The First Church of Lorenzo
Season 3 · Episode 2
The Asian Heresies and The Superpower Sermon
“Thirteen steps in six months to make soy sauce? Go fuck yourself!”
Show Notes – The First Church of Lorenzo, Episode 2
Brothers and sisters, the doors are open and the sanctuary is not safe. Welcome to another episode of The First Church of Lorenzo, the only church that swears back.
In this installment we open with a cold, unfiltered rant that starts exactly the way it shouldn’t. Lorenzo declares he’s “done fucking with these Asians” after the YouTube algorithm serves him a serene, three-minute short about the “ancient” method of making soy sauce. What follows is a long, meticulously detailed, increasingly unhinged recreation of every loving, inefficient, mystical step in that video: harvesting soybeans, washing them in the clearest water you’ve ever seen, drying them under leaves, beating them into paste with a foot-powered mallet, sealing them in hundred-year-old clay pots with wax and paper, waiting an undisclosed but clearly sacred amount of time, filtering the final liquid through leaves and rice paper, and portioning the finished product into tiny glass bottles sealed with red wax.
By the time the video ends, Lorenzo has stared at the wall for fifteen minutes, watched it again with a scrutinizing eye, and decided the entire process is preposterous. He refuses to believe anyone in ancient China (or Cambodia, or wherever) ever looked at a soybean field and invented a nineteen-step, six-month ritual that somehow ends in soy sauce. The bit expands to traditional Japanese ink-making (another multi-year, multi-step process that yields a single brick of ink) and lands on the larger claim: we accept elaborate Asian origin stories without question because the culture is framed as mystical and serene, while we would never extend the same uncritical belief to Germans, Inuit, or anyone else. He calls the uncritical acceptance the real racism, insists soy sauce was probably invented sixty years ago in Hackensack by Procter & Gamble, and demands that listeners start examining these narratives with the same skepticism they’d apply to anyone else. The segment is pure First Church acid—detailed, repetitive in the best and worst ways, and deliberately radioactive.
At roughly the twelve-minute mark the tone pivots hard. After a brief church interlude, Lorenzo moves into a quieter, heavier piece about the superpower question men ask each other. The usual answers (super speed, flight, telekinesis, x-ray vision) are run through quickly. His longtime answer was disapparition from the Harry Potter universe—the ability to appear anywhere he could clearly envision, including bank vaults and a particular coffee shop near the Vatican. Age has changed the answer. The superpower he now wants is the simple, devastating knowledge, in the moment, that he is in the presence of a person for the last time.
This leads into a series of personal stories delivered with unusual restraint. He recounts his grandmother’s final visit while dying of pancreatic cancer: the cross-country drive that hit every Red Lobster on the route (the height of opulence for a Depression-era woman), the size-six jeans she bought with the tags left on so everyone would know, and the exact words she spoke while holding his hands in his living room before walking out without looking back. He talks about his friend Corey, who struggled with addiction his entire life and eventually died from the long-term damage of heroin; if he had known it was the final conversation, he would have stopped talking about “broads” and tried to break through. He mentions Bridget, a sweet ex he never properly spoke to at the end. He talks about his grandfather on the other side of the family, who descended into anger and died of a heart attack in a nursing home. He remembers a man named David who simply vanished from his life after a girlfriend conflict. In each case the regret is the same: the things that went unsaid because no one knew the moment was final.
The bit ends with Lorenzo acknowledging that the episode has become a genuine downer—something that was never the plan when he sat down to record—but standing by the usefulness of the imagined superpower anyway. Clear conscience, no stone left unturned, the ability to say everything that needed saying while there was still time.
Timestamps
0:07 – Opening church call: “Brothers and sisters, center is insane…”
0:23 – Welcome to the First Church of Lorenzo
0:31 – “The only church that swears back”
0:42 – Cold open: “I’m done fucking with these Asians, man”
1:34 – Reference to the earlier Season 2 Asian bit
1:43 – YouTube Shorts habit and the algorithm’s usual content
2:34 – Discovery of the serene soy-sauce video
3:05 – Detailed recreation of the ancient soy-sauce process begins
7:43 – Fifteen minutes of staring at the wall; “I’m not fucking buying it”
9:16 – “It’s fucking racism” inversion
9:52 – Parallel Japanese traditional ink-making video
10:18 – Conspiracy theory: soy sauce invented in Hackensack by Procter & Gamble
11:52 – “Thirteen steps in six months to make soy sauce? Go fuck yourself!”
