A Geek History of Time - Episode 60 - NWO and the Contract with America Part III

Episode Date: June 20, 2020

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Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Wow. You're gonna like this. Oh no I'm not. Cause there is no god damn middle. This is not unlike ancient Rome by the way. Not so much the family of circus. Yeah. I did, when I did Miratialia, I had the same issue with my auntie.
Starting point is 00:00:18 A lot of them wanted to create self-sustaining farms and got into crystals. I know. Okay. I understand that. But yeah, I'm reading Livy, who is a shitty historian. Because Irrigan always. Others say that because Laurentia's body was common to all the shepherds around, she was called a shewolf, which is a Latin term for horror.
Starting point is 00:00:38 You were audible, lassies. It was just most of it, was you slamming the table. As the Romanists at the table, well, dawg. Obviously, Ipso facto. Right. You know, it's your original form. Ipso, dawg, lad. You have a sword rat.
Starting point is 00:01:09 This is a geek history of time. Where we connect your memory to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher currently teaching virtually while the plague still infests our lands. And at the moment, you may notice that my volume is a little bit low. We are of course broadcasting remotely right now. And my wife is currently trying to put my son to bed upstairs. So if I sound like I'm murmuring into the microphone for a little while, audience, I beg your understanding of that issue. So that's me, who are you, sir?
Starting point is 00:01:47 Actually, your levels are just fine. I actually had to turn you down a little bit, which is the opposite problem that we've had over last few weeks. I'm Damien Harmony. I am a high school Latin teacher, high school history teacher, also currently teaching in the time of the plague. Things are winding down.
Starting point is 00:02:05 I actually spent most of my day, yesterday, driving all over Hell's Half Acre, delivering students the honor court that we usually do for my Latin class. They basically buy the honor court themselves, they give me the cash, I then order it, and then give them a purple honor cord. We don't ask for permission and I have yet to have to ask for forgiveness, but it's a little gorilla thing that we do and I handed it to each of them yesterday. You know, kind of that was the only... I handed it this way, two hands so they could grab it from the middle, so there was no actual contact, but it meant the world to them to get to see me if only to give that. Very cool.
Starting point is 00:02:49 Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. So, when last we left everything, we were up to the election of 1996. There were a lot of cultural warrior things happening, but then Bob Dole. Hither came Bob Dole from the right. You know, yeah, did Bob actually come from the right? No, he was driven to the right quite honestly by the primary point Which is what we start to see by the way. Yeah, Pat you can't have speech
Starting point is 00:03:19 Fucking ruin the Republicans. They were already I you know me. I think they were shippers, but like this made it like undeniable. Oh yeah. This made me absolutely correct. So just four years earlier, George H.W. Bush, yeah, he had been out-centered by Clinton. And now, Dole starts running on a platform of generational conflict. Boomers were spoiled, and Dole's generation saved the world from Nazis. Both things are actually true.
Starting point is 00:03:53 But the fact that he'd been in World War II and Clinton had not served in Vietnam was something that he was able to make hay out of, or is it straw, in 1996 with older voters. In this case, it's hay. Okay, cool. But the economy was still doing really, really well, so you can't run on that, so you have this young upstart who'd won illegitimately somehow last time against a traditionalist who was going to reestablish dominance for the ordinary Americans instead of these liberals and elites.
Starting point is 00:04:24 I want you to hear the dynamic here because it's going to come back around. Clinton hammered Dole on the economic issues because that was clearly his bread and butter. You know, it's the economy stupid. You know, you went back to that. Dole went after Clinton for being young and spoiled coming off like a cranky old man. And because Dole was partially paralyzed in his arm, he always had a pen in his hand. And when he would make his points, he would punctuate him with that pen. It looked like he was trying to stab a bitch.
Starting point is 00:04:54 Like he was, like it was, it was aggressive in an impotent way. Yeah. Yeah. Dole. Yeah, yeah, a goal. I had the opportunity to see P.J. O'Rourke speak in person a while back. This is a long time ago. This is, I wanna say, it was around 2000, I think, 99, 2000.
Starting point is 00:05:23 2000 I think 99 2000 And he was he was just publishing eat the rich. Okay And which you know, it's a great title for a book, but a weird title for a guy who's basically an economic libertarian, but I digress He he He had he had some things to say about what had happened in that election. And what he said was that, you know, the guys who ran the Republican Party at the time were a bunch of Midwestern, you know, I uh, you know, eyes and hour types. Bob Dolan, Kansas. Yeah, and they looked at, they looked at Bob and they said, well, you know, Bob is a Midwestern,
Starting point is 00:06:11 eyes and hour type. And, and, you know, so we're going to go with him. And then he got pushed to the right, he got pushed to the right by the the protein, not totally formed beginnings of what would eventually coalesce to be the tea party within the Republican party. And because of assholes like you can and the other guys they were running against him from the right to maintain the support of that wing of the party. He had to get farther right. And then that wound up turning off everybody who wasn't
Starting point is 00:06:56 a, a, you know, right leaning centrist, anybody who was, who was a straight up middle of the road centrist was like, well, they like something like a bunch of religious wingnuts. And so those folks went, well, you know, I'm comfortable voting for Clinton because the economy is pretty good and he's not like a calmy or anything. And that wound up costing Bob Dole the election. In, in, in that environment at that time. And talking about it now, it's amazing the way the landscape has changed since then. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like when you look at a picture of what used to be a riverbed,
Starting point is 00:07:42 and now it's cracked. Yeah. And segmented, you know, it's a wadi instead of, you know, a flowing river. Well, interestingly enough, the RNC started urging congressional Republicans who were running for office at the same time as Dull to cut their ties with him in October and focus on the legislative victory. And it was pretty obvious that Clinton was going to win again by the summer of 96. Again, I'm saying this summer of 96. If you remember, back a couple episodes, we started with the summer of 96.
Starting point is 00:08:15 And it was also pretty obvious to the people who were buying into the culture war narrative who were listening to talk radio that he, Clinton, was going to usher in a globalist Remember NAFTA agenda and you serve America from ordinary Americans and they needed a Redeemer and a Savior and dole wasn't it Oh, yeah, no He he was gonna hand us over to the United Nations like He was just like, we were good by US sovereignty entirely. We were not going to have any control over our affairs. It was all going to be the international, you know, I mean, yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:57 And looking at what that kind of comes back to though, somebody foreign not of us coming into rule over us. That's very much the anti-scallowag anti-carpet bagger shit too that you saw 130 years earlier. Well, and it's also part of the characterization of what the war of great war of Northern Aggression was. Exactly. You know, and I just want to interject here. I don't know if you've heard this story, but the Republican Convention of 1996, I was still in college.
