A Geek History of Time - Episode 228 - Hulk Hogan Media-Made Media Murderer part VII

Episode Date: September 9, 2023

I'm one hit the grocery store item two Audrey item three over through capitalism you know for somebody who taught lab Your inability to pronounce French like hurts Oh look at you getting to the end of my stuff Mother fucker but seriously I do think that this buccolic Like hurts. Damn, look at you getting to the end of my stuff. Motherfucker. But seriously, I do think that this bucolic, luxurious, live-your-weird fucking dreams kind of life

is something worth noting. Ah, because of course he had. I got new an argument essentially with some folks as to whether or not punching Nazis is something you should do. And they're like, no, then you're just as bad as the Nazis. I was like, the Nazis committed genocide. I'm talking about breaking noses. Drink scotch and eat strict nine. You can't leave that lying there luxury poultry. Yes. Yes. Fancy chickens. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect to Nervary to the real world.

My name is Ed Laila, I'm a world history and English teacher currently on contractual unemployment here in Northern California. And today I had the wonderful fun of leveling out and then covering in sand, a 20 foot diameter area in the side of my yard, not as many of you may be thinking right now to prepare for sumo lessons, but in order to set up this year's iteration of our above ground pool. And tomorrow I am going to be very, very, very sore. So that's my big piece of news. How about you, sir? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a US history teacher up here in Northern California

and I am gonna actually pull events Rousseau and pull the curtain back a little without telling anyone As as folks may well know We record these things ahead of time and sometimes we try to record multiple in an evening at this point, yesterday was my last day of work, but by the time this airs, it will have been my first week at work because of how far ahead I think we are, which means that this podcast has outlasted the Confederacy by more than two months now. And I am proud of all those things. So yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that's, I like it. Yeah, but I also note that we have another guest. And I dare say at this point, I mean, this is the seventh time we've had him on out of 200 and

Essentially one quarter of our episodes or no one 40 of our episodes. I can't do math But he's been on for a larger fraction than anyone else. Yeah, please, welcome back to the show chasing his PhD for the seventh time on our show. And he's one year in. He's a professor of all kinds of things. He, he lives Barbell plates. He eats chomper steaks. I don't remember the exact promo for a superstar Billy Graham. So instead, I'm going to kick it over to Mr. Andrew Sutherland. Welcome back. Oh, yeah. I can't do that for too long.

I'll do it again at the end of the episode. Yep. Yep. No, I'm back. Welcome. Hey, I'm happy to be at back and I hope to be back in the future. But in all honesty, hopefully not talking about Hulk Hogan. For me, great, I love talking about it.

I mostly enjoyed talking about the media side of things. But hi, my name is Andrew Sutherland. I am just finishing up my first year of my PhD program. And by the time this episode airs, I would have been probably a month into my second year of my PhD program and by the time this episode airs, I would have been probably a month into my second year of my PhD program. But the thing that I want to talk about at this point of time would be something else that I expect would have happened by the time that this episode aired. And I'm just pulling it up right now. And I'm hoping at this point in time that I would propose to my girlfriend at this point.

Well, now I've created a set of points. At this point in time. Well, we've been in a long distance relationship for a little around a year. I think it's time that I pop her the question. So I'm, I've alluded to her that I will and I'm just hoping she says yes. Well, congratulations. Hopefully are in order. So future you to enjoy. Yes. And good on it. Yes. Right. So I guess you liked it. So you put a ring on it. Exactly. There you go. Exactly. She wrote a great, incredibly romantic and sweet to the horribly tragic and and and God, I don't know the other adjectives. Um, yeah. Uh, Hulk Hogan comes back to the WWE, uh, in just in time to hype the network, the,

the WWE network. See, it was a streaming service, a network of its own. That was only like 10 bucks a month. It was really worth the money for, for wrestling fans. He comes back just ahead of WrestleMania 30, um, to hype it up because there's so much stuff on the WWE Network. It's phenomenal. I really genuinely, truly enjoyed it. And that is, yeah, that's just ahead of WrestleMania 30. And hilariously, he called the Superdome the Silver Dome.

Because Silver Dome was WrestleMania 3. WrestleMania 30 and hilariously he called the super dome the silver dome. Because silver dome was so many in three. So creeping dementia, anyone? After all the hits to the head and the drugs back in the 80s or just not giving a shit. Not too. I mean, and also just having a promo in your head for so long. I mean, and also just having a promo in your head for so long. Yeah, okay. He's been to every building, but they made a lot of hay out of it. It was pretty funny and everybody teased him about it, then on. Um, so he did that.

Uh, now, now I got to rewind a little bit again, um, during the run in TNA, uh, that started in 2009 and ended in 2013, Hulk Hogan was going through a really, really dark time in his life. Uh, his wife and his divorce was anything but amicable. Um, his son had nearly killed a friend of theirs and his conversation with his son, trying to comfort his son by criticizing that friend got leaked to the public. Ah, I mean, he doesn't quite call it a karmic debt, but he does say essentially that guy had a lot of negativity around him as kind of a way of explaining to his son who is in jail for wounding this man, this veteran.

He explains like, you know, he just had a lot of negativity around him. And like I will sympathize. I will not in any way justify what he's doing there. You know, I get it. Your son is spoiled a shit and in a really dark place and having to live with consequences of his actions for the first time. And they're really fucking dire. And at the same time, at the same time, um, you know, there's just, I don't know, there's some. Well, to perpetuate, to perpetuate the entitlement that you're, that your son, that got your son into that position, you know, I mean, that's, that's kind of as, as a parent, I mean, that's that's kind of as as apparent. That's that's kind of the critique I would make of that is like, okay, no, look, part of the reason your son is in that situation is because he's never faced consequences before. Now he's facing really heavy ones. And you're deflecting onto the guy who's not there, who's who's been critically injured and is not there to defend himself.

Yeah. Like, I mean, that sucks. And it seems to be pretty much kind of fucking in character. Yeah, it is on brand. I think. Yeah. You know, the really set part of it is like, yeah, okay, I can, can see I can see Hogan doing that like yeah, it was not shocked me. Yeah There's also a video of him putting sun tan oil on his daughter's butt cheek that gets aired and

Again, like they're a tanning family. They're a body family. I honestly like there's a different line for different folks and like when he when he gets interviewed about it, he honestly, he was like, I don't know what the problem was honestly. And I could kind of see that like, you know, he's not shoving his finger up her ass or anything like that. Like he's he's literally just putting oil, a suntan oil on the part that would go under the bikini, just in case the bikini rides up a little. Yeah. He's not saying he would date his daughter or anything like that. No, I mean, who would do that? No, exactly. That would be gross. That would be career, Andrew, in politics. Right. Exactly. gross. It would be career-endering politics.

Right. Yeah, it would be. It would be, since society would put forth with elected anybody. Yeah. And in fairness, the majority never did. Yeah, true. Twice.

Yeah. Yeah. And really in that case, it's like, hey, it's like asking a family member like, Hey, can you let's put sunscreen on me literally? Or like, yeah, can you just do this one thing? It's weird, but. Or it's not weird because your family does this for each other all the time. Exactly.

Even better way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of things that he does that are actually fairly explicable, but they come under a ton of scrutiny at this time. And it all added together to show that the K-Fabe was a much preferred version of this man at the end of it all. Yeah.

And I think how you talk about, you talk about karmic debt. This is kind of, this is kind of the find out portion of the evening's entertainment. Yeah. And, you know, back to what you had said previously, I think that ultimately, if he'd figured out a way to retire and grow cabbages after his Mr. America run, his life would have actually been easier for him after that. But yeah, you talked about his inability to let go. And I mean, that's my retirement. And yeah, you you and Dimitian. Um, exactly. So during this tremendously dark time, uh, Hulk Ogan was friends with a Tampa based radio shock

shock named Bubba the love sponge. Oh God, really? Yeah, his real name was Todd Allen Clem. I'm not sure which is better. But I'm going to use his gimmick name. Bubba the love sponge had a history of pushing limits and of having a very diversified portfolio. For instance, he had a stake in a limo company, a premium phone service company, an adult video company, and a few different Tampa based clubs and so on. And he would do shit on the air like, pretends to slaughter a pig and feed it to homeless people. Cause, you know, take that PETA, you know, that kind of stuff.

He's gaining syndication at this time, not because it, because it wasn't just the attitude era and professional wrestling in the 1990s. Everyone is getting in on the sleaze train, right? And naturally in 2000, he ran for Sheriff of Pinellas County. Now, of course, Christmas. That's what we all do. I mean, people, you know, in 2000, I mean, Ovid wrote about this, you know, so in 2005, he gotten hired onto the Howard Stern satellite radio network, which also makes plenty of sense. And this, this hiring of Bubba the Love Sponge in 2005

ended his hiatus that had started in 2004. When he got fired for airing sexual discussions amongst several shitty Hannah Barbarra cartoon characters and Alvin in the chipmunks. That's the line. Apparently so. Apparently that is. Now despite.

The truth is, cruelty's okay, but. I mean, that's like that that's right. Right. It's now despite or perhaps because of this, he was fine so often that Baba would ramp up the sleazy shit. He got sued in October of 2006 by Hope Miller and an adult, an adult film star because according to the lawsuit at his urging, she had been penetrated by an over large sex toy against her will by another adult actress on the show. He managed to get the case dismissed with prejudice. Now because of this publicity and because of his association with Howard Stern, he got

a terrestrial radio job again in 2008. Now in 2010, Hulk Hogan is in TNA and because of Bubba the Love Spongebob Spongebob's friendship with Hulk Hogan, he then becomes a backstage announcer at TNA. Now of course, he said, he does this for a while and then he says really awful shit about the Haiti earthquake in 2010 and so that gets him removed from DNA. But not before he claimed that awesome Kong, a woman who is an amazing wrestler who also weighs more than me and his hell is strong. She blindsided and knocked the shit out of him. That's what he claimed. He got sued by her. She sews him for making a threatening phone call and evidently the two of them hashed it out on his radio show. So you know, ratings. So okay, that's

bubble love sponge. That brings us up to 2012, which really means that it brings us back to 2006 because even time is K-fabe at this point. Interestingly in 2006, Hulk Hogan also met my grandmother. Tell us more. She was on a plane. She lived in Tampa or no, she lived in Braydenton, which is essentially where people from Dearborn Michigan, Lee, because it's getting too Arab. But they go to Braydenton. Braydenton is where do you remember the the the the the the insurrection, the the mega shaman guy. Yeah. Yeah, Jacob. He's from. Yeah. Cool. He's from Bradenton. Uh huh. Um, or eight in 10 is this, uh, this town used to be, I'm not going to say it used to be awesome. Um, but there used to be no oil rigs off the coast and then a bunch of culture war people got elected

to the council and they're just magging the shit out of that place. Yeah, so yeah, Hulk Hogan and my grandma were on the same train, the thing that goes in the airplane. And I got a picture of her with him. And that's kind of cool. Um, so in 2006 Hulk Hogan had finished. Did he rip his shirt off? No, no, but it was kind of that you know those affliction shirts, you know, the one who's got the really nice script there. Hogan had a Hulk Hogan styled in the affliction style type shirt that he's wearing. And of course, with the bandana, of course. So, yeah.

