Would you rather have a radish than sex?

If it was good sex, then I.

Would rather have sex. But if it was bad sex, I'd rather have a radish. On this episode of the commercial break. Well, what if I do need some help? You know who needs some help? Blue. Where are we going to do. What are we going to do with this dog thing? That's my last question.

We should launch a giveaway.

I thought about this a long time ago. I would love to give them blue. I just don't think that would be fair to the person we're giving the dog away to. That's not a giveaway. That's like being punished. It's like you can go to jail or take blue. I'd go to prison. I think I'd go to prison. The next episode of the commercial break starts and kittens. Welcome back to the commercial break. I'm Brian Green. This is the greatest achievement of my life. My best friend, my lover, my wife, person who raises my children so wonderfully. Astrid. Astrid. Best to you.

Best to you, brother, and best to you.

Out there in the podcast universe, I'm earning marriage Miles. Marriage miles? Is that what we're calling it now?

Yeah, you forgot to say I'm the best. The person that makes the best ayaka.

You do make the best ayakas. According to other people who have been brave enough to try those ayakas, I will not be doing that. Thank you. Anyway. How many, if you had a guess, big round number. Marriage miles, for those of you that don't know, is the system that assert and I have in place to determine how much trouble Brian is in at any given moment? Or how much credit I might have in the bank to do something like, I don't know, go out for a night with the boys or do, you know, I don't know, whatever. Go to the tanning bed. How many miles do I have to go into the tanning bed? All right. Okay. We won't get into an argument about it here, but on a big round number, how many marriage miles do you think I'm in deficit currently? 10,000? 20,000?

10,000.

10,000. That's good. 10,000 probably means that I'm going to get a little bit of the cold shoulder, maybe the side eye. Every once in a while she's going to hand me the baby when it's got a dirty diaper, because I have to do those things to earn more marriage miles to get myself back to square.

Not the baby thing, though.

No, I won't do poop.

That doesn't earn you marriage miles.

It doesn't? No.

Because you're a father.

Well, that's good. That's why I always complain when I smell shit on the baby, like, oh, Astrid, how. But I can't do it.

I can't do it, babe.

You know? I can't do it with the.

Listen, we could establish a new part of the program, okay? Like, you know, where the credit cards. For every dollar you spend, you accumulate 1 mile.

Yeah.

I mean, I could make you the same deal. Like, for every dollar you spend on me, award you marriage miles.

You're just forgetting one small detail in that whole thing, and that is that the commercial break is my living. And the commercial break is more than 10,000 marriage miles in deficit. If people would just start paying us, I think we'd be okay. But whatever. Anyway, onward to that person. I'm not going to talk about it here.

It's a lifetime program.

It is a lifetime.

You don't have to accumulate them.

Yeah, and with this current contract we have with the podcast, we will be doing this for a lifetime in order to get even. But thanks to the good people at Odyssey for taking a chance on us. On average, of all the people, I wanted to ask this of you. And now I'm here on the commercial break. What better place to start a marriage disagreement, on average, of all the people that you know who have husbands? Women that have husbands. Would you say that I'm better on average or worse on average than the husbands in your friend and family group?

I mean, I don't want to offend my friends.

No, this is a perfect place to do it. No one listens to the show. You don't have to worry about that.

True. No, I think you're better.

Look at that. Look at you.

I think you're a very good husband.

Well, thank you. I really appreciate that.

Welcome.

On average.

Listen, I also know how to accumulate.

Yeah, smart ass. You're a negotiator. You're a slick one, too. You come across as shy.

I think that like I am shy.

Well, I think you're shy, too. When you first.

Yes, but once I break the ice, forget about it. You cannot stop me.

No. Then you go a mile a minute. Asher and I were in the car today, and there was a 30 minutes conversation going on where I never spoke a word. Not one word. I couldn't get a word it. On average, better or worse. What do you think your mom thinks of me as a husband?

Oh, my mom thinks you're a very good husband.

Oh, she does? Oh, well, that's news to me. She thinks I'm a good. I don't know. I just assume that, like, I don't know.

I've never had trouble with my mom.

No, I've never had trouble with your mom. I never had trouble with your mom. And there's a reason why I've never had trouble with your mom. I feel like I have to play it cool because I want her to think I'm a fantastic partner for her one and only dog. Okay, good. On average, better or worse. What do you think your dad thinks of me as a husband? Because if we're just going on the amount of times in any particular visit or when we're together, physically together, the amount of times your father says, ay, Brian, even when he's not in my.

Space and you're not near him, babe.

He'Ll be in another room altogether. And I'll hear him go, I Brian.

And I'm like, what did I do?

I didn't even do anything.

I'm not even in the same fucking. There's got to be some context here. Okay, so let's say my dad was giving you a report card.

Like a progress report.

Yeah.

In the school.

On the list of things that are related to handiwork. Handiwork?

Stuff you do around the house and.

Get all non observed.

No.

I know that's a big one for my dad because he's like the complete opposite.

He is.

But at the same time, I think on everything else, I do think you get high marks.

Yeah, average marks. Average to high.

I think you get high marks. Okay. I appreciate that he likes you. And the reason why he says I. E. Brian so much, even if you're not near him, it's because it's probably he's doing a project, right? We ask him, hang a shelf, but it's like maybe something you tried to.

Do before and he's got to fix it.

