A Geek History of Time - Episode 106 - 1990s Wrestling Part I

Episode Date: May 8, 2021

I'm not here to poke holes and suspended this belief. Anyway, they see some weird shit. They decide to make a baby. Now, Muckin' Merchant. Who gives a fuck? Oh, Muckin' which is a trickle, you know, baby. You know what I mean? Well, you know, I really like it here. It's kind of nice and it's not as cold as Muckin'

and I'm a bit sore, but I'm better than him. So, yeah, sure, I think we're gonna settle. If I'm a peasant boy who grabs sword out of a stone. Yeah. I'm able to open people up. You will, yeah. Anytime I hit them with it, right? Yeah.

So my cleave landing will make me a cavalier. Good day, Sphere. If Sphere thought it was empty-headed, plubian trash, being trash is really good. Really good group. Because cannibalism and murder, we'll back just a little bit, build walls to keep out the rat heads.

And it's a little bit of a ground tunnel. A thorough intent doesn't exist. Some people stand up quite a bit, some people stay seeing the rat heads. But it just... This is a Geek History of Time where we connect an artery to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock, I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. Currently, actually teaching in person again for the first time in a year, uh, and it has not been nearly the disaster I had feared it was going to be.

I'm still not entirely thrilled with the situation, but it's going far better than anticipated. And how about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony, I'm a Latin teacher up here in Northern California. I also have gone back to in-person teaching, however, I am not back in person. I am in fact still a box on the monitor in front of kids who today were housed in an auditorium distanced. It's okay, but with a substitute who watches over them for me. So it is essentially the same thing I've been doing

for a while quite honestly. And that's okay, it's just at a just slightly different timeline. And no, that hasn't been a disaster and a lot of my teacher friends have been very much rejuvenated by getting to see the littles. And I missed them terribly. But I know my history.

And yeah, yeah, it's not a good one, especially looking at Brazil. So now I've dated this particular podcast. Yes. The Brazil variant has not yet come through and ravaged the lands all the way up through Iowa as we all knew it would, leaving just a small band of teenagers to resist the hordes of Trumpandzies who have come in Magadan. Yeah, Magadan. Okay, there we go. So I was not sure There's like okay. Yeah, is he going where I think he's going? Yes. Yes. Yes. He is I will wait

All right. Yeah, so Yeah, that's that's that's the thing that's happening as late. Okay. So, no real personal stories to tell. Let's just jump right into this. Okay, yeah, because for those of you on the other end of this podcast, I, Damien and I were having a conversation when, when I got over here to record. And Dave, and tell them, tell them about the, the calculation of the, the massive notes

that you've written up. If you were to take my notes and you put them word to word end to end with a space between each word. Yeah. Times New Roman, 12 point font 12 point font normal, right? Yeah. Um, you would cover more than two football fields. Yeah, it would, it would stretch to the length of, of over two football fields in 12 point font. Yeah, ladies and gentlemen. So I'm not 100% sure what tonight is going to be about. Damien's been playing

this really close to the chest. Um, but I know that whatever it is, it's going it again. Ever, ever again, and it's going to be epic. So yeah, best we get started. Amen to that. Without our usual farting around. So how do you want to start? What are we talking about?

What are we doing? Well, I'll start with the title. How Michelle Foucault was the Harbinger to pro-wrestling in the late 1990s? Okay. Or the convulsion of white reactionary politics that led to a break-it because we lost it mentality. Okay. Yeah. And I assume the Foucault you're referring to here is Foucault's pendulum. No, Michelle Foucault. A Michelle Foucault. Yeah, okay. Now, it might have been, I didn't study.

The dude wrote a ton. We're talking about the scholar who died in the 1980s. Yes, yes. Okay, same guy. I think so. Okay. Let me verify. Very well.

Let me verify. All right. So, let's talk postmodernism in the late 1900s. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So it is a 20th, late 20th century style and concept in arts, architecture, and a criticism that represents departure from modernism and has at its heart a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies as well as a problematical relationship with any notion of, quote, art.

Okay. That was the definition that I found that was the smallest definition that I found. Yeah, because it's a squishy, weird kind of like, well, that's modernism and it's after that. Right. Is kind of the, the well-okay, yeah, but that doesn't mean shit, kind of definition.

And so if you want to try to pin it down. Good luck. That's, yeah. It's like nailing water to a surface. Yeah, not even jelly. Yeah. In itself, it is a philosophy that is not a philosophy. Okay.

It's especially fun to note that one of the people most associated with postmodernism rejected any connection to it. For the purposes of this podcast, just remember that Michelle Foucault idea of force relations in which power defined as a complex group of forces that comes from, quote, everything and therefore exists everywhere. Okay. And he said that relations of power always result from inequality, difference or imbalance also a mean that also means that power always has a goal or a purpose. So okay. And so if, if, if power comes into existence, without a purpose previously existing, there's going to

become a purpose for it because it cannot exist in a vacuum without it. It's almost like power to FUCO. Yeah, it seems to me like power is an arrow. Okay. There is always a direction that it will travel. Okay. You know, and just to clarify, by the way, Foucault's pendulum is an artifact of physics developed by Leon Foucault.

Okay, so different guy. Yeah, okay. This is a little brother. Okay, poor one, I forgot. For Lenny. Yeah, I have no idea. Leon Foucault was significantly earlier. Okay, so anyway.

So, now, power is a complex group of forces, right? So it's this thing that comes from everywhere. It's it's almost like I Almost want to think of it like the spores in the GI Joe movie Okay, yeah, all right. That's a very this podcast. Yes kind of explanation. Oh, okay, maybe I can dive deep in the GI Joe. Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. Oh It's not a bad idea why major blood got the shaft, you know, yeah, yeah, here you go So okay, cuz he was a douche nozzle But anyway moving on rehabilitating major blood in those Destro worlds. Yeah Oh, wow, I hope pointy headed could we get about that? Okay, yeah, so just get me started.

Okay, so the he also says that, you know, like I said, it, it, therefore power exists everywhere. Okay. Um, health, you know, George Lucas, the force, you know, that that was actually the first now he came to my mind, but you came up with a sports thing before I get to this and it springs up. It's not just always effervescent. Yeah.

Now, he also says that relations of power, always like I said, result from inequality. Okay. So now you start to see how power is wielded. When there's inequality, power starts tipping one way or the other. So if an arrow exists in a vacuum, it's not really going anywhere.

Yeah. But if an arrow exists in regular air, then it's got weight to its head. Okay. Okay. Okay. And what the analogy then immediately comes to my mind is like barometric pressure. Uh-huh. Areas of high pressure, areas of low pressure. Yes. You get wind when you have a differential between them. Yes. You know, air molecules moving to fill a vacuum. And that wind will bolster some things and blow other things over. Yes. Yes. And it wind will come from a direction.

Yes. So yes, I think you're definitely on to something there. Okay. I think because we have human consciousness involved that he would say that we're being way to vanilla about abstract. Maybe or yeah. I would say he'd say we're not being partisan enough.