So, in 2006, Hulk Hogan has finished his his final wrestling run in WWE. He defeated the legend killer Randy Orton, who had by the way made his name by beating all of these older wrestlers who were fucking legendary, especially Mick Foley, like that put him on the map. Now again, in 2000, what did he ever beat his dad? No, but he got his dad involved in a feud with the Undertaker and the Undertaker. That's cool. Shit out of cowboy Bob Orton. Yeah. Um, it's, it's, it was a good, I mean, Randy Orton's legend killer gimmick was really good for a good long while.

I remember that when I walked. Yeah. Yeah. So unfortunately, Hulk Hogan puts an end to it, of course, because he's Hulk Hogan. Um, and honestly, Randy Orton had it more interesting things he could do as well. So he, he doesn't get hurt by this really. Now Hogan's family begins unraveling internally around the same time that he meets my grandma. I think that's a coincidence, but some have said otherwise. But still, he and his wife, Linda, appeared to be having trouble as early as 2007, when Hulk Hogan's reality show was filming its fourth season. And then things just unravel super fast.

And so, as best as I can figure, Hulk Hogan had an affair with a woman who was working with his daughter on her music career, his daughter named Brooke. I don't see the value in naming this woman, as she's not particularly germane to the story. However, she was a consenting adult, and that affair was, according to this woman, due to her sympathies toward him during the difficult time of the marriage splitting. Ink was an on paper, but they were definitely splitting up, and this ramped things up in the Hoganlanda split. Shortly after that time, it seems that Bubba, the love

sponge and his wife, his wife, Heather were the safe place for Hulk Hogan to go when he was feeling low. And I speaking as a man who has been divorced, it is good to have a safe place to go where people can tend to emotionally. Good to climb or yeah, give you the space to do that, right? Yeah. He was staying at the time in a hotel instead of at home. And according to Heather's testimony, Heather Klam,

wife of a love sponge, she and Hogan had sex multiple times in her house, in his house, presumably when his wife and kids weren't there, in a hotel room in Tennessee and also at the radio station. However, Heather claimed not to know about the filming that Baba had done at the time and was only told afterwards. Now, this doesn't jive with what is on the tapes, because yes, there are sex tapes of Hulk Hogan having sex with Heather Clem. Also Hulk Hogan for his with Heather Clem. Also, Hulk Hogan, for his part, testified

that he was depressed. He quote, I gave up and gave in. I felt that those people loved me and quote, and I think honestly that this might be one of the most honest things that Hulk Hogan has ever said. I genuinely think that that was all true. And that's how sad of a place he was in. Okay, so wait. Yeah. Some of the, some of the ways you said some things, sure, lead to me asking some questions. So Hogan had sex with other club as wife, Heather Clem.

Yes. And Baba was filming him having sex with his own wife. Yes. Yes. See, I am utterly innocent of the details of this particular suit because I just at the time, at the time that all of this was going on, I looked at it and it went, Hulk Hogan, sex tape. Yeah, okay, whenever I'm done, you know.

So, so wait. Cause immediately I think, oh my God, he's sleeping with his friend's wife while, you know, like how, you know, disbanded must eat. Let the details unfold for that for you. Yeah, okay. I think as as you get pulled through this. Yeah. I think that'll be the most constructive way to go. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because so. Oh, dear. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. There's the various ways that this could go. Let's hear it out. Yeah, absolutely. See, the thing is there are three tapes. And while some may have a shorter refractory period than others, the first tape seems to be about a 10 minute completed blowjob, but a total of 43 minutes of talking and such. We're ahead.

Maybe I was wrong, but we're going to fly this plane. During this tape, Bubba comes in and out of the room a couple of times, wants to play some music for them, wants to stop them for a second and say that he's gonna go do some work in the office. So this is with his full knowledge and consent. Okay, well, you know, adults gonna do what adults gonna do. For sure. Yeah. Now, after this session, Hulk Hogan hits the shower.

And some people like that stuff. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And Heather Clem is definitely very, very physically attractive. And Bubba seems like the kind of guy that would A, want that, and B, be okay with showing that off in a very experiential way. Okay. And they had an open relationship. And that's cool.

That worked for them until it didn't, I guess. So afterwards, Hogo-Gun hits the shower, and there's a discussion of all three of them going on a vacation together to which Hogan replies, or else just hang out here for the week. Now, afterwards, he cuddles with her, and it's kind of sad sweet. He's complaining about all the things that he stressed out about and she's just listening. You know, there is, I'm sure there is an industry of this kind of sex work where it's, you let the client also spend time bending your ear about what's going on, and then there's the sexual release as well. And I don't think that that's not, that that's necessarily an unhealthy thing.

I'll be honest, I know somebody who does that. Okay, there you go. And if it's completely non-sexuals, what she tells me, and it's just, hey, they just want somebody to talk to and release some stuff that is built up inside them in a nonsectual way. Okay. So there's no sex actually involved. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm saying the combination of those two things. You know, and whatever it is, it is what it is. I think there is a sweetness to it. I think that when a person's at a low point in their life that our vocabulary, our sensual vocabulary is stunted such that we can't just say, hey, I just need to be held. Well, especially men.

Yeah, well, toxic masculinity fucks everybody over. Right. So, yeah. Patriarchy hurts all of us. Yeah, well, toxic masculinity, fucks everybody over. Right. So, yeah, patriarchy hurts all of us. Yeah. You know, also, Felicia is lovely.

So there's, Oh, so it's out of that. I don't know. Like, so the two best forms of therapy talking about your emotions and Felicia. There you go. Yeah.

There you go. Um, now the second tape is 30 minutes long. And no, I'm not cutting that, Andrew. But the second tape is 30 minutes long. And it starts with Hulk Hogan being quite the gentleman to her. She dirty talks him, telling him what she'd like after that. And he responds with, quote, I'm so horny. I can't believe I'm here. I should be home. This one is much more sad than anything else, to be honest. I read the transcripts of all of them.

I watched most of them. I wish I just read the transcripts. Yeah, I was gonna be my next question was. Yeah, because it's, well, okay, so the the film quality is is not particularly great It's largely black and white lighting is the lighting The thing is though that you know one thing that comes across really clearly even on that is

Old man asked that's been tanning for 30 years so old man asked that's been tanning for 30 years. So, you know, it was not an erotic experience for me. So, yeah. So, yeah. So, he did remind you of post-Amenia. No, there was no whole wheat selection for that. It was all gluten glutes for that. But again, he's doing more than Batman ever would. And then she returns the favor for a little while. And then they practice safe sex, good for them for about three minutes. And then they stop having finished for the evening.

Again, there's more talking. He talks about how he just ate. This is where it's really weird. Then he talks about what a pig he feels like because he he just ate a full meal 10 minutes before they had sex. And then he gets really weird talking about the body of his son's girlfriend, who's 17, by the way, and brags that his son has a second girlfriend in Orlando, but that she's after Hulk Hogan and wants to be his first after his divorce. Now again, I have had good friends,

not to spill too many details about my private life, but I have had sexual contact with some of my good friends, trying things out on that kind of a whim. And then we've decided if we wanted to just go back to being friends or give something a shot, right? I've never had it be like this, where was like, did you want to play back, Cameron? Yeah, sure. Um, let's, let's do that. And then, oh, A.C. Do see, uh, anyway, I really want to fuck my son's girlfriend in Orlando.

Like, I've never done that, you know? Yeah. Um, I'm glad you haven't. Yeah. I mean, you know, yeah,, you know, I would say, I would say it's a sign of character that you haven't. I feel like, you know, what you said earlier and when we were talking about, you know, never having suffered consequences in regard to Hulk's son, there's also a certain extent

to which Hogan himself has never... Right. ...like all of everything he's done, he's managed to come out of it, maybe not smelling like a rose, but he's always managed to, you know... Still lay on the seat. Yeah, to slip away, to slip away without consequences. And so for somebody who's been in that position, you don't think about the impropriety or the, I mean, just basic rudeness. Yeah, maybe. Paganess of this. Yeah, like, you know, that's not going to recur to you because nobody's ever looked at you and gone, dude, the fuck.

Right. You know? Right. Yeah, and I think, yeah, I have a bad, I have a very bad feeling about this too, on solo. Yeah. That that, you know, anybody who was actually his friend? Yep would have would have like twigged him to yeah, there's something wrong with that man So I get the sense I get the sense that these people are not his friends Yeah, I was gonna say like it depends on how you define friend. There are some friends who are just friends, like acquaintances. And then there are friends who are like, who got your back. Yeah. And then in certain cases, you have opportunists in many people,

too. Yeah. But also, like, in this sense, I would also say sometimes people say shocking things and because of the situation that they're in, it might just blow over your head. Yeah. Yeah. Now I think he's in a like he's he don't he said he's in a, like he's, he's, he own, he said he's in a dark place. Right. And so just allowing him to just vent out, let him talk. Yeah, you might just, if you've listened to him for so long, you just might go blank in the head and just, yeah, actively to these types of things. Yeah, and I also think, you know, you spoke to this in the last episode about how he's playing to his audience. I think that there is something deeper going on here, not a psychologist, not a therapist, but I think that like my sympathy actually kicks in for him at this point as as pig-ish as he is, as sad as he sounds.

I think he's trying to play to his audience. He's fucking his best friend's wife. So he's trying to talk about other situations that are adjacent to that kind of an arrangement. He clearly feels out of place. Like if you hear him talking, he's rambling. And he's in an emotional state where he's seeking validation. And he's in an emotional state where he's seeking validation. And it's also post-coital.

And it's post-coital after it only lasted three minutes. And he's casting about telling tales about how desirable he is by younger women. And I mean, he even brings in body stuff, right? I feel like a pig. And he like, he kind brings in body stuff, right? I feel like a pig. And he like, he kind of puts his hand on his belly. There's a lot of validation that he's needing. And I don't know if you remember your post divorce life,

but I certainly do remember accidentally love bombing people because I didn't realize I was seeking validation. You know, and that I'm not Hulk Hogan and I'm not fucking my best friend's wife. But I understand that need to be validated verbally after I'm not, I don't even made the joke coming up short sexually in a time where like, you know, okay, this is the only thing that she wants me for kind of thing. Like I can see him doing that, that mental math too. Now, the third tape is similar to the

second tape in terms of behavior and duration. Afterward, she washes his penis for him, which I think is very kind. Good after care. He almost immediately goes back to talking about his kids. Again, he's in a hurt place. I don't think this is a weird kink for him. I think that he's sad. And afterwards he complains about his wife, makes sense, given what's on his mind. Um, and given that he's not trying to court this woman, these are two friends fucking. So your conversations can be different along those lines. I don't recommend talking to somebody you're trying to court about your ex shortly after quite a, no bad both. Yeah. Now that he goes over the shower. And when he gets out, he goes on and on and bubble comes in and all three of them

are talking, but it's mostly them listening to him. Now at this point, I think he's very sad in a dark place and doesn't know when or how to shut up. I don't think he's going to the therapy that he needs to go to. And I also think these two people are egging him on and enabling him. I've watched it, I've read it, and I've listened to this section so many times. And you remember how depressed I was after the V episodes. So here's what I'm hearing and seeing. He's spinning out and he's complaining, but there's a bit of a bragging edge to it as well. He's bragging by complaining like, oh, my arm's so sore from polishing on my my trophies, right? He's using all the inside lingo, all the achievements that his daughter is risking. He's complaining about his inside lingo, all the achievements that his daughter is risking.