12:09 – “This is the First Church of Lorenzo”
12:16 – Transition into men’s conversations and the superpower question
14:00 – Former desired power: disapparition
15:28 – New desired power: knowing you are with someone for the last time
16:21 – Grandmother’s final visit, Red Lobster pilgrimage, size-six jeans, last words
19:28 – Friend Corey and the conversation that never happened
20:50 – Bridget
21:13 – Grandfather
21:58 – David and the “I’m a phone call away” speech that was never given
23:33 – Acknowledgment that the bit became a downer
23:57 – “So end of the reading of the heresies”
24:03 – Closing and website plug
Visit the site. Right now it’s still lorenzosucks.com. The domain churchoflorenzo.com has been purchased; the redirect just hasn’t been figured out yet. Tell seven people about the podcast.
Music Credits
Holst, Gustav. Mars, the Bringer of War. Performed by the United States Air Force Band.
Copland, Aaron. Fanfare for the Common Man. Performed by the United States Air Force Band.
Mentioned in this episode
- Music
- Books
- Places
- Links
- churchoflorenzo.com — domain purchased, redirect pending
Transcript
Auto-generated by speech recognition; may contain errors. Plain text · VTT
sisters, sinners and saints. Enter the sanctuary the doors are open. Welcome to the first
church of Lorenzo. It's- really not the way you want to start a fucking bit. I know, I know,
I know. But, okay, hear me out, hear me out. I've done a fucking bit on Asians before and
how we cut them way too much fucking slack and let them get away with shit that get a white
people or black people are pretty much any other nationality and or race of people or we would
never let white people get away with the shit that we, we let Asians get away with. Refer to
sometime back in season two, if you want to check out that episode. But one of my favorite things to
do in the evening is to sit and scroll through the YouTube shorts. I'm not a tech talk-tack guy and I,
but I do like to short form videos. So I find myself gravitating towards YouTube to get the short
form videos and most of the ones that pop up on my what do you call it? Timeline with most of the
ones that the algorithm suggests to me are that guy who like shoots bowling balls with larger
calibers of weapons until he finds one that'll go all the way through the bowling ball. You know what
I mean? That's the shit I see more often than not, but every fucking now and then the YouTube algorithm
throws me a curve ball while I was sitting there happily flipping through YouTube shorts, pausing at the
occasional video of the guy who plays the drums really fast with the fucking beard while smoking's smoking a彈.
And the guy who's shooting stuff with different caliber weapons. And I ran across this video of this
little Asian guy standing there with this very knowing serene smile looking at the fucking camera
and behind him was a very serene fucking scene with trees and tall grasses and shit, right? Like
leaves floating through the fucking air and the gentle fucking don't don't don't don't fucking music.
And what this guy was doing, and I don't remember the title of the video exactly, but it insinuated
that what he was going to do was show me how the ancients made soy sauce. So I paused the video,
settled back in my chair, grabbed my bottle of water, and got my mind ready to learn how ancient
Chinese people made soy sauce. Well he started out harvesting a bunch of soybeans and then the scene
cuts and he's got this giant wicker basket and he's carefully washing the newly harvested soybeans.
And then after he got done gently washing the soybeans in the clearest water you've
ever seen, he put them in a giant walk, a really big fucking walk, and then poured water all over
the top of them and gently heated them up until they changed color and then he dipped them out ever
so gently with the
most inefficient fucking tool you've ever seen and put them in another wicker basket where he then
lovingly dried them with a rice cloth or some shit and covered them with a bunch of leaves and
let them sit in the sun to dry. And then after an undisclosed amount of time he went back to the
soybeans and they had dried and they had changed color yet again and then he put them in this
weird stone open top box and added just a little bit of the clearest water you've ever seen.
