Brews, Beards, & Shipwrecks Royal Ruckus

This is an interview I did with my mother's mother, Grandma Colleen Pitts (O'Farrell) in 6 or 7 years ago. She died on February 14, 2024, and so now I'm releasing this episode in her honor.
We discuss a variety of things—losing her husband to cancer, difficulties in families, depression, losing my dad in a car wreck, and even the blackouts of World War II.
She was a gem of a woman, and I'm excited to share a little bit of her perspective with you.
I love you, Grandma.
Jamey Bennett
BrewsBeards.com

Whassup good people Happy new Year!!
We're back like we never left! Hopefully y'all remember a few episodes back the we had on Jeremiah Dirt and Illustrate, well you can consider this part 2 where we chop it up with Illustrate solo and get to hear more of his story and why he does what he does. We have the convo about being a rapper who's a christian vs. a Christian rapper and if there is a difference. he shares with us insights into the Colorado hip hop scene as well as what it was like linking up with Fros'T and Ahmad of 4th Ave Jones. As many of you may (or may not) know Illustrate is a member of the hip-hop collective Shadow Of The Locust (see September 2023 episode for that convo), he shares with us how he met Jeremiah Dirt and Calmplex of SOTL. This spurs Illustrate and Jamey to both share some Jeremiah Dirt stories which are worth the listen alone! Wrapping it up Illustrate lets us know what he's up to know as far as crew and solo projects. 
We hope you enjoyed listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed making it!
 
Wanna hit us up?
Peep us on Instagram:
@brewsbeards
@royalruckusofficial
@nomadikvagabond
@justjamey
and you can get at Illustrate on Instagram:
@illustrate1
and be sure to peep the @shadowofthelocust IG page as well
Wanna hear or purchase Illustrates music? Hit up illustrate.bandcamp.com as well as locustfist.com
 
Peace and a Blessed New Year to all!
 
Nomadik Vagabond 

The Life Cycle of Man and Cicada

By Joshua Gibbs and Jamey Bennett
The average man knows little of cicadas, thinks rarely of cicadas. And yet on the rare occasion he hears the word “cicada,” his mind invariably drifts off into those few truths about the insects which he was taught in grade school: the cicada lives underground for seventeen years, emerges briefly, dies. A certain kind of man cannot recall such claims without immediately thinking of himself, staring into the distance, and wondering if he is truly a man, or if he is, in fact, a cicada.
The life cycle of a cicada appeals to a man.
When I was a child, I was taught that cicadas slept for all those seventeen years. Sadly, not every naturalist is still convinced of this, though poets yet carry a torch for the truth. To sleep for seventeen years, to wake briefly, soon to die…how sweet would life seem if it had been anticipated in dreams for so long?
The poet is neither convinced that nature has commanded the cicada to spend so long underground. The poet knows the cicada has chosen to stay underground all these years, and that he might emerge from the earth when he pleases. The cicada has said, “It is better this way,” though his residency with the dead, in Hades, is not obligatory and not tenured. The cicada is free and stays underground by choice. It is purely coincidental that seventeen years is the given term of these cicadas.
Someday, these cicadas will have their Che Guevara, their Óscar Romero, their Picasso…and he will sleep for thirty-six years, or fifty-nine, or ninety-one years. We suspect the creature who makes company with Hades himself for seventeen years might be capable of doing so interminably. Have we numbered every cicada emerging from the ground? Have we truly kept track of their departures, their arrivals? Have we only said they sleep “seventeen years” because we tired of putting hash marks on the cell walls? “No one will count longer than this.” Who can say? The death and lust rattle you hear this summer’s eve might be a millennium in the making.
The life cycle of a cicada appeals to a man.
The man wants to believe that he, too, might only have been sleeping up until now, and that the emergence from the death of sleep this very morning might be the inauguration of a brief, golden age. “Will I now truly live? Has it always been a slumber and am I only now waking?” The man wants to believe this is true. He has long been underground, and no matter his activity, he recasts all his labor as nothing more than a patient biding of time. A man interprets patience into the long haul of his already-lived life. “I was always waiting.” A man longs to see the light of day as though he were a cicada, fingers emerging from the dirt, and then hoisting himself out. A man longs to see the world as a kind of egg from which he hatches after a beginning-less gestation period.

