#998 – The Expat Files: Water, Tattoos, and Cultural Insights in Latin America

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] South of the border down Mexico way That's where I fell in love when the stars above came out to play and now I wonder Hello there all you ex-pat wannabes. I'm Johnny Mueller and you're listening to the expat files living in Latin America The show that tells you just what it's like to live work play and or retire down here in Latin America It's a mix of the good the bad the ugly and the great and it's all right here. So let's get started All right, let's clean up some of these emails first. This one is from Frank's mom. Hey, I get it Don't take responsibility yourself put it on your mom. Hey, you know, I remember when I was a kid I used to try to get my mom to do things too. She wouldn't bite Which is exactly the opposite what I see parents do to their kids today

[00:48] They do everything for their kids moms and dads just a little tip here You have to let your kids fail once in a while, you know fall down scuff their knees Get a bloody nose once in a while. It's good for the soul. Oh, I forgot today's kids are so precious They all need to be protected from everything Sorry about that. I didn't mean to go on an unrelated rant right off the bat Anyway, this is from Frank's mom or maybe it's Frank putting it off on his mom. We'll never know Okay, it starts. First of all, I like your solar information. It's great. Keep it coming I plan to go off the grid myself or at least supplement my own power and Please send me the info and pics of your water treatment setup. That info is great, too Don't listen to those who say they don't want to hear about that kind of stuff That's what the skip ahead button is for on your podcast app. Thanks again, Johnny Frank or Frank's mom, whatever

[01:40] That reminds me. I've been meaning to ask you guys out there Do you listen to my podcast in real time or do you speed me up and listen in double time? So I sound like an Italian custom out there Personally when I listen to podcasts, I always pump them up to at least one and a half I've got that, you know short attention span problem going though. Admittedly, I'm not smart enough to absorb technical or engineering Info at double speed. I gotta listen to it like a normal person speaking of hyper speed You know one of the best things they ever did at engineering school in my very first semester is they made us all Freshmen take a speed reading course you boomers must remember Evelyn would she had that famous speed reading course way back one In fact, John Kennedy took it and supposedly at least the papers reported that he used to read something like five or six

[02:29] Newspapers a day and you know, I for one don't believe it even if he did speed read I think I mentioned this some years ago in a past show So bear with me because I'll tell you what I learned to read 2,000 words a minute, but man, it's hard work You got to concentrate and it's really fatiguing since the average person reads only 200 to 250 words per minute 2,000 words a minute is really cranking it In fact statistics show that if you read at a thousand words per minute, you're in the upper 1% of all readers I can do it, but it's no fun So I never read a book that fast when I wanna really enjoy it and if it's scientific and technical stuff, man I stay down low But if it's some kind of reporter PDF that I feel I have to read but really have no great interest in but I Would like to have the information and I'll pump it up to a thousand even 2,000

[03:15] But don't try that at home if you want to actually enjoy what you read size that your brain will overheat Well, there I go again another unrelated rant. Sorry about that But again, I'd like your feedback on whether or not you listen to the show at normal speed or on nitro And as for that request by Frank's mom or is it Frank concerning water purification you longtime listeners Know that wherever I stay if it's long term I'll hook up my three canister under the sink model with a little dispenser tap mounted to the sink and I've got my portable unit Too it's a modified Sawyer purifier with an activated charcoal adapter. Well, funny thing just yesterday It was big news all over the internet. Here's the headline popular bottled water brands contain toxic forever chemicals

[04:01] According to Consumer Reports magazine and you know if there's one outfit I really trust its Consumer Reports In fact at one of my earlier expat insider seminars two people who worked at Consumer Reports signed up and came down So I got the skinny on the outfit from the horse's mouth now if you remember a couple of shows ago I was talking about how plastics are everywhere They're finding them in practically all animal and human tissue talking about micro and nano particle sized Plastics that are called forever chemicals because they never really go away And your body really doesn't have any way to flush them out because let's face it plastics have only existed about a hundred years or so So in the grand scheme of human and animal evolution Your body doesn't recognize them is confused and absolutely doesn't know what to do with them Same thing goes for the more than

[04:46] 10,000 preservatives and additives that are in our foods these days In fact the FDA maintains a list of over three thousand just color additives and they're all new sort of franken Chemicals that did not exist before a hundred years ago So your body has not had the proper span of time, which would be millennia To figure out how to process them and get rid of them We're just exposing our bodies to all kinds of brand new long-chain chemicals that are pretty much completely foreign to our bodies Look at it. This way the vast majority of people from china are lactose intolerant That means they have any kind of milk products at all. They get bloated have reactions and get intestinal issues And that's because the chinese masses have only been exposed to western diets for about the past 30 years

