WEBVTT 00:00:04.750 --> 00:00:07.990 Alright, we're back. This is an episode that 00:00:07.990 --> 00:00:11.230 Eli was not on. I had to work. But he's here 00:00:11.230 --> 00:00:15.609 on the intro, so if you're gonna miss him. You 00:00:15.609 --> 00:00:17.730 know, whenever you're not here we get thousands 00:00:17.730 --> 00:00:21.329 of messages. Yeah, I know. People are just like, 00:00:21.350 --> 00:00:26.230 oh my god. What? He's the glue. He's the glue 00:00:26.230 --> 00:00:29.350 when there's a former addict. I need some mumbling 00:00:29.350 --> 00:00:34.509 occasionally. Yeah, before we talk about this 00:00:34.509 --> 00:00:40.070 episode a little bit, we have a store opening 00:00:40.070 --> 00:00:44.130 event on September 12th. Oh, fun. We'll be open 00:00:44.130 --> 00:00:49.770 all day, but at 5 o 'clock, we'll have... There's 00:00:49.770 --> 00:00:53.609 a place here that is not alcohol bars, so it's 00:00:53.609 --> 00:00:56.009 like Kreatum and Cava and shit like that. Oh, 00:00:56.009 --> 00:00:57.530 that's right. It's called the Green Door. They'll 00:00:57.530 --> 00:01:02.140 be here. We have Jay Skaggs playing music. We'll 00:01:02.140 --> 00:01:04.040 be doing our... And that's, of course, Ricky 00:01:04.040 --> 00:01:06.359 Skaggs' little brother. Yes, that's true. Don't 00:01:06.359 --> 00:01:12.540 look it up. And we'll have... What are we having? 00:01:13.099 --> 00:01:15.060 The Shovelhead giveaway will be drawing that 00:01:15.060 --> 00:01:19.459 night. And we'll have various other, you know... 00:01:19.459 --> 00:01:21.760 I think we'll have some kind of raffle. Entertainment. 00:01:22.019 --> 00:01:24.280 Fun. Good stuff. But come by, check that out. 00:01:24.739 --> 00:01:25.939 If you haven't been to our new store, it'd be 00:01:25.939 --> 00:01:27.739 a good time to do it. You can come sooner, too. 00:01:28.859 --> 00:01:31.299 It's on, you know, it's on every map. We're in 00:01:31.299 --> 00:01:35.319 Covington, Kentucky, 525 Main Street. Let's see. 00:01:35.319 --> 00:01:37.579 It's in the Mainstross Village. Yeah. It's very 00:01:37.579 --> 00:01:40.859 nice. There's no meters. That's a fun fact for 00:01:40.859 --> 00:01:45.239 you. Oh, there you go. What else is there? So, 00:01:46.040 --> 00:01:47.519 do we have any recommendations? I don't know, 00:01:47.519 --> 00:01:49.299 we just talked for an hour on a different podcast, 00:01:49.379 --> 00:01:51.439 and as always, it's hard to keep talking. Oh, 00:01:51.439 --> 00:01:53.659 I think people should read The Nerdrike by Gil 00:01:53.659 --> 00:01:56.260 Duran. Okay, that's your recommendation? Yeah, 00:01:56.260 --> 00:02:00.489 it's about the... Silicon Valley's connection 00:02:00.489 --> 00:02:05.469 to, well, everything you see today. And how involved 00:02:05.469 --> 00:02:09.289 they are behind the scenes in, again, everything 00:02:09.289 --> 00:02:12.610 you see today. They have a lot of control. Peter 00:02:12.610 --> 00:02:15.090 Thiel is kind of a mastermind Bond villain. Peter 00:02:15.090 --> 00:02:18.310 Thiel's a bad guy. And not in like that cool 00:02:18.310 --> 00:02:22.009 way, like I kind of respect Alan Dulles. I just 00:02:22.009 --> 00:02:24.830 hate Peter Thiel. These guys are such narcissistic 00:02:24.830 --> 00:02:28.469 assholes. Let's see. What recommendation do I... 00:02:28.469 --> 00:02:33.250 Oh! Nirvana the band, the show, the movie. Watch 00:02:33.250 --> 00:02:36.069 that. I don't even... I don't know why I would. 00:02:36.409 --> 00:02:39.590 It's very good. It's not about Nirvana. Okay. 00:02:41.009 --> 00:02:44.849 It's a Canadian TV show about a band called Nirvana. 00:02:45.469 --> 00:02:48.990 The band. Which is not Nirvana. Nirvana the band 00:02:48.990 --> 00:02:50.789 is the name of the band. Yes. And they're trying 00:02:50.789 --> 00:02:53.270 to get booked consistently at this one venue. 00:02:54.949 --> 00:02:57.090 There's just different plans about how to do 00:02:57.090 --> 00:02:59.830 it. Is this a Christopher Guest thing? No, it's 00:02:59.830 --> 00:03:02.849 very funny though in this movie Like they go 00:03:02.849 --> 00:03:07.090 back in time to 2008 at one point It's confusing 00:03:07.090 --> 00:03:10.430 how they shot a vast majority of this movie in 00:03:10.430 --> 00:03:14.469 all honesty like skydiving into the Blue Jays 00:03:14.469 --> 00:03:16.610 Stadium and shit like I don't know how they shot 00:03:16.610 --> 00:03:19.830 most of this stuff interesting But it's very 00:03:19.830 --> 00:03:22.610 funny. Okay, I would definitely recommend it. 00:03:22.610 --> 00:03:26.509 It's a good time Other than that this is an episode 00:03:26.509 --> 00:03:31.969 with Nick shoulders real name That was my next 00:03:31.969 --> 00:03:36.469 question yes real name You know cuz you're like 00:03:36.469 --> 00:03:40.969 that has to be a bit mm -hmm not a bit He's a 00:03:40.969 --> 00:03:43.250 musician from Arkansas the second musician from 00:03:43.250 --> 00:03:45.310 Arkansas. We've had that's right Dylan Earl They 00:03:45.310 --> 00:03:47.610 live down the street from each other. Oh, not 00:03:47.610 --> 00:03:55.319 a big state Yeah, so I talked to him about a 00:03:55.319 --> 00:03:57.439 lot of stuff, very little of it was music. Did 00:03:57.439 --> 00:03:59.240 you talk about Charles Manson? I talked a little 00:03:59.240 --> 00:04:00.879 bit about Charles Manson, yes. I knew you would. 00:04:01.919 --> 00:04:04.139 I learned some very interesting things about 00:04:04.139 --> 00:04:08.280 Arkansas and how it came to be the way that it 00:04:08.280 --> 00:04:11.139 is. Well, yeah, we did that. If we've learned 00:04:11.139 --> 00:04:12.819 anything from people from Arkansas, it's like 00:04:12.819 --> 00:04:16.220 we're going to learn about Arkansas. We also 00:04:16.220 --> 00:04:23.339 talked about... you know, mining atrocities, 00:04:23.560 --> 00:04:28.259 big corporations, various things along those 00:04:28.259 --> 00:04:31.339 lines, and a little bit about music, but it's 00:04:31.339 --> 00:04:33.540 nice to talk to you. It doesn't always have to 00:04:33.540 --> 00:04:36.379 be. It doesn't have to be. I thought it went 00:04:36.379 --> 00:04:40.959 in good places. But he has two records that are 00:04:40.959 --> 00:04:43.240 going to be coming out in the next year, so be 00:04:43.240 --> 00:04:47.079 on the lookout for that. I like them. This is 00:04:47.079 --> 00:04:49.569 a fun one for me. Yeah, I hate missing one of 00:04:49.569 --> 00:04:53.889 the music I'm familiar with. Yeah. But yeah, 00:04:53.930 --> 00:04:57.290 this is me and me alone doing a very good job 00:04:57.290 --> 00:04:59.329 doing a great job of talking the next shoulders. 00:05:00.310 --> 00:05:13.389 Enjoy. You know, Dylan Earl. Yeah, yeah, he's 00:05:13.389 --> 00:05:15.509 my neighbor. Yeah, like I can literally hear 00:05:15.509 --> 00:05:17.439 him mow the lawn up the way. Sick, we've had 00:05:17.439 --> 00:05:19.220 him on the show as well from that house. Yeah, 00:05:19.220 --> 00:05:21.899 I saw that. Johnny Fritz, Cassie Belaza, I saw 00:05:21.899 --> 00:05:23.600 a bunch of my friends on the roster and I was 00:05:23.600 --> 00:05:26.519 like, sweet, I'm in good company. Yeah, I figure 00:05:26.519 --> 00:05:30.720 we, you know, once you get people in a certain 00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:33.680 field, it's easier to keep getting further people 00:05:33.680 --> 00:05:36.560 in that field, you know, because you see it and 00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:38.529 you're like, well, I know all of them. And they 00:05:38.529 --> 00:05:40.649 keep doing it. So these people probably don't 00:05:40.649 --> 00:05:43.589 suck. You know? Yeah, I mean, that that's my 00:05:43.589 --> 00:05:45.529 vetting process is I typically just like scan 00:05:45.529 --> 00:05:47.670 the episodes. And if it's like people that I 00:05:47.670 --> 00:05:50.310 either know or like respect or give a shit about 00:05:50.310 --> 00:05:52.189 in any capacity, I'm like, sweet, that's a safe 00:05:52.189 --> 00:05:54.810 podcast to be on that. Yeah. And I mean, you 00:05:54.810 --> 00:05:59.029 know, we we're working on that now with comedians 00:05:59.029 --> 00:06:02.829 and actors. That's my next one. My entire goal 00:06:02.829 --> 00:06:05.990 is I want to get like everyone from Saturday 00:06:05.990 --> 00:06:10.540 Night Live. Sick. Well, what's that old adage? 00:06:10.540 --> 00:06:12.459 It's like all comedians want to be musicians, 00:06:12.620 --> 00:06:14.240 all musicians want to be comedians or something. 00:06:14.439 --> 00:06:18.259 And I will say I've learned a bit from just like 00:06:18.259 --> 00:06:20.100 knowing a couple of comedians and watching people 00:06:20.100 --> 00:06:22.519 who do comedy in terms of like crowd work and 00:06:22.519 --> 00:06:24.259 banter and stuff. And I'm like, oh, that is a 00:06:24.259 --> 00:06:26.339 whole art. Like you kind of have to like if you 00:06:26.339 --> 00:06:28.439 have a good idea, like write it down, like, you 00:06:28.439 --> 00:06:31.560 know, treat treat stagecraft like song craft. 00:06:31.620 --> 00:06:33.959 And it ends up being a lot more fun because otherwise 00:06:33.959 --> 00:06:36.670 tour is just sort of like. Playing your songs, 00:06:36.689 --> 00:06:39.110 which I don't know I could do that at home. Yeah, 00:06:39.110 --> 00:06:44.410 I mean like I saw John Mulaney recently And like 00:06:44.410 --> 00:06:47.209 watching him on stage for two and a half hours 00:06:47.209 --> 00:06:50.769 while he's just working shit out Was astounding 00:06:50.769 --> 00:06:53.529 cuz like he was clearly making stuff up and then 00:06:53.529 --> 00:06:55.550 remembering the reference in an hour and a half 00:06:55.550 --> 00:06:58.730 later You know like this guy is like the best 00:06:58.730 --> 00:07:01.269 at this, you know, but uh, yeah truly. It's a 00:07:01.269 --> 00:07:04.889 craft it is and I mean Musicians and comedians 00:07:04.889 --> 00:07:07.310 I find are also easier to get because you're 00:07:07.310 --> 00:07:10.509 always promoting something. You're always either 00:07:10.509 --> 00:07:13.189 touring or like, please listen to X, Y, and Z. 00:07:14.009 --> 00:07:18.009 But I mean, it's a very similar kind of field 00:07:18.009 --> 00:07:19.870 where you got to go out and hit the road and 00:07:19.870 --> 00:07:22.709 make people come see you and like you and then 00:07:22.709 --> 00:07:24.730 go watch your special or listen to your album. 00:07:25.610 --> 00:07:28.829 But you guys get to tour with a band and like 00:07:28.829 --> 00:07:31.860 a lot of these dudes are just alone. Yeah, and 00:07:31.860 --> 00:07:33.839 having a little window into that too. I think 00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:36.279 one of the things and not that it's like a contest 00:07:36.279 --> 00:07:39.259 or there's any like Reason to to delineate like 00:07:39.259 --> 00:07:41.339 who's working harder or something, but I will 00:07:41.339 --> 00:07:46.199 say the music There's an athleticism aspect to 00:07:46.199 --> 00:07:49.000 it where we have to load gear We have to like, 00:07:49.120 --> 00:07:52.160 you know pick up big amps and like merch bins 00:07:52.160 --> 00:07:55.160 and all that that whole song and dance so like 00:07:55.209 --> 00:07:58.009 You're in the van for five hours and you're just 00:07:58.009 --> 00:08:00.170 atrophying sitting still and then you hop out 00:08:00.170 --> 00:08:01.970 and immediately you're doing heavy lifting and 00:08:01.970 --> 00:08:03.709 load this thing and then immediately you sing 00:08:03.709 --> 00:08:05.870 songs and like soundcheck and get that whole 00:08:05.870 --> 00:08:09.529 bit over with. So like from about waking up until 00:08:09.529 --> 00:08:12.470 the show is over, you have perhaps 45 minutes 00:08:12.470 --> 00:08:14.910 to an hour where you're like not in the van and 00:08:14.910 --> 00:08:18.170 have some free time. So like I try to tell people 00:08:18.170 --> 00:08:20.970 like we're not artists on the road. I'm a visual 00:08:20.970 --> 00:08:23.350 artist. I do all my own merch and album art and 00:08:23.350 --> 00:08:26.259 stuff like that. Yeah. And I know what creativity 00:08:26.259 --> 00:08:28.779 is. Tour is not creativity. That's just pure 00:08:28.779 --> 00:08:31.759 brutal athleticism because it's hard. It's physically 00:08:31.759 --> 00:08:34.799 very difficult. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't do it 00:08:34.799 --> 00:08:38.220 like there's not a part of my personality that 00:08:38.220 --> 00:08:41.159 would be interested in going to bed at three 00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:44.179 in the morning and then driving for a very long 00:08:44.179 --> 00:08:48.299 time. Well, I'm a grandpa. Like I my body naturally 00:08:48.299 --> 00:08:51.019 wants to be in bed at 10 at 10 p .m. and awake 00:08:51.019 --> 00:08:55.080 at like 650. So when it's 2am and I'm finally 00:08:55.080 --> 00:08:59.039 in bed from a show well tough shit like my body 00:08:59.039 --> 00:09:01.759 wakes me up at at 750 or something and I'm just 00:09:01.759 --> 00:09:05.580 like oh cool I'm off sleep instantly uh and also 00:09:05.580 --> 00:09:09.419 like in the new reality where things are just 00:09:09.419 --> 00:09:13.009 warmer like playing shows I just wring myself 00:09:13.009 --> 00:09:15.950 out like I get so dehydrated playing a show and 00:09:15.950 --> 00:09:18.149 I just can't catch up so like on this last western 00:09:18.149 --> 00:09:20.929 tour it was so dry it was so hot and we're all 00:09:20.929 --> 00:09:23.289 just like god what's like why do we just feel 00:09:23.289 --> 00:09:25.070 awful and it's like oh because we're constantly 00:09:25.070 --> 00:09:27.750 dehydrated yeah because there's nothing in there 00:09:27.750 --> 00:09:31.889 yeah no there's nothing to draw on uh so let's 00:09:31.889 --> 00:09:35.529 go back you're were you born arkansas born raised 00:09:35.529 --> 00:09:38.009 bread and butter does they say oh god the only 00:09:39.110 --> 00:09:41.649 I like Arkansas. I've been there exactly one 00:09:41.649 --> 00:09:45.509 time It was it was on me and my wife's honeymoon. 00:09:45.509 --> 00:09:47.409 We drove across the country north and then came 00:09:47.409 --> 00:09:51.769 back south And we went from Austin to Little 00:09:51.769 --> 00:09:55.870 Rock and we fucking hated Austin Had like because 00:09:55.870 --> 00:09:57.590 like everyone's like Austin is the coolest. It's 00:09:57.590 --> 00:09:59.909 so weird and we get them We're like, isn't that 00:09:59.909 --> 00:10:03.250 weird? This is a moment, you know, I saw Austin 00:10:03.250 --> 00:10:05.409 back in the day and I will say yeah I think a 00:10:05.409 --> 00:10:07.070 lot of people are disappointed for yeah, cuz 00:10:07.070 --> 00:10:11.090 this was good 22 You know, yeah, it was long. 00:10:11.370 --> 00:10:13.870 Not the thing it was. But then we went to Little 00:10:13.870 --> 00:10:16.070 Rock and I was like, Little Rock's kind of awesome. 