He's complaining about his daughter and how she's throwing away all that I've done for her. And here's the list of what I've done. And he's definitely complaining about his daughter. Quote. I'm and he's pissed at his kids right now because they've kind of gone no contact with him for a bit. He says, quote, I'm getting ready to cut some serious bait. Brooke, my daughter, Brooke, she jumped sides on me because I shelled out two three million bucks for her, for her music, and I've done everything. So he's mad. He's feeling betrayed. And then he escalates quite a bit. You're gonna say, Andrew? No, but I'm just trying to... No, it does feel like what you've made the point about a bit ago that he is in that dark place. He just needs people

to talk to and he feels vulnerable. So what he does when he feels vulnerable is to try to find ways to build himself up. And especially in their eyes. But what I find odd is he's building himself up by talking about his kids, but also pointing out their successes is because of his, right. But he's also trying to cut them down. Yeah, because they're betraying him. You're my real friends. Like, I think he's genuinely playing to his audience. Like, I don't think he knows not to at this point. I think for him, it is his normal, you know, it's like, I heard the rumor once that Michael Doran's voice is an octave lower because he played Wharf. For the purposes of this

discussion, I'm going to assume that that's true. So Michael Dorne just talks an octave lower now. I think Hulk Hogan always talks to his audience. I don't think he has genuine interactions with that. Yeah. So I can see that. Yeah. And you can hear Bubba. I don't think he can turn it off. No, I don't think so. I know. Yeah. Yeah. And you can hear Bubba and Heather, yes, manning him the whole time. Heather is egging him on. He continues holding court about how he feels betrayed and also bragging about these types of folks that he's doing business with. And at this point, he says, quote, I'm not a double standard type of guy. I'm a racist to a point. Now, at that point, you can actually hear Baba ascending and then Hogan says, quote, you know, fucking, and then he says the end word.

And then quote, but then when it comes to nice people and then at that point, you can hear Heather saying, well, we were all that way. We all are that way. So, you know, that diffusion of everybody's a little bit racist. So then Hogan says, quote, yeah, cool. When it comes to nice people, you gotta, you can't say the, any searching,

but I think he was starting to say, you can't say the N word, but then he switched gears. And he says, I don't give a fuck if she, and then someone moves on the bed and the sheet gets, the sheet gets in the way and so I can't quite here and I think it's I don't give a fuck if she's having sex with an eight that part gets lost but then quote an eight foot tall basketball player if we're gonna fuck with he says the end word again let's get a rich one. Let's get a rich one. And here's the thing. He has a history of like what you said with the Earth's Hino Sineo Hall thing. I think that's there.

I also think though that he tested the waters and said some transgressive shit and Heather and Bubba egged him on. So now I think he's seeking their approval by shitting on black people and using racist language. And I think both things are happening. I don't know what the ad mixture is. He is definitely saying racist shit. He is definitely playing to an audience. I don't want to excuse him for it. Yep. But at the same time, he is like, you know what I mean? Like he clearly sees that as a way to get more intimacy with this audience.

Yeah, he's seeking approbation. And he is, yeah, just like you said. I mean, yeah, he is, at the same time, he has become victim to his own K-Fab. Yeah. And prior to this, he's, he's specifically highlighted the race of the son of the radio producer as the son of quote, this billion, this black billionaire guy. So he's definitely being a racist shitbird throughout, but like I said, it also absolutely sounds like someone who's trying to get the approval of people around him in the moment. And he's seen that their response to his

complaining about race stuff is positive. And so he jumps down that path. There's nothing okay about that. Obviously. And he straight up admits to being a racist to a point. And that point appears to be the point of money. And there's plenty wrong with that. And also he sounds like a seventh grader hanging out with seven grade jocks, saying edgy shit that he saw them respond positively to. So he's doubling down on it. Yeah. I think. Yeah.

Quick question. Yeah. So I remember in a couple episodes ago, when he was cutting a promo, where he called, Yoko's, I can't remember the wrestler's name. Yoko's, Zuna, a derogatory term directed towards Japanese. Yep, people.

Yep. Has he ever done something else like that on air? No, not that I found and I watched, I watched every paper view from 1983 all the way through 2002. Then the WWE Network sold to Paramount and I didn't want to fuck with that or not Paramount. Do you think he got, do you think he's in some way got reprimanded for that on air and then never did that? No, I'm noted for doing that. And then I don't think Vizwick man would have noticed it in 1991 because it's 1991.

And as Ed has famously pointed out in the giant metal robots episodes, the 1990s, we had a serious phobia of Japanese everything. And so heightened, which is language against Japanese people. Yeah. In an industry where I mean, technically, we so do. Yeah. It's calling it, it's always called Pearl Harbor. Like, yeah. Okay. You know, and Vince, the reason why is bringing this up. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. The reason why I'm bringing this up is because like, if he was an environment where

he was restricted environment where he was restricted in doing that, which he should have been and consistently should be in many ways, he might have used this as an opportunity to release it all out and then Bubba and what's her name? Heather. Heather. Heather took advantage of that. like he said like he says this one actually thing and then like oh My audience my friends are supporting it right. I should continue to do that It's it's literally like that middle school or who says one joke and then they continue saying the joke over yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah now his complaint at this point is largely that his daughter's attraction. Well, he's mostly complaining that by her attraction to this young man and by her brief

relationship with him that she may have soured the deal for her own album. And Heather is laughing her ass off in approval of his complaints and Bubba's can be continuing to yes, man. And eventually Hogan leaves the scene and Bubba says to Heather that if they ever wanted to retire, they'd sell the tape of him saying terrible shit. Yeah, then Bubba told his wife that he was going to watch the tape and more lurid discussions in Sioux. Interestingly, amongst that married conversation, it's clear that Heather knew she was being filmed and yet her deposition in court stated otherwise, but when we get to 2012, we'll get to that trial. Now, as best I can figure,

all three of these sex dates happen at or before August 2007. He doesn't, and the reason for this, because he doesn't speak of his son's car accident, he's mad at his son, he doesn't speak of the cancellation of his own show or anything of the sort. And given how garalous he is about all the other things, he definitely would have spoken to that, because sympathy is positive and approving too. Then, let's fast forward to 2009. None of this has really come out. He is promoting his memoir on the Tidet Show with Katie Couric. And he says in this promotion that he was close to suicide shortly after this time in late 2007. and that only a phone call from Leila Ali, the daughter of Muhammad Ali, his co-host on a reboot of American gladiators,

he said that stopped him from literally pulling the trigger. Now, I'm tend to be inclined to believe people with such stories, but also it's Hulk Hogan. And you remember his baseball stance. Yeah. And he, what he said was he'd gone home to an empty room. There were no pets, no kids, no wife, no furniture. And he was nursing a cocktail of Xanax and rum. This is all believable. Like that sounds like a depressing thing. And that is a common thing that wrestlers have done. And he was dealing with a tremendous amount of back pain,

also very true. For her part, Laila Ali said in 2017, quote, I haven't talked to him since that whole story broke. We didn't have a big relationship, but I'm saying if you're going to say it publicly, you should have maybe said something to me because I had no idea he was about to say anything, but it's not a big deal. What can I say? So was he having suicidal ideations, possibly did she call? Yes.

Does this sell a better memoir? Good, yeah. Yeah. Is it Hulk Hogan and he can't separate K-Fave from reality? So for the next five years, nothing happened. Okay, so that's 2009. For the next five years, nothing happened. Okay, so that's 2012, 2009. For the next five years, nothing happens

because the sex tape didn't get released until October of 2012. Hogan goes to Memphis briefly and then he's on his Australia tour, like I said last episode, and then he goes over to TNA for four years. It was a fine run. He had all the standard hallmarks of a Hogan run

in a territory, takes the top spot, changes the field of the place, completely derails a bunch of it, makes a fair bit of money, and then he benefits more than anyone else, and then he leaves. The storylines that he did were tired, they involved the older wrestlers, they didn't really elevate the younger talent in any sustainable way, and he spent so much more time doing backstage drama and promos than wrestling, wasting the talent that there was there to wrestle now in fairness. He's got massive back issues, so I get him doing that, but don't suck all the air out of the room to stop the wrestling. Basically, he's trying to capture the lightning in a bottle like he didn't WCW, but mostly he

ends up depicting similar drama in the last days of WCW instead. Like, um, he feuds with sting, he feuds with flair, there's a small feud with Mick Foley. He feuds with Kurt Angle. There's lots of storylines about who has control of the company and whatnot, including injunctions filed and shit. You know, stuff I like to see in my wrestling. By 2012, his daughter was involved in the storylines and Brooke was to be married to the ring, married in the ring to bully Ray, formerly Bubba Ray, brother Bubba of team 3D. But then the wedding gets disrupted by a group that was feuding with Hulk Hogan and the double turns and the swarves that ensued really just pulled more and more interest away from an already melodic storyline. And there's lots and lots of

what Pat Patterson would have called Gaga. By October of 2013, Hulk Hogan was done with TNA. Now he returns to WWE in 2014. Largely to hype the newly arrived WWE Network, that's what I started this episode with. He hung around through 2015, making the occasional appearance, being a legend, etc, etc. No wrestling, as he'd had several spinal surgeries during his time at TNA. Now, when I say he's in a dark place, I mean it. Like physically, he is broken, emotionally, he's broken, psychologically, he's broken, and all of these things just coalesce for him. So the sex tape wasn't the problem. And really this whole series has been aimed at this.

Gawker released the sex tape of about 90 seconds in October of 2012, which led to Hulk Hogan filing two lawsuits. The first one was in the Florida State Court, suing Bubba the love sponge and Heather Klem, for secretly videotaping his having sex with her. The second was against Gawker and its related entities and individuals in the Florida Circuit Court. Bubba went on Howard Stern and insisted that Hogan knew he was being filmed. A few days later, he relented and actually transferred the copyright of the sex tape over to Hulk Hogan and gave him $5,000. Now, at this point, Hulk Hogan drops Bubba from the suit.

A week later, Hogan's attorney states publicly that he and Heather had also settled things. This now means that only Gawker is being sued. Now the case itself was really fascinating. First of all, the founder of Postomania was allowed to wear a bandana on the stand, so long as it didn't advertise anything. So he wore a formal bandana. Like, it's just a black bandana right down to his eyebrows, covering the baldness. During the trial, Terry Bollea was made to describe

the Hulk Hogan character on the record, even quoting his entrance music at one point. And I got such a kick out of this because he's sitting there talking about Hulkogen as Terry Balea and how he is different than himself. See, Hulkogen and Terry Balea are not the same person. Let me explain to you why. And as a wrestling fan, I totally get it. But the courtroom attorneys clearly didn't get it because they kept struggling with this. The Florida jury in St. Petersburg has a hometown hero vibe because he is based out of Tampa. He always has been. And because they're in