Okay. Yeah. And I think he's right. I mean, yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. Simply trying to define it. But to try to figure out the the the analogy to give it an analogy to what he's talking about

about the nature of power. I think I think it's important to come up with some kind of a metaphor. I dare say he would be easier to recoil at the idea of there being a grander abstract explanation of it because he didn't like. Yeah, well, this is true, being a poor modernist. Yeah. So because power always has a goal and a purpose, or a purpose rather, it comes in two forms, tactics and strategies. Tactics is power on the micro level. Okay. So the example that I found in the reading that I liked was that, for instance, if you take a person choosing to express themselves through their fashion, okay, That is tactical power. Okay. Uh,

Your your penchant for wearing a kilt. Yes. Uh, that is tactical power. Strategy is on the other hand. Is macro level power, which could be the state of fashion at any given time. So back in the Halcyon days of the early 2000s, cargo pants. Right? That just kind of took a lot. No, no, you know what? You and I were dads. Cargo pants are never going to be done. Oh, I'm not saying I have a problem with cargo pants. Well, okay, let's go back to the 80s. We'll go to one that's really shitty for men.

Okay. Picking one's pants. Okay. All right. Okay. So, late 80s, early 90s, Picking one's pants. That was kind of a macro-California thing. Yeah.

Yeah. Very brief thank goodness, but there you go. kind of a macro California. Yeah, yeah, very brief thank goodness, but there you go. So that's macro level. That's the state of fashion at the time, right? A better example, I think perhaps a more visceral one would be a choice of brisier. Okay, right. So in the 70s, you have women saying, I fucking I don't want to wear a bra. Yeah, right. in the 70s you have women saying, I fuck it, I don't wanna wear a bra. Yeah, right. The burning of the bra thing is apocryphal, it didn't actually happen other than this performance art.

Yeah. But, yeah. So, but in the 50s, you had three pounds of underwear on. It was clearly meant to both display at a grotesque level and control. Exactly. So, I would say that that's like the level of cantilevering and rigidity involved in, I mean, of course, I've never actually seen one of the artifacts from the era, but the

photographic evidence, there was a lot of, there was a lot of, there was a lot of like no kidding overt control containment. Oh yeah, there's a wonderful book called the the 50s I want to say it's just called the 50s and it opens with the discussion of undergarments not just bras but also underwear and slips okay, it's really good, but anyway the the the state of the state of fashion in the 50s,

is absolutely macro power, which can... The men in the Grace, Lantle, suit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, everybody had a uniform of some kind that was expected to wear conformity. Yeah, conformity for the sake of freedom. Yes, yeah. Because otherwise, this communist would come

and make you all wear the same thing. Yeah. Right. Yes, yeah, because otherwise this communist will come in and make you all wear the same thing. Yeah, right So strategies consists of groups of tactics combinations of tactics, okay, so you can in a micro level By not wearing a bra for instance by going into thrift stores on hate ashrie and buying clothes that were on sale for very cheap that were from the 1930s. Okay, you could resuscitate a fashion and shift the entire framework. Yeah. Okay. Okay, and at the same time, power is non-subjective according to Foucault. He said it was an objective thing. Okay. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that quite honestly,

but he's essentially getting at the, the, and I don't wanna pin this on him cause he would reject it. But to me it feels like he's getting to this idea of a living organism, a collective hive. Okay. Although I don't think that he would agree with that. Yes, Stahl. Yeah, the Foucault Gistol. Okay, um a collective hive. Okay, although I don't think that he would agree with that. Yes, tall

Yeah, the Foucault Gassal. Okay, all right So now that we've gotten that taking care of yes, we're ready to discuss professional wrestling and it's breakdown Oh, okay, which was caused by the least powerful promotion in the mid 1990s It was caused by a tactical choice, which led to a strategic overhaul and overall collapse into chaos from tactical chaos. Okay, so to get a little bit more boots on the ground, and a little bit less, you know, scholarly, yeah. So we have discussed previously, the war between Ted Turner and McMahon.

Yes. You know, because, you know, McMahon had a generational relationship to wrestling because his dad, and I think his granddad had been running promotions out of New York since forever. And Ted Turner had gotten into business as a parvenew, a rich guy asshole. I mean, the rassley and they just hated each other. Yeah, they were, they were, yeah, oil water. Yeah, and the witch knight raw war was,

Monday night wars. Yeah, Monday night wars was a pissing contest essentially between the two of them. It was it was no no no no we're both going to keep throwing money at this shit until I drive the other guy under not because I want to win but because I want to make him fucking lose. I I dare say that you you've brought money into it in a way that it didn't actually exist yet. So, okay. McMahon was not able to throw money at it.

He was able to throw creativity at it. Okay. Doesn't mean he didn't have the money. He had money, but he did not have Ted Turner money. Well, who does? Until, really? Until he did. He did.

Yeah, until. Yeah. I mean, now he's got Ted Turner money. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's got three Ted Turner's money. did. Yeah. And now, I mean, now he's got Ted Turner money. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's got three Ted Turner's money. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

So it's less about that and more about the structures in which they were operating against each other. And frankly, it had less to do with their competition than it had to do with a small little upstart company in Philadelphia. Oh, wow. Okay. And none of that had anything to do with a small little upstart company in Philadelphia. Oh wow. Uh-huh. And none of that had anything to do with anything unless we unpack what happened in the 1990s.

Okay. So in 1992, yes, as I have started at least half my podcasts, I swear. I've said a number of times, we've said a number of times, white entitlement to the White House was dealt a major blow. Yeah, one of their own, a rich white man from Texas, got in the way of another one of their own, the heir to the Reagan microphone, rich white man from Connecticut, who used his governmental connections to make a lot of really successful oil decisions in Texas. And because of that, they let another one of their own, a poor white man who went to college on his own merits, but who ultimately stuck as close to the centers he could, whom they didn't see as one of their own a poor white man who went to college on his own merits, but who ultimately stuck as close to the centers he could whom they didn't see

as one of their own into the White House. Okay, which is a really long way of saying Bill Clinton took the White House and Republicans were but hurt about it. And because in many ways, they'd kind of split the party. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got to say 92, probably the worst year to be a white man in America, because look what happened. White guy got in power.

Again. That's that. Yeah. Um. Wow. Yeah. How to unpack all of that. Okay, so.

Well, I've got about 15,700 years to go. 800 years ago. Yeah, so, so, and as I've mentioned previously, of course, in 1992, I was a junior in high school. Sure. Later in the year, well, by the time of the election, I had started my senior year of high school. Later in the year, well by the time of the election I had started my senior year of high school. I'd started. And ninth grade. ninth grade. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So and and of course back when I was a senior in high school, I was still completely and scanced in my very sheltered, very privileged upbringing as you know,

Reagan-I-restillized sugar. Reagan-I-type of your muffins. Yeah, you know, it's not. Oh, yeah. Nice. Good job. Yeah. Not even mad.

No. But, you know, I was still, I had not had any experience with the wider world and I was still living. Yes. Good one. Thank you. Still not mad. And I was still very held to the truth in air quotes of the conservative ideas that were being taught to me. And so I vividly remember the, like I can personally remember, being angry about Bill Clinton becoming president. You talked about it before. You talked about it before. Yeah. Just like, you know, no, no.

How do you know this white man come into these howl balls? You know, it's that previously year to four had been only held by white men. Yeah. You know, and, and of course, in my own head, that wasn't the language that was being used. Right. Because my own, my own upbringing in the party was it overtly about race.

No, certainly not. It was just the defaults. It was overtly, yeah. It was overtly about class. Because of course, the first bush was a Kenna Bunkport bush. Right. Upper Northeast, you know, and from the van... Vanley money.

