YouSaid · the spoken record

Sarma Melngailis

lines on the record: 316
first: 2022-05-23
most recent: 2022-05-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“He took me away involuntarily, except of course he wasn't holding a gun to my head, but all along it was like a metaphorical gun.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe it was sort of Hunter S. Thompsonesque, except without actual drugs. Was one of the first questions my father asked me Was it drugs? And I wished that I could have said yes. I didn't know how to explain what had happened.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, it works. And so I try to get up and do other things first before I have coffee. And the light thing also makes a lot of sense to me getting light early in the morning. I have one of those bright light boxes. And I would love to have an apartment that had a little deck or something where I could just step outside because when you live in an apartment, you kind of have to like go all the way outside and then there's people everywhere. And so to get that early morning light isn't that hard to do when you”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, and also the other thing that he got me to do is to try to delay having coffee. So instead of having coffee right when you wake up, I always drink a lot of water first. Then instead of having coffee right away, if you wait an hour or an hour and a half or two hours, then your body is able to naturally do something that drinking coffee too soon would sort of blunt that. So then you'll be more tired in the afternoon. So if you wait an hour and a half or two hours or as long, you know, before you have your first cup of coffee, then you won't be as tired in the afternoon. There's Yes”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And actually, I have more questions Andrew Huberman I've had to investigate all of these things myself like dissociation. And even there's a psychologist who believes that he must have used neurolinguistic programming on me, which is something that Keith Raineri from the Nexium cult, he was known to have used that with people. And I think neurolinguistic programming is kind of... A sort of like hypnotism.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Some cases, I think, like if it's voluntary, but in other cases, somebody pulls you in. So it's not like you're drawn towards them. They pull you in.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Sort of the timeline gets a bit wonky. So this impression was created that we ran off with a whole bunch of money and we didn't. So if I wanted to be a criminal and steal a bunch of money, why would I have put it all back into the restaurant and reopened it and then also made two $10,000 sales tax payments that I didn't, you know? And I also repaid, you know, $10,000 of another loan. I was making repayments and stuff. And then, boom, I disappear.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Telling you About him and what was really going on, in part because I didn't really understand what was going on. So, what I did was I raised money to reopen the restaurant. And I think I raised something like 800, maybe like $900 grand. And probably 90% of that went to reopen the restaurant. And I even made two sales tax payments right before we disappeared. So it just sort of logically seemed like, so I didn't, it's not like all of this money was taken. And then he and I ran off together with a whole bunch of money. It was like I raised a bunch of money to reopen the restaurant. Know because I wanted the restaurant to exist again and I wanted to, you know, I wanted to run it. I wanted to reopen the restaurant. And most of that money went to reopen the restaurant. And then I disappeared. So”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but most of them came back. A lot of them came back. I think what was so unbelievably painful about that whole time was like not being able to tell anybody what was really going on. And in a sense, not really knowing what was going on myself, but not being able to, like having to pretend all the time was just like.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He told me not to open email or look at my phone or whatever. And so when I came back and Had to get it reopened, which seemed like an unbelievably difficult task, and I was kind of shocked that I was able to pull it off. I worked incredibly hard to get it reopen. And, you know, because that place meant. Meant everything to me. And so I just had to get it reopen”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Right, and I think people plead guilty all the time in situations where they're being threatened with like a heavy sentence. They sort of feel like they have no choice, but that's kind of part of a lot of things that are messed up about the system overall that didn't necessarily apply in my case.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, a lot of people plead guilty when they're for reasons other than they're actually guilty. So, you know, it's even right now, if I knew that I was going to have to spend four months or three and a half at Rikers. And I was thinking about this recently. And even if I knew that I'd be acquitted at the end of a trial. Likely would have just taken the four months. The stress of going through a trial, but in particular be incredibly stressful not knowing the outcome, and then money and expense I didn't have. And so people plead guilty all the time, even if they don't think that they should. And my situation was so complicated and hard to understand that it just was the easier thing to do. But also I just was kind of going on the advice of lawyers and”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I mean, I did plead guilty to those things, which I had to, oh, I was. Got a jury duty summons, and I had to fill out what charges I pled guilty to, and I had to go online and look it up because I didn't really remember, which is I thought that was interesting. I had to go look it up.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's probably something that's hard to put words to kind of like I sort of feel like Love being something that's hard to define is part of the definition. The fact that you can't define it, you know”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because I was so open It, yeah, and also just it's not like I believe that he was just expressing my feelings about how I felt going to get him, that there was something about Leon and specifically that I, it was like I felt like I had to get him.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ongoing, an ongoing one So I wrote about these things on my website, and I think it was among the many things that was later weaponized by Anthony Strangers.