Engine, five dispatch pockets of fire all around. Dear chief much has happened since we last spoke. Welcome to Dear Chief podcast where your hosts and their guests share the 411 of being married to the people who respond to 91 ones. Take a peek into fire family life and get unabashed advice on how to prevent forest fires in your marriage. Now, here's your host to seasoned fire wives, Audra and Chelsea. Mhm Okay, everybody, I'm totally noting out today, we have john, here he is, the mastermind behind the most hilarious instagram account at SD fire brigade. If you don't follow them, you are missing out on the most amazing comical satire you've ever experienced in your life, if you are a first responder family, I highly recommend it because it really takes a lot of our frustrations and makes it funny, which makes me feel better.

So um hi john, thanks for hanging out with hey Julian, hello um to my husband and I literally probably send each other a post a day from SD fire brigade, like back and forth on instagram, just like laughing and laughing at it because it's so funny and it's all true, it's just the lighthearted side of it, I guess, right? Yeah, I kind of accidentally fell into this satire uh Fire Department style satire and uh and just kind of just kind of go, mhm okay, so since we already dived into that, tell us about yourself and why you started the instagram. Uh see it's been a few years now, I've been doing it. Um two years ago I was working a lot of mandatories probably doing about one or 2 a week and I was running a call, I think it was like 3rd Fire of the Day, I think I was up all night a couple nights before, so I think I was a little strung out um maybe mhm and um it was just a standard structure fire call, it was like a granny flat behind the house and there was a header and I think I would think we were first in and I was, I went over there so I wanted to go make sure see what was happening so we can either put it out or you know council resources or see what's up.

So I kind of went into the house really quick and it was just a little fire next to a window and I just, I didn't have my mask on yet and I went and looked looked at it and one of the pieces of glass popped at that exact moment and I took and in my right eye and I thought I'd just kind of thought, I just kind of hit my eyebrow because I felt blood on my hands and I went outside to the rig when my engineer was that and my engineer, he's from Alabama, but he somehow got rid of his accent but his accident comes out when he's angry or he's really like being concerned about something and when I came out, he saw my face on my eye and he in a strong Alabama tone told me to sit the hell down with Hilbert and I sat down and he looked at me, he said there's something in your eye, like there's glass in your eye. So I, I didn't really feel it.

It just felt like something poked you in the eye. It didn't really hurt but ended up going to the hospital, ended up being there for a couple of days. Uh had emergency surgery that night. They put me out and it wasn't class in there. What actually happened was the Iowa sliced open and the inner eye, the iris was poking out of the cut and I get that reaction every time. So they actually put it, they put me out and they actually put it back in and they stitched it up. So I stitched it on my, on my eyeball an eye patch, which was fun. You had an eye patch for at least a couple of weeks. Yeah. And it was actually really close to Halloween. So that was pretty convenient. Uh I remember getting home like I don't know if you follow the page. You know, I have a, I always do Chevy chase videos.

Yeah. And I don't know you remember that movie, spies like us? Yes, spies like us is hilarious. Well when chevy Chase has that eye patch. Yeah. Yes. Oh well I I, when I got home I immediately went to my, my regular facebook page and I put that picture of Chevy Chase with the ipad and I just kind of roll, hey, I'm back in a and then I kind of wrote like a story of what happened and as I was writing just being myself that it was funny, but I did have an eye patch done. But as I was, I started writing the kind of to, you know, the guys who got me to the hospital, the ambulance crews and I kind of that that's sitting on the porch just rather than that thank you Reddit on facebook. I don't know what kind of, I kind of broke down and I guess this is a couple of days after the incident and everything is calm, you know, and I kind of know that my vision will come back. So you know, all the trauma was kind of over and I was with my family, I think my mother in law was here helping out with the kids and I just was so thankful to be home, still have my eyes and uh I think the kids running around the house and then me thinking about all the people that helped me in the past two days before that I kind of broke down.

I kind of, I, I look back at it now and I think, I think it was kind of a nervous breakdown what it was and down the porch uh huh and said it sounds like a little bit of trauma. Yeah, yeah it was like, and I learned later that when you, you go through something like that or you go through the stress is I guess after when you relax when you're calm and everything is fine is when your body basically can have a breakdown. And that's it's funny because we run, I run a million calls with anxiety attacks and I just never really had one myself until that exact moment and I think I realized that I was really tired over the next like two months ongoing. I realized that I wasn't, I didn't really sleep a good night for probably years and I think it was related to not only the incident with my eye but just constant trump traumatic calls that we go on.

