Transcript
zachary smith: All right, so this is going to be a unique style of podcast this time. um We are doing one on Monday night. i Let's say probably I'll probably release this about Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on when I have time to do it. I'll also have Lex also before I publish it, I want her to listen to it to see if anything needs to be changed and then we can come back and change anything we need to.
zachary smith: Um, so this will be, uh, there is a 10 part series over the next 10 weeks. I'll be releasing one part per week, uh, just so the, everybody has an option of ability to figure out.
zachary smith: your backstory and I know you wanted to talk to a lot of people about everything that you went through because um for the whole year I know you there's it's been crazy and when you told me some of the backstory that you didn't tell anybody else it gets deep and I think this gives you an outlet to not only help with your therapy but also help in the aspect of people knowing who you are and won't be able to come at you sideways like everybody else so so let's start this is how about we start like this since there's no editing it's uncut it's unfiltered why don't you just tell how who you are yeah just just give a brief introduction so
Lex: That's... Yeah. Who I am.
zachary smith: people that don't know you can know who you are. At least just let's just say it's like a high school introduction.
Lex: Oh, okay. Alright, a little bit about me. ah Well, I'm 26. I'm old, but I'm not. ah I am the oldest of a total of seven kids ah between both my biological parents.
Lex: um
Lex: i'm a I'd say I'm very overprotective over people I care about. um I'm goofy. I love dark humor. I love anything that makes me laugh. I talk about anything, everything. It's hard to take me seriously sometimes. ah But I'd say overall I'm just a protective, love loving, funny, caring person.
Lex: yeah
zachary smith: Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. um One thing I do know about Lex, she is very protective. She is very loving. And if she does care about you, she makes it known.
Lex: Very much.
zachary smith: um Absolutely. So you were talking about your parents. So why don't you go into detail on who your parents are?
Lex: All right, I'm gonna be honest with you. I i hate burning up the fucking point of origin for me. um So, um I'm gonna go ahead and say this. All right, my mother, she...
Lex: She was a young mother ah and my father, I don't really know very much well of. I do, but I don't. um So my mom comes from,
Lex: she's from she's lived most of her life in Indiana and she moved down to Florida and that's where she met my biological father.
Lex: Um, my mom was a teenage runaway, so she ran away from home because, you know, she was like abused from her stepfather. Um, and she ended up meeting my biological father, um, who happens to be way older than her. Um, he was on house arrest for charges and she thought it'd be cool to be staying with ah a bad boy, I guess you could say.
Lex: um But how I came to be was um basically my mom was raped at a really young age by my father and got pregnant with me. And she ended ended up ah getting away from that situation. So a little fast forward on that one. um Well, that's just my mother. For my biological father, my my biological father is known As a sexual predator, he is a registered rapist. He's had numerous victims.
Lex: um I'm the only child that he conceived out of rape. um But his other two kids, he was in a relationship with that he had. And his son, which is my brother, is not much younger than me. So around the time my mom got pregnant with me, he had a girlfriend that was already pregnant with my brother. no Well, got pregnant a little bit after, my bad.
Lex: um
Lex: Well, as far as that goes, my mom ended up meeting my stepfather. My stepfather is actually who I call my father because he raised me. um My stepfather is... he hes I guess you could say he's who I got most of my dark humor from, my my the way I laugh about things.
Lex: um My stepfather's from Florida, born and raised kind of thing. ah But he didn't become my father until he was 21 years old and my mom was 16 at the time and they ended up getting married.
Lex: So right after i ah my mom got pregnant with me, she met my stepfather and they got married and they conceived my sister. And then not long after, I had my two little brothers after.
Lex: Um, then I had and another little brother, but that's a whole nother story on that one.
Lex: Um, my upbringing, yeah, my upbringing wasn't the best.
zachary smith: Okay.
Lex: Uh, I'll say, let's start. And my earliest memory is like when I was seven. So, uh, yeah.
zachary smith: Well, before we do that, um you were talking about your parents, right? um So it seems like both both your father figures or your real father and your biological father or sorry, your biological father and the basically, yeah, I was right, your real father, they're both from the state of Florida.
Lex: Yeah.
zachary smith: So what did your mom like, since you said your mom's from Indiana, did she do like, come down to Florida and
Lex: So what happened was um she was born in Kentucky. um So she then started living in Indiana when her mother married her stepfather. um And then her stepfather had gotten a job out in Florida and they all moved to Florida.
zachary smith: Okay, okay, so it's kind of like a situation like how you were in where your mother went through the exact same thing.
Lex: Yeah, pretty much.
zachary smith: Okay, and you said you had how many siblings total?
Lex: Well, not including me. Let me see. I have my sister, my oldest youngest brother, my second. And I have five brothers and one sister.
zachary smith: See, it sounds like you have three brothers and one sister.
zachary smith: Five brothers and one sister and you are the oldest?
Lex: I am the oldest.
zachary smith: Oh wow.
Lex: Yeah.
zachary smith: And you said that your mother and your stepfather got married when she was 16 and he was 21.
Lex: I think she was about to be set turning 17 when they got married, so.
zachary smith: so
zachary smith: So... Got it. So basically the same situation as your biological father and your mother.
Lex: Yeah.
zachary smith: Okay, okay, okay. and All right. And you said your childhood, you the the first thing you remember is when you were about seven years old.
Lex: here
zachary smith: OK, go ahead.
Lex: So, I've always been need I remind you, I didn't know any of this information until I was about 13 years old. So I always thought my stepfather was biologically my father. um So I was a daddy's girl growing up. I was always with my dad, loved my dad, me and him got along so well.
Lex: everything. And then it started to change when I was around seven. And the reason why it started to change around seven is, well, I had an older cousin that was basically his nephew, so his sister his twin sister's child, oldest child. um And he was about five, six years older than me.