Yeah, and from the wing of the Republican Party that was yacht Republican, rather than oil Republican, or you know, nowadays, QAnon Republican. Oh my God, these are just all terrible Republicans. Yeah, well, they really are. Yeah, but so it's what the weather was like when their family passed on the wealth generation. Pretty much, yeah.

And but there are, I am gonna quibble a little bit here. Oh, yeah. Because there is a very, or there was, there isn't any more. But there was, and commentators talk, spoke about it at the time and have delved into it. There was already a growing, growing split in the identity of the party. And the old northeastern Republican party was, was,

was the, was at that time the mainstream portion of the party. And that was still recognizably similar to, I'm not going to say the same as, but it was still recognizably similar to the Republican party of Eisenhower. I will completely agree because what you're talking about is a Yankee mentality. Yes. And a do what you want, don't scare the horses. But let's not waste the money. Whereas, the Reagan and the Texas group, they're far west and they're southwest. And those people are right shitheads when it comes to being Republicans. Well, yeah.

And the truly hardest line social conservatives were out farther west, were the Texas and the southwest Republicans like you were saying Cold waters. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Precisely that's actually that's one of the far west uh, western Republicans. And what was interesting was in one of the analyses that I read and I wish I could credit

the individual who talked about it, was if you go back far enough in our country's history, what you find is the upper class and the upper northeast are descended from the Mayflower, the upper class in the south who then moved westward to try to expand slave holding. And wound up then being the religious ideology behind social conservatism. Those folks are descended from the second and third sons of nobility from the old world who came across. And so their outlook on liberty was all about it's my property.

I should be allowed to do whatever the fuck I want with my property. Andy, petulence with that. Yeah, I had to read the title. Yes. And so the schism within the Republican Party was genuinely real. Yes.

And the level I didn't join in it, my own family didn't join in it my own family didn't join it But there was internocene anger from I'm gonna say the folks in the far west about well you said you weren't gonna raise taxes And then you did right my own my own father statement was it sucks I wish he hadn't had to do it but But he but he had to do it wait but... 15 times. Buddy had to do it. Waiter, are you talking Bush or Reagan? Bush.

Okay, because... And I want to back up from Bush. You're 100% right about that schism. I'm with you on it. I would back up just a bit to recognize that the two presidents that had lasted two terms, or at least been elected two terms, since Eisenhower, were both men from California. Therefore, far west, and they're both fucking phonies. They're hucksters, they grabbed onto an ideology

as a means to power, and that's precisely what Nixon did, and that's precisely what Reagan did. No matter how strong the veneer and how much that veneer looked exactly like other people's values, it wasn't. It was a means to power for their own personal, because if you look at both of these men's psychology, oh yeah, well, here's the thing though. Dave, here's the thing.

Deep insecurities rooted in their own sense of inadequacy. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, and their phoneies. Yeah, I don't mean to be holding call yeah. Oh yeah. And the phonies. Yeah. I don't mean to be holding call field here, but they're goddamn phonies. All right, yeah, sure. Sure, catcher, whatever.

No, you're not wrong. I can't disagree with any of those points. The only quibble that I would make about that is you stress the idea of what a veneer they held up. And I don't care how strong the veneer is, and I don't care how much they managed to masquerade, like they had somebody else's values. I frankly, and maybe this is because I was born

after he was alive in a force in politics, but I find it hard to believe that anybody ever looked at Richard Nixon and didn't just go like, you're so full of shit, you're eyes are brown. Like, I mean, Reagan, I remember Reagan. And I remember Reagan had the charmed. I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go with the word charisma because everybody uses that word and it's true.

But what it really was, was he genuinely did have a level of, you know, well, you know, kind of all shot camera and work a group. Yeah, 100% of it. Yeah, and he was a hundred, he was a much better actor. The Nixon was. You know, Nixon, Nixon, I think if you, if you,

Nick to the surface, it became really clear, real fast. Well, yeah, just look at the way. Just examine his posture and Reagan's posture. Oh, yeah. Reagan gets reddened the cheeks and acts like a Michigan grandmother who's been pissed off. I'm paying for this microphone. Like, damn, but you're still wrong. But, you know, and everybody loops into that anger and he's able

to project it. Yeah. Nixon retreats, hunches, grabs onto a podium, and I'll never give up checkers. You know, like, you know, like, yeah. But, and there you go. There's the difference. Reagan would project out to the basses. And Nixon, it was very much. One thing I used to do when I taught the cold war to my juniors was I would write an equation on the board, NS equals NS. And it was Nixon's security, equals national security. And then I'd hit the moon to vote about what he said

about the sovereign. And it's like, motherfucker, you're not the sovereign. You, the people are the sovereign. Right. Whereas Reagan would let the people think they were the sovereign. Oh, yeah. And, yeah, well, yeah. You know, and the other thing is, everybody who was a high ranking aporacic under Reagan

had done their apprenticeship under Nixon. Yes. And then after Reagan, they went on to do their master's work under under Bush. And then they went on to do their postdoctoral work under Bush too, but I'm getting ahead of us here. Yeah, yeah. We're talking about Bill Clinton having taken over

the White House Republicans thinking, no, no, that's our house, God damn it. What are you, you low rent, saxophone right. Oh, I'ma get slime ball. Yeah, no, I mean I can I can dig up all the all the lingo But yeah, so so Republicans and and a certain level of grassroots You know Republican voter Types are are, really, deeply, deeply incensed about Bill fucking Clinton being in the White House. So now I would say that there is a much more common thread

we need to draw through all of those Republicans. They're all white. Oh, yes. I mean, yes, you can find black people voted against Clinton absolutely, but let's be real. Oh, yes. I mean, yes, you can find black people to vote against Clinton, absolutely, but let's be real. Oh, yeah. This is white grievance at not the right kind of white guy got in.

Yeah. Yeah, because it's definitely there. He played a saxophone with a black band because he was nice to black people in the South because, and there are a number of, yeah. and that's there, and whether or not you were conscious of the soup that you were swimming in, and whether or not your dad was conscious of the soup that was totally, you know, fleshed upon you all.

I certainly, I certainly, it's a big part of the rest. Yeah, I think there's also just the fact that in the 80s, into the 90s, the consciousness that anybody who was not black had of the, like the phrase institutional racism was not on any white person's radar unless this is just how it is. Yeah, this is the world.

Yeah. And it just kind of, you know, I mean, you know, do what you gotta do, man, come on. And the idea, like the phrase white privilege didn't even, wasn't even a thing. So, certainly not amongst white folks. No, certainly not, yeah. And so that level of subconscious white supremacy,

So that level of subconscious white supremacy yeah, was, was, yeah, it was, that's precisely what it was. It was, it was entirely subconscious. Yes. So yeah, okay. I, I, I, I see what you're saying. Yeah, it was the electricity that ran through your house. Yeah, you know, but I digress. In 1991, James Davidson Hunter, a noted sociologist,

and later a council member of the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as a board member of the Pew Charitable Trusts, published a book titled Culture Wars, The Struggle to Define America. And in it, this is 91, he highlighted a binary struggle in America between progressives and orthodox. The progressives, according to Hunter, view moral

truths as evolving in contextual, whereas orthodoxy adherents see moral truths as divinely inspired and static. And therefore, according to this book, the culture war between the two was a necessary and ongoing tension that influences the actual carrying out of laws and practices in the American culture. It's exactly the, I'm going to paint with a broad brush because it saves time because it's not a binary. Yeah. And it's not just this thing.