Starting point is 00:09:35 So that summer I was home in San Diego, where the Republican Convention was held. Oh, yeah, that's. And my summer job that year was as a parking lot attendant and parking valet at different times for the biggest parking lot parking valet company in San Diego. Okay. And I actually wound up directing traffic for the convention at, you know, part of my job was being one of the people directing traffic of the convention. I was actually the idiot who held up Mrs. Dole's car
Starting point is 00:10:29 outside of the parking lot because it didn't have the placard I had been told to look for. And she actually made eye contact with me from the back of the car and and waived. You're famous. Yeah, I was like, oh, sorry. Yes, go ahead. Oh, so yeah, that's my brush with Michael Fame in this country was the wife of a senator and failed presidential candidate. But yeah, and I will say, as somebody who was still looking at the time,
Starting point is 00:11:06 I did like from the moment the convention started. I felt like everybody there was trying to put on a good face. Yes. You know what I like? It was, it was my side, you know, that I was that I was watching and I was just like They're getting it killed like we're gonna we're gonna lose and And you know across on the other side on the other side of Harbor Boulevard and San Diego across from the convention center There was a very sizable crowd of you know Democrats
Starting point is 00:11:49 You know is it really waving it's the economy stupid signs. You know, when I was like, oh, yeah, I can't, yeah, can't argue with that. We're going to fucking lose. Like, and, and, you know, and, I think it was, I think it was maybe clearer for me than it might have been for some people because my family were never culture warriors. Right. Like, my dad is basically a country-club Republican. You know, I mean, he, he, yeah, you know, the brand of republicanism that we subscribed to, that I subscribed to while I was
Starting point is 00:12:28 republican was basically no bless oblige, kind of ideas and economic conservatism and those ideas and all of this culture warrior stuff. I mean, people that were really, really worked up about the culture warrior stuff looked like a bunch of wing nuts even to me. And I was not a fan of the idea of women in combat units when I was 20, like as a political issue, I was, I, because that was, that was my mindset. You know, I've since, you know, grown up and figured out about
Starting point is 00:13:13 that. But, you know, but it wasn't this driving like, oh my god, they're all going to replace us kind of stuff. Not in any real way. It was just, well, you know, I don't agree with that. I think that's that's unnecessary and like not that's not how things ought to be. But that was that was the extent of it. And and I think even at the time on a level that wasn't entirely clear to me. I felt that there were people I didn't really like, kind of hijacking the party. No. So let me ask you this, did you, and I think I know the answer.
Starting point is 00:14:00 So I'm gonna say, did you think that you needed a savior that you would not yet found in 96? Because I have a guess and I want, and I will tell you if I think it was right. No. Okay, it's also because you were not part of that culture war. The people who were part of that culture war felt betrayal again and it was burning and it was they needed a savior and they didn't know who it was yet and it wasn't Bob Dole.
Starting point is 00:14:34 He couldn't do it. And so this man, this lech, this elitist whose wife was too strong, this guy who wants to take America from the real Americans, this southerner who's rejected his southern heritage, who listened to academics, who appointed women to positions of power, he was going to be president again. And it was fanned by Newt Gingrich in a growing talk radio. Remember that communications deregulation
Starting point is 00:15:03 that happened under Reagan and Bush? So now it's July of 96, you're parking cars. I am stuck in fucking Kmart with my grandparents for my senior year of vacation in Tahoe. There's a whole story to that, it's hilarious. It's just kind of the other people, their senior trip, my parents were like, well, there's a time share, your grandparents are in California, we're gonna go for that.
Starting point is 00:15:28 And I was like, great. And I found every goddamn came art all around the Lake Tahoe because my grandma wanted to go to every one of them for a sit. Okay. Yeah. Is this the same grandma that you won a radio contest talking about? Nope. Nope. This is a different one. Oh, it's okay. Yeah. So it's July of 96. Hulk Hogan
Starting point is 00:15:52 comes into Daytona Beach, Florida and drops the atomic leg drop on Randy Savage betraying WCW. He was a good guy and he betrayed them and he joined two northerners from a northern company who were trying to take over and pervert the traditions of the WCW. Run by a Yankee Irishman, Vince McMahon. Yes. And so it looked like a takeover was happening. Like that's what button they were pushing was this takeover button, very, very civil war, very current culture warrior, very New York elite,
Starting point is 00:16:30 all of these things, and it caught fire. And by the way, it was beaten the shit out of WWF for 83 weeks. And here we say caught fire. Here we get back to Big willy sherman again just saying and and and i just want to interject how appropriate is it that that this all happened in northern florida
Starting point is 00:16:54 like literally the most southern alabama you can get southern southern yet because the thing is after you go past a certain latitude down the state of florida you start going north again toward new york yes Yeah, because the thing is after you go past a certain latitude down the state of Florida, you start going north again to New York. Yes. Yes. And end.
Starting point is 00:17:10 And end. And end. That was their own governor that said that. Oh. And, but, but not only that, but, but it also bizarrely winds up moving even farther south. Like, like, it both becomes part of New York and it becomes Cuba. Like, but in any event, it is its own planet and it is not part of the south anymore. No, it's not.
Starting point is 00:17:42 You know, my father of course grew up outside of Miami in the town of Coral Gables. And in some ways, you can kind of tell by talking to him. And then in other ways, like, no, he's not a son. Right. Because, yeah, because he was educated using textbooks chosen by the state of Florida in the 50s, but he grew up in Miami. Right. A cosmopolitan city with foreigners, so you actually have to deal with prejudice. So when he, Hulk Hogan, gave a speech telling people that they were looking at the new world order specifically, it can turn you, continue to burn brightly. And this happened right as the culture war combined with a drop in the people's faith in the government's efficacy, which had been fanned by, you know, all the efforts in 94. You know, it's interesting the phrase new world order. Yep. You know, it's interesting the phrase New World Order. Yep
Starting point is 00:18:48 Actually comes from bush the first mm-hmm Well, it goes back a lot further than that, but yes, yes, no disorder ciclora. Yeah, but but you know the the Anti-Semitic connotations to it by the way The global Jew stuff like that. Yeah, like the term itself, New World Order, comes about from, oh god, I want to say like 1700s crackpot theory on international Jewery. Like it was like the 17th or 18th, it got started. Yeah, it's, I went down a steep rabbit hole on that.