So you left like a screw in the wall or something. It's like misplaced or something. So then he makes all his plan and his drawing, and then when he's going to start the project, he's like, I. E. Brian. Meaning you're making his job harder, a little bit more complicated, because he's got.

To fix my mess before he goes in and does it. Yeah, but your dad, I mean, let's be real about this. We'll ask your dad to hang a painting, and he will literally come with, like, permit drawings. You know what? I'm saying, like, when you go down to the city office, it's got, like, architectural engineering, land plans, and just hang the photo, just make sure that it's straight. That's all that he wants, to make.

Sure it's well done.

Well, that we know. If your dad does something, he goes back out to that MacGyver shack that he built for himself. I'm sure of it. That tool shack back there, that shed. He goes back there, and he finds whatever he can, and he'll make whatever we need. He's really quite amazing in that way, actually. And I think we're taking such advantage of your father at this point that there will be lots of times over the last couple of years, especially when Astor and I will have a chore, a task around the house that we don't think maybe we have this. No, no, it's not an emergency. If it's an emergency.

Yeah, of course.

I can glue and tape stuff together. I mean, if I need to, I can glue and tape.

Or you can hire someone.

Or I hire someone to then do it badly. So your dad could come and fix it later. We oftentimes will look at each other and say, well, we'll save it for when your dad comes.

Yeah, we'll.

Your poor fucking father, he shows up.

In the door, and we're like, hey, dad.

Yeah. Little hug. Like, a little air hug. And then you're like, hey, dad, can you do me a favor? I need that picture hung. I need to put a roof over there. I need to move that wall six inches. The studio needs some attention. My tires are low. Can you change the oil? Do you mind getting up there? He loves it. Yeah.

I think it's part of his love language. And it's certainly. It's certainly also the way. The reason why I also get, like, OCD with things related to that. Like, let's hang a picture in the wall. And I'm like, okay, we need the tape measure. Because I learned from him, and I think I consider myself, like, I have a very. When you hang a picture, I can tell it's an inch off.

Drives me fucking crazy.

And you and I are the opposite.

Totally opposite.

Which drives me crazy, too.

I am big picture type of guy. Like, if you need me to, I don't know, come up with a marketing strategy. Right. I can do that. But when it comes to the minutiae.

And the detail, you're not detail oriented.

No, I really have to focus on that stuff. Some things.

On certain things. But I am very detail oriented, which is not always good sometimes.

No. There are pluses and minuses, I think, to every personality type. I don't know too many people who are as bad at details as I am, but I know there are people out there who are. But then I know people who are singularly focused on details, and I think that can paralyze some people.

Yeah, but, for example, you and my mom are similar in that sense. My mom is also like, she doesn't get stuff for the little thing. She's like, okay, that looks in the wall. Oh, yeah, that looks good.

Sure.

But my dad like me. We're like, oh, no, it's half a.

Millimeter off to the right or off to the left. You and your father are exactly the same of that. I mean, when we built this studio, I tried my best. Tried my best to put this studio together because your father wasn't here.

Well, we did.

Well, yeah, we got it together enough to hang the tv straight, at least, and have the curtains there. And you did most of that work. But when he came in, he saw exactly what needed to be done, and within three days, it was done immaculately, perfectly to the cinema. He fixed the sound, but we have these big sound panels that run across the ceiling here, which is a vaulted ceiling. It's really hard to hang stuff straight on a vaulted ceiling because it's vaulted. And I had hung one, and occasionally the fan was hitting it because it was so close to this ceiling fan we have. And your dad came in and put it within half an inch of the ceiling fan. It's never moved, but.

Correct. That's where you would find him. Yes.

So I'm glad you're here today. Chrissy's out. She's out. She's out. She'll be back.

It was her birthday.

Yeah. Okay. Happy birthday. We'll get back to the birthday stuff when she comes back. But one of the reasons why I'm glad you're here today is because over the course, over the history of the podcast, you have become a character on the podcast played by me, and you've only been on the show one other time. But people have often commented via text message or whatever, about our marriage and what it's like to be married to someone from a different country. We're not talking. In case you can't fucking tell, Astrid has a little bit of an accent.

I do.

Oh, my God. We're on the phone today, and we're calling these places for my mother to help my mother out with something. And we're calling these places. And the first place that we call. It's on speakerphone in the car. The first place that we call, it's very clear. It's very apparent that the woman on the other end of the phone is asian. She's of some asian descent, and she's got a very thick accent. She's having a hard time understanding Astrid. Astrid's having a hard time understanding Astrid even picked up on that. But Astrid is so bad at picking up accents that the next place we call, Astrid takes it off speakerphone, and she's talking to the lady for some period of the conversation, and she goes, it's crazy. There's another asian lady with a really thick accent here. And then she puts it on speakerphone, and there is no fucking way under the sun that this lady is asian. She's african of some descent, and I know it for sure. I mean, I know this accent so well that I'm like, no, honey, that lady. There's no way that that lady is asian. No way.

I could have four.

Yeah, well, you were wrong about that. But people have asked over the years in different ways and had different conversations, asked about what it's like to have a multicultural marriage, which I think is so common these days. I find it hard to understand how someone can't conceive that. I mean, not like they're being racist or saying that's a bad thing. They're just.

Some questions are really something different for most people, I would think, and that they find it, I guess, interesting. Like, oh, what is it like? Which, it also depends on what culture or different religions, but I think ours overall, it's not very.