And again, I'd say he's ignoring everybody who doesn't look like you and me. Yes, but when Bill Clinton, who wanted to punish poor people for being poor, just a little bit less than Republicans, and he wanted to continue to push for neoliberal global capitalism, that would greatly benefit the rich, faced off against Ross Perot, who wanted to keep that capitalism in America, balance our federal budget for reasons that he never fully explained but it sounded reasonable on a very intuitive level People have home budgets. They want to balance them. Yeah, they think that that allegory fits and George H. W. Bush a Petrition who ran largely on a more of the same campaign that had seen Reagan to a landslide as well as a what, you want to be that obvious? Primary campaign against Pat Buchanan and David Duke. Yeah.

Pat Buchanan though, that fucking guy. He ran to the right of the Petrician party Wank Millionaire and to the right of the populist authoritarian millionaire. So when he lost the primary against the incumbent, and I'm still not sure if he did it so that he could pull them to the right or actually get the candidacy or given his behavior there after to set himself up as a forever pundit and for and as not yet as yet not existent news network dynamic that would traffic as propaganda arm for the government when a populist millionaire finally did become president he gave a famous speech that I referenced heavily in the episodes of 58 through 60

of this podcast dealing with the NWO. Yes. More wrestling. Yeah. Yeah, Pat Buchanan was a shit lord. Yes. And I genuinely think it was it was a combination of one, not one, of two and three. I don't think he wanted to shift the conversation to the right. I don't think he was, I don't think he was actually ideological in that way. I think he was, he was about Pat Buchanan, and he either wanted to get the nomination or set himself up to be a forever pundit. Yeah. Either way, empowering himself either way, he was either, you know, in the running to be president and or, he was going to be in a position to be able to, you know, get on the news all the time as a conservative.

And here's a conservative makes good copy. Yeah. Yeah. Only not a conservative. He know, talking to him. He makes good copy. Yeah. Yeah. Only not a conservative. He's a fucking reactionary. That's a really, I like that. I because I don't think at that time he was a fascist, but I do think he was a reactionary. Oh, yeah.

He's occupying that space between fascism and, and, and, and, and rightist. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and as, and as somebody who in, in a sane political system would be considered a rightist, as opposed to being, you know,

you considered a weirdo. Now you'd be considered a conservative. Okay, I don't think you'd be considered a rightist. Okay, well, thank you. But as somebody who in any other developed nation in the world would be considered a conservative, yeah, you know, the people who were claiming at the time that they were conservatives,

like with a capital C making a big deal about it, that's really where the beginnings of the, no, no, no, you're not actually conservative. You want to drown government in the bathtub. That's not conservative. You're a fucking reactionary yes and then since then you know we we actually had a conversation kind of about sort of about this on on Facebook earlier today you know we're right now staring down the barrel of a very likely gubernatorial recall here in California,

and what Damien and another friend of ours lamented was that the Democrat establishment in the state of California basically abuses the daylights out of anybody who's farther left than they are because they know they can get away with it because what are you gonna do vote for those guys right you know and and my my statement there i think is is uh... applicable here is you know that part of the problem that we have is we have this dichotomy within our state.

What I said was I blamed the Central Valley and Orange County. I also blame Los Angeles and San Francisco. And that's not to say, well, they're all the same. They're just as bad. The reason I say that is the wingnut right wingers are in Central Valley and Orange County. There are two different brands of wing nuts. The poor wing nuts and the wealthy wing nuts.

But, you know, and they're all right of California's center. And then in San Francisco and LA, we have this vast urban, very diverse, very socially liberal set of populations who push for a more socially liberal agenda, push for more government and invention, and all those kinds of things, very mainline Democrat kind of stuff. And the thing is they have historically over the course of the last 30 years done it in a way that very frequently, and I know I'm guilty of this,, even before QAnon, even before the Trump administration and all the overt craziness that was involved there, there was kind of a, well, you know, it's the

flyover part of the state. Well, you know, there are a bunch of guys down in Orange County. They're all rich assholes. There's this kind of, well, you know, they're assholes. What are you going to do? Right. And the knee jerk reaction, because they're conservatives, and it's all about a knee jerk reaction from that is we'll fuck you. Sure, sure. You know, and this knee jerk defensiveness, and this knee jerk aggression,

which then feeds into all of us go, and yeah, well, I mean, you know, you fucking look, come on, which then, you know, so it creates, it creates a feedback loop in our own version of the culture war and the Democrat and the Republican Party has politicians within the Republican Party have capitalized on that by going, well, shit, I can ride this sense of grievous all the way grievance all the way to the state house. That's true. And even farther than that. And then the

Democrat, the mainstream Democratic Party has looked at it and gone, yeah, we don't need their votes anyway. So the fuck cares. Yeah, I, I would say that there is, um, you know, okay. And, and, and, and I'm not, and I'm not trying to say that the level of wrongness there. No, I'm not going there. Revlon at all. I'm not going there. Is it equivalent at all? I'm actually going to take you a little bit to task about the progressiveness of both San Francisco and LA. Both have massive homeless problems and both have tech bros and or uncaring Democrats, making it more and more illegal to be homeless.

You have, I mean, all of California is pulling rightward, unfortunately. Yeah. And so what we call progressive is kind of like, you know, that skin that grows on the top of soup. Yeah. Right? That's kind of it, but you poke it and it goes back to being water. Yeah.

That's kind of what it's turning into. Yeah. Like, you go what it's turning into. Yeah. Like you go to San Francisco and I mean you have to walk in the street around the homeless encampments. Yeah. And usually you're walking around the police attacking the homeless encampments who are empowered by typically a democratic mayor.

Yeah. And again, what are you going to do with a guy who wants to kill the homeless? Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah, no, you're not. Yeah, no, you gonna do about for the guy who wants to kill the homeless? Like, so. Yeah, no, you're not. You're totally, yeah, no, you're not wrong. But, you know, my thesis regarding the mechanism of it all, I stand behind. And I think that's the very beginnings of that. Buchanan was indicative of that process really getting underway.

Yes. Now suffice it to say white people were hella mad that white people lost to white people who said that non-white people didn't deserve it as bad as they'd had it in the past. And Buchanan's speech really crystallized and codified along the term, along with the term from Hunterters book, the Culture War. It simplified the struggle into simple binary for centrist liberals, and excited the white aggrieved classes who started voting redder and redder, and more and more consistently. So 1992 was, in many ways, the very obvious surfacing of the cultural chaos that white people loathed, and that's what changed wrestling forever.

Oh, by the way, just in case people didn't know from the title, this is another wrestling podcast. But, to explain this cultural shift, we need to take a look at a few other things. So in 1989, late 1989, a new late-night talk show hit the airwaves. Simply put, this show competed with a redundant talk show hosted by Pat Sejack by aiming at a wholly different demographic.

Black folks are Cineo Hall had a catchy announcer, an excellent visual intro, and a very different style than did Carson or Letterman. And again, Pat Sejack was simply redundant anyway. So he had the dog pound, which absolutely was a purposeful recollection of the experience that many black Americans grew up with in the church culture, call and response, getting in close to the people in the audience and referencing them regularly. Think about the whoop whoop whoop right. And think about these people here. These are people who, and you know, whatever. And you know, you'd see it and they'd get to see themselves on the monitor. And then he'd also, you know, things that you make he go, hmm, which then turned into a hit song. Yeah.

