The Broski Report with Brittany Broski - 19: Why I Left the Christian Church

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

This week on The Broski Report, Fearless Leader Brittany Broski unveils her recent Call Of Duty Cosplayer discoveries, discusses “Preacher’s Daughter” by Ethel Cain, and discets organized religion. Follow The Broski Report:https://www.linktr.ee/broskireporthttps://www.tiktok.com/@broskireport https://instagram.com/broskireport  Follow Brittany: https://www.tiktok.com/@brittany_broski  https://instagram.com/brittany_broski  https://youtube.com/brittany_broski Follow Royal Court:https://www.tiktok.com/@bbroyalcourthttps://www.instagram.com/royalcourthttps://www.twitter.com/bbroyalcourt  Brought To You By: Tinder Hello Fresh – https://hellofresh.com/50BROSKI with code 50BROSKI  Rocket Money – https://rocketmoney.com/broskireport  SONGS OF THE WEEK: “Sun Bleached Flies” by Ethel Cain  “Family Tree” by Ethel Cain “American Teenager” by Ethel Cain “Ptolemaea” by Ethel Cain “Gibson Girl” by Ethel Cain

Direct from the Brozky Nation headquarters in Los Angeles, California. This is The Brozky Report with your host, Brittany Brozky. Hey guys, welcome back to The Brozky Report. I'm Brittany Brozky. Okay, I'm like, cut the bullshit today. I have so much that's like on my heart. I have so much. I was just sitting in the living room. And I literally was like, I have got to go put these words to like camera.

I need to have a microphone in my face immediately. I think I just smudged my lipstick. No, I didn't. I'm gorgeous and beautiful. Here's, okay, I know there's like a structure to how I do this. I know it's like, I'm going to talk about music. I'm talking about something is on my spirit that I need to like, I'm about to fucking hyperventilate.

Okay, so I'll get into everything later, but let me just get this on my chest really quick. I'm like, going to have a freak out. As some of you may know, I have a favorite, call of duty cosplayer. I have a favorite one, okay? And for the sake of my embarrassment, I'm not going to name him, but core Bro Ski Nation probably knows who it is. He's my favorite.

I don't know if I've ever said he's my favorite, but he is. I have like a little internet crush on him, right? It's like, oh my God, and then he followed me back, and I was like, oh, my God. And then we flirt on live sometimes. I'm obsessed with him. Like, I'm obsessed with him. Well, I'm creeping, right? I'm creeping because I'm a woman and that's what we do.

That's what I do. Okay, it's the end of Barbie summer. I'm going to creep on my masculus call of duty boyfriend crush on TikTok. Okay, because what? I'm, I'm a simple woman. I go to his profile, and I'm looking,

I'm like, gotta find this dude's last name. Like, he's got, men are stupid, bitch, I know he's got his last name somewhere on here.

And so I'm going through his following because I'm fucking psychotic. I find nothing. Also, a TikTok following isn't really indicative of like, you know,

who you are as a person. Well, maybe it is, but not in the sense that I need. So I go on Instagram. Okay, I find his Instagram. It's linked in his bio.

Like, I'm on the Instagram. I'm whatever, going through his following. again. It's only like, you know, a handful of people. I'm like, damn. And it's also all cosplayers. Like he only follows cosplayers. I'm like, fuck. He's also got a good following on Instagram. Like, so for what he does, like solid. And so I'm like, give me something, dude. You don't follow your sister or something on Instagram? Damn, you don't have any tag photos

that your mom posted? Damn. Does he follow his personal account from his cosplay account, whatever? Well, he has a link tree linked in his bio. It's like, click on the link tree, but she's got a Twitter. I go to the Twitter. And tell me why. Tell me why. My TikTok boyfriend is posting nudies on Elon Musk's X. He's posting hog picks on Twitter. My face is hot. He's posting cock and ballpicks on Twitter. And I didn't know. This man is so horny on live, but horny in like a fun flirting way, not in like a, like a he's posting hog online way. I did not expect that. Like he's so like, he's very witty and he's very like self-aware, but also, I don't know, he's a cosplayer, like, he's lay.

