Speaker 1: Welcome to the nonprofits. And tonight we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about something that well, is it a grocery store, is
Speaker 1: it a gas station?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about Bugies. But before I ruin
Speaker 1: everything for you, aj, what do you have for us?
Speaker 3: They say that everything's bigger in Texas, and gas stations
Speaker 3: are no exception. The famous Buggies is over the top
Speaker 3: pit stop, offering not just gas and the largest car
Speaker 3: wash in the world, but also all kinds of sugar
Speaker 3: snacks like Kandia nuts, greasy pork tweets and their frameous
Speaker 3: Beavert nuggets. And if you're in the market for obscure
Speaker 3: gadgets and useful items like baby clothes, dog toys, a
Speaker 3: meat smoker for whatever reason you may be looking for
Speaker 3: it at a gas station, you are in luck. Buggies
Speaker 3: combines convenience, indulgence, and absurdity into one bizarre but addictive experience.
Speaker 3: This article satirically portrays how BUCkies represents the rot at
Speaker 3: the heart of the modern, over consuming American identity. And
Speaker 3: this story was by development by Bradley Browne on November
Speaker 3: twenty eight, twenty four.
Speaker 1: Thanks a Jay, and I've got to say, as someone
Speaker 1: who finds certain things about Bucky is uncomfortable, I can't
Speaker 1: deny that going to it. Those portraits and those sweet
Speaker 1: things that they have, they are really good, so I
Speaker 1: get why they're there. But what did you see with
Speaker 1: the article's tone and the style of the article in itself.
Speaker 1: Did that have an impact on your perspective on this
Speaker 1: issue on BUCkies.
Speaker 3: I actually enjoy the humorous and sort of sarkartistick tone
Speaker 3: of the article while appreciating the underlying message that the
Speaker 3: writer was trying to convey. Right he was pointing out
Speaker 3: that these megal shops are unnecessary and excessive, but also
Speaker 3: something that most people seek. They attract like six million
Speaker 3: customers at each of their locations per year, and they
Speaker 3: make nearly a million dollars per day at each one
Speaker 3: of these locations. So to me in BUCkies is kind
Speaker 3: of like Alex Jones in FORO Wars. People know that
Speaker 3: it's trash and is full of shit, but they follow
Speaker 3: it religiously without question because that kind of dot cells.
Speaker 3: And unfortunately, the whole yeer and more environmentally friendly stuff
Speaker 3: just isn't marketed in the same way that junk is
Speaker 3: and you know, healthy only appeals to a future benefit,
Speaker 3: whereas in for wars and BUCkies appeal to your immediate
Speaker 3: gratification that most humans.
Speaker 1: Thrive on and not being immune to that. I definitely
Speaker 1: agree with you, and I want to switch over to Rob.
Speaker 1: What do you think when I know that you had
Speaker 1: some unique perspectives on this and how this is a
Speaker 1: reflection of American cities in general, and so what was
Speaker 1: your take from this?
Speaker 4: Initially, so I watched some videos recently and they were
Speaker 4: talking about like how American infrastructure is starting to look
Speaker 4: homogeneous throughout all of America, and so that combined with uh,
Speaker 4: I once had an English teacher, and you would talk
Speaker 4: about how societies would build cathedrals, and cathedrals are places
Speaker 4: of worship, but they are strictly unnecessary and how grandiose
Speaker 4: they are, right, like, you don't need it to be
Speaker 4: this giant piece of artwork to be able to practice
Speaker 4: your religion. So what I thought was really funny about
Speaker 4: this article, combined with the how cities are starting to
Speaker 4: look well not even starting, cities are looking extremely similar,
Speaker 4: is that in America we don't only have cathedrals because
Speaker 4: we don't build anything like this as a giant landmark
Speaker 4: for the stake of our entire culture, and you would
Speaker 4: use cathedrals as a way to talk about or express
Speaker 4: us with the things that you believe in. So in
Speaker 4: some ways this is literally saying BUCkies is our God.
