0:01 [Music] who are you and where are you going what do you want for the next 24 minutes we're going to design and attain your ideal life [Music] on the way to wow show together we'll find the ideal path to get you back on the track to success and happiness
0:36 on the way to wow show with your host kevin bemel hola hello and welcome from eccentric los angeles you know it used to be that we knew who we were you were going to become you're going to do whatever your father did or whatever your mother did society said what our lives were going to be like but that's not the case anymore each of us gets to carve
1:11 his own identity so we have a couple of guests on the way to wow show today who are going to help you do just that start answering the question who am i our guest bartender today is diane quinones and diane is third generation mexican american born in ohio right and an army veteran as well that's a pretty unique career she was a an 88 hotel did you say idiot hotel okay specialist cargo specialist right so if you need anything moved
1:46 around do not call her anymore because she's been a bartender for the last 15 years right what are you gonna mix up for us today um so today i'm gonna make you guys uh a negroni but it's a variation on a classic negroni which typically uh has gin but today we're gonna do it with mescal so this is very very popular so we're gonna mix a little negroni up for you well i've been getting into mescal uh recently so this should be interesting yeah okay well let's let's get at it okay we'll start um we're gonna do with brujo number two so uh brujo is a a mezcal that comes from oaxaca and we
2:21 have six lines or six six numbers that we use number two especially goes really great into negroni's this is because it has a little bit more complexity sort of if you if you think about the way that gin works has a lot of botanicals um so we're gonna go with we're gonna make two of these so we'll do two ounces of the mescal it's very simple to put together and then two ounces of the campari and two ounces of the sweet vermouth campari is a little bit bitter right yeah so kampar is a bitter um liqueur very traditional italian uh as well as
2:57 the negroni as a a classic traditional um cocktail uh-huh italian it should be an interesting because typically mezcal seems to need to be a little bit smoky no yeah so the reason why mezcal is smoky is because that's part of its uh production process which makes it which differ differentiates it from tequila uh tequila doesn't go through smoking but mescal does it doesn't make it um it doesn't define mescal it's always going to come in at a different place so sometimes you'll find a mezcal that's very smoky or sometimes you'll find a mescal that's light on the smoke and that goes down to the way that the
3:32 producer wants to uh to show the spirit okay so equal parts um if you're doing this one at a time it's one ounce of each so whatever spirit you're using here we're using musgol one ounce of campari one ounce of sweet vermouth we'll add some ice to the drink it's so it's very simple you don't have to shake it or anything you're just going to stir it stir it down and again this is a great apertivo it's nice even after dinner for um digestivo i'm just gonna mix that up add a little more ice oh what kind of glasses do you want for this um a little rocks glass i think if
4:07 you have a box yes okay like an old-fashioned glass yes perfect so yeah you just want to incorporate the uh ingredients together and get them nice and chilled with the eyes take your spoon that's perfect there you go yeah great i'll put this little one here for you and then well what we'll do is just drop an extra ice cube in each of these and then voila just pour it out that's beautiful color too yeah and the the mezcal is going to give this like
4:42 rich smokiness to it and it's going to be it's going to be lengthy on the palate and it's just beautiful beautiful cocktail well you're making these for a rabbi and a priest so you're getting yourself in good with the lord i'm telling you right now that can't be bad that's great ben my week my work week is done [Laughter] perfect then you're just going to spritz a little orange zest on top and you are set wonderful yeah thank you you're welcome [Music] so dan made these for us thank you this
5:18 is a negroni with mezcal so why don't we give that a sh let's give this a taste huh yes cheer health a sante know oh very nice very very very nice really different yeah this is good yeah layers of flavor yeah you definitely pick up the mezcal the notes the smokiness kind of rolls in it's just quite nice [Laughter] well so for those of you who are
5:55 wondering what a uh christologist and a pneumatologist is right did i get it right yeah i guess okay well we haven't had quite that much negroni yet i have father guillermo garcia here uh a christologist is someone who studies christ no from jesus to christ from jesus to christ and a pneumatologist is someone who studies the holy spirit so uh and i'm gonna i'm i made some notes about your background because it is so extensive but i mean it's it's it you have a more fascinating background than
6:30 most military chaplains and we travel all over the world so first of all guillermo spent 23 years as a member of the general council in belgium six is the as the orders general superior he spent a great deal of time both in europe and in africa in the democratic republic of congo and in gabon and he taught in the congo for 20 years right well i've i taught one year and then i kept going back regularly for workshops okay after that he transferred here to los angeles to the archdiocese here archdiocese here
7:05 and he was coordinator for hispanic pastoral ministry programs at mount st mary's at the time college and you also work with disenfranchised catholics like latino gay catholics etc yes i try at least to um well in my role as a university professor i meet many people and there are many people who are at least crying out for recognition the church and not just that but they want to discuss the position that they might have um a lot of also women who have left the church because it is very much a patriarchal structure
7:41 at the moment so you know i try to i try to invite everyone i can into the fold and into just talking about it because i think discussion is the only way to get going so my first question really has to do with you know you talk to some people and they'll tell you well god and religion they're just the same thing and other people will say well no no there's god and and then there's religion and and and they're not the same thing so how how do you come down on on that issue well i would say this much there is god