And so I was not expecting that. I literally, I did this whole rabbit trail and I found his, which is public like he linked it. I go to his Twitter and oh my God. And it's not just like, oh, I'm showing my abs. It's like he's holding that thing. What tricksy say holding your cock like a dead hamster? That's literally what he would do. Holding your penis like it's a dead hamster is literally like,

I just on the couch, this was probably no more than 10 minutes ago. I was sitting on my couch. I will not show you who it is because I still want him. Okay, I still, baby, it's okay. You can post cockpicks on Twitter. Just come home to me. Baby, you can post hog all day and all night. we have got to keep the lights on, but come home to me.

Okay? That's how I'm feeling in this moment. If you need to post your taint on God's internet, I'm not going to stop you. Okay? Just know who that taint belongs to. Me talking to a straight man like that. I literally, I just, I need actually to feel the touch of a man. This is getting to a point and I'm hyper self-aware of it that's actually ridiculous.

Like, this is getting ridiculous. I need, I'm so touch-starved. I'm gonna start chewing on the fucking desk, dude. I'm gnawing at the iron bars of my enclosure. Let me, I need dick. I have so much pent-up estrogen in my fucking body. I could be the next Virgin Mary. I could be the next, what is it called?

Immaculate Conception. Whatever Virgin Mary did, I could do 10 times better. Okay? And guess what? My baby's gonna pop out with a fucking Call of Duty ghost mask on. I have so much. estrogen in my body, I could deliver like quadruplets. My quadruplets come out and they'll have big foreheads and long blonde extensions. I'm like, guys, stop. I, like, I think that as a generation of

women, a lot of us are stuck in this headspace of like, I need dick badly. I said that like Trump, badly. I need dick badly. The most ever, I need dick badly. The most ever, No one's ever needed dick more than me in this moment. No one's needed cock. Badly. No one's needed dig more badly. More intensely. The Call of Duty cosplayer was posting cock on Twitter.

Cock, not only balls, but also cock. Mine's bigger. Oh my God. I literally, it was the most jarring moment of my life when I pulled up that Twitter account and I saw him holding hog. he was grasping his hog like Squidward in that episode of jellyfishing on SpongeBob when they said firmly grasp it and they put it through his hand. That's literally this dude was holding his penis, his piner, his weenie peter. I just needed to get that off my chest because I need him.

I don't know where he fucking lives. I don't even know his real name. Okay. Actually, maybe I do. Maybe his real name is real name, but I don't know anything else about him. Because my search kind of was halted, right? Any other information that I was seeking to find was I went fucking brain dead the minute I saw hog pics. And he's got like, I think you can, it's not only fans, it's something else that you can pay.

And I was like, I know. First of all, if I sign up for that, that's a new low. That's my rock bottom. Y'all thought I had rock bottom? No, no, no, no. There's always lower. Oh, I can always go lower. buying a college duty

cosplayers fucking Patreon for cockpicks Oh my God! What are we doing? We have lost the plot. This is crazy! This is crazy.

I almost did it and I was like, Brittany, stand up. Get up. And so I walked my ass from the living room to the podcast room and I needed to tell you guys about it. I don't have anything else

I needed to say. If that was kind of it, thank you guys so much for listening. No, okay, we'll get into it. We'll get into the rest. Let me just take a fucking break. Let's take a break. This is time for an ad.

Okay, welcome back. Sorry for the screaming and the yelling and the crying and the pining. I'd like to apologize in general for the amount of pining and yearning that I do on this podcast. It is unrivaled and it is unabashed and it is humiliating to say the absolute least. So, yeah, that's kind of going to be my segue. into Songs of the Week. Okay, Songs of the Week, guys. Got a burp.

Ugh. That one had vomit. Okay. Songs of the week, they're all Ethel Cane songs. Okay? Put Ethel, put my mother up on the screen. That is my mother. Miss Honey!