00:10:16.370 --> 00:10:20.090 Little Rock's dope. It's a real city. Yeah. But 00:10:20.090 --> 00:10:25.610 like it's it was really calm as well. I mean, 00:10:25.610 --> 00:10:26.990 I've seen a lot of stuff since then. They're 00:10:26.990 --> 00:10:29.149 like the crime statistics are terrible. But like, 00:10:29.190 --> 00:10:31.690 I don't know. It didn't feel bad. Banging in 00:10:31.690 --> 00:10:33.649 the rock. Yeah, it's it's like one of the most 00:10:33.649 --> 00:10:36.990 dangerous cities per capita in the country. But 00:10:36.990 --> 00:10:39.419 like You know, what does that actually mean on 00:10:39.419 --> 00:10:42.419 the ground? Not a lot. I'm originally from outside 00:10:42.419 --> 00:10:43.840 of Little Rock. Like we lived out in the sticks 00:10:43.840 --> 00:10:47.019 near Roland. And so like going to town was going 00:10:47.019 --> 00:10:50.240 to Little Rock. And I don't know. It always just 00:10:50.240 --> 00:10:55.899 felt like to do to do kind of a sleepy, not particularly 00:10:55.899 --> 00:10:58.399 dense metropolitan area. And like that was my 00:10:58.399 --> 00:11:00.659 impression of a city. And then I like. Started 00:11:00.659 --> 00:11:02.559 traveling in my teens and 20s and I was like, 00:11:02.559 --> 00:11:04.960 oh my god. I'm a bumpkin like if that's my standard 00:11:04.960 --> 00:11:08.039 for a metropolitan area I am not fit for this 00:11:08.039 --> 00:11:12.379 world Scary and disappointing the downtown is 00:11:12.379 --> 00:11:16.679 like five to eight blocks Three three reasonably 00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:19.320 tall buildings and I mean that's the thing is 00:11:19.320 --> 00:11:22.639 like Arkansas For better or worse. I think for 00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:25.799 better doesn't have any like core industry, you 00:11:25.799 --> 00:11:27.960 know, there's like no thing that drew people 00:11:27.960 --> 00:11:30.720 here. Yeah Um, so like Little Rock exists cause 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:33.559 that was an old French trading post and like 00:11:33.559 --> 00:11:36.379 there was a mound site with probably like a giant 00:11:36.379 --> 00:11:39.120 indigenous community that was there like pre 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:41.580 -contact next door. So it's like, it's just at 00:11:41.580 --> 00:11:43.519 this place in the state where the mountains and 00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:45.919 the Delta meet. So like all the major rivers 00:11:45.919 --> 00:11:48.639 cross there. So it's just kind of like by happenstance, 00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:50.539 that's the most geographically convenient place 00:11:50.539 --> 00:11:53.200 for a large city in the state, but there's nothing 00:11:53.200 --> 00:11:55.950 like. drawing people there necessarily. So like 00:11:55.950 --> 00:11:58.750 having Cincinnati is very similar because we're 00:11:58.750 --> 00:12:01.649 right on the Ohio, right? Right. So like, because 00:12:01.649 --> 00:12:03.529 our store is in Covington, Kentucky, which is 00:12:03.529 --> 00:12:06.509 basically Cincinnati to cross the river. I like 00:12:06.509 --> 00:12:09.429 that whole Newport Covington situation. Yeah, 00:12:09.529 --> 00:12:11.470 we played a couple shows Newport and I love it. 00:12:11.629 --> 00:12:13.970 At Southgate, I imagine. Yeah, that was great. 00:12:14.330 --> 00:12:16.610 Everyone that we talked to has played at Southgate. 00:12:17.519 --> 00:12:20.080 It's it's a it's a great venue and it's the last 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:23.320 locally owned independent venue in the in the 00:12:23.320 --> 00:12:26.399 city. So, you know, there was one that was in 00:12:26.399 --> 00:12:28.519 Covington Madison Theater that just something 00:12:28.519 --> 00:12:31.080 weird happened and now it's up for sale or something. 00:12:31.200 --> 00:12:33.879 I don't know. Bummer. Yeah. Graham Nash was going 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:36.080 to play there. I was like, no kidding. That'd 00:12:36.080 --> 00:12:38.899 be cool. You know, it's not a big place. And 00:12:38.899 --> 00:12:41.279 then it closed. So I didn't get to see Graham 00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:45.919 Nash. But yeah, I mean, it's always odd because. 00:12:46.640 --> 00:12:49.679 Cincinnati is like I said similar where it came 00:12:49.679 --> 00:12:51.980 from just being a place where other stuff came 00:12:51.980 --> 00:12:55.460 and left Mm -hmm, you know, and then it was just 00:12:55.460 --> 00:12:58.419 very very German and it still is like if you 00:12:58.419 --> 00:13:01.059 come around to you see the architecture that's 00:13:01.059 --> 00:13:04.899 incredibly old and German that that tracks I 00:13:04.899 --> 00:13:08.700 remember being like I've always gotten this interesting 00:13:08.700 --> 00:13:10.580 impression where it kind of reminds me of St. 00:13:10.740 --> 00:13:12.799 Louis with all the brickwork and like the low 00:13:12.799 --> 00:13:14.679 buildings and stuff. And I'm like, oh, of course, 00:13:14.700 --> 00:13:16.679 because that's like, that's the difference between 00:13:16.679 --> 00:13:18.799 like the south and basically the whole middle 00:13:18.799 --> 00:13:23.379 of the country is like, very little German Scandinavian, 00:13:23.580 --> 00:13:25.779 like Northern European influence on this side 00:13:25.779 --> 00:13:27.720 of things. So it's like kind of the classic, 00:13:27.840 --> 00:13:30.799 like Celtic West Africa, indigenous America that 00:13:30.799 --> 00:13:33.620 makes southernness so cool. And then I go just 00:13:33.620 --> 00:13:35.679 a little bit north and like, oh, that's where 00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:38.529 the like, the definite demographic boundary of 00:13:38.529 --> 00:13:40.529 the Midwest is is like where there's more Germans. 00:13:40.789 --> 00:13:43.210 Yeah, we're like, you know, there's neighborhoods 00:13:43.210 --> 00:13:45.909 that are still named things I can't fully pronounce, 00:13:47.269 --> 00:13:50.529 you know. But people are just a little less pink, 00:13:50.570 --> 00:13:53.389 you know. Yeah, I go up there and like, oh, the 00:13:53.389 --> 00:13:56.049 white folks are like, more like Northern European 00:13:56.049 --> 00:13:57.830 looking like that's just kind of like going to 00:13:57.830 --> 00:14:00.610 Kansas City, which I do a lot. I like end up 00:14:00.610 --> 00:14:02.169 seeing where I'm just like, oh, there is this 00:14:02.169 --> 00:14:04.570 like market demographic shift just going like 00:14:04.570 --> 00:14:06.940 three and a half hours north. Yeah, it's it's 00:14:06.940 --> 00:14:10.460 interesting. I mean, I grew up in DC, which is 00:14:10.460 --> 00:14:12.399 nobody is from there. And there's not like a 00:14:12.399 --> 00:14:14.700 vibe to the people that are there. You know, 00:14:14.820 --> 00:14:17.740 the only bizarre, it's the weirdest, like the 00:14:17.740 --> 00:14:21.259 only real thing about DC is like, if you go over 00:14:21.259 --> 00:14:24.740 to like, southeast or southwest, and it's like, 00:14:25.139 --> 00:14:27.279 all of the black population, because that city 00:14:27.279 --> 00:14:31.759 up until, I don't know, like, 2010 was called 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:34.379 chocolate city, you know, because of it was like, 00:14:34.429 --> 00:14:39.750 85 % black and now it is not And all yeah, that's 00:14:39.750 --> 00:14:42.850 you know everything as I grew up I watched you 00:14:42.850 --> 00:14:46.350 know things push out 16th Street getting progressively 00:14:46.350 --> 00:14:48.710 gentrified gentrified gentrified you're losing 00:14:48.710 --> 00:14:51.169 all the churches that people dress up real fancy 00:14:51.169 --> 00:14:53.710 on Sunday morning, you know, and it was move 00:14:53.710 --> 00:14:56.549 out and now they're out and you know, Annandale 00:14:56.549 --> 00:14:59.870 Maryland or some shit But like that's it. I didn't 00:14:59.870 --> 00:15:02.429 grow up with any vibe of really anything, you 00:15:02.429 --> 00:15:06.509 know Everyone would come and go so being in a 00:15:06.509 --> 00:15:09.110 place where families have been for a hundred 00:15:09.110 --> 00:15:12.429 two hundred years is very odd Right, you know, 00:15:13.090 --> 00:15:14.789 I have that conversation with a lot of folks 00:15:14.789 --> 00:15:19.309 cuz like yeah, I didn't leave Arkansas with any 00:15:19.309 --> 00:15:23.909 like Any sustained permanence or any like link 00:15:23.909 --> 00:15:26.210 the time in like a meaningful way until my mid 00:15:26.210 --> 00:15:29.629 -20s and at that point I started realizing how 00:15:29.629 --> 00:15:32.759 unique and strange it is that like the majority 00:15:32.759 --> 00:15:36.519 of people I grew up with, like be they like black, 00:15:36.519 --> 00:15:39.019 white, Cherokee, whoever, like had roots here 00:15:39.019 --> 00:15:41.080 before the Civil War, my family included, you 00:15:41.080 --> 00:15:42.820 know. And then you start going elsewhere and 00:15:42.820 --> 00:15:45.720 you're like, oh, wow. Like most of this is very 00:15:45.720 --> 00:15:47.539 new. Like I'm just kind of from like one of those 00:15:47.539 --> 00:15:50.320 unique parts of the country where like people 00:15:50.320 --> 00:15:54.080 couldn't leave because of like economic limiting 00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:55.500 factors, you know, or if they did, they were 00:15:55.500 --> 00:15:58.879 basically fleeing. So like it's interesting to. 00:15:59.470 --> 00:16:01.970 to have the conversation with folks who are from 00:16:01.970 --> 00:16:03.929 the rest of the country that feels very transplant 00:16:03.929 --> 00:16:07.470 oriented, very fluid, very melting pot, if you 00:16:07.470 --> 00:16:09.690 will. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I'm from the 00:16:09.690 --> 00:16:12.570 back burner. Like, not not much was like this 00:16:12.570 --> 00:16:14.789 is, you know, like the county I grew up in was 00:16:14.789 --> 00:16:16.809 half black, you know, I'm 30 minutes from the 00:16:16.809 --> 00:16:20.789 Cherokee Nation where I live now. But that diversity. 00:16:21.299 --> 00:16:23.740 Is the type of diversity but everybody's like 00:16:23.740 --> 00:16:25.539 Protestant Christian everybody's been here a 00:16:25.539 --> 00:16:27.879 long time like so there's there's a variety of 00:16:27.879 --> 00:16:29.980 of like definite diversity to the south that 00:16:29.980 --> 00:16:32.080 I think is really important and like I think 00:16:32.080 --> 00:16:33.960 if the rest of country knew that the south was 00:16:33.960 --> 00:16:36.960 half black and like had the largest tribal nation 00:16:36.960 --> 00:16:38.759 by enrollment in the country like people would 00:16:38.759 --> 00:16:41.360 conceive of the south differently but. Yeah, 00:16:41.360 --> 00:16:43.840 I really when you go to like the Eastern Metropole 00:16:43.840 --> 00:16:45.899 I was just shocked or I was like this is what 00:16:45.899 --> 00:16:48.360 actual diversity is where it's like You have 00:16:48.360 --> 00:16:50.320 people from all over the world who are first 00:16:50.320 --> 00:16:52.080 or second generation that are intermingling. 00:16:52.139 --> 00:16:54.440 I'm like, that's that's an experience I don't 00:16:54.440 --> 00:16:56.840 I I did not have as part of like my formative 00:16:56.840 --> 00:17:01.039 years Yeah, it's you know, I mean DC sadly like 00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:03.480 we had a Chinatown and now it's a block and a 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:05.759 half with signs that are in Chinese on a Panera 00:17:05.759 --> 00:17:11.539 bread so you know like It really has been It 00:17:11.539 --> 00:17:15.660 almost entirely just yuppie fide. Yeah, but fide, 00:17:15.740 --> 00:17:17.440 which is a bummer because every venue I used 00:17:17.440 --> 00:17:19.640 to go to all the punk venues They're all gone. 00:17:19.819 --> 00:17:21.799 I was gonna say and so many good punk bands from 00:17:21.799 --> 00:17:24.000 that region Like you know, I think I threatened 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:25.559 bad brains and everything like that. There's 00:17:25.559 --> 00:17:28.000 a legacy there Yeah, and like those dudes like 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:30.220 Ian McKay when I was growing up. He would just 00:17:30.220 --> 00:17:34.980 be at stuff. That's so cool Yeah, like he would 00:17:34.980 --> 00:17:38.460 just be like and no one bothered him because 00:17:38.460 --> 00:17:40.839 everyone was it was still the continuation of 00:17:40.839 --> 00:17:43.180 the scene and everyone left them alone they were 00:17:43.180 --> 00:17:44.740 like that's Ian McKay don't be fucking weird 00:17:44.740 --> 00:17:49.539 about it yeah like and like my latin teacher 00:17:49.539 --> 00:17:52.160 in high school was on discord records with his 00:17:52.160 --> 00:17:55.140 band in the early 2000s wow very cool also very 00:17:55.140 --> 00:17:56.799 cool you took latin in high school that was not 00:17:56.799 --> 00:17:59.759 an option in Arkansas it's because i literally 00:17:59.759 --> 00:18:03.079 cannot learn a language And half of it was like 00:18:03.079 --> 00:18:05.240 mythology and history and I made a deal with 00:18:05.240 --> 00:18:07.240 the guy the teacher Where it was like I'm not 00:18:07.240 --> 00:18:09.099 gonna get any of the language, but I'll get an 00:18:09.099 --> 00:18:11.019 A on all the other stuff So you'll give me a 00:18:11.019 --> 00:18:14.480 B. There you go. Yeah Absolutely. That's how 00:18:14.480 --> 00:18:17.380 this is gonna shake out and he agreed to it So, 00:18:17.779 --> 00:18:19.359 you know, but he was I mean he was a cool dude. 00:18:19.440 --> 00:18:24.119 He was in this band black eyes Which looked them 00:18:24.119 --> 00:18:29.190 up cuz it's DC post -punk two drummers a saxophone, 00:18:29.190 --> 00:18:34.450 I think two bass players a guy my two singers 00:18:34.450 --> 00:18:37.289 One of those my Latin teacher and one is a guy 00:18:37.289 --> 00:18:40.829 that just like screeches And the first time you 00:18:40.829 --> 00:18:42.730 listen to it, you're like, I don't think I like 00:18:42.730 --> 00:18:45.829 this In the 20th time you're like, it's kind 00:18:45.829 --> 00:18:50.829 of making sense now, you know You have to stick 00:18:50.829 --> 00:18:53.210 with some of that stuff and I will say like for 00:18:53.210 --> 00:18:55.799 contrast Like I still hang out with my high school 00:18:55.799 --> 00:18:58.059 Spanish teacher. He's an old time fiddler and 00:18:58.059 --> 00:18:59.839 he plays the square dances. I play the square 00:18:59.839 --> 00:19:04.519 dances. But like he would do like verb conjugation 00:19:04.519 --> 00:19:06.579 with the fiddle, like come in and be like, OK, 00:19:06.759 --> 00:19:10.140 class, very bad. You know, and then like it was 00:19:10.140 --> 00:19:12.319 just really interesting contrast where it's like 00:19:12.319 --> 00:19:14.460 we have a version of what you're talking about. 00:19:14.559 --> 00:19:16.519 It's just a totally different like universe of 00:19:16.519 --> 00:19:18.819 music and universe of like of stuff that gets 00:19:18.819 --> 00:19:21.140 passed down. I mean, you know, that's really 00:19:21.140 --> 00:19:22.799 one of the closest things you can get to like 00:19:22.799 --> 00:19:27.069 a DC legacy. Is always is those punk bands and 00:19:27.069 --> 00:19:30.829 that whole general scene and I mean cuz I it 00:19:30.829 --> 00:19:34.430 was really easy I Accidentally got sober where 00:19:34.430 --> 00:19:38.710 I just like stopped, you know with it Similar 00:19:38.710 --> 00:19:40.990 honestly, yeah, but like I mean growing up in 00:19:40.990 --> 00:19:44.289 DC like everyone I thought was cool was sober 00:19:44.289 --> 00:19:47.490 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's a really I 00:19:47.490 --> 00:19:49.940 was gonna make this point that like You know, 00:19:50.059 --> 00:19:52.640 I'm from like, I grew up in a family that had 00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:54.680 the old timey, like Southern gospel singing. 00:19:54.799 --> 00:19:56.980 I've been around country music and country music 00:19:56.980 --> 00:19:59.960 shit a lot of my life. But when I was young, 00:20:00.079 --> 00:20:03.500 I like got into into punk and into metal music. 