Badlands Media - Spellbreakers Ep. 181: 250 Years Since September 11, 1776

Episode Date: September 12, 2026

Recording on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, host Matt Trump opens with a haunting cover of "Mad World" and admits he dreaded this anniversary, then found he had more to say than expected. Rather than re-litigate what happened that day, he sits with the harder question: what exactly did the country lose, and why does 25 years feel like an emotional watershed. As a former New Yorker who lived on Staten Island, he gets personal, honoring the Rescue 5 firefighters from his old neighborhood. Then comes the clever pivot promised in the title. Exactly 250 years earlier, on September 11, 1776, Staten Island's Conference House hosted a doomed peace conference where Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Edward Rutledge met Lord Howe. Trump ties the Revolution's uncertain early days to today's fight for the country. Expect reflection, history, Building 7 skepticism, and one very persistent chat troll.

The Badlands, what are the Badlands? Explain those Badlands. That's a hell of their name. Good evening, everybody. Good evening. Welcome to Spellwriters on Badlandsmedia.TV. Today is September the 11th, 2026th, and this is episode, I just heard my big sigh at the beginning on the delay. September 11th, 2020, this is episode 186, 2, 182.

and tonight's topic is, well, the title of the episode is about September the 11th, 1776, which we'll get to that in a moment. But we're, you know, we've got two things going on this year, don't we? So Mad World. I opened a broadcast tonight with a music video that was, some of you probably know it. It's Mad World is the song, it's the cover of the Tears for Fears song from 1982,

which is back from my day in high school. This is from, this was a cover of it done for the movie Donnie Darko, which came out in 2001. Actually, it came out right after 9-11. And it was a big flop of a movie, but it's sort of become a cult classic by now, especially among the younger generation.

I've actually never seen the movie. But the cover of that song, the song I played at the beginning, I played it because I first saw that video about 15 years ago. I would say, and when I saw the video, it just took my breath away and the song. I'll talk about it in a minute. I hope, did it encourage anybody to commit suicide?

Someone said in the chat. I hope not. I think it actually is a song that gives me a lot of a reflective meaning in regard to the events of this day. So I think probably, is everybody doing a 9-11 show today? We sort of have to, right? And I'll say that I was not really, I really wasn't looking forward to the anniversary this year. And in fact, I did some 9-11 shows early on in the year going through some of the things I believe about what happened that day. You know, the things we talk about on Badlands.

And I wanted to cover those things. I wanted to get those away in advance because I didn't want to have to do that during the 25th anniversary, which is today. And I, because I didn't know if I even wanted to talk about it. I mean, we've talked about it so much. And we've had so many thoughts about it and so much discussion. There's been so much said about it, especially on podcasts. I thought, what can I say about it to you guys? I mean, we all experienced it together.

I don't have any special knowledge. about it. I was in New York at the time, but so we're millions of other people. That's really not so important anyway. So maybe I'll read your comments in a little bit about what you, because

I think it's just sort of we need to get things out. But I'll tell you, I've been surprised. I've been really surprised. The surprise is even though I wasn't sure I wanted to talk about 9-11 much at all, just because what more can we say about it?

at the last minute all of a sudden I was like you know what I have things to say about it still things to work through about it and it's not the it's not what happened I don't want to I'm not going to do a show tonight about what happened and and let's get into things you know Brad Zerbo used to be on Badlands great for that his his is one of the better 9-11 videos that's been made in regard to the truth or movement coming out of that. And I would suggest that. And, you know, we've all got thoughts. But I think this is more like, I feel like this anniversary, weirdly enough, at 25, is a watershed one for us emotionally as a country. And it's not because it's number 25. Who cares about it?

the number really. It's just an excuse to commemorate. I've just felt it though. I felt like we're ready for something as a country about 9-11 that we weren't ready for before. And I've seen it on social media and maybe you've seen it too. Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you feel the same way? Like maybe there's some, there are things in motion that have been jammed up and held up for a long time. And because of that, I decided I have to talk about it. I have to talk about that. But tonight's episode, the title of it is September 11th, 1776. And I'll get into the meaning of that here.

But of course, it's meant to draw attention to the fact that this year, 2026, we had the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the start of the American Revolution, the full, start of the American Revolution. And we had this smaller anniversary, if you will, of 9-11, 25, one-tenth of the time since 1776. And there is, September the 11th, 1776 does have meaning, and I'll get to that in a little bit. I'll tie it into it all. But I'm going to talk about 9-11 more than I thought, just reflecting on some of the emotional aspects of it, what it's how it changed us as a country,

which I, how could I say how it changed us as a country? You guys, you guys know what I'm talking about, though. There's something was lost and we're still trying to name what it was that was lost. We're still trying to figure out what it was that was lost. We're still coming to grips with the injustice of it, no matter what you believe about it, no matter what you believe about it. We sense still the deep injustice.

of it. Some of us pointing fingers at other Americans about it, me included, pointed at me at pointed at me, okay, you can put, but one of the finger pointers. So let me, I'm going to go to, we're going to do our sponsors, but I just want to grab a look at the chat. I see there's a bunch of, yeah, yeah, some really good comments. Iowa Farm Girl and PA watched Codex 9-11. It hurts so bad. How could we even have believed the narrative? Yes. How could we even have believed the narrative? That's that's part of what hurts to me still, which we'll get into. And it ties in with that that Gary Jules video that I played, Mad World at the beginning, which is from a movie. The video is not from a movie. We'll get to that. Not from the movie. We'll get to that. A sense of liberty was

lost. Yes, I felt that even on the day, I knew it would never be the same. Let's get into it. It's sad how many people have forgotten, and now we are allowing the people into our governments since the best is yet to come. Thank you, Green Ozone for that other comment, too. Okay, let's get into our sponsors here for the night. Let's talk about our wonderful sponsors. So tonight's episode of Badlands, of Spellbreakers is brought to you in part by, oh, let's see, we've got everybody to look at this monitor and not lean into that one. So that, you know, I'm a little bit better, a little bit farther away from the laptop camera. You know, it distorts here.