Miss Honey! That's my mother. Ethel Kane, I know a lot of y'all in the comments have been begging me to do the way that I did a Rosalia episode on her albums and the discography and sort of the narrative that her albums tell. Y'all have been begging me to do that for Hosier's discography and also Ethel Cain.

And I eventually will get to that because I really enjoyed the Rosalia episode. Also, that was kind of a no-brainer for me because I already, like, knew the story for Ethel Cain. Preacher's daughter is such an incredible piece of art. But me talking about this, like I wasn't just talking about the Call of Duty cosplayers dick for 30 minutes. Um, I'm like not really in my head right now. My head is kind of stuck in the living room looking at his penis, the outline of his penis. Okay. Beanus, I'm in the crib in my living room looking at peen.

And it's not my choice. Okay, I was hit with that. I thought I was just going to scroll and find some funny musings from my TikTok crush. I saw hog. Okay, Ethelcane. The three songs of the week, Preacher's daughter. I was talking about preacher's daughter. That is Ethel Cane's album.

And it's inspired by obviously growing up in the church and the traumas that are associated with that. But also the story of Preacher's Daughter, I think, is I'll have to Google it. But it's something about like they fall in love and she eats him or he eats her. And it's some allegory, allegory for how true love is like a cannibalistic act. cannibalistic act. Cannibalistic act. Christ. Let me look it up, actually.

We're going to look it up. debut album Preacher's Daughter. It dissects both the glory and gore of strangers, religious tolls, and generational traumas that Ethel faces. She continuously searches long and hard for slight glimmers of the American dream, but this inevitably leads to her abandonment and gruesome death. Preacher's daughter documents the life of Ethel and her relationship with a lover. In a house in Nebraska, which is a song, a great song, she talks about how she misses her lover and how she's remembering all the times they shared.

In hard times, she talks about an abusive relationship with her dad and also her feelings to him after that. Ptolemae is the climax of the album, with lots of religious themes and haunting voices as if Ethel is hallucinating. The name Ptolemae references the ninth circle in Dante's Inferno, which is for betrayers. Not Preacher's daughter and Unreal on Earth having a coincident, a, a, a, uh, uh, overlapping concept. Not them having an overlapping concept. I knew, but I need to write a thesis on Dante's Inferno. Something about it is really resonating with me, it seems. August Underground is an instrumental and sets the mood for when she dies trying to escape Isaiah.

Who is Isaiah? The song is also a reference to the snuff film August Underground. Oh, it's not snuff film. This album is supposed to summarize her life after her father died 10 years prior to the album. Yes, this is what I was talking about. Ethel Cain's Preacher's Daughter is a concept album, a story told by a girl that exists in an afterlife, reflecting on her former life after she was violently murdered and cannibalized by one of her lovers.

It's a coming-of-age, queer story where religious trauma inflicts the main character and results in her ultimate death. The album opens with a track titled Family Tree intro, an introduction to the album's fifth song entitled Family Tree. It begins with a faint noise of a preacher speaking inaudibly in the background. I just got to chill. By the way, just got to chill. When the drums come into the track, the song rises from the dead, unlike her character.

Kane's second verse reads, Jesus can always reject his father, but he can't escape his mother's blood. Oh my God! The way I've never, like, dived into the lyrics! Jesus can always reject his father, but he can't escape his mother. his mother's blood, symbolizing the idea of generational trauma. Can we take a moment? In this particular case, it's deep-rooted and sort of parallel because it's religion-based

trauma. Following family tree intro is American teenager, which has ended up on Barack Obama's favorite songs of 2022. Crazy. The song gives American honey vibes. It's the reality of being a child in America, and when listening closely to the lyrics, It's so tragic. Yeah, a lot of the lyrics, like the opening ones are the neighbor's son came home in a box,

but he wanted to go. So maybe it was his fault. Like he wanted to serve his country. And he died overseas and got brought home in a box. So it's his fault because he volunteered. Some of my favorite moments are when artists have an upbeat production but upsetting lyrics. It's a sort of cognitive dissonance for the listener. It's cruel and critical of the American dream that sets this song ablaze.

