Bandsplain - Insane Clown Posse with Nathan Rabin

Episode Date: April 8, 2021

Juggalos may be the most cult fanbase of all time. With dedicated Juggalo and author Nathan Rabin, we dive into the beautifully twisted world of the Dark Carnival and the music of their truly fearless leaders, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope of the one and only Insane Clown Posse. Follow Nathan Rabin on Twitter at @nathanrabin and discover his books and podcasts at nathanrabin.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplaine? Welcome to Bandsplane. I'm your host, Yossi Sallek. This is a show where music experts join me to explain the appeal of cult bands using their sincere passion and also a bunch of songs. Today's episode is about The Insane Clown Posse.

If you don't have a traumatic life event that was related to the music, the insane clown posse like myself, here's what the insane clown posse sounds like. Water, fire, air, and dirt, fucking Magnus, how do they work? I'm joined today by journalists, podcaster, and author, Nathan Rabin. Welcome to the show, Nathan. Hi, thank you so much for having me. But more than anything, I am a juggalo. Excuse me, journalist, podcaster, author, an esteemed juggalo, Nathan Rabin.

Juggalo first and foremost, beyond all things. Is that on your LinkedIn? Like, is that, like, one of your titles under your name? I would not be a juggalo if I paid me attention to LinkedIn. Damn, fair. That's a fire take, I have to say. LinkedIn is a scourge on our society, and the juggaloes are right there. And I suspect they're right about a lot of things, but we'll get into that.

Nathan, let's just, let's start from the very beginning. Tell me, tell me about insane compossy. Like, how did this band come into existence? Who are the two members? Give me the juggle history. I'll give you the 401. Sure, Insane Clown Bossy is a horror-corri duo from the lovely, lovely haven of Detroit, Michigan, composed of a pair of high school dropouts, violent Jay and shaggy too dope. They kind of grew up with nothing like so much of us.

But what they had was they had imagination, you know, and they had daydreams. They had fantasies where they could be anything. And what they wanted to be was a hip-hop group. And they weren't terribly gifted at it at the very beginning. One might argue that they never got any damn good at it. I would disagree with you somewhat. But yeah, they're definitely not Rakim. They're definitely not the most poetic lyricist in the history of the world.

But what they kind of realized early on was they had gimmicks, you know. They had shtick. They had kind of these vaudevillian tropes that they could use to entertain people. And one of their tropes was that they realized that when they did a show and they had a hype man who was dressed like a clown, people really, really responded to it. People really liked the clown guy. So they thought, huh, that's interesting. If they liked the clown guy, maybe they would enjoy it if we only ever dress up like wicked clowns. Maybe if that was our entire schick is that we're clowns.

were evil, demonic, satanic clouds, but for good. Sure, sure. See, that is part of the crazy paradox of it was, yeah, for a long time they had this reputation for being the worst of the worst, for being bad influences, for being bad role models, for being these kind of fagin-like figures who would take these scruffy ruffians, these orphans, these moppits, and kind of transform them into an army, a face-painted army. And then another sort of gimmick that they found worked was people enjoyed being sprayed with soda. And again, it was just one of the things where it was just kind of, you know, happy accidents.

And they kind of realized like, oh my God, our cloud loves being sprayed with soda. Our crowd loves it when we dress up like clowns. And then one day, sort of Violent Jay was talking about the early song, The Juggler, which was from one of their first albums. They're just kind of messing around. And he was saying juggler, juggler, juggler, jugglers. Y'all some juggalo's. Y'all my juggolos. Okay.

So what happened was they kind of stumbled into something that made sense. They would dress up like clowns. They would spray cheap soda, Fago is what they spray. That's very, very important because that's very branded. They did not invent Fago. Fago existed before the insane clowns. Oh, let's say some old Jewish. immigrants invented

Fago, of course. But again, this is all very, very important because Fago was the soda of the people. Right. You know, Fago was 69 cents or Fago was 99 cents. It was no snooty-ass Diet Coke. That's what I'm telling you.

No, it was not a... But they branded it again. It was this whole idea of being outsiders, you know, of being pariahs, of being these sort of demented clowns. And what happened was he had a lot of success in part because they were

great at brayette. branding. They're great in marketing. And I've read Violin J's memoir behind the paint, which I believe is 671 pages long. And he wrote it when he was 32. I just want to point out that Violent J has written a book before I wrote a book. And I don't feel good about it personally. I feel like if I, if I played my cards right, I could be ghost writing Violet J's book now. Put it to the universe. Put it to the juggle verse, if you will. I was at the juggler. days last year in Los Angeles before everything fell apart. And oh my God, was that a lot of fun? And yeah, I had my pictures taken. And he was like, I want to hook up with you. I want to work

on something. Like, give me your phone number. And I did. And then I'm just too, too terrified to actually text my hero and say, let's hook up. Let's work on something together. I feel like, yeah, part of what I've done these last 12 years of my life has been articulating the soul and the dignity of juggleonation. And that's why you're the perfect, ideal, exquisitely cast person to be on this show. Oh, thank you. Before we get too deep in,

I think I need to point out that insane clown posse might be the most perfect band for this show because they are a band that everybody has heard of, everybody, my mom, you know? like the cultural absorption is at like almost 100%. But I would go ahead and say that 98% of those people don't know what they sound like. So I think like let's situate people. What's an insane clown posse song to like, let's just set the stage for the episode.

Like this is a quintessential what insane clown posse sounds like song. I have to go with the song Hocus Pocus. Okay. Which is from the Great Melenko, which was released in 1997. That's kind of one of their classic albums. People go absolutely insane when they perform that at shows. And again, a lot of my experience of Vincent's Glom Posse is I've been to seven gatherings of the juggaloes. Wow.

Which is their infamous yearly festival of arts and culture. And yeah, songs like this are kind of designed to be shouted along to with like a thousand other juggalo at like 1.30 in the morning. Awesome. Let's hear Hocus Pocus. You're listening to a music and talk episode. What's that? It's where full songs and talk segments can live together in gorgeous harmony, only on Spotify. Do you dream of making your own music and talk show?

Well, guess what? You two can create one for free with Anchor, Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started today at anchor.fm slash music and talk. That's anchor.com. slash music and talk. Okay, that was hocus pocus. I have a couple of questions. Who, whomst, is the Great Melancho?