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Welcome everybody. everybody. I want to keep my, make sure to keep my eye on the chat tonight because I, I, I, I need the connection with, uh, with my fellow Americans tonight talking about this subject. Like what, we're still sore about it as a nation. We're still sore about it after 25 years in a way that, you know, 25 years after JFK that it, it, I want to say it felt like a lot of time had passed. It had And now it does, I think, feel like a lot of time has passed since 2001. It does feel like a different world now. So I'm not even sure what my point was there.

A lot of time has passed. But I want to say that we're still sore about it as a nation in a way that we didn't really feel in 1988 with JFK. It was below the surface. It was still all there. But this is like 9-11 still an open wound. maybe because it was the number of people that were killed and all the consequences of it. And we don't know if we're ever going to get full justice for what happened. We don't know that.

And maybe that's what's haunting us. But tonight's episode is September 11th, 1776. Let's get into that. Keith O'Higgins, 25 years is known as the Silver Jubilee, very appropriate for a Larry Silverstein anniversary. Yes, good, great comment. Artsy Joan, the tragedy is different because there is still a group of radicals

that still want our death to this day, Matt? Yes, there are certainly people that want us dead. The rebel leader, the killing of John F. Kennedy, was nowhere near the effect that 9-11 had 9-11 convinced a bunch of youngsters to go fight and die for a lie. Yeah. It's weird to say that, something was bigger than Kennedy, you know.

Kennedy was bigger in terms of it changing, the changing us towards the deep state. It was like 9-11 solidified in a big public way, emotionally in our society, what had begun with Kennedy's assassination in 1963, maybe. I'm just, man, I'm just throwing out thoughts tonight, just trying to freeform some connections, you know, G8, Nana, 17.

I had a back injury and was on drugs, so I may have responded differently. You're talking about 2001? Yeah. Okay. All right. So good to see you all. September 11th, 1776.

The 200th anniversary. So today is the 200th anniversary of September 11th, 1776. What else would we be talking about? But first, the video, Mad World. So that's Gary Jule standing on a rooftop. That is, the video for this was filmed at a middle school in Hoboken, New Jersey. He's standing on the roof of it. And I knew that the minute I saw the video, I recognized the angle.

I knew exactly where he was. And it took my breath away, because if you watch the video, he, he, he, it's, really well directed. So it has these shots from the roof down at these children making these forms, people in sailboats as he's singing and then it pans up in a nice arc. It pans upward and catches him at the building. And the first time I saw this, it just took my breath away. So the movie was made in 2001 that has the song in it. But the video wasn't shot until 2004, which is the year I finally left New York. And by the time I had, left New York. I was, man, I was not in a good place in my life. I was not in a good place.

And so it was a time of sorrow for me. It was like I felt all the sorrow I didn't feel at 9-11. But this video, this view right here is, so the tall buildings you see in the background behind him are downtown, downtown Jersey City, which is just to the south of the Hoboken. These are all areas I knew very well. I had worked in Hoboken in the year 2000, not far from where this is, maybe six or seven blocks from where this was shot. And the other across the river,

so this is New Jersey, but across the river, you can see the very tip of Manhattan. I recognize those buildings in a minute. Those are down by the Staten Island Ferry Terminal in what's called the battery. And it's what's so beautiful about this video is it pans up and then it stops

right before where you would have seen the Twin Towers. I was like, oh, that's such on purpose. Had to be on purpose. The view that, if you could see the screen, there's a view, the yellow dotted lines are the view shed from where he's looking at Hoboken Middle School. It had a different name back then. And you could see it just almost misses the yellow square

where the ground zero was. And something about this song, and the lyrics to it and the tone about, you know, bright and early for the daily races, going nowhere, going nowhere, the dreams in which I've dying are the best I've ever had. Something about it when I saw it in 2011, I think, when I finally saw this, just took me, it catapulted me back to the world right before the attacks. that that which was two you know first half of 2000 and two thousand

1999 you know new york at the turn of the millennium 1999 2009 2000 2000 2001 which is when I lived there and and and I moved there and I'm I'm a New Yorker now I'm a New Yorker at uh with my wife we I moved there and we

we got married like right away as I moved there and uh she was from there And I was like, I'm a New Yorker now. And I'm going to get a job. I got a job in Hoboken, like I said. And then I got it and I had to commute into it. Then I got a job in the city. I was so happy.

I finally got a job in the financial district. It wasn't right on Wall Street, but everybody calls the whole area Wall Street anyway. So working on Wall Street, you don't have to be right on the street. So I worked at 222 Broadway, which was right in the financial district. And right by Ground Zero.

And that was, I got that job in September 2000. And it was, it was such a time in the city then. It felt the word I, the word I always used for that time is weightless. It felt like everything was defying gravity in some kind of way that was not real. Like this is not real somehow. It was the late Clinton administration. You know, it was the baseball. They're using the juice to hit all these home.

runs and there was just something about it that felt eerie. But I loved it. I loved being in the city. But it was like there's something not right about everything that's going on. And so when I saw this video, it just took me back to that time of being like a sleepwalker in the reality of the narrative. That we were all just sleepwalkers going through something and being led to something we didn't know about. And I get that feeling. That song brings back that feeling to me. I'll just say you tell you that.

It brings back that feeling to me. So I've not seen the movie Donnie Darko that the song is from. But it's very, it's got a psychotic rabbit costume character in it, which I guess that would be two weeks in a row. So I had my rabbit costume last week from burning. But I'm a friendly rabbit. All right. So 250, since the.

the Declaration of Independence, 25 since 9-11. Last week I did Burning Man, just a few wrap-ups of that before we go on. So Burning Man co-founder just said the festival he helped create is gone. So the co-founder Burning Man says, it's jumped the shark, it's over. There was that people mentioned the Christians being kicked out. I'd have to know what's going on. They might have made themselves obnoxious.