8:18 thank god um and i think one of the things is that people often confuse the tools that god has given us to maintain our faith in god our closeness to god with god himself so in other words i think religion is this it it is that bag of tools that we have because of our culture because of our upbringing because of who we are that helps us to uh perhaps get nearer to god get nearer
8:53 to the ineffable one of the two things at least for for uh roman catholics and i think for all christians and jews i think one of the first things is to love your god with all your heart your mind and your soul you know it's the heart of judaism it's the heart of islam it's a heart of christianity and the next that is there is to love your neighbor as yourself and to love your neighbor with the same strength that you love your god
9:29 and um that is not always easy but there should be a community that surrounds the person who is trying to to practice that to live that to encourage that and you know sometimes there are people who just say to to you well you know i can i can love god with all my heart but this guy down the road who's hurt me so many times you know i'd like to slap him in the face and i say wouldn't that be nice i feel exactly the same way you do and yet i have to live by this thing it
10:05 says love your enemies do good to those who you know hurt you right the thing is we get mixed up on what we choose to pick from there and excuse my saints we decide to throw it at people and i know that many of us because we came up in a patriarchal situation where our fathers especially the latinos where our fathers were so um at times macho and because they had to be macho they could not hug their sons
10:40 or kiss their sons they could not show that they favored in any way their sons they could love their daughters but they also would put them behind bars to protect their virginity but at a certain age the boys could go out and do whatever they wanted to but shame their fathers the moment you brought shame to the family that was the moment you were out and i think sometimes that's why people are disenfranchised so i become very um very eloquent about
11:16 that at mass and at other places where i preach because i feel that we need to love and we need to be loved too and if you don't feel loved by god if you don't have a relationship in some way or another with you know the god who is holy and you cannot feel that you are moving towards that holiness you know then um you're not you're not getting the best of your faith and i think that applies for all faiths you know so you you mentioned two things
11:53 that i want to um highlight first is is that even as a member of the clergy you struggle and and i i do too and people think oh you're a rabbi so you got all this down it's like no not really i think so i think it's important for people to understand that no matter where you're at in your journey and your relationship to god there's there's it's always it's always challenging you know teaching the faith is not easy um and some i mean there there are wide differences in what people think
12:29 is the true faith and how it should be placed um as you well know but there is room for everyone if people talk and one of the problems we have now at least in the roman catholic church is that people have stopped talking to each other and i think that is is the role of of religion to support faith to support love to support caring for each other and you know i would love to see that in every
13:05 single religion um anyway that's my thought yeah you know and i got the high sign but that's a great note to end on because i think that there's there's a universality to that idea um i think you could say the same thing in in synagogues and probably mosques throughout the world right and among and and within or between other you know various denominations as well well so i'm so sorry i i told you when we said at the interview we could probably talk for an entire day and and it ended very quickly but thank you so much for coming and sharing your
13:41 thoughts with us thank you wow thank you so much also for having me welcome in the dictionary under whiz kid you'll find a picture of my next guest rishi sharma started as a high school student at agura high school in california recording the stories of world war ii combat vets and now four years later he's interviewed over 1100 world war ii combat vets
14:16 this is a young man who has found his passion in life and we're fortunate to have him on the way to wow today rishi how are you doing great i hope you guys are well thank you for the opportunity to talk with you yeah absolutely thanks thanks for making time i think you've got another interview today don't you well yeah i'm at a retirement home right now interviewing a 98 year old war hero who's wounded twice he was an officer in the 442 which was the japanese american outfit that was actually the most decorated battalion of their size but you know he's a white he was a white officer and
14:52 so he's just some amazing stories of a group of individuals who you know face discrimination at home and went to fight a war to prove that they you know are americans and that they bleed red white and blue fantastic so how did you come to make this your life's work what what was the spark out and how have you kept the spark going all these years yeah i mean everyone always expects there to be a story of uh like when i was in middle school i got on a bus and i didn't have fair and i sat next to this older man
15:27 and he had a world war ii hat and he paid my fare and i asked him what's that on his hat we became best friends and but no there's no story i just i've always been interested in the war ever since i was a little kid uh i just i i just sickly remember you know watching band of brothers saving private ryan trying to read as many books on the war as i could find there's something very unique about the generation that fought the second world war mainly in the fact that every day of their lives has been about helping those around them whether it's in the great depression and
16:02 they quit school to help put food on the table for their families or by changing their birth certificates or lying about their age just to get into the service after pearl harbor was attacked or you know just getting drafted going overseas and being willing to you know not run away to another country and instead fight for their country and you know world war ii was the worst war in the history of humanity over 70 million dead 420 000 americans were killed uh they come home and they didn't want a parade or celebrations all they wanted was their old jobs back and to raise a family