Lex: um And around that time, my cousins were living with me, so we were all living in the same house. And as early as 7, I remember my older cousin,
Lex: ah
Lex: like starting to molest me and um started beating me for no apparent reason. Except he always would say to me, or we're not really family kind of thing and I never knew what that meant.
Lex: Obviously he knew it before I knew it. on Yeah.
zachary smith: Yeah, he was older. Yeah, so obviously he have he would have known that you guys weren't family because he knew the truth and you're still so young you had no idea.
Lex: Mm -hmm.
zachary smith: Okay.
Lex: Yeah, so he was... He was, at for I didn't know what anything was. You know what I mean? At seven years old, you don't you don't you know you don't sexualize your body. You don't look at your body like that. You know what I mean? You're not curious about stuff. You're not wanting to know stuff. So um this happened him molesting me and ah hitting me. This happened from the time I was seven years old all the way up until I was 14.
zachary smith: Oh wow.
Lex: It happened for years. um Come to find out that I wasn't the only one he was doing things to. So ah I found out that he was doing inappropriate things to one of my siblings. so
Lex: And when I caught wind of it, that's when I sat my parents down and told them what was happening to my sibling, and then also what's happening to me. um
zachary smith: oh oh I bet that was just a hard conversation, especially at a young age.
Lex: Oh yeah, definitely. Because by this time I found out um what they were doing to my other sibling. I was only years past since it first started beginning, so I was 10.
Lex: when I sat down and told my parents that. um When I told them it was happening to my sibling, they were concerned. They talked to my sibling. They got my sibling counseling. They got him on medication, talked to him about it, trying to get him, you know, the help that he needs and obviously didn't have anything to do with that cousin that was doing the things that were doing it. But when it came to me, um they didn't really believe me, nor did they care that this was happening to me.
Lex: um They only cared about my sibling because of the fact that he was a male.
Lex: If that makes sense?
zachary smith: oh wow
Lex: Yeah. um
Lex: After that, ah me and my stepfather's relationship got rocky. because the cousin I was accusing of this situation was his like first nephew and they had a bond kind of thing.
zachary smith: Oh wow. Mm -mm.
Lex: So ah he would just exclude me from family events that way he could still hang out with his nephew kind of thing. Um, I'll say that after opening up to my parents about that, my mom didn't really do anything about it. But being the fact that, you know, she's a rape victim herself, you know, been through some kind of stuff. I kind of was like disheartened to, you know, see that she didn't really do anything for me, but was able to do something for my other sibling, which never made sense to me. Still to this day, never made sense to me.
zachary smith: I don't know why. Yeah, I don't that doesn't make any sense either. In situations like that, you always want to go for the person that it hurts the most and it sounds just in their tone of their voice. It sounds like it hurt you the most out of everybody.
Lex: Oh, 100%, it did. And I'm even like choking up a little bit just even speaking about this because for me, I try to pretend like it didn't happen kind of thing and move on. But that's not how you heal. So you got to talk about it. um But as far as like childhood upbringing, that was happening.
Lex: On top of that, let's go ahead and I'll go ahead and say this. My mother started becoming physically abusive with me when I started to turn 12 years old. So this is the part where I'm about to start hitting puberty. I'm about to start, you know, get into the that kind of realm of things growing up.
Lex: My mother was actively jealous of me. She was active of the like the like jealous of the attention I would get, jealous of how well I would do in school.
Lex: Just she anything that surpassed her upcoming, I felt like I was competition to her and she took it as that, you know?
zachary smith: And that doesn't make ah much sense because what parents are therefore they there they want to see their child or children in general do better than they did.
zachary smith: They want to see them thrive because they don't want them to make the same mistakes that they did when they were younger.
Lex: Right.
zachary smith: um because now they know exactly who how to handle those situations. um The fact that your mom did that, it's that's not okay. um
Lex: No, not at all. um
zachary smith: Having a competition with your with your daughter, but there's not much of a competition. like You were 12.
Lex: Right.
zachary smith: so
Lex: Well, being the fact that you know she was only 16 when she had me, it's like, in a sense, you're growing up with your child. So I've never felt like my mother was my mother.
Lex: I felt like my mother was more like a sibling to me than an actual mother.
Lex: um
zachary smith: okay
Lex: My mom was really bad on drugs and alcohol. really, really bad. I didn't notice she was really bad on drugs until at the time I was 12. I knew she was around it, but I didn't know she was addicted to it ah until I was around 12.
zachary smith: Okay And what what drugs were it was those was it just pills or was it anything harder and
Lex: um My mom, her main drug of choice was coke, um but she dabbled in different things. um
zachary smith: Coke, you know, that's the funny thing because um usually Coke is notorious for one part of the United States. And it's where both your your both your stepfather and your father's from Florida.
Lex: right
zachary smith: It's really notorious from Florida. So I'm wondering if she got the addiction down there when she met them.
Lex: um I like to believe just because this will be in later segments as we go on through my story, but the reason why I believe my birth father is the one who got her on it is because um he was known for being an alcoholic and being around that and she wasn't really on drugs up until after that point.
Lex: So I'm thinking that was a main contributor. And especially when something traumatic like that happens to you at 16 years old, you know, it's you use drugs to cope.
zachary smith: oh Absolutely and ah did she have you at 16 or did she have you um before that?
Lex: she had me She had me at 16. So um she got pregnant with me at 15, had me at 16.
zachary smith: Okay, so she was with your she she had she got sexually assaulted by your actual father at 15 and then married your stepfather at 16 and
Lex: Mm -hmm. Yes.
zachary smith: That's a very young age to getting married to somebody that's 21 years old.