I think there's a way you could go there and really connect the people. but sometimes people want to be confrontational. I'm not going to say that that's what happened, but I think I have been there as a stealth Christian. I could, I think, go there as a Christian and have people not be angry about it. But maybe I don't know what happened. So this is about Uber driver in Reno saying

all the service workers in Reno, they're sick of burning man because people don't tip. Because there are a lot of foreigners. They don't know how to fit. There's El Pulpo. This thing's been around since I was there, the mechanical octopus with the flaming tentacles. So this is, they use this.

This is every year they have this, and it wanders around and shows up. Second, get three people died this year. There's El Pulpo again. This is like some kind of event they're having out in the playa. It's fun. It does look a little bit weird. The temple at Burning Man,

the temple at Burning Man. I mentioned that. It's sort of like a religion. It's, it's meant to be very like Buddhist, I think. They don't call it Buddhists, but it's Buddhist. And it, it, but it's like materialistic Buddhist, Western Buddhism. It's just sad about things that are lost, you know. But I meant, I joke that there was a, they should put up a Gothic cathedral as the, as the style of the, of the, of the temple sometime at Burning Man, if they keep doing it. Now, this is not the temple. This is just somebody putting up a bunch of lights. This is the kind of thing that you'd put up out in the playa, and you'd go check it out on your bikes at night, and you'd wander around going, oh, that's so cool, and you go on to the next thing.

But I do love the Gothic design here. I think they should do a Gothic temple sometime. So that's Burning Man. Just wanted to wrap that up from last week. 250 to 25. that's our anniversary, 250 of the Declaration of Independence, 25 since,

was 9-11 a revision of the American Revolution? Let me ask you guys this. Can we consider that 9-11 in some sense was an attempt to undo what happened in 1776? It's like 9-11, these 25 years have been attempt to roll back everything that happened leading up to that. Have they not? Can we say that?

So in some sense, it's quite fitting that we have 25 and 250. It's like the war started, you know, and we've been fighting it 250 years ago, and we've been fighting it since 25 years ago. Different phases of it are the same one overlapping, And I think we're all beginning to realize this now. I don't think I'm saying anything.

This is what I think is remarkable, is I don't think I'm saying anything to you guys that you don't know and agree with, because I think this is sort of a consensus that we all recognize this. Five years ago, maybe not that we would say that. So I think we emotionally were at some place in the country. And I'll tell you this, as part of preparing this show tonight, I was like I wasn't going to I wasn't going to find anything off of X and talk about it but I in the last 48 hours I've gone crazy on X bookmarking everything about 9-11 hundreds of bookmarks that I've made in the last couple days it's like I was like I don't want I'm not going to do that I'm over being the the detective investigator of 9-11 I let other people do that But for some reason, I just started to see all these things.

People were posting. It's like they're coming forward this year like never before to remind people of the little bits and pieces of the story that don't make sense about the World Trade Center, about the Pentagon, about everything, about the stock options, about Abel Danger, about just everything. And I was like, I can't pass this by. I used to do this. I used to just bookmark everything about 9-11. That was 20 years ago when it was just like one thread on Reddit. And all the materials that got to, they're now dead links, you know, all my research, it's flown away.

And I just, I was like, God, I can't find that. People are posting, I've never seen this video. I've never seen that video. People are discovering it that have never really thought about it do deeply. I think they are. I think it's remarkable what's going on. I think this is watershed. That's just my impression.

So I would create, today, I was just bookmarking everything. And maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and feel silly about it all. But for right now, I feel like, like, you know what? I do, I do want to, I do need to keep these things in focus. 250, the hero of 250 years ago, and here's the hero of 25 years ago. George W. and George W., that's Andrew Coo. leaning into President Bush, supposedly informing him about the attacks.

What is George W. actually thinking in this moment? What do you think? He's thinking. What are it going through his head right now? So many things could be going through his head, couldn't they? Yeah. So many things. EC was here. It used to be very emotional to me because it had been nine days earlier. They might have killed me.

It doesn't hit his heart anymore, still angry about no justice. Yeah, I think those of us who really were hit hard by it in a personal sense, which maybe some of you, are we got burned out on it. I think what makes me see it differently now is seeing people come forward, you know, that may not have ever been burned out about it. And so, no, we're not going to let this pass into history yet. We're not going to let it pass into history yet. We will take it up.

You know, there's that scene in The Patriot. You know, remember the movie The Patriot with Mel Gibson, came out in 1999? I saw it when I first moved to New York. I saw it with my friend who lived in Jersey City, and we went to see it down in those tall buildings in the in the mad world video that are in the background. There's a mall down in there called the Newport Mall. And so we went to see the Patriot there. and right after I moved to New York.

And there's that scene. I love the most stirring scene to me in that movie is when he's on the he's, it's the battle. It's, I think it must be the Battle of Cow Pins, whatever it is, the climactic one at the end. Which, and so it's the Mel Gibson's character.

And he's carrying the flag. and there's there's and he's been brave the whole movie and he's impeccable but then he almost gets hit by his shell he almost gets hit by his shell and he he stunned and he loses his hearing and he's I think he starts going the wrong way like he starts or he's facing the wrong way like he's going to retreat and and there's that great scene no Gibson's brilliant there's that great scene there's that great scene where where he sees all of the patriots

come in his way and they just stampede past him towards the British line. Like, it's our turn now. You know, it's our turn now. We'll take over. You did your part, what you had to do.

I love that scene. And I saw it right there. You know, just connecting lots. This is what happens when I talk about 9-11. It's like my whole my whole life comes in there. Maga Mitch 88. You know, I'm sorry, but, but you're going to, you're out of here. We got to get you out of here. Let's see. Can I, uh, mute user? Uh, I think, should we kick you out forever? I think so. All right. There you go. It's not that I don't, I don't mind people, uh, calling out, even Donald Trump. saying, oh, what, what, you know, well, you know, Donald Trump, he was, let's, I don't mind that.