It just came to a point where I really slept longer than a couple hours. I never hit that rim cycle and I would wake up and I was in this long, just strung out like um repetitive thing going on until I had the eye injury and got home and started realizing all this stuff on myself and start sleeping again. And as I started sleeping I started realizing kind of coming back to myself and a lot of the humor that I, I always have, it just kind of really exploded and I started, you know kind of where the page was born still there. Yes, we're still here. I think you cut out you like right before you said, um, it's where the page was born, you said something about laughter, humor exploding. But I think you cut out right as you were starting that sentence be, I would end up being off work for six months. Um, getting I procedures done, like getting out a lot of different stuff out to do, then taking the stitches out and constantly.

I think I wanted the doctor probably three or four times a week for a good month or two. So I was off work. But I mean I was at home every night and I started to the body started to just relax and I started to be able to sleep and I started to slowly realize and I'm sure most firefighters and anybody out there will realize this that afternoon crash that we have where we just want to take a nap. Um, we all do it. It's because we're so used to not really sleeping at night that the body wants to crash at noon, take a little breather and then go, I actually got to the point where I wasn't doing that anymore and I had forgot what it was like to just have energy all day again because I was sleeping again. And with that came my humor and just general, I'm general mood was improved and I realized when I was really realized and that I was just really tired and that goes back to the mandatory overtime and everything that we're doing, it's just it's not healthy. I realized it wasn't healthy for me and when I went back to work I don't I refuse them left and right, I don't care anymore.

I just, if I feel tired, if I worked a couple days straight, if I don't feel like I'm working, I go home and that's what I think unfortunately it's I think like most of the departments it's gonna start happening because at the end of day you just have to take care of your health. Uh huh As far as the page one, How is at home, you know, I had so much support not only from the department, but like from firefighters like text messaging, calling me, just bugging me just being themselves and making sure I was all right, but just making me laugh and I realized that like we needed something that wasn't, you know, department related wasn't you know, with the union, it was just a separate entity entity that we can laugh and have fun or like a modern day fridge art where we can come together and just share good fires share you know, and share laughter.

And I, I had this idea that, you know, most firefighters anywhere, we're all the same. And I was surprised to find out that that's really true with this page we have people um, what from was in Dublin south America Germany, they're all the same I mean they don't understand a lot of the lingo, but they message me and they asked me what it means and then they're right, they're laughing with us, they ask you what it means. Yo yeah, I get I get messages constantly um like, hey what we call, you know this rig, this what you call it or um with Amanda, that's a pretty common question, what's a mando? Um but yeah, they, I get constant message that I've actually become friends, I mean instagram friends with a lot of people in other countries who are just conflict corresponding with and they actually sent me video sometimes of their fires and we, you know, I make fun of their helmets and they make fun of ours and we go back and forth thing, make fun, we make fun of each other's clothes and yeah, because along the same line what firefighters, cops and military, we all the way we communicate is through messing with each other and that's how we show our love or you know there is a strong word but it shows our fraternity.

Um, yeah, it's the same way all over the world. It seems like, yeah, you walk into a firehouse and people aren't making fun of each other. You got a problem. Yeah, yeah, if they're, if they're all in separate rooms and they're brown bagging for meals, you don't want to be at that firehouse, you want to be at the one where you walk in and I think some guy immediately makes fun of your haircut or what, what, what what are those stocks you're wearing? What are you doing? Like just right away, you're like, oh, I'm at home here, this is the place. Yeah, it's funny, but it's so true. I know my husband when I touched him on the fun sometimes, I'm like, jeez, you guys are terrible. It made me think about it. Like if you think about it as a family, what happens with your kids? Like they're giving each other crap. My kids are always giving each other crap and that's just what happens in a family. So if you translate, it translates well, right, if you think of it that way. So I would be worried if I walked into a firehouse and that wasn't going on or if I called my husband and I didn't hear in the background.

And the bad chief is the mom for all the kids. Yes, yes. And the grumpy captain, his grandpa, you know that's just the way it is Pretty true. Once you get like those 20 years, they're all grumpy and like, hey kid, what do you do? My husband's, they're, he's, they call him the grandpa. Yeah, the firefighters are usually be annoying kids that have too much energy and are constantly looking at looking at the means. We Uh we call those are kids, Yep, like three of my own and you have like 20 at your house. Yeah, it's so funny because they're such babies, like when you look at them, my husband was older when he got hired, he wasn't, He was a 31, 30 or 31, so he wasn't ever a baby, you know, compared to now, there's 21 year old kid that he works with.