Speaker 4: And that's a little hyperbolic, I think. But what I
Speaker 4: think is far more apt is that because BUCkies is
Speaker 4: so massive, just like it's enfranchised and spread out, while
Speaker 4: also each location is just enormous, it necessitates making all
Speaker 4: BUCkies the same, and because they're huge, they end up
Speaker 4: being the same. And therefore, since there are BUCkies everywhere,
Speaker 4: things become more homogeneous. And like I said, it's not
Speaker 4: like we worship BUCkies, but it sure seems to be
Speaker 4: that we are expressing our value in being able to
Speaker 4: buy knick knacks and oddities on the road.
Speaker 1: I have to push back on you a little bit
Speaker 1: because I have to say that maybe maybe the articles
Speaker 1: less hyperbole and that this really is the American version.
Speaker 2: Of a cathedral.
Speaker 1: I mean, because it is pretty much the excess of
Speaker 1: everything you could possibly put all in one location. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're the huge car washed the huge I mean, was
Speaker 1: it one hundred dollars pumps at one of their stations,
Speaker 1: all these different things. We just took everything and amped
Speaker 1: it all the way up. And yes, of course it's
Speaker 1: all the same, because did you really expect us to
Speaker 1: be creative?
Speaker 4: Come on, Rob, No, I think we're saying the same
Speaker 4: thing in that it is a cathedral, and a cathedral
Speaker 4: does not need to be expressed about a literal god.
Speaker 4: It is just an expression of our values in our culture.
Speaker 4: So yes, it's just we don't need a god anymore.
Speaker 4: Do we've got greenbacks?
Speaker 1: I mean, really, didn't that what religion's always about? But Cindy,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure you've never been to a BUCkies and
Speaker 1: as many things as I could say negative about it,
Speaker 1: if you ever come to Texas, I'll make sure you
Speaker 1: go to a BUCkies because I think it's something you
Speaker 1: should experience. But I think your perspective would be different
Speaker 1: having coming from your point. So what did you think
Speaker 1: about this? From what you read about this? What was
Speaker 1: your outside perspect.
Speaker 2: Well, it's definitely on my bucket list, you know, so.
Speaker 5: Yeah, But as as a non US citizen, it's it's
Speaker 5: hard for me to comment on this article because it
Speaker 5: talks a lot of things about that I don't experience
Speaker 5: as as as a European. So although I liked the
Speaker 5: tone of the article, it seems that the the the
Speaker 5: author of the article doesn't believe that the US is
Speaker 5: the beacon of light that so many people still believe
Speaker 5: it is. And and I thought that that was interesting
Speaker 5: seeing this kind of view in in in an article.
Speaker 2: Also, you all.
Speaker 5: Talked about hyper consumerism and and and how this reflects
Speaker 5: on on on the US in general. But what I
Speaker 5: thought when I read the article was architecture, actually, because
Speaker 5: I've seen several videos in the last few months that
Speaker 5: talk about how cities were built and when when I
Speaker 5: see cities in in the US, as Rob said about BUCkies,
Speaker 5: I see cities looking almost all the same because they
Speaker 5: were built around cars. Uh and and and that's not
Speaker 5: the case here in Europe. I grew up in a
Speaker 5: city where we have monument monuments that are over two
Speaker 5: thousand years old.
Speaker 2: Uh. And it's you look at.
Speaker 5: Cities their center with usually a cathedral or or church
Speaker 5: or something in the middle of the of the city
Speaker 5: of the village. But then around is built very very
Speaker 5: differently depending on where you are in the country. And
Speaker 5: and that's what struck me when I this article it's
Speaker 5: that these BUCkies seem to be like, You're never come
Speaker 5: over here on foot.
Speaker 2: You're going to come in your car.
Speaker 5: So we're going to build everything that we can so
Speaker 5: that you can stay in your car or come and
Speaker 5: do everything you can just here so you don't have
Speaker 5: to go anywhere else.
Speaker 2: And that's not how cities are built in Europe.
Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned two thousand year old monuments, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking that where I was raised and where
Speaker 1: I live now both are considered older cities in the
Speaker 1: United States at four hundred years old, so not quite
Speaker 1: two thousand. But without a doubt, there is an homogenization
Speaker 1: of our society because it seems like everybody's chasing the
Speaker 1: same thing. And Aja, what do you think about that
Speaker 1: appeal of places like BUCkies. You know, I see people
Speaker 1: wearing t shirts with you know, their their BUCkies logo
Speaker 1: on it, and they're beaver and it's just they're advertising,
Speaker 1: you know, a place to get gas and treat so
Speaker 1: and food. So what do you think that appeal? Why
Speaker 1: does it resonate so strongly with people?