And then with some kind of foot-powered mallet he ever so gently and with nothing but tender love
beat the fucking soybeans into a paste and then he scooped that paste out lovingly and carefully
with another of the most inefficient fucking tools you've ever seen and put the soybean paste into a
clay pot which looks like it had been in use for over a hundred years. Covered the clay pot with a
piece of clay and then wrapped it in some kind of weird paper and sealed it with wax. And then
that sat for an undisclosed amount of time but it seemed like it was a long time and then he cut
the fucking tape off and he removed the wax seal and he reached in with another tool that was
super fucking inefficient and he put it into a gigantic goddamn walk and then after all of the
paste was lovingly and carefully laid into the walk. He took some more of the clearest clearest water
you've ever seen and he added it to the paste and then he started the fire out of wood. It wasn't
gas or anything like that and it wasn't a click on the fucking flame situation. No he got some
tender and he made himself a beautiful fire underneath that walk and that soybean paste with the
clearest water you've ever seen cooked for an undisclosed amount of time until the water turned
this weird brownish greenish color and then he poured it into another clay pot which looks like
it had been in use for a hundred years and then he sealed it with his paper and this red wax and he
stamped some kind of fucking symbol in it. I don't know what it was because I don't read Chinese
and then he let that sit in a dark cool place for an undisclosed amount of time and we know it was
a long time because the video showed him walking aimlessly around his beautiful idyllic property
and sweeping stuff and making shit out of clay while he waited and then finally it's time it's been
long enough. The soy based mixture has fermented I'm assuming at this point and he cracks the wax seal
and he unwraps the brittle paper, takes the clay lid off the pot and looks down in the pot and then
looks knowingly at the camera with a small smile of satisfaction at a job well done and then this wise
and Asian gentleman went and got a buddy, a friend who we haven't seen yet to this point and they
left this clay pot and they take it over to a walk and on top of that walk is a wicker basket and in
the wicker basket are leaves in some kind of weird paper probably made out of fucking rice and then
they pour the mixture ever so gently and with the most serene looks of satisfaction on their faces
through the filtering mechanism that they've made and down into the walk and in the walk is a liquid
that is rich and absolutely amazing looking the highest quality soy sauce I think I've ever seen.
It is then portioned out into tiny glass bottles by hand, corked and sealed with a little bit of red wax.
The entire video was probably three minutes long and after the video was over I paused it and
just sat there and stared at the fucking wall for a good 15 minutes as I was trying to process
what I had just seen and finally after about 15 minutes I fucking snapped out of it and I literally
said out loud I'm not fucking buying it and then I you know flipped up and then flipped back down and
watched the video over again and the whole time I'm watching it this time I'm watching it with a
scrutinizing eye. I'm not fucking buying it I don't believe that that is how they fucking made soy
sauce back in ancient fucking China or Cambodia or wherever the hell this was I don't fucking believe
that it's
a little bit and then wash them again with really fucking clean water and then put them and then and then seal them in a giant clay pot
fucking let them sit for a while and then pull it out and cook them a little bit more or something and then seal them in a clay pot again for a long time but with more water
and then filter the liquid after you know an undetermined amount of time what we would be left with would be probably fucking delicious on rice.
There's no fucking way that that's it's preposterous to think that that's what they actually did but we just fucking believe
whatever that fuck the agents say because we're fucking stupid I said at the last fucking time I went on a rant about the
agents it is fucking racism it's not racism for me to sit here and tell you that the agents are fucking liars. No that's not racism that's the
fucking truth what's racism is that you watch the fucking video like that you watch the video of Mr. Chan making fucking soy sauce in 19 steps over the
course of six months and you were like huh well those agents man they're they were really innovating in 2000 BC bull shit bull shit I don't
fucking believe it I'm
who makes ink in Japan the traditional way the traditional way of making Japanese ink and it's just like the fucking
soy sauce 19 fucking steps over the course of the better part of two years and you end up with a little brick of
fucking ink fuck off nobody does that nobody does it nobody ever did it and they're such fucking liars I'm convinced now that
soy sauce was invented 60 years ago by fucking Kiko man or La Choy or some shit like that in hack and sack new Jersey
proctor and gamble accidentally came up with soy sauce or some shit and the agents were like yeah that shit's
pretty good it probably pretty good on fucking rice let's adopt it and then create some kind of fucking
detailed backstory to make it seem like we've been doing this for thousands of gears you motherfuckers I'm all over
it I'm on to you you bitches you can't fucking fool me again we got to stop letting these motherfuckers get over on us you got
to start looking at everything fucking agents say with a scrutinizing eye because I'm not buying any of that shit none of it none of
it's true but we just fucking accept it we just accept it is the truth because they're mystical in their fucking
serene and we just believe whatever they fucking tell us but we just fucking accept it without questioning