00:20:03.559 --> 00:20:06.980 And there was like a big, like, kind of the mall 00:20:06.980 --> 00:20:10.279 core scene around here, the like, the, you know, 00:20:10.380 --> 00:20:14.579 hardcore, but through the like, Mid -south like 00:20:14.579 --> 00:20:17.519 youth group. Yeah, so I knew a ton of straight 00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:19.319 edge people But they're all like youth group 00:20:19.319 --> 00:20:21.380 straight edge and I remember being like fuck 00:20:21.380 --> 00:20:23.440 that I'm gonna be as drunk as humanly possible 00:20:23.440 --> 00:20:26.099 to like, you know to be the finger to this really 00:20:26.099 --> 00:20:29.299 like That like kind of taking the dominant culture 00:20:29.299 --> 00:20:32.000 and then making it the rebellion and sort of 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:33.839 it's like it was almost like a Trojan horse of 00:20:33.839 --> 00:20:35.539 like Oh, you think you're rebelling but we're 00:20:35.539 --> 00:20:37.700 really like sneaking, you know, like this whole 00:20:37.700 --> 00:20:40.240 like youth group thing under the under the radar 00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:43.920 and then I found out about original straight 00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:45.859 edge was like what actual real straight edge 00:20:45.859 --> 00:20:47.960 was. It was like, no, all our friends are like 00:20:47.960 --> 00:20:51.400 dying of heroin overdoses and like drinking makes 00:20:51.400 --> 00:20:53.460 the government a lot of money and makes you too 00:20:53.460 --> 00:20:56.420 sad to rebel. Like we're going to like not do 00:20:56.420 --> 00:20:58.519 that. And I was like, Oh no, I think like that. 00:20:58.539 --> 00:21:01.640 Like that is, that is definitely my, my way of 00:21:01.640 --> 00:21:04.180 like conceiving of, of like a relationship to 00:21:04.180 --> 00:21:06.059 substance and rebellion. If we're like talking 00:21:06.059 --> 00:21:09.079 about outlaw shit, you know? And, and so I like 00:21:09.079 --> 00:21:12.359 had this, I mean, I'm still a big Big enthusiast 00:21:12.359 --> 00:21:15.519 of my gummies and I like drink a few times a 00:21:15.519 --> 00:21:17.859 year I call it just like werewolf drinking but 00:21:17.859 --> 00:21:20.279 I physically just can't do it and I couldn't 00:21:20.279 --> 00:21:23.500 tour the way I do at the like pace and strength 00:21:23.500 --> 00:21:26.079 of performing that we have to like draw from. 00:21:26.599 --> 00:21:29.680 if I was wasted the whole time like I just I 00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:32.000 really truly think there's two paths either self 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:34.180 -medicate to the extent that you can do a really 00:21:34.180 --> 00:21:37.099 hard job or you do a better job at your hard 00:21:37.099 --> 00:21:39.839 job by just like not succumbing to like numbing 00:21:39.839 --> 00:21:43.339 out all the time yeah it's always odd to me I 00:21:43.339 --> 00:21:45.680 was I was reading the book and it was talking 00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:48.819 about Robert Altman the film director right uh 00:21:48.819 --> 00:21:51.200 who did like Nashville and McCabe and Mrs. Miller 00:21:51.200 --> 00:21:53.259 and Mash and all and like all these fucking incredible 00:21:53.259 --> 00:21:57.940 movies right and that guy would up until he discovered 00:21:57.940 --> 00:22:01.640 weed and then that all changed but he would get 00:22:01.640 --> 00:22:04.640 just at five o 'clock he'd be fucking hammered 00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:07.539 until three four in the morning pass out for 00:22:07.539 --> 00:22:10.720 three hours wake up and go direct mash and do 00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:13.700 a good job and it's like how the fuck how do 00:22:13.700 --> 00:22:16.059 you or Sam Peckinpah any of those dudes where 00:22:16.059 --> 00:22:20.170 it's like how do you You're like 50. How are 00:22:20.170 --> 00:22:21.930 you functioning? How are you putting out some 00:22:21.930 --> 00:22:25.130 of the best like I'm 30 and I if I have two drinks 00:22:25.130 --> 00:22:30.569 I get a fucking headache If I have like three 00:22:30.569 --> 00:22:33.789 beers, I am I'm resigning my next day to just 00:22:33.789 --> 00:22:36.750 not exist I'm like I'm just I'm throwing away 00:22:36.750 --> 00:22:40.210 a whole day So I I strategically pick where I'm 00:22:40.210 --> 00:22:41.710 like and this has kind of been my thing where 00:22:41.710 --> 00:22:44.250 I'm like I don't drink to cope I never drink 00:22:44.250 --> 00:22:47.019 cuz I'm sad I mean, not never, but I try not 00:22:47.019 --> 00:22:50.880 to. I only drink for revelry. So when it's like, 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:53.579 cool, if I want to like just tear up and I have 00:22:53.579 --> 00:22:55.759 no reason to like have any responsibilities the 00:22:55.759 --> 00:22:58.380 next day, sure, I'll get lit. That sounds fun. 00:22:58.839 --> 00:23:03.160 But like, I would say that happens once every 00:23:03.160 --> 00:23:08.210 three months, two months, if that and It's kind 00:23:08.210 --> 00:23:10.670 of an interesting system. I watch friends of 00:23:10.670 --> 00:23:12.769 mine who are like finding their way towards some 00:23:12.769 --> 00:23:15.750 balance on alcohol specifically, and I'm just 00:23:15.750 --> 00:23:19.130 like, I think we have to accept that, you know, 00:23:19.690 --> 00:23:21.650 people have been putting alcohol in their bodies 00:23:21.650 --> 00:23:23.589 for a long time, but we've been putting like 00:23:23.589 --> 00:23:26.450 herbal medicines and things that aren't like 00:23:26.450 --> 00:23:28.450 literal poison in our bodies quite a bit longer. 00:23:29.190 --> 00:23:31.569 From an evolutionary perspective, I think like 00:23:31.569 --> 00:23:33.559 drinking is kind of a... Dead ends like this 00:23:33.559 --> 00:23:35.559 is just it's not something our bodies are meant 00:23:35.559 --> 00:23:37.740 to metabolize and it shows if we feel like shit 00:23:37.740 --> 00:23:40.200 all the time Yeah, like I mean we have clean 00:23:40.200 --> 00:23:42.940 water now so we don't have to ferment shit to 00:23:42.940 --> 00:23:46.740 drink it like and it's Have you ever have you 00:23:46.740 --> 00:23:49.359 ever gotten in on Kratom? Is that a thing that 00:23:49.359 --> 00:23:52.039 you've tried? Okay, so I had a quick a quick 00:23:52.039 --> 00:23:54.920 minute where I was like on and off with it When 00:23:54.920 --> 00:23:57.200 I was quite a bit younger like in my mid 20s 00:23:57.420 --> 00:24:00.319 And it was partially because I had major lung 00:24:00.319 --> 00:24:02.599 surgery right out of high school twice, actually. 00:24:03.259 --> 00:24:07.240 And I got I got sucked into pain pills instantly. 00:24:07.240 --> 00:24:09.140 And it was like a pretty dark few years. And 00:24:09.140 --> 00:24:11.619 then I found Kratom and I was like, cool, I can 00:24:11.619 --> 00:24:14.160 like get the same buzz and like not be loaded 00:24:14.160 --> 00:24:18.000 on opiates. And so I tried it for a bit and I 00:24:18.000 --> 00:24:20.539 wasn't it wasn't always working for me. And then 00:24:20.539 --> 00:24:22.319 I moved back to Arkansas because I've been like 00:24:22.319 --> 00:24:25.420 living in my van out west. And it just it just 00:24:25.420 --> 00:24:30.220 wasn't around. So I stopped doing it. But I recently 00:24:30.220 --> 00:24:35.819 in the last like six years was in commute. I'm 00:24:35.819 --> 00:24:38.000 going to try to be as as nonspecific about this 00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:39.940 as possible. So I'm not like shaming anybody 00:24:39.940 --> 00:24:42.480 here, but as in community with somebody who is 00:24:42.480 --> 00:24:44.799 doing a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of crowd 00:24:44.799 --> 00:24:48.319 and constantly every day and every once in a 00:24:48.319 --> 00:24:50.180 while I would I would like decide like, yeah, 00:24:50.220 --> 00:24:52.079 cool. I'll join you. That sounds fun. But it 00:24:52.079 --> 00:24:56.400 just made me feel so weird and awful. And I think 00:24:56.400 --> 00:24:58.539 I'm a little bit on the like, other side of the 00:24:58.539 --> 00:25:00.519 fence where I'm just like, I don't, I don't I'm 00:25:00.519 --> 00:25:02.279 not gonna tell anybody else what to do. But Kratom's 00:25:02.279 --> 00:25:04.000 not for me. And especially after watching somebody 00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:06.940 get so dependent on them on that stuff that when 00:25:06.940 --> 00:25:09.420 they weren't able to access it, he was like having 00:25:10.200 --> 00:25:12.579 He was like seeing flashing lights and having 00:25:12.579 --> 00:25:15.000 like crazy mood swings and stuff like cheese 00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:16.920 with really gnarly withdrawal symptoms And I 00:25:16.920 --> 00:25:18.660 was just like I think that's not my favorite 00:25:18.660 --> 00:25:21.720 now Like I've like experienced the negatives 00:25:21.720 --> 00:25:23.859 of somebody being super super addicted that to 00:25:23.859 --> 00:25:25.599 that where I'm just like that's okay That's just 00:25:25.599 --> 00:25:28.740 not for me. Yeah, I've never gone that far with 00:25:28.740 --> 00:25:34.019 it Yeah, imagine like taking a huge dry scoop 00:25:34.019 --> 00:25:36.500 and then taking a sip of water in school Then 00:25:36.500 --> 00:25:38.240 like slurping it. Yeah, he was doing that like 00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:40.319 twice three times a day. It was pretty repulsive. 00:25:40.319 --> 00:25:44.960 You see like I'm very into like the ritual of 00:25:44.960 --> 00:25:48.680 stuff, right? Like I just bought a bunch of Dip 00:25:48.680 --> 00:25:51.740 that's not dip. It's black tea leaves that tastes 00:25:51.740 --> 00:25:55.319 like Copenhagen long cut and it's awesome. That's 00:25:55.319 --> 00:25:58.599 right Because I love dipping right but like I 00:25:58.599 --> 00:26:02.599 also like my jaw being on my face. Mm -hmm. So 00:26:02.599 --> 00:26:05.259 You know what you're not like super into gum 00:26:05.259 --> 00:26:06.640 cancer. That's not your thing. That's why you 00:26:06.640 --> 00:26:09.680 don't want to end up looking like Roger Ebert 00:26:09.680 --> 00:26:13.299 Well, and if somebody does accidentally ingest 00:26:13.299 --> 00:26:15.950 your dip can Turns out they're just having a 00:26:15.950 --> 00:26:18.109 nice little hit of caffeine. Yeah, like, you 00:26:18.109 --> 00:26:19.869 know, it's just I don't even think I think they 00:26:19.869 --> 00:26:22.349 decaffeinated it too, which is awesome Okay, 00:26:22.369 --> 00:26:24.670 that's cool because like it's hard because I 00:26:24.670 --> 00:26:28.049 was trying to find stuff that was no nicotine 00:26:28.049 --> 00:26:32.910 and no tobacco Which is not all the time. Like 00:26:32.910 --> 00:26:34.809 I still love rogue pouches. I'm trying to get 00:26:34.809 --> 00:26:39.289 sponsored Rogue if you're listening, they're 00:26:39.289 --> 00:26:41.230 the best it tastes like pillows, but that's what 00:26:41.230 --> 00:26:44.180 everyone says You know, it's hard to find things 00:26:44.180 --> 00:26:46.859 that don't have tobacco or nicotine, but also 00:26:46.859 --> 00:26:48.599 don't have caffeine. And I'm like, I don't want 00:26:48.599 --> 00:26:51.019 any of that. I want something with nothing. I 00:26:51.019 --> 00:26:55.240 just want the thing of doing it, you know? And 00:26:55.240 --> 00:26:57.460 it's the same thing with like, you know, there's 00:26:57.460 --> 00:26:59.680 like kratom extract and like pills, and I don't 00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:01.960 want any part of that. I like drinking it. Like 00:27:01.960 --> 00:27:04.660 I like, you know, every 15 minutes I can be like, 00:27:04.660 --> 00:27:07.000 oh, a cold drink of kratom, you know, or something 00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:08.920 like that. And you take a sip and you're like, 00:27:09.019 --> 00:27:11.000 it's a thing that I'm doing and it keeps me in 00:27:11.000 --> 00:27:13.500 line. Right. And it's like energizing at that 00:27:13.500 --> 00:27:16.640 dosage. Yeah. I think when you're like slamming 00:27:16.640 --> 00:27:20.380 a big boy, like, don't get me wrong, I love getting 00:27:20.380 --> 00:27:24.359 a hard head change. Like I am not anti buzz by 00:27:24.359 --> 00:27:26.599 any means. But I'm like, how do you function 00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:28.480 during the middle of the day if you're just like 00:27:28.480 --> 00:27:31.559 blasted on like several grams of crowd? I mean, 00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:35.680 I just I'm not maybe maybe I'm just kind of a 00:27:35.680 --> 00:27:37.839 grandpa again. But like my body just can't do 00:27:37.839 --> 00:27:40.299 that shit. You get very busy. is how I can't 00:27:40.299 --> 00:27:44.440 function. Well, and I had one I had one time 00:27:44.440 --> 00:27:46.660 I remember and this maybe it's happened more 00:27:46.660 --> 00:27:48.759 than once, but this was the memorable one where 00:27:48.759 --> 00:27:51.359 I took a macro dose of kratom and we were in 00:27:51.359 --> 00:27:55.779 the van. And this was maybe like 2016, 17. So 00:27:55.779 --> 00:27:58.460 like, you know, I think I was just a little bit 00:27:58.460 --> 00:28:00.920 more likely to get fucked up. And I'm sure the 00:28:00.920 --> 00:28:05.279 kratom wasn't as like good then. But yeah, I 00:28:05.279 --> 00:28:07.640 like took a macro dose. We're in the van. And 00:28:07.640 --> 00:28:09.630 about 10 minutes later, I was like, oh, guys, 00:28:09.630 --> 00:28:12.410 I got a vomit and, and I've been in the backseat 00:28:12.410 --> 00:28:14.109 and they're just like, well, there's no windows 00:28:14.109 --> 00:28:15.789 back there. So like, what are you going to do? 00:28:15.990 --> 00:28:18.009 And I just like rushed over the passenger side 00:28:18.009 --> 00:28:19.630 and stuck my head out the passenger side window 00:28:19.630 --> 00:28:21.950 and just leaned on my buddy and just beat that 00:28:21.950 --> 00:28:24.289 side of the van. And I felt so defeated and dumb. 00:28:24.369 --> 00:28:27.009 And he was like, Whoa, I could feel your dick. 00:28:28.230 --> 00:28:31.470 I hate that. I hate that you just said that sentence. 00:28:32.029 --> 00:28:33.990 But yeah, that was a humiliating one where I 00:28:33.990 --> 00:28:36.930 was like, Yeah, I don't I don't know if that's 00:28:36.930 --> 00:28:39.089 that's my thing to just like be taking something 00:28:39.089 --> 00:28:41.230 that makes me puke all the time Yeah, I mean 00:28:41.230 --> 00:28:45.049 there's also And you know if anyone listening 00:28:45.049 --> 00:28:47.170 to this is into it. It's important to get it 00:28:47.170 --> 00:28:49.869 from a good source Yeah, not the gas station. 00:28:49.869 --> 00:28:51.450 I was just throwing up the gas station. Yeah, 00:28:51.490 --> 00:28:55.309 cuz it's probably not the real thing And also 00:28:55.309 --> 00:29:00.109 don't like the 5 -me -o -h stuff That'll straight 00:29:00.109 --> 00:29:03.569 -up kill you. That's not like it says it's kratom. 00:29:03.589 --> 00:29:06.339 It's not it's like uh spooky i don't even know 00:29:06.339 --> 00:29:08.099 what that is it's like when you used to be able 00:29:08.099 --> 00:29:11.400 to buy like salvia from gas stations and like 00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:15.140 fake weed and shit and k2 uh that k2 and spice 00:29:15.140 --> 00:29:17.599 fried a few to my friends yeah it's like that 00:29:17.599 --> 00:29:20.740 but for crater instead of weed uh so don't do 00:29:20.740 --> 00:29:23.579 it yeah don't do that also if anybody out there 00:29:23.579 --> 00:29:26.789 is like a heavy creative creative user uh i don't 00:29:26.789 --> 00:29:28.329 care like i'm not trying to shame you i'm just 00:29:28.329 --> 00:29:31.549 my personal experience has been mixed at best 00:29:31.549 --> 00:29:35.210 uh so like have have at it just uh just know 00:29:35.210 --> 00:29:38.410 that like you can get addicted to anything people 00:29:38.410 --> 00:29:40.650 get addicted to read the bible people get addicted 00:29:40.650 --> 00:29:44.849 to to like you know certain sports like it's 00:29:44.849 --> 00:29:48.009 it's not any like Any fault of anybody's to get 00:29:48.009 --> 00:29:50.109 sucked in a I have the personal opinion that 00:29:50.109 --> 00:29:52.349 nobody's sober I get fucked up off of looking 00:29:52.349 --> 00:29:53.990 at bugs and plants and stuff, you know, like 00:29:53.990 --> 00:29:57.490 that's my biggest bugs so like I I get it like 00:29:57.490 --> 00:29:59.910 do what you got to to survive late -stage capitalism 00:29:59.910 --> 00:30:02.390 But just know you don't have to be puking and 00:30:02.390 --> 00:30:04.410 feeling like shit all the time I've never once 00:30:04.410 --> 00:30:07.049 puked so you can find a nice happy middle ground. 