I don't think we're that dissimilar.

Yeah.

First of all, I'll say this acert is not a mail ordered bride. That's not the situation that is going on. Yeah. Because when we did that mail order bride breakdown, we did know three episodes, and we reviewed that whole movie about the russian mail order bride scam that was going on. Someone had the audacity to text and say, well, this coming from the guy who has a mail order bride. I do not have a mail order bride. I got her on the Internet, and that's completely different. One you mail away.

I have a mail order husband.

You do? You got yourself a gringo. So you married a gringo. What do you do now? Astrid and I met through mutual family connections, and neither of us wanted to be set up in that manner, but it just worked.

I really never thought I was going to.

Did you ever think you were going to marry a gringo? But you said for.

I remember I had plans to emigrate.

To the United States.

Yeah, to move out of the country from Venezuela.

But you didn't even really think it was going to be the United States.

But I went to Europe. I never thought I was going to end up here or married to an american. But also, when I say gringo, honestly, when we. It's no offensive, like, we don't say it in a negative way.

Please stop with the bullshit.

I don't understand why people feel. I guess I get it to a certain degree, but I don't.

And I'll tell you why.

But we don't really mean it.

I tell you why. I'm not a doctor, you're not a nurse. No one's going to kill anybody. We're just having some fun. I have been called a gringo for most of my adult life because for most of my adult life, I've been an adopted venezuelan. And I've been one of the few gringos in this very large family that I'm grateful to have been a part of. That includes your family. Your family is part of that extended family that I have been with for years. And I have been called gringo and pelones and Pinchy maricon and all kind of different stuff. And let me tell you something. I know what all of it means, and I take it as intended, with love. I think that we all need to desensitize just a little bit. I know you don't mean. I know. And nobody means any harm when they say gringo, unless it's coming at me from, like, an angry.

Correct.

And then it's a different story. Right? Yeah.

You got to understand the context. If we're arguing and yelling at each other, and then I'm telling you, pinch a green. Even though we don't say that.

That's very mexican.

But, yeah. What were we saying?

Well, I want to qualify first. I want to say this real quick, and then I want to move on to other parts of multicultural marriage. But I want to say this. Astrid and I were not like, this was not some weird love story that came. It is a very strange love story in and of itself, but in a good way. We didn't meet on the Internet. It wasn't on Tinder. I didn't go to some mail order service. Astrid and I met through mutual family members. And then I fell madly in love with her and chased her around the world until she agreed to marry me and come back to the United States. So there you have it. Stop fucking around. But the other thing that I want to say is I never imagined that I would marry a Venezuelan either. But having been around the culture for so much of my life, I think it didn't feel strange to me to be in love with a Venezuelan because I had been around them for so much of my life. So much of that culture is a part of me, like, I feel it's part of my dna now.

And while maybe a lot of Venezuelans may not agree with that, I think I feel like it's in my dna.

It was not something completely new to you.

None of this was foreign to you.

It felt familiar.

The nine minute birthday song, the Ayakas, the Ticanos, the pepiata, all that other stuff. It's all very familiar to me. What's that?

Well, maybe it was new to you in the sense that now you have it almost daily at home.

Well, yeah. Well, I had it almost daily anyway when I was with Raphael, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for most of my life. So who is my best friend, who is essentially how I got connected to Astrid. So I want to take today's episode, and I want to go through some of the things that you may feel having married a gringo. So you married a gringo, and then I'll retort also, sure. What do you think? You think that's a good idea? I feel like that's a good way to waste an hour of our time here on the commercial break. So it's a Friday afternoon episode for you? I think it's a Friday afternoon episode. I'm just guessing. Friday afternoon episode for you out there. We're going to talk about multicultural marriage. And we'll be back. Bye.

Well, thank the baby Jesus. Brian took a breath. And now I will use this opportunity to let you know that we've got a brand new phone number. That's right, it's 212433 TCB. And you can text us anytime you want, or you can call and leave us a voicemail and we might just use your message on the show once Brian gets through all the messages he missed last year, of course. Anyway, you can also find and dm us on instagram at the commercial break and on TikTok at TCB podcast. And of course, all of our audio and video is easily found on tcbpodcast.com. Now, I'm going to thank g one more time that we have sponsors. So thank G, and here they are.

Okay. Most difficult thing about marrying a gringo what's the most difficult thing about having married a gringo, besides being away from your natural environment, most difficult thing is my penis size. Is it?

Well, I was going to say.

I was going to ask you. I love making.

I'm not sure if you're making the right question.

Okay.

Should it be like, what's the most difficult thing about marrying Brian?

What's the most difficult thing about marrying Brian?

Can I only say one thing?

Yeah. Well, you can just go ahead and wait. We have an hour, so go ahead and waste it.

I don't know.

What's the culture shock moment for you? When we came back here to the United States, what was the culture shock moment for you?

I mean, I just need to maybe give a little bit of context.

Sure.

This was not the first time I had been here, because I had family growing up that lived here. I came oftentimes as a kid, as a child. Now, being on vacation is not the same as living here, but I was not completely oblivious of what it was.

To be in the american society. You had, had tasted the food, you had been around the culture. You had.

Yeah. I knew at least the basics. Right. But I would say the. I think this is not something that applies just to me as a venezuelan. I would think, in general, the hardest thing. It's maybe establishing new connections.

