Buckle up, bartalkers, tonight we’re going for a ride through the uncanniest of valleys.
Meet Tom and Aaron, two friends in the hospitality business coming to grips with the light-speed world around them. Whether it’s traversing the city or surfing the interwebs, talk is cheap and attention is short in the modern day. How are we supposed to find community in the midst of so much transience? How can we stay in tune with the real? What is real, when AI chatbots are writing poetry and conjuring images out of thin air, and the algorithm doesn’t seem to discriminate between truth and fiction? Are schools still how we educate ourselves? It’s a trip and a half cruising down the cosmic superhighway, and Tom and Aaron are tackling the loftiest of questions, from the astronomical to the astrological. Aren’t we all just hitchhiking our way through cyberspace?
Aaron Beener is a Harlem-based restauranteur, linguist, and artist. He is the owner and cofounder of Seasoned Vegan, NYC’s premier vegan kitchen, which he operates with his mother Brenda. When he’s not whipping up gourmet vegan soul food, Aaron putting his MS in Spanish Language and Linguistics to use to decipher and share modern language phenomena on TikTok @WordsMeanThingsBro.
Tom Buddha Spaceman (TBS) is an artist, writer, symbologist, and hospitality executive. They met Aaron while working together at Seasoned Vegan and have been close collaborators ever since. With 14 years of experience in the hospitality industry, they have served the people in restaurants, studios & temples alike, and are currently composing their first album & first novel for release this summer.
Follow Aaron on IG @cool_beens
Follow Tom on IG @tombuddhasp3c3m3n
Instagram & TikTok: @bartalkseries
00:00 Teaser
00:09 Intro
00:25 How May I Assist You Today?
01:21 More Love on the Streets, Bruh
02:11 Rihanna vs. the Critics
03:58 Community in the Anthropocene
06:14 The Mysteries of ChatGPT
08:08 The Newer Beings
11:06 AI Drawings, Scopophilia, Susan Sontag
15:02 Anchor Tom
16:37 Zombies are the Great Equalizer
21:05 Fake Butts and Michael Jackson
24:52 The Magic of Stevie Wonder
27:18 The Year of the UFO
31:22 Buying Land & Growing Your Own Food
36:18 The World Needs Some Buddha
39:22 Shout-Outs
Intro Song: “Brooklyn” by Glass Vaults