00:30:07.410 --> 00:30:09.809 Exactly. Yeah. Yeah follow your example not my 00:30:09.809 --> 00:30:13.109 like half -hazard self -destructive shit so I 00:30:13.109 --> 00:30:15.549 want to I want to go back a little bit because 00:30:15.740 --> 00:30:17.720 Arkansas is one of the places that interests 00:30:17.720 --> 00:30:22.500 me. Because it's it's a little spooky. You know? 00:30:22.619 --> 00:30:27.420 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And your family, at least part 00:30:27.420 --> 00:30:29.880 of it had been there for, I mean, at this point, 00:30:30.240 --> 00:30:33.819 like 200 years, something around that. Yeah, 00:30:33.819 --> 00:30:37.099 pretty much. My mom's side of the family has 00:30:37.099 --> 00:30:39.960 been in Arkansas since the 1830s. And my dad's 00:30:39.960 --> 00:30:43.920 side has been in Missouri since the 1830s. So 00:30:43.920 --> 00:30:47.400 I'm kind of like, Somewhere in between and his 00:30:47.400 --> 00:30:49.579 side of the family is like rural Ozarks and rural 00:30:49.579 --> 00:30:52.240 Appalachia and my mom's side is like Northern 00:30:52.240 --> 00:30:55.039 Louisiana extreme South Arkansas. So they're 00:30:55.039 --> 00:30:58.059 like down in, you know, the Louisiana Arkansas 00:30:58.059 --> 00:31:00.259 border country. That's some of like the poorest 00:31:00.259 --> 00:31:02.240 counties in the Western Hemisphere, you know, 00:31:02.240 --> 00:31:04.839 so it's it's like it's pretty intense down there. 00:31:04.839 --> 00:31:07.240 And then my dad's sides from like, you know, 00:31:07.240 --> 00:31:10.339 the northern Missouri Ozarks and in Tennessee. 00:31:10.460 --> 00:31:12.980 So I end up in this like weird middle ground 00:31:12.980 --> 00:31:16.420 where I'm like, I've got portions of me that 00:31:16.420 --> 00:31:18.400 are like that Appalachian Ozark and then parts 00:31:18.400 --> 00:31:20.160 that are like kind of the deep south side of 00:31:20.160 --> 00:31:23.839 things. So I end up being a weird hybrid. Well, 00:31:23.900 --> 00:31:27.099 I mean, you know, I think I didn't know where 00:31:27.099 --> 00:31:32.680 you were from. I generally I've ripped most of 00:31:32.680 --> 00:31:36.529 my podcasting from Mark Maron. And when he said 00:31:36.529 --> 00:31:38.609 that he doesn't really do the research or read 00:31:38.609 --> 00:31:40.390 people's books because then he asked leading 00:31:40.390 --> 00:31:42.990 questions I was like right that makes sense. 00:31:43.009 --> 00:31:44.730 So like if I don't know where someone's from 00:31:44.730 --> 00:31:47.210 I'm not looking it up, you know, cuz like cool 00:31:47.210 --> 00:31:50.009 That's awesome. I kind of want to know like then 00:31:50.009 --> 00:31:52.349 becomes more of a conversation then like you're 00:31:52.349 --> 00:31:56.809 from Arkansas, you know, yeah But you know like 00:31:56.809 --> 00:31:59.589 it makes sense to me that now after hearing your 00:31:59.589 --> 00:32:03.369 music cuz I mean, I think I probably heard When 00:32:03.369 --> 00:32:08.049 did When did your first record come out? See, 00:32:08.049 --> 00:32:09.890 that's an interesting conversation because my 00:32:09.890 --> 00:32:13.309 first two records technically came out like 2018 00:32:13.309 --> 00:32:17.289 2019 Yeah, and I I was like playing for tips 00:32:17.289 --> 00:32:19.109 in the st. Rock tower in in New Orleans Like 00:32:19.109 --> 00:32:21.849 I had no no team no presence on the internet. 00:32:22.009 --> 00:32:23.769 No nothing We were just like recording live to 00:32:23.769 --> 00:32:26.569 tape in New Orleans in my buddies like home studio 00:32:26.569 --> 00:32:30.029 and that blew up during lockdowns and so I went 00:32:30.029 --> 00:32:32.740 from like He he I kind of halfway lived in my 00:32:32.740 --> 00:32:35.519 van and you know know how to be a street performer 00:32:35.519 --> 00:32:39.539 and play for dance crowds and New Orleans and 00:32:39.539 --> 00:32:42.140 Arkansas to like holy shit. I'm on the internet 00:32:42.140 --> 00:32:44.559 I'm everywhere so like people really didn't hear 00:32:44.559 --> 00:32:47.099 my first two records until 2020 but they came 00:32:47.099 --> 00:32:51.279 out technically in 2018 2019 I mean in my head 00:32:51.279 --> 00:32:55.559 I I knew about you like right around the time 00:32:55.559 --> 00:32:58.099 I graduated college, which would have been 2018 00:32:59.529 --> 00:33:02.269 Oh cool, so you were in there early, that's awesome. 00:33:02.410 --> 00:33:04.569 I don't need to sign. I mean I think I just, 00:33:04.829 --> 00:33:08.369 you know, sometimes you get lost in like YouTube 00:33:08.369 --> 00:33:11.730 or Spotify or whatever it is and then you start 00:33:11.730 --> 00:33:16.130 clicking on stuff. And then, you know, you end 00:33:16.130 --> 00:33:17.329 up hearing something and you're like, oh there 00:33:17.329 --> 00:33:19.769 we go. Like that's how I found Charlie Crockett. 00:33:19.869 --> 00:33:22.490 I just found a video of Jamestown Ferry accidentally 00:33:22.490 --> 00:33:26.930 and I was like, oh. You know? Yeah. But I mean 00:33:26.930 --> 00:33:29.009 maybe after knowing that you're from Arkansas 00:33:29.009 --> 00:33:32.470 makes a lot of sense because your music does 00:33:32.470 --> 00:33:37.009 have you know that kind of not like normal south 00:33:37.009 --> 00:33:39.549 quote -unquote where it's like you know it's 00:33:39.549 --> 00:33:43.269 weird south it's that weird kind of like uh like 00:33:43.269 --> 00:33:45.829 what's the word like like almost esoteric south 00:33:46.200 --> 00:33:49.440 like the Flannery O 'Connor south, the like the 00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:53.099 darkness kind of aspect of the hills and the 00:33:53.099 --> 00:33:55.500 woods. Yeah, that's awesome. You know, think 00:33:55.500 --> 00:33:58.720 about Frank Stamford, or yeah, there's just there's 00:33:58.720 --> 00:34:00.700 so many authors that like represent southern 00:34:00.700 --> 00:34:03.930 gothic so well and I'm like, I I am that I am 00:34:03.930 --> 00:34:06.470 southern gothic. Yeah, that's I was just beating 00:34:06.470 --> 00:34:07.869 around the bush because I couldn't remember the 00:34:07.869 --> 00:34:12.170 word gothic. Yeah Like my brain was like southern 00:34:12.170 --> 00:34:15.929 noir and I was like it's not that But yeah, I 00:34:15.929 --> 00:34:18.610 mean like I don't think hearing anything that 00:34:18.610 --> 00:34:22.670 you put out in the 2020s in like Night of the 00:34:22.670 --> 00:34:24.570 hunter would be out of place. You know what I 00:34:24.570 --> 00:34:30.210 mean? Go on well, they're just like, you know 00:34:30.210 --> 00:34:33.750 the other I think most prominent pop culture 00:34:33.750 --> 00:34:36.710 figure of like Arkansas Southern Gothic is Johnny 00:34:36.710 --> 00:34:39.989 Cash, you know, like jet black hair and the whole 00:34:39.989 --> 00:34:43.610 like sunken eyes and like the just kind of spooky 00:34:43.610 --> 00:34:46.929 like minimalist rockabilly. You know, he wasn't 00:34:46.929 --> 00:34:49.050 the only one doing stuff like that in Arkansas. 00:34:49.289 --> 00:34:52.989 There's Sonny Burgess. We've got like the blues 00:34:52.989 --> 00:34:56.150 and gospel side of things that are so like Deep 00:34:56.150 --> 00:34:58.690 in the current of Arkansas music sisters at a 00:34:58.690 --> 00:35:02.170 tharp. Yeah, so many other names, but like everything 00:35:02.170 --> 00:35:05.559 that comes out of Arkansas Because we are just 00:35:05.559 --> 00:35:08.300 like I don't think people know how depopulated 00:35:08.300 --> 00:35:11.659 and Empty and strange this place is like when 00:35:11.659 --> 00:35:13.619 I talk to my friends in Texas They're like, oh 00:35:13.619 --> 00:35:16.480 Texas Arkansas tomato tomato and I'm like, I 00:35:16.480 --> 00:35:18.940 don't know man There are twice as many people 00:35:18.940 --> 00:35:21.699 in the Dallas Metro as the whole state of Arkansas, 00:35:22.079 --> 00:35:24.619 you know Yeah, I mean driving through it really 00:35:24.619 --> 00:35:30.420 is empty. Like it's a lot of trees Yeah, no I 00:35:30.420 --> 00:35:34.639 don't really remember What we would have been 00:35:34.639 --> 00:35:36.280 coming out of I don't remember what road that 00:35:36.280 --> 00:35:37.920 is but coming out of Austin up towards Little 00:35:37.920 --> 00:35:40.940 Rock and then Nashville Yeah, interstate 30 probably. 00:35:41.380 --> 00:35:44.619 Yeah went through Memphis for sure Yeah, you 00:35:44.619 --> 00:35:48.920 went 30 to 40 then okay then that After Memphis 00:35:48.920 --> 00:35:52.559 like I or before Memphis Yeah, I don't know Delta. 00:35:52.760 --> 00:35:55.940 There's not a lot of stuff between Texas and 00:35:55.940 --> 00:35:58.699 there Yeah, you know and again like a lot of 00:35:58.699 --> 00:36:02.659 that's there's a very specific Kind of I could 00:36:02.659 --> 00:36:04.480 give you the like the historical rundown on why 00:36:04.480 --> 00:36:06.480 that is if you want it But just know it's like 00:36:06.480 --> 00:36:08.760 it's it's kind of my life project lecture So 00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:11.119 I'll try not to sound off on it unless it's consensual. 00:36:11.119 --> 00:36:13.420 But yeah, we're just like a really empty impoverished 00:36:13.420 --> 00:36:17.199 place Okay, good go on a little Okay, I want 00:36:17.199 --> 00:36:20.380 to I won't do the whole last thing but I remember 00:36:20.380 --> 00:36:23.920 I I'm a college dropout, but I took one geography 00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:27.699 class the University of Arkansas and Our our 00:36:27.699 --> 00:36:30.190 professor is like why is Arkansas so poor? And 00:36:30.190 --> 00:36:32.929 I remember answering like swamps and delta in 00:36:32.929 --> 00:36:35.050 the east and then mountains in the west. It was 00:36:35.050 --> 00:36:38.269 hard to settle here. And he's like, kind of true. 00:36:38.630 --> 00:36:40.130 Keep going. And like a couple of people have 00:36:40.130 --> 00:36:42.329 more guesses. And he was like, the reason Arkansas 00:36:42.329 --> 00:36:45.789 is poor and depopulated is Oklahoma. And the 00:36:45.789 --> 00:36:52.110 reason that is, is that and from 1836 until 1907, 00:36:52.619 --> 00:36:55.039 That was tribally sovereign land. That was another 00:36:55.039 --> 00:36:57.119 country. That was the so -called Indian territories. 00:36:57.340 --> 00:37:00.920 Oklahoma was another country. Those were sovereign 00:37:00.920 --> 00:37:03.400 nations, had their own laws, their own government, 00:37:04.460 --> 00:37:07.500 and it was barred from white settlement. As such, 00:37:08.039 --> 00:37:10.940 Westward expansion skipped Arkansas. You see 00:37:10.940 --> 00:37:13.940 St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, all cities in 00:37:13.940 --> 00:37:16.239 a straight line. You see Jackson, Shreveport, 00:37:16.420 --> 00:37:18.679 Dallas, Albuquerque, all cities in a straight 00:37:18.679 --> 00:37:22.809 line. There's no Nashville Memphis, Little Rock, 00:37:22.969 --> 00:37:24.909 Fort Smith, Oklahoma City like so ping -pong 00:37:24.909 --> 00:37:26.449 -pong -pong -pong -pong -pong. There's not any 00:37:26.449 --> 00:37:29.829 like any linear path west. And a lot of those 00:37:29.829 --> 00:37:32.309 cities are smaller. Yeah, quite a bit smaller. 00:37:32.489 --> 00:37:35.050 And the reason being is that essentially like 00:37:35.050 --> 00:37:37.610 people went around Arkansas like White Settlement 00:37:37.610 --> 00:37:39.829 and Westward Expansion, Manifest Destiny kind 00:37:39.829 --> 00:37:42.519 of skipped here. And then the Civil War happened 00:37:42.519 --> 00:37:45.119 and half the population left. And then it was 00:37:45.119 --> 00:37:47.260 brutally, brutally poor and violent for a few 00:37:47.260 --> 00:37:49.059 generations. And then the Great Depression happened. 00:37:49.079 --> 00:37:52.159 We lost a bunch more people. So like when you're 00:37:52.159 --> 00:37:55.119 in Arkansas and you're like. Man, there's a shocking 00:37:55.119 --> 00:37:57.139 amount of public land. There's a shocking amount 00:37:57.139 --> 00:38:00.219 of intact forest like these ecosystems and these 00:38:00.219 --> 00:38:03.360 rivers. Everything's like really trash free and 00:38:03.360 --> 00:38:06.519 clean and like kind of pristine. It's not because 00:38:06.519 --> 00:38:09.280 of any like altruistic or like environmental. 00:38:10.110 --> 00:38:12.469 Minded sort of thing. It's just this is what 00:38:12.469 --> 00:38:14.670 like an alternative future for the rest of the 00:38:14.670 --> 00:38:17.230 South could have been had there not been like 00:38:17.230 --> 00:38:19.369 brutal overdevelopment and westward expansion 00:38:19.369 --> 00:38:21.909 all the things like we're kind of just this like 00:38:21.909 --> 00:38:25.469 fossil of like this possibility of a way that 00:38:25.469 --> 00:38:29.590 a place can be settled and exploited and all 00:38:29.590 --> 00:38:31.170 the things that did happen here like it's not 00:38:31.170 --> 00:38:35.429 like it didn't but just on a scale and on a like 00:38:35.610 --> 00:38:38.329 population density that makes it so you can still 00:38:38.329 --> 00:38:40.489 I can drive 10 minutes from where I live and 00:38:40.489 --> 00:38:43.210 I'm in a college town of 100 ,000 people. I can 00:38:43.210 --> 00:38:46.349 drive 10 minutes and be in like thousands upon 00:38:46.349 --> 00:38:49.909 thousands of acres of unbroken forest and streams 00:38:49.909 --> 00:38:52.409 that have public access that don't have like 00:38:52.409 --> 00:38:54.449 fences or purple paint or any of that stuff. 00:38:54.489 --> 00:38:56.969 Like we're just shockingly lucky and like what 00:38:56.969 --> 00:39:00.269 we lack and prosperity and access to like you 00:39:00.269 --> 00:39:02.969 know, the benefits of American empire, we get 00:39:02.969 --> 00:39:04.829 the opposite where it's like, oh, we were kind 00:39:04.829 --> 00:39:06.849 of forgotten. So our lives are actually really 00:39:06.849 --> 00:39:09.030 nice. And we have like access to a lot of greenery 00:39:09.030 --> 00:39:11.170 and a lot of intact space. It doesn't make us 00:39:11.170 --> 00:39:15.090 like rich or relevant to the national conversation, 00:39:15.090 --> 00:39:18.610 but it makes us like have an ability to support 00:39:18.610 --> 00:39:20.769 ourselves and entertain ourselves and nourish 00:39:20.769 --> 00:39:23.750 our souls in ways that I think like a lot of 00:39:23.750 --> 00:39:26.710 folks lack that grow up in more like metropolitan 00:39:26.710 --> 00:39:29.250 and suburban states. And I'm very grateful for 00:39:29.250 --> 00:39:32.789 that. See that was I'm happy I asked I was injured 00:39:32.789 --> 00:39:35.329 I didn't think about like cuz you can't I mean 00:39:35.329 --> 00:39:38.190 they couldn't go through Oklahoma I imagine right? 