All of this is calling response. Now this show played exceptionally well to the younger demographic as well as This show played exceptionally well to the younger demographic as well as BIPOC audiences. He was also outwardly and culturally subversive while still maintaining a fairly sanitized show. The fun that he poked was localized. It wasn't critical of the dominant culture so much as a light roasting. And he really didn't push a progressive agenda so much as a hip agenda. He got called out once actually for not having queer folk on his show. And I mean, it's in the middle of a, I'm not gonna say a live broadcast because it was, he always recorded in the afternoon and then

pushed out. But he kept it in there. Yeah. Yeah. And he got called out from the back, from people from, I forget, I think it was queer nation. They called him out for not having a queer folk on his show. And he went right out. He's like, I have plenty of gay people. They just don't tell people that they're gay. Now this is early 90s, late 80s.

Don't ask, don't tell. Yeah. And he kept coming back at them with arguments that a person's sexuality was a private matter. Um, and, uh, kind of like you said, don't ask don't tell approach. And he went off on them vibrantly. And he set them in opposition to himself saying, I am a black man. I am the most minority of minority. I can't hide who I am. And so he's inverting what they're saying. And he's not wrong, they're not wrong. And then he says, you know, you want to do that, you go get your own show.

Yeah. And so now he's pulling on his own exceptionalism there. Um, and he says, you want to do that? You book who you want. And he reiterated over and over again, it's nobody's business if, if my guests are gay. And he aired this seven minute, fairly one-sided argument, because he's the only one with the mic. Yeah. Now, as a young show, Arsenio Hall grabbed a different segment of celebrity. If people were in major blockbuster studio films, they typically went to Carson. Yeah. If they were in rom-coms and orzani comedies that were still studio films, they'd go to Letterman. But if they were young stars, if they were appealing to what was at the time starting to be dubbed of the MTV generation,

they went on Arsigno. And Arsigno loved having over the top personalities. And this means a lot of wrestlers. Oh. No fewer than 10 wrestlers showed up on his show over the course of four course of five years Really yeah, okay, I had never thought of that But okay, yeah, yeah In June of 1992 he even had Bill Clinton on yes helped Clinton gain a lot of traction with young folks Oh, otherwise got the youth vote right might otherwise not have shown up exactly yet again They would have sat it out. Yeah.

But here's the thing. The late night talk shows like Carson and Letterman weren't really losing audiences to our Cineo Hall. You're not going to turn, you know, you're in your 50s. You want to see what Dom Del Louise is saying to go Reynolds. Yeah. You want to see Karnak. You've seen it since you were 20.

Yeah. Right. Letterman, you know, it's this boom. Yeah, like, yeah, one of the greatest moments in in talk TV. But they, but anyway, they were, however, seeing slight shifts in their beloved staples of late night talk shows. Letterman, who'd always been a bit edgy and subversive, even had a wrestler on in the early 80s, as had Carson. Yeah. He started courting younger stars. Carson, not as much. No, because Carson didn't need to. Well, and in May of 92, he retired. Yeah, this is true. So then the late

night folks lost an icon. Right is Arsenio is gaining a lot of notoriety. But don't worry, white people. Jay Leno came in and Tepid Humeer continued to have a place to live. Okay, so real quick. Yeah. Since Jay Leno got mentioned. Yes. I heard somewhere recently that like,

there are only a couple of comics that everybody in comedy hates. Jay Leno is one of them and Carlos Mincea is another one. So Carlos Mincea is hated because he steals material. Okay. Jay Leno is hated because he's so successful at knowing exactly what the lowest common denominator is. Okay.

And yeah, okay. Now I think people more hate him professionally than they hate him personally. Most people hate Mincea personally and professionally. Okay. Not because they've even had a personal relationship with him, but like you don't steal jokes. Okay. Yeah. All right. So that's as far as I could tell. All right. Yeah. Okay. I just I had a stand-up comment here in front of me. I figured I'd ask about it. So yeah. Yeah. So our CDO Hall. Yeah. The whole the whole the whole late night war and because Carson left and like

He was gonna get it and then yeah centers on the white folks And it's white audiences that care about that young audiences don't give a shit about that because they're all watching our Sinno yeah, cuz our sinno like he had this cool thing It was like it's not it wasn't quite a scrim, but it was like this big thing and it looked kind of like um a it wasn't quite a scrim, but it was like this big thing, and it looked kind of like a sweater from the 90s, mixed with stained glass, and it would just slide to the side. Yeah. And he's standing there with his legs kind of outstretched,

making his body look like an A. Oh yeah. And you got the NM and his hand down. Hands down, right. And then he'd look up and boom with the finger up. Oh yeah, yeah, no, it was amazing. So what's no worthy here is really sad when I show what off the air.

I still am, like thinking about it now. And again, and again, and again, remember when he came on the air, I was still, you know, little, you know, a Reaganite, a baby head. Yeah, but even I thought he was a hell of a lot cooler than, yep, all those other guys. How much thought Letterman was an asshole?

I have never, never gotten on with Letterman. Everybody talks about his subversiveness and stuff like that. And it's just like, he, I've liked him now. Who do you see me? Yes, yes. I did a bit of a deep dive into him. And he's just not nice to the women. Like as he's aged and now that he has a child,

I think he's chilled out. OK. But yeah. OK. So despite the relatively short run that Arsenio Hall had, what's noteworthy is that it had a massive impact on the culture. It legitimized youth culture of the late 80s

and early 90s. And that led to the validation of a culture war that was brewing. Okay. You see themselves as a force now. Okay. And so now the older folks who are like, oh, God, there's a culture war. See, they recognize that there are a group. So it's a facto as surely as the sun must rise. Right. There has to be then a war between us and them and my son must fall. Yeah. Well, wait. Huh? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And it's like, oh, see, they're progressive. We're orthodox. We're the, where the, the, the saucer that cools the cup, they're gonna try to reach for too much, we're gonna pull them back and that tension, all is such a comfortable paradigm for, for centrists. Oh, yeah, it really,

because it literally is, oh, it's this tension between the time, I mean, it's Luke Skywalker's definition of the force, you know, I mean, it's, yeah. So additionally, there was another reason for white people to be afraid of the force. Yeah. So additionally, there was another reason for white people to be afraid of the impact that black and hip-hop culture was having on white kids. Another specifically black influence on April 15th 1990, Ken and I rewans finally got his goal of a black variety or sketch show on the airwaves. Oh, in living color. And it was on Fox. Yeah. And Fox is forever to me going to be known as the best and worst of television, often on

the same night. Yes. Now, his wayans was a deliberate attempt to diversify mainstream comedy. He specifically wanted black, Hispanic, Asian voices to make people laugh. And here's the thing. the establishment saw this as chaos. You've got too many voices in there. They're too disparate, they're too different. This is chaos in the same way that the established culture

saw SNL 15 years earlier. Oh, okay. In living color often often was described as, quote, raw, which is a bit of coding. Little bit. Yeah. Even its introduction carried with it a feeling of wobbling chaos, a record spinning too fast, something almost out of control. If you remember each person who is featured on the show, they were painting the screen in front of you.

They were assaulting you with color, in living color. And Jim Carrey threw balls at you. Somebody else took a bike, David Alnguer, took a bike and went up and down with the tracks. Different people were splashing paint on you, and some people did wax on wax off on you and stuff like that. Yeah. But it was, it was assaultive. It was like, oh yeah, we're gonna hit you with this, you know? So there was just an aspect of like, oh, this is not.

