Re:Building Together EP 290 — Wayback Wednesday: Coffee, Back Pain & Gratitude

Host: CEELOS (@CEELOSFIGG) · Wed, 12 Aug 2026 · 1:08:46 · ~5 speakers

TL;DR

• A Wayback Wednesday that never really touched crypto — instead it turned into a warm, hour-long conversation about coffee, chronic back pain, family, and faith.
• CEELOS (a 23-year coffee roaster) and Bored Osaka (a longtime Seattle café owner now building a coffee brand off his board ape IP) traded origin stories and industry philosophy.
• Recurring theme: gratitude, humility, and being your genuine self rather than "actors on the internet."
• The Space opened in tech chaos — co-host invites kept muting people — before settling in.
• SLICK RIC closed the show with a prayer; co-host Baked was in and out, fighting a cold.

Highlights

The Space claws its way back online [7:38] — After a rocky start where accepting co-host kept muting everyone, Bored Osaka summed up the relief: "Thought the space was rugged for a minute there." Baked confirmed the culprit — "Every time I accepted co-host, everything would go mute" [8:00] — before Slick finally slid in "like swimming" and got the show properly started.

Back-rub, buyer beware [10:20] — CEELOS opened with a hard-won PSA on couples and back rubs: nine times out of ten it's fine to say yes, but that one time someone "twisted you in a way you weren't ready for" and you wake up walking around "like a stiff old man — even though I'm young, goddammit." The room ran with the aging-skateboarder energy; Slick's counter was simple: "Yoga's the truth."

"Mama ain't raised no chump" [13:13] — CEELOS noted he still had a building inspection looming on a bad back, but shrugged it off — his mom's in her 60s and still working without complaint, so what's he got to complain about? Bored built on the back-pain bit with a clean one-liner: he'll never be like Kanye and buy a chain that gives him back pain.

The Die Hard building [19:36] — CEELOS's favorite coffee-origin story: at 21 he took a barista gig in the old Nakatomi Plaza building mostly because "this is where they film Die Hard." He didn't realize his girlfriend's dad — who bear-hugged him behind the bar — was the number-two guy in the building, until security started asking questions.

"A little bit of Jesus in every cup" [25:00 area] — Both hosts got sincere about why the job mattered: memorizing regulars' drinks so they'd walk in to zero wait, and then visiting the farm and locking eyes with the workers and their kids, which changed CEELOS's respect for the product entirely. His teaching credo: "I can teach you how to do this. I cannot teach you how to care" [27:33].

Grandfather, revealed [34:26] — toomazingTM dropped by on his lunch break (water only — "no coffee, bro"), which led CEELOS to the story of learning, 15 years into roasting, that his grandfather — whom he's named after — had roasted coffee in El Salvador before the civil war. He described watching his uncle become five years old for a split second while remembering it.

Humility over approval [46:26] — Slick reflected on being a "young immature punk with no guidance" who wasted time chasing others' approval when the approval that mattered was God's, capped by his soda-bottle metaphor for bottling up emotion: shake it, pop the top, and "you're gonna explode."

Closing gratitude and a prayer [1:05:00] — CEELOS asked listeners to just stop and listen to the air — "do you know how many people that are no longer here wish they could do that one more time?" — before Bored, Slick, and CEELOS wound things down and Slick led a closing prayer over everyone's "coffee, families, and the smallest things people overlook" [1:07:01].

Topic timeline

Notable quotes

• "Coffee is like the mob — you can't get out. I've tried to get out, and I just got pulled back in." — Bored Osaka [21:06]
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  0:38
• "I can teach you how to do this. I cannot teach you how to care. That part has to come from within." — CEELOS [27:33]
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  0:38
• "You shake that soda bottle up and you pop that top, what happens? You're gonna explode. And that's us." — SLICK RIC [49:17]
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  0:38
• "Time is not the most valuable thing we have. How we spend that time and who we choose to spend that time with — that's the most valuable thing." — Bored Osaka [58:40]
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  0:38
• "Bake bakes in Florida, bro. It's like the whole state's a sauna." — CEELOS [1:06:18]
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  0:38
• "Go out there and have a fucking beautiful day. We're all amazing creatures — let's show this world what we got." — CEELOS [1:08:03]
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  0:38

Who said what

• CEELOS (@CEELOSFIGG) — Host and a 23-year coffee roaster; carried the show with stories on back pain, family, his El Salvador roots, and staying genuinely himself.
• Bored Osaka (@BoredOsaka1) — Seattle café veteran (17 years, now closed) building a new coffee brand off his board ape IP; the room's philosopher on gratitude, faith, and service.
• SLICK RIC (@richj530) — Hyped the intro, spoke on humility and putting pride aside, and closed with the prayer.
• toomazingTM (@TooMazing265) — Dropped in on a lunch break to rep team water over coffee.
• Baked (@Bakedmetax) — Co-host fighting both X's co-host bug and a cold; "50/50," and on the receiving end of everyone's home remedies.

Worth a full listen

• [19:36]–[26:00] — The Die Hard building story rolling straight into why being a barista was, for both hosts, "the best job in the world." The affection for the craft doesn't compress well.
• [46:26]–[53:00] — CEELOS, Slick, and Bored on ego, humility, and "wasted time" that wasn't wasted. A genuinely moving stretch of three men encouraging each other.
• [1:05:00]–[1:08:46] — The gratitude wind-down, sauna prescriptions for poor Baked, and Slick's closing prayer — the emotional payoff of the whole hour.