He's amazing. I mean absolutely love this kid but I'm just like, oh my god, like when he got hired, he wasn't even old enough to drink. We call them, we call them juice box because we would go, you know, we would hang out outside of the department and we'd get him a Capri Sun because he couldn't drink. So so the kids, it's hilarious when the kids seem they still call them juicy And even though he's 21 now, but it's just so funny, it's just like but I mean all the guys just make fun of him and it's so funny, but we love him, he's amazing. Yeah, I think I'm just all I'm doing is just sharing that humor, that same firehouse humor in a positive life. Put it into, I'm just mixing it with movies that everyone loves and just making it making the movie ours in a sense. Yeah. What does your wife think of all of this?

I get asked that all the time. She's actually a huge fan. She she thinks they're funny. Um she's shy though. I was actually actually, if she wanted to be on her, she's like, oh no, I don't, I don't want to do that. But no, she's a fan. She doesn't. I think she's a little shocked to on, on the popularity of the page. I told her the other day because I'm having a little trouble keeping up with the shirt orders and we're doing hundreds now. And I told her like, hey, you gotta help me ship and ship some of these when I'm at work. And she told me what, I didn't interview for that position. You know, you were volunteer told, I was like, I was like, no, you got mad dog do it though. For sure dude, welcome to the club. That was almost the name of this podcast. Ball and told and told you get volatile as wives to do a lot of things. Well Damien has a shirt that says ball untold and I'm like, you should probably give me one of those because we should make sure it's that say that maybe that will be our new, maybe you can partner with you and make shirts for your sheet weighs on board.

Just like to give me crap, just like everybody else. You know, it's funny because when we first were married, she was real quiet, but over years of being married to me, she's a, her wit. Her comebacks have definitely gotten really good. Oh, I bet. But you're pretty the videos, we're talking about this the other day. Um Some of the videos you do specifically for your wife think the anniversary one. Yeah. What was it? That was what's her name, molly Ringwald. I don't even recall the exact movie. I just pretty in pink. Okay. I'm not as good with her movies as I am with Chevy Chase movies but but I know him and I saw that scene and I I do miss a lot of you know anniversaries and stuff and I don't she doesn't ever ever complain or anything and I just thought I'd make a little video for her to make her laugh and a lot of things in that movie are things that we enjoy.

I think I wrote something about like I'll finally go to Ikea with you, you know because I hate a Kia but I'll do it for you and I won't wine. I won't complain about the lack of exits and all of the fuel that's ready to ignite any time in that place. And I uh I made it for her and she told me she laughed and she's like, you know, I feel so scene I was like you're not the only one that drags their hearts out. Her husband like believe me, oh my husband will not even go are you kidding? My husband doesn't believe in IKEA so either. Yeah my friends are in her house like. No, no because like what? Like you said he doesn't like the way you have to walk around in a circle, you can't find the exit. It's all like anxious. It's just not, it's not even worth the trip honestly, it's too stressful. And I've also found that through the page that when I write details about what I think or things with me and my wife that are related to the fire department, I've found that they're very common, you know, like no one's ever really spoke about the fact that firefighters hey decay.

But I just thought of it, I wrote it and then I was I'm always surprised to find out that it's very common. Yeah, you guys are all pretty, pretty easy to figure out. I'd say for the most part I think it's kind of the same personality that is a first responders. We've all been trained. I mean I don't want to get themselves a fire training but we've all been trained that people in an emergency, they all go to the the entrance, they came in and IKEA that's pretty far away its system. I'm sure I'm gonna get some hate mail for my kid now, but I'm sorry I K. one or the other. I can, you know that maybe I'll do a commercial for maybe that's the next video right there trip to it. Oh my God, yes, will Ferrell asking the accumulating. Yes, but where are your exit? Yeah, we need we need the exercise maybe like a like a like a fire inspector talking to the A K.

A lady like hey we need your exercise to be way bigger and the fuel load in this place is not acceptable. What's the what's what was the one that jim Carey used to do fire marshall bill? Oh God. Oh course. Yeah, that's that's good like here right there. Okay, let me do like a liar liar where like you're me shopping at a key when I say what I really think about that place because people yes, that was so funny. Oh my God, I feel on instagram real coming on right? Oh my God, this is what happens just come up and I just and it's funny because everyone always asks how do you make it so funny? It's like oh I just find clips that are already funny and I just make them firefighter related. It takes some skill though, it takes a little bit of skill and thought like it's a process. Okay. I mean maybe I just don't have it because I'm always over here like I don't know what I was saying.