The Great Melancho is one of the Joker cards. Okay. And he is a necromancer. You can see his image on a lot of jerseys that people wear at the gathering of the juggalo. He has a very iconic figure. So, yeah, he's sort of a necromancer, and he is an illusionist, and his idea is to deceive people, to jerk them into committing sins, and doing evil things. they go to hell, which is called Hell's Pit, as opposed to going to heaven, which is called

Shangri Law. And, yeah, the last of the Joker, the first pack of Joker's cards, one was called Hell's Pit and talked about what happens when you are bad, you go to hell, and then one talks about you are good, and you go to heaven. So it's a very, very basic concept, but it beats the alternative, which is, you know, preaching evil things, which people think ICP does incorrectly. Also, this is like way more fun. It's interesting.

I was thinking, well, okay, A of all, that song slaps. That's A of all. I need to go on record to say that. And I can't believe that I've denied myself this long of insane clown posse music. It sounds very like I can hear all the influences like West Coast rap. Like you can just really hear so much stuff. But I kept thinking the whole time because we were talking about horrorcore was the grave diggers. Yeah, yeah.

who like, you know, ostensibly pioneered horror core. And I remember reading something, I pulled it back up so I couldn't, I wouldn't butcher it, where they had said that their name came from digging graves of the mentally dead. And that stood for resurrecting the mentally dead from their state of unawareness and ignorance, which is really similar to what you were saying before about like the purpose of the, you know, juggalo music to awaken people out of the slumber of these ill societal ills, racism, you know, bullying what be it. So I was like, that's so interesting. And then it even goes back and it's, I think I'm just really struck not to like nerd out here, but the fact that like,

I don't want to, I don't want to pretend to know what Violent Jay and Shaggy Too Dope do or don't know about, but like, the archetype of the court jester is also that, you know, the point of the court jester, the purpose of the court jester, is to be able to, through shock and awe and humor, uh, tell the king that he's fucking up or to bring harsh truths, you know, to light, but like masqueraded or whatever, delivered through the Trojan horse of humor. And in this case, violent clownery. But it's just very interesting how that's all, you know, an archetype doesn't have to be, they don't have to be aware of the archetype to perpetuate it, which I found very interesting. Oh, definitely. And it's funny that you mention that. I think one influence, they don't necessarily acknowledge that much is

the Beastie Boys. Sure. And you couldn't be a poor kid in the 1980s who left rap music and not care about the Beastie Boys. And I think it's interesting that sort of the Beastie Boys and I and CP are both white rap groups that come from very, very different places. And it felt like with the Beastie boys, there were, I mean, Jesus, you know, Adam, or his dad was a famous playwright. These were, like, very wealthy accomplished. People who came from, like, a very knowledgeable upper class bohemian existence. At ICB, they come from a genuine, like, we're not ironically being poor. Right.

We're not ironically being trashy in low culture. Like, that's who we are. So there's a famous line at a song I think we'll probably talk about a little later called Fuck the World, where they legendarily say, fuck the beast. Beastie Boys and the Dalai Lama. Shout out Tibetan Freedom Concert reference. And again, like if you take that seriously, like, oh my God, how can you possibly say that? Totally.

How could you possibly take that seriously? I mean, again, and when you go to, and I love the Beastie Boys, I think they're one of the greatest groups of all time. I mourn the death of Adam Yowke. But I also scream along to those lines very, very loud because they're hilarious and they're funny. They also speak to like a weird cultural moment where ICP was trying to have crossover success when they're trying to get some respect when they wanted. Like we've made a lot of money. We have a lot of attention.

Like it would be nice if somebody said we weren't the worst group in the world. So they hired a hello nasty, nasty little man. They hired nasty little man who was a PR company to work with them. And apparently they had to drop them because, and again, this is one of those stories. It sounds too crazy to be a true. or false. Allegedly, we'll say it because we don't know. Exactly.

The Beastie Boys, like, they're pretty hurt by that line. Fuck the Beastie Boys of the Dollyland. And again, you're the Beastie Boys? Like in the 1980s, you had like a giant inflatable penis. It's also like who cares what the violent clowns say about you. Exactly. If I do think it's a march of quality. So, so yeah, so it ostensibly, that's what spelled the death of Insane Clown Posse's

relationship with a nasty little man. But again, there are all sorts of. kind of moments in their history where they have a choice of like doing the mainstream thing and achieving success or failing and being independent. And they invariably tend to go towards the failing and being independent. I mean, I got to sort of talking at this. And during how much their career kind of cycles around to stuff that is, you know, timely or is important to that people are talking about. I mean, they were on Disney for a while and they got canceled. People were like, how could you possibly have these violent, depraved, insane people?

Literally, insane people. Like, how can you be the company of Walt Disney and be in bed with insane cloud bossy? So they got dropped by... They were on the Disney record label? The Hollywood, I believe. They were Hollywood. They were on one of Disney's various ones.

Incredible. Gorgeous. So what they did was they got to keep all of the money and they got their masters back and they were able to sell it elsewhere. So every once in a while, Disney does a wonderful thing for somebody by dropping them or cancelling them or deciding to get out of business with them.

So, Nevin, what is, what's, you know, we've talked about how ICP has flirted with the mainstream but hasn't really landed that chick. However, they've, they've grown their devoted fan base, you know, exponentially over the years since the beginning. I mean, arguably, they have a huge fan base. what is it about Insane Cloud Posse that appeals to these fans? And let's start maybe with a song that sort of encapsulates what Insane Cloud Posse offers to the juggalo's. Sure.

Well, I think a lot of it is that it's so much more than just a show, you know, it's so much more than just music. You know, it's this entire world that they've built up. It's this entire theatricality. It's an entire performance aspect. Sure. You know, it's, you know, you don't just go to a show to hear your favorite song. You go to, you get, you escape the mundane nature of everyday life. You know, you escape the banality of everyday life, you know,

and you find these people who are really, really intense for whom this is really, really important to them, you know, for whom this is this incredible sense of escape. And I think a lot of it is juggalo's that I've met, that I've hung out with, that I've partied with at the gathering, a lot of them have really difficult lives. And a lot of them grow up are really, really poor. And a lot of them, you know, the horrors that ICP preaches against, you know, they're not abstractions.

Right. You know, they're, my dad hit me. Totally. You know, they're, you know, I got raped when I was 14 years old. You know, so the idea of, you know, of a god, you know, the idea of morality, the idea that, you know, like I've got a friend who's a juggalo who's brother, just died, you know, and when they play the songs about the afterlife, and when they play the

songs about how, you know, the greatest gathering will be after we all perish. Like, there's something really, really powerful for that. And I think it's this community of outsiders that has kind of built up. And I hate to quote Violent J. But every year at the gathering, they have this seminar. And with the seminars where they just basically talk to juggalo for like two hours. or two and a half hours. And they talk about what they're going to do, what they're not going to do. And they announced that they were going to do

the juggalo march on Washington at the seminar, which was really amazing. I was like, oh my God, this is so incredibly exciting. And I remember one of the things that, like Lange's said that really struck to me was the colder it is outside the circle, the warmer it is inside the circle. That's actually like incredibly poignant.

