Ralph Barbosa — Texas-based standup comedian known for his deadpan, laid-back delivery and Mexican-American roots. He has specials on Netflix and Hulu ('Planet Bosa') and runs an automotive YouTube channel, Formula Bean.
The gist
Joe and Ralph open on UFO lore (the Travis Walton and Betty & Barney Hill abduction cases) and DB Cooper before spiraling into how meth and amphetamines fueled soldiers across multiple wars. A long stretch covers car culture: JDM builds, Porsches, the Corvette ZR1, Tesla Plaid, and the modding community. Ralph candidly discusses his type 1 diabetes and a Chinese stem-cell trial that may cure it, plus his creative block in comedy. The pair close on Japan's population collapse, the loneliness of big cities, memory and hypnosis, and music 'frequency' theories.
Big reveals
- Ralph reveals he's been type 1 diabetic since age six and is tired of three insulin injections a day.
- Joe describes a Chinese stem-cell therapy that reversed type 1 diabetes in a patient, prompting Ralph to say he wants to fly to China.
- Ralph admits he has bad writer's block and feels unmotivated to write new standup.
- Ralph and his Lockheed Martin engineer friend bought a $600 Nissan 240SX and tried to blow up the motor with nitrous and turbo.
- Joe calls the Corvette ZR1 'the best car I've ever driven in my life.'
- Ferrari won a $352,000 legal case against designer Philipp Plein for using Ferraris in his fashion promos.
- Ralph recounts a bad mushroom trip on 7-8 grams alone in a hotel where he argued out loud with different versions of himself.
- Ralph floats a theory that radio music is filtered to specific chords/frequencies to keep listeners docile; Joe pushes back hard.
Things worth remembering
- Nazi Germany distributed an over-the-counter methamphetamine called Pervitin, with the heaviest doses going to front-line tank crews.
- The US military distributed an estimated 200 million amphetamine pills to its soldiers during World War II.
- On the John Wayne film 'The Conqueror,' 91 of 220 cast and crew later contracted cancer with 46 deaths, linked to nearby nuclear test sites.
- Peking University used chemically reprogrammed stem cells to reverse type 1 diabetes; the patient's blood sugar was stable 98% of the time over a year.
- The Corvette ZR1 makes 1,000 horsepower from the factory and set an American-car lap record at the Nurburgring (~6:49) driven by an engineer, not a pro.
- Joe's Tesla Model S Plaid goes 0-60 in 1.9 seconds.
- More than two people die for every baby born in Japan, putting the nation on pace to shrink by half by century's end.
- Nearly half of Japan's single millennials (18-34) self-report as virgins, compared to about 20% in the US.
- One Japanese village places mannequins resembling deceased loved ones around town to combat loneliness from population decline.
- Charlie Puth explains that pitching songs up toward 528 Hz (the 'love frequency') is scientifically tied to making listeners feel different emotionally.