[05:34] It's been estimated that it'll take a couple more generations before the masses of chinese develop lactase That's the enzyme necessary to process milk products and little by little they will Meanwhile in the past 50 years the human race has been hit with 10,000 artificial man-made food additives And you don't think that confuses every cell in your body Which brings us in a roundabout way to bottled water first? I have to admit every gringo and expat I know here in latin america drinks bottled water a lot of people Carry a bottle with them a plastic bottle. I don't I purify my own water and i've got a cooler in the back of my car where I always carry a couple of glass or stainless steel bottles Now, of course the question has come up even all the nice water purifier systems like the one I have too

[06:20] Have plastic parts in them and practically all the tubing in north american and central and south american homes and businesses Is pvc or another kind of plastic too? So then you might think you're screwed from the get-go, right with those plastic monomers Just leeching into the water inside those tubes 24 seven Well, you see the thing is any plastics that leech into your water will be absorbed by the final stage of your filter system That's the carbon block filter. You see those carbon block filters glom onto everything. That's got a carbon atom on it That's anything organic and all plastics are built on carbon atoms So any residue from the plastic pipes or anywhere down the line from the origin of where your water came from Will be pulled out by the final stage. At least that's how you should have it set up with the first stage being a basic

[07:06] Maybe 10 to 25 micron sand and rust filter. They call it a particle filter Then your next stage will be your 0.1 to 0.5 micron ceramic filter That's impregnated with colloidal silver and that's the reusable one when you take it out You just sand it off with that plastic Brillo kind of pad And if you're gentle and careful and don't crack the filter because remember it's just ceramic it will last a lifetime It's also the most expensive component in the system probably costs between 25 and 50 bucks on amazon Yeah, I know. I know I have a love-hate relationship with amazon too. I love that I can get everything from them But I hate the politics and their close association with all the scumbag alphabet government agencies So anyway, that's the second filter in the system. The third filter is the carbon block filter

[07:53] Now remember you want to use a solid carbon block not one of those activated charcoal granulated filters Sometimes they can look exactly the same and the only way you can tell the difference is by of course what it says on the label Or you can shake it if it's granulated carbon, it'll go You'll hear it and your carbon block filter is a solid piece of carbon Won't make any noise when you shake it and when you squeeze that filter It's rock hard too and that filter does what in the industry is called polish your water sounds weird, huh? Polish your water and if you're eastern european, it'll polish your water. That's right. Polish and polish spell the same What it does takes out all the organics. That's anything with a carbon chain on it, you know, like plastics And it removes chlorine and a high percentage of fluoride too

[08:39] And that by the way is a good indicator as to whether your filter is nearly depleted When you start smelling or tasting a little bit of chlorine again Because normally when it's working fine, there will be no chlorine at all coming out of it And with normal daily use let's say for a family of four a filter like that'll probably last you a half a year And the cost for a new one around 10 or 12 bucks So again, if you want my do-it-yourself plans You could buy all that stuff at a big pool in jacuzzi supply place or any big hardware store Or on amazon just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com and i'll send you the plans Back to this consumer reports on bottled water. It says they tested 47 different brands And found toxic forever chemicals in every single one And there's a quote here from james rogers director of food safety research and testing for consumer reports

[09:30] He says quote these chemicals are called forever chemicals because the way they are put together It's hard for them to be broken down. They last very very long The problem is the fda and the epa have selected totally arbitrary standards Meanwhile big water. Yep. There's big water, too Wouldn't you know it? Yep, that's right All soda and bottled water companies belong to an organization called the international bottled water association IBwa who immediately countered the recent consumer reports analysis by saying it's misleading and will unnecessarily frighten consumers You think? Sounds like big water and big pharma are kiss and cousins, huh? So what are pfas forever chemicals? Well, it's shorthand for polyfluoroalkyl chains

[10:16] A large group of man-made chemicals used in many consumer products because they're resistant to oil grease water and heat Mostly found in get this non-stick cookware like teflon pizza boxes stain repellents household products like paints etc food wrappers food containers and drinking water It says in total. There are almost 5000 different pfas And since they accumulate in the human body over time they may cause serious health conditions says none other than the food and drug administration Fancy that they're actually coming down on the side of the consumer for once Then it says when studied in lab animals Large amounts of just two of the most studied pfas chemicals cause cancer birth defects