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, when I first met him the day before, he was really distracted, which I think is a puppy that spends most of his day in a cage, which is not natural. So when I let me take him for a walk and he was kind of, you know, distracted and all of the place. But then when we put him back in the cage, he sort of lay down and looked at me and I looked back at him. And of course, I imagined all kinds of, I just looked at him and I thought, all right, don't worry, I'm coming back to get you. Like, I'll get you. Yeah, it just felt like Felt like something that I had no choice that I had to do.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, exactly. But I cried on the subway and I got there and he was there and I adopted him. But it just felt very profoundly like a force that was beyond me. Like I couldn't not get him”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was one of those people one day I befriended some busking musicians, like the guys that just play out on the street, these two young guys playing guitar. And I felt like it was one of those moments where it was like candid camera because nobody was paying attention. And I thought it was Was so beautiful. I may have cried or almost cried. But anyway, I ended up becoming friends with them and helping them out in some ways. And I knew, I was like, well, they're going to do really well. And now they're like playing large places. And it's kind of fun to watch via Instagram. You know, they're going on tour in Europe. And they were these two scrappy guys. Well, now it's just one of the guys. But they had like no money, nowhere to live, nothing. And now they're.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But also energized because a lot of other things and places Make me feel depleted, but there's something about the energy of New York specifically that feels energizing.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, that's one of the things I love about New York, you can be weird and do strange things and nobody's going to look at you strangely or.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But even when you're just watching something that this is completely ridiculous, but I remember one time I probably was hormonal or something, but it was like an episode of Family Feud years ago. Oh no. Wheel of Fortune. Wheel of Fortune and some family won all this money, and they were so happy, it just was so happy. They must probably needed the money or something. And I started crying and I'm thinking, why am I crying? But I think it's just, I think it's just like an overwhelming, I think it's overwhelming in some way.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Something. Yeah. I think tears are. Overwhelming. Now I'm like jumping off, but Was some, I don't know. I'm trying, was it in your conversation or the book Carl Dyseroff talks about Tears of Joy and trying to explain them? And he said something about how it was like about, you know, because tears of sadness could be understood in having like a evolutionary purpose, but why tears of joy. And I think he said it was something about hope that could be... Like lost. So if you cried at a wedding, it might be like you're crying because their love is beautiful and you're crying because, you know, they could get hit by a bus tomorrow or something. You know, like it had something to do with that. And I thought. But I thought to me it feels like overwhelmed because then how would that explain music? Because music will make me cry.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Went to see him, and then I it was the afternoon, and I sort of decided in my head, like, all right, I'm coming back to get him. I have to. And so the next morning I get on the subway and went back to get him. And I was crying on the subway. And I remember thinking that people, I don't like crying in public. I cry a lot, but I don't like crying in front of other people.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was something about his picture. I don't know what it was. Everybody at the time was like, What are you thinking? Why would you get a dog? You can't, you know. Can't even take care of yourself. You're overworked and busy. And why would you get a five month old pitbull mix? You know, why not get an older dog that's easier to take care of? And for me, it was like, I don't want any dog. I don't want my intention to get a dog, but there's something about this dog that I have to get. And so I went to see him. And then I had already filled out an application. It was just.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not in his kitty mind. But either way, so he died in March, and I thought so I sort of concocted this. I just thought. Well, if he died on March 10th, and so I thought, well, maybe Leon was born that same day. And that's why... That's why I'm so drawn to him. I don't know”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was more dog like. He would occasionally fetch this little styrofoam thing I had. He would fetch it and bring it back. And he was friendly and, you know, if somebody came over, he would jump in their lap. He was less standoffish than most cats. But there was just something about the way he would look at me. I don't know. Maybe probably in his mind he's just a cat. I give him food. Whereas in my mind, it's some kind of great soul connection.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There was something there. I don't know what it was, but and in fact, when he got sick, I knew it before he even had any symptoms. It was like something in the way that he looked at me. I knew something was wrong. And then he...”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I was trying to convince him to get a dog because I thought, you know, he should have a dog. I saw Leon's picture and just got weirdly obsessed with it in a way that I couldn't really explain. And I was laying in bed one night and thinking I just couldn't stop thinking about him, the dog. The paper were his description in the shelter bio said that he was roughly five months old or however it gave as his age, I went back and it would have been March 20 that he was born. And I had a cat that I was particularly attached to. I had two cats, brother and sister, but the boy cat, we had sort of like something that felt like a, you know, like we'd look at each other and...”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wrote about the story of adopting him on my website a long time ago and then I reposted it here on my current website and what happened I got weirdly obsessed with Leon before he was Leon he was a dog in a shelter named Quinn and I couldn't stop thinking about him and the”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was September 2010, so because I think he was born roughly around March. I gave him a designated birthday of March 10th, 2010.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it was like a dessert snack. You wouldn't order it on the restaurant menu, but in the takeaway you could get them or sometimes some people would get them shipped on dry ice and pay a lot of money, like a lot of money to have them shipped on dry ice.