Yeah, so the more that people judge you, the more that people say that you suck in your lame and you are a fan of the worst ban in the world, And that's the thing to do is I feel like you can't tell the story of, and say, I'm posse, without telling the story of them being made fun of. Totally.

Without them being walking punchlines, without people saying juggaloes are stupid. And I did that, you know, like in my memoir in 2009, like I mentioned, like my brother being a juggalo. And I said, I think that conclusively, you know, settled the argument of nature versus nurture,

firmly on the nurture side. And again, It was an easy joke to make, and it was an easy punchline to make. And I'd like to feel that sort of my books have played some role in kind of getting people to say, like, well, maybe we shouldn't make fun of these people for no reason. Maybe they should be understood. Maybe they're not hurting anybody. Maybe we're just kind of, maybe we're making the world an uglier and more toxic place when we just heap scorn and indivision on these people because they're poor and because they look weird. Right.

You know, and because they have silly names and silly customs. So, yeah, I think that was a big, and I think that's also, I mean, part of the reasons why I responded to it, you know? Like, I grew up poor. My mother abandoned me. I grew up in a group home, you know, so this whole idea of you can have this family among people who like this weird music. I like to take drugs and go party at the gathering every year. Like, I think there's something very, very, you know, nurturing about the whole community and supportive and empathetic. I'm incredibly moved.

And also I have to, I have to point out that I'm like really struck that there's like that I'm realizing that insane clown posse occupies this like really special space in the Venn diagram of like let's say like punk, which was for outsiders, kids that were made fun of, you know. And then on the other side and don't get mad, fish. Because I really, I mean, I don't think fish offers respite to the to the underserved. But I think the appeal of being a part of something and being taken away from the mundane into this magical world and being in like, you know, in this in group is part of, if not the entire, as far as I can tell, appeal of fish. Right, right. So like I just think it's really interesting that like some of that because fish is like incredibly sincere, right. Punk is obviously not incredibly sincere. Right, right, right.

And, like, ICP kind of has both things. Like, it's off-putting and kind of chaotic and weird the way punk used to be isn't anymore. But it's also incredibly sincere and, like, loving and offering this sort of, like, collective experience for people that need it. It just seems really cool. Oh, and you actually can't see it, but I'm wearing a fish hoodie right now. Oh, amazing. And I have been to 46 fish shows. And my book, you don't know me, but you don't like me, was about falling in love.

love with insane clown posse and fish at the exact same time. So you live at the Venn diagram, I'm sure. I do. I am the, and I like to think, again, like my book did pretty well. You know, it sold almost 9,000 copies, which is very good for something that's not written by a huge celebrity. And yeah, I feel like it has, it has, whoop, whoop, indeed, but it has, and I feel like sometimes, you know, there's, like, festival people at the gathering. Right. And I think part of that is just because it's a great party, you know, You know, and it's a great show, and you can look really weird,

and you can hang out and be naked and take crazy drugs. And people aren't going to make fun of you because you're different. They're going to make fun of you because you're a hippie. They're not going to be like, you're an outside. Like, we're all outsiders. Right. You know, so I think there's something very, very inclusive about the gathering and about insane clown posse that, again, I think people from the outside,

they're like, oh, my God, if I go there, like, I'm going to get stabbed. Right. And I'm not going to lie, it used to be a lot more sorted than it is today, the first couple of years that I was at the gathering. one of the fixtures was the drug bridge. Mm-hmm. A drug bridge. Yeah.

And the drug bridge, it's not a metaphorical drug bridge. There's literally a bridge and people would sell you drugs while you were there. And they would literally like they would have bullhorns, you know? And they would have like giant signs and stuff. And it would, it felt very weird and very transgressive. And then there was kind of like an OD. And that was the end of the drug bridge. And I feel like it was also the end of an era.

You know, and now if you go there, there's a lot more families. It's a lot more wholesome. There's a lot more. There's a lot less nudity. You know, like, I remember the first time that I went to the gather. I'm like, my God, nobody here is wearing clothing. Like, that's very weird, you know. But yeah, it's crazy how little time it takes to go from, oh, my God, this is so crazy,

to, oh, my God, this kind of feels like home for some weird reason. Wow. Why don't we hear, I saw that there's a song on your playlist called What Is a Juggalo? It feels like it might be a good time to hear that. And then afterwards, I'd love to talk more. I think the gathering is a super huge piece of the Insang Clown Posse puzzle. And I think we should get more into it. But let's hear What is a Juggalo?

Okay, that was What Is a Jogalo by Insane Clown Posse off the Great Melenko? Nathan, something occurred to me that the insane clown posse has been around since the late 80s, right? They formed. Yeah, very late 90s. Yeah. They originally inner city posse. It occurs to me that there are now doubtless 50 to 60 year old juggaloes. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, my God. We have boomer juggalo. We do. We do indeed. We've got people who've like, yeah, been following them for decades upon decade. I mean, I'm 44 years old. Well, Nathan, tell me how you personally came to juggalo dumb.

Sure, sure, sure. Well, kind of the way that it started was I was dating my now wife, and she was getting her master's in social work from Brown. Okay, I thought you were going to say in juggalo studies. No, no. She's getting her master's in juggalo studies. No, I think I would probably be the professor in juggalo studies. But so she was getting her master's degree in social studies.

work from Brown, and she did not have a television, which is very surreal. When I think about it now, because most of our relationship consists of watching 90-day fiancé. But back then, she didn't have a TV. So what we did was we would just watch the Jersey Shore. That was like the year that it was happening. It was like a big thing. Pour it a little for even though none of them are dead.

The phenomenon is. And then we would watch the video for miracles over and over and over and over again. And we would laugh uproariously and say, ah, ha, ha, this is so funny. Look at those fools. They're so misguided. They're so earnest. They have no idea how silly and ridiculous they seem and how the whole world is laughing at them. Or how magnets were.

Or how many words. Exactly, exactly. So I was looking to write my next book and I wanted to write a book about fish because I just wanted to hang out with my girlfriend and take drugs. And see music and get a book out of it at the very end of it. So I pitched it to my agent and my editor at the time. And they said, we like this idea, but we don't know if there's necessarily a book to be written just about fish. How about if you explore a couple of different subcultures? And I said, sure, why not?