Okay. Yeah.

Especially when you first moved here, you feel so out of place at first because you miss your things. And it might sound silly, but it is true. It's like you miss the little cafe you used to go to or hanging with your friends and stuff like that, and then you come in here and it's like, you don't know, how can I make friends? Because it's a different culture.

It's a totally different culture. Yeah. And I would say, too, that in your early 20s, having a friend group, that's already established.

Correct.

Because Venezuela is such a hot fucking mess, or was such. I mean, still is a hot fucking mess, but was a real hot fucking mess when you left. All of your friends also dissipated throughout the earth. Also, not a lot of them stayed in Venezuela, if any of them stayed. So they're all over the world. And then now you have to reconnect. You have to find a way to make a new friend group, to do new things with new people. Was the food a culture shock? I mean, I know, you know, the american food. Yeah. It's a big difference.

It was not a shock to me, like I knew, but I would say that's the other day I was talking to another, a fellow venezuelan that I know here, and we were talking.

Hi, Venezuela.

And she said this and I agreed with her. And she said, honestly, the hardest thing to get used to and deal with really, is the food. Yeah, she said that and I was like, I don't disagree.

Americans eat terribly.

Yeah, I don't disagree. It's amazing. I mean, the food variety here, it's wonderful. I love going to the grocery store and having like, oh, my God, the aisles, a million selections and the cereals. It's like your head explodes. But in reality, you're not going to live off cookies and cereals. Right. So I don't know. In Venezuela, we eat a lot of fresh stuff, like fruits, vegetables, protein, meats. Yeah.

I think when you go to Spain, you see a little bit of this. Not much, but you see a little bit of this.

Or certainly places, but also in that sense, like, food wise, we're more like Spain. So when we've been there, it feels more authentic and it's always more of, like, homemade food. But when I say homemade food, it's not like mixing a bunch of different cans in a crock pot. Yeah, it's like, I mean, in Venezuela, you don't even have the option to get, like, chopped onions in the store. No, you have to buy the onion and shop at your.

Yeah.

And I see the prongs and the cons to both.

I think we fill our grocery stores with fillers. Right? The appearance of choice makes us feel good, but the actual fillers, the stuff that we don't really need to eat but we eat anyway, makes us feel bad. It makes us sick and it makes us feel bad. And I've heard this from a lot of people in a lot of different cultures around the world, which is Americans eat like shit. And the availability of that shit is so voracious that it's hard not to make those choices when you can pick up the phone and have a pizza at your door in ten minutes, when you can go to any corner and go to Chipotle. I mean, I guess Chipotle is better than some, but McDonald's or Wendy's or whatever it is, I can see how food would be a big deal for your culture. And you bring the venezuelan food into our house. Now, I've eaten a lot of venezuelan food before I met you, but now that I'm married to you, we eat a lot of venezuelan food. I fucking love it. I think it's all very delicious. And no, it's not tacos. So let's just take that.

Let's just take that thought right off.

Rice and beans.

I think that's got to be my.

That's a misconception.

Yeah.

Too.

Stereotype is what it is.

Well, it's like, yeah, I think people. Well, listen, fair enough. If you don't know.

If you don't know, you don't know. And stereotypes are often true in some small way or big way.

I feel like with Hispanics in general, they try to put all of us in one box. And for some things that might apply, but for others, no. I was even surprised one time when one of your brothers was surprised when I said, no, we don't eat tacos.

Then he was like, crazy.

And he was like, you don't. And I'm like, no, actually, mexican food in Venezuela is not a big thing. No, you don't have mexican on every two mexican restaurants. It's not even popular.

Yeah. And by the way, the food that we.

And I love it here, by the way.

But the food that we eat here that we consider mexican food is Tex mexican food.

Correct.

It's not even real authentic mexican food. I mean, I'm sure there are a lot of places that do serve authentic mexican food, but if you go down to the local, just run of the mill mexican restaurant that everybody has on the corner, what they're serving, they're serving a very american version of their. Well, they have food from their home.

They have to adapt to the market here.

Go back in the kitchen of one of those mexican restaurants and ask them to cook you actual mexican food or go to the House of the chef.

Have them cook for you.

Right. It's completely different. And this is one thing that does surprise me, too, about our relationship and having fielded. I don't know how you say that having fielded a lot of questions about venezuelan culture is how many goddamn people think that, oh, how are the tacos? Are they good? And I'm like, they don't eat tacos in Venezuela. It's not a fucking thing. You can't just paint every person who's south of the border as the same person. It makes no sense.

I might be wrong. Also, I'm not an expert in all of the latin american countries, but I feel like the taco kind of culture, it's more like Central America, which of course, the big one is Mexico.

Sure.

But I think maybe Guatemala, El Salvador, those countries. I think. So I might be wrong.

There's another stereotype that I think you get a lot is that all Hispanics are the same and all Hispanics know all the other Hispanics.

No, we don't.

It's like no, you don't. It's just like any other country. I don't know. People in Canada don't know what they eat, have no idea. Just because we look alike doesn't mean we are alike.

It's the same. We have smaller countries talking know geographically, like the sizes. But still, even though we're smaller countries, it's like each country has their own cultural differences. Even. We speak the same language, but we have completely different accents, just like an american and a british and a South African. You all speak English?

Sure.

But you don't have the same accent.

Yes.