Florida in the 2010s, they also had a huge amount of disdain for media from elsewhere whom they viewed as predatory pricks. And truthfully, Gawker were pricks. They were the trolls and the mean girls, but they trolled other mean girls. And they turned that on the powerful. So I never really minded them being pricks because they were being pricks to the to the to the powerful. Yeah, and that's something I I had that mixed feeling when it came to gocker when I Red it or used it. Yeah, it's kind of that

hyperpop culture type of website in a lot of ways and They do have good articles, but it's more about like kind of kind of like they center themselves in good writing. They center themselves in good writing better than TMZ. Yeah. Yeah. That's the way to go about with it. And I think this is a good point to talk about like how news organizations go about with news worthiness. Please. Yeah, so if you ever talk to a journalist that will make a point about like how they make certain types of decisions, each newsroom has a different types of standard or approach and editorial discussions type of deal. But when journalists talk about what newsworthiness is,

they rely generally on five different values. Timeliness, proximity, conflict and controversy, human interests and relevance. Timeliness, it's immediate, something that people need to know. Proximity, this is local information and events that are newsworthy because they affect people. I'll go into relevance. Next people are attracted to information that helps them make good decisions. And then the two that I would argue that kind of go hand in hand with the whole sex tape situation is conflict and controversy and human interests. Conflict and controversy focuses a lot on like violent strikes or when people argue about

actions, events, ideas, or even attracts or things that we care about like policies and stuff like that. Conflict and controversy can also attract our attention by highlighting certain types of problems. In this situation, the problem is like black male in certain ways. And then the one that's definitely associated with this is human interest. People are interested in other people. Everyone has something to celebrate or and something to complain about. But we're also interested in unusual stories. Hulk Hogan's sex tape, that's an incredibly unusual story. So Gokers editorial practice

in determining newsworthiness was probably focusing on that idea of conflict and controversy or human interests. Yeah, and there's, I think I've got a little further down about how essentially Hulk Hogan has marketed himself as the real American, the square-jawed hero, fucking his best friend's girlfriend. Exactly. So that's the newsworthiness of it, too. Yeah, and granted, it is, they released 90 seconds of it and we're seeing

action take place. This is in a way, also a violation of his privacy and yep. I'm trying to also figure out like, and this is something I wanted to ask you early on, but like is in the case, no matter what, this should be a violation, but is Florida one party consent state or two party consent state when it comes to recording people? You know, I don't remember. Because I know, yeah, because I know that's a thing when it comes to that going into pop culture stuff. Like that was a big issue with Taylor Swift and Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, where Kim Kardashian recorded Taylor Swift in their conversation while Taylor was in, I wanna say Taylor was in New York

while Kim and Kanye were in California. And both those two states have different approaches. Oh wow. So Florida is a, both those two states have different approaches. Oh, wow. So Florida is a is both parties need to be informed. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so I just want to know that, but also in the same time, this is also a violation of

Terry Holk Holgens personal privacy. And this is just in a lot of ways releasing a sex tape. And yeah, and it can be argued, no, it's not really revenge porn, but no, but in the case of Bubba, I would say yes. Well, except that it wasn't revenge so much as exploitation and exploitation. Yeah, which, you know, a lot of sex tapes that get released are both parties knew that they were being filmed. The thing with this one is that how to put, there's also the question of, does he have a reasonable right to privacy as a public individual engaging behavior that is

counter to that public persona? And, you know, I'm going to get into a lot of this, but it ends up being this question of privacy versus the public's right to know, which is where Galker always seated itself. Yeah. So I would, I would normally lead myself into lead myself into privacy. You said this place in 2014. Uh, their sex took place in 2007. Before August, no, no, no, I mean the release of the sex tape. Oh, the release was 2014. Yes.

No, I'm sorry. No, 2012. I'm trying to remember if this was around the time when some hacker released a bunch of like celebrities, nudes through the cloud. Oh, that would have happened later. That happened later. That happened later. No, this was, um, Gaucker released the sex tape in October, 2012. And that leads to these two lawsuits, but like, these are going to take a while. Um, so speaking of Gaucker, Nick Denton was the founder of Gaucker. He's a British journalist who wrote

a ton about the internet. Um, he early on saw a ton of potential in online journalism and he was at the bleeding edge of tech journalism. So eventually he starts reporting on the story behind the story and he starts reporting on the powerful who would usually expect to get to release a statement without being questioned. And he took that mean girl energy and turned it on the powerful. So again, you know, don't like his methods. No, but do I like that he's doing it to rich people of course um so. Now he said of his philosophy at gocker said quote everybody knows that knows that what usually appears certainly an establishment media bears very little resemblance to what's really going on. media bears very little resemblance to what's really going on. And he also said, quote, we published stories ahead of maintaining access with people without access, favor, or discretion. And, quote, so, you know, very often, if you're a reporter, you have to kind

of couch it in such a way that either you're undeniably corrected, this is worth knowing and they can't get mad at you for it, or in such a way that they can't get mad at you for it or in such a way that they don't get mad at you, which means you might be compromising the real story. And he's like, no, fuck it. Burn him. Burn him. Oh no, they won't talk to us again. You know, we got the story out. That's, that's his philosophy. I would love that now with a certain individual who happens to own a social media site. Yeah. Funny to mention that because it was a segue because I know where this goes. Oh, yeah.

So Gawker was according to Denton supposed to be the thumb in the eye of media moors. So much mainstream media is just reading press releases of companies without any critical thought whatsoever, largely because they're underfunded. You know, so it's like, well, okay, we've got this thing and we don't want to be the ones not having the story. So boom, and so much of it is also shielding the powerful from the things that they say because of the need and desire for access. And Gokker tried to position itself

as where the ones who go against all that. And according to the then editor-in-chief, AJ Delario, Delario, who'd come over from deadspin, he was a, which was a sports blog that was a subsidiary of Gawker at the time. Now, looking at the former writers, the reporters, the editors, and the managers, and how they

described Gawker, they saw Gawker as giving journalists the ability to write bad stories about shitty people. And that seemed to be the reigning ethos there. The original attempt, the original Hogan attempt to sue Gawker was to claim that it violated copyright in the federal court of Tampa. was to claim that it violated copyright in the federal court of Tampa. Since copyright had been transferred from Bava to Hogan, and after the posting of that video, right? Now, this seemed not to work when the judge bounced it back saying that it would act as an unconstitutional prior restraint under the First Amendment. Hogan having sex and saying shitty things was newsworthy enough that prior restraint based on a tenuous copyright claim was not going to cut it.

Um, now that's the thing. Hogan's like everybody, every fucking time everybody misses the real play here because K-Fave. Everybody thinks it's about the sex. It's about the shit that he said. That's why he's fighting so hard. Everybody thinks he's fighting so hard because of the sex. Now, the judge in the state case, remember, because there are two different cases.

So the federal case is like, no, it's not a copyright violation. Sorry, that's prior restraint and it's unreasonable. In the state case, though, the judge was Pamela Campbell, who will be a judge on the six circuit court of Florida until 2027. She didn't get elected in November of 2020, though. Instead, her term was just simply renewed due to that election being canceled. And I think that's because she ran unopposed, not for any other hinky reasons. For some background, Campbell was also the lawyer for the parents of Terry Shiveau. And she was then appointed by Jeb Bush. And she stayed on the course. Yeah.

Who's Terry Shiveau? Oh, Terry Shiveau was a woman who was in a permanent vegetative state. Terry Shival was a woman who was in a permanent vegetative state. But yeah, and her husband wanted to take her off of life support and her parents refused. And it became a question of who has the right. And plenty of people, including politicians, made a lot of hay over it and ignored neurologists. And then there were shisters and, you know, grifters is the term I'm looking for. Yeah. For, uh, for, uh, you know, going on. And the thing is that the active coma that she was in, she was responsive,

but not meaningfully so. And it was only reflexive. It was, it's, it's really fucking hard to watch. Um, I don't recommend it. Yeah. I have. I don't recommend it. Yeah. Her, her parents Her parents, you know, I can, I can

sympathize. God help me out. I never have to empathize, but I can sympathize with her parents. And they, I don't, I don't see her parents as being villains, but everybody around them were just being my blood boil listening to these people, because it was so clear that so many of them were just jumping on it for cloud. that so many of them were just jumping on it for cloud. Yeah. And it was just disgusting.

Yeah, it was terrible. No, I felt like it was the first steps in the argument against abortion to be perfectly honest. All life is so, I mean, therefore. Yeah, I feel like it was chronologically too late to be the first steps, but it was, it was a beginning of a new new salvo. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I didn't know, I don't remember her name, but I do remember the whole story. I also remember it because my mom was very much involved

watching that story. Okay. And she had, she sat me down. It was like if I was ever in that state, I am letting you know you are supposed to pull the plug. Yeah. And I'm just looking at her like mom, I'm too stop. Yeah. Yeah. It is too early in the morning. Right. I just asked if there were any cornflakes. Yeah. Yeah. And this is a Wendy's. Yeah. Yeah. So in the beginning of the actual trial, Campbell makes several prejudicial comments to the jury

about her distaste with the state of journalism in America, which is, you know, on brand, I guess, to say that this is a bit irregular would be an understatement. David Houston, who's really weird looking, was the main lawyer for Hulk Hogan, for Terry Balea, and he said that they originally had sent a request to Gawker to take it down and that they would drop the case. I have no reason to discount this or to disbelieve this.

Quote, in the name of decency, if nothing else, take it down and we walk away. Houston has said that over and over and Denton never denied that. I think that they actually did send that. I also don't. So Gawker was going to take it down. So who is the one who opened up with the state of journalism? That's the judge talking to the jury. Okay. Like, like, right there, the defense turn, you should have been, I moved for a mistrial. But who do you have to? And then you can't even, I mean,

yeah, I mean, this is why I had to be an appeal. That's clear grounds for an appeal. Yeah, I did this case genuinely redeems Lance Edo because Everybody was bugged by how boring he was but to be perfectly honest. He was all about procedure So yeah, yeah, yeah Just from that statement and first off, I hear I hear students who say that and like first off I don't think you want,

it's not that you want journalism to be a certain way, it's that you want to feel like you are correct when it comes to what journalists present. If it's not presenting in your way, it's wrong. And that goes into this theory known as the third person effect, which argues if we are watching, or watching media coverage or reading a news article that is literally presenting

information in neutral way we find that as kind of like an attack on ourselves We find it we've perceived it as bias even if it's like taking the most centrist milk toast approach We view it as bias because it's not supportive. It's not that it's not supporting our view, but how dare you take legitimize that opposing view. And I just want to bring that up mainly because I get so annoyed when people like I don't have a journalism background.

I study a lot of it and I do respect a lot of it. Do some journalism, do some journalism. I study a lot of it and I do respect a lot of it. Do some journalism, do some journalism, blah, blah, blah. Do some journalists get things wrong? Yes, we're human. It's about the course correction from there. Right. That being said, that there should have been a call for a new judge

or something just from that opening statement. Yeah. Yeah. Because Florida in the 2010s. Yeah, but we're also, we also have like procedure and there's so many other things involved, but Florida and the sun. Sun. I don't think you understand where you are right now So again, the further north you go in Florida the further southern you actually yeah and Tampa's way up there. Yeah, uh sun, sun We don't we don't cotton all at northern liberal hippie shit like like procedure and due process That's that's commie shit boy. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Boy. Now, now, Tampa is still hurting me. Tampa is still two hours further south

than where I lived where we had separate cemeteries. Um, so, you know, and where I lived were their separate Cemetery's, they're also separate parts of town, of course. And procedure, that does not stand up to the way we do things around here. So, yeah, where you do. I will give one thing that I do love about Florida though. I do love their sunshine laws. Do they have sunshine laws? It's probably, it's a different type of sunshine law. It is for journalism. You know the whole Florida man thing when it comes to like you type something in it. Yeah. Yeah. Like I do love very much how much they allow information access in that sense.

They are the Spain of the United States. You know, when Spain didn't censor their newspapers, everybody thought that the flu started there because that was a full place. It was repable. Yeah. Now Charles Harder also helped Houston to represent Hulk Hogan. Harder has a regularly sued, no, he has regularly sued. He has not, he does not own a, he has regularly sued news media organizations.

He seems to radotat sue people similar to Roger Stone. He also represents Melania Trump. Meanwhile, another lawyer from Hollywood, Keith Davidson, has entered the chat. He made his living as kind of a sex tape broker, and he was trying to do that with Hulk Hogan. So he's a lawyer who basically would go to people and be like, hey, I've got this sex tape.