Lex: Well, let me get into that. It's funny that you bring that up is because one time I turned, it was on my birthday, I turned 10. My mom sat me down and had a conversation with me. And she decided that she was gonna tell me, she didn't go into many details because remember at the time I thought my father was my father.
Lex: she just basically told me at 10 years old that uh you should be thankful i said yeah i should be it's my birthday you know whatever she's like no i mean you should be thankful i ruined my life but i'm like ruined your life what what do you mean i'm 10 so i'm just like what are you talking about she then proceeds to tell me that she married
zachary smith: Yeah.
Lex: Somebody so I could have a dad and I was like, what do you mean by that? Because at the time I'm thinking you had me Before you got married. So what the hell are you talking about? You know as a kid questioning it Later on that year of me being 10 mean to about to turn 11 my parents my stepfather my mother had told me to clean their closet ones I'm I and I was cleaning out their closet and I just so happened to find paperwork in their closet where it said adoption papers and had my name on it.
Lex: and ah I started asking questions to my mom because like I can fucking read I'm not retarded you know but or dyslexic but I could read and I asked her questions like hey what's up with these adoption papers she goes oh I had a cat named Lexi and that's adoption papers for a cat I got I'm like okay why do you still have that like what are you talking about um
zachary smith: Yeah, absolutely.
Lex: At this point in time, this is where the story gets crazy.
zachary smith: Okay.
Lex: um This is the year that I was about to start ah either fifth or sixth grade. I cannot remember. um but I was living in a nice house with my stepfather, my siblings, and my mother. And my mother had a fascination with people across the street, and I could not understand why. I was like, what is her fascination with these people across the street? We just moved in not that long ago, about two months ago. And I'm like, what's up with these people that she's always talking to, always leaving after dinner, going straight across the street, too?
Lex: One time, she decided to take me with her across the street to yeah this neighbor's house.
zachary smith: Uh -oh.
Lex: And she was like, oh, tell them about yourself. And then she hands them a photo album of pictures of just me, not me and my siblings, nothing else, just straight pictures of me as a child.
Lex: And I'm like, what the hell? Once the visit was over and she took me home back to the house, she then sat me down and explained to me that those are my grandparents.
zachary smith: What?!
Lex: Those are my grandparents. Those are my biological father's grandparents.
zachary smith: Hold up so you're telling me this entire time your mother knew your grandparents were across the street And your your grandparents had no idea who you were at the time But they didn't have any effort ah if since they knew who your mother was didn't try to show up and introduce themselves
Lex: and
Lex: They knew who I was. I just didn't know who they were.
Lex: well da Well, let me explain why, as to why that is. When my mother was pregnant with me, and obviously of how I came to be into this world, there was a court hearing about my pat the paternity test of me and then, you know, the criminal charges that he did against my mother. Part of his criminal charges is he had to relinquish his parental rights to me.
Lex: um So in order for that to go through, my parents my mom had to be married in a stable home. That's where my stepfather came in.
zachary smith: o Okay.
Lex: Yeah, my birth father's grandparents were there in court and they were not entitled to grandparents' rights.
Lex: because the father ah hey ah relinquished his rights, so therefore there's no such thing as grandparents' rights if he doesn't have parental rights to me.
Lex: So does that yeah does that make sense?
zachary smith: I see.
zachary smith: It does. It definitely makes sense. um So you you basically knew who your grandparents were at that time. Was that your only interaction with them or did you have any more interactions with them?
Lex: Uh, hi, let me get into that. All right. So after my mom sat me down and told me those are my grandparents, I was like, what are you talking about?
zachary smith: okay
Lex: I know my grandparents because at this time I still did not know that I was adopted. I'm like, what are you talking about? You have extra set of parents. You know what I mean? Um, she at this point in time, she didn't say anything, but the following day after an ambulance was outside the neighbor's house across the street.
Lex: And it turns out that my grandmother died.
zachary smith: Oh damn.
Lex: Yeah, my grandmother died and my grandfather was only one living and he had to go live in a living facility because he couldn't be a living alone.
Lex: And I have never heard from them since, never heard nothing of them. But that same day that my grandmother died, my mom comes crushing through the door, sat me down.
Lex: and basically told me everything, how it came to be, how how I came to be in this world, and who's my father, and who's family, and and what sucks is she waited too late in order for me to build even a relationship with my biological grandmother, because she's dead.
zachary smith: Wow, that that's that's horrible. i think every I think every child should know who their grandparents are. I think every child should know who's family, really.
zachary smith: Because family is a very important thing. And I mean, you have talked about this many, many, many, many times on how important we think family is just in general.
Lex: Yeah.
zachary smith: um that So your grandmother died.
Lex: And um that same day, my stepfather had just came home from work. My mom just got done telling me everything and she hands me this big black binder filled with all the police reports, all the police statements of what happened to her with my birth father, the paternity test proving he is my father.
Lex: Just a big black binder filled with all the information. And me being young, I'm trying to take in all this information. ah Like, I'm sitting here thinking that my father is my father.
zachary smith: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Lex: You know what I mean?
zachary smith: Yeah, absolutely.
Lex: um Never in a million years did I think anything else. But my stepfather had come home from work and he's seen me crying a little bit on the couch. And my mom was just kind of distraught sitting there. My stepfather was like, hey,
Lex: What's going on? What happened? Why is everyone boo -hoo crying? Type stuff.
zachary smith: Yeah.
Lex: My mom basically said to him, and it just subtle words, I told her. And he goes, told her what? My mom was like, I told her. And he goes, really?