And then the first one that I thought of was insane cloud posse. And it felt like the universe was pushing me to go to the gathering of the juggalo's. So, yeah, so I sold the book. He felt a calling. I felt a call. And again, my original conception of my book was really weird. It was going to be Fish, Insane Clown Posse, the Kid Rock Chillon the Most cruise, and the Jam Cruise. And I went down the Jam Cruise, and I went to the Kid Rack Chil and the Most Cruise.

And they were surreal experiences. But the only thing that I really connected with was Fish and Insane Clown Posse. And the first time that I went to Insane Clown Posse, my first night there was the night of the intramist Tila Tequila incident. Oh, can you, can you, for the list? that don't know about the Chilea tequila incident. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the first night that I was there, one of the, the most unexpected performer at the gathering was Tila Tequila, who,

good God. Now what year is this? This is like 2009. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this was, God, this was like 12 years ago. This is a whole universe away at this point. This is like MySpace has popped off. Tila tequila is a full-fledged celebrity.

Oh, she's got like three different reality shows. She's not known for being a Nazi yet. at this point. Not yet. Thank God. So, yeah, so she was performing, and I guess she was doing, like, dance music. But, yeah, people were very, very not excited about her performance.

And they were angry and they felt like it violated the spirit of the gathering. So there was this kind of like this weird tension the entire evening. Why did they think it violated the spirit of the gathering? I think it's again, I think there was this weird idea that it's underground. And I mean, there was a lot of sexism involved. A lot of ideas like, oh, this sex. a girl is going to like be penetrator, sacred sanctum. So, God, I went and saw Tom Green.

And I remember Tom Green was like three hours late. Everybody is three hours late. You're kind of expected to be three hours late. To the gathering. To the gathering. And he did the show. And yeah, you have to do a different show at every, at the gathering. Then you do anywhere else in part because you're expected to smoke pot.

On stage, there are lots of like 17-year-old shoving bongs into your hands. You don't want to not look cool, bro. So, yeah, it's very interesting. And people are shouting, they're heckling you, but they're heckling you in, like, a positive way. Like, it's very strange. So I saw, and he was great. Like, he did, like, some of the best comedy performances I've ever seen.

I've seen at The Gathering, Bobcat Goldthwaite was absolutely, absolutely brilliant. And then, yeah, and then later on, Tom Green migrated over to Kila Tequila. And an attempt to distract people who were angry by her existence. So people started throwing things. It had just this very weird kind of Altamont vibe sort of happened very, very quickly.

And again, it was one of the more sad and shameful experiences in gathering history. And yeah, at a certain point, she left the stage and people started pursuing her. And it was just a little Cam was supposed to perform immediately afterwards. They had the bad form to make it a ladies night. at the gathering.

It possibly related development. It was the final the final ladies night that they had. And then the next night that I went, I went and saw Gallagher. I was talking about the most traumatic, intense experiences, and it was raining, and I made the mistake of using way too many drugs.

Sure. I just kind of, somebody would shove something into your face and be like, yay, this is awesome. I was kind of like fading in and out of consciousness. How do you do for journalism? Exactly, exactly. when we're really committed to our craft, when I'm really going to the whole gonzo.

So it started to rain and there's a tent, you know, and I'm like, God, it's so weird that nobody is sitting in front of the stage of this Gallagher thing when it's warm there and people aren't being, you know, get out of the rain. Nathan, were you born yesterday? Even I was born yesterday. I know what Gallagher's hold of it is.

And it was one of the worst shows I've ever seen. It was like racist. Oh, no. And I remember just thinking like, oh my goodness, why isn't anybody sitting there in front of the stage? So I move to the front of the stage. And seconds later, I'm being pelted with mustard and pie and watermelon. The watermelon is the classic. And then I'm thinking, I'm the stupid.

I mean, nothing will sober you up quite like being horribly assaulted with either Gallagher's horrible comedy or the various fluids in substances that flogers. that fly from the stage. But yet you left this first initial journalistic approach to the gathering of fans. I did. Well, the thing is, I think originally, I was just fascinated by the scene. It just seemed so crazy and so over the top.

And I mean, I kind of talked about this. Like, I went and I looked at the stuff that I wrote from, like the copious, copious, copious notes. And like, I basically had to throw out my first draft because I'm like, this is too mean. Right. You know? And this is just seeing them.

as outsiders. This thing is like something less than. This is kind of writing from like a place of unmerited superiority. You know, so I kind of realized like I need to go back to the gathering of the chagalas and I need to do it right the next time and I need to listen more and I need to try and be a part of it, you know? And then yeah, then the next year I plan to spend one year writing this crazy book. And at the end of that first year, I had nothing.

Or I had lesson and I had something that like made me sad. It made me feel like I was a bad human being. So I had to go back. And yeah, every year that I went back, my emotional connection to Insang Clone Posse, just got greater and greater and greater. And my wife bailed after the third gathering. You know, she's like, I've been to enough gatherings for this lifetimes and many more.

But I was addicted. It was just so interesting. And yeah, over the course of, you know, the last over a decade at this point, I just came to love the music in addition to the culture. I'm sure that a lot of people probably had a similar experience to you where they went to an insane clown posse show or the gathering out of curiosity and were converted, especially after the song Miracles came out, which I think this is a good time for us to listen to Miracles, which is the only insane clown posse song I had ever heard prior to today. Here is Miracles. All right.

That was Miracles by the Insane Clown Posse. I have a lot of thoughts that I really need to get off my chest. Number one, that is an exact transcript of my mind when I do mushrooms, literally verbatim, except for the part that Shaggy's kids look like him. But all the rest, crows, crows are amazing. Number two, producer Dylan has pointed out that actually we don't know how magnets work. National and Geographic did confirm that. And it's kind of amazing that in their earnest,

and sincerity and fearlessness around sounding stupid. They actually spoke to a huge universal question, which no one understands. And number three, you have given me a gift today because I've had a, you know, I've been one of those people that had an idea of the insane clown posse and what they were, what jugglers were. I did, in fact, lose my virginity to a juggalo. I didn't know he was a juggalo, but I, he, You might have been like a proto-jugolo, pre-jugolo.

I don't really know. But it wasn't a bunk bed. There was an insane clown tapestry. Wow. Of the clown. I must have been the great Molinko now that I look back. And, you know, a lot of that, it was a lot for me to take in at the time. It's been 10 years of therapy.

But, you know, I must have judged him. And meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, here are the insane clowns and their posse and their jugglos and they're gathering, just spreading the beautiful word of acceptance and love. And I have a whole reframing of, you know, my past. Well, I'm glad to hear that. I'm very, very happy to hear that. I can help you a chain closure on weird experiences. This is a big day for me. Sorry, Dad. But this is a huge day, huge day for me. And if you're listening, Daniel, the Jogalo, who I think is a house music DJ in San Francisco. I guess. Googled him maybe two years ago just to check up and I believe he does DJ weddings and stuff.