Starting point is 00:19:21 Because in the context in which Bush used the term talking about the introduction of a New World Order, he wasn't using it in that conspiracy theory kind of context. He was talking about, we're now living in a New World Order post-Cold War, etc. We're going to be dealing with coalitions of governments, dealing with stuff like this, because we're related to the first Gulf War, if I remember right. Yes.
Starting point is 00:19:51 And the funny thing is, it wound up being this phrase that kind of latched onto by culture warriors on the right and conspiracy theorist nut jobs on the left, equally. But they wound up spinning it in completely different directions. Yes. the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of speech. And like I said, the culture war, there's this drop in faith in the government. Agrived people were fed fodder and their conspiracies grew. Waco happened. So government overreach, these are people in Texas. Yeah, they're a little weird, but you know, they like Jesus. White supremacists start gathering there. NAFTA, the rise of shortwave radio use actually starts to spike overnight AM radio shows What was that guy's name?
Starting point is 00:20:53 art bell art bell. Oh, yeah, my my uncle my uncle was was a bigger bell fan and I don't know how how much this is a thing with most of our bells fans, but when my coast to coast was at coast to coast am, coast to coast, something, when my uncle would start talking about the stuff that our bell talked about, there would be this tone of voice that he'd use that it was like, I don't know if you're following this
Starting point is 00:21:23 because you think it's funny or like you believe it or like you don't know. Well, you know, and that's actually a way that, I think, irony has been weaponized. Yeah. That, you know, the kekistan becomes real at some point. People start to actually think that the world is flat instead of just trying to get attention, you know,
Starting point is 00:21:40 shit like that. Retroactive proof linking to real things that happened, starts to get really used to that. It all increased people's belief that there was a conspiracy to remove our national and regional autonomy, as you had said, and corrupt our leaders, taking over from without and from within, just like the NWO. You know what else was really popular at the same time in
Starting point is 00:22:07 the mainstream because you know I love to compare mainstream to wrestling. Hit me. Hmm, yeah, yeah, yeah, which which obviously ties in yeah, ties in real well with our bell. Yeah, conspiracy theory. The movie came out in 97 so did men in black. Oh, yeah. And in 1998 since I'm talking about Will Smith, so did enemy of the state. All of this is coming out. Yeah, enemy of the state with that long ago. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Jesus. All of this was during the storylines of the NWO, yeah, shadow. And he he just platformed all kinds of kooky people. So as I said before, they ran rough shot over anybody who represented tradition. The NWO did, okay. In the middle of the run of the NWO, they
Starting point is 00:23:19 still had to deal with a group called the Four Horsemen. The Four Horsemen was a mainstay stable for WCW for over a decade. It was always Rick Flare and Arnanderson, and it was either Oli Anderson or Tilly Bramford, and then there's always a fourth member, and they rotated through those. Well by this point, they were a shadow of themselves. Now they still had Rick Flare and Arn Anderson in the group, which was still the core of the group. And these two wrestlers represented tradition, and they felt Southern, and they felt older
Starting point is 00:23:57 than those in the NWO, even though Rick Flair's only a few years older than Hulk Hogan. Arn Anderson actually perpetually looks 48, but when he retired, he was like 37. Like it was, yeah. But look, like, do yourself favorite, look up Arn Anderson retirement speech and tell me how old that guy looks.
Starting point is 00:24:18 In the meantime, Arn Anderson recently discovered that he wasn't going to be able to come back from his injury and he did have to retire somewhat suddenly. He gave his spot to Kurt Henning, who was an incredible wrestler, one of the first wrestlers I ever looked at or I've ever seen. You got a picture of Arn there? Uh, it's from 2014, I got to play that. Oh, okay. Well, it's going to look the same as he did in 1997 too. So he gives this
Starting point is 00:24:48 speech where he gives Kurt Henning his spot in the end of the four horsemen. And Kurt Henning was a multi-generational wrestler. His father was Larry the axe-hunting and he was a traditionalist. tax-hending, and he was a traditionalist. Unfortunately, the NWO attacked him, Kurt Henning, before the fall brawl war games September pay-per-view. Did you find Arn now? Yeah, and you're not wrong. No, he's looked at 48 his whole life. Which is kind of unfortunate is high school photo, I'm gonna say.
Starting point is 00:25:27 He was always able to get beer for people. Yeah, well, you know, so. Up sides, downsides. The NWO is in a cage match in Winston Salem, I believe, in 1997, with the Four Horsemen. Sorry, just every time you mention, you know, the town there and I'm like, well, of course. Yep. Okay, so it's called Horsemen Territory, by the way, the Flair Country. The NWO absolutely destroyed the Four Horsemen, and I mean destroyed. So Kurt Henning turns on the Four Horsemen and then they slam Ric Flair's face in the steel cage door. Now this was actually so he could go get
Starting point is 00:26:11 some reconstructive surgery anyway, a little tummy tuck or a chin tuck, whatever. But still, they destroyed the forehorseman, the squad that represented tradition that represented the South, and the Four Horsemen never really recovered from that storyline ever. It was a major event in WCW history
Starting point is 00:26:33 because of what it represented, and what it represented was the NWO is destroying tradition. They had mocked the Four Horsemen, and then they killed off the Four Horsemen. WCW, traditional wrestling, dead. And this match actually made it so Winston Salem was a town that never recovered and liked wrestling again, either.
Starting point is 00:26:55 Really? Yeah, it's called killing the town. So if you fuck up your storyline enough, the town is just like, forget it. We don't really care anymore, and you never draw a good house there again. It killed the town. So.
Starting point is 00:27:07 Wow. Yeah. Now it's like, so, so do you think from the angle of all of the stuff, you know, is written out in advance by, you know, the folks making the financial decisions. Do you think they had any inkling? It would be that traumatic? No, and for Winston's live, like, no. And I have to correct you a little bit.
Starting point is 00:27:36 So the people who are booking it, it's a booking committee, which is a bad idea. But it's a booking committee and what they're doing is they are writing the finishes to the matches, and they're kind of charting out what's going on. But at the same time, WCW, it's being run by a guy named Eric Bischoff. And he was making some financial decisions, but then somebody else was also making financial decisions.
Starting point is 00:27:59 And then he's telling the creative team, here's what I want to do, broad brush. And here's where I want us to end, and they're trying to figure out ways to get there. And sometimes they're going week by week, sometimes they're writing month long program, but the people who are writing the stories are not the people who are controlling the money.
Starting point is 00:28:17 That's a little different. The desire to get the NWO over, as the chief bad guys, meant you need to feed them a traditional good guy who gets destroyed by it. But because they had done such a betrayal, people threw up their hands and disengaged. Wow.