Lex: She's not old enough for this kind of stuff. Like, why would you sit there and do that? Why would you ruin that kind of thing? So they kind of like bickered back and forth. I'm over here in tears staring at a damn binder. You know what I mean? Like, what the fuck? My whole world just got flipped upside down in a matter of just a fucking 24 hours.
zachary smith: absolutely and you're so young so you had no idea like you didn't know how to grieve you didn't know how to take that news
Lex: No, not at all. ah Like, how are you supposed to take that? I mean, imagine putting yourself in that situation. How are you supposed to take that? Everything you knew about yourself is all bullshit. You know what I mean?
zachary smith: Oh, absolutely. I mean, for my personal experience and obviously we'll have my own shows for this. Um, and at that point Lex will be the host.
Lex: Love that.
zachary smith: That's going to be interesting, but, um, yeah, to me, family's everything. Like my, I never got to know my mom's dad because my mom's dad died when she was 10 years old. So,
zachary smith: i dad I only knew my grandma and then my dad's parents and grandparents are everything. Like you don't have very many. You have four total.
Lex: Yeah, if you're lucky that.
zachary smith: And once they're gone, yeah. And once they're gone, they're, they're gone. Like you can't get them back. I mean, yes, you can marry into other families, but it's not the same.
Lex: It's not and people and that's one of my many issues, but we'll get into that a later date. but
zachary smith: Oh, absolutely. And just to make this a little bit um dragged out a little bit, take a little bit of break so you can have a breather. um Like I was saying, over the next 10 weeks, um we will be showing your story. A little outlook on your story. um Next week's episode is going to be your teenage years. So junior high. And we'll stick it to junior high. um We have an episode of you in high school. We have an episode of you in college. We've had an episode of How Mean You Met. ah We have an episode of a figure that I'm going to bring up right now that you met. um And we're going to have ah a large discussion about that. But he goes by the name of Zan. And
zachary smith: Yes, we can use that name because it's not his legal name. He has no trademarks on it. So we can go ahead and blast him like that. Like I said, this is unedited and uncut.
Lex: Well he.
Lex: Well, I just will want to make a comment because I'm a petty bitch. Zans ain't shit anyway. Just saying. Xanax ain't shit. Don't do it. Say no to drugs.
zachary smith: Yeah, yes, say no to drugs, everybody. But getting back to your story, um I know you were talking about your childhood and before we get into some of your childhood stories, i just want a little I'll ask you a little bit of questions just to extend this topic a little bit.
zachary smith: um During your childhood, what was your favorite present you got? Does it have to be on Christmas? Does it have to be on your birthday? Because I know you you had a rough childhood growing up.
Lex: Yeah.
zachary smith: What presents to get to you the most? Because I know that it's not always about value. It's about what it meant to you.
Lex: yeah um I'll say this. It was around Christmas time. ah My gift I got from my grandmother, which is my stepfather's mother.
Lex: and Y 'all learn out throughout the whole series of me talking about my life that that that woman's the my favorite person ever in the whole entire world. But um my grandmother, she saw that I was becoming interested in playing instruments.
Lex: And she always thought of out of all of her grandkids, I was going to be the talented one, the one that stood out, the one you know that made something of herself kind of thing.
zachary smith: Thank you.
Lex: so I told her I wanted to be a rock star and she was going to make sure I was going to be a rock star. So she decided that she was going to gift me an electric guitar with an amplifier for Christmas.
Lex: And ah that meant everything to me, not because of it being an electric guitar and so nice and fancy. it It just showed that the one person that was consistent in my life that believed in me was still going to be there regardless. And it was just a reminder that I always had her in my corner. And that felt amazing.
zachary smith: Oh, I bet it is. um Like I was saying, it's not about the value of the gift. And sometimes those gifts are the best. Getting something that is important to you is is amazing. It could be even a food item. It doesn't even have to be something. It's just knowing that the person you care about the most in this world got you a gift.
Lex: Yeah, for sure.
zachary smith: and And with your childhood being such bad so bad to you, I know that means you discussed this. I don't remember exactly when it was.
zachary smith: If it was in your teenage years, it could be a little sneak peek for next week.
Lex: Uh -huh.
zachary smith: um There is a crazy story of your mother trying to sell you.
Lex: Oh, yeah, that's later. That's later. But I can give you a little snippet. um My mom the sold me for... I believe it was $10 ,000. It could have been $20 ,000. Anywhere between $10 ,000 to $20 ,000. My mom basically accepted money from a woman who was trying to buy her adult female daughter a girlfriend, pretty much.
zachary smith: Got it. I swear I thought it was earlier in your life, but now that you say that, now I know it's it's going to it's going to be in a couple of weeks. It's not going to be next week. It's going to be in a couple of weeks.
zachary smith: um
Lex: yeah
zachary smith: that That itself is going to be a large portion of of what that podcast will be about.
Lex: Yeah, that's a lot.
Lex: Oh yeah, for sure. I don't doubt it. That's a lot. Fun fact.
zachary smith: Absolutely, and some of the things that people might want to know when you're a child from when you were a child, what was it some of the stuff that you like like? What was your favorite color? What did you want to what did your childhood self want you to be when you grew up?
Lex: Oh God, I was completely different person then. ah At the time when I was a kid my favorite color was yellow and ah I've always wanted to be a doctor of some sort. I wanted this more specifically I wanted to be an eye doctor.
Lex: um
zachary smith: Got it.
Lex: Yeah, just for personal reasons. That's all. Just for personal reasons.
zachary smith: Exactly, and we won't be getting into those personal reasons if she wants to at a later date, in a later podcast she can, but ah I wouldn't be surprised that she wanted to be like that. A little snip bit of my story and arc that we will be going into.
zachary smith: um Probably the next two months um because I'm gonna have Lex write it.
Lex: Heck yeah.
zachary smith: um I honestly wanted to be a scientist when I was a kid.