And these people want to sell it. I'll let you have first-right a refusal so you can, you know, catch and kill. Hogan's attorney is actually set up a sting opportunity with the FBI to meet in Clearwater, Florida, Clearwater Beach, Florida, pardon me, to exchange the racist sex tape for money, because that's the one that really mattered to him. The problem with the broker is that they're a broker and that's it. So they're not the real source of the video. They're just the broker. So they're not really arrest worthy and all the same that there was an FBI raid. Houston watched the video and it sounds like from the audio of the bugged

room that Hogan was there with him discussing how betrayed he felt by Bubba. The FBI raided the room once the deal was made and the money was exchanged. And they got Hogan and Houston out of the room. The FBI detained Davidson and his cohort and all of this detail was disclosed during the discovery part of the trial, which one could argue makes a really strong case for the wrongness of the sex tape. Now Houston then sends a personal email to Denton asking cease and desist for publishing

the video ahead of any testimony, but I believe during discovery process of the trial or or just before it, I'm not quite sure. Quote, it is not meant to threaten, but rather as an advisement as to what we must do in order to protect the image of Hulk Hogan and Hulk Hogan's privacy rights. Now he uses those names, not Terry Bollaya, Hulk Hogan. So the DBA, the doing business as name, Denton refused partly because at this point Hogan had already gone on Howard Stern to talk about the sex tape and joke about it. And it had already been published by others. So Denton didn't find the troll to the powerful and the wealthy very seriously here.

During the trial, Terry Balea said that he was hurt by all of this. Well, this has been devastating to me. He, Terry Balea, testified that he started breaking down and having an anxiety attack on the phone when he'd learned that Gokker had posted the video. And again, others had already published it. He had gone on Howard Stern already, but it's the Gawker aspect that he's having panic attacks over. And he testified that he didn't feel like he had anyone in his life who loved him or was his friend. Now, I firmly believe that that's true.

I think Terri Balea absolutely is in dire need of a hug, a non-coidal hug, and a lot of therapy. That doesn't mean that you sue the umpteenth agency that has published this. Now, this meant that Gawker had invaded, here's what's fun. Gauker invaded Terry Belayas' privacy and convicted emotional pain and distress on Terry Belayas while the character of Hulk Hogan that he played was making the media rounds and joking and bragging about the sex tape. So he's using K-fabe. Yes, as a way, as yes, as kind of this shield,

the protect himself. Yes, hold on. And have this all those things. But Terry Balea is feeling hurt. And Terry Balea has rights. To privacy. And he does. That's the bitch of it. You were absolutely right that this is a privacy issue. You're 100% right. But then he goes on radio shows and talks and jokes about it. But he's like, Oh, no, no, that was Hulk Hogan. See? Terry Baleia. I was originally on the side of like Hulk Hogan because I didn't know about that part where he went on other shows. So you're on that Terry Baleia. I don't. Yeah. This is the problem with God damn K-Fape. Yes. Yeah, you know, it's a similar kind of situation

with corporate personhood. It's this convenient fiction that like, and corporate personhood is coming from a very different place, but it's a convenient fiction. Corporate personhood is coming from a very different place. But it's, but it's a convenient fiction. Corporate, you corporate personhood is K-fabe. Yeah. It's just.

Yeah. You know, we're, we're, we're treating, we're treating codified K-fabe. Yeah, we're treating an onhuman entity as, as effectively human for legal reasons. Mm-hmm. In the same way that, well, you know, we're referring to this man by this made up name. Yeah, and it winds up creating situations where, well,

okay, see, that wasn't me. Right. That was that was you know, Bo Corp. You're going to, you're going to get more upset in just a minute Oh, I use this argument to get to pay checks No, cuz you were terribly a doing business as Hulk Hogan yeah, yeah The university I teach at both higher Andrews Sutherland and then Suther Andrews and yeah Andrews suds profland, and then Suther, Andrews, SUDs, profsud, there we go.

That's your 15th name, baby. We have a character. Yeah, yeah. I did wrestle in high school a lot, and I did get a nickname. And I love it, but I also hate it. The same time, I was called the blonde beast. Oh, nice. I like it.

I was very aggressive. It was given to me. My mom was talking to a lady. And the lady was like, oh, my son, he just got out of it, just recovered from a broken leg or a broken shoulder. And I just hope he doesn't wrestle that blonde beast over there. And she's like, my mom's like's who do you mean by blonde beast?

And it was me and I did wrestle that kid and I went at his shoulder. Nice. You made him the the brunette bottom. Yeah. Yeah. Now here's a fun fact. Let's just rewind a little bit. You remember that time between when Hulk Hogan like Let's just rewind a little bit. You remember that time between when Hulk Hogan like was a good guy and hadn't joined the NWO again and it goes back and forth and does all that weird shit. Yeah. At one point he was wrestling as Terry Baleia. And he even had a shirt made and it's a TCB taking care of Baleia. and it's a TCB taking care of Balea. And that's not the part that's going to piss me off. Where? Where does he do this? This is a WCW.

That is the part that has pissed me off. That's not the part that's going to piss me off the most. This is WCW before he ends up in his, you know, angry fight with Vins Rousseau. So this is, this his, you know, angry fight with Vince Russo. So this is, this is, I think between his April hiatus of 99 and when he comes back in 99, I think he comes back as Terry Belayah for a bit. Yeah.

Okay. So if that's not the part that's gonna piss me off, which it does, I'm going to make this point in the Muppets, Muppets in space. He is credited as Hulk Hogan, and then parentheses, Hollywood Hulk Hogan, I believe. Let me double check. Okay. Because you remember at one point, he was credited as Terry Hulk Hogan for the the tropic thunder or the thunder and paradise. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, it's funny because after, okay, so we had to kind of go off there. When I pointed out that, you know, he, he was making the rounds as Hulk Hogan, the very next line was K-fabe. Um, so at one point on the stand during the trial, the Gawker trial, they asked him if he the lawyer or Gawker, the defense lawyer, asked Terry Baleia, the witness on the stand, if he was on the bubble the love spawn show discussing the length of his penis.

Here was his response, quote, well, it's not mine because mine is in that size, but we were discussing the length of Hulk Hogan's. That's not how it works. The attorney was equally gobsmacked. He said, seriously? Hogan. No, seriously, I do not have a 10 inch penis. No, I do not.

Seriously, you were discussing Hulk Hogan's penis? Yeah, because Terry Belaya's penis is not 10 inches like you're trying to say. You didn't think that that was invasive of your privacy, right? My privacy is Terry Belaya or Hulk Hogan. Now Hogan is the one on the fucking tape All Koreans the one on the fucking tape. What name do they call you by on the fucking tape, motherfucker? But he's the testifying as Terry Balea. Okay, but but and asking. So are you asking Terry Balea about what whole Cogan said?

I'm sorry. That's your say. No, motherfucker. It's no. There's video tapes. Okay. Right of whole Cogan discussing his penis. No, not Terry Balea. No. motherfucker. It's no. There's video tapes. Okay. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no sex tape in question. Oh, no, no, no. We're talking about a tape of him talking on the radio show. Oh, no, I know. I know.

No, the sex tape was very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very. Sponge, in the course of your conversations during that tape, did Mr. Sponge address the individual in that tape by the name Terry or by the name Hulk? I think it was Hulk. Yeah. Here. You have no standing to sue, Mr. Belaya, because you're not on that fucking tape. Hey, you see that you just know you know, you know, you don't get to have it both fucking ways. If he was calling you Hulk and and all of the okay, look, it's Walker. First and all of the two are going into Heather Clem, then you'd have an argument that that was Hulk

Ogan. I'm sorry that Bubba loves bunch confused us, but that's on him not on the whole. Hogan is a fucking liar. Mr. Blaya. K Fabing. Well, you know what? We're in a court of law. I can

I don't even I don't even know who's actually Bubba the love Bubba the love spunk or was it the other guy? Whatever his real name it? Alan Clem. Yeah. Who is actually the problem here? So at this point, at this point, Hulk Hogan gets, he gets exasperated. He gets exasperated because they said, or Hulk Hogan and he says, we've talked about Hulk Hogan several times. I need to make you understand this.

That Hulk Hogan gave up his privacy the moment he walked out of his front door and became a celebrity. And so I don't like talking about Hulk Hogan's penis, but I've already tried to explain to you. I gave up my right as Hulk Hogan to have Hulk Hogan have any privacy. I don't know how much clearer I can make that to you." In later testimony, Hogan said, quote, I didn't want to bring Terry Baleia the man into the conversation when he was talking about his appearance on Howard Stern, then they said, you knew that this was hot news and went and when going into these interviews that they would be asking about the sex tape, didn't you?

Yes, sir. But he didn't, he went as Hulk Hogan, not as terrible. So you have to understand your K-Fabe for any of this to make any fucking sense. No, I, you know what, I do know these attorneys don't. And in no trial that I have covered in this series has anybody understood K-Fabe. Here's the deal. Oh, go ahead. No, no, you're going to say probably the exact same thing I'm going to say. Okay.

K-Fabe as a construct is fine. Within the context of the square entertainment, squared circle, anything and everything having to do with it surrounding it, all of that. Yes, but they lived their gimmicks back in the 70s and 80s. Okay, no, I'm keeping all the fucking time. If you go into the ring, you don't get to get seen down at publics, not walking around in a cast. You'd have to keep that shit up.

It's car understood. Well, yeah. But then here's the deal. You go into a court of law and there are facts. There is objective reality and you don't get to play both sides of personhood. Fucking no. Like I wish there had been a K-Fabesevian attorney I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like,

I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I class. As a, like, okay, and it might just be a two session eight hour class that like you can take is extra you know, just, yeah. But like, no, I, at this point, I want somebody to look Hulk Hogan specifically, Terry Blaya, in the face and say, bullshit. Yeah, I understand, I totally understand that you have spent so much of your life living in this liminal identity space

that you don't know who the fuck you are. But for the purpose of the fucking law, you only get to be one person. I 100% agree, and I agree with that context. And that, in a way I was going to say that I'm just going to add one thing Yeah, you were giving me shit a while ago about damn handing about We gotta remember where goddamn Florida where facts don't matter, right? Yeah, that's that's part of the problem here I mean shall we go to the election of 2000 and talk K Fabe?

So the thing is, and nobody, nobody understood the liminal for muscular space, the K Fabe occupies, right? And this lack of understanding has a massive legal implication. The laws and regulations about the media and advertising and puffery don't quite understand K-Fabe either. Wrestling has a singularly unique quality in this. It is the only thing that K-Fabes and this means that to some extent Trump's campaign and presidency was essentially K-Fabe. Trump's campaign and presidency was essentially K-fabe. His early defenses of his own misogyny was that of his, this is my TV personality. And plenty of synchofants over at the not-news media channel

Fox, who also do K-fabe, made the same defense of him, quote, a lot of those statements are what Mr. Trump made as a TV character. So I don't think that some of that is going to stick and quote, that was Katrina Pearson, Trump's campaign national spokeswoman speaking on super Tuesday during the campaign in 2016. The K-fabe is why Trump became president. If Donald Trump uses the argument about K-Fave in his most recent indictment saying,

oh, it wasn't President Trump or former President Trump who mishandled those documents, it was TV personality Trump. I will lose my mind. I don't think I will lose my mind. I don't think I will lose my because when Ken Petera, and I forget who else is another wrestler, but when Ken Petera threw a garbage can through a McDonald's, he was kayfabing as Ken Petera. He still went to jail for two years. Um, rest, that's not a, that's not a, that's not a civil matter. That's a criminal matter. That's, that's a whole other level of, of this. Yeah, but he got to make, he got in mixed trouble by mixed McDonald's. So like, yeah, McDonald's is much higher.