Starting point is 00:28:37 Yeah. So WCW now is without any traditional heroes. They still have some heroes, but basically the NWO is on top, beats up everybody. Rady Rady Piper, who'd come into the WCW in 1996, he'd already gotten, he got a victory over Hogan, he represented tradition, he's here to redeem Hulk Hogan, but he couldn't stand up to the onslaught of the NWO, so by early 97, he's not a legitimate threat. Also he's been shown to be really old and disappointing as a wrestler by this point because he's broken down his fuck
Starting point is 00:29:09 Which is really sad because five years earlier he had one of the best matches I'd ever seen There was Diamond Dallas page who was very much a blue collar hero who kept out smarting the NWO But he just wasn't as big enough of a star to be able to carry on the fight his on his own. And he got most of his shine anyway from getting sympathy from the fans when he'd get beat up or when he'd escape. And you can't have somebody who's constantly getting beat up, be your savior, it doesn't work that way.
Starting point is 00:29:40 And a skate artist is not a savior. The giant had already been solid. He joined the NWO and then he quit. The NWO Lex Luger, who is just a donnest looking guy. Shitty wrestler, but he really was. He had a brief moment in the sun, defying the NWO, giving everybody some hope,
Starting point is 00:30:05 and he was kind of a mainstay of WCW. But ultimately, he couldn't hold up to their superior numbers at Hog Wild in 97. As 97 was steaming along throughout the summer, Dennis Rodman joined the NWO and wrestled with them. Right. And if you look at him, I think you remember this. Yep.
Starting point is 00:30:26 And if you look at him at that time, he absolutely fit what they were trying to do. He was controversial. He was flouting tradition. And all around, he was a very off-puttingly talented guy. Yeah. You know, he had crazy hair.
Starting point is 00:30:40 He would show up without having gone to practice that pissed off people who were basketball fans and yet he's still delivered. So it's just all kinds of this is not traditional, you know, so he fit. So what are WCW fans to do in 1997? Their only hope is a lone savior, which again, if you go back to the history of wrestling in the South, it's usually a stable of bad guys, and one guy who rises up through the ranks to take them on. And if he wins, it's a temporary victory and he gets screwed anyway. And it loses, it's his fighting spirit because lost cause. So one of their own has to rise up.
Starting point is 00:31:19 And one of their own does. And he is essentially a silent empty vessel that would redeem their beliefs by defeating this trusted man, Hulk Hogan, who had turned villain and Hogan's brood of syncophants from the north. This guy who was one of their own wasn't from the south. He was actually from California. He's a man named Sting. You remember really? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:48 Yeah. She might have. Yeah. He told everyone to stick it for thinking that he'd betrayed them. Remember? Yeah. He was hanging out in the rafters.
Starting point is 00:31:57 And I really want to point out he's coming down from on high. Every once in a while he'd come in and he'd assault the NWO. He'd lay waste to them or he would stop someone from getting high. Every once in a while, he'd come in and he'd assault the NWO. He'd lay waste to them, or he would stop someone from getting assaulted. But he'd never get to Hogan. Hogan always escaped. He never wrestled, and he never really fought for anything. He did, however, have a litmus test.
Starting point is 00:32:21 It's a really cool, cool litmus test that he would do. He because betrayal was such a theme in the mid-90s, especially because it pertained to literally everything, Sting would push someone around and bully them a little bit with a baseball bat. And it was painted black. that and it was painted black. And then he'd give them the bat and turn his back on them. If they didn't attack him, he knew he could trust them. And if they did attack him, then he knew otherwise. Okay, so as a non-wrestling fan, coming into this.
Starting point is 00:33:01 So when I look up Sting WCW on Google, there are two very, very different looks that show up. Show, tell me the first one. Okay, the one that shows up, the reading left to right, and most of the images that I get because they're like side by side comparisons are like a huge thing. On the left, which earlier I suppose, is a blonde haired muscular dude with some paint on
Starting point is 00:33:39 his face wearing like one of the pictures I've got right now is looks like yellow, yellow, yellow pants with, with a scorpion on, on one leg. That would be staying from 92 or 93. Yeah. Okay. And then, and then on the right hand side is this every, every, with knowing all this. Yeah. You just got to find the right, you know, it's the right people, you know, so there's a term by the way for
Starting point is 00:34:08 Groupies and wrestling they're called bring rats and rat stands for reasonably attractive talent Wow Damn, all right So so on the right hand side so so presumably later, is a crow-looking motherfucker, in a dusted like all black, like mime white-faced paint with black lipstick and really, really heavy overshadowed. Yeah, yeah, and then a black duster, and the baseball bat, you mentioned. So I assume that's what this guy looked like
Starting point is 00:34:55 during this time, okay? And by the way, we kind of have an episode at some point talking about the influence of the crow on everything. Yeah, I think that it's actually a cultural harbinger for us in a lot of ways. But this is how you could tell your difference between good guys and bad guys, because sting was painted in black and white, right? Yeah. Look up the NWO.
Starting point is 00:35:27 And while he's doing that, I'm going to cut us to commercial. All right. Hello, geekek Timers. This is producer George, interrupting this podcast to let you know that we have space available. This space could be used to promote your product, book, event, group, even wish a special someone happy birthday. If you're interested in using this space, please contact us on Twitter via private message at Geek History Time. Some mighty fine commercials. Thank you very much for listening to this.
Starting point is 00:36:18 As always, as ever. Before we went to commercial, I asked you to look up the NWO. Describe their outfits please. went to commercial I asked you to look up the NWO. Describe their outfits please. They're kind of wearing a uniform. I'm seeing a lot of them. I'm seeing black jeans. I'm seeing some of them. Yeah, it's a white logo on black and lowercase and capital W lowercase O in inside a square. Now what's materially the difference between sting and the NWL? There isn't. There can. No. There isn't one. It's a fight between good and evil and you can't
Starting point is 00:37:02 tell good from evil. They're both wearing black and white and the only way you can tell, it's clear that there's a moral choice to make, but you can't tell the difference between them because the lines have blurred so much. So from a heraldic perspective, we can't tell good from bad anymore. Sting is coming from the rafters as vengeance, which is something that's linked to salvation
Starting point is 00:37:30 very clearly in the Southern mind. The Crow. Again. The vengeful Messiah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, my point is that this is the same thing in politics. If ordinary Americans couldn't have salvation
Starting point is 00:37:47 from the horrors of the Clinton presidency with, I forget what, they could have vengeance. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, you know bob bobby gets a bad rap like no i just meant like what they actually wanted salvation from i can oh i don't know what they didn't know what it was they needed saving from they just know i think he did i think i think they they they could they could of articulating what they needed saving from they needed saving from Godless heathens abortion on demand Gays being foisted on them everywhere And let me back you know the virginity of white
Starting point is 00:38:34 women Like you know, I mean let's let's let's talk about what all they they would right, okay? So what real policy thing did they need saving from? They were the ones making the fucking policies. Yeah, no, that that was that would be completely inarticulate. Yeah, no, they would have an answer for that. Yeah, felt betrayed. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, that's by one of their own to the point where he stopped being one of their own because he was a corrupted version of himself. And that's what Hulk Hogan was. He was a good guy who then became bad guy Hulk Hogan and joined the new world order.
