Ben Budia is back in the studio, and this time the Knights of Columbus policies stay in the drawer while he tells the guys how a kid from Alicante ended up in Texas with eight children. He grew up watching his father start jeans brands, a construction company, a pavement company, and a toothpick company, and at 14 he got handed a beat-up notebook and a promise: four thousand dollars for every building he found that needed refurbishing. He found six or seven. He still hasn't gotten the money, and he still brings it up when his dad shows up with another bottle of Blue Label. By 19, he had built and sold his own company and was convinced he was a failure. He had the apartment downtown, the car, the business, and a hollow place in the middle of it all, so he sold everything and left for Asia, starting in Thailand because it was the cheapest place to land. Eighteen years later, after China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, he says the thing he can only say now: he traveled that far to find God, and God had been sitting next to him the whole time. Paul Kolker, Nick Bezner, and Jeff Schiefelbein bring him back to the Tiny Table for the part of the story that turns. Ben was in a Catholic church in Bangkok asking God to send him someone who would give his life meaning, and the answer came by way of a job in South Korea and a lunch table at an American Chamber of Commerce event in Seoul, where a woman from San Jose either did or did not tell him nobody was sitting there. She says she did not. He does a very good impression of her saying it. Eight children later, two born in Japan, one in Pennsylvania, some in Colorado, the oldest at UCLA in Santa Monica, and none, to the hosts' visible disappointment, born in Texas. Along the way, the BeatiDudes get into the Fourth Degree and the Catholic men nobody teaches you about in the American founding story, the 5 p.m. alarm that calls Ben to an examination of conscience, whether a halfway examination of conscience counts, and a karate-style fraternal correction. SUPPORT THE BEATIDUDES https://www.buymeacoffee.com/TheBeatiDudes Our Partners: Sock Religious (10% Discount) Solidarity HealthShare Aquinas Wealth Advisors Lucid Private Office Divine Comedy Undivided Life Follow The BeatiDudes: BeatiDudes Website LinkedIn Facebook Instagram Twitter Jeff Schiefelbein on LinkedIn BeatiDudes Theme Song and Music By The Pencil Bureau Dave Moore Music