Yeah, I'm, I'm going, I'm sorry, I'm going back to making the comparison between Ken Petera and the Galker suit. The Galker suit is a civil trial. That was a criminal thing. It's like, no, no. The difference between the legal vagaries that are involved in a lawsuit that essentially comes down to damages being paid Versus the reason I brought up Ken peterra was because Donald Trump stole documents. Oh, yeah No, yeah, yeah, yeah, both of those those are entirely criminal Donald Trump calling a Making fun of a disabled reporter calling a woman ugly or fat or saying that he grabs them by the pussy or whatever,

that's K-Fape. That's just his TV personality. That's the defense they used. And that's how he got to do that shit. Listen, we've been through like, disagree with that analysis. I can't either, but also we got to remember, we went through the Trump presidency and all the norms were thrown out, baby. Yeah.

In favor of anything can happen. Yeah, because because he said it, but he doesn't mean it. Well, he meant it, but not the way you think. Well, it doesn't matter if he meant it because it's true. I mean, it, it, well, yeah, Randy Savage had a reason to go attack Hulk Hogan. Clearly, Miss Elizabeth, Hulk H Hogan had had designs on Miss Elizabeth and Randy Savage's eyes. It made sense. Like a lot of people, same kind of thing. Yeah.

So Denton saw that. But without calling it K-Fabe is dangerous and he saw all that stuff as dangerous and he wondered why anyone should be immune to be called being called out for their lies. And he really hung his hat on this aspect of it all and he's gonna lose. People began asking at the same time another player has entered the chat. During this trial, people started asking, where is Hogan getting all the money to pursue this court case? And then he dropped a very specific charge from the civil suit against Gawker, part way through the case. He said, I'm dropping the negligent inflection of emotional distress. Now that particular charge was within Gawker's insurance policy about inflection of bodily

harm against which they were insured. This is standard for a lot of news companies. Dropping this charge meant that the insurance company was no longer going to have to pay for the damages, which meant that now Denton, Gawker, and Delario, the editor-in-chief who ironically had been pushed out by Denton earlier in 2013, were all open to having to pay the damages for the other charges personally, because the law is fucking weird. Now, this move made sense from a financial perspective, Hulcogen, I'm sorry, it didn't make sense. It made no sense from a financial perspective. Hulcogen was suing for $100 million for the invasion of privacy, infringement of personal personality rights,

and intentional inflection of emotional distress. But by dropping that last one, it was thought that Hogan wouldn't win very much money by reducing the claim, which is weird considering what he claimed his finances were like post divorce. By all accounts, Linda Hogan was awarded more than 70% of their liquid assets. In addition to 40% ownership of Hulkogan's companies, because she was with him from the fucking beginning. She, remember Vince McMahon was at their wedding, and this is pre, this is either right after Mania or right before Mania.

Hulkogan also had to pay her a $3 million property settlement. That's a lot of financial loss, and that's only what's available to the public. And I spent a long time looking. If Hulk Hogan wanted to maximize his own financial recovery on these damages, that would be the last thing that he would do. Well, any any trial attorney, any tort lawyer is going to tell you you go after the deep pockets and oh, they're insured. Right. Awesome.

Yeah. And yeah, he, he exactly didn't do that on purpose. So how is he paying for this? Deeper pockets are involved. Andrew, you're gonna say something or were you just kind of like, yeah, I know where this is going? No, I know. I know.

So Hogan's lawyers would stay at really nice hotels in Tampa. Who's paying for that? Now, Judge Campbell ruled that the FBI raid stuff, including the stuff with Hogan saying the N word a whole bunch and being post coitily homophobic was not allowed to be included in the trial. But the transcript of Hogen's epithet use was leaked to the inquire, who then leaked it to the WWE, who then terminated his contract

and scrubbed him from all of their front facing content. So you'd still see him on all the paper views and episodes of things, but you literally couldn't search for his name for a while. Oh wow. Yeah, what is that word that they use in? Antling? Oh, no. Oh, no. Memento, Memento worry? No, no.

Like, do not you? I forget. Yeah. Anyway, he got scrubbed from all their forward facing stuff. It's kind of the Chris Benoit effect. You can still watch any Chris Benoit match, but you can't search for him. Benoit effect. You can still watch any Chris Benoit match, but you can't search for him. The number one star who helped make that company what it was was just gone from the streaming services. You could not search for him. And that made a ton of news. Now, I'm sure that Richard Belzer was very happy about that. Now, Hulk Hogan, oh yeah, sorry, the Roman term is dumb not yo memoriae. That's right. Now, Hulk Hogan admitted that it was stupid of him to say

that thing to say the n word and all the post-coital homophobia. Houston thinks that Denton thought it would help show people that this was why Hulk Hogan was going after Gawker, not the privacy stuff. And he, Houston had messaged, no, no, I'm sorry, Hogan, had messaged Bubba the love sponge, showing how worried he was about the racial slurs, being publicized. Now Hogan's lawyers twisted the words and the intent around Galker's former editor-in-chief, A.G. D'Lario. He had a sarcastic reaction to someone deposing him. He'd been asked if there was ever a sex tape that wasn't in the public interest to be seen.

And he said, yes, if they were a child. And when they pressed him for an age, he's like, I don't know, fucking four, clearly exasperated, clearly sarcastic, but of course, the defense attorney hit him with, oh, so you think joking about child pornography is funny. This is all in the trial. It's not stricken. It's not, you know, the judge doesn't call foul. There's no, like, Bubba signaled that he preemptively would plead the fifth and the judge directed the attorneys arguing the case not to bother putting him up on the stand to make him plead in court. Which procedure?

Now the jury wasn't told about any of this by the way all of these decisions are made away from the jury. Yeah, no, that's that's all behind the scene stuff. But what I what I find what I find interesting is he signaled he was going to plead the fifth. This is a subtle trial. What is what is he pleading the fifth to like especially since that case that that had been dropped. Hogan's case against Bubba was gone. Yeah, like, okay, self incrimination. How? Yeah. Yeah. There's there's so much sketchy shit going on here. Like, oh my god. Yeah. So Gawker loses the case. The jury rules that the sex tape with Hulk Hogan using ethnic slurs was not a matter of public concern, and therefore it was not newsworthy, and that Gawker posted it knowing this specifically naming Nick Denton in this.

The result was that Hulk Ogan got awarded, or Terry Balea, got awarded, a hundred, actually I'm going to say Hulk Ogan, got awarded $115 million in compensatory damages. Additional punitive damages of 15 million against Gawker, 10 million against Denton, and 100,000 against Alario. That's the equivalent of 14 1988's. Ultimately Gawker would settle with Hogan by paying $31 million to him after shuddering and selling itself to Univision, and that was his approximate net worth in 2008 before the divorce got settled. So it's a pretty sweet deal for Hogan. Now two years later, Brian Goldberg would buy Gawker for $1.5 million at a bankruptcy option in 2018. In January of 2019, it was announced that Maya Kossoff, Anna Bresla, Ben Barna, and Carson Griffith were joining Gawker. And then a week later, Maya Kossoff and Anna Bresla

quit because Carson Griffith was inappropriate and made awful comments to them. Quote, we're disappointed it ended this way, but we can't continue to work under someone who is antithetical to our sensibilities and journalistic ethics or foreign employer, CEO Brian Goldberg, who refuses to listen to the women who work for him when it's inconvenient. And that fight got messy over the next two years as Griffith sued another publication for running an article that was defamatory about him with the cooperation of Kosoff and Bresla. In short, it sounds like mean girl on mean girl violence, to be honest, I'm gonna typically I'm just gonna believe the women when they say, hey,

people were shitty to us to the point where we had to say something. Anyway, back to the settlement, the jury said that they wanted to be able to get out of pain. So many grounds for appeal here. Yeah. Like, yeah, you know, at least at least the small town Hick judge in my cousin Vinny, like was actually running a courtroom. Like, yeah, wow. Yeah. Oh, good word. So, dent. It's Florida. Yeah. Now, Denton told the press outside of the courthouse that they hadn't

been allowed to present the full case to the jury and that they would be, in fact, appealing the case as the amount of money awarded would destroy the organization. Denton had also told the court at the hearing that he would use stock and gocker worth 81 million as security to guarantee payment of the jury verdict. And typically during an appeal, you have to essentially pay the fine to a significant amount. Unfortunately, gocker had just announced its bankruptcy and there was an offer on the table to buy the company at the same time. And the judge said that Denton hid, quote, material information about the value of the stock, which a reasonable person under similar circumstances should have disclosed.

So she's really going after him. Now, even at this point, Denton was aware of Peter Teal's involvement. And I'm going to get into that more in just a second. Quote, this is from Denton. We told the court they did not know what the company shares would be worth. We told the court they did not know what the company shares would be worth, especially after it had been pummeled by Hogan and Teal. But we were willing or were willing to pledge all of them.

There was no misrepresentation. However, this largely was just the effort to protect Gawker from having to pay up right away to Hulk Hogan. Denton would have to undergo the same process personally to avoid having to pay Hogan immediately. And like I said, they eventually all settled with Hogan for about 31 million. Now the New York Times, right after the trial, published a piece pointing to a Silicon Valley billionaire named Peter Teal as the one funding the case on Hogan's behalf, despite having no specific standing in the case.

Again, remember Hogan's attorneys are staying in nice places. Hogan is able to keep this trial going. Teal admitted to it the next day. Straight up admitted to it. Everybody reported it. Even Houston said that he was surprised. Teal is an early investor in Facebook, co-founder of PayPal and essentially a tech

bro. And here's where Denton is somewhat validated in his suspicions. Brian Stettler of CNN said that it was a new threat to free speech, having billionaires being able to shut down news organizations using the courts to litigate them into financial ruin. Now, Teal's history sounds simple. When you, when you look at his history with Gawker, they outed him. And he had the means to get revenge.

That's, that's true. That, that happened. But it also has a few layers that somewhat wrinkle and tangle that simplicity. Denton didn't like the idea. Denton is also gay. And he didn't like the idea of teal getting to pass for straight as it added to the toxic textbook, tech bro culture to not be out. Now, that's certainly a discussion that folks can have about the ethics of outing others who are benefiting from passing. And if that's all it was, I wouldn't really bother analyzing it further. But Gawker didn't just out-teal. They also reported on a bunch of his ultra-wealthy friends and their shitty behavior,

including a story about a buddy of teals whose game of thrones meets the hobbit themed wedding rented out a section of the red woods and paid a huge fine for the damage that they caused to the ecosystem in the red woods. A fine, if you're rich enough, is service fee. And what I really think made the difference was this, Gawker had also reported on a huge loss that teal endured with a hedge fund losing tons of value, which is one of the ways that teal has become rich and powerful. So this was a damage to his brand.

It's less about outing him and more about outing his financials. And Gawker ultimately was critical of Silicon Valley and they're very image conscious down there. So we're going to say something there. They are. Yeah. Well, just, you know, it's it's millionaires behaving badly. Billionaires, but yeah. Billionaires behaving badly. It's just billionaires being, I mean, let's be real. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, and, and, and as much as, again, this is mean girl on mean girl shit.