Starting point is 00:39:10 So they could have vengeance for this betrayal. They could not have salvation. And people seem to be expressing a lot of fucking cultural rage at the same time. The most extreme versions happened in Laramie, Wyoming and Jasper, Texas. And I'm only going to spend a little bit on this because it's hard as shit to listen to, especially literally right now. But in Laramie, Wyoming, Matthew Shepherd, a young homosexual man, was beaten and tortured and tied to a fence
Starting point is 00:39:38 post by two murderous pricks whose names I will not give you. One of whom used, one of whom's attorney used gay panic as a fucking defense. In Jasper, Texas, James Bird was beaten and dragged and murdered by three white supremacists, shithead fans of the Turner Diaries. Most people didn't commit murder as a response, but they still absolutely, this was the expression of it. All the same. That visceral reaction was growing in folks, and people didn't necessarily condemn. In fact,
Starting point is 00:40:15 there was a talk show, shock, jock guy, who even referenced James Bird, and he got fired for it, thankfully. But a lot of people are like, well that's not really fair. Yeah, I remember that. Wrestling absolutely taps into Visara. Not to confuse you with the wrestler named Visara. He was a North. For instance, Bill Clinton is bad. He's betraying the South and bringing in the gays and the women and the internationalists. But the economy was undeniably better. And he was enacting policies that punish the poor for being poor. All of these are things they like.
Starting point is 00:40:59 Both things, culture warriors like. And in wrestling, the bad guys became cool. things culture warriors like. And in wrestling, the bad guys became cool. And that, to me, is really interesting because your bad guys become your anti-heroes and your hero is kind of this absent savior. Scott Hall would start off every match with, hey, yo. And then he do a little survey for the fans. And by January of 97, the fans were cheering for him as often as they were booing for him. And the reason for this? The economy, stupid. Bill Clinton was great for the fucking economy, and poverty was on the way. However, the rights of the historically marginalized were also on the rise. So this juxtaposition of lives getting better while their lives were getting worse
Starting point is 00:41:49 because apparently it's a zero sum game because it was also culturally getting better for a majority of the, you know, for marginalized folks, this is upsetting to the dominant majority and therefore they're cheering and booing the bad guys almost equally and starting to cheer the bad guys. The bad guys were cool, but they were still bad guys. Bill Clinton is good for us, but he's still that fucking Bill Clinton. Women in the military academies in the south, Shannon Faulkner. Gays getting paid to serve in the military
Starting point is 00:42:26 with don't ask don't tell a surgeon general who recommends masturbation yeah i remember what a huge like okay look yeah 99 guys out of a hundred say they do it and the last guy is fucking lying yes like now of course in in saying that I'm engaging in a ratio of a sexual people, but still, you know, the point. Yeah. But like if you are a sys hat dude. And even actually, it doesn't even matter if you are, yeah, no, like, like what is what I don't, I don't understand why the panic was associated with oh my god, they're encouraging masturbation. Like, okay, cool your jets. So you're worried about teen pregnancy, right? You're worried about your daughter's staying virgins
Starting point is 00:43:31 because this pH miracle. Planned Parenthood versus KC kind of helps take care of the teen pregnancy problem. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, but, okay. But you don't want your daughters doing anything that could lead to them getting pregnant, right? Regenity is this cultic thing. Right.
Starting point is 00:43:57 So you would think anything that makes it possible for teenage boys to to vent that energy without without threatening the virginity of the precious young young flowering women folk, you'd think it'd be like, yeah, you know what, if you start getting crazy with this, go in your room, get a sock, like, but the and I mean, I know, I know what the theological argument is, but I mean, I know what the theological argument is. But, and I'm saying this, of course, is an adult Catholic convert. So I know that it's not just white evangelicals who have this problem.
Starting point is 00:44:56 It's any traditional mainline Christian group. It's a thing, but it's one thing for the Catholic Church to say, you know, you shouldn't be doing this because there are these theological reasons and there's this idea of, you know, directing that energy toward other things and being holy and all this. And then level of like no kidding panic. Oh, they got rid of her. Shrieking, shrieking outrage over, you know, one of the safest ways to get your rocks off is to do it yourself. Yeah. You won't get people pregnant if you masturbate.
Starting point is 00:45:40 You won't get people pregnant and nobody's going to get HIV. Yeah. masturbate. You won't get people pregnant and nobody's gonna get HIV. Yeah. So like or or psifilis or gonorrhea or fill in the blank like just so you know purity balls started in that same year. Which is unsurprising. Really weird culty shit. So plan of parenthood versus Casey is going off the US versus Virginia, the VMI case. All of these things are happening. All these cultural losses are happening for your cultural warriors and the economy is going really well. Oh God, what do I do? This is also true in the WWF at the time
Starting point is 00:46:22 too. They're just not based in the south, but bad guys being cool was much more of a following and upping the anti thing in the WWF. They saw what their competitors were doing and beating them at, so they did it too. But the parallels are absolutely there. Degeneration X. Oh yeah. Okay. Young Up Starts, they take out the heart foundation, which is
Starting point is 00:46:47 like with the Montreal screwdriver in November of 97. All of this shit's happening at the same time. This idea of betrayal, by the way, Ross ends up cheating on Rachel around the same time. Um, but, uh, so they, uh, you're still, you're still working on that. I still am. I still am. Um, but the DX, uh, they run rough shot over everyone else for the next few months, uh, disrespecting the undertaker who is a traditionalist. Eventually, they're all going to be thwarted by a lone single wrestler who
Starting point is 00:47:21 is much more of a traditional wrestler. Um, he was an anti hero for those cool villains. So you had anti heroes fighting cool villains. And of course talking about Stone Cold Steve Austin. Hell yeah. And he's gonna get a hell yeah. Yeah, damn right. And he's an actual southern guy.
Starting point is 00:47:39 Yeah. In a northern territory. Yeah. And he's, he is, yeah. And he's not a savior. He's a revengeer. Like he is, oh, I'm going to kick your ass because I'm a bad ass. And that's what, and that was it.