00:39:38.730 --> 00:39:43.389 Yeah, and you know like the Trail of Tears ends 00:39:43.389 --> 00:39:46.510 in Western Arkansas like you know that you could 00:39:46.510 --> 00:39:50.690 not Empty the south of its original inhabitants 00:39:50.690 --> 00:39:54.570 take that incredibly rich ground and then expand 00:39:54.570 --> 00:39:57.050 the cotton kingdom grown with enslaved labor 00:39:57.050 --> 00:40:01.420 without the establishment of like a politically 00:40:01.420 --> 00:40:05.139 separate geographic area where you could stick 00:40:05.139 --> 00:40:07.719 everybody at gun and knife point so that you 00:40:07.719 --> 00:40:10.320 could expand economically. So like the all of 00:40:10.320 --> 00:40:13.420 America's further territorial and economic expansion 00:40:13.420 --> 00:40:16.780 that happened in the years after 1836 basically 00:40:16.780 --> 00:40:20.940 is all predicated on the ability to create this. 00:40:21.239 --> 00:40:24.699 area to deposit people that you violently dispossessed 00:40:24.699 --> 00:40:27.340 of their land. So like what goes on like we don't 00:40:27.340 --> 00:40:31.389 have a Gaza without Oklahoma. You know, like 00:40:31.389 --> 00:40:34.150 that that we created the model for what came 00:40:34.150 --> 00:40:36.369 later, like even like the Third Reich talked 00:40:36.369 --> 00:40:38.670 about concentration camps in the same terms as 00:40:38.670 --> 00:40:41.210 reservations and like Hitler had all these ideas 00:40:41.210 --> 00:40:43.949 that he modeled off of American expansion. So 00:40:43.949 --> 00:40:46.829 like we really kind of set the model for how 00:40:46.829 --> 00:40:49.489 to dispossess an indigenous population and exploit 00:40:49.489 --> 00:40:53.269 a landscape. And like that's all starts with 00:40:53.269 --> 00:40:55.630 with the establishment of Arkansas and Oklahoma 00:40:55.630 --> 00:40:59.369 being like a split territory where One side became 00:40:59.369 --> 00:41:01.670 part of the United States and one did not and 00:41:01.670 --> 00:41:04.110 like I I'm actually writing a book about that 00:41:04.110 --> 00:41:07.050 border so I'm kind of too deep on this stuff 00:41:07.050 --> 00:41:08.809 and we'll just talk your ear off. I've given 00:41:08.809 --> 00:41:11.630 an opportunity, but like that's that's what makes 00:41:11.630 --> 00:41:13.730 Arkansas so unique and so bizarre is like we're 00:41:13.730 --> 00:41:15.690 probably one of the least understood states in 00:41:15.690 --> 00:41:19.230 the Union. And if people knew how this political 00:41:19.230 --> 00:41:22.150 entity was created, how we are geographically 00:41:22.150 --> 00:41:25.329 like crafted out of, you know the the territorial 00:41:25.329 --> 00:41:28.389 milieu, more folks would be like. Oh, I think 00:41:28.389 --> 00:41:30.849 I understand American history because, like, 00:41:30.949 --> 00:41:33.829 this specific event had such an impact and such 00:41:33.829 --> 00:41:36.429 a, like, knock -on effect. Well, I mean, really 00:41:36.429 --> 00:41:40.110 the only concept I had of Arkansas up until I 00:41:40.110 --> 00:41:44.269 went there was that they drove through it in 00:41:44.269 --> 00:41:48.210 Smokey and the Bandit to get the Texarkan. Yeah. 00:41:48.349 --> 00:41:50.489 Or, you know, like a lot of people know Bill 00:41:50.489 --> 00:41:53.730 Clinton, unfortunately, or Johnny Cash, or, like, 00:41:53.829 --> 00:41:56.130 they know of people from Arkansas, but, like, 00:41:56.329 --> 00:41:58.769 I think one of the unfortunate things is like, 00:41:58.789 --> 00:42:01.730 folks are like, Oh, Kansas are Kansas. Like, 00:42:01.829 --> 00:42:04.090 it's just sort of like West Virginia, Virginia, 00:42:04.269 --> 00:42:06.010 you know, like, what's the difference? And it's 00:42:06.010 --> 00:42:10.889 like, we're like, so incredibly profoundly separate 00:42:10.889 --> 00:42:13.869 in identity and geography and culture and history 00:42:13.869 --> 00:42:16.789 and all that, that it's like, I think people 00:42:16.789 --> 00:42:19.670 kind of construe Arkansas as the Midwest because 00:42:19.670 --> 00:42:22.329 they think it's like our Kansas. Whereas we're 00:42:22.329 --> 00:42:26.050 like, you know, they're alligators and cottonmouths 00:42:26.050 --> 00:42:28.849 and like, you know, palmettos and all sorts of 00:42:28.849 --> 00:42:31.230 stuff in this day. Like this is we're fringing 00:42:31.230 --> 00:42:33.469 at least half of Arkansas is in the deep south. 00:42:33.570 --> 00:42:36.329 And like, I think people just don't understand 00:42:36.329 --> 00:42:39.190 that straight up. I mean, you know, even I think 00:42:39.190 --> 00:42:42.389 Arkansas and Kentucky have some similarities 00:42:42.389 --> 00:42:49.480 to them. You know, like Kentucky without Louisville, 00:42:50.280 --> 00:42:52.719 the biggest cities like Lexington, which is about 00:42:52.719 --> 00:42:54.980 the size of Little Rock. You know, Louisville 00:42:54.980 --> 00:42:58.480 does kind of fuck that up. But even then, that's 00:42:58.480 --> 00:43:01.300 like that's the Ohio Valley. That's like that's 00:43:01.300 --> 00:43:03.719 an area to itself, you know? Yeah. And then you 00:43:03.719 --> 00:43:06.619 have like, you know, places like part of my family 00:43:06.619 --> 00:43:08.800 and part of my wife's family came from Hazard, 00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:12.849 you know, and they moved up here. uh because 00:43:12.849 --> 00:43:15.190 it sucked down there you know there's that guy 00:43:15.190 --> 00:43:17.610 jim ford if you've ever heard of jim ford the 00:43:17.610 --> 00:43:19.909 musician no but is he like a mind baron or something 00:43:19.909 --> 00:43:24.050 no so he's a musician uh and dude look look him 00:43:24.050 --> 00:43:26.190 up he's fucking killing okay it's funny yeah 00:43:26.190 --> 00:43:29.730 he claimed to have written ode to bobby joe the 00:43:29.730 --> 00:43:33.110 bobby gentry song billy joe uh he didn't which 00:43:33.110 --> 00:43:35.429 is funny because he wrote in my opinion better 00:43:35.429 --> 00:43:38.250 songs like just those right you know uh but he 00:43:38.250 --> 00:43:41.929 has a song That is based. He's a whole record 00:43:41.929 --> 00:43:44.550 about getting the fuck out of hazard or Harlan, 00:43:44.630 --> 00:43:47.769 which is you know down there Yeah, and part of 00:43:47.769 --> 00:43:51.929 this song Harlan County goes down to like You 00:43:51.929 --> 00:43:54.349 know like a gospel tune where he's like praying 00:43:54.349 --> 00:43:56.510 to the Lord to take him out of Harlan County 00:43:56.510 --> 00:44:02.280 Just cuz he fucking sucks. Yeah All the black 00:44:02.280 --> 00:44:05.179 lung and all the song like it's it's it's like 00:44:05.179 --> 00:44:06.800 upbeat ship when you're listening to it You're 00:44:06.800 --> 00:44:09.860 like, oh like people are dying at 20 from black 00:44:09.860 --> 00:44:13.000 lung in this song Yeah, god, it's so brutal, 00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:16.599 you know and a part of my family's from East 00:44:16.599 --> 00:44:21.280 Kentucky also and came to Arkansas and like the 00:44:21.280 --> 00:44:26.760 the early part of the 20th century and like You 00:44:26.760 --> 00:44:30.119 know, why why does Harlan why is it so hard in 00:44:30.119 --> 00:44:32.219 coal country? Like why is it so hard in the Cumberland 00:44:32.219 --> 00:44:34.139 Plateau? Whether it's West Virginia or Kentucky 00:44:34.139 --> 00:44:36.719 or even Southeast Ohio because there's a lot 00:44:36.719 --> 00:44:38.840 of money there technically I mean there's an 00:44:38.840 --> 00:44:42.030 there's an incredible biodiversity. There is 00:44:42.030 --> 00:44:44.070 incredible richness to the soil. That's one thing 00:44:44.070 --> 00:44:45.889 that I see when I go to Appalachia that's different 00:44:45.889 --> 00:44:47.369 than the Ozarks, where I'm like, oh, y 'all can 00:44:47.369 --> 00:44:50.949 farm here. There's rolling swaths of corn in 00:44:50.949 --> 00:44:53.630 all the bottom land, whereas here it's just clay 00:44:53.630 --> 00:44:57.090 and gravel. So there's just trees and people 00:44:57.090 --> 00:45:00.190 ranching on a small scale. But we don't have 00:45:00.190 --> 00:45:02.530 row crops in the Ozark mountains. We don't have 00:45:02.530 --> 00:45:04.519 coal. There's a lot of crops down here. Yeah. 00:45:05.019 --> 00:45:08.059 And I think when you break it down, it's like, 00:45:08.179 --> 00:45:11.519 man, this landscape could support a really rich, 00:45:12.099 --> 00:45:14.780 beautiful life, but it's the coal companies. 00:45:14.960 --> 00:45:17.280 It's the extraction. It's the company towns. 00:45:17.820 --> 00:45:21.059 It's this economic mode that's totally dependent 00:45:21.059 --> 00:45:25.400 on exploiting labor and land. And so it makes 00:45:25.400 --> 00:45:28.280 that place impossible to live in. And it's like, 00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:31.219 where does all that coal go? It's not like that 00:45:31.219 --> 00:45:34.369 coal just evaporates in the air. The eastern 00:45:34.369 --> 00:45:36.409 cities like that's going to all the coal -fired 00:45:36.409 --> 00:45:39.610 power plants. So it's like Appalachia had to 00:45:39.610 --> 00:45:42.429 die. So the eastern seaboard could live. Yeah, 00:45:42.429 --> 00:45:45.130 and I mean and then a lot of times people on 00:45:45.130 --> 00:45:49.570 the eastern seaboard will outwardly say that 00:45:49.570 --> 00:45:53.250 they care about poor people and Then just burn 00:45:53.250 --> 00:45:56.130 down everywhere that the poor people live. Yep, 00:45:56.130 --> 00:46:00.409 you know in the middle of the country but it's 00:46:00.409 --> 00:46:02.409 Have you ever seen the movie Matewan the John 00:46:02.409 --> 00:46:06.480 sales movie? You're a film guy. You know some 00:46:06.480 --> 00:46:09.960 cool movies. Yeah, it's about essentially, it's 00:46:09.960 --> 00:46:11.579 in Maitwan, West Virginia. It's a real thing 00:46:11.579 --> 00:46:14.199 that happened and it's a coal mining town going 00:46:14.199 --> 00:46:16.719 on strike and then bringing in people to bust 00:46:16.719 --> 00:46:21.119 the strike. And the only name actor in it was 00:46:21.119 --> 00:46:25.039 James Earl Jones, which is a great get. But like, 00:46:25.039 --> 00:46:26.860 you know, it was made for no money, essentially. 00:46:27.480 --> 00:46:29.739 John sales talking about it is like it does help 00:46:29.739 --> 00:46:31.880 if you get James Earl Jones to work for scale 00:46:31.880 --> 00:46:36.000 because he does he likes the movie But you know, 00:46:36.059 --> 00:46:39.059 I mean that story is a thing that played out 00:46:39.059 --> 00:46:41.019 over and over and over these towns that were 00:46:41.019 --> 00:46:43.179 company towns You got paid in money. That wasn't 00:46:43.179 --> 00:46:45.480 American money. It was the company money and 00:46:45.480 --> 00:46:47.989 you can only give it back to the company Yeah, 00:46:48.269 --> 00:46:49.969 and the same thing that's happening in the plantations 00:46:49.969 --> 00:46:52.210 in the south like plantation script and company 00:46:52.210 --> 00:46:53.949 script in Appalachia It's the same deal where 00:46:53.949 --> 00:46:55.929 you just don't let people have money. You just 00:46:55.929 --> 00:46:59.630 call one a plantation and one a coal mine, right? 00:46:59.789 --> 00:47:03.409 You know But it's it's essentially that you're 00:47:03.409 --> 00:47:06.070 doing the same stuff to different people, you 00:47:06.070 --> 00:47:09.369 know, and then and one of the things about make 00:47:09.369 --> 00:47:12.780 one is the different factions of workers, you 00:47:12.780 --> 00:47:14.440 know, like James Earl Jones is the head of the 00:47:14.440 --> 00:47:16.400 black workers, and he has to agree with the head 00:47:16.400 --> 00:47:18.320 of the white workers to go on this strike, and 00:47:18.320 --> 00:47:20.420 then they bring in these other people, and I 00:47:20.420 --> 00:47:22.480 believe they're trying to bring in Chinese workers, 00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:24.639 you know, and Italian workers, to bust it up, 00:47:24.719 --> 00:47:26.860 and then they don't end up wanting to bust it 00:47:26.860 --> 00:47:28.699 up, and it all really happened. It ends very 00:47:28.699 --> 00:47:31.219 violently, obviously, because, you know, you 00:47:31.219 --> 00:47:33.179 have some form of a revolution that's going to 00:47:33.179 --> 00:47:36.570 end violently. If it gets too far, but it's a 00:47:36.570 --> 00:47:38.369 fascinating move and it seems like it seems like 00:47:38.369 --> 00:47:40.909 something don't be up your alley in terms of 00:47:40.909 --> 00:47:44.190 this shit I mean, there's the real do you know 00:47:44.190 --> 00:47:45.989 hazard? I think it's called it's either Harlan 00:47:45.989 --> 00:47:49.849 County USA or hazard USA Yeah, I believe it's 00:47:49.849 --> 00:47:52.949 I think it's Harlan. Yeah, and it's that documentary 00:47:52.949 --> 00:47:55.829 about about the Cold Wars Do you know about the 00:47:55.829 --> 00:48:00.469 Battle of Blair Mountain? Not in detail the Battle 00:48:00.469 --> 00:48:07.460 of Blair Mountain was the largest military insurgency 00:48:07.460 --> 00:48:12.960 against the US government since the Civil War. 00:48:13.179 --> 00:48:15.719 Basically from the Civil War to now, Blair Mountain 00:48:15.719 --> 00:48:19.960 is this outstanding, incredible upwelling of 00:48:19.960 --> 00:48:21.739 violence against the coal companies and against 00:48:21.739 --> 00:48:25.230 the strike breakers. local law enforcement, the 00:48:25.230 --> 00:48:26.630 federal government, the National Guard, we're 00:48:26.630 --> 00:48:28.670 all on the side of the coal companies. So these 00:48:28.670 --> 00:48:31.710 people who were diverse, like it was it was black 00:48:31.710 --> 00:48:33.889 workers, it was Mountaineers, it was immigrant 00:48:33.889 --> 00:48:36.130 workers, they all like we're like, hey, we have 00:48:36.130 --> 00:48:40.489 interests in common, that supersede any like, 00:48:40.670 --> 00:48:43.809 divisions that that already exist here. Let's 00:48:43.809 --> 00:48:45.989 work for our common interests. And like that 00:48:45.989 --> 00:48:49.960 coalition. fought and it was incredibly bloody 00:48:49.960 --> 00:48:52.659 and like mining concessions were minimal. And 00:48:52.659 --> 00:48:55.119 you know, I would have to refresh on how it all 00:48:55.119 --> 00:48:57.199 turned out. But like, I think kind of like you 00:48:57.199 --> 00:49:00.300 said, yeah, when you're when you're dealing with, 00:49:00.300 --> 00:49:04.400 you know, at a homespun insurgency in the mountains 00:49:04.400 --> 00:49:06.780 of Kentucky or West Virginia versus the might 00:49:06.780 --> 00:49:09.239 of the federal government, this is not it's just 00:49:09.239 --> 00:49:12.219 not going to end well. And so that Blair Mountain 00:49:12.219 --> 00:49:14.940 is is one of those instances that like both people 00:49:14.940 --> 00:49:18.599 in like, General southern history like alternative 00:49:18.599 --> 00:49:20.920 southern history trying to find instances of 00:49:20.920 --> 00:49:22.860 like people fighting back against the dominant 00:49:22.860 --> 00:49:25.119 culture of the south and in labor history in 00:49:25.119 --> 00:49:27.519 general like really tend to focus on Blair Mountain 00:49:27.519 --> 00:49:29.219 because it's again like kind of one of those 00:49:29.219 --> 00:49:31.980 alternative futures like had Certain things gone 00:49:31.980 --> 00:49:34.420 certain ways in certain places where repressive 00:49:34.420 --> 00:49:38.199 extractive Labor practices were taking place 00:49:38.199 --> 00:49:40.500 like we could live in a vastly different world 00:49:40.500 --> 00:49:42.980 and because those folks lost those battles We 00:49:42.980 --> 00:49:47.860 don't you know, yeah, I mean there's It plays 00:49:47.860 --> 00:49:51.739 out I Mean it still plays out. But the thing 00:49:51.739 --> 00:49:56.219 now is there's no more warfare essentially in 00:49:56.219 --> 00:49:59.280 in Developed countries. There's no more warfare. 00:49:59.559 --> 00:50:03.440 It's all You know kind of psychological warfare 00:50:03.440 --> 00:50:06.039 as opposed to like boots on the ground because 00:50:06.039 --> 00:50:08.119 if you can convince a group of people That's 00:50:08.119 --> 00:50:09.960 something that's in their best interest is not 00:50:09.960 --> 00:50:12.429 in their best interest. You've already won You 00:50:12.429 --> 00:50:14.449 know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then 00:50:14.449 --> 00:50:16.349 there's the whole like a lot of my friends are 00:50:16.349 --> 00:50:25.070 vets. And, you know, how those overseas war like 00:50:25.070 --> 00:50:27.630 the wars are fought elsewhere. It's kind of like 00:50:27.630 --> 00:50:30.590 it's kind of like it's really exploitative labor 00:50:30.590 --> 00:50:32.789 practices. Like there is obviously a lot of that 00:50:32.789 --> 00:50:34.250 happening in the United States, but the worst 00:50:34.250 --> 00:50:36.570 of it is happening overseas out of sight. You 00:50:36.570 --> 00:50:40.070 know, like people like your average person living 00:50:40.070 --> 00:50:42.739 in the middle of the country. is interacting 00:50:42.739 --> 00:50:45.139 something with this, but like, you know, the 00:50:45.139 --> 00:50:48.500 excess that you see in coastal metropolitan areas 00:50:48.500 --> 00:50:52.179 is really like that that's derived from having 00:50:52.179 --> 00:50:55.239 an overseas population of workers that can be 00:50:55.239 --> 00:50:57.059 brutally exploited to give you like comforts 00:50:57.059 --> 00:51:00.619 and everything like that. And that that like 00:51:00.619 --> 00:51:02.820 comes around, you know, like that that has effects 00:51:02.820 --> 00:51:05.059 on people that that does really terrible stuff 00:51:05.059 --> 00:51:07.280 to people's minds. And there's the, you know, 00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:09.159 the Imperial Boomerang, Foucault's Boomerang, 00:51:09.159 --> 00:51:12.699 they also call it. Yes. Yeah, yeah. About this. 00:51:13.239 --> 00:51:16.039 Yes, totally. So, you know, my friends who who 00:51:16.039 --> 00:51:17.880 fought overseas and come home, they're like, 00:51:17.900 --> 00:51:20.500 yeah, the tactics you're seeing from militarized 00:51:20.500 --> 00:51:23.239 police, from ICE, from all these like instances 00:51:23.239 --> 00:51:25.960 of like violent state repression. Those are techniques 00:51:25.960 --> 00:51:29.500 and technologies that we pioneered on people 00:51:29.500 --> 00:51:32.719 in Iraq and Afghanistan 20 years ago. Yeah, exactly. 