This is the author of this article saying, My favorite track on the album remains the seven-minute-long fifth track family tree solely because Kane's vocals are otherworldly. And I agree. The riffs she does at the end are so, it's stupid, dude. It's stupid how talented she is. And it's that sort of, I don't know if, ew, this is cringy, but, like, maybe you get it. If you, like, really have a passion for music and you love to sing along, or if you've ever made music of your own, you know that there are those certain moments where, like, you'll be ad-libbing or you'll be singing along. And like, you just really feel it.

And it just like, it's a part of the track where in your brain, and I've had this likened to sculptors, sculptors have described the feeling of sculpting something from marble or from clay or something like that where the piece is already in there. I'm just sort of taking away the layers of it. I'm revealing its true form out of this solid hunk of marble, out of this clay, out of whatever. The medium is, I'm just taking away the pieces to reveal the art underneath. Like, I'm not doing the work.

The work's already there. I feel like with music, and especially with Ethel Cane's relationship to riffs and to guitar solos and those sort of sonic elements that are so, it just makes sense. It's like, of course it's there. It was there. She was just finding it. You know, like that song had to be that way.

And she knew that. And it's just her, I can't explain it. It's like, of course that song is that way. Because she is Evel Kaine, and it had to be that. I don't know how to explain it. But there are certain moments. There's pockets on Family Tree where that just, it's how I feel. Where it's like, of course, that is that way.

I don't know. Does that make sense? Whatever. Her work is so alluring. I found it difficult to shift from her music to something else. Felt. Felt that. Like, if I start listening to Ethel Kane, girl, that's almost into all day.

And that's kind of where I've been. Like the top three songs of this week are it's all from preacher's daughter. And I've been listening to her for a while, like a few months, but I don't know, I just go through these waves where I'll really just obsess over an album and then I won't listen to it for months and then I'll come back to it. I feel stuck inside the story of this preacher's daughter. I believe this track is about her struggle with God and the difficulties of finding, of fitting in with her religious community. Felt. Everything will be okay if they just drag her out by the back of her ankles to the church. Here are the lyrics. Take me down to the river and bathe me

clean. Put me on the back of your white horse to ride all the way to the chapel and let you wash all over me. Speak quite beautifully and psychosemantically. She's torn between the image of herself and what her parents believe and expect of her. Felt! Perhaps if she's complacent, they can fix whatever sin has been brought upon her. Towards the end of the track, she's almost pleading and then screaming for help. When the track shifts and the electric guitar comes into the picture, alongside the beat of the drums. You can't help it feel converted into her world. With its haunting mood and the pickup of her vocals,

the song takes you alongside its ride. This is also from the... This article is from The Witt Online, and it's written by Daniela Garofalo. And she's eating so far. I agree with everything she said. The next song, Hard Times. The sound of crickets in the beginning of the track

complements this song beautifully along with her humming. Suddenly, you've transformed into a world in the woods. or a back patio or in a Florida room late at night. To me, it's a heartbreaking story about her father, the preacher. The lyrics, I was too young to know that sometimes good love could be bad. Leave the character reflecting on her relationship with her father and the other men she encountered along the way. Not only did her father let her down, but the other men in her life didn't do her any justice either. When the drums settle in, the mood shifts and it's even more upsetting and heartbreaking, I have chills.

I have chills all over my body. She writes, praying I'd be like you. She believes that if only she could be similar to her father, who seems to have found his way through God, she could be saved and redeemed. But she can't and she won't. Why am I going to cry? I'm not going to cry.