Lex: What? It's really?
zachary smith: Yeah, because my third grade teacher, she was a scientist and I enjoyed the hell out of her. She was the older lady. um Her name was Miss Snow. um Bless her heart. i'm I'm pretty positive. She's probably passed at this time.
zachary smith: um Because I was in 2003, and I believe she was most likely in her 70s or 80s back then, maybe 60s.
Lex: Ah.
zachary smith: And I just can't find any information on her. I've been looking for years and years and years. If anybody's listening and knows who that is, have her reach out to me.
zachary smith: um It'd be awesome to hear her and make sure she's okay because the thing I remember the most, her favorite food was pumpkin pie.
Lex: I love pumpkin pie. Let's talk about pumpkin pie. that That sounds so good.
zachary smith: Yeah! No, absolutely. Talk about some of your favorite things you were when you were a child. um What was your favorite food growing up?
Lex: Oh, growing up, ah I loved anything sweet. Most particularly, as any kid would, I was obsessed with chocolate. Okay? So I would just go crazy for any kind of thing that was chocolate.
zachary smith: what What kind of chocolate, specifically?
Lex: Yeah.
zachary smith: Because I know there's a many, many, many blunt brands. And we don't have the good brands here in the States like they have around the around the world. But what what what was your favorite candy bar?
Lex: well it wasn't a bar it was more so I mean I had a favorite one well as a child my favorite candy bar was crunch I like crunch oh my god yes the clusters what
zachary smith: Ooh. Do you like those crunch bites that you can get at the theaters or the clusters?
zachary smith: Oh, you know what's even better? When you have vanilla ice cream and sprinkle that on top with some chocolate syrup and caramel. Oh!
Lex: So you're basically wanting me to have a foodgasm, thank you.
zachary smith: yeah Absolutely! If you're not gonna have a foodgasm, what's the point of eating?
Lex: That's true. That is...
zachary smith: Yeah. And yes, I am a foodie. Lex is obviously a foodie.
Lex: Heck yeah.
zachary smith: um There's nothing wrong with being a foodie. If food tastes good, let it. Why why limit yourself? Why um limit your palate?
zachary smith: Because a lot of people want to stay fit, but everybody has a fat kid inside them.
Lex: fuck that you know what I just realized why in the fuck are we putting ourselves through fucking hell with diet and exercise when we all know damn well we all about to die we all gonna end up either fucking burned to ashes or buried six feet deep so why the fuck does it matter
zachary smith: ah Absolutely. well and if you And also if you realize Lex, in the Roman days and back before all this processed food, um being fit wasn't a sign of wealth. Being fat was a sign of wealth back then.
Lex: Right, because you had more food to eat therefore you had more currency.
zachary smith: ah Exactly. And I think we should make a trend. I mean, yeah, you don't want to be how, you know what, I'm going to call them out like Lizzo or like Tessa holiday. For example, you might know who that is. A lot of people that are listening is going to who know who that is. And we're going to get canceled. Say I'm fat shaming. No, I'm not fat shaming. I'm just saying that being that big isn't natural.
Lex: No.
zachary smith: I'm also on the overweight side, but I don't let that define me. And I also don't want special treatment from everybody else. I still do things just like everybody else. I go bowling with my friends. I go everywhere else. There's nothing that prevents me from doing anything. I don't want to limit myself.
Lex: And you shouldn't. You shouldn't. There's no purpose of limiting yourself. Not at all.
zachary smith: Absolutely. And going back to your childhood, since we're um kind of flip -flopping just so we can get an idea of who Lex is, at least in our childhood years, ah what was your favorite animal during that time frame?
Lex: um My favorite animal has always been consistent. ah My favorite animal has always been a cat.
zachary smith: Any specific cat or just a house cat?
Lex: A specific cat would be Persian. I like Persian cat.
zachary smith: Ooh.
zachary smith: Had did you ah did you happen to play Pokemon growing up?
Lex: Not like that. I played it here and there with a few cousins, but nothing where I was invested in it.
zachary smith: Damn, I was gonna say because there is a in at least in the original 151 There is a cat named Persian and it is a Persian cat Yeah, I was gonna say I would probably have been
Lex: Wow. How original.
zachary smith: it It was, and honestly, the original Pokemon 151 was the best. We didn't have these weird ones, like nowadays we have a fucking ice cream cone that's a ghost.
Lex: What?
zachary smith: It's it's weird. I think they ran out of ideas because they have over a thousand now.
Lex: Gotcha. Okay, so they're they're running on fumes.
zachary smith: Yeah, absolutely, they're running on fumes. Speaking about childhood games, did you play any video games when you were growing up?
Lex: um Yeah, actually matter of fact, I was a really big gamer as a child. um ah ah That was kind of my escape from my reality because ah my parents were really, really, really, really strict.
Lex: Not because they wanted to protect me, but for other reasons. ah But I...
zachary smith: They wanted to shelter you, basically.
Lex: Not really shelter me. It was more so I was the built -in babysitter.
zachary smith: Ah, yeah, like how old the oldest are. That's exactly how I was as well.
Lex: Yeah, but it was worse than what you would...
zachary smith: oh Oh, absolutely. I understand. I'm just saying, like, usually the oldest is the babysitter and you have no choice.
Lex: Babysitter the...
Lex: Nope, not at all. um Yeah, but I was a really big gamer. um I used to play all the time with my my oldest, youngest brother. I don't want to give names out, but...
zachary smith: No absolutely, you don't have to give any names out.