00:51:32.780 --> 00:51:35.570 And so those There's something weird right now 00:51:35.570 --> 00:51:39.469 in bowling green, Kentucky like I Need to look 00:51:39.469 --> 00:51:43.349 more into this but apparently it's it's the home 00:51:43.349 --> 00:51:46.769 base of one of these surveillance companies and 00:51:46.769 --> 00:51:49.710 bowling green is like ten years ahead like they 00:51:49.710 --> 00:51:51.989 roll all the shit out and bowling green fucking 00:51:51.989 --> 00:51:56.349 Kentucky and Then we'll push it around the country 00:51:56.349 --> 00:51:58.730 after seeing if it works and that you know town 00:51:58.730 --> 00:52:02.280 that nobody thinks about And it's I mean, it's 00:52:02.280 --> 00:52:04.579 the same general thing of like well if it works 00:52:04.579 --> 00:52:07.760 here Then we can make it work over here with 00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:09.940 all the actual people, you know, because it gives 00:52:09.940 --> 00:52:13.139 a shit about Bowling Green, Kentucky We need 00:52:13.139 --> 00:52:17.940 to make this work in New York City Yeah But at 00:52:17.940 --> 00:52:23.599 the same time like Growing up in DC, it's Odd 00:52:23.599 --> 00:52:26.340 because I was around a lot of the people that 00:52:26.340 --> 00:52:29.739 You know benefited the most from all of this 00:52:29.739 --> 00:52:34.929 stuff, you know Like a lot of my friends parents 00:52:34.929 --> 00:52:38.730 or mom's parents or whoever, you know, like they're 00:52:38.730 --> 00:52:41.550 Diplomats or World Bank employees or any defense 00:52:41.550 --> 00:52:44.650 contractors Not a lot of defense. I was just 00:52:44.650 --> 00:52:47.829 kidding. Yes No, because you know, like my mom's 00:52:47.829 --> 00:52:51.130 like a coastal elite liberal So no defense contractors 00:52:51.130 --> 00:52:54.630 just people that that do stuff that isn't violent 00:52:54.630 --> 00:52:58.070 quote -unquote Sure sure sure sure, you know 00:52:58.860 --> 00:53:05.820 But I mean, this was... People change when the 00:53:05.820 --> 00:53:09.559 administrations change, but the general concepts 00:53:09.559 --> 00:53:12.980 do not change. You know? It's just a different 00:53:12.980 --> 00:53:16.360 person in whatever job is this, you know? I mean, 00:53:16.480 --> 00:53:19.079 I love the memes where it's like... it's it's 00:53:19.079 --> 00:53:21.179 the like bomber with the like carpet bombing. 00:53:21.179 --> 00:53:23.500 Yeah. And it's like it's labeled like, that's 00:53:23.500 --> 00:53:24.940 the thing. And it says Republicans. And then 00:53:24.940 --> 00:53:27.019 the bottom, it's got that same bomber with the 00:53:27.019 --> 00:53:29.380 pride flag on it and like BLM and stuff. And 00:53:29.380 --> 00:53:31.340 it's still bombing. And it says Democrats. And 00:53:31.340 --> 00:53:35.840 like that's unfortunately, I I think way too 00:53:35.840 --> 00:53:39.960 much about this stuff. But I think a lot of the 00:53:39.960 --> 00:53:45.420 like current dissonance that that I see is a 00:53:45.420 --> 00:53:48.539 lot of folks knowing Like everyone kind of agrees 00:53:48.539 --> 00:53:51.260 on the general problems. It's the source of the 00:53:51.260 --> 00:53:53.320 problems and why they're happening and how to 00:53:53.320 --> 00:53:56.019 address it that that there's the real disagreement 00:53:56.019 --> 00:53:58.440 like we all know we're we're not being paid enough 00:53:58.440 --> 00:54:01.420 that like standard of living is declining cost 00:54:01.420 --> 00:54:03.579 of living is increasing wages have stagnated 00:54:03.579 --> 00:54:07.539 for and just disgusting amount of time. And that 00:54:07.539 --> 00:54:10.340 has all these knock on effects but it's depending 00:54:10.340 --> 00:54:12.719 on like who you're listening to who's telling 00:54:12.719 --> 00:54:15.920 you who to be angry at you know and like when 00:54:16.500 --> 00:54:19.480 When people are suffering and like their material 00:54:19.480 --> 00:54:23.179 needs are not met like it's really easy to be 00:54:23.179 --> 00:54:25.679 convinced to blame Trans folks and immigrants 00:54:25.679 --> 00:54:27.679 for your problems as opposed to being like, oh, 00:54:27.699 --> 00:54:29.579 it's like people like Elon Musk who I should 00:54:29.579 --> 00:54:31.900 be mad at You know all the good that pretends 00:54:31.900 --> 00:54:34.340 they hate each other but actually hang out together. 00:54:34.760 --> 00:54:36.980 Yeah, and that's that's the whole thing or it's 00:54:36.980 --> 00:54:41.619 like I I'm not big on electoral politics. I'm 00:54:41.619 --> 00:54:45.409 not somebody who Who like thinks that's how we're 00:54:45.409 --> 00:54:48.030 going to solve our problems necessarily. I'm 00:54:48.030 --> 00:54:50.150 not like, Oh yeah, we just vote blue. It'll all 00:54:50.150 --> 00:54:53.030 be okay. I just don't think that way. And it 00:54:53.030 --> 00:54:55.510 is interesting talking to like people I'm related 00:54:55.510 --> 00:54:58.880 to who are like Southern Democrats, like not 00:54:58.880 --> 00:55:01.400 old school Southern Democrats, but like hardcore. 00:55:01.659 --> 00:55:05.059 We believe in the party's power to transform 00:55:05.059 --> 00:55:07.500 people's lives for the better. And even those 00:55:07.500 --> 00:55:09.219 folks who are related to who I love and whose 00:55:09.219 --> 00:55:11.179 opinions I respect, they're coming around and 00:55:11.179 --> 00:55:13.599 they're being like, yeah, mainstream Democrats, 00:55:13.840 --> 00:55:15.619 like they failed us. And that's why we're in 00:55:15.619 --> 00:55:18.500 the position we're in, you know? I mean, yeah, 00:55:18.500 --> 00:55:21.900 I have. You know how you're fascinated with the 00:55:21.900 --> 00:55:26.340 border of Arkansas and Oklahoma? My thing is 00:55:26.340 --> 00:55:31.059 the Manson case. Like that's my fucking thing. 00:55:31.380 --> 00:55:33.900 I read helter -skelter ages ago. So I know I 00:55:33.900 --> 00:55:35.980 know a little bit but not everything Oh, no, 00:55:36.059 --> 00:55:38.260 no, no helter -skelter is a lie that whole I 00:55:38.260 --> 00:55:40.380 know I've heard so I've that's I was gonna say 00:55:40.380 --> 00:55:42.380 is I've actually understood that to be like basically 00:55:42.380 --> 00:55:44.300 a political hit piece But you wanna know what 00:55:44.300 --> 00:55:46.300 the issue is Tom O 'Neill the guy that wrote 00:55:46.300 --> 00:55:51.539 chaos. That shit is also a hit piece Yeah, man, 00:55:51.559 --> 00:55:55.679 it's a hippie on the hit piece that it's a It 00:55:55.679 --> 00:55:58.619 comes down to Scientology a lot of the time. 00:55:59.119 --> 00:56:00.760 Interesting. They were called the Scientology 00:56:00.760 --> 00:56:03.360 Murders up until Scientology was like that can't 00:56:03.360 --> 00:56:06.059 be the thing. Because everyone involved in it 00:56:06.059 --> 00:56:08.940 was a Scientologist or a Scientologist offshoot 00:56:08.940 --> 00:56:12.159 who was making porn tapes. It comes down to porn 00:56:12.159 --> 00:56:16.219 and Scientology. Wow. For real. All the best 00:56:16.219 --> 00:56:18.869 things really. I mean, it does. It's porn, Scientology, 00:56:18.969 --> 00:56:20.769 and blackmail. It's essentially like a proto 00:56:20.769 --> 00:56:23.630 -Epstein. Because a lot of the people that are 00:56:23.630 --> 00:56:26.369 involved in the Manson stuff, like Paul Krasner, 00:56:26.769 --> 00:56:29.449 who was the realist guy, you know, Counter Culture 00:56:29.449 --> 00:56:32.530 magazine, super cool, type in Paul Krasner on 00:56:32.530 --> 00:56:34.710 the Epstein files and see how much that motherfucker 00:56:34.710 --> 00:56:37.650 shows up. Oh, that's terrifying. Okay. Damn. 00:56:37.650 --> 00:56:39.690 And like, you can track, because Manson goes 00:56:39.690 --> 00:56:42.050 to Son of Sam, and if you get there, you get 00:56:42.050 --> 00:56:44.829 right to Warhol, which takes you directly to 00:56:44.829 --> 00:56:48.739 Epstein. but all these people it's the same line 00:56:48.739 --> 00:56:50.940 and it's fascinating like that's why this case 00:56:50.940 --> 00:56:55.159 partially fascinates me so much is that all the 00:56:55.159 --> 00:56:58.579 stuff related to this seeming random hippie cult 00:56:58.579 --> 00:57:03.320 murder actually directly line up to our current 00:57:03.320 --> 00:57:06.900 government like and has for the past 30 years 00:57:06.900 --> 00:57:10.000 you know what I mean like like it's not a new 00:57:10.000 --> 00:57:12.980 line it's You know, one of the guys that wrote 00:57:12.980 --> 00:57:15.219 Mind War with Michael Aquino, who's a Temple 00:57:15.219 --> 00:57:18.320 of Set guy, which is a Satanist temple. And also, 00:57:18.440 --> 00:57:21.159 Michael Aquino is a military intelligence operative. 00:57:21.420 --> 00:57:23.940 Him and this other dude wrote Mind War in 1980. 00:57:24.059 --> 00:57:25.960 Look that document up, it's gonna bum you out. 00:57:26.940 --> 00:57:29.139 It's essentially how you control a population 00:57:29.139 --> 00:57:32.639 without actually firing a shot. And this guy, 00:57:32.780 --> 00:57:34.820 Paul Vellely, is now on the board of Turning 00:57:34.820 --> 00:57:37.940 Point USA. Yep. Yep. All that checks out. And 00:57:37.940 --> 00:57:39.480 a lot of those guys are probably cribbing off 00:57:39.480 --> 00:57:41.260 of Carl Schmitt. Do you know that, dude? yeah 00:57:41.260 --> 00:57:45.739 i mean dude it's the thing is it goes it goes 00:57:45.739 --> 00:57:50.679 back i've been able to can easily track it to 00:57:50.679 --> 00:57:55.639 1907 and the jp morgan warning of federal reserve 00:57:55.639 --> 00:57:58.340 so and i mean that all lines up with the general 00:57:58.340 --> 00:58:01.570 like the i mean i think people Take for granted 00:58:01.570 --> 00:58:04.650 that the nation state as we know it, like a government 00:58:04.650 --> 00:58:07.110 with an economy that work in concert with one 00:58:07.110 --> 00:58:09.110 another, like who's going to enforce debt? It's 00:58:09.110 --> 00:58:11.550 got to be, you know, the government who has access 00:58:11.550 --> 00:58:13.590 to weapons and power. Like whoever has the guns 00:58:13.590 --> 00:58:17.130 and the money is in charge. But like the, the 00:58:17.130 --> 00:58:19.170 establishment of the nation state as we know 00:58:19.170 --> 00:58:22.840 it. is so incredibly new. We have people alive 00:58:22.840 --> 00:58:26.699 today who were kids in the early days of the 00:58:26.699 --> 00:58:28.719 establishment of what we now know as the modern 00:58:28.719 --> 00:58:33.380 nation state. I think we're all really, as a 00:58:33.380 --> 00:58:36.980 population who are not part of the power structure 00:58:36.980 --> 00:58:40.059 of the nation state, we're all just in real time 00:58:40.059 --> 00:58:43.920 figuring out how to adapt against this thing 00:58:43.920 --> 00:58:47.280 that is really new and is really incredibly complex. 00:58:49.210 --> 00:58:51.829 Yeah, I think people just, again, don't quite 00:58:51.829 --> 00:58:55.349 grasp that like Germany and Italy weren't countries 00:58:55.349 --> 00:58:57.550 until the late 19th century. You know, I think 00:58:57.550 --> 00:59:00.230 they were. You think they were. But it was Prussia 00:59:00.230 --> 00:59:02.449 and all these other different areas. Yeah. Holy 00:59:02.449 --> 00:59:05.110 Roman Empire, the Papal States and so much. There's 00:59:05.110 --> 00:59:09.050 just it's so much there. But that like nationalism, 00:59:09.690 --> 00:59:12.289 as in like trending towards the nation state. 00:59:12.610 --> 00:59:15.760 This is like a very incredibly modern way of 00:59:15.760 --> 00:59:17.559 thinking. It's very unprecedented, it's very 00:59:17.559 --> 00:59:20.539 different, and it's very fraught. I think there's 00:59:20.539 --> 00:59:23.219 so many holes in it and so many ways that you 00:59:23.219 --> 00:59:26.179 can circumvent it and have a good life outside 00:59:26.179 --> 00:59:30.599 of the crushing power of the nation state. We 00:59:30.599 --> 00:59:33.579 shouldn't blame ourselves for being in the position 00:59:33.579 --> 00:59:35.920 we are where we have an all -powerful federal 00:59:35.920 --> 00:59:38.519 government and an economy that just sucks us 00:59:38.519 --> 00:59:41.619 dry. This all happened really fast, a lot faster 00:59:41.619 --> 00:59:47.000 than we were able to adapt. and combat it. I 00:59:47.000 --> 00:59:48.559 think we should be a little easier on ourselves 00:59:48.559 --> 00:59:50.400 that we're up against a pretty crazy thing and 00:59:50.400 --> 00:59:55.619 it happened very quickly. We had a coup in Dallas 00:59:55.619 --> 01:00:01.039 in 1963 that set us on this, I think, direct 01:00:01.039 --> 01:00:07.199 track. Because you end up with a guy who doesn't 01:00:07.199 --> 01:00:09.739 like the deep state, wants to basically disband 01:00:09.739 --> 01:00:13.519 the CIA. Doesn't like the Federal Reserve all 01:00:13.519 --> 01:00:15.380 this shit. He's like this doesn't make any fucking 01:00:15.380 --> 01:00:18.559 sense and then that guy ends up dead Yeah, you 01:00:18.559 --> 01:00:21.039 know and then all the people that wanted all 01:00:21.039 --> 01:00:23.519 that stuff the same thing with the Titanic Hey, 01:00:23.539 --> 01:00:25.440 everyone that doesn't like the Federal Reserve 01:00:25.440 --> 01:00:27.619 get on this fucking boat. I actually won't be 01:00:27.619 --> 01:00:31.320 joining you But next year I will be instituting 01:00:31.320 --> 01:00:35.820 the Federal Reserve You know what I think it 01:00:35.820 --> 01:00:39.659 goes even deeper than that like when The foundational 01:00:39.659 --> 01:00:42.300 documents of this country, we have the establishment 01:00:42.300 --> 01:00:45.940 of the Electoral College and the Senate, two 01:00:45.940 --> 01:00:48.139 of these things that are basically vestiges of 01:00:48.139 --> 01:00:51.019 aristocratic Europe. Like, oh, don't give them 01:00:51.019 --> 01:00:54.739 too much power because we couldn't have direct 01:00:54.739 --> 01:00:56.699 democracy, couldn't have everybody actually voting. 01:00:57.260 --> 01:00:58.820 And a lot of folks in the United States don't 01:00:58.820 --> 01:01:02.579 know that it wasn't until 1828. That universal 01:01:02.579 --> 01:01:04.820 male suffrage happened like before that you had 01:01:04.820 --> 01:01:08.199 to own property to vote in this country so the 01:01:08.199 --> 01:01:11.960 like the founding principles the founding laws 01:01:11.960 --> 01:01:14.840 the precedents that were set around like access 01:01:14.840 --> 01:01:18.219 to property and Inheritance and the economy just 01:01:18.219 --> 01:01:21.400 all these things are all based in this time period 01:01:21.400 --> 01:01:24.079 where the only people that had power own property 01:01:24.079 --> 01:01:27.039 like take white male out of the equation entirely 01:01:27.039 --> 01:01:29.119 and you're still talking about a set of people 01:01:29.119 --> 01:01:31.400 who were obviously acting in their own interests 01:01:31.400 --> 01:01:34.239 and we're still living in the shadow of all those 01:01:34.239 --> 01:01:36.480 decisions that were made the first first 40 years 01:01:36.480 --> 01:01:38.440 that we were a country you know well then you 01:01:38.440 --> 01:01:41.159 end up i mean now if it goes back to people that 01:01:41.159 --> 01:01:45.420 own property it would shrink wildly because it's 01:01:45.420 --> 01:01:48.659 almost possible for people under the age of you 01:01:48.659 --> 01:01:52.000 know 40 now to own property it's very in a lot 01:01:52.000 --> 01:01:55.210 of ways it's still it is that, you know, like 01:01:55.210 --> 01:01:57.469 think about how political power works, how lobbying 01:01:57.469 --> 01:02:01.610 works, how how like influence on our elections 01:02:01.610 --> 01:02:05.289 and and the things that like actually determine 01:02:05.289 --> 01:02:07.650 how policy are made are mostly based around who 01:02:07.650 --> 01:02:11.230 has access and who has capital. And those are 01:02:11.230 --> 01:02:14.070 predominantly like the ownership class, you know, 01:02:14.070 --> 01:02:17.050 like whether it's owning corporations and owning 01:02:17.050 --> 01:02:19.909 land, like they kind of fall into the same category 01:02:19.909 --> 01:02:22.289 at this point in terms of like the amount of 01:02:22.280 --> 01:02:25.019 power you have to to wield within our system. 