I don't know what the top of the page, it wasn't a satire. It was, it was me showing fire video or like news clippings of fires that were in san Diego and then just slowly I think you know what my first means was it was a mandatory member. Of course it was kevin Hart and it's that known me where he's doing like the look with the mic, he's kind of like looking around the corner like, what is that noise? And I think I wrote, I have to look When the phone rings and you're number one on the mandolinist. Yeah, that was the, that was the first one I did. And then it got, you know, people really liked it and I, I kind of realized like, oh, this is, this is something that not been tapped, maybe could do a little more of these type of things. And I just kind of slowly got better. You said like I, I've everything I do on that page is, it's all through my phone. I don't like I have a laptop, a desktop, but I don't really know how to edit on it.

Uh, I have just a $5 a month app on my phone that I just do all the video stuff on dang. That's pretty cool. The phone, the only thing I have that's probably uh, the high tech thing that I have is that my iphone has the most memory I could possibly get because there's so many videos in there. I can't, it's unbelievable how much videos are in there. Yeah, you need all the storage. I bet you do. You make these shirts too. I do, I just started, well, I started a few months back, but I just got a do like Mando Mando Van stuff. Mando Van shirts. Yeah, the Mando Vans hilarious. Um, and then, yeah, this is basically just an 18 man and uh I don't know if you're familiar, but the mando vans coming to get the firefighters and make them work and the old they use the movie old school. Yeah, it's so funny. Chelsea. You've got to go look at it, you die laughing.

Oh, I I actually follow him. I just don't like I probably see it and I laugh at it and I like it and then I keep scrolling so like I do follow him. No, it's ok. I actually, I'm probably worse than you with the Graham. I noticed that this is just my theory, but The average person has about a 2/2 attention span on the ground. Firefighters and fire wives, I think have about barely a second. They just move their thumb is just scrolling up a lot of times. I'll try to make something happen within a second or two. Whether it be alright, whether it be like, say it's a fire video and there's an explosion in that video. That explosion, I'll cut it and put it in the beginning of the video. So you'll see that and then you stop scrolling and then it will go back to the beginning of the video and then the explosion will happen again. I do that a lot and do the same thing with the, with the comedy. I'll put something that I think we'll grab it tastes funny right away and it will stop you from scrolling. Whether it be real pharaoh's mug right in the front or something like that because I'm not, I just think of it like myself.

Like, I know I'm scrolling really quick and if I want to pay attention to it, then why would anybody else? Yeah, It's the same thing when you put the photo in your caption, you wanted to grab him immediately. Like something that like, well, what did she just say? You know, kind of thing? I get that. That's why I'm never on the ground because I'm always happy to figure that kind of stuff out seriously. So I just do stories all day because I'm like, well and well, yeah, if you're going to get into that, people, people by and large look at their stories more than they look at your instagram feed. So if you're in their stories and you've got your video and it catches them, they're hooked. Yeah, totally. You guys aren't on Tiktok, right? Just on the instagram. Right? No, it has the brigade on Tiktok also. It's just not as popular. Uh, again, this is just my theory, but talk a little bit of a younger crowd and I don't understand them as much as I understand my age group.

I think the brigades more, It's tailored to the movies I watched growing up and I think, I mean if you probably looked at who follows me. It's probably the same age group as me most mostly um Tic tac is a little younger and I don't I just don't understand it. I don't I don't have as many fathers on there, I noticed but I'm pretty much tell my kids that every day, like I'm on it, but I don't get it and I don't, it's the same thing with facebook, facebook is older than us. Yeah and like I said, the brigade on facebook but I don't put a lot of stuff on their facebook is just way down with just yeah, I don't know, I never want to get into the politics but just way down and I don't like it. I just instagram is fun, quick, easy and like you said the story function, I have a lot of fun on there with the story function. Like I'll put I'll put a funny picture or something and I'll just right, I'll just make you guys do my work.

I'll just say, hey right, the caption. Yeah and then people write tons of captions and some of them are not acceptable but it's okay because I could choose them. I can choose what caption and I could just make a funny meme with it or we just keep doing that or I don't know, a funny video pops up that I think there was a while back, there was some older men, they were stating in sync around a rink. Yes, remember that one? And I just kept writing things and also people kept sending the ideas of what they're doing. I think one of them was like you know, B division heading to their B division breakfast or um It's just we just kept writing different funny things with that video and it just keeps the story going and it's just fun and it doesn't clog up your, don't put it on the post post part but it's just it's just a story fun. That's my favorite part is the stories because the the different ideas from different people is so funny.