Lex: Um, but he was the oldest out of all my youngest brothers and he, um, actually that's how me and him bonded a lot is me and him would play video games cod more specifically, but I, he even helped me come up with my gamer tag. I don't know if you remember, I told you this, but my gamer tag used to be unicorn laxative.
zachary smith: I do remember that and let's see so if you were born in it let's see you're 26 so you would have been born a year before after my brother so 1998 so that call of duty you must have been playing was probably like black ops the original black ops
Lex: who
Lex: The original Black Ops, yep.
zachary smith: got it one of the best games in my opinion and honestly I think this podcast is going to be mutating because I know that we can't talk about horror all the time um and we're gonna keep that on Fridays but I think during the week we definitely will be talking about just normal things just about life make it an everyday podcast and I think that'd be good and we'll do it in three minute segments on YouTube um so make sure you guys check that out
Lex: It is.
Lex: Right.
zachary smith: um And now that I cut into the time now you can what some of the childhood stories some of the funny stories something or some that you want to tell that is out of this world.
Lex: um Wow. but There's so many. Where do I start? Let's see. um I would have to say...
Lex: Oh, okay, this hasn't turned with my childhood, so this this stays on topic, perfect. um The first time I met my biological father.
zachary smith: Oh!
Lex: Yeah. um So it was really late at night. My mom was like, hey, you wanna go for a ride with me? I was like, sure, why not? I never got out the house, I never did.
Lex: So I was like, I'm gonna take advantage of me getting out the house. so
zachary smith: Absolutely.
Lex: So I'm going to go ride with her. So we pull up to this house not we and we don't stop in the driveway. We stop at the street towards like the yard area but still in the street. Park outside the house kind of thing.
zachary smith: Mm hmm.
Lex: And my mom has a conversation with me, and she goes, there's someone I want you to meet. It's someone that's beneficial for you, I think could be better for you. And I think you should know where you come from. Like, what? what like Like, what are you talking about, lady? who I thought I was going for a drive. I'm thinking that I might, you know, convince her to give me some McDonald's or something. But no.
Lex: um So a couple minutes go by and someone pops out the house and I'm like, yeah, I was like, what the hell?
zachary smith: Oh shit.
Lex: Who the fuck this is? um So my mom was like, get out the car. I'm like, okay. I get out the car, stand by her at the driver's side window.
Lex: And this guy walks up and he goes, hi, how are you? I was like, uh stranger your danger i don't talk strangers like who are you like i'm sorry mom's like it's okay for you to talk to him and i was like okay i'm good how are you and he goes well i'm your father i'm like that was like
zachary smith: Oh, shit.
zachary smith: I wonder how your mom actually got him to do that because he had he had a no contact order.
Lex: Mm -hmm.
zachary smith: So I wonder how the hell she got him to do that, because that's basically against the law, what he did.
Lex: Mm -hmm. And she allowed it.
zachary smith: That is crazy.
Lex: Mm -hmm. And that's how I met him. She didn't force me to hug him. And me knowing everything that I know, she basically made me hug a rapist. You know what I'm saying?
zachary smith: I absolutely know and that's that's definitely a rough subject. um And I think that's one of the ah three minute subjects we probably have on YouTube.
Lex: tell you
zachary smith: um That's just horrible. So you so you met your father. Was it just like a ah quick hi how you doing and you and you bailed or?
Lex: It was a quick little 10 -15 minute conversation. He asked me how I was doing in school, what I like to do, what's my favorite things kind of thing, just trying to get to know me. And he asked me some questions that I thought were odd.
Lex: And he was like, oh, did you ever get your glasses? And at the time, I didn't have any glasses and I was supposed to have glasses, but we were broke as hell. I didn't have no glasses. Come to find out when we're leaving after the conversation was set and we're heading back to the house. She basically told me, you're not allowed to tell your stepfather what I did today. um And about the glasses thing, yeah, he lent me money because he thought he was buying you glasses. But in reality, I needed a bill paid.
Lex: I was like, oh, I was like, ah, okay.
zachary smith: Oh wow.
Lex: Then I started, yeah, I started to question or not whether this sexual assault thing really happened because me being a victim of rape and molestation from a really young age, even so as an adult,
zachary smith: That's messed up.
Lex: um My first thing is I don't give a goddamn how much money somebody has. I am not going to go reach out to the person who violated me that way and ask them for a goddamn thing. So that, as a child, and her making me do that just so she can get money out of him, it was just a really sick and twisted game that I was not mentally capable of dealing with.
zachary smith: Yeah, and honestly, um that actually brings up a topic of that is how the justice system works when it comes to ah paternity. um I hate to say it, but a lot of times the male in the situation or the father gets screwed out of a lot. um They always trust the mother no matter what the mother has done.
zachary smith: um
Lex: That's true. It's true.
zachary smith: They always go after the father for child support, even if he didn't agree to have the child.
Lex: yeah
zachary smith: um I know there's a huge topic right now of females' body, if you females' rights and all that, but I didn't want to get political, but it's it's a flawed system.
zachary smith: If they're going to make even a female, if they're going to make the female pay child support or the male, If the other parent didn't agree with having that child, I think the person that if it it's a female that wanted the child, she should have the whole burden in my opinion.
Lex: um Respectfully, I agree. I do. I agree. um wholeheartedly. um Not everyone, yes, I agree, people should take extra precautions when having sexual intercourse with somebody, of course, but sometimes things do happen and unfortunately, you know, some people are just not ready for the commitment of being a parent and if they let you know early on, not say late in your pregnancy after you guys been talking about it and everything was good and then change your mind last second, no, that's different.
Lex: um
zachary smith: Absolutely
Lex: Um, for me, if you're saying that early on in the get go, when you find out and you're just like, Hey, I really don't think I can be a parent right now. I don't want this. But if you want to keep the baby, I'm just saying, I don't want anything to do with this kind of thing. You know, having a mature conversation about it.
zachary smith: I absolutely agree and this actually brings up a topic. um If any athlete or any music star or anything is anybody's listening and wants to come on the show and tell your story, I'll put out, ah I believe Lex will be more than welcome to let you talk. um I know I would, even if she doesn't want to be included in the show, she i ah I definitely would because i want I wanted this, originally I wanted this podcast to be a platform for people the voice of the voiceless, basically.