[11:03] Plus have reproductive and developmental liver kidney and immunological consequences and there are over 5000 of them floating around your air water food continuously accumulating in every organ in your body But not to worry everyone eats and drinks at the same junk food restaurant. So we're all in the same boat, right? And about the safe limits Well, no one knows but the epa sets limits because that's what they do Though they have no idea if they're setting them at the right threshold But it says consumer reports found that seven of the 12 carbonated waters They tested exceeded the epa's nebulous threshold like these familiar favorites Perrier La Croix water Canada dry poland spring water polar water and a variety of others then it says beware

[11:51] especially of carbonated drinks because the process of infusing carbonation into flat water or soda enhances the concentration of pfas By the way, it says here heavy metals showed up in every single sample too, but mostly below the fda limits Again, nobody knows if the fda limits are the correct ones It's just that they had to pick a number and stick to it bottom line Mr. Rogers head of the testing at the consumer report says he urges people to do their own research and be aware There can and will be issues with bottled water. Then he says people have to empower themselves do the research Yeah, right. Meanwhile 95 percent of americans think the government the fed more stimulus checks and helicopter money Will normalize the economy again

[12:36] In other words send in the clowns then you've got all those millions into fitness who work out at the gym ride bikes hike jog do pilates or yoga Have you noticed that they're all carrying nice even designer plastic water bottles and when they carry a metal one and some do Its internal surfaces are often unbeknownst to them coated with a clear plastic So apparently no matter how many warnings and cautions are given on the subject the average guy or gal even the above average guy or gal Just doesn't seem to give a Though I have to say i've had lots of listeners take me up on my offer To ship you out all the information on my own system including photos of my permanent but easily Disassembled under the counter water system and my recommended portable traveling water purifier, too

[13:25] So yes, i've sent out my report and instructions on how to assemble these things to hundreds of people Though I often wonder how many people actually have gone through with it Though i've had many people say to me johnny look all of us go to restaurants We travel we go to hotels we go over to people's houses That means all the food you eat and the water you drink away from home It's either come out of the tap and therefore not purified at all or it's coming from one of those big five gallon bottled water tanks You get at the grocery store as soon as you step out of the door of your house You can't control the environment or the air you breathe Though you can't control the air in your house with a nice big HEPA filter And you can control your food and your water too. Why not do what you can at least on the home front And really what's so hard about purifying your own water and bring it along with you in your car?

[14:10] The worst that could happen is people might call you a cheapskate thinking you're just doing it to save dough Well, so what you don't have to explain anything to anyone? And thankfully it seems to be a truism the older you get the less you care about what people think Why do you think the word curmudgeon and the term crotchety old fill in the blank only apply to older generations? Because you know when you're young you've got to impress those five thousand fake book friends of yours Oh, and next time you hear someone brag about how many friends they got on fake book twaddler instagram Just tell them they ought to check the definition of friend in websters Then they'll see in black and white the people they call friends do not qualify All right, then comes this email from brian. He says on a previous show you mentioned what's up is owned by google

[14:56] You don't make many mistakes johnny on the expat files, but what's up is owned by facebook not google though. That does not make it better Anyway, thanks for the shows. I've listened to all of them from the very beginning of the archive that started in 2010 I lived in paragway in the 80s and that's probably where i'll end with my days But until then I live in denmark because i'm danish Best regards brian Well brian you got me and listeners, please do correct me if you catch me in a gaffe So thanks for the correction brian You're danish, huh? You know, there's something really cool about the danish. No one ever has anything bad to say about them It seems like all the scandinavian countries including new zealand and canada have that reputation No one ever says anything bad about the people but their governments just like everywhere else in the world really suck

[15:44] But that's a worldwide phenomena. What else is new? Now about the danish as for me, I love a good danish, especially with a double expresso All right. Now here's something that's unrelatably relatable seems like here in latin america Everyone and I mean everyone Especially between the ages of around 15 to 40 seem to have a tattoo or 10 in fact It's almost the exception now to come across someone under 40 except for children who doesn't have a tattoo And the tattoo parlors are absolutely cleaning up But the parlors themselves are far from clean makes me laugh though because occasionally when i'm walking by one of those I'll stick my head in and i'll see everyone's all masked up the tattoo artist and the recipient Meanwhile the guy's making thousands of minute surgical cuts and invading your bloodstream with a mega dose of foreign particles