I just don't, you know, you're doing it, you're spamming it. So you got to go. You got to go. All right. So you're welcome, you're welcome to hang out, but you can't do that. That's disrespectful to the people who died. I'm sorry. You get my dander up.

Oh, you're back again. Okay. Okay. All right. Oh, mute this user forever. Okay. All right. We got, we got the real pest tonight. Don't pray like a pagan. Also, don't post like a pagan praise. It's easy. All right. Thank you. All right. What can we bump on video clips? I thought I posted. I did have Trump queued up. Okay, well, let's just go on. Do we hit, okay, so 25 years ago, 250 years ago. I like how they use the, this is obviously the night, those of us from who are of my age, who are collected baseball cards would easily recognize this

is the very famous and well-known, 1975 Tops series from the year the big red machine that they placed George W in, George Washington. a little bit of post-modernity. But let's, let's, let's be serious. So I think one of the things that if you're, if you're young and you don't remember the days after that, you would probably not,

one of the things you would probably, I think that has, that has passed into history. One of the things that I think is passed into history is a con, is this, you know, is the, is the heroes thing. Remember the heroes after, like right away afterwards, the heroes being the firefighters and the police,

both from New York City and the Port Authority, which is its own, the Port Authority is like a government within a government. You talk about weird governmental structures. Port Authority is right up there. They have their own police and their own, They have their own police at least. I don't know if they had their own firefighters. The Port Authority is its own government entity,

and the Port Authority owned and ran the Twin Towers site, the World Trade Center site. And it also ran like bridges and tolls in New Jersey and stuff. So anyway, the Fire Department of New York, when I think about 9-11, I think about people who died in it, I automatically think of some firefighters from Staten Island. So this is the Staten Island.

Staten Island is one of the five boroughs of New York. That's where I was living at the time, you know, commute into the city. There's a bunch of firefighters that, from Staten Island who died, including almost an entire company, was wiped out, suffered the highest rate of casualty, like 90% casualty rate.

And nobody was injured. Everybody, casualty means dead in this case. every you know that's one of the things that that as i when i went into the city afterwards uh they had obviously prepped it for uh emergency like there were blood draw stations near where i used to work the ferry terminal was full of gurneys and that were folded but they were stacked up and they hadn't been used because there was nothing really to use them for but they prepared and why were they all there they probably were all there because of the emergency exercise that was going on at the time that FEMA was doing right there.

Coincidentally, another weird, you know, all these weird things. And we could stop and spend the whole show on any of them. But I just want to keep the momentum. So Rescue 5 on Staten Island. Rescue is in the Fire Department of New York, at least. Rescue, that's the top. That's the elite. There's ladder companies.

Rescue companies are the elite. And so the one on Staten Island in the conquered neighborhood of Staten Island, almost all these guys died. So this is an article today by one of their comrades who was who was off that day, who was who was off duty that day. But pretty much everybody in the company, but him died. And this is, to me, this is, this is who I think of. Is these guys?

I had a childhood friend who died in Tower 1, too. But I've talked about him before, Tim Haviland. He's in the memorial wall. And his name was red today, no doubt. These guys, all their names were red today, too. I didn't know any of them, but I'd met some of them. I'd met some of them because I went to New York. I'm sighing a lot tonight.

I went to New York. I was going to be a New Yorker, but I was going to be me. And me was a kid from Colorado. who like to, love to disappear into parks and hike on trails unseen. I love to just disappear into the woods. And in Staten Island, I could do that. And I figured out how to do that. Nobody, everybody else I knew in Staten Island, who was from there,

they didn't know that the island was laced with green belts and trails and a ridge of hills you could walk on. And I used to do that. That was my thing. That was my way of coping with New York. and being soaked in the middle of all that. And if you look at the red dot on the map, that's where Rescue 5 was located.

And if you see on the map, so that's Staten Island with the marquee around it and red dot is, and there's a purple line that goes across the island. You can see, that's the Staten Island Railroad, the train line. I used to live down in Oakwood Heights, if you can see on the map,

just down the line from Great Kills, which is, that's the name. You got Great Kills, you got Fresh Kills, you got the Killvan Cole, and you've got the Arthur Kill. Kill is a Dutch word for extreme. So Great Kills is a marshy area down there. I used to live in Oakwood Heights. That's where my wife and ex-wife now and I live. And it's about as far away from any freeway exit in New York as you could get.

It's just like, in order to get there, you have to get off the freeway and make your way through New York, you know? And I loved that. I loved that I lived there. I love that I had this vantage point in this sort of, like I'm in my reserve place out here in Staten Island. Like I was safe out there. So I used to take the train line down to near the red dot, grasp your station. and I'd walk past the Concord, the Rescue Five ladder, the Rescue Five station, and I knew where there were secret entrances into the woods that even the residents of the streets

probably didn't even know about. And I would go into them and then I could hike all the way down through the island on the green belt that you can see because that's who I was, you know. That's my, that's my superpower there as a New Yorker. This place belongs to me as much as it does to anybody else. you know and yeah i had the name trump but and i was like yeah that's just a little bit more you know because there's this guy who lives in in manhattan in a tall building who's like the most well well-known man in the world and he's he's this crazy character and everybody knows him and you know what i love

you know why i loves that and being a being a trump myself in new york coming back to new york my family had been, he lived in New York in the 19th century on my, on my grandfather's side, my grandfather Trump side. I loved it because I knew I would never be as famous as Donald Trump. I knew I could never be as famous as that. I knew I could never be as rich as him. And that just took a huge burden off of me. This is sound weird? It was like, I don't need to be famous. I got this cousin Donald took care of it you know I could just be an ordinary guy in in this big anonymous city that felt like a big warm embrace of humanity and I loved it I'd take the ferry to work and then then and then I'd take the I take the path train under back under the Hudson