“It will all end soon,” says the cicada man, although the cicada man is forever caught between the contradiction of a thing beginning and a thing ending. Is this the seventeen year slumber or the two months of waking? The question cannot be answered, and every bottle of wine might be the last before death; and every bottle of wine might be opened, poured, and break on the tongue as a revelation— not the end, but the beginning of the end. After a thousand years of sleep, what kind of death is possible for the cicada? The cicada is the resurrection creature. The chasm between life and death narrows to crossing points suddenly, unpredictably.
While science has said the cicada wakes only to procreate, the poet knows the cicada wakes simply to live. Is a life of sixty days less meaningful than a life of sixty years? Meaning is not discerned in quantity; a moment in the soul is without end. The man who imagines the cicada emerging only to procreate falsely intuits sudden verve, anxiety and desperation in the cicada. How could such be true of a creature with th

Whaddup y'all?
We hope everybody is doing just great! On this episode we had the pleasure of sitting down with Major Chisholm of Creative Liberty podcast. Major came on Jamey's radar through Whiskerino (which was a beard growing group, look it up if you don't know), and they further developed their relationship the last couple years through taking time together to explore life without alcohol.
To kick the episode off we get into the beard talk, which was a rather robust conversation on facial hair. Next we move into the beverage portion of the episode-shoutout to Rambler and Spindrift sparkling waters, as well as Athletic Brewing and Sober Carpenter brewing to help us get some flavor without the alcohol.
Lastly we get into chopping it up about Jamey and Major's journey into living alcohol free. They share how they encouraged each other and what it took to maintain sticking to their commitment.
We hope you dig it!
Socials:
@creativeliberty (Majors IG)
@royalruckusofficial
@justjamey
@brewsbeards
@nomadikvagabond 
Check out Major on YouTube
Check out our "Unvarnished" episodes on YouTube where you get to see our beautiful faces and get to hear all the stuff that gets edited out.
Outro song: Royal Ruckus- "The Great Beard Rebellion"
Peace y'all!
Nomadik Vagabond

What's up good people!
We got a treat for y'all on this episode. This one's been a long time comin', but without further delay we present the multitalented Sivion of the legendary Deepspace 5 crew! As you'll be able to hear, we really enjoyed this conversation!
We kicked this one off with what we were drinking, and then move into the beard care section of the episode. After we dissect the finer things of creams and combs we chop it up about parenting and career paths before discussing Siv's history in music and how dual love for the sax and the mic. He's got a few projects in the works that we're excited about, which leads us to discuss the labels he's been on how those connections were made.
After the music talk we get into the deep waters (see what I did there?) of the music industry and its effect on the youth and society, as well as the evolution of the "Christian" hip-hop scene.
Lastly we get into the shipwreck of the show where Sivion shares with us some health issues he's been dealing with for the past few years, how it's been affecting his life, how he's coping with it, and how he was able to take something negative and turning it into something beautiful. This truly was a blessing to have this conversation. We hope you're as encouraged listening to this episode as we were having it.
Check us out on Instagram:
@brewsbeards
@royalruckusofficial
@justjamey
@nomadikvagabond
@sivionds5
Be sure to hit up illect.com or illect.bandcamp.com to pick up music by Sivion (including his latest album Str8 Shot) as well as plenty other quality releases. 
Song at the end was "What It Is" by Sivion produced by Malex off the latest LP "Str8 Shot" on Illect Recordings
Apologies for the technical difficulties!
Be sure to like, share and subscribe!!!
Peace!
Nomadik Vagabond 

What up family?! 
We hope y'all have been enjoying your summer! Over here we've been soaking it up! On this episode we have a dope conversation with Illustrate and Jeremiah Dirt of Shadow Of The Locust. We get to talk about Illustrate coming into SOTL and his history in hip-hop. Jeremiah drops some jewels for the up and coming artists as well as the "old heads".
Shadow Of The Locust dropped a new album on July 4th, so we talk about that and some of the behind the scenes recording processes for that and how some of the songs came about. This was really a family reunion minus the barbecue!!
Hit up Royal Ruckus Bandcamp and Shadow Of The Locust Bandcamp to support the artists!!
Y'all will love this one!
Please support the music!
royalruckus.bandcamp.com (Come On And Wakeup LP with bonus bandcamp only joints!)
shadowofthelocust.bandcamp.com(where you can cop the A Mighty Army Cometh 2 album(
jeremiahdirt.bandcamp.com
illustrate.bandcamp.com
and of course brewsbeards.com 
Y'all can hit us up on IG:
@brewsbeards
@justjamey
@royalruckus
@nomadikvagabond
@shadowofthelocust
@illustrate1
@jeremiahdirt
 
Peace ya'll
 
Nomadik Vagabond