Starting point is 00:47:53 He's so anti-heroed up. That's the era of the contractive with America, the culture wars. All of that shit's in full swing. Southern Rednecks stomping a mud hole in everyone in the north was exactly what people wanted to see. They did not care about actual policy, actual governance, they did not care about any of the things that mattered. They cared about the optic of their team winning in the culture wars. wars. Fuck.
Starting point is 00:48:26 When the anti-hero in both places finally wins out against these factions and notice these factions are large groups. They're synchofans to one godhead who needs to be toppled. With Stone Cold it was against Mr. McMahon and he had his stuages and had the ministry and the corporate ministry and i'm gonna get into that real quick um... it didn't quite set things right though
Starting point is 00:48:51 when they toppled these guys it didn't set it right the hero in both was a broken shadow of who he once was both men physically weren't who they had been in their prime the sting that you saw saw with the Bart Simpson haircut and all the neon, he was in his fucking prime. By 97, he was a bit run down. Steve Austin had such a severe neck injury that his ringability was absolutely limited. He couldn't do all the good wrestling he used to do.
Starting point is 00:49:20 He had to be a punch and kick guy and he only had like four moves and just a lot of anger. So he adjusted to do. He had to be a punch and kick guy and he only had like four moves and just a lot of anger. So he adjusted for it. So sorry, four moves and a lot of anger. Yeah. I feel like that ought to be the title of a book. So Sting had not been in the ring for 18 months by the time he actually get in. And he was, forgive the pun, a pale imitation of himself.
Starting point is 00:49:49 So, the people that loved them, thank you. Yeah. The people who loved them had to accept this broken version of them. They were not going to get salvation They were only going to get vengeance nothing went the way that it was supposed to in fact in 1998 Wrestling becomes entirely about factions Degeneration X reformed after Shawn Michaels lost to Stone Cold Steve Austin The nation of domination a black militant group reformed under the rock The Nation of Domination, a black militant group, reformed under the rock. The union existed, it was very brief,
Starting point is 00:50:28 like literally one paper view. The corporation, Kiantai, the Ministry of Darkness, the corporate ministry, which was a combination of the corporation and the Ministry of Darkness, with just ridiculous. All of these were in the WWF. In the WCW, it gets even more fun. NWO, after Sting beat Hogan, fractured into NWO Hollywood and NWO Wolfpack because Sting's semi-vengence against Hogan
Starting point is 00:50:59 and his betrayal and his takeover, Sting broke them, right? So then NWO Hollywood was the black and white and then the red and black was wolf pack. And then it was black and white, NWO, and then the four horsemen reformed. And then there was a group called Ravens flock and then came the LWO, that Latino world order. And then there were the filthy animals.
Starting point is 00:51:26 Have I lost you? Nope, you're still there. then there were the filthy animals. Have I lost you? Nope, you're still there. Then there were the filthy animals. I'm here, barely. Yeah, there were the rest of the West Texas Rednecks, Team Canada, team madness, which was just Macho Man Savage and three women. The revolution, natural born thrillers.
Starting point is 00:51:46 There's a lot more, but you get the idea. So, everybody's in a faction. It is the age of factions. And by the time WCW was actually falling apart, it had a Hail Mary pass that it kept trying and it aimed at two main factions, the new blood versus the Millionaires Club. And that was a shitty idea, but it's worth mentioning. Because the new blood were several wrestlers who were lower card guys,
Starting point is 00:52:16 and plenty of guys who'd been big elsewhere were multiple decade veterans, okay? The Millionaires Club were the top seven wrestlers who had seen the elite, who were seen as the elite, the out of touch, and the ones who were ruining wrestling. Some of them were very old veterans, for instance, well, I'll give you the list in a second, and others were relatively new. The Millionaires Club was comprised of Bill Goldberg, who was very new, but huge and hot. DDP, Rick Flair, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, Sting, and Sid Vicious. Also, Scott Steiner, Kurt Henning, Lex Luger, Booker T, and Macho Man Randy Savage. And that's
Starting point is 00:53:02 against all the rest of the WCW. So all the guys who had been successful against all the WCW. By the way, when the NWO Wolfpack happened, Sting joined the Wolfpack and painted his face red. He looked like sunburned. So in 1999 and 2000, it is absolutely about political tribalism. And that's why I was pushing the narrative. It was pushing it specifically from the right. The culture wars had created a culture
Starting point is 00:53:34 where they had to be an insurgency, taking back the country for ordinary Americans and the Republicans, despite being in power in the legislature, were insurgent and they were trying to capture back their White House. And the result was they were all in power, and so they all had to still act insurgent. And the way to do that is tribalism and culture war, and that's the only morality that exists,
Starting point is 00:54:00 because that's the only thing you can sustain once you won. So that brings us to 99, 2000 and it's born out of that stuff. Now, just like after Bush won the presidency and the Republicans held all three branches of government. Yeah. And yet they're still insurgent in some way. It's no longer exciting or thrilling to be the insurgent, though. So now the culture warriors have to come up with new ways to be insurgent. So now you take all the guys and you make a new elite and you jumble fuck it around. And you run out of creativity.
Starting point is 00:54:34 Jumble fuck. Oh, he's that phrase. It's nowhere near as affirming or as honest ideologically this time around, however. And it just felt like the same old story had once again that had once upon a time gripped our imagination. Okay, so you're gonna get back to talking about wrestling. Right now. So, and well put.
Starting point is 00:54:58 Well, and the lines are blurring. You might remember that Jesse the body ventura was a governor. Yep. Bob Backland was running for the Senate. Jumping Jim Brunzel in Florida was running for the Senate. Rick Flair promised that he would run for governor of North Carolina. Like a lot of wrestlers were like, I know what the next dog is. Rick Flair? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Oh, Jerry Lawler was running for mayor of Memphis.
Starting point is 00:55:28 Currently, Kane. I can see. Kane, the big red machine, Kane, the guy who can troll fire, Kane. He's the mayor of a county in Tennessee. Okay. Yeah. So in the WWF, there was of course the Montreal Screwjob of 1997, I talked about that, right? Now right around the same time, Ross and Rachel tried to get back together on friends. But then they ended up breaking up that time forever for good. You know, we were on a break, that's it. The exact same week as the Montreal screwdriver happened, Chandler Kiss' Joey's girlfriend. Wow.