Just started thinking about ghost dick again. I'm not going to cry. Towards the end of the track, we get a repetition of the lyrics. I'm tired of you still tied to me. I'm tired of you still tied to me. She cannot help but wish she didn't have her father's words and ideals in the back of her head or the past trauma he's caused her. She wants to be free of him, but she can't help and look back on all the damage that's

already been done. This line reiterates again the generational trauma that this character undergoes and having no control over the family you're born into. It's a sick joke where the character is trapped in a purgatory she can't escape. Okay, here we go. Here's the Isaiah lore. Because even I was confused about this. Like, I knew it had something to do with a cannibalistic love affair, but,

but in what sense, like literally or metaphorically, and how does that intertwine with the sort of religious sin aspect of it? Okay. According to the lore, the nine-minute-long seventh track, Thurofare, is about a character named Isaiah, who she meets in Texas. In some torn up clothes and a pistol in her pocket, which are the lyrics, they decide to travel through the states together in search of a love that his parents shared.

Instead, they fall for one another. Kane writes, But in these motel rooms, I started to see you differently. because for the first time since I was a child, I could see a man who wasn't angry. I have chills all over my body. This line is highly ironic and emotional because she is convinced

she's found a man that is indifferent to her harsh father. However, he happens to be the lover that murders her at the end of the album. Whenever a harmonica is utilized on a track, it's serious. Kane's use of the harmonica reminds me of Alanis Marcette. When the drums and her vocals pick up,

the track transcends. This nine-minute long song could stand as a story of its own. Her imagery takes you right there alongside the two of them. You have to experience it for yourself. This author Slay, she's eating. Towards the end of the album, Kane gifts us with the two tracks that I've had on repeat last month. Sunbleached flies, banger, and strangers are so beautiful and are on my overarching list of favorite tracks. Sunbleached flies begins to wrap up the album in a sad but hopeful way. Her lyrics, if it's meant to be, then it will be, sing so loudly and heavenly alongside a horn. It may be seen as an overused phrase to the underdeveloped eye, but when it's incorporated into this track, it's transforming. It's kind of like finally accepting your destiny and letting everything go.

What is meant to happen will happen and what has already happened did, and that's okay. As for the track Strangers, I admire the graphic ending of her story. Kane repeats the lyrics, am I making you feel sick? This is during the crescendo of the track. She screams these lyrics and they're so jarring that it frightens you and makes you so upset about the fate of her character. If you're someone who's critical, oh my God, okay. If you're someone who's critical of America, religion, your identity, and the people that seem to shape you into the person you are today, I highly recommend preacher's daughter. Start with the track, Ptolemaia.

If you despise it, if the haunting screams of Ethelcane don't terrify you and leave you wanting more, it's not for you. Talamia the first time I heard it, I was like, What the fuck is this? And then I started to see it on like, like radical feminism, TikToks on TikToks on TikTok. Because there's a line at the end where she's saying, stop, stop, stop, like louder and louder and more ferociously.

And at the end, it's this like blood-curdling, guttural scream of her screaming stop. And then all the music crashes in. And it's like, I can't even. It's that same feeling of like, of course. Of course this piece of art existed. She just had to find it. She just had to make it.

It was there. It was for her. I followed you in and I was with you there. I invited you in twice. I did. You love blood too much, but not like I do. Heard you, saw you, felt you, gave you, need you, love you, love you, love you. What fear a man like you brings upon a woman like me?

Show me your face. Please don't look at me. I can see it in your eyes. He keeps looking at me. Tell me, what have you done? Stop. Stop. Stop.

Make it stop. Stop. Make it stop. I've had enough. Stop. I am the face of love's rage. I am the face of love's rage. Blessed by the,

Blessed be the daughters of Kane, bound to suffering eternal through the sins of their father. Hold on. Pause. Pause. Are you bitches hearing this? Blessed be the daughters of. of Cain. Do you all know the story of Cain and Abel? Let's do a little history.

Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices to God, but God favored Abel's sacrifice instead of Cain's. Cain then murdered Abel, whereupon God punished Cain by condemning him to a life of wandering. Blessed be the daughters of Cain, bound to suffering eternal through the sins of their fathers committed long before their conception. Blessed be their whore mothers, tired and angry, waiting with bated breath in a fairy that will never move again. Blessed be the children, each and everyone,

come to know their God through some senseless act of violence. Blessed be you, girl, promised to me by a man who can only feel hatred and contempt towards you. Oh, my, holy shit. Blessed be you, girl, promised to me by a man who can only feel hatred and contempt towards you. you. I am no good nor evil. Simply I am. And I have come to take what is mine. I was there in the dark when you spilled your first blood. I am here now as you run from me still. Run then, child. You can't

hide from me forever. I have chills all over my fucking body. And I just got my legs waxed today. And if that hair goes back quick, I'm going to be fucking pissed off. Oh my God. Is this, is this written from the perspective of God? Or is she switching perspectives? What fear a man like, you brings upon a woman like me. I am no good nor evil. Simply I am and I have come to take what is mine. I was there in the dark when you spilled your first blood. I am here now as you run from me still. Or is it death? Run then, child. You can't hide it from me forever. Oh, it's death. I've come to take what's mine. It's death. It's her life. They're taking her life. I was there in the dark when you spilled your first blood and I'm here now. Oh my God. People, here's what's really upsetting about this sort

of art. People are ready for it. people are not smart enough to appreciate pieces of work like this, how Ethel Cain's debut album Preacher's Daughter Perfectly Summarizes in both a satirical form and also kind of a realistic form, the trauma that a religious household and that a household blinded by the doctrines of an antiquated religion, how that inhibits you from forming really intimate relations with your family members, how religion can be the wedge in between that, and how even though the Bible gives you a list of rules and a way to live your life and things that you should follow to be a godly person and to walk that righteous path,

how it usually ends up, well, I don't know about usually, but it ends up driving a wedge between you and any person who doesn't agree with you. You know, and I think that that's really fucking sad. And if you choose God or your idea of God over your relationship with your family and your friends and your real life, that's really, really one of the tragedies, I think, of when you say relationship, trauma, that is religious trauma, you know, that it feels like people didn't choose you. They chose God over you. So yeah. I think you need to, a lot of Southern Gothic people, quote unquote, Southern Gothic, of course are going to relate to this more than someone who didn't grow up with religion in their household or maybe are intrigued by the concept, but don't really get it.

You know, you don't understand what it feels like to constantly feel like you are living wrong. that your existence is wrongful. Walking in sin, living in sin, like you should always have something to repent for, or you need to ask for forgiveness, or you're not doing something right, or it's fine you did that, but you know, you need to kind of course correct.

And it's very natural human instincts and desires that we're having to course correct. Doesn't make fucking sense. And I know a lot of that's Catholic guilt too. I'm not saying this is, you know, specific to Southern Christian. or Southern Baptist Christians, I think it's kind of this widespread blanket of guilt. And historically, it makes sense too because the church used to literally like charge.

Oh my God. The church in Europe used to charge people to be cleansed of their sins. Like there's so many things, if you tell someone they're living wrong, but you have a solution where they can live right, you're creating a problem and now you are the sole person that can fix it. And I think that is so manipulative and it is so controlling and it's so dangerous. And it's all the things wrong with specifically American Christianity of it's just this tool to control people. And it's sad because I've been on both sides of it. I've been on my knees crying in the church and just seeking community.

And at times maybe I did feel a sort of divine intervention or a spirit or. something, you know, whatever is the equivalent to the Holy Spirit. Maybe at a certain time in my life, I did feel that. But I look back now and I'm like, was that just the fever and the adrenaline of being in a room with people who are validating you? Being in the room with people who are there for the same purpose, who are seeking the same thing as you. And maybe with all of that energy, we created it in our minds. You know, I remember specifically, and this is very vulnerable, I remember specifically when I would go to these like revivals or vacation Bible school or these sort of week-long excursions with the church with my youth group, I remember faking it. I remember

standing there in the pews or in the chairs that they'd set up in some conference room and there's a live worship band playing music. And the music. And the. music is on purpose, kind of manipulative at its core of it's incredibly emotional. And it's, they use chords that are, and I've heard music theory people talk about this a lot on the internet of they use chords that are specifically, uh, reminiscent of like ballads or very emotional music, you know, that you have this sort of intrinsic emotional response to. And the repetition of the lyrics, the encouragement to, you know, raise your hands to the sky and feel something, for the love of God, like feel something.