So that's what I needed to say. I need to get off my chest. Nathan, let's talk more about speaking of mushrooms or psychedelic experiences. What is the drug vibe at the gathering? Because as producer Dylan has pointed out, this is not a song that comes of doing meth. Not that I would know, Catherine Hahn winking emoji, but like what's the vibe? Well, that's the thing is, yeah, before I went to the gathering of the Juggalo's, I was like, oh, they're all about math. Right.

You know, and they're all about those gross, dirty drugs. And what I've discovered in my many, many years of using drugs at the Gatherment of the Jogalo is a lot of its pot, you know, which again, like even, even of those rare instances in which it wasn't legal, you have just got to remember, you know, you go to the gathering in the relationship. just people like carrying giant bags of pot with you. There was not at all unusual. That kind of goes along with being naked. There was one gathering in Oklahoma City. And they're like, oh, let's try to do something more kind of west, more kind of southish. And what happened was that ended up in like, I believe, a theme park.

And the sheriff and the FBI and everybody around are like, oh, my goodness, all of these dangerous drug dealers and gang members are going to be coming into our community. So it was the most ridiculous gathering ever. Here's how ridiculous it was, the wet t-shirt contest. You had to have pasties. Wow. And something specifically designed to illustrate the beauty of the female form. And you weren't allowed to sell drugs there.

Like I'm very lucky that I found somebody on the first day there and like piled up because it felt very, very weird. And like I said before, like it just gets more and more mellow every year. And I feel like when I first are going there, it felt like it was very much kind of like a drug-fueled deenician exercise and extreme hedonism. And over time, it's become more of a family event. It's become more of a hanging out with your pals.

Right. Well, boomer juggalo's. Yeah. Well, they can do it. I think just, you know, insane clown posse, they're, you know, they're in their late 40s, you know. They're approaching 50. Like, they're getting to a certain time in their life.

And, you know, you also, like, you grow. You know, you evolve. you mature. How do they work? Exactly. And you know, you look back. How does that happen? Well, and again, there's a, I think,

passing strange. There's a great line where he talks about how it's crazy. Oh, if you're an artist. So many of your life is made up by decisions you made while you were stoned in a teenager. You know, like that's when you decide who you are, what your voice is going to be, like how you see the world. And then, you know, that's a stoned teenager leads to, you know,

50 years later, somebody who's been on this path their whole life, you know? I don't feel great about that, but okay. But yeah, so again, I feel like it's become less intensely drug-focused, and sort of the drugs have gotten softer, and the drugs have gotten nicer. And yeah, they still hasn't been one in a place where marijuana is legal. They wanted to do one in Colorado. But again, this is, it's the very nitty-gritty of the jugular world. And one of the seminars, Shaggy Tudop was talking about how, you know,

People were upset because they were in Oklahoma City where the cops were everywhere. You couldn't use drugs. You couldn't be naked. It didn't feel right. And he said, literally, we came very, very close to not having a gathering this year because the porta-potty people wouldn't rent us port-a-potties because they heard that, you know, we were insane and we were deranged. We would do awful things to their port-a-potties.

And you cannot have a festival if you do not have a port-a-potties. Accurate. You know? And so that's the crazy thing is like that's how narrow, you know, sort of your margin of air. is like if these shitter people do not lend you their shitters then you can't have your festival than like your whole big

yearly event so every time I go to a festival in Atlanta I'm always made close attention to the porta potties and notice how unlike the gathering they are because yeah again people also think that jugglers are disgusting and gross

because they spend five days hanging out using drugs rolling around in the mud and not taking showers Right. Well, no one thought that about Woodstock. Exactly, exactly, you know. And as with Woodstock, everything falls apart and people have a great time all the same. But I think you sort of talk about sort of the relationship to the mainstream. I think one of the reasons why The Gathering kind of happened was because Insane Con Posse performed at Woodstock 99, you know.

The cursed Woodstock 99. Yeah, with Fred Durson. Again, everything works together. They're a lovely, lovely moment where Incent Clown Posse did a show with Limp Bizkit not too long ago. And they don't do a lot of shows with people, you know, because they've got a big stage show. You can't come on after them unless you want to be, you know, sticking in Fago the entire time. And Shaggy Chudop, God bless him, tried to drop kick Fred Durst on stage. Being a juggalo, he failed. Wow.

So if you look on YouTube, you can see a clip of a Facebook. pay-it-free, shaggy tutel up attempting to drop-kick Fred Durst and failing, which again, it's kind of an epic fail and kind of flare. And I feel like insane clone posse and the gathering are kind of a celebration of failure. You know, there are all these different things that are chanted, one of which is family, another is you fucked up. So somebody screws up, like, for example, trying to kick, drop-kick Fred Durst and not connecting, you chant, you fucked up, you fucked up, you fucked up.

And it's a celebration of screwing up more than it is, you know, a negative take on it. This is truly the gathering of the fail suns. This is the fail sun industrial complex. Hunter Biden should be invited to perform and speak at the gathering of the jugglers. You heard it here first. I have totally another question that is related to kind of. of the vibe of the gathering. How does security work at these things?

Like, is there, like, a large security presence? Is the security sort of instructed to, like, it's like, okay, make sure no violence, but it's okay these things, you know? Like, I'm just so curious. Oh, totally. Well, I'd say for the most part. And again, the gathering has changed substantially over time. I remember the early days that I visited, they were in Cave in Rock, Illinois.

And Cave in Rock, Illinois, somehow was even more primitive and less urbane than its name would suggest. And yeah, there were just, there were a couple of, one of the, one of the security guards was staying at a hotel. And God, I remember, again, this will tell you how the security guards saw the gathering in their roles within it. They would stroll by the drug bridge and complain that the prices were too high. When things are working well, the idea is they're chill. And they're laid back and they're there to keep people from having fist fights. Or are they there to keep people from stabbing each other? Or are they there to keep people from like selling heroin in front of children?

You know, I think very much the idea of like if you want to take your top off, go on ahead. You know, if you want to show people your penis, like that's fine. We just don't want you to be committing major felonies under our eye and under our watch. I think we can all agree that selling heroin in front of children bad. Yeah. Taking a bold stance, that is bad. You should not do it. Yeah, I'm just going to go ahead and go on record and say that that's bad.