A very overtly. Mm-hmm. Literally in your face. Yeah, literally in your face. So the opening set was a faux rooftop, echoing a very urban sensibility. Yes. But also, very New York.

Yes. Sensibility. And very New York, wager-ner sensibility. Yes. Because people hang out on the rooftops, you know? And there's a lot of different apartments. There's a DJ on the balcony of one building and the fly girls.

Most of whom were not white, were dancing on another rooftop, and someone would often come out of the rooftop entrance, usually keen in every wayans, to introduce the show. So it had this kind of laid back slash chaotic aspect to it. I'm like, well, we're going to get to this now. Similar to our sinews audience. Now, eventually most of the way in siblings

would cease to have anything to do with the show, but I'm more looking at what the show meant in the context of the 1990s. So for the early 1990s, the parodies, the examination of race relations in America, the in-your-face rawness of in-living color, all pushed comedy into new places, bringing new faces into the living

room or separating the watching habits of the young and the old. Okay. Yeah, definitely separating the watching habits is really in the old. I can totally, yeah. Yeah. Okay. That makes, yeah. Yep.

That intuitively makes sense to me. So while our Cineo Hall had a TV show, and while the living color is far more daring than SNL at that time, a number of things are happening in the news. The dominant culture is having convulsions of violence. In March of 1991, the California Highway Patrol and the Los Angeles Police officers chased a man who was driving drunkenly on the freeway. And then they chased him through residential neighborhoods at very, very high speeds. Eventually, this man was cornered,

and his companions were made to exit the car. And at first, the driver, Rodney King, grabbed his butt and was giggling. He was, after all, drunk. This led an officer to draw her gun for fear of his being armed. But in 1992, police were allowed to de-escalate. And the ranking officer on the scene

ordered everyone to holster their weapons. Then they swarmed him claiming that he resisted arrest, and he was tasered in the chest by one officer and beaten with batons by four others. At one point the ranking officer moves to stop everybody claiming that he's had enough. But as King tried to get back up from a prone having been beaten position, he ordered them to resume the baton attacks. King was struck 56 times with batons, tasered back then it was called a stun gun and kicked seven times, and then after this to police subdued him. And none of this would have been known, but for a videographer taping it. Initially, this person who took the video wanted to give it to the police, but the LAPD didn't respond to his queries at all.

So he sent it to KTLA, the news station. KTLA edited some of the blurry stuff out of the beginning to show the more clear footage and it becomes a national story. It's undeniable proof of police excess. It's right there. Your honor, I refer you to Sony. You know, I mean, it's that simple, right? Yeah. And nurses after the fact reported that the officers involved

were bragging about what they'd done, which tells me that the officers had brought him to the hospital. Yeah. The police chief Darrell Gates, who is a special kind of prick all over. Yeah. He said, quote, I stared at the screen in disbelief. I played the one minute 50 second tape again, then again and again until I had viewed it 25 times. And I still could not believe what I was looking at.

To see my officers engage in what appeared to be excessive use of force, possibly criminally excessive, to see them beat a man with their batons 56 times, to see a sergeant on the scene who did nothing to seize control, was something I'd never dreamed I would witness. He had also stated that several of the officers involved would face criminal charges. I think it's remarkable that back then that was excessive and that Darrell Gates, the creator of Dare, and the SWAT team, as well as the man who once said that chokeholds would have a worse impact on black people because their arteries weren't like normal people that he was willing to

pursue criminal charges on officers who were excessive in their force, which left a black man with numerous fractures and breaks, not killing him. Yeah. I think it's remarkable how far we've come in a very wrong direction. Yep. Yeah.

In LA, the place where like you have a dozen movies about the corruption of the LA police department and they're all true. Yeah, in their practically documentaries, if not actual documentaries, yeah, where they're elite anti gang rampart unit was, was,. Amardrop or something like that. Yeah, was eventually disbanded by higher authority because it turned out they were essentially another gang. Yes.

Yeah. The level of very clear disturbance that he showed when he was talking about what he what he'd seen on the tape was I Remember was very clear and I remember being Gobb smack mm-hmm by the by the portions of that video that I saw oh, yeah Just like because they're wailing away like, there's no way you could stop that second blow.

There's no way that second blow is coming with enough of a gap for you to see if he stopped moving. Yeah, and by the way, Oh yeah, no, they were just hauling off. I mean, it was, it was, it was, It was, it was, it was, it was, It was a gang beating. Yeah, I mean, it was not even, yeah.

Any man who is getting beaten, I would imagine, is not going to sit still and lay prone. He's going to move to try to tense up, to defend himself and whatnot. And then out of the sledge, I'm very leased, he's gonna flinch. Which is now resisting, you know, of course being 12 and running away,

is now resisting. So yeah, so yeah, back then, apparently, it was better. And that's frightening. How fucked up is that? Yeah, well, the police have gotten, the police have gotten steadily more militarized ever since.

Yes. Yes, I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it, the underlying issue is that we have more and more treated our police like another branch of the military as opposed to them being civilians like we are. There was actually, it's interesting, you find some weird ways that some portions of the right wind up actually agreeing with portions of the left.

There are legitimate Second Amendment people who are just as pissed off about the militarization of the police force as, you know, Antifa are. Yeah. Because they're like, how can we keep up? Well, I mean, honestly, that's a practical matter. Yeah.

Number one, and number two, one of the arguments that I've actually seen from Second Amendment guys is, okay, no look, the police need to stop referring to ordinary citizens as civilians because they're civilians, too. Yes. If you're a cop and you decide you can't be a cop anymore, you get to quit. It's a good point. You're not government property.

As, yes, the difference between soldiers and civilians is as a soldier, sailor, marine, or, you know, Air Force, corpsman, Air Force personnel. You, you, airmen, I don't know why it took me so long to figure out that. Or anyway, as, as any of those, as, as, as a, as a member of any of the uniform services of the US military, you don't

have the ability to go to your platoon sergeant or your chief petty officer and say, you know what? Yeah, I'm done. I'm not coming in tomorrow. I can't, I just, I can't do it anymore. This is not my journey. I don't feel like I'm being fulfilled any longer by this. I just quit.

Yeah. You literally legally cannot do it. You have signed away your right to quit. Yes. And so yeah. So I would also say that the racism that existed back then has gone largely unaddressed. Yeah.

And so when you increase the militarization, you increase the separation. You actually probably will see a commensurate rise in the racism as well. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And the shifting of the overt and window in population at large toward authoritarianism.

Authoritarianism in allowing police more and more discretion allowing them to get away with more and more. I mean, I'm sure if we looked at statistics, the rate at which people are shot dead by the police has increased dramatically since then. You know, I mean, you know, I just, yeah, there are so many things about that incident that sadly

should have been a bellweather, but weren't. Yeah, now we're looking back going like that's better than dying. And by the way, that's 91. Yeah, March of 91. Yep. So that's 30 years ago. Yeah. Last month. Yep. So neither Arsenio Hall nor in living color

would touch the subject, at least that I could find, until the riots happened the next year. Yeah. And when the riots happened, Arsenio was recording his show, but the riots were literally ongoing, because he's recording in the afternoon. His guest Courtney Cox was a no-show, but he did have Mayor Tom Bradley on as a guest.