16:37 and tell us about a particularly meaningful moment in in over 1100 interviews i can imagine there's probably been quite a few but is there is there one that really stands out for you yeah i mean you know it's like comparing apples and oranges you can't i mean they're all unique and different you know i already have the requirement that the veterans who i focus on are combat veterans so they all you know served in combat and risked their life uh and so there's not really uh i mean they're they're just different
17:12 there's no there's none that particularly are better than others but you know i have interviewed veterans i interviewed a veteran uh who was running across the field and saw his twin brother get machine gun and killed right next to him i i interviewed a medal of honor recipient in oregon who landed on a grenade to save four men around him and he survived miraculously and i mean they're all they're so they're all the same breed though i mean i really would like to make that point that these men there's just you know whether
17:48 it's the u.s canada the uk australia and new zealand i've been fortunate enough to travel and i continue to travel to all these different allied countries and i was just amazed to learn that um all all these men regardless of country or state background religion economic status they all have the same creed that they want to make the world a better place and that they were willing to risk their life and lives and many of them who did sacrifice their lives so that people like us would not have to and uh and so i mean all these are you know it'd be cool if that was a unique story but the
18:23 fact is it's not all these men sacrifice and give back in so many different ways that it's not even funny it's to compare the world war ii generation with my generation uh you can't even compare them just the status that they're on and the things that they do and not for recognition and not for any other reason than because it is the right thing to do that's just the way they were brought up that's the this their moral compass is such a it's just so straight and narrow it's really a testament to who they are
18:58 and who we can become because we've fallen short of the sacrifices that have been made for our way of life in the country currently and and and that really is a standard that we ought to live up to in every walk of life eleanor roosevelt had a very beautiful quote during the war that some where somehow a man died for me today oh and i forgot the quote it's a beautiful quote somewhere somehow oh i think we i think we understand the
19:33 sentiment yeah absolutely so you founded the um uh here is the second world war as your organization and your goal is i believe to interview one combat vet a day until there's no more world war ii combat vets left alive so you you must at this point have thousands upon thousands of hours of video of these veterans what what are your plans for that what are you going to do with that yeah i mean at this point my focus is really just to meet and interview as many world war ii combat veterans as possible i created
20:10 heroes of the second world war it's a non-profit you know to help fund my mission we're looking for other volunteers to get involved and do interviews in their areas we're always looking for volunteers i would eventually like to be able to make a documentary series i've spoken to a few production companies about that but haven't really gotten anywhere i would really like to to explore the possibility of what it'd be like to have cam crew follow me and show what it's like through a 22 year old perspective to be able to hang out and not only meet but enjoy each other's
20:45 companies of people who are 70 80 years older and you know act as if you were school buddies and so i mean i would like to create that tv series i think that would be the goal but also just having an archive of all this footage so that 200 years from now the great great great great grandkids of these veterans won't just know their great great great grandfather's name but they'll get to know what kind of man he was the way he spoke the way he acted the way he told his stories his characteristics his jokes his emotions i mean we have this opportunity it's not just i can't make it more clear that the
21:21 things that i am doing i'm not special in any way because everyone has a phone that has a camera on it everyone can document a piece of history if they just took the time to go out and do it i mean whether it's visiting their grandparents or the neighbor that's a world war ii veteran or at a retirement home well rishi i just got the high sign from the director unfortunately we're out of time because i think we could talk for a lot longer and you have tremendous passion and and i respect that a lot i really appreciate you coming and talking to us here on the way to wow and i wish you all the best of luck um
21:56 tell us your just real quickly tell the name of your organization again so people want to get more information they can they can go online and search it up yeah i appreciate it if anyone knows any world war ii combat veterans or if they want to support what we're doing it's heroes of the second world war it's all spelt out h-e-r-o-e-s of the second s-e-c-o-n-d worldwar.org okay rishi thank you so much for being with us good luck with your project great would you like to say hi to mr guftison this is the world war ii hero i'm meeting today hi hello sir it's nice to meet you
22:33 they wanted to say hi so uh you know through the magic of the internet we were able to look up that quote of um of eleanor roosevelt yeah and and this is it dear lord lest i continue my complacent way help me to remember that somewhere somehow out there a man died for me today as long as there be war i then must ask an answer
23:09 am i worth dying for i think that's the question that rishi is helping us to answer isn't it that's our show for this week stay tuned next week when my guest will be dr barry schwartz the author of the paradox of choice who's going to explain to us why with all this expanding number of options we have in life today we don't seem to be getting any happier courage at all times my friends marie you're still my bell
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