Some of them I don't understand like everyone's well ask my husband what does this mean? He's like oh okay but yeah it's just cracks me up. Um So you said that the administration knows all about the brigade, all your superiors and stuff and they're all just do they think it's funny? Do they text you and go dude, you can't say that dude, don't put that on there. No nobody has officially told me anything or anything like that. And actually I don't really know what administration thinks really about it. I just know that I get sent videos, fire videos, everything from, we could just say all different ranks in the department should say that up. So I and I get and I also send them stuff to that they want um for their pages or whatever.

I've never got told not to do anything. I think they, my hunch is that they look at it like it's just a separate entity, which it is, it's nothing to do with the department, it's separate. Um, Yeah. And I think, you know what, honestly with the mandatories, you know, a lot of people want to blame the administration and this and that, but this is a deep rooted problem. And this page has made me realize that it's not just this city, it's a lot of California departments and it's a lot of other departments in the country. They're having this problem and I don't know what the reason is. I just know that we're all understaffed and we're all going to monitoring all the time and it doesn't help, you know, with Covid and the fires that are getting worse every year, brush fires. But I think they, the administration understands that I'm not really making fun of them. I'm making fun of the fact that we're Like, I think I got four mandatories this week and I think they understand that that's just wrong. It's just wrong. Oh my God, I got four this week.

I think I refused two of them. And when I get back to work on monday after my sixth day, I'm going to get hit again on Tuesday and probably on thursday also it's really bad right now and it's not even fire season yet. So I think everyone understands it's bad and the brigade is such a morale booster. I mean how could you go after it? I mean, I think there's other things that they think are important and to their credit. They don't, they don't ever say anything to me other than to send me cool videos that they might have on their phone from a fire. I think it's cool. And I think that's why it's so successful too because you really take the negative out of the videos and make it make it more palatable I think is a good word because we all know the depth of the, you know, the bullshit of it all. But it's nice to see the funny side of it.

Well yeah, because we can't, I can't do anything about it. I'm just a firefighter. We can't do anything about it. It's above me and, but I can entertain the troops in a way of saying and I don't, I think that the internet is jam packed with a lot of crap that's not good for your morale. And I try to make the page a sanctuary. It's just a place you go to laugh and laugh about what's going on in the world or the department or whatever. I like it being like that And I like, I really like that. Somehow. I was able to also include all the spouses. I think it's funny and I think, I think the reason one of the reasons like you started falling the pages because you do understand a lot of the lingo and you understand what we're dealing with and I love it when I see, uh, like your guy's point of view when we're gone on strike teams. I think that's really funny. I always try and share those because I think, I think it's like one of the most important parts of our jobs. What's happening on the home front end with us. I saw a fire wife yesterday said I'm playing the, I'm not a single parent, my husband's not home game.

I ask you, where is your husband all day long every day. Just don't even answer that question anymore. I don't even, I don't, people on, my husband's stuck on, uh, just don't, people don't people, I understand my car and I don't go anywhere. You don't have time to go anywhere. Anyways. Okay. The one thing you posted today, the spouse fire station visit, oh my God, I was dying. I literally just watched it like five minutes ago while we were talking. I was dying to it. That isn't the most accurate thing I've ever seen. So that's a good segue actually because I was, I wanted to, people always ask like, you know, what is the brigade? Are you doing everything and like, yes, I edit them. I put them up. You know, I'm the one that started the page, but I have a lot of people in the background that are, I guess you call them producers.

I don't know what the official term is. You know, I have one guy, he's my editor, he's my resident Seinfeld historian and uh, he's also a very good, I call him a singer guy because I showed him a video and he'll just show me, give me one sentence that I should put in there. That is usually the best part of the whole video. And I have another guy who, he's my hired guy. He just likes every single video I do. So if I'm not sure about myself, I'll just share it to him and he'll love it. And I'm like, oh, it must be good then. And he also constantly send me videos and to the point where I told him the other day, Hey, two a day, I need you to bring it down a notch because I can't watch all these videos. So, and he'll laugh at me and I'll be like, well tell me, hey, I got a third one, but you said I can't send, it was like, we'll send it tomorrow. Yeah, these are with, yeah, Oh yeah, definitely. But uh, this video, you're laughing about the stop the one and he's the one that said that to me. And you know, it's usually like that. Usually let's send me stuff and say, hey, we gotta do something with this. Or he'll say, don't say this should be a Mando video or this should be this.