Starting point is 00:56:13 After that, it was McMahon and his machinations trying to find new ways to screw over Steve Austin. And the undertaker then turned on McMahon. And then McMahon's son turned on McMahon. And then McMahon turned on everyone and joined the undertaker as the higher power to which the Ministry of Darkness had pledged his loyalty in a clever and drawn out ruse to screw Stone Cold Steve Austin one more time and formed the corporate ministry which also had members of degeneration exon at this time.
Starting point is 00:56:45 You know, my while while we were home, yeah, of us, while while he was working from home, every afternoon, she would turn on the TV to days of our lives, a long running, so far. Oh, yeah. Right now, I think the longest running still on the air on network TV. And that has some long running convoluted borderline incestuous plotlines. Like literally borderline in sestuous, because nearly everybody in
Starting point is 00:57:28 the town of Salem is related to everybody else somehow. And they actually wound up finding one of the longest running most beloved bad guys in the series, was Stefano D'Amera. And I know this because my mother watched the show forever when I was a kid and my wife watches the show. So Stefano D'Amera was a must-ass twirling cartoon Boris of Boris and Natasha kind of villain and the guy who played him chewed the scenery with such relish. I mean, yeah, it was so it was so clear he was having so much fun playing this guy. Well, he had been on the show for going on 50 years and he passed away.
Starting point is 00:58:20 And in the show, they killed off, Stephanie Marin and Demarro, and it was a big, huge, big deal. Well, and then Lone, behold, a couple of months ago, one of the long-running good guys suddenly shows up, and he's carrying himself like Stefano, and he's talking like Stefano, he's referring to people in the names that Stephano is used for him. And they came up with a plot line in which one of Stephano's minions had put Stephano's personality. They never actually went so far to say his actual consciousness, but his personality in a microchip and surgically implanted it in this guy's brain to resurrect
Starting point is 00:59:06 Stefano D'Amera. Oh wow. And and what you're saying right there is even crazier than that to me. Watch this. Watch this. Okay, so can we agree that this is nowhere near is entertaining or effective the for as it was the first time around We wanted that yeah, yeah, yeah, so it feels like the same old story that it once before gripped our imagination Yeah, here's what the NWO did after being out of power and then fractioned The NWO reunited under Hulk Hogan and the wolf pack this. And then they beat up a few members and kicked them out because they needed to have good guys to fight against, I guess.
Starting point is 00:59:50 But they still kept too many. And then they swore of the audience to think that they were going to break up again. And that Hulk Hogan was going to redeem himself by wrestling Kevin Nash. As it turned out, though, Hulk Hogan hit Nash with the famous finger poke of doom and took the title back and reformed the NWO. No where near is entertaining or effective this time around and it just felt the same old story that it once again gripped our imagination. Then, about a year later, the NWO has fallen apart again and everybody's on their own and Hulk Hogan's a good guy and then
Starting point is 01:00:25 Brett Hart beats up Hulk Hogan and then he joins with Jeff Jarrett and Scott Hall and Kevin Nash and they form NWO2000 and then injuries play back because of because it had to be in W.O. 2000, because it was the turn of the century and everything was 2000. Yes. And so, except for a rapper down in South named Andre 3000, he was a little more forward thinking. Yeah. So, there were N.W.O. 2000, and then injuries plagued that whole squad to the point where Jeff Jarrett, who is just like, I mean, he's a talented wrestler, but I've never liked him and not for the right reasons. He's the only person in NWO, and then his two bodyguards are like tag team champions, and they come out to NWO's music, but nobody's actually wearing NWO merchandise anymore. And it's just, and so then when WF buys WCW, having defeated them in the next two months,
Starting point is 01:01:26 Vince McMahon resurrects the NWO. And that's right around the time of WrestleMania 18 in Toronto, and Hulk Hogan is fighting against the rock for the NWO, and they actually call an audible in the ring, and they make Hulk Hogan a good guy, and then the NWO kicks out Hulk Hogan and then Kevin Nash tears his quad trying to climb into a ring at one point and then the MWO is killed off forever for good. Wow. Oh, yeah. So Stefano coming back, that's that's child's play. Well actually Chucky coming back as child's play, but this child's play, yeah.
Starting point is 01:02:03 So you have and over and over and over again, but you have this recycling of this idea so that you can keep these people relevant with this narrative that is outdated, doesn't actually work, but we're going to beat it into you anyway. So once again, wrestling is showing us who we are. Someone who is ultimately in charge is pretending not to be in charge so that he can then be in charge and hurt the people who are not in charge. Or we cry out for a broken Avenger to punish the ones who are in charge who are actually popular and enjoyable, but they're reminding us that our ways are out of touch and we want that bloody revenge. And that's why that happened at that time.
Starting point is 01:02:58 Okay. So which of those two is our current administration in your view? Our current administration is absolutely type A. Yeah, it's definitely type A because, well, it's a blend, unfortunately. Because somebody got in charge that they felt robbed that he was in charge and it culture warred up again and the only thing can save us is a very imperfect Avenger but he will set everything right even though he's a horrible person and he will hurt who he needs to hurt you remember that old woman who was very
Starting point is 01:03:38 angry at Trump because he was not hurting who he needed to. And so he is representing tradition without actually being anywhere near traditional. He is representing the worst parts of us, and he is this a broken Avenger who has no redeeming qualities, but at least he's going to hurt the people who never should have been in power in the first place. Would you say he's kind of the anti-Bullclin? Yeah, he's like he's like his Bizarro clin. He's bizarre. A book because he has so many of the same abilities and predilections.
Starting point is 01:04:22 Yeah, he's a populist. He's absolutely populist. Yeah, he is. I mean, he just, uh, he's, but he's bizarre. Oh, Bill Clinton, yeah. Because because Bill Clinton was the good old boy who wasn't really a good old boy. And Trump is the rich Yankee, who is one of us He is what poor people think what scare clothes one of us. Yeah Yeah, and he's what we and thinks strong looks like yeah
Starting point is 01:04:57 So Yeah, he's you know he's powerful and that's the only morality Yeah Yeah, and it all started with Papi Canon in 92 powerful and that's the only morality. Yeah. Yeah. And it all started with Pat Buchanan in 92. Yeah. And I'll express in the NWO storyline. Yeah. So,
Starting point is 01:05:17 you know, so I and again, I'm having, I'm having a pattern on the wallpaper moment. So what have you glanced since you a pattern on the wallpaper moment. So what have you gleaned since you're staring at the wallpaper? Oh, man.