questioning we just we just buy their fucking lies because they happen to accidentally make gunpowder or
some shit in the fucking 1200s you see what I mean why are we buying it why do we blindly accept their
fucking lies we wouldn't accept that shit from germans or the fucking in you it or or anything like that
no but we accepted from those Asian motherfuckers man we accepted every fucking
fucking time 13 steps and six months to make soy sauce go fuck yourself I don't believe a fucking
word they say and you shouldn't either start looking at their shit with a scrutinizing eye and
you're gonna see all the fucking holes in the plot this is the first church of Lorenzo quite a
few times when women are getting together and conversing and they're talking about their fucking
lives and their children and their relationships and shit right it's much more entertaining to sit in
a group of men when they're conversing because men do this thing now they'll talk about baseball
stats or they'll argue over who the greatest of all time is whether it's Michael Jordan or LeBron James
they'll talk about movies and they'll talk about their fucking jobs and just stuff like that but
one of my favorite conversations that men have and not all men do this by the way and you have to be
like in a certain group of dudes to get this particular conversation but one of the conversations that
men have starts out with a simple question if you could have any superpower just one if you could
have any one superpower what would it be and why and it goes more often than not about how you would
imagine it would go somebody says I would like to have super speed because I want to be able to run
here and there and never have to fucking worry about traffic another guy says he'd like to be able to
fly for basically the same reason somebody always says telekinesis so they don't have to get their
fucking fat ass off the couch when they want another beer some
dude always says x ray vision so they can fucking check out women's bodies through their fucking
clothing and stuff like that I always thought that I would want to have the ability to
disapparate it's a Harry Potter universe thing you take out your fucking wand you envision where
you want to be specifically and you do the wand movement the incantation of whatever it is and
poof you're there instantaneously and I always thought that that would be fucking amazing because I
could you know envision the inside of a bank vault you know what I mean if I could get a look at it
I could envision it and then just fucking jump in there and get a bunch of money or something I always
thought that that would be kikas or there is a little coffee shop just down by the Vatican in Rome
that's the best fucking cappuccino and can always have ever fucking had in my life and I always
thought it'd be amazing to be able to take my wand out and envision the coffee shop and poof I'm there
I've always wanted to see Roslyn Chapel up there in is it Skyland or is it Wales I don't know but
I've always wanted to see Roslyn Chapel there I mean there's so many places I've always wanted to go
and if I could just disapparate and poof I'm there it would I mean how awesome would that be
that's what I always wanted and that's what I always said when it came my turn to engage
in that conversation now though I'm not so sure as I get older though I think I'm not so
sold on the idea of disapporation or anything else you know X-ray vision or any of that other
shit the older I get I think that I would want my one superpower to be the ability to know
in the moment that I am going to be in the presence of a person for the last time
think about that really fucking think about that superpower if you could have had all your life
some kind of miraculous awareness that would tell you that you are in the presence of this person
across from you for the last time and you're never going to see them again how different would those
interactions be for me it'd be a lot different and what got me really rolling on this train of
thought it's always
always kind of been sitting in the back of my mind very few times in my life have I ever known that I was
seeing someone for the last time my grandmother was dying of pancreatic cancer and once they got the
diagnosis that it was terminal and she didn't have very long to live my dad picked her up in his
truck and drove her out to the east coast where I was living at the time they stopped at every red
lobster on the way out there and subsequently on the way back she was a depression baby so going
to a restaurant was a was a real treat it was something that they just didn't do but red lobster
was the pinnacle in her mind of opulence and decadence there was nothing fancier in her mind
than red lobster and they hit every fucking red lobster on the way out to the east coast
and then every red lobster on the way back cancer had just eaten her body up she was rid of with cancer
and she'd lost a whole bunch of weight she never lost her hair oddly enough but she lost a whole
bunch of weight and before she left on that trip she went down to jacy pennies and she bought a bunch
of size six jeans and she made sure to leave the size tag on the leg of each pair of those jeans
so everyone would know that she was wearing size six jeans that happened but anyway that's just
fucking needless aside backstory the point of that and the reason that I think I would want to
shift my one superpower to the ability to know when I'm going to be in someone's presence for the last
time was when I was in her presence for the last time she was eaten up with cancer she had a terminal
diagnosis she only had a few weeks maybe a couple months to live and she chose to take a portion
of that time to come out to the east coast to visit me and we had a great visit we took her all
over the place and we did all the things and we ate it a couple red lobsters it was a really really