So the same thing applies for us. Spanish. We all have different accents, even different words that we use to describe different things or name different things.

You speak a different type of Spanish with different vernacular, different slang words, different accents. Another thing that I have heard, not frequently, thank God, but I have heard sometimes, is people are like, oh, she doesn't look venezuelan. What does a venezuelan look like exactly? We don't look like, because you're light skinned, they think that you have to be some different color to live down near the equator or whatever. They believe. It's kind of a ridiculous notion and a dumb stereotype.

Well, in Venezuela, we have a lot of. There's not really a venezuelan physical stereotype.

Because, well, there is beautiful. Yeah. You're welcome. Didn't you win, like, ten Miss Universes in a row?

Not you personally, but yes, we did.

Didn't Donald Trump run that Miss Universe? Yes. Okay, so just throw that out there. Take that grain of salt.

There's not a stereotype. We have all kinds of all races or all colors, all sizes, like tall, short. All the colors for eye colors.

All the colors of the rainbow exist in Venezuela as they do here in the United States. It's exactly the same.

Can you draw a picture of how all Americans look like? No, they are all different.

Yeah, I can draw a picture of what all Americans look like. I just draw a big, round tummy. That's all I do. Do you guys have an obesity problem? Like, we have an obesity problem? No, no.

We do have obese people.

Yeah, they're all around the world. Yeah, they're all around the world.

Yeah. That is a problem for some people in Venezuela, but we don't have. It's not like here that it's a true.

It's a true issue. Over 50% of adult american.

We don't have that.

It's crazy. Culture shock with music.

Well, yes and no meaning.

I know there are cultural differences.

I guess my. Listen, I like. Of course I like my music.

I know you love reggaetone and that's your favorite brand of music.

No, I don't. What?

Oh, sorry. Wrong button there.

No, but I don't know if it's. Well, yeah, I guess. Yes. I grew up my type of music, even though I did listen to some american music. But it would go more on, like the pop, the very famous.

The stuff that goes around the world.

Correct.

The international pops.

And also you have a very particular. Well, I mean, you're very broad. You know a lot about music. I don't. So you listen to a lot of genres, and that was all new to me. Still to this day, you name people and bands that I've never heard of.

Yeah, there are some bands or movies that I will say some things that I think are just, like, universal pop culture that are clearly not universal pop culture. You've never seen any of the godfathers, have you?

No, but that is pretty popular in Venezuela.

Okay, that's good.

But no, I have never paid.

Have you ever seen jaws?

Yes.

Have you seen any of the Star Wars? I mean, besides the one you went and saw with you. What do you have against Star wars?

That's the only one I've ever seen. And I was like. I went against my will.

You went against your will? Did you enjoy any of it?

No.

Be honest.

I was counting down the minutes.

Were you really?

I was.

That's like me with that. I don't know what movie you took me to see.

One of the 50 shades of gray?

No, the other one.

Under the after.

Under the fruit of the tree or our love never ends or whatever it is. One night only to see this movie. There were seven people in the theater. The movie was an hour and a half long, and literally an hour and 27 minutes of that. Was this guy just walking around this beautiful house in Italy being sad. It was a terrible movie.

What was that movie called after the final chapter.

The final chapter. How were the other chapters?

Much better. It was so bad, babe.

It was so bad. Movies, television shows. Were you exposed to.

Mean, in Venezuela? Yes. With cable, of course. You have access to. Not every single show. It depends on. Also, we don't have the same channel, so it depends on, like, it would be like, sonny. We have a channel, sonny Entertainment Television. And they would bring american movies and american television that I guess they buy the rights or something. So it was not everything you have here, but I guess now it's different because now it's Netflix.

Yeah. Everything kind of goes all around the world.

I mean, I guess even still Netflix sometimes blocks some shows. Yeah. So you have some stuff available here that you don't have elsewhere. But I did. But I mean, friends, I would watch friends.

Your brother said they watched South Park a lot and family guy and stuff like that.

Yeah, all the cartoons. Like the kids cartoons? Yeah, it was cartoons. Yeah, the adult cartoons, the Simpsons, all of that. But no, I never cared for that.

So you're a citizen now, right? You have been for a couple of years. Do you feel assimilated? Do you feel assimilated into the culture?

I do.

You do? I think you are. I don't think there's anything that phases you anymore. I don't think there's, like, stuff where you go, oh, what do we do here? Or, how does this work? First, there were a few things, but it wasn't many. It was a lot less than I thought it would be, actually, I think you assimilated very quickly, because I believe that your life in Caracas was not that dissimilar to my life in Atlanta.

It's really not.

Besides all the protests in Chavez, I.

Mean, honestly, our lives are. We live the same way people do here. Like, we have the same, you know. Yeah, maybe the restaurants where we're, know.

We'Re not serving the same food.

But overall, Venice, I think I can generalize. Here in Latin America, the latin american lives are very much follow like an.

I mean, not in.

Certainly to, like, we really go more towards the comfort and the big cars and all that.

Big cars, fancy entertainment centers, bigger houses. Yeah.

Not like in Europe where everything is crammed.

It's all crammed like a ten foot wide space. Yeah. And I do get that sense. Like, I've never been to Venezuela. I hope we get to go someday, but I've never been to Venezuela. But I do get the sense that your life there was just not all that different from your life here, besides your friend's family and the language, which I would like to get into, because I would like to understand exactly what you and your family are saying behind my back so that I can.