Lex: Yeah. first Oh yeah, there's there's plenty of people like that.
zachary smith: Um, because I'm in the, in the same paternity battle that we were just talking about, I believe athletes and rock stars or rap stars get it the shit under the stick because females basically ripped the condoms or they induced the pregnancy themselves just because they want the money.
Lex: Just like the same we can say about just so people don't think we're just attacking women. Just so you know, there's guys who say that we're gonna wear a condom and then don't. There's guys who poke holes in shit and try to get girls pregnant on purpose.
Lex: Same goes for that route.
zachary smith: Oh, absolutely. There's a, even if a female wants to come on the show and speak her story, there's not going to be any censoring. There's no scripts. We're not, we're not showing any sponsors this because we're a new podcast. So there's no way we can get canceled on this kind of situation.
Lex: Yeah.
zachary smith: It's for everybody's free to talk about whatever they want. If you want to reach out, um, we're on social media, um, in the description of the video, I will leave our Twitter. I will leave our Facebook and I'll leave our tech talk because we do have a tech talk. Um, it's, it, it was my old tech talk, but I converted it to our podcast tech talk. So we have a way for people to reach out to us.
Lex: Yeah, for sure. And definitely, if you guys really want to be on the podcast itself, feel free to reach out to Zach or myself and we'll be more than happy to have you on. um I'm really interested in, you know, hearing other people's stories and what they've been through, what they their opinions might be and, you know, just coming together and have a good conversation ah conversation and collaboration, you know, something to be fun.
zachary smith: Absolutely, and um throughout all of a society, ah from the beginning, from the dawn of the caveman, um debate was a huge topic for everybody, but you had to have a healthy debate. If your feelings are going to get hurt, you're still more than welcome to come on the podcast, but just know that if you get your feelings hurt, that's on you.
Lex: yeah that's at your own risk i'm not here to show your coach shit if you don't like what i you can respectfully disagree you know yeah for sure
zachary smith: Yeah.
zachary smith: Absolutely, and it's healthy to disagree because everybody needs to get their point across. But your point not might not be right, and that's okay. Not everybody's right in any situation.
zachary smith: All right, we're running. We have about eight minutes left because we're going to keep this episode about an hour. And yes, you'll hear me have these kind of things. Like I said, unedited, but unraw, I mean uncut raw because there's too much perfection in the world from podcasts to movies to TV shows to everything. Everything is so perfect.
zachary smith: and having hearing somebody's emotions like how Lex got emotional and hearing how I had to mute a couple of times because I'm drinking a carbonated beverage. it You're human and making a unique podcast and having people, if they have the other kids, it's human nature.
zachary smith: and i And I think as when this podcast it starts um being listened to a lot more people, and we have a lot more people on the podcast, I think that's going to be our caveat.
zachary smith: We'll still do the movie reviews every Friday.
Lex: Mmhmm.
zachary smith: We'll still do our Clapper stories. By the way, we're going to start that this Wednesday. It'll be live on, um I believe, Apple podcast. I don't know exactly where we're going to put it.
zachary smith: We might completely stay on Spotify. I don't know yet, but that is going to be a 45 minute episode of me and Lex talking about how me and her met, how we have this crazy app called clapper.
zachary smith: um
Lex: oh god please don't download it unless you want to ruin your fucking like seriously don't download the app unless you love drama and love being in it don't do it not at all not at all yeah
zachary smith: Absolutely. And the clapper that is now is not how it was when me and Lex started. uh when meeting next started i and you know what it's going to be a preview of the clapper stories that we're going to have on wednesday um how me and next started was it was a a simpler times on clapper um if you got 10 people in your chat in your room at once that was a lot of people um
Lex: Right.
zachary smith: I remember um I'm going to name her because even though she is very, very drama driven, she's the one that ultimately introduced me to Lex.
zachary smith: She went by Little Bit or Olivia.
Lex: Or a little bit.
zachary smith: I know Lex.
Lex: My bad.
zachary smith: Yeah, she call Lex calls her Little Bitch. um And honestly, I still would love to have a conversation with her, just so you can clear the air so she can get off her high horse kind of thing.
Lex: Uh, so you want me to rearrange her face through the phone.
zachary smith: Yes.
Lex: That's okay. You're right.
zachary smith: Yes, because it's I want 2025 to and I know we're not going to do just one specific person and I'll tell you who it is shortly. But I just want to have a clear air of things.
zachary smith: I'd love to have stat on this podcast, just so he can tell his story.
Lex: Oh.
zachary smith: That's going to be an interesting chapter.
Lex: Oh god.
zachary smith: Um,
Lex: Why? Ew.
zachary smith: There's actually, I'm going to rephrase that. There's two people I don't want on this podcast. One is Bo, because I do not associate myself with child molesters.
Lex: Not at all.
zachary smith: um And he's been caught multiple times. The other one is Zan. um He will never be a guest. He'll never be featured. He'll never have the ability to be on this podcast.
Lex: Anyone who knows Dan, fuck you. but I'm sorry. I had to. I was a little petty. Yeah, I might want to add that about me. Yeah, I'm kind of petty.
zachary smith: oh Absolutely. She is definitely petty but so what clapper is I'll give you a little bit of backstory and Lex can kind of um Fill in the holes where I don't remember um Clapper is a tick -tock knockoff um And it it wasn't as big as it is now.