Can you tell me a song that reminds you of like one of your fondest gathering memories or maybe a song that you discovered when you heard it live at a gathering? Well, I feel like there are some songs that I would always associate with the gathering of the juggalo's and one of them is the great Melancho. That was the Great Malinko by Insane Clown Posse. I have a, okay, so I have a bit of a question about what's the take on their cultural appropriation if there is any? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. It sounds like, you know, their hip hop, I don't want to say peers because it is pretty different what they're doing, seem very like into it and accepting of it

and sort of, you know, non-judging of it. Oh, I don't know. I mean, like, God, when I went to the, one of my all-time favorite ICP shows was they did Canada days in, or the juggalo days in Canada. Shadow of our Canadian juggalo contingency. Yeah, so I got to see Insane Clown Posse perform in a strip mall.

In Canada, I got to forget which it was. Not even what I like the fancier cities. It was like a very juggled. Low City. No, it was like Saskatchewan or something. Oh, for sure. No offense to Saskatchew. And then the opening acts were two live crew.

Odex and Ice Tea. And Ice Tea was amazing. And he was so funny and so good and so natural. One of things you learn from going to the gathering is that they have surprisingly good taste in music. You know, like Paris performed there. You know, a confrontation camp, which was Chuck D's thing there. So yeah, you see a lot of weird, interesting groups.

And yeah, I think there was an idea. kind of early on, sort of the false impression that people got up in Sting, Clown Posse, was that their schick was racist. Right. Because of the makeup. Right. Well, and Juggalo sounds kind of like Jigaboo,

you know, which is an antiquated thing. Yeah, and then obviously, you know, people putting on face paint, you know. Sure. But again, like, these are high school dropouts. Right. It's far purer.

It's far purer than that. Oh, totally. They don't have a sense of the jazz. You know, they don't understand, like, the history of, like, the chilling circuit, you know, and they've learned a lot, like, Violent Jay likes to read. He's read all of my books. I would join Violent Jay's Book Club. Hell, yeah, hell yeah, about that. But, yeah, and again, like, you listen to their early songs, they're very anti-racist.

They're a very anti-Confederate flag. Right. They're very anti-southern. Or not Southern necessarily. They're very anti-redneck. And one of their songs was called Fuck Your Rebel Flag. And, yeah, in 2016, they burn. a Confederate flag in the ring.

And again, it was one of the things, but it's like, who needs to be told that the Confederacy is bad? A lot of people. Exactly, exactly. A lot of people needed the basic moral lessons that insane clone posse have been dueling out in various forms for, like, the last 30 years.

One of the big sort of stories about them as of way was the FBI, demarcated juggalo's, a loosely organized hybrid gang. Wow. Which has real, you know, legal ramifications. Like, if you're in a custody, battle and you have a jugglo tattoo. You know, your partner can say, hey, that person belongs to a violent gang.

They're a violent gang member. I should get custody. That's horrible. I mean, even like, you know, for parole, all of these things, you know, like if you're associating, like going to the gathering can be considered associating with other gang members. That's absolutely insane. It's ridiculous. I would be remiss to not mention also that the guy I lost my virginity with the insane clown tattoo did go to prison shortly thereafter and did write me letters.

That's really, well, that's not, that's not entirely out of character, necessarily. So what happened was they were like, well, we need to fight on our fans' behalf. And they had a juggalo lawyer. A lobbyist, a jugglest, a jugglest. A jugglest, exactly, exactly. So he said, we're going to do juggalo march on Washington. And all of the juggalo is going to descend upon, we're going to peacefully march.

we're going to express why it is that it is unfair and it is a societal iniquity that we're being mislabeled as gang members and treated and profiled in all of these different ways and I was invited to be a speaker there which was very, very, very exciting and I was actually the final writer

to speak there and I really wish that I had thrown out fuck Donald Trump at the very end but I didn't want to get it to be in trouble I wanted to be like, why did you insert politics at the end of that? But like, this whole thing is political, you know? Did you wear paint?

I won paint once. But you didn't wear it when you gave the speech on March on Washington. I did not. I did not. I did not. I did not have a picture of myself speaking at the juggalo march on Washington. That is crazy. And that's insane.

That is absolutely insane. I like, I've got like a picture of myself from earlier on that day. But I'm like, this was like one of the greatest moments of my life. But that also seems weirdly in keeping with the juggalo tradition. Yes, you can't catch a rainbow in your hand. Well, exactly. You just, you remember them. You remember this amazing experience because you don't have, you know, the physical thing

that would let you know that you were there and that it was utterly, utterly surreal. And yeah, that definitely felt like. And one of the two is like, I'm like, we were counting on juggalo's to behave very, very well. So not piss in the streets, not use drugs and fraud. of everybody to not be obnoxious. And it went beautifully. It went absolutely beautifully. There were no arrests.

There were no incidents. Everybody was just having a good time. And yeah, it was one of the nicest things that I've ever been involved with. That's amazing. You don't necessarily think. And I got to watch ICP perform from the stage, which was really, really cool.

I got to be part of Faygo Armageddon, which is what they call it. When you spray down the crowd. Exactly, exactly. Go Armageddon. Nathan, can you point us to a song that is the most explicit in its morality? Jugglo homies. Like, is it, is it tied, it ties into like politics or? I think the community, you know, I just sort of like, I also do it.

Like, I think it's interesting, like, well, what other groups are popular with insane clown posse? Because, yeah, they had this schism with Twizzid, which was their big protege. Twizzed. Twizzed. Twizz did. Twizzed. T-W-I-Z-T-I-D. And yeah, it's ironic that they did this song. Juggalo homies where they talk about being friends.

And, you know, they'll be friends until the day that they died. And then now they can't perform that song anymore because everybody that they did it with has left their label. Oh, no. But yeah, so it's ironic, you know, that the song Juggalo homies, which is such a lovely song and speaks to the wonderful community of Juggalo's. today sort of has a very bittersweet and melancholy sort of quality to it

because Twizzed hasn't been at the gathering in a very long time and may never return, which is kind of sad. That's a rift, and it does make me sad even though I've only just heard of this person right five seconds ago. All right, well, let's listen to Juggalo Homies. That was Juggalo Homies by Insanglau Ponzi. I'd just like to take this moment to give a show shout out to my juggalo homie, Alice Barlow, if you're listening.

