Bonus #32 - Giulio Gallarotti [PATREON PREVIEW]
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And Afghanistan was pretty Afghanistan-y. To be honest. You were Icarus on that one? You flew a little too close to the sun? Potentially. It was an okay trip. It was fine. I was fascinated by the idea that I could even go. Of course, yeah. So I was like, whoa, this is interesting. I'd just like to go see what it's like and see what happens. So, you know, I had one too many Taliban run-ins. Yeah.

To be honest. I think one is one too many. The nature of the one that I'm referring to is what did it for me. But in general, you know, it was very tense, poor, sad. Did they check to see if you were uncircumcised to prove you're not Jewish? You're not possibly Jewish? They did not.

They did not do that, but I would have passed that test, baby. That's right. My parents are fucking European. Oh, we got three fours in here. We got three naturals.

Um, but I'm dead ass. You could take your, your fucking fiance on or your wife on your honeymoon to fucking Iraq. If you want it, if you're going to say a wild move, by the way, I mean, you could, you could, babe, guess where we're going? Iraq, Afghanistan. You should not because it wouldn't be like a fun honeymoon unless you're really, really adventurous in a way that's funny. Like you're less likely to get stopped.

as a woman in Afghanistan because you can just cover your face all the way and the Taliban won't even, they won't even look at you because it's rude to look at a woman in their mind. Yeah, I'm not going to stop someone's dog. I'm not going to stop someone's pet and search their fucking collie. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

But when they see me, like for the most part, like I look like it's very ethnically ambiguous place. Like everybody lives there. But the guy, my camera guy, like sticks out like a sore thumb. So we get stopped and they ask, they find our passports, find out we're American, tell us that they didn't, they don't, they only have beef with soldiers, not with us. Right. And that would be how it would go. But then one time we get stopped, we're driving at night, which we weren't supposed to do because we went over some fucking guys for house for breakfast. Yeah.

It took him six hours to make the fucking breakfast. It was delicious. You went for breakfast and you're driving home at night? Please, Mr. Taliban, I had sunny side up eggs. They cooked chicken for us in a hole. It was cool, but it took forever. And we got started late. We ended up driving at night. We drive at night. They're more likely to stop you. We end up going on a Taliban field trip. Holy shit. They make us go meet the commander 40 minutes out of the way at a compound. God damn.

Guns everywhere. They're acting like it's cool, but it's not. You know in a movie when my boss is like, hey, have a drink. And then they savagely kill you. That was the vibe, bro. That was the vibe. They give you tea and then they kill you in the most painful way imaginable.

So that's what's going on in the back of your head. That's what's going on. So it was really stressful. We were too afraid to even attempt to film anything, so I made a cartoon out of it that's in the video. But they search all my shit eventually, and they're looking for money. I figure it out later. But they're asking what every single item is. So I'm like, sock, underwear. They find a little mini travel pack of Tums. They're like, what's that? I'm like, I'm trying to make an indigestion signal. And he goes, oh, he's like...

I'm like, sure, dude. I'm just like giving him Tums, bro. And it was like Tums smoothies, which are fire. Those are the good ones. Tropical ones. Yeah. And he starts eating them and he's like, oh, these are good. I'm like, I know, dude. I'm like, what the fuck? Yeah.

Sharing thumbs with a warlord. Yeah. That's fucking awesome. They find all the money. Like, you need to bring a bunch of cash with you. They find, like, my biggest... I tried to, like, spread it out to be, like, slick, which actually fucked me because they wouldn't have found it if it was just one envelope. Oh, wow. I thought, like, moving it around would make it less likely. But they find one, so they're like, fuck it, keep looking. No, they just thoroughly searched till they found one envelope of cash. He filmed himself counting all the cash.

to prove that he didn't take any cash from me and then asked me for money. Yeah, like as a friend. Yeah. Hey, buddy. You have to give me money. We just shared Tums. Yeah, yeah. Can I have a little cash? But this is the funny part. Uh...

And again, like I was, I was kidnapped. So don't feel bad for them. I'm not trying to make them sound like nice people in this story because I know that it can come off that way, but they counted $5,000 and then asked for a hundred. What? Holy shit. And I tried to hand it to the guy. He wouldn't accept it because that's like fucked up to accept bribe. So he made me give it to some other guy.

And then they all looked at the ground and said we could go because they were all embarrassed. Wow. So like, interesting. It's some like honorable, like they're like honorable, but the shit they're honorable about is fucked up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's so crazy. The shit they believe is fucked up. A hundred bucks. A hundred bucks.

Got out of there and it was it. American or Iraq? Yeah, US. Gotcha. You have to exchange it, but they're also really fucked up about exchanging money there. Like, if your hundreds aren't perfectly clean, and if they are a new issue, you can't exchange them. So they have to be perfect

Perfectly flat, perfect, fresh printed hundies. I'm sure that you're getting real fresh and new bills as a result. So I tried. I was worried that was going to be a problem. I was like, can I have new issue bills? Like all the banks, like dude, most of them are, I don't know what to tell you. Like most of them are new issue, but yeah, I don't know. That's so fucking funny. Crazy, bro. God damn. What's the compound? Did you see, were you like blindfolded and shit? No, but so what happened is...

They made us get out of the car. They made us eat lunch with us on the side of the road. They poured us beans onto a plate out of a giant Gatorade container. Like, you know the Gatorade cooler? Yeah. Oh, the orange ones? Yeah. Scooped it. And then they apologized that they only had bread. They're like, our beans. They're like, we weren't expecting guests. Sorry. Yeah, wow. I'm like, all right, dude. Eating all these beans. They're asking me all these fucking questions and I have to lie about my answer. They're like, so how do you feel about the Taliban? I'm like, dude, I love the Taliban. Big Taliban guy. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So I'm like doing that. Love what you and Saudi Arabia collabed. Dude, I couldn't stand those towers. A real eyesore if you ask me. So dude, I felt fucked up doing it, but I don't mean that. Obviously, I don't like the Taliban, but I'm just trying to survive here, dude. Of course. You know what I mean? So I think it was a reasonable thing to do. How were the beans? Beans, I ate them.

Yeah. You can't not eat the Taliban's beans. We eat the Taliban beans. You gotta eat the Taliban's beans. You don't want to offend them. You didn't want to offend them. And then they're like, come become a Muslim. Like the mullahs would be so pumped if like we converted you. And I'm like, no, no, like, sorry, we got to go. Like I have like, you just make up something that makes no sense. They let you go. I'm like, I got a soccer game. They're like, okay.