Speaker 3: I think it's because America just enjoys excess. You know,
Speaker 3: Americans enjoy having all the things like like Sindid just said,
Speaker 3: you know, like having everything in one place and having
Speaker 3: everything even if you don't need it. And this includes
Speaker 3: like the places that we visit, especially here in Texas.
Speaker 3: As I mentioned earlier, everything is bigger in Texas. So
Speaker 3: for in the case of Budgies, they have a few
Speaker 3: locations outside of Texas. They have Alabama, Florida, and Georgia,
Speaker 3: and they have over fifty locations, but more than forty
Speaker 3: of those are here in Texas. And the largest BUCkies
Speaker 3: is about seventy five thousand square feet, which is like
Speaker 3: the size of one and a half for or one
Speaker 3: hundred basketball courts. I don't I don't think Cyndy can
Speaker 3: probably padom that what kind of size that is?
Speaker 6: Really? But then the metric system right, oh yes, I apologize,
Speaker 6: But anyways, like this, this specific the location that is
Speaker 6: seventy five thousand square feet has one hundred and twenty
Speaker 6: fuel pumps.
Speaker 3: And I remember visiting Europe. I visited Switzerland and Italy
Speaker 3: in Germany, and I don't remember in any of those
Speaker 3: places seeing any gas station that had more than like
Speaker 3: two fuel hops, like the biggest one may have been
Speaker 3: like maybe three. Yet but no, I honestly don't remember
Speaker 3: more than two. But they have a location near Houston
Speaker 3: that has the Guinness World Record for the longest gas
Speaker 3: station and it includes the longest car wash in the
Speaker 3: whole world. So this place, it reminds me of Costco
Speaker 3: and the movie Idiocracy, what everything is like in one place.
Speaker 4: It gets me about BUCkies, is I really only go
Speaker 4: there right when I'm traveling, so I'm going straight for
Speaker 4: a long period of time and I turn off to
Speaker 4: get on too BUCkies. And because their parking lots are
Speaker 4: so huge for all the gas stations, the approach to
Speaker 4: the actual building always impresses me every time, right, Like
Speaker 4: the buildings are never like that huge, but it's just like,
Speaker 4: all right, turn off.
Speaker 2: I'm trying.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to get there. I'm not to the building yet.
Speaker 3: It's a workout. Well.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I thought about is we've
Speaker 1: touched on this almost religiosity aspect of capitalism that we
Speaker 1: see here, referring to it as cathedrals in the article
Speaker 1: and things like that. I think there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of focus on capitalism and some of the dangers of capitalism.
Speaker 1: Do you think that it's interesting that people don't see
Speaker 1: our don't seem to make a connect between their rampant
Speaker 1: consumerism and some of the things that we see in
Speaker 1: other industries where back consumerism is being taken advantage at
Speaker 1: the disadvantage of the same people, and they don't seem
Speaker 1: to realize that they're fueling the system or are Do
Speaker 1: you think that I'm just missing something there, Rob.
Speaker 4: No, I think it's uh. I think it's the devil,
Speaker 4: you know, And I think it's just going to happen
Speaker 4: because with consumerism, and especially with that being built into capitalism,
Speaker 4: the society, the literal civilization we live in, is based
Speaker 4: around being able to buy goods and services, and there
Speaker 4: are historians who have said that it will be harder
Speaker 4: to change a capitalist society than anything that has ever
Speaker 4: come before it. It's kind of like it's kind of
Speaker 4: like when I say when I talk to people at
Speaker 4: my work and like, oh man, I would have got
Speaker 4: here sooner, but there was traffic, and I'm like, you're
Speaker 4: you are part of the problem. So it's it's really
Speaker 4: hard to try to give people the permission to live
Speaker 4: in a capitalist society doing capitalism and also trying to
Speaker 4: show them that like it's not good for us. That's
Speaker 4: the biggest problem with it is you're doing a consumerism
Speaker 4: and you have to otherwise you will just die. I
Speaker 4: personally do not have any idea how we'll get away
Speaker 4: from this, because think of the things that we had
Speaker 4: before this, We had things like feudalism. I was going
Speaker 4: to die anyway, so let's just revolt and like that's
Speaker 4: just not as true as it has been in the past.