back over to Hoboken and I would catch that I'd have to go into the deep basement of the World Trade Center for that. And then I got a job in the city, so I just walked up, I could walk up Broadway or take the train up Broadway to, I'd take the train up Broadway, the one train. And up to, up to West Street, I want to say, should know, or Fulton Street. And you get out and I come out of the train, I could look up and I'd see the World Trade Centers right there. I could see them. And and I was just an ordinary guy among all these other ordinary people. And it felt great. I loved

it. I loved being part of the city. I loved going in and building something even if it was digital. I wanted so badly just to contribute to the city and be part, a little bit of its history of how it got built. That's all I wanted. And I felt so wonderful about that. And I felt that way in 2000, most of 2001, at least at then in the mid-2001 it just didn't feel that way anymore and it felt starting to feel weird and I go over to my friend in Jersey City and we'd we'd hang out and we'd talk about the weirdness of how things were feeling and we'd go out and we'd go out and look and there'd be the there'd be

tower one looming right above you as it does from just from across the hudson there it's the best view. And it was, what I noticed on 9-11 itself was I knew all that was going away. I knew it was all going away. I knew that I loved it that New York was sort of broken, you know, that you were just a person there. It felt like you weren't on camera all the time. You weren't being tracked everywhere. And after 9-11, on 9-11, I knew it would never be the same. I knew there would be cameras everywhere. I knew you would be watched. There would be security and there would be, there would be suspicion of anybody doing something weird and strange. Like I did all the time. I was always wandering around doing weird stuff in New York on my own because I wanted to explore it

because that's what I did. And I knew then that I would never feel again that great warm anonymity of just being an ordinary guy in New York. That all of a sudden, we were all going to be suspects forever. And that really bummed me in. That really bummed me out. It's gone away a little bit, but it was tough. It was tough.

To feel like the New York I knew was gone. Mad world, yeah. There's a little bit close up on where on Staten Island the Rescue Five was. the red dot there fire engine 160 so they you have an engine and the company

the engine being the engine 160 and I know engine 160 so one day when I was walking to this was in mid 2001 I was walking up to one of my secret entrance I took taking the train down to grass mirror I was walking up that avenue

there towards one of my secret entrances to the ridge that's in the middle of the islands. When you're there in the middle of it, you could be out in the Catskills. You would never know you're out, you're in the middle of New York City. Remember, I passed the Rescue Five station, and the door was open, and the engine was inside,

and I could look, I turned and saw, and there were a bunch of guys that were, they were washing the engine, or doing whatever. They were tending to it. I think they were washing it. I think they had a hose out and they were hosing it down maybe. And I looked over and they had a radio and it was playing music. And they just looked so like, this is New York.

This is what New York's about is that. And a lot. Within a couple months, all those guys were probably dead. All those guys were probably dead. So I think about them. And now we've got seven o'clock. lock. Now let's talk about 1776 and tie that in. And coincidentally, we don't have to leave Staten Island. We just have to go down to the other end of the island. But let's, let us peek in on the

chat and also let's, shall we talk about our sponsor. Tonight's episode of Spellbreakers is brought to you in part by, oh, yes. Yes, soft disclosure. We love soft disclosure. I love soft disclosure. I love their products. Highly recommend them from my personal use. These are the hands that built America. Hands that hammered. Hands that welded. Hands. That's the wrong one. I'm supposed to play a different one. I'm supposed to play a different one. Not back to school. Let's get it together, Matt. It's an emotional evening. Did I not upload the... No, I've got it.

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continues get your passes today we'll see you in Vegas Patriots all right so where are we oh we're since Staten Island my favorite borough of the five boroughs in New York so oh we've got a lot of comments on YouTube too hello YouTubers hello Babbage three I saw you earlier in the evening and I'm glad you made it back to the show. I had to do a special thing to not have copyright with the with the Gary Jules video at the beginning, which I just wanted to show it because it really, it evokes to me that the sorrow about something that's been lost. And I didn't know till today that it actually was that shot was they pan up in the video to show they just miss, they just miss the, the, the, the, The world the World Trade Center is.

I think that somebody knew what they were doing with that shot. It just somehow unconsciously, I wanted to fill that in with the World Trade Center in my mind. And, of course, it's not there. It's empty. They didn't show the emptiness. They showed the Empire State Building at the end of the video when they pan around the other way. It's, I don't know, those kids, there's something, yeah. All the people, I have been watching all the clips.

from the millennials talking about how they were in school during it. Yeah, I taught high school in Staten Island the following spring. In 2002, spring of 2002, I taught at a Catholic boys high school near where I lived in the middle of the eastern shore of Staten Island. And it was right near where I lived. It's weird how I got the job. It's a long, fun story. And I taught juniors, sophomores and juniors.

So they were, they knew what had happened, you know. So they were millennials, I guess, right? Millennials, yeah. They were some of the older millennials now. And I felt like somehow they had absorbed something very, a consciousness of the world being very broken. I felt that in the kids somehow. I don't know how to explain it.

The vibe in the room I'm talking about. And the discipline problems that all of a sudden people were having with the kids. Anyway, let's talk about 1776. So as some of you know who've been following who've been Rebel leader, Matt, Matt, Am I, am I, we got a, we got the, okay, sound, okay, rebel neater. Okay, since, since July 4th, this is 2024, two years ago, I, that's when I started doing the

250 year celebration here on Spellbreakers with occasional episodes. And, and this, so we're doing that tonight. We're keeping going, because we go past July 4th. 2026. We have a whole revolution to fight, just like we had, just like we've got the whole fight still to go with winning back the country now. They had it still all ahead of them. And today, actually, believe it or not, September 11th, 1776, which is something, there's something that happened today that's sort of interesting, 250 years ago today. So this is a semi-quincentennial moment, for those of you who remember the bicentennial minutes. This is a semi-quincentennial moment.