Starting point is 01:05:33 That our national populism has a very, very, Populism has a very, very, very ugly downside, which is profound anti-intellectualism that magnified and exacerbated to my ignorance as just as good as your education. In fact, it's more trustable. Yeah, it's more trustworthy, because I'm a regular guy. And you know, you use too many big words, we can't trust you. Right. You know, and, and, and again, I come back to like, this isn't really conservative. Like, you know, Jim Wright has, has a really great essay that, that I, I come back to all the time where he talks about, you know, I remember, because he's older than we are, but, you know, he remembers when in the 1960s, conservatives were engineers and scientists and guys with crew cuts who used slide rules, and they were thinkers. And they were, all right, you know, let's think about
Starting point is 01:07:09 this. Let's have a plan. Let's figure out how to do this. And they looked at facts. And they did things based on facts. And what made a conservative conservative was, these are the facts. And what made a liberal liberal in the lingo of the time was, you know, you're squishy and emotional, you're bleeding heart. And, you know, let's let's be rational and let's look at facts, right? And the right wing still loves to use that kind of language, but that's not how they work anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. For a while, yeah, but what I'm getting at is, is like the branding now. Yeah, and back then, you could have a conversation, and talk about fact.
Starting point is 01:08:03 And now, people who are calling themselves conservatives have no ideology. Well, they do. How well, but, well, yeah, but they have no, maybe ideologies, the wrong word. There's no rationale. Everything is just based on a knee jerk response. If you say, this is what you want to do, then automatically automatically the only position I have is whatever is the opposite of that. And this, you know, I'm not going to wear a mask, you know, I'm not going to live in fear, I'm a free American. Right. It is literally antithetical to facts.
Starting point is 01:09:02 Yes. to facts. Yes. And if something like this had happened in the 60s, I don't think it would have become a political issue between the right and the left, whether or not to wear a mask in public, it would have been, we got to wear masks, man. Yes. You know, and there might have been arguments over, over, you know, what kind of social policy should we have to deal with the public health threat, you know? But the idea that there would be a political movement built around the idea
Starting point is 01:09:47 that I'm not going to do what the head of the CDC department in charge of this emergency is telling us to do. Right. Because that point he had to do there is saying this, I'm not going to do it, you can't make me. Yep. And that's the sum total of their ideology.
Starting point is 01:10:11 Like you don't, you talk about liberty the way a 14 year old boy does. A 14 year old white boy. Yes. From a free family. Having been a 14 year old white boy from a free family, having been a 14 year old white boy from, you know, middle class family, you know, sufficiently bougie. Um, you know, I can do, you know, and my parents educated me enough that I didn't make that mistake, but I had plenty of friends who did. Like, you know, and it's just, it's, it's disheartening that, you know, we could have, if, if we had paid close enough attention, we could have seen this coming because now it's as
Starting point is 01:11:07 plain as the nose on our faces. Yeah. When we're at home and don't have masks on, you know, sure. Because you know, otherwise you can't takeaway is that I kind of want to build a time machine. A one use, go back machine, go back and then come home and then it can disappear into the quantum meter. But I want to go back in time to 18, 19 year old May and beat the shit out of him. Just just like take with me every news story about every African American man and, where you wind up on the political spectrum, as, as a grown up, because you think you're one, you're not one right now. And let me explain why you wind up here. And maybe, maybe you can do more to fix shit, rather than having to come to this set of conclusions by having empathy kind of smacked into your headstep by step.
Starting point is 01:13:08 No, I get you there. You know, and I mean, you know, at the same time, I kind of have to be understanding of 18-year-old me because, you know, 18-year-old me only knew what I knew. Right. But if I were to run into somebody who sounded like 18-year-old me right now, they urged to grab that white boy by the lapels and shake him violently, would be really hard to resist because like you think this because you you you're in a bubble. You think this because of your own Titanic privilege. And you're not going to get to a place where you recognize your own privilege until you're 40. And I wish I could fix that. Like, you know, well, if you'd watched wrestling, maybe you would have had that out of it.
Starting point is 01:14:13 No, probably not. No, because wrestling really does just reflect and reinforce because that's what gets people paying their money. Yeah, I think, yeah, I'm going to say reinforce. I'm actually going to say, well, reflect, but not it does not inspire self-reflection. Because nobody wants to do self-reflection, self-reflection, it hurts, like I just described. Yeah, well, and you're there to watch grown men in
Starting point is 01:14:43 Yeah, well, and you're there to watch grown men in Tights acting out a soap opera. It's essentially it's male burlesque, you know, oh Totally is yeah, no, there's no getting around that it totally is yeah, so you're clearly not there for self-reflection You're not no If you're going to that for self-reflection, you're going to the wrong place. Yeah. That's not that's not the point. Yeah. It's it's murder gymnastics like like there wasn't murder acrobatic. So I'm trying to remember there's the the web comic that I thought there was yeah. So all right. Well, that was fun. Yeah in a in a self-legulating white liberal kind of way toward the end there, but there you go
Starting point is 01:15:31 It's kind of the point of any professional wrestling podcast, I think but oh Fragillating sorry Beating yourself. I see now. That's a different Not beating off. Oh, oh, got you. Different. So, well, so where can people find you if they want to help you build that time machine? Work home here, Cuck. You can find me at EH Blaylock on Twitter. You can find me at Mr. Blaylock on Instagram. And how about you? You can find me at duh Harmony on both the Insta and the Twitter. You can also find me on Tuesdays on twitch.tv for slash capital puns on doing puns all night. You can all at 8 30
Starting point is 01:16:20 PM. You can also find me on Sundays twitch.tvtv, Fordslash, calling it in the ring, talking about old wrestling matches with a couple of different local comedians, well, one who's a national touring comedian as well. And you can also, something I was going to say, oh, you could also do us a favor. Click subscribe. We're available on Spotify, Stitcher, and of course, iTunes Store. Click subscribe. And if you think we earned a five star review,
Starting point is 01:16:54 let us know. If you don't, you know what? Listen to more episodes, you'll find one. You'll find one to give a five star rating too. Exactly. It'll be fantastic. Where can they find us to give a five star rating too. Exactly. It'll be fantastic. Where can they find us to give feedback? Collectively, we can be found at Geek History Time on Twitter.
Starting point is 01:17:14 And our website, of course, is Geek History Time.com. Hey, I'm curious. When are we ever going to get to hear you playing on your instrument? After I suck less. Fair enough. What Damien is, we haven't talked about it actually on the podcast, but what Damien is referring to is that right now in quarantine, I'm making use of my time in part by learning how to play a musical instrument. And at some point, I'm going to inflict that on all of you, but not until I don't suck quite so much.
Starting point is 01:17:56 So. All right. Well, here we go. For a key history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s. For a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time, keep rolling 20s.

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