01:02:25.880 --> 01:02:29.340 And I would argue that we are more or less in 01:02:29.340 --> 01:02:32.920 a, like a kleptocracy, you know, and like, people 01:02:32.920 --> 01:02:36.280 will, you know, there's obviously a whole segment 01:02:36.280 --> 01:02:38.800 of the country that are going to be very convinced 01:02:38.800 --> 01:02:41.760 about a certain way that our elections are rigged. 01:02:41.860 --> 01:02:43.840 And I'm like, yeah, you know what, our elections 01:02:43.840 --> 01:02:46.420 are rigged. In my lifetime, two Republicans got 01:02:46.420 --> 01:02:48.539 to be president who did not win the popular vote, 01:02:48.619 --> 01:02:51.769 you know, like that. That's that's rigged that's 01:02:51.769 --> 01:02:53.769 rigged for the property owning class that's owned 01:02:53.769 --> 01:02:56.590 or that's rigged for For the people that like 01:02:56.590 --> 01:02:59.190 have the most stake in our economic system continuing 01:02:59.190 --> 01:03:02.110 the way that it does now And I wish first of 01:03:02.110 --> 01:03:06.750 all, this is a podcast about music Yeah, we can 01:03:06.750 --> 01:03:10.030 talk about song if you like I just took a left 01:03:10.030 --> 01:03:12.269 turn if you will i'm joking we do we've been 01:03:12.269 --> 01:03:16.349 doing a thing um That we're now asking guests 01:03:16.349 --> 01:03:19.150 like what their favorite rabbit holes are But 01:03:19.150 --> 01:03:22.050 I don't feel like I have to ask you that No, 01:03:22.170 --> 01:03:24.429 unfortunately, I drop of the hat be the one to 01:03:24.429 --> 01:03:26.849 drop it I will get deep on some on some shit 01:03:26.849 --> 01:03:29.030 That is one of the that is one of the main things 01:03:29.030 --> 01:03:32.809 that I knew about you going into this I was like, 01:03:32.809 --> 01:03:35.650 I don't think I'm gonna have to forest that out 01:03:35.650 --> 01:03:40.190 of fun Sure, the thing is I'm like, I'm not a 01:03:40.190 --> 01:03:43.329 I'm not a formally educated man, you know, I'm 01:03:43.329 --> 01:03:45.010 a college dropout. I'm what they call an auto 01:03:45.010 --> 01:03:48.489 didact, which means I mispronounce things but 01:03:49.690 --> 01:03:52.989 I'm constantly self -educating and constantly 01:03:52.989 --> 01:04:00.849 searching for basically what is creating or coloring 01:04:00.849 --> 01:04:03.530 the biases of the information I'm getting. Who 01:04:03.530 --> 01:04:07.929 benefits from this opinion I'm forming? If I 01:04:07.929 --> 01:04:09.670 feel a certain type of way about something, who 01:04:09.670 --> 01:04:12.630 at the top is going to end up with more power, 01:04:12.710 --> 01:04:15.920 more security because I'm concentrating? on that 01:04:15.920 --> 01:04:18.900 particular way of solving a problem. And that 01:04:18.900 --> 01:04:21.239 like variety of critical thinking of like who 01:04:21.239 --> 01:04:23.699 benefits from my opinion has kept me from becoming 01:04:23.699 --> 01:04:27.179 all sorts of people while being like a not formally 01:04:27.179 --> 01:04:29.619 educated human being. I mean, you know, like 01:04:29.619 --> 01:04:32.360 that's when I'm doing all this like Manson research. 01:04:32.880 --> 01:04:36.820 You know, if I hear something one time from one 01:04:36.820 --> 01:04:40.400 source, I go, OK, maybe, you know, like, what 01:04:40.400 --> 01:04:42.639 do you why are you saying that they're doing 01:04:42.639 --> 01:04:45.309 this? But then you hear it from like 20. and 01:04:45.309 --> 01:04:46.989 they're all different angles and you go okay 01:04:46.989 --> 01:04:50.110 that might be true you know and i feel like it's 01:04:50.110 --> 01:04:53.210 the same thing with a lot of information now 01:04:53.210 --> 01:04:56.389 is if you hear it one time you can go okay uh 01:04:56.389 --> 01:04:59.550 but then if you like keep hearing it a you got 01:04:59.550 --> 01:05:01.630 to be like well is it just the same overarching 01:05:01.630 --> 01:05:03.710 corporation that owns all these news sources 01:05:03.710 --> 01:05:08.590 uh but you know if you just like if you're hearing 01:05:08.590 --> 01:05:12.210 a thing over and over and over it might be worth 01:05:12.210 --> 01:05:14.800 looking into and then getting your own kind of 01:05:14.800 --> 01:05:18.059 opinion on it in terms of like I try and look 01:05:18.059 --> 01:05:21.840 at police reports a lot right and then like internal 01:05:21.840 --> 01:05:25.179 FBI and internal Scientology reports because 01:05:25.179 --> 01:05:27.400 they all have angles but those aren't for people 01:05:27.400 --> 01:05:30.480 to see you know what I mean right so like they're 01:05:30.480 --> 01:05:33.599 telling the most truth in these internal documents 01:05:33.599 --> 01:05:37.840 you know where like Scientology will tell you 01:05:37.840 --> 01:05:40.780 the truth in a in a document but then their guy 01:05:40.780 --> 01:05:43.190 will come out and say an opposite thing Sure, 01:05:43.190 --> 01:05:46.570 you know and so if you if you can get somehow 01:05:46.570 --> 01:05:50.670 To the point where you find the truth that they 01:05:50.670 --> 01:05:54.409 need to tell each other. I Think that's that's 01:05:54.409 --> 01:05:56.530 where the information lies, you know, not the 01:05:56.530 --> 01:06:00.570 PR and not this other shit But you know, I mean 01:06:00.570 --> 01:06:02.489 it's harder to do that with modern stuff than 01:06:02.489 --> 01:06:04.809 it is with older stuff If I go back 60 years 01:06:04.809 --> 01:06:07.889 a lot of shits been declassified. I just go find 01:06:07.889 --> 01:06:10.849 it, you know, but with the Epstein shit That's 01:06:10.849 --> 01:06:13.869 like the best example of modern times. You can 01:06:13.869 --> 01:06:16.309 read, you know, Michael Jackson was on the Epstein 01:06:16.309 --> 01:06:18.889 and he's in the Epstein files. And that's a picture 01:06:18.889 --> 01:06:21.309 of him with, you know, kids that are blocked 01:06:21.309 --> 01:06:23.269 off and they're into one of Epstein's houses. 01:06:23.269 --> 01:06:25.989 And that's a big article for a period. And then 01:06:25.989 --> 01:06:28.530 you look into it and the picture is Michael Jackson 01:06:28.530 --> 01:06:30.429 trying to buy a house that was on the market 01:06:30.429 --> 01:06:32.510 being sold by Epstein. And they're his kids. 01:06:33.809 --> 01:06:36.329 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, or like the whole Noam Chomsky 01:06:36.329 --> 01:06:39.670 thing where like Noam Chomsky was deeply committed 01:06:39.670 --> 01:06:43.860 to ideologically shifting Epstein's turn towards 01:06:43.860 --> 01:06:45.780 the right and towards fascism. And so that's 01:06:45.780 --> 01:06:47.719 why he stuck with them and why he kept emailing 01:06:47.719 --> 01:06:51.219 them. And I'm not going to pretend to know to 01:06:51.219 --> 01:06:53.380 defend on every level, every person that was 01:06:53.380 --> 01:06:55.519 in that. But like you said, you start to pick 01:06:55.519 --> 01:06:58.280 apart what these things are and what it actually 01:06:58.280 --> 01:07:01.360 means. And the picture becomes a lot more complicated 01:07:01.360 --> 01:07:05.380 and a lot more worth it. And I think for me, 01:07:05.579 --> 01:07:10.329 I was uh very conspiratorial conspiratorially 01:07:10.329 --> 01:07:13.010 minded when I was younger and like really kind 01:07:13.010 --> 01:07:15.070 of thought of the world in those terms like everything's 01:07:15.070 --> 01:07:17.530 in the shadows and I can't see it's all like 01:07:17.530 --> 01:07:19.630 kind of undefeatable because it's so big and 01:07:19.630 --> 01:07:22.650 so entrenched and so complicated and so like 01:07:22.650 --> 01:07:25.809 you know kind of occult if you will and I think 01:07:25.809 --> 01:07:28.070 what I eventually ran into is like you can't 01:07:28.070 --> 01:07:30.590 defeat that if it's like supernaturally powerful 01:07:30.590 --> 01:07:34.269 if it's like if it's so ingrained and it's so 01:07:34.380 --> 01:07:37.639 you know in the shadow and so webby like that's 01:07:37.639 --> 01:07:41.480 it's really hard to combat and and and sort of 01:07:41.480 --> 01:07:44.519 pull that apart and defang it and take away its 01:07:44.519 --> 01:07:48.039 power whereas like if you kind of assume a lot 01:07:48.039 --> 01:07:49.960 of this stuff is happening because people are 01:07:49.960 --> 01:07:53.099 just messy and incompetent you eventually realize 01:07:53.099 --> 01:07:54.739 it's somewhere in between where there's like 01:07:54.739 --> 01:07:58.300 a whole shadow realm where it's like these Ungovernable 01:07:58.300 --> 01:08:00.739 unaccountable forces of power within our world 01:08:00.739 --> 01:08:02.719 and then there's also just kind of like a lot 01:08:02.719 --> 01:08:05.360 of hapless idiots making like sort of obvious 01:08:05.360 --> 01:08:08.730 blunders that like. Get sort of get interpreted 01:08:08.730 --> 01:08:12.369 as nefarious like deeply complicated like you 01:08:12.369 --> 01:08:14.230 spun up conspiratorial things and if you kind 01:08:14.230 --> 01:08:15.730 of land somewhere in the middle where it's like 01:08:15.730 --> 01:08:17.649 I can assume a certain amount of incompetence 01:08:17.649 --> 01:08:19.609 is at work here and a certain amount of like 01:08:19.609 --> 01:08:22.569 nefarious like backdoor dealing it ends up at 01:08:22.569 --> 01:08:24.590 this place where I feel comfortable now to say 01:08:24.590 --> 01:08:28.409 like you can form opinions and form like plans 01:08:28.409 --> 01:08:31.430 of action for yourself or your community that 01:08:31.430 --> 01:08:35.369 like give you the ability to out think out smart 01:08:35.369 --> 01:08:39.020 out. out compete with that sort supposedly all 01:08:39.020 --> 01:08:40.859 powerful entity because like those all powerful 01:08:40.859 --> 01:08:43.800 entities are run by like, dumb messy people just 01:08:43.800 --> 01:08:46.600 like us. And like, I think humanizing behind 01:08:46.600 --> 01:08:48.979 it to be like, Oh, yeah, like you read that police 01:08:48.979 --> 01:08:51.300 report. And like, you know, these details are 01:08:51.300 --> 01:08:52.760 different from the public statement. And like, 01:08:52.899 --> 01:08:54.359 that could be all nefarious in the same shell. 01:08:54.399 --> 01:08:56.539 So like, yeah, most cops aren't particularly 01:08:56.539 --> 01:08:59.670 like bright or educated human beings, they don't 01:08:59.670 --> 01:09:01.949 get drawn to those jobs because they have any 01:09:01.949 --> 01:09:04.789 intellectual rigor to them. It was just like 01:09:04.789 --> 01:09:08.449 a different guy, you know? The PR guy didn't 01:09:08.449 --> 01:09:15.689 read the thing. There's a quote from Norm Macdonald 01:09:15.689 --> 01:09:17.350 that I think about a lot. He was talking about 01:09:17.350 --> 01:09:21.789 it in terms of going to church. He's basically 01:09:21.789 --> 01:09:25.489 said, essentially, God is great and all -powerful. 01:09:25.689 --> 01:09:27.750 But the problem with man is that he's fallible. 01:09:27.869 --> 01:09:31.729 So you can't trust those motherfuckers. You know, 01:09:31.829 --> 01:09:38.050 and like, yeah, like a lot of people are fallible. 01:09:38.810 --> 01:09:42.949 And I think when you get into because my whole 01:09:42.949 --> 01:09:45.229 thing relates to that exact case because it's 01:09:45.229 --> 01:09:47.909 my fucking fixation, right? For whatever reason. 01:09:49.489 --> 01:09:52.229 But, you know, you can start breaking down like 01:09:52.229 --> 01:09:55.819 it's not an overarching, you know, Conspiracy 01:09:55.819 --> 01:09:57.880 that all these people are involved in as to why 01:09:57.880 --> 01:10:00.979 these murders happened It's a perfect storm of 01:10:00.979 --> 01:10:03.760 28 different groups doing their own goddamn things, 01:10:03.760 --> 01:10:08.199 you know And then one very like hurt abused human 01:10:08.199 --> 01:10:10.380 being who caused a lot of horror Yeah, because 01:10:10.380 --> 01:10:12.199 then you look at that guy and you're like, oh, 01:10:12.279 --> 01:10:14.560 well, he was raped his entire childhood in kid 01:10:14.560 --> 01:10:17.319 jail Yeah, he had like the worst fucking life 01:10:17.319 --> 01:10:19.279 Like how is a person supposed to turn out normal 01:10:19.279 --> 01:10:20.640 for that? Although if we're gonna round this 01:10:20.640 --> 01:10:24.069 back to music Charlie Manson's got a A version 01:10:24.069 --> 01:10:26.270 of the Arkansas Traveler, it's just called Arkansas, 01:10:26.689 --> 01:10:28.550 banger song. He does a great job with that one. 01:10:28.810 --> 01:10:30.109 He's pretty good. He should have been in the 01:10:30.109 --> 01:10:33.590 Beach Boys. That's the thing that cracks me. 01:10:33.609 --> 01:10:36.050 I think about this all the time. In an alternate 01:10:36.050 --> 01:10:39.029 reality, Charles Manson gets his records put 01:10:39.029 --> 01:10:41.329 out on like Fat Possum or Light in the Attic 01:10:41.329 --> 01:10:43.109 and then all the hipsters discover him and now 01:10:43.109 --> 01:10:46.750 he gets to play. Tours in his 70s and you know 01:10:46.750 --> 01:10:52.229 cramps took him on tour. Yeah, I'm a big Hazel 01:10:52.229 --> 01:10:54.229 Adkins fan and you know, he could have ended 01:10:54.229 --> 01:10:58.810 up just being like a kind of Consistent violent 01:10:58.810 --> 01:11:00.710 criminal in the mountains of West Virginia and 01:11:00.710 --> 01:11:03.069 instead the cramps took him on tour and he was 01:11:03.069 --> 01:11:05.590 a beloved musician But that guy was a menace 01:11:05.590 --> 01:11:09.250 That guy's a total nut cuz like multiple armed 01:11:09.250 --> 01:11:12.449 battles. Yeah, and it so it's like there the 01:11:12.449 --> 01:11:15.640 path always forks Yeah, I mean if it went one 01:11:15.640 --> 01:11:18.560 way I mean his version of cease to exist is better 01:11:18.560 --> 01:11:20.800 than the Beach Boys never learn not to love by 01:11:20.800 --> 01:11:24.939 a lot But like you know I mean you have that 01:11:24.939 --> 01:11:27.399 you get out of jail suddenly you're cool And 01:11:27.399 --> 01:11:29.819 you can just fuck anyone you want to and weeds 01:11:29.819 --> 01:11:32.659 around and all you know how to do is steal cars 01:11:32.659 --> 01:11:36.689 and forge checks and prostitute people Yeah, 01:11:36.710 --> 01:11:38.329 all you know how to do is make yourself feel 01:11:38.329 --> 01:11:40.590 safe by manipulating your surroundings. And that's 01:11:40.590 --> 01:11:44.210 like, he mistook power for safety. And so that 01:11:44.210 --> 01:11:46.590 was part of, I think, like the building of the 01:11:46.590 --> 01:11:49.109 family. Yeah. And then at some point they're 01:11:49.109 --> 01:11:52.649 involved in making porn and he gets, you know, 01:11:52.909 --> 01:11:55.630 a contract goes out on people at Cielo Drive 01:11:55.630 --> 01:11:57.529 and some people turn it down and they take it. 01:11:57.550 --> 01:11:59.840 And that's what happened. I had no idea I was 01:11:59.840 --> 01:12:01.739 coming into a Manson murder thing. This is great. 01:12:01.739 --> 01:12:07.840 Yeah But I really think like it was a hit it 01:12:07.840 --> 01:12:12.239 was a paid hit I think it goes back to You know 01:12:12.239 --> 01:12:16.300 Elrond Hubbard Who was a naval intelligence operative 01:12:16.300 --> 01:12:19.539 by the way and in relation to Jack Parsons and 01:12:19.539 --> 01:12:21.859 the OTO and Aleister Crowley and all that shit 01:12:21.859 --> 01:12:26.079 So that's a whole other angle on it But yeah, 01:12:26.159 --> 01:12:28.699 man, I mean I think I think part of the reason 01:12:28.699 --> 01:12:30.699 I'm so interested in that case is you get all 01:12:30.699 --> 01:12:36.399 the aspects of basically the American experience 01:12:36.399 --> 01:12:39.819 The American century, you know power rock and 01:12:39.819 --> 01:12:42.979 roll like all the excess all this shit the prisons 01:12:42.979 --> 01:12:45.500 end of history all that Yeah, you know you get 01:12:45.500 --> 01:12:50.420 every aspect of what exists in our society Just 01:12:50.420 --> 01:12:53.680 boiled down into one thing happening You know 01:12:54.670 --> 01:12:56.590 And then you can take it out wherever you want 01:12:56.590 --> 01:13:00.649 to go. But it's to me, you know, I mean, you're 01:13:00.649 --> 01:13:04.250 looking at a system failure, essentially, and 01:13:04.250 --> 01:13:06.529 then it becomes propaganda for why hippies are 01:13:06.529 --> 01:13:09.289 bad. Yeah, I guess that's the big part of it, 01:13:09.289 --> 01:13:12.289 where it's like, you could not have picked a 01:13:12.289 --> 01:13:16.689 better way to like, paint the love generation 01:13:16.689 --> 01:13:20.750 and the American left in like murderous, terrifying 01:13:20.750 --> 01:13:23.609 terms, then like tying that to the bans and murders. 