250 years ago today. Okay. What happened? I got to get, we got to go under the next slide, Matt. So this is the south part of Staten Island, all the way down to the southern tip. That's the southernmost point of the state of New York, by the way. and you can see, if you could see very closely, there's a yellow box and says conference house park. That's clear at the end of the train line.

The train goes clear across Staten Island. One train line, we've got one train line. It goes clear from the north tip, which is where the ferry terminal is, all the way down, every half hour during the day, all the way down to the southern tip of the island in this little village down there called Tottenville. And I once rode the train down there just so I could walk around there. And while I was there, I don't know if I drove there later maybe. I did go to the conference house park. So what's the conference house?

It's this house. It's a park right along the water, and it's a lawn in the house, and there's this old colonial house there that they've preserved, and the lawn in front of it slopes down towards the Arthur Kill, which is that body of water between New York and New Jersey. And what happened there? Well, so the offensive operations, outside of Boston, the offensive operations of the British Army in the War of 1776 begin in Staten Island.

So the British Army evacuates Boston because they figure it's, they don't want to get hold up there. They, you know, they had their foray out to Lexington and Concord the year before, But things are getting untenable now, Bunker Hill, and there's no real point in them occupying Boston. They could take care of Boston Harbor by sea. There's no really point in staying there. So they realize the real place to occupy is New York.

New York is the center of the colonies. And there was a lot of patriot sentiment in New York. famously, just on July 8th, I think, or no, maybe the next day, very next day after the Declaration of Independence was announced in New York, down near the battery, near the tip of the island. The crowd was so excited, they went and they tore down the statue of George III that said was in Bowling Green, a little park where now that's the charging bowl statue is there, if you know, the charging bolt.

So they toppled the George the third statue. They like doing toppling statues in New York. They've always liked doing that, I guess. So Howe, the British Admiral lands, and his brother was the Army commander, the two Howell brothers. They land on the South Shore Staten Island, and they set up camp there on July 2nd, even before the Declaration of Independence,

with the idea of seizing control and stopping the rebellion. in its infancy. And then by late August, the, the, the, how had taken his troops across the,

the narrows, as it's called, the narrows is the between Staten Island and Long Island. And that's, that's where the Hudson disgorges into the lower harbor. Hudson is just this mighty, fjord-like stream that comes down from the north. And,

and it goes through this very narrow opening called the Narrows. So Howe crosses the narrows, goes up through Brooklyn, takes the heights, and then Washington is up there with his troops, and he falls back to Brooklyn Heights, and they get their asses handed to them. And Washington barely escapes with his army across the East River to Manhattan, where they're safe for the time being. but really things are not looking good right off the bat. And so at that point in early September, before anything else happens, in early September, in fact, on September 11th, 1776, 10 weeks after independence, there's a peace conference. They actually arrange a peace conference to see if they can stop the war, see if they can figure things out. And it was held at this conference house, which was owned by a guy named Christopher Billup,

And he lived in this tip of Staten Island. They had it there. And the Patriots were, patriots were represented by three people, led by none other than Benjamin Franklin. So Billup was a loyalist. So the British, so Howe came there. And Howe had wanted to try to negotiate with them. But he was basically stripped of any power to do any kind of negotiations.

He did not have the power to recognize American independence. The only power he had was to offer pardons for the rebellion so far. So who was there for the Patriots was, let's see, Billup Manor, the Staten Island residents of loyalist Christopher Billop, was chosen as the meeting place. It had been occupied by British troops for use as a barracks, and it was in filthy condition. but one room was cleaned and prepared for the meeting.

The arrangements included one British officer to be left on the American side as a hostage during the meeting. The congressional delegation, rather than leaving him behind the American lines, invited him to accompany them. On arrival, the delegation was escorted past a line of Hessian soldiers. You can almost imagine Franklin doing that. No, no, my good man, you're coming with us. Franklin, you know, Franklin was head balls, you know. Franklin's the kind he would, he could, you know, talk to the king, say, this is who we are. He did. I mean, he would, Franklin was a cheeky man with balls. That's, that's without a doubt. On arrival, the delegation was escorted past a line of Hessian soldiers and into the house where, according to Adams, a repast of claret, ham, and mutton, and tongue was served. Wow, the meeting lasted three hours, but the, the two sides were unable to find any common ground.

The Americans insisted that any negotiations required the British recognition of the United States Declaration of Independence proclaimed on July 4th. So the Americans were hard-line, which has got to recognize declaration of independence. That's non-negotiable. Lord Howe stated that he did not have the authority to meet that demand. When asked by Rutledge, one of the Americans, whether he had the authority to repeal the first,

prohibitory act, which authorized a British naval blockade of the colonies, as had been claimed by Sullivan, how demurred and claimed that Sullivan was mistaken. Howe's authority included the ability to suspend the execution if the colonies agreed to make fixed contributions. So one of the things that the British side was stuck on is they were actually willing to negotiate on various things, perhaps on the taxes that were a source of issue. But the thing the British would not compromise was that was on the authority of Parliament in England to levy taxes on the colonies and to force their payment. And to the Americans, that was just not acceptable because they had no, they had no representation in Parliament. And they were

effectively treated as they saw it as slaves to to the home islands because of that so that was the compromise that could not be made either neither the side could compromise so there we're going to have a war this is we're going to have five years of war and two more years of until the until the British recognized, till the British crown recognized independence. Okay, so

so the Americans, and Franklin and the Americans came as delegations from the Second Continental Congress, by the way. So the British also wanted the Second Continental Congress to be disbanded.

They didn't, the idea of having a Congress of all the colonies settling representatives was now longer acceptable to them. It was like, we're not letting it get this far again.