[16:34] In fact and according to one tattoo artist i met he said There are lots of suppliers and lots of very good providers of ink, but they're expensive Meanwhile, there are crap loads of the stuff coming from india and china a lot of the stuff not intended for tattooing But people just put them in a fancy bottle and stick a dragon or a lightning rod or a snake on the bottle Have the word tattoo printed on it and suddenly you have a product It's permanently injected into a human body. Oh, and this is scary. Listen to this according to the european joint research center Which provides independent scientific advice to the european commission They say it's not widely known by the general public but pigments found in tattoo inks these days Can be repurposed and repackaged from the textile ink plastics and car paint industry

[17:21] that according to a new 118 page joint research council report which shows various tattoo ingredient analysis and adverse reaction data Well, they found out almost all tattoo and permanent makeup products contain dangerous substances contaminated by microbes That's bacteria and viruses all of which are available in the european market right now Bottom line that gigantic report lists in descending order the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons primary aromatic amines viruses bacterium and other microorganisms heavy metals And dozens of different kinds of preservatives all of that stuff permanently embedded in your body circulating 24-7 in your bloodstream Then it says with scandinavians being high on the list with multiple tattoos. They also have multiple tattoo problems

[18:11] dermatologist horgan setup of bilsburg hospital in sweden says he's cared for 500 plus problem tattoo cases people admitted to the hospital for pigment overload whatever that is chronic inflammation Of course and long-term light sensitivity from the cornucopia of compounds found in various tattoo inks He says although you might think there are only pigments in tattoo ink There are over a hundred other additives with many of them Just impurities from industrial production with a lighter and brighter colored pigments containing the most dangerous stuff Including get this mercury sulfide which was once used as a very popular bright red in tattoo Formulations and has been phased out little by little due to the known effects of mercury toxicity

[18:58] shades of the thimerosal mercury connection in vaccines Now these days many tattoo artists are advertising organic pigments But they only make up about 60 percent of the colorants the other 40 percent mystery ingredients On top of that according to recent surveys about 50 percent of tattoo owners come to regret their ink And when they have those tattoos removed, it could take six or seven treatments What people don't know is that laser treatments cause problematic degradation ingredients your body has to deal with then it says in a survey of 229 tattoo inks by swiss regulators a quarter of the inks analyzed contain the surface cleaner and antiseptic benzoisothiazole with some of the inks in the study containing preservative formaldehyde

[19:45] Which is classified as a carcinogen? Nice you get a dose of embalming fluid before you're even dead Meanwhile back in the states where a quarter to a half of all people who've got ink Admitting after 10 years, they'd like to have one or more of them removed the american society for aesthetic plastic surgery estimates that one single session for removal Cost an average of four hundred and sixty three dollars in the us And since it could take four to eight treatments You could be out a few grand even more That is if you happen to be a plus sized inked up single digit iq human billboard like cardi b By the way, according to a harris poll three in ten americans have tattoos right now with seven in ten under 40 With a quarter to a half of them Regretting at least one tat spending time and effort to cover it up when going out

[20:33] Oh, and this is strange in both the us and central and south america more women than men have tats Though the monstrously ugly ones are generally found on men Who tend to have the larger ones done while under the influence of something or other by the way speaking of tattoos plastic surgery and latinas After all, this is the expat files living in latin america Well, you long-time listeners probably heard me say that once in a while I'll get contacted by a gringo or expat or someone will come down to my expat insider seminar And they'll want to see a plastic surgeon For one thing or another because it is like all medical treatments about a quarter of the price or less than it is in the states So anyway in doing research for other gringos and expats i've gotten to know a couple of plastic surgeons one of them a latino surgeon Practicing in guaramala who did his plastic surgery residency in new york

[21:22] Well, he's been known to tell me some wild and crazy plastic surgery stories I mean, hey, he tells me people want what they want And if he doesn't want to perform a certain treatment because he doesn't think it's right for a person I'll just find another surgeon who will do it for him. Good example michael jackson's nose Hey to me it looked fine after about the 14th or 15th surgery But after around surgery number 300 there was certainly not enough schnoz to work with But I digress as usual You might be interested to know what my friend the latino plastic surgeon Had to say about the difference between american ladies having plastic surgery and latinas in latin america having similar surgeries He told me with a straight face that when he was doing plastic surgery in new york up in the states Pretty much every single lady wanted to keep it on the qt mom's the word