Tom Bradley, the first black mayor of LA. It's a very cool question. Yeah, yeah. He also opened with a speech by MLK, which was interspersed with the footage of the LA riots of April of 92. I found that a little jarring. I know what they were going with and probably at the time it worked, but looking back 30 years later, I'm like, yeah, oh well. Yeah, it's what happens when you have, you know,

TV producers, yeah, you know, deciding to be profound. Yeah, you know, yeah. And so the jury had acquitted all four officers of their charges, despite having clear video graphic evidence, the city erupted in riots, partly due to the king beating verdict, but also due to the frustration and distrust over the possibility of justice, over the killing and assault on black folks, such as King, as well as Latasha Harlands. I'm not going to get too much into Latasha Harlands, but essentially, she was a 13 or 14 year old girl who was shot point blank by a Korean store owner after an

altercation between the two of them over the price of something. And her killer's sentence was very, very light and people appealed and said, no, make that heavier. And that sentence being so light was upheld one week prior to the verdict of the king beating. So you've got a lot of coalescence here. Now what's notable about Hall's show at this time was that it was contemporaneous with the riots. Arsenio also asked mayor Bradley, quote, what do you tell young teenagers, black and white around the country about our system that appears right now not to be working our judicial system.

And the mayor responded that the justice system had never been just fair and balanced. A while. Yeah. And a late night talk show is calling out all of that. And a late night talk show is calling out all of that. Appealing to young people and naming the system is broken and needing change. And Arsenio Hall linked the economy to what was happening as far as the looting went. So much is quoting when looters like, yeah, why are you looting? It's free. And he's like economically, it's sucked here for a while.

The riots themselves were six days long. Six months ago people dead. Oh convulsive 2,383 injured one that are 12,111 arrested over a billion in property damage in 1991 dollars. Yep of those killed during the riots Two were Asian 28 were black 19 were Latino 15 were white, no law enforcement officials died during the riots. Mayor Bradley said on the day of the verdict, he said this, quote, Today, this jury told the world that what we saw with what we all saw with our own eyes wasn't a crime. Today, that jury asked us to accept the senseless and brutal beating of a helpless man.

Today, that jury said we should tolerate such conduct by those swarmed to protect and serve. My friends, I am here to tell this jury no. No, our eyes didn't deceive us. What we saw was what we saw and was a crime. We must not endanger the reforms that we have achieved by resorting to mindless acts. We must not push back progress by striking back blindly. That was a mayor of the third largest city in the country, or second, based on how Chicago is doing that year. Yeah. Of the country saying that the jury done got it wrong. Wow. Yeah. The assistant police chief of LA stated that this was an incitement to riot because of course the assistant police chiefs.

Yeah, well, yeah. The police specifically pulled back from almost all areas where rioting was occurring, too. During the riots, Reginald Denny, you might remember him, he was pulled from his truck, he was beaten and kicked and had a cinder block thrown into his head by four black men. Yep. I do remember that. The Glee in celebration that accompanied his near fatal assault was all captured from

above by a news helicopter. There were no police in sight as they'd pulled back from Florence and Normandy prior to that. Yeah. What people later would forget about this incident was that it was also four black residents of the area who helped him get the medical attention that saved his life. Yes. So were the doctors who helped him get the medical attention that saved his life. Yes. So were the doctors who worked on him.

Denny himself tried repeatedly to remind folks of these facts. Now by the next day, the LAPD started trying to contain the violence and after a full day of fairly non-responsive activity. Famously, Darryl Gates went ahead to go to a fundraiser on the first night. By day two of the riots, the California National Guard were mustard, though they took another day to actually get there in any numbers. And that's partly because they'd loaned out their equipment to other people. Yeah.

Then President George H.W. Bush declared that, quote, "'Anarchy would not be tolerated." And this is, in many ways, the defining gulf in what would come to shape the 1990s. Order, establishment, traditional values, and ultimately whiteness on one side, chaos, anarchy, radical change, urbanness, the youth, and not a little blackness on the other. You have an acceptable, established established traditional violence on one side representing order in the police, on the other side younger, more chaotic, more dangerous to the establishment violence without the rules backing it up. How much difference is there between Reginald

Denny getting beaten down and Rodney King getting beaten down? Four on one, 4 on 1. Okay, now this one was more, the King Beatdown was more ethnically diverse. Because that doesn't make it better though. Yeah, no. Yeah, and also it was more organized. Yeah, it was done under color of authority. Right, whereas this one was filmed from above by the news. Yeah. And don't get me wrong, there was glee in it.

The one guy who hits, I mean, does like a touchdown dance. Now, he has his own story, and I did a deep dive on that, but I didn't want to get so much details here. But it's really quite fascinating to see why he was acting the way he was, considering what he had done previously and what his brother had done previously. But you've got the police attacking a man and leaving him near death and then celebrating about it later bragging to each other.

And you've got these four men not trained attacking a man, leaving him for death and celebrating at the moment. This kind of violence didn't have the rules backing it up basically. If only it were a conversation between order and anarchy though, but the problem is that it wasn't. Again, that's a wonderful binary to paint over it, but there was more of a struggle of dominant and white older culture to maintain its dominance. It's a struggle for status quo against a demographic shift from 1980 to 1990.

White folks and Black folks increased in this country along similar trajectories. But the increase among Hispanic and Latino folk went up nearly 60% from 80 to 90. Yes. The age difference was holding fairly steady around 26, 27% of the population staying under 30. And the population over 60 was holding steady around 19%. So there's no real changes in those demographics, but there was a hardening tension surrounding how the old felt about the young and how the establishment felt about their hold on power. I would say the young have always felt the same way about the old. Yeah. So there's no change there, but the the older really clamped down. By 1990 the baby boomers were stepping

on to the main stage and their parents generation was beginning to exit stage left. And I think I'm going to stop us there because that's one riot on this coast. And in the next episode, I'm going to talk about another riot on the East Coast. Holy crap. So yeah, it's, we'll get to the wrestling eventually. Yeah, eventually, eventually. But you know, I got to sit stage. So, so far, do you want to just bounce out of it and come back to the gleaning like maybe after the fifth or sixth episode of this?

Or... Oh God, almighty almighty Batman all over again. Oh no, at least Batman like had some optimism to it. Um, I kind of I do I do want to say while we're while we're here before we get into the next episode. I had forgotten the details of the Rodney King, riots, uprising, whatever word you wanna use. And what I keep going back to, like talking about it, thinking about it, in my own head um

A lot of or a number maybe not a lot, but but a number of my classmates Who were from the same demographic as me middle class white guys right? Had very visceral reactions to seeing what what happened in LA. And it's only looking back on it now that I realize how much racial bias and how much, yeah, just how much sub-conscious racism was involved in those responses was because one of my friends who I now haven't been in touch with for years and years. I remember he made a point of saying, well, you know, in the video when he was getting up, you know, I can see how, you know, a cop might have thought, you know, the one guy hit him and that pushed him, that pushed him in a direction that, you know, maybe the other guy, you know,

didn't so much benefit attention. Yeah, and and and and people were talking about he was high on PCP and they thought that he was and it's like he tested negative for that. Yeah, no, and and just the fact that our collective consciousness the fact that our collective consciousness as progressive leaning white people has shifted. And part of that is life experience because of course, you know, I'm 46 now and I was, you know, 17 at the time. But nevertheless, you know, just the fact that again, the very idea that such a thing as white privilege existed wasn't on the radar of anybody in my neighborhood.