You can have your, own legislatures in your colonies with your royal governors, but you cannot have this Continental Congress idea anymore. So you can see this is what's going to lead to war. So this is what happened 250 years ago today. It's considered by some to be the point of no return, that up until then there was hope, at least among both sides that they could avoid a war. But after the Staten Island conference, it was pretty much recognized that there had to be war. This was going to be settled by war. So that's 250 years ago today. That's the way it was, 250 years ago today. All right. Needle light. Okay. It's Showtime Movie Night after OnlyLands. I will be on OnlyLands

tonight, by the way. Frederick Leathers. Bugs Bunny after kicking Yosemite's ass, Yosemite Sam's ass, playing the Hessian. I'm a hesson with no aggression. Well, that's Bugs Bunny. I'm a, I'm a hesson with no aggression. I can't do Bugs Bunny. I can't get him near that.

That's a New York accent that's extinct. I'm showing, oh, Bay Theater Dave is showing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Are you now? Okay. I was just watching that movie, actually. For, for

own research purposes. I have this idea of doing a focusing, of doing a creative work focusing on Cassidy's great antagonist in that movie. So I was, I was looking at it to see how they, how they handled it in that movie. So good choice, good choice. The Gart people were wanting you to be in Vegas, Matt. I, I was told I could go to either Vegas or, Florida. I probably should have chosen Vegas because it's so simpler. But I chose Florida because I've never been to the Florida guards. I haven't been in Florida in a long, long time. I told some people that live there, I definitely want to try to come. So I had to make a choice. I don't know. Now maybe I regret it, but hey, made my choice. All right. For anyone that might be disappointed

by tonight's only lands, Reverend Nato said. Bay Theater Dave guarantees to leave your Friday on the lighthearted note. Okay, all right. I love, you know, I'm from an age when I can remember the radio just being constantly filled in public with that ukulele strains at the beginning of the BJ Thomas song. Yeah, raindrops keep falling on my head. and that crazy scene with Catherine Ross and Paul Newman on the bicycle.

It feels sort of anachronistic, but they had bicycles then. It's such a beautiful scene with them, you know. All right, good choice, man. All right. Frozen. Am I frozen? No? Okay.

All right. Rebonyatal. We're going to keep it. know we want to keep it PG rated here. So 250 years ago today. So that is what happened. 250 years ago today, September 11th, 1776. Join us at some future date for another episode of the 250th. You know, we're going to keep going. This was a special 9-11 version. And just to show you what's going to happen after the Staten Island Conference. So the British had invaded. They'd set up, they'd set up camp on the South Shore Staten Island, very near to where I live, a place called Richmond Town and New Dorp,

which is the old Dutch settlement. And then they crossed over the narrows and went up to A Battle of Long Island, routed Washington's troops. Washington barely escaped to Manhattan. Washington's in blue, if you can see on the screen. The Howe's troops are in red. And then there's going to be a series of battles where Washington has to fight a rearguard action as he retreats up the island of Manhattan up to what it's now called Washington

Heights. So there's towering cliffs in the north part of the island. And so it's more defensible. And he fights rearguard actions all the way then up into up to White Plains on the mainland north of the Bronx.

So the White Plains is on the other side of the Bronx there on that neck that comes down. And he's defeated there, but it's a it's not a bad defeat and it gives him time to escape further north with his troops. So also Charles Lee was commanding troops too.

So Washington and Lee, that's why you have Fort Lee is across from Fort Washington, down Washington Heights, and you have Fort Lee across the river down there, commemorating their joint command of American troops. So they escape across the Hudson. up near West Point, not far from West Point, near Stony Point. That area of the Hudson, where it narrows down up there, and it's very steep along the banks, and the Americans held the Ford at West Point.

The reason the American Military Academy is at West Point is because that was the point the Americans held on the river. They were invaded. They would be invaded from the north later, and they, of course, being now invaded from the south by how but the the british never took the middle of the river and and it and it was largely because of the fort at west point and that's what benedict arnold tried to betray the troops about that's why he's that's why not only was benedict arnold the traitor

he was like could have gotten everybody killed in the revolution you know he handed over the plans or he tried to the plans to west point so that it would allow the the british and ease And if they'd taken West Point, they probably would have taken the whole Hudson. So Washington has to retreat all the way then south through New Jersey, pushed farther south and south, until finally he's pushed across the river into Pennsylvania, upstream from Trenton. And then on Christmas Day, on the eve of Christmas Day, we have the great counterattack, which Washington launches his counterattack.

But that is yet to be. We'll talk about that later in the year when that happens. So here's some random images from 9-11. I think y'all remember this one. You know, I bookmarked so much today, but all right. So this obviously, a little bit of humor. This is obviously tourist guy. I think it's the meme called.

So this meme appeared afterwards. Evidently he's Hungarian or he's Brazilian, but it appeared in a Hungarian newspaper originally or something. So this is fake, obviously. And the reason I chose this is just to remind you. of fakeness, that there's a lot of fakeness about 9-11. Is there not? This one, everybody agrees is fake. But there's other stuff that some of us think is fake.

And other people don't think it's fake at all. And we're still dealing with the fall out of that. All right. So this is from, oh, okay, this is from today. This is Howard Lutnik. So he's Trump's cabinet member, right? Here he is with his family. So he famously took his son.

He worked at the top of one of the towers, I think, for Cantor Fitzgerald. It was top of Tower one or two. But he took the day off to take his son to school. So a lot of people have questions about that. We're not going to go into it. We don't have time to go into it. But these are, this is just a tiny set of the random things that are going through. the feed today. Like I said, that's seen in the Patriot where Gibson is on his knees,

still holding the flag, but unable to go on. He's done for the day. But this horde of people, stampede past him, militia, and regulars. Now they're going to route the British. That's, I think of that today. That's, so if you out there, if you're discouraged and beaten down, and feel like you've done what all you could do for this. Know that others are, others will not let it, the flag be dropped for this. Things people are posting today are amazing. Things I haven't seen in years, this photograph of all these people doomed, trying to get some air.