[22:11] Of course, the doctor would never say anything But the ladies themselves would have all kinds of surgeries But almost never would they want to admit it to their friends and relatives and when someone would say hey You look different you have something done. That's when the little white lies would come and the usual response Well, i've been going to the gym Lots of yoga and pilates and that intermittent fasting and keto diet does wonders Yep, they're evasive about it All right Because you know up in the states with older ladies anyway, though not much with teenagers or young 20 somethings There's still kind of a stigma about it In other words you get more social score points if you get your six pack at the gym then at a doctor's office As opposed to the ladies of latin america who have absolutely no compunction talking about it Because you see in latin america having plastic surgery is a badge of honor

[22:59] So latin american ladies not only get points for looking tighter and younger They get extra points just based on the fact they could afford to have the surgery done It shows you're a lady condinero of some means And even though in latin america to us Anyway, the surgeries are extremely affordable and inexpensive for latin americans whose average monthly salary ranges from 250 to 500 bucks a month that means for the average girl coming up with the dough is a hardship Which is why when some girl has surgery first thing she does is call up her girlfriends and invite them to mcdonald's or wherever To show off her stitches bandages and scars And that info comes from the mouth of a us trained latin american plastic surgeon So ladies and gents mostly ladies those of you who've had some nips and tux Did you downplay or tell any white lies after your surgery? I bet you did

[23:47] All right, as a final note, i'm sure you've all heard that eddie van halen died He was 65 had a hip replacement about 20 years ago, man At 45 i'm all that jumping around on stage plus he smoked four to five packs of cigarettes today In fact, if you look at any of those videos you'll see he's always smoking He sticks a lit cigarette between the tuning pegs on his guitar So he's never without one while he's doing his solos Yup, he continues his trademark finger tapping takes another drag sticks it back between the tuners and starts whacking away again Now about 10 years ago He had part of his tongue removed due to cancer smoking and he had some intestinal surgeries too Be that as it may here's what I have to say about eddie I've been in many rock and party bands myself and have known a lot of good even great guitar players

[24:35] And in none of those bands did we or anyone else ever cover a van halen tune You want to know why? Because no one could do that finger tapping that eddie van halen invented though many have tried No one could do half of what that guy did in fact the guitarist I know didn't even want to attempt it They all thought the guy was from another planet The thing is you could ask any of the living still famous guitarists like jimmy page clapton townson jeff beck They all say he's a genius who created a completely new way of playing guitar And you know, that's the definition of genius coming up with something completely out of the ordinary completely new Something no one's ever done before, you know guys and gals who are brilliant They take something that already exists and improve on it dramatically But geniuses only come every generation or so and they develop something completely unknown to anyone else

[25:24] The thing is whether you like eddie van halen or not Not only did he develop a brand new way of playing it was such a virtuoso No one could really completely copy his technique And that's why even really good rock bands won't cover his songs because the lead player would inevitably come up short On the solo so then how did he do it? How did he come up with that finger tapping way up the fret thing that no one else ever did? Well, you know as a kid, he was a concert pianist How about that and people who knew him way back when as a kid? They said he'd open the lid on a grand piano and play the strings with his fingers So that's how in his case the genius thing was cross pollinated He needed that grand piano experience to spark the idea of playing with two hands way up the frets But he also said in various interviews the idea struck him like a bolt of lightning when he saw jimmy page the lead player for led zeppelin

[26:13] Stop strumming and put his hand up in the air kick his amp up the full volume to generate feedback That's 11 for all you spinal tappers out there and play the lead part with his left hand without ever strumming or picking the strings Which you'd normally would do with your pick in your right hand and that's when eddie van halen said to himself You know what? I have a better idea. Oh and here's a strange fact You know eddie van halen didn't even speak english till he was 12 years old Naturally, he took some hard hits from the neighborhood kids when he first arrived in the states talk about the great american immigrant success story, huh? I know. I know you're thinking what's that have to do with latin america? Well, it's about the chronic overuse of the word genius The words genius love awesome and friends on social media are the most overplayed overused words in the english language

[26:58] It's why I cringe when I hear somebody say so-and-so is a genius Wish yet so-and-so's dog or kid is a genius because you know at any given time it seems there's only one True genius in a career field that's with luck One in every generation and certain geniuses like einstein newton and da Vinci appear once in every hundred years And the good news of all my years in latin america. I never heard a parent say his kid was a genius They seem to know the difference and americans don't so bottom line Don't tell me your kid your dog or your parents a genius or i'll just have to slap you You've been listening to the expat files living in latin america If you need some help with your own plan b we can schedule a one-on-one phone or skype consult Just send me an email the expat files at gmail.com

[27:44] And if you want to get on the waiting list for my next week long expat insider seminar in central america Where you're guaranteed to get a two to five year head start on your plan b. Send me an email the expat files at gmail.com nos vamos