Speaker 1: I think you have a good point there, because if
Speaker 1: I'm walking out of BUCkies with one of those nice
Speaker 1: sweetened cashew things that the executive producer of the show
Speaker 1: that shall not be named showed me one time when
Speaker 1: we were there, If I'm walking out of there with
Speaker 1: those and enjoying those, I'm sure less likely to go, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and fight capitalism. Maybe maybe we'll do
Speaker 1: it after I finished his cashews. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: almost a self defeating thing. But sending what were your
Speaker 1: impressions of the tone perspective that the author used in
Speaker 1: this article? How did you feel he handled things?
Speaker 5: I thought it was very help to decide whether the
Speaker 5: entire article was just a joke or was it a
Speaker 5: serious topic treated with a lot of snarky comments. And
Speaker 5: irony and sarcasm. I'm still not sure on which which
Speaker 5: side A month to be honest, Jean la Fontaine, I
Speaker 5: don't know if you know the guy. It's a French
Speaker 5: guy who used to write fables to criticize the power
Speaker 5: in place under with fourteenth and he instead of naming
Speaker 5: the people or other positions, he used animals, you know, like, uh,
Speaker 5: like the total and the and the hair or the
Speaker 5: liond and the mice and the mouse and things like that.
Speaker 5: And he he used uh, those animal to tell stories
Speaker 5: about about greed, about all the things he didn't like,
Speaker 5: and he hid it behind a story with with with
Speaker 5: a moral at the end. So it felt a little
Speaker 5: bit like this when I read the article A J.
Speaker 1: I was wondering because I believe, if I recall this properly,
Speaker 1: you done a little research on this. What about the
Speaker 1: political influence or any of that we've seen from BUCkies?
Speaker 2: Are they just.
Speaker 1: Completely a political or are we seeing some of that?
Speaker 1: You mentioned a million dollars per day restore of sales.
Speaker 1: Where's that being fueled?
Speaker 3: You know the thing is that BUCkies doesn't just indulge
Speaker 3: America's wars habits and go the pleasures, it seemsact the
Speaker 3: CEO and owner systems Archie Beaver up to him.
Speaker 2: The third.
Speaker 3: He enjoys indulging political agenders as well. He has a
Speaker 3: cozy relationship with many tech top you know taxan Republicans
Speaker 3: because of his healthy donations that benefits them, including Great Abbots,
Speaker 3: the Attorney General, Can Paxton, and Don Patrick. In total,
Speaker 3: he has given more than two point eight millions in
Speaker 3: contributions to different political campaigns since twenty fifteen. About almost
Speaker 3: half a million of those went towards the twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four elections. I don't need to tell you who it
Speaker 3: is supported, you can guess that. And about a million
Speaker 3: dollars has gone to support specifically Great Abbot, and this
Speaker 3: is from Transparency USA that I'm not making that up.
Speaker 3: In fact, Great Abbot is so thankful for the contributions
Speaker 3: of his body that in twenty twenty one he appointed
Speaker 3: mister Beaver to serve on Aircost's board like the selection committee,
Speaker 3: actually the board selection committee, for one term which is
Speaker 3: two years. So that's a pretty long, you know, pretty
Speaker 3: good package there. Talk about squatching each other's beaver nuggets, well.
Speaker 1: It definitely will make those delicious treats that I've been
Speaker 1: introduced to it BUCkies, maybe a little less sweet Sending
Speaker 1: any anything you wanted to say.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I wanted to respond respond to what Ad just said,
Speaker 5: because there is so much, so much money into politics,
Speaker 5: into US politics right now, and it's hard to say
Speaker 5: whether donations are political in nature, as in, I want
Speaker 5: to influence the the moral political agenda, uh, compared to
Speaker 5: I'm just paying the guys so that they don't don't
Speaker 5: text me and and yeah, it just just crossed my
Speaker 5: mind when when ag was talking.
Speaker 2: And I don't know in which category this
Speaker 5: Uh, this CEO CEO is, but yeah, it's it's becoming
Speaker 5: so so intertwined politics and money in the US that
Speaker 5: it's it's it's hard to say whether people have bad
Speaker 5: motives or they're just trying to fill their pockets