Some of them would wind up jumping hand in hand with each other, just horrible scenes. The falling, the people. people falling. We haven't wanted to see these. Mad world indeed. This, the world, the famous, this was shown more around the world, the famous falling man, hanging man. Looks like the tarot card. This girl was on flight 93, college student. What happened to the people on the planes for real? Because it's obviously that a plane did not crash into a pit. in shanksville so what happened to these people i don't know last photo of rescue three before they are killed in the collapse of the south tower so rescue five is the one in

satin island trump was literally there i've been getting on my facebook feed today i got i've been getting snarky things from some of my liberal friends about trump said he was there it's like i don't know it's like it's it's really nice they I was I was angry that they were usually of all things they took the anniversary of 9-11 and used it to take pot shots at Trump that's all they could that's that's what they wanted to do with today

it's like you know what you in the chat and all you want to do this is you're just so pathetic you're so pathetic and I'm unfortunately I'm talking about some of kin here who did this. So it's just not, I hate it. You're so pathetic. You couldn't just take one day. But we know, Charlie, they're celebrating Charlie Kirk. So how would we expect them to do anything else with that? Disgusting. People walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. So this happened that day.

I remember this. Oh, I remember this. I didn't have to do this. I didn't have to walk home over the bridge. But I know some people who had to do this just. the long trek home to wherever you had to go to get to home that day. Because the subways were shut down. Of course, the Staten Island Ferry was shut down. Never forget, North and South Tower, forget World Trade Center 7. So can we agree that that was their greatest screw-up,

World Trade Center 7? And I've told my story on Onlylands, my rant that was a couple months ago, about my obsession with World Trade Center 7 that began before 9-11. I was, I catch people's attention with this. I was obsessed with building 7 before 9-11. And that's an absolutely true statement. It meant that I was paying really close attention that day to what was happening. And I paid really close attention to what they said was happening with Building 7. And there's people now that tried to tell me I didn't hear what I heard or didn't see what I saw on television.

And to those people, I can only just give you the middle finger, you know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was excited. I was, it was, I thought it was the brightest spot in the day. So Pentagon, you cannot fool me. The Pentagon, okay, all right, some newspaper, the tanks that were blown up. I tried to find, I clipped this out of the newspaper, bizarrely in July. Brad knows about those tanks. They were, it was like, okay, I'll talk about it, but we're running out of time. I've got to wrap up. This is the, I have a copy of this, too.

somewhere down in the garage. I have a copy of the front page of the New York Times on September 11th, 2001. I do not have the next day. That was just sold out. I walked down to the bodega at the train station. And yeah, there was no finding copies of any of the newspapers in the morning. Everybody wanted to buy a copy of the newspaper the next day that had, you know, the tax on the front. But I did get a copy because I had bought it. I had just bought this, this newspaper, and I was in the donut shop across Amboy Road. And there was a TV, and there was a TV on in the back behind the counter, and somebody said, oh, yeah, they're saying the World Trade Center's been attacked. And I always bought the newspaper because I always did the crossword puzzle. And that was the way I mostly got news.

too. I'd sit there and eat my chocolate donut and coffee and then walk back across Amboy Road past Amundsen Circle back to the house. I was not in the city that day. So I was in, that's what in the city, you would say the city that you mean Manhattan, not New York City, the five, you call that, that's the five boroughs. This is one, I did not see anybody mentioned Willie Brown and how you could still find the article. from the S.F. Gate about Willie Brown, Willie Brown got a warning because he was going to fly from, he was going to fly, mayor of San Francisco and the lover and, and Sugar Daddy of Kamala Harris, how Kamala Harris basically got where she got by being Willie Brown's girl. I mean, there's no, there's no argument about that. But he had said right after the day of 9-11 that he got a, he was called,

and very mysteriously got a warning not to fly the next day. And there's no record. And he says, no, we didn't, FAA, we didn't do anything like that. And the article's still up there, but I didn't see anybody mentioned that on any expost. This is my little loan contribution. Mad World, yes. The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had.

It's a very, it's a heavy line. But in the movie Donnie Darko, I've never seen it, But it features a jet engine falling from the sky. Really heavy song. Okay. Let's, yeah, we're going to raid over to, we're going to raid over into Onlylands in a minute. And then I'm going to jump and be over there.

In fact, let's do this now. So I'm going to play everybody. Thank you for, thank you for coming tonight, everybody. I hope we covered some emotional ground. And any other? dude it's called conspiracy theories it's on youtube Willie Brown spawned Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris Kamala Harris

sorry Casey Martin uncontrolled for hours on several floors because the building sprinkler system lost water supply well Frederick Leathers is peddling the old I'm sorry no no I don't believe you I went into the city right after that

and I went down to Building 7 and I looked at it and I looked at the debris that was left there and it collapsed in its own footprint. I'll tell you that. It did not fall over as it would have had to if it'd been damaged from the side.

I'm sorry. No, nope, can't fool me. No, sorry. You know, I wouldn't mute you. I have to kick you out. Frederick Leathers because you're spamming. If you had just said it once,

if you had just said it once, I'd be okay. I probably would have read it. And you could have had your say. But you can't just do that, can you? Because you know you're freaking wrong. That's why. It's your guilt over your wrongness that makes you spam.

And you know it. All right. I'm going to raid you guys over to Holy Land's now and I'll see you over there. Mad world. idiots you had your say you had your say but then you had to say it 10 times get your own freaking show and say it all you want you're you're you're right up there with the flat earthers to me i bet you are a flat earther good all right some of my audience is flat earthers sorry all right let's just check youtube comments one last time let's see hello

everybody in YouTube. Okay. Let's get on with our raid here. I'm off of the rant. So I've got, I actually have the, I have it queued up. So I'm a fat earther. Matt, deep breast. Yes. Breathe through the nose, deep breath. Good. Good advice. Thank you. Thank you. I will see you in a few minutes on on okay confirm raid uh i don't get the fun i'm a fat earther i like that faith eater dave that's that's good that's good okay if anybody's still listening here i'm just going to end the stream so thank you for joining i'll see you guys next week