I thought you did.

Well, I do understand. Unless all of you are talking at the same time, which, unfortunately, yes, if there's more than two Venezuelans in a room, they're all going to be talking at each other at the same time. You know how, like, Teresa Caputo, we're always making fun of Teresa because she's having multiple conversations at the same time. Like, how are you? Is she think I don't know what she is? She's an idiot, is what she comes from the land of idiots, I'm not sure, but I always wondered how she had all these ghosts talking to her and she was still having a conversation with a person right in front of her. But I'm starting to maybe think that I observe this in my own life, and I'm wondering if I'm wrong about this. Because you Venezuelans, I'll never forget, there was one time we were at this house, the house that we're at now, and there was eight of you sitting around the dining room table. Dinner was done, kids were in bed, everyone was talking, and it was sitting in the middle of the table, and everyone was speaking Spanish. But I was watching as multiple people were having multiple conversations with multiple other people.

It's like they were having a conversation with one person.

There's like a main conversation.

There's a main conversation, side conversations, but you're still in on the main conversation. You jump back into the main conversation. You come back out, you do a side conversation. Someone yells something, another person disagrees.

Like, if we all have add when it comes to conversation, it's really strange, but we're smart enough that we still, like, we're able to juggle, juggle multiple.

Conversations at the same time. Well, my brain barely speaks Spanish, and while I understand it pretty well, I don't think I fluently understand it. Sometimes I have to ask and stop, and sometimes I get words wrong. But it's an amazing skill set that you have. Because if I'm sitting in a table with my friends trying to have a.

Conversation, I don't find it very now that I realize that that's really how we are. Yeah, I find that it's very rude. I'm venezuelan saying this.

Can I be honest with you? I think it's kind of rude, too. Not rude intentionally. No, not like someone is edging, not on purpose conversation. Right. But I have noticed that in the venezuelan culture, it is hard to get into a conversation if you don't fluently speak Spanish and you're ready to be talked over multiple times. And that, to me, doesn't feel great sometimes. Like, if I'm sitting at a table with, let's just say my brothers, right? I have three brothers. So let's say we're having a conversation. Each person talks, they take their turn. Maybe it's.

Yeah, we're not like that.

And we speak over each other for a minute, but it's like, wait, hold on. We both can't talk at the same time because no one's going to hear anything. But that's not at all how it happens in the venezuelan culture. And so for that, my love, I must tell you that it's the one thing that I'm not so jazzed about the venezuelan culture. But maybe just as a person who doesn't speak the language all that well, and I just want to understand what's going on. All right, we're speaking with Astrid about all things Venezuela here on the commercial break as we transition into a bilingual show here. Pretty soon we're going to translate what I say in Spanish. No, we'll be back. Let's take a break and we'll be back.

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Done.

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All right. So, language, what do you feel is still difficult about the english language, the american version of english language?

Nothing.

Well, here's.

I mean, there are things. I mean, I'm a fluent english speaker. It's not my mother tongue, but I'm fluent.

Do you think in English?

I do. I've gotten to that one time I heard that you are, like, for sure bilingual. Bilingual.

When you start thinking, when you dream in English. Oh, that's very.

And that has happened to me already.

Oh, really?

I mean, a long time ago, but yes. So I am very confident when I talk in English. I know that I do. May still make mistakes here and there or don't pronounce some words correctly. But I'm not, like, self. So it's like I've gotten to the point where I don't care. And if maybe you didn't understand, then.

People have to repeat it.

And that's okay. I don't feel bad about it. Well, that's not a good question for me because I've been bilingual my whole life.

Yeah, that's true. Things I hear that you still have difficulty with sometimes you will say, he, I will get angry with you because you were with a boy all by yourself. And then I will realize that you're just conjugating it the wrong way.

Yeah, but, you know, that's very common. That's not me.

No, I know.

It is super crazy. There's something about when you're talking in a certain speed, like fast, not like super slow, where you have the time to actually think every word that you're saying. No. When you're just having a conversation for some reason, I don't know what happens in our brains, or I'm going to speak for myself in my brain, that it's like I can carry a whole conversation saying he, she, or even mix them. And I'm just talking about.

That's it. You're just talking about a he or a she. And I've noticed this so much, I think sometimes you can have difficulty with certain pronunciations.

I think that's certainly different from our language, maybe.

And that's why it's the most confusing fucking thing. And I don't understand. I don't know why, I don't know.

Why, I don't really know why.

But for me, it's one of the hardest parts of speaking Spanish, is making sure that you're appropriating it in the correct way. Appropriating the sentence in the correct way. The male and the female.

Yeah, but it's hard for you guys too, because all of our things have genders.

Yes.

So even a table has a gender. Is it a he or a she? And it's just a table.

It's a she. La mesa. Yeah, correct.

You guys don't have that? Like, things don't have a gender in English. No, but I don't know, honestly, I don't even know what the explanation is as to why that happens. But it happens.

Do you ever still get nervous about speaking out loud in English? Sometimes?

No. Well, when you asked me to come on the show for the first time, you were worried that I got nervous. But see, this is what's crazy, because I'm shy, like, in front of cameras and stuff like that. Maybe that's where it comes from. Or if you hand me a microphone in a crowd and go speak. Hey, if I had not planned for it.

