been listening to Nice Ashes.
Catch us next week.
You safe have fun.
Bye.