cool visit I'm very thankful for having that experience with her before she passed away but on the
morning that they were getting ready to leave we were standing in my living room and she held both
of my hands and she told me that she loved me and she was very proud of me and then she said something
that I will never fucking forget for the rest of my life she said this is the last time you're ever
going to see me and she gave me a hug and she gave me a kiss and she turned on her heel and walked out
the door didn't look back I think about that a lot so when it comes to choosing a hypothetical super
power I think I would like to have the ability to know in the moment that I am in the presence of
someone for the last time I don't need to know why I don't need clear avoidance or whatever the
fuck that power is I just need to know in the moment that I'm in their presence for the last time
because I've sat down and really thought about it and throughout the course of my life I've said
goodbye to so many people and I didn't realize that I was saying goodbye to them at the time
I remember my friend Corey I really liked Corey he and I had a special weird rapport we could go
months without talking to each other and then just fucking pick up like we like we never left off
he was a really really cool dude but he struggled with addiction his entire life
and if I had had the ability to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was never going to see him
again I would have sat down across from him and instead of drink in and fucking talking about
broads and all of the shit that we usually did I would have sat down across from him and really
addressed his addictions he ended up dying from long term use of heroin it wasn't an overdose it was
just his body just systematically shut down because of the abuse he had put it through and I don't
know that me sitting down across from him in that last exchange would have made any fucking
difference to be honest with you he was so eaten up with with fucking drugs of any kind I don't
know that it would have fucking mattered but I should have tried that's what I'm saying maybe
I could have gotten through to him maybe I could have figured out a way to get through to him and
make him see that the people in his life need him and he is just fucking fading away I think about
this chick that I used to date named Bridget she was such a sweet girl and you know the last time
I was in her fucking presence I didn't realize I was never going to see her again and I should have
pulled her into a side room at that fucking meeting and sat her down at a table and looked her in her
eyes and told her I think about my grandfather too on the other side of the family how if I would
have known that I was never going to see him again and over the course of the next three or four
years he was going to basically descend into madness and die of a heart attack in a nursing home
I would have sat down across from him and told him you are letting your anger absolutely rule your
life to the point where you can't even see the great things that are happening for you I think I
would want that to be my superpower the ability to know in the moment that I am with a person
for the last time god can you think how useful that would be how much change you could affect
I think about other people have known that just kind of faded away there was this guy that I
there was this guy that I knew named David and his girlfriend and I didn't get along in just one day
I never saw him again and I think I would I think I would sit down across from him if I had the
opportunity if I had the ability to know that I was never going to see him again I think I would have
sat him down and said what I do know for sure though is you and I are never going to see each other
again after today and I'm here to tell you and I want you to know right now I'm a phone call away
I'm a letter away drop a letter in the mail I'm an email away all you have to do is fucking call
or reach out if you need me and I'll be there whether we talk every day or whether we never speak
again after today I don't know maybe you die maybe I die maybe we have some big blow up
fight in the near future and we just never fucking speak to each other again but even if that's the
case if you ever it you ever need me I'm here I can put all that shit aside and I will come when
you call what a great fucking superpower in my opinion that maybe better than any other super
power am I going to get rich from it no but think about all the last conversations that you had
in your life not knowing that it was the last time you were ever going to see hear from or speak
to a person if you in that moment could know that this was it think of all the things that you would
say you would leave no stone unturned you would tell them everything you've ever wanted them to know
and you could at least walk away then with a clear conscience knowing that you've done everything
that you could do I don't know this bit this bit turned out to be a real fucking downer and I'm sorry
about that that's never my intention when I sit down to record an episode that's really been weighing
heavily on my mind lately and I thought what an interesting fucking topic what a what a cool line
of thought and something neat to talk about so into the rating of the overseas thank you for joining
me for this episode of the first church of Lorenzo visit my fucking website I kind of like it and I
think you will too it is Lorenzo sucks calm I actually bought the domain for church of Lorenzo
dot com but I've forgotten how to fucking change the don't change the fucking domain so for right
now it's Lorenzo sucks dot com go on check out the website tell seven people about the podcast
all right until next time
the offering commences tell a friend you sermon to arrive spirit new the first church of Lorenzo go forth
and sin boldly