01:13:24.170 --> 01:13:26.289 They were already doing that. That's what Cointel 01:13:26.289 --> 01:13:28.930 Pro is. I was just I was about to bring up Cointel 01:13:28.930 --> 01:13:32.449 Pro. My current my current little fun conspiratorial 01:13:32.449 --> 01:13:34.869 track is that Cointel Pro is responsible for 01:13:34.869 --> 01:13:36.930 the rightward turn of American country music. 01:13:37.289 --> 01:13:39.569 Like there is no Merle Haggard writing White 01:13:39.569 --> 01:13:42.810 Boy and Fight Inside of Me without like somebody 01:13:42.810 --> 01:13:44.869 in his ear being like you could probably do this 01:13:44.869 --> 01:13:46.109 and make a lot of money and we're going to do 01:13:46.109 --> 01:13:48.069 this whole whole thing for you. But like we don't 01:13:48.069 --> 01:13:51.649 I don't think like we can. We can safely say 01:13:51.649 --> 01:13:55.270 that there was not some hand of federal influence 01:13:55.270 --> 01:13:57.250 on the rightward turn of country music, because 01:13:57.250 --> 01:13:59.289 that happens right after the Civil Rights Movement. 01:14:00.050 --> 01:14:05.210 You cannot find patriotic, Republican -leaning 01:14:05.210 --> 01:14:10.649 country music until Merle Haggard. A guy named 01:14:10.649 --> 01:14:13.069 Stonewall Jackson, first of all, was doing a 01:14:13.069 --> 01:14:15.270 Wash My Hands in Muddy Water, just songs about 01:14:15.270 --> 01:14:18.439 being a criminal. You know, well sure and also 01:14:18.439 --> 01:14:20.140 like from a southern perspective like all that 01:14:20.140 --> 01:14:22.659 was meant to be like kind of confederate propaganda 01:14:22.659 --> 01:14:24.699 like neo confederate propaganda Which again is 01:14:24.699 --> 01:14:26.960 a response to the civil rights movement. I I 01:14:26.960 --> 01:14:30.100 do I love merl haggard, uh, like misery and all 01:14:30.100 --> 01:14:32.920 that shit And also dude, I love the fucking song 01:14:32.920 --> 01:14:36.659 white boy. It cracks me up It's it's it's appalling 01:14:36.659 --> 01:14:38.819 to me. I find whenever I like have a conversation 01:14:38.819 --> 01:14:41.260 and someone's like On like a merl kick about 01:14:41.260 --> 01:14:42.979 being an outlaw. I'm like, yeah, but have you 01:14:42.979 --> 01:14:48.770 heard white boy? Made some shirts recently that 01:14:48.770 --> 01:14:51.890 are about from that song that say on the top 01:14:51.890 --> 01:14:53.810 I'm just a white boy looking for a place to do 01:14:53.810 --> 01:14:57.210 my thing and it's like Charles Manson and the 01:14:57.210 --> 01:15:00.729 Unabomber and shit. Holy shit. Do you know Dr. 01:15:00.949 --> 01:15:04.350 Daddy, Houdap, whatever, is New Orleans like, 01:15:05.170 --> 01:15:08.770 he's like a real odd guy that makes amazing t 01:15:08.770 --> 01:15:10.489 -shirts. No, I should look this up. He has one 01:15:10.489 --> 01:15:13.109 that's like New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival 01:15:13.109 --> 01:15:16.670 and it's just a picture of Osama Bin Laden. There's 01:15:16.670 --> 01:15:20.899 ways to just like have a very... Perverse hilarious 01:15:20.899 --> 01:15:23.100 irreverent way to dress something. That's like 01:15:23.100 --> 01:15:25.779 see area inside That was gonna be fun like you 01:15:25.779 --> 01:15:27.880 know my lot my this my thought on those shirt 01:15:27.880 --> 01:15:30.060 designs was like if you pick the right people 01:15:30.060 --> 01:15:33.399 It's funny. You know you're assuming that they 01:15:33.399 --> 01:15:34.899 know that you're not a Nazi. It's like yeah, 01:15:35.039 --> 01:15:37.739 okay cool I get your heart and like this is probably 01:15:37.739 --> 01:15:40.039 for fun You know and like putting fucking like 01:15:40.039 --> 01:15:42.859 Richard Nixon on one or GG Allen like shit like 01:15:42.859 --> 01:15:47.270 that like just clearly insane weird aspects of 01:15:47.270 --> 01:15:49.689 American culture, you know, and it just fucking 01:15:49.689 --> 01:15:53.930 like cracks me up to make a shirt that's that 01:15:53.930 --> 01:15:57.090 song. But then it's just a picture of Ted Kaczynski. 01:15:57.930 --> 01:16:00.130 Yeah. And see, I think it's a little deeper for 01:16:00.130 --> 01:16:04.529 me because I feel part of my whole life project 01:16:04.529 --> 01:16:09.770 has been like, ennobling and placing country 01:16:09.770 --> 01:16:12.569 music in its more original context, which was 01:16:12.569 --> 01:16:16.390 like pro labor, pro environment. from the south, 01:16:16.729 --> 01:16:19.409 like, you know, you take a list of country performers 01:16:19.409 --> 01:16:21.789 in the United States, and you break it down by 01:16:21.789 --> 01:16:24.829 region before 1970, which is about halfway through 01:16:24.829 --> 01:16:28.750 the history of country music. It's like 98 99 01:16:28.750 --> 01:16:31.430 % of performers that were recording were were 01:16:31.430 --> 01:16:34.289 southern. And like, because of that, you have 01:16:34.289 --> 01:16:35.909 to realize like, well, what is the South? The 01:16:35.909 --> 01:16:38.489 South is the most like, it's the blackest region 01:16:38.489 --> 01:16:40.449 in the United States. A third of poor white people 01:16:40.449 --> 01:16:42.609 in the United States live in the South. 35 % 01:16:42.609 --> 01:16:44.449 of the queer and trans population in the South 01:16:44.449 --> 01:16:47.609 is in the South. You know, again, like the largest 01:16:47.609 --> 01:16:49.770 tribal nation by enrollment, Cherokee nations, 01:16:50.090 --> 01:16:54.069 Southern. So like, obviously the South isn't 01:16:54.069 --> 01:16:58.439 what is portrayed in popular media. But popular 01:16:58.439 --> 01:17:01.760 media really and popular media, including mainstream 01:17:01.760 --> 01:17:05.279 country music, is kind of laundering the ideas 01:17:05.279 --> 01:17:07.460 of the rights to make them more palatable to 01:17:07.460 --> 01:17:11.560 the to the to the country. So like I I really 01:17:11.560 --> 01:17:13.560 like have treated country music as this whole 01:17:13.560 --> 01:17:16.899 life project where I can like try to recontextualize 01:17:16.899 --> 01:17:19.579 and reenable this thing that was passed down 01:17:19.579 --> 01:17:22.220 to me. Like my family sings. I sing because my 01:17:22.220 --> 01:17:24.239 grandparents did this. You know, I mean, your 01:17:24.239 --> 01:17:27.220 music does sound like I said, like it would fit. 01:17:27.529 --> 01:17:30.529 Night of the Hunter, which is like a 50s movie, 01:17:30.529 --> 01:17:33.550 you know before all of that shit like it's and 01:17:33.550 --> 01:17:35.369 that's what I'm mostly influenced by I got from 01:17:35.369 --> 01:17:38.930 1920 to about 55 is my big period of influence 01:17:38.930 --> 01:17:43.430 that I'm referencing and All that to say and 01:17:43.430 --> 01:17:46.130 this is like I'm fully saying this with the prerequisite 01:17:46.130 --> 01:17:48.470 or yeah the prerequisite that like I love Merle 01:17:48.470 --> 01:17:50.430 Haggard love a ton of the songs all this that 01:17:50.430 --> 01:17:53.930 the other but like that rightward shift that 01:17:53.930 --> 01:17:56.050 happens in country music where it starts to become 01:17:56.050 --> 01:18:00.199 like pro -republican patriotic pro -war like 01:18:00.199 --> 01:18:04.920 anti -labor like a lot of that happens when country 01:18:04.920 --> 01:18:07.859 music leaves the south around 1970 you know when 01:18:07.859 --> 01:18:09.779 suddenly you start getting performers from all 01:18:09.779 --> 01:18:11.500 over the country who are contributing to this 01:18:11.500 --> 01:18:14.760 and so the conversation goes from oh this is 01:18:14.760 --> 01:18:17.279 rural or this is southern music because everyone's 01:18:17.279 --> 01:18:18.859 using a southern accent even at this day like 01:18:18.859 --> 01:18:20.500 you hear canadian performers they're using a 01:18:20.500 --> 01:18:22.239 southern accent obviously this is southern in 01:18:22.239 --> 01:18:27.159 origin but they're like if you take Rural if 01:18:27.159 --> 01:18:28.800 you say it's country because it's just rural 01:18:28.800 --> 01:18:32.239 everywhere well who owns Most of the countryside 01:18:32.239 --> 01:18:35.380 who is like in the highest percentage? Gemographically 01:18:35.380 --> 01:18:38.319 and most of rural America. It's it's white people 01:18:38.319 --> 01:18:40.500 You know where if you look at the south and you 01:18:40.500 --> 01:18:42.779 look at like where country music's influence 01:18:42.779 --> 01:18:45.500 come from if you recenter Country music is being 01:18:45.500 --> 01:18:47.720 southern suddenly. It's a lot more diverse suddenly. 01:18:47.720 --> 01:18:51.300 It's a lot more like class oriented towards like 01:18:51.300 --> 01:18:53.699 the working and middle class as opposed to like 01:18:53.699 --> 01:18:57.720 the ownership class and At that point, I get 01:18:57.720 --> 01:18:59.979 really I get really fucked up and really defensive 01:18:59.979 --> 01:19:02.100 and it's really personal because like that's 01:19:02.100 --> 01:19:04.399 my that's my that's my history. That's my people. 01:19:04.600 --> 01:19:06.199 That's that's where I'm from. That's like where 01:19:06.199 --> 01:19:07.979 I've been from for generations and generations. 01:19:08.100 --> 01:19:12.520 And so when you hear these kind of like theatrical, 01:19:12.520 --> 01:19:16.520 like fake impersonations of this thing that like 01:19:16.520 --> 01:19:21.300 I hold very dear and it's all meant to orient 01:19:21.300 --> 01:19:24.739 towards like. Again, like laundering the ideas 01:19:24.739 --> 01:19:26.220 of the conservative movement for the American 01:19:26.220 --> 01:19:30.560 public. I think that's where I struggle to have 01:19:30.560 --> 01:19:32.899 as much of a sense of the humor about the white 01:19:32.899 --> 01:19:34.840 boy t -shirt just because I'm just like, man, 01:19:34.939 --> 01:19:37.560 but that shit's so insidious and that has so 01:19:37.560 --> 01:19:41.779 many knock -on effects. We don't reach where 01:19:41.779 --> 01:19:45.039 we are today if it weren't for a segment of country 01:19:45.039 --> 01:19:47.680 music in the 60s and 70s deciding that they would 01:19:47.680 --> 01:19:53.159 be the mouthpiece of of this insidious and insurgent 01:19:53.159 --> 01:19:56.279 conservative movement in the United States. All 01:19:56.279 --> 01:19:58.939 that to say, it's heavy for me. I laugh because 01:19:58.939 --> 01:20:01.380 I think it's genuinely so irreverent and bizarre 01:20:01.380 --> 01:20:03.579 and great, but I'm also just like, oh shit, that 01:20:03.579 --> 01:20:06.239 stings. That stings for a guy from California 01:20:06.239 --> 01:20:12.720 to be the mantle upon which people rest their 01:20:12.720 --> 01:20:17.100 outlaw country conceptions of the world. Well, 01:20:17.279 --> 01:20:19.340 like I think I think Johnny Cash is a much better 01:20:19.340 --> 01:20:21.300 outlaw in a lot of ways because like he was pro 01:20:21.300 --> 01:20:24.239 land back, you know, he's anti Vietnam War things 01:20:24.239 --> 01:20:28.420 that were like legally able to happen like racism 01:20:28.420 --> 01:20:31.399 and segregation were legal and he was like against 01:20:31.399 --> 01:20:34.659 all of that stuff. So like he he was against 01:20:34.659 --> 01:20:37.739 the law. He was an outlaw in a much more like 01:20:37.739 --> 01:20:40.680 literal sense. And so I and also he's from Arkansas. 01:20:40.779 --> 01:20:43.520 So I'm fucking biased. I mean, Bob Dylan to me 01:20:43.520 --> 01:20:45.699 is one of the best outlaw singers of all time. 01:20:46.350 --> 01:20:49.550 Well, and that guy is from Minnesota, but he 01:20:49.550 --> 01:20:52.970 also is not using the southern accent He does 01:20:52.970 --> 01:20:56.270 his do you know where his whole bit comes from? 01:20:56.550 --> 01:20:59.909 Kermit the frog No, no, so he was obsessed with 01:20:59.909 --> 01:21:02.649 Woody Guthrie who was like obviously like a southern 01:21:02.649 --> 01:21:06.310 communist, you know, and He went to hang out 01:21:06.310 --> 01:21:08.810 with Woody Guthrie in his like dying days, right 01:21:08.810 --> 01:21:11.229 and Woody Guthrie had had several strokes So 01:21:11.229 --> 01:21:12.949 she's in the movie. It's a great movie by the 01:21:12.949 --> 01:21:15.050 way. Oh, I haven't seen the film It's that it's 01:21:15.050 --> 01:21:17.989 based on that Like, it starts off with him meeting 01:21:17.989 --> 01:21:20.930 Woody Guthrie in 1963 or whatever. No kidding. 01:21:21.270 --> 01:21:23.470 Weird how good they did. But go on. I should 01:21:23.470 --> 01:21:25.010 probably watch it. But just that, like, yeah, 01:21:25.010 --> 01:21:26.770 he basically, like, formed his way of speaking, 01:21:26.770 --> 01:21:29.250 like, impersonating an old man from Oklahoma 01:21:29.250 --> 01:21:32.569 who had had a couple strokes. Yeah. And that's 01:21:32.569 --> 01:21:34.850 why he still works, because he's now just, like, 01:21:34.890 --> 01:21:36.689 it's like Neil Young. Neil Young still flies 01:21:36.689 --> 01:21:38.909 because he's always been a weird old man. You 01:21:38.909 --> 01:21:41.810 know? And then, you know, if you're now a weird 01:21:41.810 --> 01:21:43.569 old man, you've always been one. It's going to 01:21:43.569 --> 01:21:46.520 work. It's going to be cool. But if you have 01:21:46.520 --> 01:21:48.619 Rod Stewart up on stage trying to do, do you 01:21:48.619 --> 01:21:50.760 think I'm sexy at 80? It don't fly in the same 01:21:50.760 --> 01:21:55.560 way. No, no, no, it sure doesn't. But what do 01:21:55.560 --> 01:21:57.979 you have coming up that you want people to look 01:21:57.979 --> 01:22:03.300 out for? Let's see, I'm going back on tour. We're 01:22:03.300 --> 01:22:05.319 basically going from like Florida to California 01:22:05.319 --> 01:22:08.800 and back. So it's going to be southern part of 01:22:08.800 --> 01:22:13.699 the country in October, November. Have two albums 01:22:13.699 --> 01:22:16.239 coming out next year pretty stoked about that 01:22:16.239 --> 01:22:18.260 Doing like an old -time album. So it'll be like 01:22:18.260 --> 01:22:21.340 fiddle banjo regional tunes like stuff from Appalachia 01:22:21.340 --> 01:22:24.180 and the Ozarks mostly that's cool And then also 01:22:24.180 --> 01:22:26.699 like a full band like original song record coming 01:22:26.699 --> 01:22:29.079 out late in their years. So Yeah, I don't know. 01:22:29.079 --> 01:22:31.539 I'm just kind of I can't sit still always doing 01:22:31.539 --> 01:22:35.479 something. So I'm on all the internet. You can 01:22:35.479 --> 01:22:38.840 find my music. I'm My last name is actually a 01:22:38.840 --> 01:22:42.390 body part. Yeah, we'll We'll link it to in the 01:22:42.390 --> 01:22:45.750 description of the episode. But thank you for 01:22:45.750 --> 01:22:47.670 doing this, man. I think we talked a little bit 01:22:47.670 --> 01:22:50.649 about music. Yeah, we covered some things. But 01:22:50.649 --> 01:22:52.510 everyone should go listen to Charlie Manson's 01:22:52.510 --> 01:22:54.289 song Arkansas. It fucking rips. I think that 01:22:54.289 --> 01:22:57.250 kind of like encapsulates what we actually accomplished. 01:22:57.390 --> 01:22:59.789 Yeah, you know, Manson was a good musician is 01:22:59.789 --> 01:23:04.109 the end point of this. It was. Poor bastard. 01:23:05.510 --> 01:23:07.989 But yeah, I thank you again for doing this. I 01:23:07.989 --> 01:23:11.239 appreciate it. It was fun for me. I do like when 01:23:11.239 --> 01:23:13.640 we talk to musicians and it's not solely about 01:23:13.640 --> 01:23:16.779 music. Because I think you get more of a picture 01:23:16.779 --> 01:23:18.880 of the person. So it's been a good time. Thank 01:23:18.880 --> 01:23:20.899 you, man. Yeah, thanks for having me on, Sam. 01:23:22.380 --> 01:23:22.619 Peace!