I mean, you know, it wouldn't be for another 25 years before I heard the phrase. And just the good old days really fucking weren't. Well, no, they, you know, you know, and I don't know if our generation is able to feel that way about the good old days weren't, because we have the advantage of so much video record and so much media still floating around out there that we can regularly be confronted by. Oh, it was that. Oh, God. I thought that was funny as hell when I was 19. Oh, I need to go apologize to some people like. Yeah. Oh, my God. You know, the being confronted with

their own cringe from that time is something that, you know, our parents didn't ever have to do. No, because the videos that they had were there were no sound to do. No, because the own videos that they had were there were no sound to them. It's the very least. My mom regularly, not regularly, every few years she'll watch home videos and she'll just call me up and apologize again. Yeah.

I was like, I was mean to you. I was so mean. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. She's like, it's quite a round video. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. You know, yeah. Yeah. You know, you know, you know, yeah. And, and, and, you know, before our parents, of course, you know, my, my folks are tail and silence. Right. Yours are boomers. I'm pretty sure my dad is a silent. Okay. Yeah. He was born in 43. Okay. So, um, but yeah. But, you know, their generation never had a deal with that.

We, we on the other hand, so for them, it was, well, you know, I remember when I was 12 and I could go to the nostalgia, got to be nostalgia. Yeah, and for us, nostalgia is, you know, really great, right, I'd tell you, watch it, you're like, oh, damn it, really? I thought I was just being edgy. Yeah, that was a real douche nozzle.

Yeah, you know, and I think that's my biggest takeaway. The fact that we're talking about that time period in our lives, just shaking my head at like, I'd like to go back to 17 year old me and my snot nose, you know, buddies. It'd be like, you don't have any idea about the lived experience of fucking anybody. Like you don't even have any idea of your own lived experience. Yeah.

Because you've only been on the planet for 17 fucking years. Well, I would also say that your 17 years were allowed to be and and I'm including myself in this as well. Okay. My years I'll just put it on myself actually. I don't need to assault you with this But my years I was allowed to be self-involved Narcissistic and going through my own bullshit because I never really had to worry about The police yeah, I never really had to worry about the police.

Yeah. I never really had to worry about that kind of stuff. And I'm talking about my teenage years, my four-minute of years, right? I never had to worry about holding onto a receipt as I walked out the store. Yeah. Stuff like that.

And my friends in high school would run around after dark and my friends neighborhood with squirt guns. Yeah, regularly. Yes. Like without even thinking about it. The one time we had a scare was when we didn't have it encountered with the police, we had an encounter with a group of individuals who couldn't see us clearly,

were themselves probably not up to any good. And yeah, we got chased pretty dramatically. And that was one of the most terrifying moments of my entire life. We used to go on to high school campuses. They might have just been fucking with us. I don't know, but my adrenaline glands didn't know the difference at the time.

We used to go on to high school campuses and play tag at night. Yeah. And the police caught us once as we were walking to the high school campus. So where, where are you going? Now this is in Maraga, California. Okay. Okay. A place that like makes Walnut Creek look poor.

Okay. Okay. Got it. Like they'll send their kids to Walnut Creek to see what charity looks like. Wow. There's Moraga, okay. Holy shit. Yeah.

Yeah. So, the police stopped us. And where are you going? And quick thinking. I was like, oh, we're going down to nation's hamburgers to get some water. I'm thirsty. Figure, it's very specific, kind of odd ball. They're gonna leave me alone.

And then they're like, well, we think that, you know, you might be prowling. I'm like, how would I be prowling? I might even walking like, I just got mouthy as fuck with these cops. To the point where they told me that I said something and you know me when somebody tries to gaslight me, and I went at them a little bit like no you said and I had my finger in their face and They put their hand not on their gun, but on their night stick and You know and my friends are like demon just come to fuck up. That was my Expand I was indignant at being a ghastlet.

Well, yeah. So because, you know. And here's the thing about all of that was that one of the reasons I was allowed to be so painfully mediocre. And so painfully unaware of the rest of the world and its workings was because in the soup in which I was cooking, it was mostly potatoes.

Yeah, you know. Yeah, there were hardly any vegetables in it. Yeah. I don't know if that metaphor holds, but you get the idea. I get, yeah. Okay. So, starchy and white. Very starchy, very white.

Yes. We'll stick to that. And so, how could I have heard of these great things? It wasn't really a soup so much as a chowder. Yeah, very corn chowder at that, you know? So, anyway. Yeah. You got stuff for people to read this time?

I'm going to highly recommend anybody who's following the podcast, Read Up on Dune, your original novel. Because as I mentioned in our last episode, when we get done with this epic, whenever that winds up being God help us both, I'm gonna start edgimicating Damian on the classics of the canon of literary quote, I like it, unquote, science fiction. We're gonna start with that one. And so if you

want to be kind of up on that, I very highly recommend that you read Dune by Frank Herbert. Yeah, so that's that's my big recommendation. Okay. How about you? Well, I'm gonna recommend Twilight Los Angeles 1992. It was a one-woman play. I saw it on TV. It was like on PBS at one point. Or at least they showed like the development of it. Okay. And the woman's name is Anna and I don't know her middle name Because Latin fucks me up. I'm gonna pronounce all the letters. Diavere. It could be Diveer. Okay. Diaavere, I'm not sure, but Anna Deavere Smith, I think it's just Devere. Devere, fair enough, Anna Devere Smith. And what I loved about it was that it showed us the process. She interviewed over 300 people about the riots, including Darrell Gates, Maxine Waters, a nameless juror on the Rodney King trial. She, I believe she interviewed.

I want to say she interviewed Charlton Heston. She interviewed, and she interviewed like some roundtable discussions, including some activists and Darrell Gates at the same time, and they start going at it. And she's, and, you know, and he's like, after 400 years of slavery, you're going to, and he's like, oh, God, with that. And she's like, you know, one thing we're not going to do here is disrespect each other. And she was kind of tone policing the activist, but she was looking at, at Gates.

But it's a one woman play and she plays all the characters obviously. She learned Korean specifically to say some of the dialogue that some of the Korean people in the riots experience. It is a phenomenally pathos-laden play. OK. Read it. Go find a version of it that you can find on screen as well, because it's really good.

So that's what I would recommend. All right. So, all right. Well, where can people find you on social medias? I can be found on the Twitter machine at EH Blalock. I can be found on Instagram as EH Blalock and on Twitter as Mr. Not Twitter, sorry, on the TikTok as Mr. Blalock. And we collectively can be found at Geek History Time on the Twitter machine. And where can you be found, sir?

You know, on air meeting, I think from now on, we'll have Mingo right after you, because the show should be the last thing. That makes sense. Yeah, after a hundred and plus episodes, we just do that. Maybe we ought to do that. But anyway, still, as of this episode, you can still find me on Twitter at the Harmony 2Hs in the middle. You could also find me the same address on the Instagram. And that should be enough, as far as the social media is. You can also find me on iMacPun, Twitch.tv slash iMacPun's and Twitch.tv forward slash capital punishment or capital puns for the various shows that

I'm on. So go give those a look and usually you can watch the previous episode and really enjoy that. Very cool. That'll do. Alright, well for a geek history of time, I'm Debian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock and until next time, keep rolling 20s.