Lex: Okay.
zachary smith: Like I said having ten people in your room at a time was a big deal um And it wasn't how it was over the summer where it was all ah Spicy it was more of
Lex: yeah.
zachary smith: a social platform where people would just talk and talk and talk. um Now it is going towards back to where it was just people talking and talking ah because they're getting rid of the spicy and sorry to all my social, my sexual workers out there. That's not the place you want to be. um
Lex: Not at all. it
zachary smith: There's different outlets and honestly, I think next week for our clapper, if I can get somebody that did that, I kind of want their opinions on it. I know you did it for a short period of time, but I just feel like um we should give somebody an outlet.
Lex: 100%. Yeah, definitely. um I will say if any sex workers are watching, um I'm with Zach when I say I do not recommend it at all just because the pay is not worth it. um The stress you put yourself through is not worth it. The drama that comes with that app is definitely not worth it.
Lex: um especially for those who are thinking about getting into sex work um and especially if you have low self -esteem this is not going to boost your self -esteem this is not going to boost your confidence if anything it is going to make it so much worse um just because it is like a live interaction kind of thing yes you can do it on different platforms but for this it's anybody and everybody is welcome and there's actually been um some situations where children were found on that app.
Lex: So it is, yeah, so I would be very mindful, very careful before deciding to do that kind of work, especially on that app clapper.
zachary smith: absolutely absolutely and we'll go more in depth on it on wednesday because it'll be our first one um but yeah i know you don't agree with a lot of people but i think we need just need to clean the slate um and just give them because there's going to be a good content if they want to have an argument they'll have an argument on the internet for everybody to see
Lex: Oh, if they want to make an ass with themselves, by all means, I'd love to make them an ass.
zachary smith: Absolutely. And honestly, if we want to have a drama hour, we'll have a drama hour so we can get everything situated because I know both we both moved on from all that.
Lex: Yeah.
zachary smith: And I just believe that giving people the outlet so we can get their side of the story so we can finally bury the hatchet and just move on so they can finally be out of our life for good is a good thing.
Lex: I mean, they're already out of my life for good, but if you... ah This is mostly for you. I don't really care for that.
zachary smith: Oh, I know you don't care for that, but it's just like anything that I know you don't want to know everything, but it's just that anything you wanted to say to them one last time kind of thing.
Lex: Yeah, I wouldn't mind saying fuck you one more time. That's fine.
zachary smith: Absolutely, and I honestly, that won't be for a while because we would have to have a van base that wants that.
Lex: Right.
zachary smith: um So over the next couple of weeks, we'll have some some of our friends come on that podcast Yeah, and I think the first ones we should have Hmm
Lex: Hell yeah, I'm excited about that.
zachary smith: So I talked to Star and she said she didn't wanna do at least the clapper side of it. um We can have like Gypsy, we can have like Savage, Mama, and obviously these are all their usernames because we're not gonna give their real names out just for security purposes.
Lex: right okay yeah definitely let's reach out to them and see what they'd say about it
zachary smith: um Yeah, I think we should have, even if we have two of them, hell, let's see if Gypsy and Savage would wanna do it.
zachary smith: Absolutely. And we just hit our hour mark. Thank you so much, Lex. This is the first chapter of many that we are going to be covering. um We kind of got off track a little bit just because I know the childhood wasn't a big part because you don't remember a lot of it. And a lot of it a lot of it you um suppressed in your mind that you don't want to remember.
Lex: right
zachary smith: But thank you so much. We have another episode on Wednesday. um So I'll probably upload this episode on Tuesday. And I'll upload the Wednesday episode on Wednesday, because it's only going to be about a 45 minute to an hour episode as well.
Lex: Right. Awesome sauce! I love it!
zachary smith: Awesome. Thank you so much, Lex, because I know this is this was a hard subject for you to go under. But we're going to get used to this. It's going to be your new diary.
Lex: Of course. And I just want to say thank you, Zach, for making me feel so comfortable to be able to speak with you about that. And I appreciate it very much.
zachary smith: Always, I'm always here to make sure everybody's comfortable. That's why I said if anybody wants to be on this podcast that has a crazy story, I'll make a day. I am free every day. um of This upcoming Saturday, I'll be doing a solo podcast. Obviously, like if she wants to join, I will have a invite link so she can join mid conversation if she wanted to. It's just going to be me talking about ah the Royal Rumble.
zachary smith: so That's gonna be fun, it's gonna be a solo thing, it's just gonna be my opinion, my my predictions for potentially WrestleMania that me and Lex might be doing a live vlog from, we don't know.
Lex: Hell yeah! That'd be fun as hell!
zachary smith: Yeah, that just depends. um so it's So the day I'm looking for is April 19th, cuz it is a two day show in Las Vegas, April 19th and 20th.
Lex: Mhm.
zachary smith: I'm looking at the 19th. It depends. We'll talk off obviously off this, but ah thank you guys so much for joining. um You guys are amazing. For any listeners, I know our audio is not perfect, but me and Lex will be um starting to purchase items for this podcast. Our audio, I think the first thing we're going to get is this wireless microphone that you can put on your caller.
Lex: Right. um Definitely. We're definitely going to do that. And thank you guys ah so much for watching on on top of that. Thank you for being patient with us. ah We're still trying to learn as we go. um So every every podcast that we do, we're learning to upgrade and be better and hopefully be better for all of you guys. So you guys, you know, subscribe and stuff.
zachary smith: absolutely subscribe like share it out we are live we're we're not live but we are on youtube um where you can see lex's beautiful face we are on apple podcast we're on spotify we're on tick tock Um, and any of those are going to be the same, the Howley and Hoppe podcast on every platform. That is all of it. Um, there's not an Asper sign or whatever it's called. It's just an and. So yeah, hit us up there. If you want to be on it, also hit us up there. Any last words, Lex?
Lex: Y 'all have a great week.
zachary smith: Absolutely. Thank you guys so much and have a good night.