And it's funny because the video, I'll change it a few times and I think at any given time on my phone, I got 20 videos that are being worked on and whenever I'm bored or whatever, I just pull them up or I think of something and uh actually that video started out as a, I want to say what the first one was, but the second one was basically just, you know, firefighter relationships. And I was actually at the dark, dark part dog park this morning with my dog and I was thinking, God, this looks a lot like when the family visit and I literally everything you see that it's written, I wrote that this morning at the dog park. Oh my God, between between throwing my dogs tennis ball for him for and I just everything, all the repose they would look at. I would just, that, it looks like the tail board that looked like when they were the helmet or that looks like to pose the backdraft movie pose when you know, uh you know the scene I'm talking about when they're in their husband and that was a little cookie.

Like I just always just do stuff like that. But not everyone's going to know what that is. But the one uh couple that sees that and has done that, they're going to laugh really hard because they're gonna be like, oh crap. He, I feel seen relatable. It really is so bad because I'm like, oh my God, I don't know what's funny is that Video specifically that would have been us like 10 years ago and now we come to the firehouse and like we don't even care. Yeah, that's all. What just, hey, what do you do? Yeah, I told you get it changes. Only changes over the years. I probably should do a 10 year spell tool. Fire station visit would be totally different. God, I okay, Gotta go in 20 minutes. Yeah. I could probably do it with my son. For instance, when he was little, he wanted to go to every step fire station now. He's like, what riggs you got there? No, don't care. One day, one day I was that one day I was at the station and I literally called him like, hey the helicopters here, The water dropping helicopters, you want to see that I guess.

Oh, a long, you know, and my daughter doesn't care about any of that stuff. She just like what games, you know, board games do you have? And is there any teddy bears in the bullpen? So kids, they get totally used to it. They don't, they don't care. Dude, we just had this conversation with my boys like maybe two days ago because I was talking to them about when Cameron used to work um in medicine, a county and they're like, oh yeah, there was that one time, he worked at the air base. That was really cool. But then he went and worked in the dispatch center and that was really freaking lame. I think fun and dispatch to the dispatch center. Um Endo at some point you're not going to go visit him. No, there's no cool stuff there. Yeah, that was I mean when D was on the desk for two years, the kids were like, why are we going there? I don't I don't want to do that. Like, there's this sounds horrible.

Like, okay. So bad. Yeah. But then when the last time we went to see him finally, when we were allowed to go inside again, the kids were like, let's play in the fire truck. I'm like, really? Are you serious? Like, I think you're too old for this crap. Even in my 17 year old wants to play in the fire truck. What kid does not want to go play with a fire truck. I just thought at some point they would be like, all right, cool. Then, you know, we don't care. But no, they were like, uh let's be honest, you wanted to play in the fire truck. To know. I hate getting in that thing. Uh It smells. It's gross. God, there's all their gears just No, I actually never sat in any of their rigs. I don't think. I don't think so. God, I have to ask each year. Like so polar opposite. I don't want to know it's to jeremy for me. It's disgusting. Gross. The boys are discussing, No, well, you can't wash your gear until you get a fire and sometimes there's a dry stretch and the gear starts to get a little bit suspect.

No, it's always suspect. I must say I'm always, I think you should wash your after a fire, but sometimes there's a stretch where you might not get one and your gear starts to get a little funky. Yeah, we're lazy and we're like not to a fire because we're all superstitious and yes, you are all superstitious. Oh my God, Never say it's slow today. It's quiet today. It's this today. Did you guys have any calls today? Shut up. Don't say that. Okay, sorry. It's not gonna be that bad of a fire season, right? Oh my God, you shouldn't be that bad. My wife, my wife doesn't really ask me if I'm working tomorrow because she just assumes I am the next day. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, that was me last week. I was like, okay. So, um, I'll just, you know, let me know when you're like actually on the way home. Otherwise the and it is completely the opposite with us.

Like Cameron has this idea that he's coming home and I'm like, dude, have you seen the fire is going on in California, you're not coming home for at least a month. Yeah, it's like this big joke now because I'm just like, oh yeah, I'll see you in a month if you guys go on strike teams to, right? Oh yeah, yeah, but right now, I mean we I think we only send it Oh yes riggs because we have no problem stacking. Yeah. Ok yeah, I don't know what's going to happen. I think a lot of departments are doing that. We used to send like normally right now we probably have a couple full strike teams up there, but we've been at this time. Yeah, it's the same with most of the departments appear to I mean we have a my husband's department has Oh yes, but that's all they're sending out right now. Yeah, I think it's pretty, cause I said that's why I was like it's not just us, it's like the whole lot of California and everyone's having the same problem. Yeah, it's really bizarre. The staffing is I mean I couldn't even begin to, we'll go there.