Oh, yeah, no, I remember at our wedding, it was a wedding, a baptism, something. And I was like, we had a microphone, and it was like, okay, honey, do you want to say something to the crowd? And you were like, oh, no, I'm not saying anything to the crowd. So tell me what you say about me behind my back in Spanish.

Nothing that I don't say to my face. To your face?

Never. You and your family don't get together and say anything? No, not even when I refuse to play board games.

I'm going to say something. But you already know this.

Okay?

Even though you might deny it.

Here we go.

That you're pain tolerance is on the very lower end of the scale.

My pain tolerance?

Yeah.

What do you mean, my pain tolerance?

Pain tolerance, like when you hit your toes with, like the.

What does that have to do with Spanish?

With Spanish, you said, what does my.

Family say about me in Spanish behind my back? That I could learn that my pain tolerance is low. That's what we're talking about. I am a man, Astrid. I think my sick tolerance is low.

But I understand the question.

The question is, do you guys say anything in Spanish behind my back where I could pick up on it? I want you to let me in on some secrets when you guys say this. So what do you say about me, about the pain tolerance? How do you say that in Spanish? How would you say that in Spanish?

Well, we can have a whole conversation.

About it in Spanish.

Yeah.

Okay, tell me. Well, I mean, is there, like, a word. I want to know if there's a word your family uses.

Okay, no, we're not using, like, any. No, you mean like a bad word?

Yeah, like something. Some pejorative word that you use or some negative word that you use that I can listen for next time I'm in a conversation and go, oh, yes, they're talking about me. How do you say low pain tolerance? How do you say that one?

I mean, pain is Dolore. I don't know. I don't think we have one word for that.

Okay, now here's a real question that has nothing to do with Venezuela. Will you think my pain tolerance is low?

Yes.

Okay.

Even though. Correct. You see? Okay, but I knew you were going to deny.

Let me debate. I'm not denying. Let me debate for a second. If my back hurts on a Tuesday and I don't say anything for the.

Entire day count, though, why doesn't my back count? Because you live with back pain. But no, take the back.

If I stub my toe, you think I get overdramatic about it?

You do.

You think I get overdramatic about it? Doesn't stubbing your toe hurt? Do you think stubing your toe hurts?

Oh, yeah, it does.

Okay, well, just.

Yeah, but it's not about that. It's like, your reaction. It's like, Oscar worthy.

Oscar worthy.

I just don't want to cuss in.

Front of the kids, so I often.

Retreat into another throw yourself in the floor. I mean, you should ask Gustavo. He's the one that has done the imitation of when you hit.

Gustavo has an imitation of when I stub my toe. So I have a whole thing because I hurt myself when I stub my toe, because it hurts. Now I'm all of a sudden, I have a low pain tolerance. Okay, all right. I'm going to remember that next time someone stubs their toe, I'm going to remember that.

I'm not saying it's something that doesn't hurt.

It does hurt. Yeah, it does hurt. And I do stub my toe a whole bunch. I don't know why. There's just a lot of protruding things in our house. I don't think my foot knows yet. Listen, I do understand part of the reason why I maybe not drop to the floor, but part of the reason why I'll often leave the room is because if we didn't have children and I stubbed my toe, I'd be like, oh, motherfucker. I'd have to get it out. I'd just say some words and get it out. That first rush of pain, and you're like, fuck, or whatever you want to say. Now that we have children, I don't want them to see their daddy yelling and screaming every time he hits his toe because I'd run around the house all day yelling and screaming about how he hit my toe. So now I internalize. I fall to the ground. I put my hands over my.

Like you're having a heart attack. Heart attack in front of the kids. And the only thing that happened is you hit your toe with, oh, my gosh.

I can't believe you think that. This is dramatic. I can't believe it.

Here I thought, listen, you can do a poll. A poll?

A poll.

A poll.

Not a poll, a poll. Okay.

I could do a poll amongst my family members.

Yes.

When you air my toe. No, when you air this.

When I air this, I'm going to ask your family members what they think of me.

And then you say, do you think.

Asper's drag or Brian, I'm never going to complain again. I'm never going to complain again about anything. I'm going to literally walk in here with my arm dangling off one day and I'm going to be like, everything's good. Fine. I'm not going to say a word. I got to be honest. I do stub my toe a lot. And it really does hurt very bad.

No, but overall, do you think. Do you have low pain tolerance?

No, I don't I think I do become a baby sometimes when I get hurt, but I don't think it's really about when I get hurt. I think it's more about when I get sick. When I get sick, I hate being sick. It drives me crazy. So I definitely think I'm a baby when I'm.

Yeah, but you're a.

So, yeah, I think that's pretty.

It kind of. I mean, I apologize to all the men out there listening to me.

Well, they all know what babies.

Sorry, guys.

They all know. It's true. It's a thousand percent true. Are men in Venezuela just as big a babies when they get.

A. It doesn't matter.

How did the guys in Venezuela handle when they stubble their toe? Is everything okay down there?

They continue with their lives like nothing happened.

I continue with my life like nothing.

Happened after five minutes.

Now you're being dramatic.

I'm going to record you.

Okay. Record me. We'll put it on an instagram. I allow it. I allow it. Record me next time I stub my toe, record me. We'll see if that's an overreaction, because I think I'm.

No, because now you're not going to overreact.

No.

You're going to be, like, crying on the inside.