And I just need to tell a quick, beautiful, really, I'm reeling from how meaningful without me even understanding insane composse has been in my life. Let me tell you, Nathan. So early on in quarantine, maybe like in April of last year, I lived alone at the time. I still live alone. And my best friend Alice Barlow was living alone in New York City. So we were like constantly in communication, on FaceTime together. doing puzzles, you know, whatever you do in early quarantine. And then we decided we're like,

let's have like a, let's have a fun game. You know, we're getting a little depressed. And we're like, we can each get each other a cameo. There's a budget and it's a surprise. And whoever gets the best cameo for the other person wins. It's just a contest. So we had a date, like a deadline. I wake up and I'm like so excited for what I got. And I wake up 6 a.m. and I have a message from her. She's like, here's your cameo bitch. And when I tell you that I got her Shacky Too Dope and she got me Violent Jay without any communication without any. And it was so beautiful. And not only that, because we are who we are, we had them roast one another. So I just would love to play you just a quick second of also shout out to Violent Jay, who I believe cameos only need

to be, I don't know, like a minute, a minute and a half. This man, Violent Jay, he didn't care. He went a full three and a half minutes roasting me within an inch of violent. My name is Vinat J. I go by the Duke of the Wicked sometimes because I like to kick wicked shit rhymes, Yossi. I'm one half of the insane clown posse. That's right. How are you doing?

I'm good, thank you. At home with the cat. on your lap. Watch some Gray's Anatomy. Double feature special. I do love Grace Anatomy. Oh, having a late night snack, huh?

I see you've got a cup of tofu yogurt. Oh, nice. With barley biscuits. I love barley biscuits. Tofu yogurt. Aside of bird food. I love it.

This goes on for quite some time. He roasts me about listening to Third Eye Blind and Dave Matthews. He goes, makes fun of my limp, thin indie rock ex-boyfriends. He really goes into it. And the one with Shaggy Joodope is amazing

because in the background, he's like, I guess, in his basement or something and there's just a massive, beautifully shot family photo of like him, no makeup, his wife and his children, but he's like in the makeup screaming about my friend being Australian and how that's stupid. Anyways, just a really, feel a good story for me around the insane clown posse and my juggalo homie alas barlow that's awesome

so that's insane cloud posse bringing people together exactly so i mean like you were saying nathan you know they've suffered all these people making fun of them for so long and i was made fun of them through these cameos which was very beautiful you you make the point like they they're literally clowns Like, that's what they do. They make jokes. They talk about nutsacks going in soup and they, you know, they're clowns. Yeah, I think kind of a song that kind of illustrates that in a beautiful sort of way is fuck the world, which is kind of one of their big anthemic songs where its structure is absolutely brilliant.

It's derived from Cole Porter, which is just a bunch of things saying fuck to. And it just gets so serious. silly and so silly and so ridiculous. And like one of the things they say, uh, fuck Cisco, uh, fuck the Count of Mountie Crisco.

Cisco of Thong Song fame? Yes, a thong fame. And I'm not sure whether it's the Count of Monte Cristo, the book, uh, the council of, or whether it's one of the film adaptations.

Uh, this is also the one where they say, fuck the Beastie Boys and the Dalai Lama. Right. So again, I think it's just a matter of, uh, having anger,

but having, they're in on the joke. Right. You know, I think people are like, oh, we're laughing at insane clone posy and how silly they are. It's like, no, they're trying to make you laugh. They're really goofy. If you're laughing at them, unless it's miracles, chances are they want you to laugh.

You know, they're- Also, guess what, bitch, they're rich now. Well, it's funny. It's funny, one of the, I think the first time I interviewed Violent J, I asked him what, if there was anything that, like, upset him that people thought that was wrong. And he said, I'm upset because, like, the, I think a nightline and, and uh, freaking Bill O'Reilly both did stories on Insane Clown Posse

that were hilarious and very, very wrong. And one of them said that they made $10 million a year. And he said, I am very upset with the idea that people think that I have 10, make $10 million a year and that I'm rich as fuck. Uh, because that's not the case. That's not the case. Oh, and, you know, sort of we talked a lot about sort of the nitty gritty of their world. And they basically said, like, the gathering, if we're lucky, we break even.

Oh, wow. You know, it costs an enormous amount to me. to do. There are all sorts of variables. We don't charge our fans that much money. The gathering is a public service. And this year, like when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, when, we canceled the gathering, rather than risk one juggalo get COVID unnecessarily. Incredible. Well, well, why don't we hear fuck the world? Well, Nathan, we did talk to a kind of a broad mix of fans, um, for this episode. We talked to long-term juggaloes, like, you know, tried and true. And then also some outsiders who went to the gathering and became converts. You know, sort of the intersection of you, actually. Shall we listen to what they had to say? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. I think ICP really stood out

just as being really brave, creative, powerful individuals who seem to have a perspective and told stories that weren't often told and an honesty that wasn't often shared. ICP had a way of speaking that was a way that middle class, lower middle class America talked. When these two face-painted rapping clowns made music about

killing rich kids and bigots and racists and stuff like that, it really kind of spoke to me. Being with and meeting other juggaloes and similar minded people, that's the main base for it all. You go to gathering of the juggalo's like family and that's something that people

say to each other like, hey family, like you greet each other as family. Of all festivals I've ever been to the gathering was the felt the safest, the most welcoming, most inclusive, and the total anarchy was just a bonus on top. It was pretty amazing how I thought consent was very present. Like there's a thing at the gathering at the chagalows where you're like, show me your but old. But you can say no, and they're like, okay, no problem, you're still hot. I think ICP deserves serious props for staying true, for being brave. for weathering the ups and downs of musical journey,

but also just really showing up and never really caring what other people thought, just always wanting to bring the best to the people that love them. All of my closest friends are or war juggalo's at some point. There's nothing to this day that has touched me in a deeper way than the juggalo culture. I'll be down with them until I'm dead and gone. Down with the clowns are you dead in the ground.

Whoop, whoop, do any juggalo is listening and much love. Nathan, wow. I feel like I heard a lot of the sentiments that you've expressed echoed here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that totally. I mean, again, I think what they kind of capture via these very touching remarks is the incredible sincerity sort of at the heart of juggalo culture and insane clown posse. And I felt like that was one of the things that really surprised me when I sort of started exploring it was there's this, I guess, sort of the public perception is that it's so nealistic, you know,

and it's so transgressive, and it's about being the naughtiest most in-your-face person possible. And there's a lot of that there. I think there's an element of freedom that you don't really get anywhere else where these people who have lives that again can be very difficult. I mean, thinking about some of the people that I talked to, and one of the guys was talking about how he worked in like a chicken killing floor. So like for 51 weeks out of the year, his life was all about, you know, killing chickens and then washing their bloods.

from there. And then for one week, he gets to dress up all crazy and be his truest, purest self and just live, you know, and just enjoy every moment of this, you know, sort of becadal. So, yeah, I think they definitely capture the sense of belonging, the sense of acceptance that comes there, the sense of identity, the sense of escape. Like, there are all of these things that Insane Clown Posse provides for its fans that juggalos provide for each other. you don't find in, for example, the fandom of Michael Bolton. Or at Coachella, as we heard, which is not a place where people come together to live in glorious harmony. No, and that's just, I mean, God, I worked for the pitchfork for the two years that I didn't go to the gathering.