Well that's that's the perfect villain is just, I just say staffing, it's just like I'm making I'm making it into like an 80's villain. Yeah, I think you can do so many videos and I'm not talking about anybody anybody specifically, it's just a joke. You just used staffing, you know, I think I do a lot of spaceballs videos where you know, big helmet, he's always the staffing guy, just have fun with it. Why not just get it tomorrow anyway. Yeah, it's totally it's so funny. So your wife is cool. Oh what is the funniest? What's the funniest video so far that you've done oh you know, uh the Conan the Barbarian? The Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah, yeah, so that's probably, it's in the top five, and when I say, when I say top five, it's just top five popularity, my personal, probably favorite funny videos probably didn't do well, but like, I like, like the space ball stuff for the Chevy Chase stuff, but when you say, like, popularity wise, Conan the Barbarian one is probably the one that put the page on the map, and the funny thing about that one is I almost didn't post it because I didn't think anybody would get it, but everybody got it.

Yeah, well, it was, it was really new to this whole thing and I was kind of like, I was just writing stuff and, and I didn't really know, I still know what I was doing, but I didn't really know what I was doing then, and I remember I sat on that video for probably a couple of months and I just, one day, one morning I had a little too much coffee and I just threw it up just for the heck of it and see what would happen and uh yeah, it's one of the most, one of the top five for sure, that's the one that has um you know, I'm going to get it to coma, I'm going to put a random shovel on it and I'm gonna get lots of leather, it's basically a firefighter right off probation, So one year and one day on the job and they're looking in the mirror and they're saying, I'm going to grow a moustache, I'm going to buy a Tacoma, I'm going to get lots of leather and it's just just doing that with Conan the barbarian swinging a sword, honey.

It took off a little bit and then that one and then probably the um jesus from the big Lebowski, uh huh. Where I've seen that one, he's getting ready to ball. It's like his whole thing where he does before he bowled the ball and it's, it was supposed to be a two Year veteran firefighter and just making fun of the fact that you're two years on, but there's like this community of two years guys who they got to stash, they got a leather and you know, they've been to a couple of fires and they just, they think they're veterans and it's just funny. It's a funny thing to make fun of. And that one was, that was pretty popular. So you're selling t shirts now, you're still doing all your videos and stuff. What's like, do you have a goal for the page or you just kind of going to go see where it goes and I'm just gonna riding the wave. I've always said the pages going somewhere, I don't know if it's the trash can or what it's doing, what's going somewhere and I'm just gonna write it and just keep doing what I'm doing.

I don't, I'm not trying to be emerged a peril guy, but I kind of just fell into it. We did approve the order a few months back and the pre order was only for three days where someone comes in the order, the stuff and then we take the money and then go buy the stuff and then send it, which is hard, but it's a huge, it's a long turn around, like a month and a half turn around and in this amazon world, people don't really understand that they wanted like tomorrow, but that's okay. I mean, I get in the same way, but we did this pre order and we made this mando venture and we sold Like 500 shirts in two days, wow, It kind of blew me back a little bit and I, so I took the money I had from that and I donated a bunch of it to the moustache bash, which is run by and it's basically a big moustache bash party where they grow a moustache or mullah and you get judged on it and a lot of fun.

Wait, what does it run mine? Who's it run by? You cut out, Who's it run by? Sean Brammer down here in san Diego. I donated a bunch of money to him and I took the rest and I bought merchant, I bought a bunch of stock of stickers and shirts. That's really cool. That's, that's cool. So you're, you've done it twice? Not right? You've done the t shirts twice now. Yeah, I did it twice. And but now like right now I'm looking at I have Uh four bucks, I have about 300 shirts right now, and I got a bunch of stickers and I'm just gonna start selling from what I have, and then once they sell out, I sell out and I'll just tell her you're sorry, you gotta wait for everything to get back in again. I'm gonna start doing it that way. And like I get like I said, I kind of just fell into this. It wasn't a plan, but I'm just riding the wave. And what's cool about it? Is it as if I have a family and when I'm spending time making these videos sometimes it, I feel like a bad parent doing the video sometimes, but now that it's become like my small business on the side, it it's kind of I say, I don't have a problem making videos every once in a while.