You know, Mark Twain would have pointed to this and said, no, that's what you need to be doing. Yeah, that's. And Amber Pierce was signed on to do this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and he was. Yeah. Exactly.

A girl on mean girl. Yeah. And HL Manken would have, would have been, you know, all for it. Like, you know, because, because that's, that is what we need the fourth estate for. And it is historically, uh, trenchant, I think, to make a comparison to the gilded age, you know, um, and, and yeah, we're, we're living, we're living in a second gilded age. And this is, this is one of the, uh, stones in the arch that, that is holding that up. Yeah. Yep. Hey, do you know what I'm art? Oh, yeah, go on. Yeah, and I'm perfectly like, yeah, I agree.

We should be exposing like these bad business practices and stuff like that too, especially because like, hey, we live in a capitalist society. If we're going to let them market to side, we should be as an informed public on who we should invest in. Should we be investing in people who make bad decisions who also I would add are very much in favor or very much in favor of dictatorships and are promote a lot of anti-democracy sentiments. I-huh. I am not a fan of the ill. Yeah. Yeah. We're I'm gonna I'm gonna go a little bit more into him too. Um Delario's former editor-in-chief of Galker, like I said, um, he said that the whole trial had nothing to do with him or Hulk Hogan and that it was ultra-rich person taking down a news organization that didn't fear the ultra-rich.

ultra-rich person taking down a news organization that didn't fear the ultra-rich. Teal validated this suspicion, stating in an interview that funding a lawsuit to destroy Gaucker was, quote, one of my greater philanthropic things that I've done. Yeah. I'm sorry. What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And Robby fell into free. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, Teal goes all over nowadays speaking and at all the National Press Clubs, he has said that it was only gocker that he went after. And so far, that's true. However, the president, he said, is a dangerous one because now anyone or any corporation with money can fund litigation against a news organization and destroy it. Teal is into sea stedding, which is essentially offshore libertarian floating paradise slash health scum. Yeah, of course he is. Of course he is.

They all are. It gets better. He also has supported research on using the blood of the young to infuse it into the old and extend their lives. Yeah, I'd heard about that. Yeah. So he's literally a libertarian vampire. He also wrote a book that's kind of this generation's Madison Grant called the diversity myth. Oh, oh. Madison Grant called the diversity myth.

Oh, oh. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Case the title doesn't give it away. The problem, according to Teal, is that there's too much racism. The problem isn't that there's too much racism and systemic oppression. The problem is that quote, people are looking for these things too much. See, the problem according to me. Says the billionaire white guy who probably grew up

in an upper middle class or lower upper class background and considers himself a self-made man in Europe. Yeah. Okay. I will also add he's very much against women having rights. Yes. And what else? There was another thing.

Oh, he hates democracy. Yep. He says teachers are a problem. The suffrage for women is increasing social welfare has been bad for libertarians, which I would agree. And cheer it on. Yeah. And he should say personally, yeah. I would personally say being a libertarian

is being bad for libertarians. I would agree. Yeah. I would agree. I have not met any libertarians yet who who give a good accounting of libertarianism. Yeah. I've I've met one and I've met one and now he's not a libertarian. Yeah. Yeah. That's normally how it goes. Teal has said the democracy is inherently limiting to freedom. Um, he is at his core. Makes no sense. He said he he is at his core. He is a tech fascist. He's Tony Stark without the heart. Now, Palantir is another of his organizations. Oh, Ed, Ed's your eyes picked up on that one. Oh, no, it essentially gathers information on people and analyzes their data. Ed, would you care to tell me why the name Palantir is disturbing?

Ed, would you care to tell me why the name Palantir is disturbing? Well, I'm familiar with the real-world tech bro, Palantir, but the name, I find the name offensive because it's taken from Tolkien. And the Palantir were seeing stones. And I don't know if they, I think they do use the word in the films. They do because he covers it. He's like, you don't know where they all are. So you don't know. Yeah, yeah. And the, the Numenorians, the, the men of, of the, the, you know, golden age of, of tokens

world had these stones that they could, that they could use to communicate over long distances. And with the fall of Numenor only, seven of them survived. And then over the course of a couple of thousand years, because Tolkien timeline, a number of them were lost and fell into the hands of Sauron. Yes. And one of the plot points is that both Sauruman, first the white, then the many colored, and Denathor, the steward of Gondor, have both been secretly using Palantir for different reasons, and Sauron has managed to corrupt their minds by using them.

And so choosing that name for a surveillance program, because that's what it is. Like, well, you know, we're, you know, it's for marketing and whatever on and did I. Yeah. Don't care. It's a surveillance. It's a fucking surveillance program. And you, you, the only trying to figure out exactly how to phrase this, clearly within within the legendarium of Tolkins universe, the upshot of the Palantir being used was, like, bad shit happened. Like, like the Dark Lord, capital D, capital L, Dark Lord,

you know, used that to destroy the unity of the free peoples of Middle Earth and to try to subjugate them. So you say what somebody uses the name of something like this, they're telling on themselves a little bit. He doesn't admit what's he doesn't admit that he did he did get a name from Lord of the Rings. Oh yeah, I also want to add another thing about Palantir Please one one of the major investors was involved in a recent event Oh, did you want to lead into it? No, no, you do it. You do it. Okay

How recently Another Florida man announced his he's seeking the presidency, Ron DeFascis. I mean, DeSantis. And he made his announcement on Twitter alongside Elon Musk, as well as David O. Sacks, who is heavily invested in Palantir. Yes. And so if that's not enough, the CIA has a venture capital arm. Yes. And it's called in QTell. And it invests in Palantir.

Because duh. I mean, like, like, yeah, carnivore, like, what's, I mean, I mean, like carnivore. Like what? I mean, carnivore was strictly email. Right. And then there's also echelon. Yeah, but I mean, it's the same shit. It's corporations and the government, you know, developing tools to better monitor every interaction we have. Yep. Why the internet? Now to me, his biggest sin was actually funding James O'Keefe

to carry out the acorn stings. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's where I thought you were going. Oh, because he did, didn't he? No, damn it. I had to do that. Oh my god. Jesus.

Which is of all the hands. Which is funny because it... Go ahead, Andrew, I'm sorry. It's extra funny because for recently James O'Keefe got kicked out or like removed from like the head of a project fair toss and is trying to sue his company over it. And it's again, it's the Raiders playing the Cowboys. Great. It's also James O'Keefe is weird mainly because like he, you can tell No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, So he uses this as a means of revenge. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

It's got some, it's got some handsome vibes, you know, the guy just died, the agent handsome, who never liked his father and they walk it out on his different, different, that's bomb. I know. I know. Country. So all of this preceded Sheldon Adelson's shutdown of the Las Vegas Review Journal and subsequent suing of an author who used to be on the Las Vegas Review Journal

for libel. Again, ultra rich attacking reporters and all of this is in fairly close proximity to the time when Donald Trump was campaigning for president. Wealthy elites taking down critical and far reaching news organizations who have the reach and the leverage to run stories that are critical to their interests, get them. For instance, Peter Teal donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign. He was also named to the Executive Committee of Trump's transition team to the White House. By 2022, Peter Teal had given more than $20.4 million to Republican candidates for the 2022 election campaigns. Peter Teal supports K-Fab, and he said in 2009 that he, quote,

no longer believes that freedom and democracy are compatible. and democracy are compatible. It's because he wants all the freedom. Right. And if people get away. And if people, because people who disagree with him have the same say in the country for the most part. Right. He's mad that he's not dictator.

Yeah, well, all of these shit heads, all of these guys are are coming from a position where it's like if if anybody else is free to and if anybody else has freedom to do anything. That puts a limit it somehow that is that is it's a limitation. Yeah, that's a zero-sum game. There's only so much freedom to go around. And so if you split all the freedom up amongst everybody, there's there is no freedom. Right.

Exactly. That's how they think. Yeah. And they all have this definition of freedom. This is the other thing that always like gets made just spitting mad anytime I wind up getting sucked into an argument with these people is their definition of freedom

is like a 14 year old boy's definition of freedom. Yes. Like a stupid 14 year old boy's definition of freedom. Like, will you know, that's the libertarian log check. Yeah. Yeah. I'm appealing to those boys. Yeah, I want to, I want to, you know,

I want to, I want to say the know, I want to, I want to say the end word. Well, that's rude. And people are going to tell you to fuck off. Well, that's I have freedom of speech. Yes, you know, you do, you do go for it. Have fun. You do go say it. Yeah, you know, how can we hit me? That's not fair. I have freedom of speech. Oh, you didn't have freedom of consequence though. Yeah. Now, you know, this is your finder out. Find out. Yeah. Yeah. Like, Mick Foley once said that Michael Hayes of the freebirds once told him some of the best advice he ever got in his career, the heel has to believe that he's right. Peter Teal absolutely believes he's right. Mm hmm. So back to Hulk Hogan. Since the sex tape came out, like I said, he has been scrubbed

from their front facing media all over the WWE. However, things like this don't last forever, just like Mel Gibson eventually getting to come back and get awards after saying awful anti-Semitic things while drunken a police car. Hulk Hogan got to come back to the WWE in 2018. He was reinstated into the Hall of Fame, invited backstage for a pay-per-view, mentioned briefly on a pre-show media event, and actually did work on screen for them at the Crown Jewel, a kind of problematic collaboration that they have with Saudi Arabia at the King's IED University Stadium in Riyadh. And this makes a lot of sense to me. It's not in the US and it can be a one off

if the metrics show it to be a bad move. After Mean Jean Ocarlin died, Holkogen came back to talk about how much Jean meant to him and to the business. And wrapped in the shroud of Mean Jean, he became more active. He inducted Brutus Beefcake into the Hall of Fame in 2019. And he's done appearances here and there at WWE's Request since then.

Hulk Hogan is back. And every step along the way, Hulk Hogan has made a stuute use of the media to promote himself. And almost always at every step along the way, he's also made sure to elevate himself at the expense of others. From union busting, if Ventura is to believe, be believed, to setting a precedent on how to destroy the press in the face of creeping fascism. The purveyor of Postomania has crippled those around him and found ways to stand tall himself. I guess everyone had the same answer to the age-old question. What's you going to do when Hokomania runs wild on you? You get ruined.

Wow. I really regret not having four to beer for this episode because I need one badly right now. Yeah. So I knew this stuff was going to come up. Like I'm going to feel teal stuff and all that jazz. Yep. Uh, I did not expect, like I thought I was prepared. I did not expect to feel like much more downtroddened and feeling just gross. Yeah, kind of compression down and it hurts inside. Yeah. So Andrew, I mean, compression down and it hurts inside. Yeah.

So Andrew, I mean, you're the expert here. Tell us, I mean, with all of this, what's... Well, the first thing, well, the first thing I would say is that democracy does promote freedom. Freedom, for all in the sense of in systems that allow individuals to have a say and who gets to represent them. Sure, your person who you vote for might not be elected, but that's part of how democracy works. Just going to make that point there because a major component around media literacy is that it helps in many ways promote democracy. That's the reason why I'm bringing that up.

I just need to make that point. I'm also gonna add, like I always find to ironic how you have certain types of conservatives or Republicans who say, oh, I'm against big tech, yet you're incredibly funded by it. Right. Yeah. Oh yeah, by it. Right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Going back. Yeah. So, who should we talk about? Whole Colgaine or Terry Belaya? Good question. So, that whole argument really punched me in the head because it's about really, it's about how he's maintaining his image. Who is he in the sense of law?