The old pitchfork. Well, and I remember, you know, like the pitchfork and the AV Club Festival. So it would just be a bunch of people staring and glaring at music while drinking overpriced spear. And I was saying, like, again, there's just this distance. There's this ironic distance. It's like, entertain me performers. Whereas, you know, with the insane clown posse in the gather, with the juggalo's, they're dancing, they're celebrating, they're enjoying every moment of it. And again, nobody is cool and nobody is hip. And that's incredibly liberating and incredibly free, especially for people like me who also were never hip and were never cool and appreciate, you know, sort of a world where

that not only is not a bad thing, but makes you more like everybody else. It's a world of outsiders, all gathered together. I'm touch and also would love to go. It's a pretty special place. And it's been two years. The next gathering will be something special, I'd like to think. I will surely be talking about this in therapy this week and for several weeks to come. I think we're coming to the end now of our juggalo journey,

of our own personal dark carnival. And I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show and really teaching me a lot about a band that I think I didn't have any inkling how deep and I don't know. Like I'm just so touched by, like, this is really what I think music is supposed to be in some senses and like what fandom is supposed to be like it's like a give and take and you're getting something from the artist and a feeling of belonging that's like what always drew me in to music as a teenager was like hearing something that made me feel less alone and made me feel like I belong to something and I I guess I just had no idea that this was such the core tenet of insane composse so thank you so much for such an intelligent and like illuminating conversation well thank you it's a pleasure being a to talk about Insang Clan Posse. And it brought back a lot of good memories.

So thank you for having me on. Thank you for, again, having an open mind and a willingness to explore all of the different sides. And not just the public perception, which for a long time was not just unfair, but brutally, brutally, brutally unfair. So it's nice to know that the world is kind of coming around a little bit and coming to understand what makes Insane Clown Posse and Juggalo special. and not the worst people in band in the world, as previously thought. I'm certainly down with the clown now. Nathan, why don't you, I know there's a song that you wanted to wrap this whole thing up with that really kind of does the work of culminating the juggalo journey in song.

Can you talk a little bit about that song before we play it as the last song of the episode? Sure, I think I know what song you're referring to, and it is a song called, Lion Veiling, which was a very, very crucial, very important song within the mythology of Insane Clown Posse. It was a song where they gave you the message of all of the Joker cards and all of the dark carnival and everything that had been leading up to that magical, magical moment. And that message was be good people. Follow God. Whatever your higher spirit is, pursue it. Try to be the best possible person that you can be. And if you're a good person, you will go to heaven or Shangri-La.

And if you're a bad person, if you're racist, if you're a rapist, if you beat your children, then you're going to Hell's Pit or Hell. So yeah, I think people where they were kind of, I don't know, surprised to see such a rigorous endorsement of Judeo-Christian mythology from a group that, again, had a reputation for being very transgressive, very naughty,

being on the side of evil and not good. But I think, again, it speaks to the incredible sincerity. at the heart of insane clown posse, at the heart of the Dark Carnival, at the heart of juggaloes. And the fact that, again, it's about emotion, you know, and about being real and being yourself and, you know,

being a good juggalo. And being a good juggalo means being good to other juggalo's, taking responsibility and being a good citizen of juggalo nation. And that's something that I try to do in my everyday life and in my career is to be a good citizen of juggalo nation.

I think this song, which is, Jesus, something like seven minutes long, it embodies so much. You know, sort of in microcosm, you can see the macrocosm. It's one song from which you can see their whole ideology. So it's a special song. If you're, you know, willing to listen with open ears

and in its own way, it's kind of like miracles as well, because it's about taking a step back and saying, let's appreciate the wonder of being alive. Again, thank you so much. Nathan. Everybody, please go pick up Nathan's books. You can use your Google, Nathan Rabin. He has many wonderful books available for sale, namely, you don't know me, but you don't like me, Fish Insane Cloud Posse and My Misadventures with two of music's most aligned bands, is it? Tribes. Most maligned tribes. My books are possible to pronounce the entire phrase for it. But I also have

seven days in Ohio, which is the Kindle that I wrote about going to the gathering and the Republican National Convention in the same incredible weekend and reconnecting with my brother. So yeah, you can totally check that out and actually get paid for it, like my books, Ms. Grimner. And then, yeah, I've got, you know, I've got a backer kit out now for my upcoming book, which is called The Joy of Trash. It's like a collection of sort of the greatest hits from my website, Nathan Evans Happy Place. Amazing.

and get Nathan's books. Thank you again, Nathan. Whop, whoop. And here is, here is thy unveiling. Join us next week on Bandsplain for more. Hello, Alice. Hey, hey, hey, hey, I'm Shaggy Tudow

of the insane clown posse. And I heard you also are from Australia. You're Australian. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, fuck the fuck off. How's? I just wanted to take this special moment to say, happy birthday.

to my best friend, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oie, Oie, Oie, Oie, Oie, Alice Barlow. This episode is your birthday gift. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe to more episodes of Bansplain, only on Spotify. Uttmost gratitude to our expert juggalo in residence, Nathan Rabin. You can follow him on Twitter at Nathan Rabin, R-A-B-I-N. Go check out his books, The Joy of Trash, and You Don't Know Me, but You Don't Like Me. Fish, Insane Clown Posse, and My Misadventures with two of music's most maligned tribes. A big whoop-whoop to our ICP fans for sharing their jug of love.

Thank you, Olivia B, Megan Amberson, Scotty D, Kyle Blackburn, and Derek Thomas. Fansplain is a Spotify original series produced in partnership with Spoke Media. This episode was produced and edited by Cody Hoffmuckle, with help from Sherita Linsoles, Dylan Rupert, Carson McCain, and Hebron Mendez. Mixing and sound design by Will Short. Our executive producers for spoke media are Alia Tavacoleon, Keith Reynolds, and Janiel Kastner.

Our executive producers for Spotify are Liz Gaetly, Gina Dalvak, and me, Yossi Sallek. Our catchy and gorgeous theme song was composed by Bethany Costantino and Jennifer Clavin, and graciously recorded by Carlos Delagarza. Special thanks to Felipe Gihermino, Leah Edwards, David McDonough, Dana Meyerson, and, as always, the framed drawing.

of Dave Matthews I got on Deepop, who spirit guides this entire show.