But what's also cool about is I'm able to donate to anything I want. There's no red tape, I could just take this cash and go to anything I want and donate it and make a fun real with the money showering on whoever it was and I enjoy that freedom and that's a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to doing more of that. Um Who knows though? Who knows what's gonna happen. It's gonna keep writing it. Yeah, that's cool. I think and it's it's a good opportunity for the kids to kind of watch you do all of this Stuff. Yeah. It's funny because my 13 year old is like, what is this? Like, like boxes of shirts and I showed it to him. He doesn't really understand what was going on. But you like the shirt though. So I gave him a shirt when you have a short too. I thought in the last pre order and the husband loves it. He thinks it's hilarious. Yeah, I'm gonna try to, you know, I got more, I got new stuff that we haven't even put it out yet. I got a new mandate to ensure that might be coming out of prison and I don't really have plans. I just, every day I just try to put try to put things I think are funny up and I try to make sure that if I am going to be selling things that its quality and you get, you get in a reasonable amount of time, just keep going with it.

I don't know what the future holds for me. Um, I just kind of going day by day. It's kind of our style too. Yeah, every day. I want to quit and we don't just kidding, develop wings on the way down, you know, I don't know. Well, I think your pages literally probably one of the only reason I'm still on instagram at this point, it's so funny. I worked with a lot of older guys that just happened is part of, one of the jokes I do is engineers are usually the quirkiest person that we work with. They're also the people that I have to help get on instagram and understand how to follow the brigade because they want to follow it, but they don't know how, but okay, so I think that wraps it up. Audra if you don't have any other questions, my husband walked, just walked in and he wants to say hi to john alright guy that runs the bridge, how you doing?

Hey, I can't hear you because I have my headphones in. Hey, keep doing what you're doing man. I thank you. Mhm mhm He can totally hear him. Celebrity. Okay. I heard him talking actually. Yeah, you can hear him. He just can't hear you. He's like, uh, oh God, that's so funny. I guess, I guess the reason I, I wanted to do this, probably I'm closing the reason I wanted to do this was, I think I want people to realize that the page came from um a little bit of, some what you call it, but a little bit of stress and I realized that we need a little bit of, we needed somewhere to go to kind of unleash some of the stress and I'm kind of at a loss for words right now. No, that's, that's pretty well said because that's exactly, I think, I think what I want people to realize is that when I got out on injury, you know I had to, I had to reach out for help and I got some help from uh down here in san Diego, we have some called focus where you call them and they hook you up with a, I guess it's a psychologist and you go and you talk to them and these people that we talked to there, they are not your normal um guys, they our former cops, I mean they been through a lot, probably a lot more than we have and they know how to talk to you about it and I learned a lot about myself and I wanted people to in my same profession to understand that it's okay to go to reach out for help and talk to people and just I guess they call it break the stigma is something that we should be doing.

And I wanted people to know that person who started that page. It came from that. It came from getting help and when I came back to work, I came back to work a different person and that's how the page started. Yeah, yeah, that's what this podcast is for stuff just like that. Exactly, just like that and we are grateful that you started it because there's if you're not laughing at it, you're taking life way too seriously. Yeah. And I were, the reason I wanted to talk is like if there's just one guy, it's just one firefighter. You know, here's this because what that night that I was talking about where I kind of broke down. Like a couple of days later, I actually heard a podcast. Yeah. And it was from a firefighter down here in san Diego named Ben vernon. And he was talking about when he got stabbed, actually got stabbed on a medical aid down here and almost died. And clearly that's way worse than my eye injury. But he had the same thing happened to him when he was at home after he broke down and he got help.

And that's I was listening to that podcast. And that's I think that night I called in. Yeah. And that's why I'm doing this now. I'm returning. You know, the gesture I want. If someone's listening to this and they are going through something, you need to reach out because There's, you're not the only one. You know, it's real. Yeah. And if you need to reach out and you don't know who to reach out to. There's all kinds of resources on Dear Chiefs. Um, and you can always private messages, send us an email and we'll put you in touch with the right people. So yeah, that's for sure. Okay. All right. I think that wraps it up. Thank you so much john for being on the podcast today, this has been a lot of fun. Um, if our followers want to follow fire brigade, they can do that by following at SD fire brigade on instagram and definitely we'll check out his name because they're freaking hilarious.

Thanks for hanging with us, john. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me and talk to you soon. Thanks so much for tuning in. Find us on social media at Deer Chiefs podcast and online at Deer Chiefs dot com. Tune in weekly for the 25,000 ft view of loving a first responder, Audrey and Chelsea over and out. Yeah, here, yeah.