Even though like, oh, who did he, when he was on stand for, for that, for the whole steroids and drugs? Did he, did they refer to him as Terry or to Hulk? I think he had to swear in as Terry, obviously. But all reports would have had him as Hulk. I think he had to swear in his Terry, obviously, but all reports would have had him as Hulk. Yeah. Peter Parker has to testify, not Spider-Man, you know, like, Reed Richards has to actually better, better example. Reed Richards has to testify, not Mr. Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. So he would have been sworn in. Speaking of another prick.

Yeah, yeah, so he would have been sworn in speaking of another prick right? So legally he would have had to have sworn in as Terry his testimony therefore would have been given as Terry But again in the 90s ain't nobody understand in K-fade like that's why Vince got away with it all So yeah, but even now people still clearly don't understand K fate. And so this whole like episode here is about like how do we maintain our image? During when he was talking about like his vulnerabilities after having sexual relations with Heather under the eyes of bubble love's bunch. He expresses vulnerability, but in a way to maintain his image. When he was on trial, he manipulated the concept of his image to basically produce confusion. From the moment the judge said, to stain about like the journalism and journalists,

you could tell this is going to be an uphill battle for Gokker. And Terry Hulk, whoever ultimately took the advantage of that type of hostility already at Gokker and just ran with this confusion. And I honestly think if you had a good lawyer because the judge was already expressing their biases, if you had a good lawyer who would have been calling out that bullshit, I think the judge would have been like, I'm holding you in contempt or something like that. Like making it dip more difficult for the defense. Yeah, I, I, yeah. And so this whole eye notion of image is basically in his palm of his hand.

And then even that after that, when he got back into the WWE for just those brief stents, he's coming back positive. He has, he still has an image that's still positive. And even in that case, I want to know how many like wrestling fans were even impacted by that stuff. Do they even know about it? Yeah, all of us knew about it. Or even care.

Well, and you get to that part, and it's one of those things. There are no children who are fans of Hulk Hogan. That's not true, that's not true. But most of the people who would have heard that story would have been my age and older slash a little bit younger, right? Those people would would have been like, this is really sad, but it didn't really change my view of Hulk Hogan as a wrestler.

Like, and so I don't think there was much material damage done to him by this. In similar ways to to Trump saying, grab him by the pussy, didn't hurt him. He went up in the polls. Yeah. You know, and Gibson, I think Mel Gibson would be a better example in that sense, especially because he's still, he still says stuff like that, or he does dog whistles. I will say, yeah, much more undertone. Yeah, you fall corns now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, oh, yeah. But like in that sense, like even it, I honestly think if that video came out, and people saw, listen, and focused more on the racism component. I don't think

a lot of like his fans would be like, care, or they'll be like, ah, that's disappointing. Remember WrestleMania three. Yeah, it would be that. Yeah. And then it would go away. And then he would just continue on. But instead, he decides, let's regek her. Disregalker, wait. And I don't think that was at his initiative. Now, again, I don't think, you know, WWE was at his initiative either.

It's always somebody with bigger pockets coming to him and saying, we could use you to do really great things here that you will benefit from. Financially. And now that gets me into thinking like, at what points did he not actually have control of his image? And it was somebody else. Because throughout the entire series, I made a point like he had a lot of control. He presented himself in certain ways. But in this situation, it's really transparent. Yeah, it's really transparent that he was used for somebody else's purposes. Was this the first time or were there other points? Well, I think WCW in certain ways, but like he had a lot control there due to his contract. Right. I also think though in WWF 2, he had a lot of control. So I think what happens is there is this mutual relationship wherein he lets them steer him,

but he gets to say also like what the destination is or how they're going to get there. You know, I don't think that he controlled, it's hard. I mean, you don't get to be champion for four straight years. You don't get to body slam Andre the giant without having some say in what's going on. You're not just showing up and punching the guy going, what am I doing today boss? That's not how it works. And at the same time, you know, when Vince was done with and Vince was done with them, you know, like after so many, there was a huge push to get him out the door and then he comes back after a little while and, you know, fucks up WrestleMania nine. But, um, you know, he, he had, it's this symbiotic relationship with larger forces than himself who are much, who are very wealthy. He's rich. They're wealthy. But at the same time, he has a lot of say over how to do that and it happens to line up with their interests. I'm extra happy now that he did not run for president. Because we might have actually been living in a more fascist dystopia now. So you're saying George W. Bush was actually the better timeline.

And this story begins and ends in Florida. So just like W. God. And if you've leaned anything, Florida, so I was, yeah. That's, that's a big part of it. Just the, the, the last, the last portion of it and being reminded of the way that we have slept on keeping control of people with an insane concentration of wealth. Yeah, if only I had some. Yeah, you know, the fact that an individual like Peter Teal could be involved in so much

evil shit, you know, and that one individual with billions of dollars at their disposal could have this level of precedent setting power. And others have had more power. They just haven't thought to do the hack of, but what if I wasn't decent? Yeah. of, but what if I wasn't decent? Yeah, well, what if, what if, what if I was just a complete asshole? Mm-hmm. Um, and, and the... Yeah, I mean, what it, when it comes down to, I guess, is that this is what happens when you

allow capitalism to run roughshod over everything. When capitalism is not sufficiently pruned back, this is what it turns into. Yep. You know, and now we can't go at it with a pair of snippers, we need to get out the chains on a flame thrower in order to purge the trifids that have now sprung up in the garden and are taking over the planet. You know, in order to get us back to a place where, you know, we don't have this

shit going on. You know, and, and Hogan being the, it's, it's, it's a surrealist note to me and on the whole story that it is Hulk Hogan. It is this guy who has no real identity. Yeah, Hulk Hogan is not real. He has no, he has like, is he Terry Balea? Is he Hulk Hogan? We don't know. Again, going back to the idea of this is a liminal identity, you know. It's as though one of the characters stepped out of the purple rows of Cairo and then filed suit. Yeah, that's that's a really good, that's a really good

analogy. Andrew, the purple rows of Cairo was a movie by Woody Allen, so grain of salt there. Jeff Daniels was in it though. Yeah. Um, but yeah, and he was steps out of the movie into the real world. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. I know that scene. Yeah. Yeah. And, and it's one of, I would say it's one of the less problematic Woody Allen movies. There's probably something in it that you don't. That's I'm willing. Sure. I mean, yeah, who? Stuff behind the scenes most likely.

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, yeah, because it's what you know, but yeah, yeah, it's is though one of them filed suit like hoax made up of whole cloth. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so it's, yeah, I guess that's my, we're living in a surrealist film. Yeah. Like, I want to go back to a world in which there is an objective consensual, like we all have a consensus about this is reality. I want to go back to that

So yeah, that would be my takeaway. Okay Well, Andrew, what would you like to recommend that people read or or take in any kind of medium? Okay You know what I'm gonna I'm gonna plug a blog, a friend of mine's blog, which also leads into a show that I absolutely adored recently. One of my friends in my grad program, she writes a blog. It's called The Happy Hag Fish. She talks about all sorts of media stuff and she does analysis of media and stuff like that too. And one of her shows she recommended, and after reading it, I watched it with my partner. It was called Hilda.

It's on Netflix. It's kind of a cartoon of a little girl who in a Scandinavian country, and they just go on adventures and it's just wholesome and happy. But also, there's mysteries It kind of gives a vibe of a more folksy, what's it called, folksy, gravity falls in a way. Okay. Yeah, but it's also like the art style is great, the music's fun, and just also the mythical creatures

involved is good and it's great writing. All right, cool, all right, very cool. Ed, what about you? I'm going to point our audience in the direction of another example of a an individual with an identity that is not entirely real. with an identity that is not entirely real. And this is actually, and it's a fictional character, I very highly recommend the Kaeffus Cain novels by Sandy Mitchell. And I'm sure I've probably recommended them before. But Kaeffus Cain is a hero of the Imperium in Warhammer 40,000.

He is a Commissar, which means a political officer, which in the 41st millennium I should say essentially means he's kind of almost a religious officer because God Emperor of mankind. And he has this reputation as being this great hero, but the novels are written from his own point of view as his private memoirs. And he admits that everything he's ever done has been to try to get himself as far away from the front line where he could get shot as possible. And over the course of the novel series, you get into this question of, okay, is he? Obviously, he's not, you know, the hero that he puts on this face of in front of other people. But he's also not as much of a coward as he keeps calling himself.

So like, you know, where is the line really drawn and there's a third layer of meta-involves because the individual who is editing his memoirs is a member of the Inquisition who has dealt with him over the course of his long and illustrious career, and she includes commentary. So it's this, it's, there are a lot of fun and it gets into these, these questions of limit identity. Okay. And so I highly recommend that. How about you? I'm going to recommend the essay by Roland Barth's B-A-R-T-H-E-S. So it could be Barté, bar, bar, I don't know, it could be French, but Roland Barthes The world of wrestling is the name of his essay it appeared in 1972 in Mythologies a journal. So I'm gonna recommend that

Let's see Ed I'll tell you know, I'm gonna go in a verse order this time. Oh, okay Ed, I'll tell you know, I'm going to go in a verse order this time. Oh, okay. Y'all can find me on September 8th, as well as on October 6th at Luna's in Sacramento, doing capital punishment. Um, $10 gets you in, bring another 10 for merch and comes it down and enjoy the puns. Uh, Ed, where can we be found? since I know you don't want to be found? I was going to say nobody's going to find me because I'm going to find you all first.

But we can collectively be found on the internet at woblewoblewoble.geekhistorytime.com. We can also be found on Twitter for as long as that place stays ticking at geek history time. And then of course, you have likely found us either on Stitcher or on the Apple Podcast app either way. Please give Damien's exhaustive research and self sacrifice in watching please give Damien's exhaustive research and self sacrifice in watching these videos. The five stars that you know his his effort and his, as I said, self sacrifice deserves. There you go. And Andrew sir, where can you be found? Well, first up, rather I just want to call somebody out. This podcast is the cream of the crop,

but I need to call out Dr. Cruz himself. He hasn't been on this podcast for a while, and he needs to come here and show us that Cruz the Mania, but in all honesty, Cruz the mania is a single grain of sand in the Sahara desert that is sud super madness. So I'm calling you out, doctor. See, I expect you on

this podcast next time for the cream of the crop. I've star review. That I tried. I need to. That was that was excellent. That was I wish I wish you hadn't been so selfie facing there just now because I could have gone into my mean gene ochreland impersonation after that. Yeah. That was actually really. Thank you, Dr. Sudds. Lots to say ahead of

the next pay-per-view episode. Tune in once again next Friday night and see Dr. Sudd has to say to Dr. Cruz. Well, for a good. Now go ahead, Andrew. Like it all on it's the Dr. C was the one who got me hooked on your podcast. So I hope to hear him from him soon. But you if you want to find me, you can follow me at prof.suds on TikTok. If you go onto my Twitter, it should be profsuds as well.

My Instagram is 80suds. And I plan to start a YouTube channel where I mostly just talk about media literacy stuff. Or you can enroll my class if for some reason you are capable of doing that. Very cool. Please don't. We don't need higher learning around here. No. All right.

Well, Andrew, thank you so much for sticking with us in this Iron Man match of- It's been my pleasure. I'm glad it's been someone's cause I'm telling. Oh boy, I ate so much right before this podcast too. And for a key history of time, I am damned Damian Harmony. And I am Ed Blaylock. And until next time, remember, you don't throw rocks at a man who's holding a machine gun.