Never going to tell you again. When I hurt myself, I don't want to be a low pain tolerance kind of guy, but I am a low pain tolerance kind of guy. I don't think I have low pain tolerance, but I don't think I have high pain tolerance either. That. Sure, but what are you going to do?

Well, but listen, you have, like, blood tolerance.

I have blood tolerance. You have no tolerance to anything red in color. Yeah, that's true. That's true. You faint a lot and I overdramatize my toe stubs. So I guess in that sense, we're perfect for each other. Because when the major medical incidents happen, I can take care of them. And when I stub my toe, then you can take care of me. How's that?

Then you don't need no one to take care of you for hitting your toe.

Well, what if I do need some help? You know who needs some help? Blue. What are we going to do with this dog? Babe, that's my last question.

We should launch a giveaway.

I thought about this a long time ago.

I would love to give them blue.

I just don't think that would be fair to the person we're giving the dog away to. That's not a giveaway. That's like being punished. It's like, you can go to jail or take blue. I'd go to prison. I think I'd go to prison. Being serious. Listen to her. She's just barking for no reason. Why is she barking? Because it's close to time to being fed. Yeah, I know. Why did we choose to get that dog again? Why did you choose to get that dog again?

Because I moved here and I was very lonely.

Yeah, okay, I get it. It's a time. I got it. And to be fair to blue.

Yeah, I'm okay now. So, blue, you can go.

She's with us for the next 30 years. You know that, don't you? She's going to live to be a fucking hundred. You know it. You know it. Just like I know it. That dog is going to outlive both of us. We're literally going to have to put her in our will and she gets crazier by the minute. You think I'm dramatic about my toe? Blue's dramatic about everything.

Well, yeah, that's for sure.

Oh, God, it drives me crazy.

Well, you know how they say dogs are like their owners?

Yeah. Okay, don't even go there with me. I told you when we got that fucking dog, what did I say in the parking lot?

You are the owner.

What paperwork goes along with ownership of the dog? Okay, answer me. Riddle me this, okay? She's registered in my name. Riddle me this. When we were sitting on that dirt road in front of that trailer, waiting to go inside and get blue, what did I say to you? I said, are you sure you want a Yorkie? Because they're going to be. But they're cute and obnoxious. Yeah, they were cute for the whole ride home. She was cute.

And they're hypoallergenic.

Well, that's true. We did have to get that because my pain tolerance is low, so we couldn't. So we couldn't get.

Your allergy tolerance is also low.

Well, I do have to say this as a kind of stopping point here. I love you. I think you being venezuelan, to me, it's part of what makes my love for you so strong. Your culture, your attitude toward things, the dna inside of you, your funny little accent that I love so much and sometimes make fun of here on the show, the food, the warmth, everything. I think you're a beautiful people. And I'm so blessed, I think, to be in the orbit of the Venezuelans.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Now I'm going to go wrap my toes in bubble tape.

Listen, I feel the same about the american culture.

Oh, thank you.

And we often say our perfect culture, it's a mix between what we think. It's like the good from here and the good from my home country.

Is that what they say? No.

You and I.

You and I. Yes. I'm sorry. I forgot that conversation. I was on the floor with my toe. You're never going to live that one down. Never. All right. Okay. There it is. A little insight into the multicultural marriage that is Brian and astrid. And, yeah. I love you.

I love you.

I love you with all my heart. Love you very much. So can we go make some cicad news?

Marriage.

5000 marriage points for today's episode. Am I going to get deducted for any reason on this episode? Because if so, I'll edit it out.

No, I don't.

No, you're good. Okay, good. No, I think it's been an enjoyable episode of the commercial break.

I hope so.

Listen, Christy and I come. We yuck it up all the time. It's a bunch of fun. We talk about stupid shit. But I do, like, every once in a while when we can have, like, an actual conversation. So thank you. I really appreciate it.

I love you. Thank you.

I love you. You're my best friend. All right. Tcbpodcast.com, that's where you go. You find out more information about the show. You can watch all the video. You can listen to all the audio right there from one location. Tcbpodcast.com. What's so funny?

Not all the video.

Well, not all the video, but most of the video. We'll get back to it. I swear to God. We will. At the commercial break on Instagram. TCb podcast on TikTok. Just go to Instagram. Don't even bother with TikTok. At the commercial break. And YouTube.com slash the commercial break. That's where you go. You can find all the video that we have edited and put out. There is also on the YouTube channel, also YouTube.com slash thecommercial break. It would be nice if you would go there and subscribe, like, and comment on your favorite video. We certainly would appreciate it. Also, if you want your free piggy fronting sticker, you know what you have to do? You have to go to the contact us button on the website, drop your physical address, and then astrid, this beautiful lady, will send you a sticker for free. No problems, no questions. Yeah, when she gets around to it. Sorry, are you a couple of weeks behind? We have to get on that. We'll get on that. Don't worry. About it. 212433 TCB. That's 212433 TCB. Questions, comments, concerns, content, ideas, we take them. All right there. Ask Brian's mom. Ask TCB.

You need some advice? You can leave a text message, you can leave a voicemail. Whatever you choose, it'll ring right here in the studio and one of us will answer you. I promise we will. Okay, I guess that's all I can do for today, hun. But I'll tell you that I love you.

I love you, too.

And I'll tell you best to you, best to you, and best to you out there in the podcast universe. Until next time, Astrid and I will say we do say, and we must say goodbye.

The best.