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So the coconut cream that we made was like a healthy version of fluff. Except it would, you know, you could make a Quinnell, like a little scoop of it, and it would stay in that form. Malamars were refrigerated. And then there's chocolate drizzled over that. So it had that like salty, sweet thing going on. That was probably my favorite”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's kind of fluffy It's wet It's like. Yeah, so it's like Nutella if you whipped it and then kind of got it a little bit like.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's like a marshmallow. It's basically like if you softened marshmallows and made it into a luxurious, amazing goose. So it's like a fancy. And then put it in a jar.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fluff is like a thing that I remember it from my childhood, like peanut butter and fluff is a ridiculously delicious combination.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Malomore. Everybody loved the Malom So very often we made like raw vegan versions of things that people are familiar with. So it was a, I think it was pecans. It was like a salty cookie made with nuts and then covered in chocolate. And then there's a big blob of coconut cream Which it didn't taste coconuty. Our ice cream was made with a coconut also. It's like the meat from coconuts pureed. And then there's some soaked cashews in there. But anyway, it was a blob of vanilla-flavored cream, kind of like a healthy natural version of fluff. I don't know if you're familiar with fluff.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wasn't a few recipes early on. I came up with, but it was the people that worked with me that created really good recipes and products. And I was just kind of there curating it all. Helping to get it out there.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a dot com where people could order ingredients and things and all of the products that we made and packaged. So we made a bunch of cookies and snacks and things that were, I think, different and if I may say so myself, better than other.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Matthew was out earlier than that, and then time passed, time passed, and I had what was complicated is I had started the One Lucky Duck brand on my own.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Could immediately identify who's a full blown sociopath, and then what as a society would you do with them? Because in most cases, you know, they're just going to cause destruction and pain and harm and or potentially rise to power and become president or something. So I just found that book fascinating.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a book I recommend a lot because I've read a lot about sociopathy and I've read all the books by psychologists and And this one's written by a woman who understands herself that she is a sociopath. And so it's beautifully written, but I learned more from that book than from any other book. And I think I thought about it a long time ago. I think a lot of conversations you've talked a lot about good and evil and whether everybody's really good or some people are not good. And I think sociopathy is something that I think the world needs to understand much better. And so that book helped me understand a lot. And it's beautifully written. And she tackles all the really interesting moral questions, like, you know, like, what if we were able to Definitively diagnose people in some way. Like there was a.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I know it well. I used to hang out of the pit in Harvard Square with my green and blue hair when I was very way too young to be doing that but myself.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, also, I mean, I'll usually end up putting a picture of Leon reading the book online and then other people buy it and read it. And so I feel like I've made up for...”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But then what always ends up happening is I'll find there'll be a couple of books that I buy that I've never heard of the author. I don't really know anything about the book at all, but something drew me to it. And what I like about that is you're buying used books, so it costs a dollar or two. So if you made a mistake, like, no big deal. Who cares? But every time I come back with a book haul, there's usually at least one gem that I end up loving. And I'm so glad that I read it. And beautiful ruins was that book for me. And I was drawn through it because of the cover art. Like I just loved the cover and the colors. And then I picked it up and read the back and bought it. And I also feel bad sometimes buying used books when the author is still alive because I feel like if you write a book, you should get the royalties.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and then sometimes I'll pick up books. I even underline sentences that are, it's not the content of the sentence. It's more that it's just a beautifully written sentence or like a particularly apt metaphor or something that's really nice. And I like paper books too because I bought beautiful ruins. I would have never heard of it. I don't think except one of my favorite things is to go to used bookstores. Actually, Goodwill sometimes has really good. Book selections depending on the area where you go. Sometimes you find a lot of treasures there. And what ends up happening a lot is I end up buying books that I know sometimes also because I lost all my belongings at one point. So all very often buy books that I've already read just to have them.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, sometimes I underline things that are, well, also what I do is I have a whole file in Evernote of transcribed quotes from books, ones that I want to save. So I might underline a lot of things in a book and then maybe like a third of them I want to write them down somewhere. So I write those down. And I think even the time it takes to transcribe it is somehow worthwhile. It's like searing it in your brain.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Part of why I like. Paper books is because I underline, I tend to underline like crazy the Carl Diceroth book is full of underlines too.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a little bit about this book that reminds me of the Carl Dyseroth. Book because he writes about his own condition. I mean, he's an amazing writer, so he writes about it in this beautiful way. And oddly enough, in some ways, it's kind of delightful. So it's not at all a depressing book. At least I didn't find it depressing at all. I don't think it is. But he writes about his own experience with depression in such a beautiful way. My own copy is full of underlines.”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a book that made me laugh and cry, and it's just a happy story. And for some reason, I don't know exactly why, but for some reason, when you asked me to come, it just, I thought, oh, I'm going to bring a copy of that book”
2022-05-23 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #288 – Sarma Melngailis: Bad Vegan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source