When in reality, what you're feeling is interconnectedness with other humans. And maybe there is something spiritual in that, but I don't know. And I don't appreciate being told that it was something different or that it was something but I hadn't reached it yet. Or I hadn't done enough to earn that yet. It's so ass backwards. I remember sitting in my chair or we would all be standing and crying and hands on each other's backs. And, you know, I remember literally faking it, acting like I felt something

and having to sit down or being so overcome with the spirit that I had to lean on someone. I would fake it. I was in eighth grade. I just wanted attention. I wanted to feel loved. I wanted to feel validated. In an environment like the church, it's abundant validation. It's abundant. You just have to do the right things. And so you teach yourself how to do the right things. So also the way to make friends was through the church. And so above all else, I was a kid, I just wanted fucking friends. I wanted to hang out with my friends. Only way to hang out with your friends was, well, Wednesdays and Mondays, they were at church after school. You know, we'd hang out at school, but there's only someone hanging out.

You can do at school. We would go to church. And I made some great friends, but a lot of them are like, where did you end up? 19 and pregnant. We have nothing in common now. I wouldn't talk to you on the street. You know, I just, what a different way of life. And it's so isolating to have left the church and to leave behind that comfort and to leave behind all you've ever known, all your family's taught you.

You lose that connectedness with your family as well. I have a very religious family. And even if we don't talk about it, I know they know. I talk about it online. They have to know that I just not only have I left the church, but I resent how it made me feel about myself about being a woman in my womanhood and my desires that are very natural. and my prerogatives and my life choices and my philosophies and how I feel about gay rights and trans rights and human rights and women's rights and bodily autonomy, the fact that I have such a hard stance on the left side of the issue. And I know this is, it's such a universal thing when you're the black sheep of the family and you're the leftist, you're the liberal and your family's conservative. I mean, this is not, I'm kind of preaching to the choir here, for lack of a better term, but it's, it doesn't make it any less hard. And it doesn't make any less real. It's very isolating to feel that way. And I have elected to no longer bring it up to my family

because they know where I stand on it. And I know where they stand on it. And I don't think either of us are in a mental headspace to discuss it. Because I'm not trying to learn about their opinion. I'm just not. I don't want to hear what you have to say. If it's going to be actively trying to take away another person's human rights, I don't fucking want to hear what you have to say, actually. We can just leave it at that. But the weird side is my family kind of likes to poke, press my buttons. They like to poke the bear. Where it's under this guise, this mask of, well, I just want to learn. I just want to learn why you think that way.

And it's like, I can't explain basic human empathy to you. There's nothing to explain here. There's nothing to learn. If you don't get it, you don't get it. I don't really have much to share. It shouldn't have to affect you personally for you to give a shit about an issue, you know? I'm not trans, but I think trans rights are human rights. I don't understand this disconnect of why do I have to convince you to care?

It's a crazy thing. And you know what I used to get a lot? Well, why do you care so much? Huh? Why don't you care so much? It's this, it's all, it's the religious supremacy interlocked with American individualism. Well, it doesn't affect me. but you operate under this,

the whole idea of Christianity is to be Christ-like, to care more for your brother or your neighbor than you care for yourself, selflessness, and righteousness to walk the path of Jesus Christ. How? How? Logically, and this is why I have a lot of, I lack respect for a lot of American Christians, is because you can't hold those faiths, you can't hold those ideals under your faith and then vote the way you do.

It's hypocritical and it's counterintuitive. And it makes no fucking sense. It just grinds me. It grinds my years. Anyway, there's something to be said on top of all this of I've met some incredible Christians in my life. And people always forget to include this little tidbit at the end of these sort of discussions. I have met people that I don't know how to explain it. I think that they are gifted or they have some form of just selfless positive light and love in them.

That's never ending. And if you want to say that that's the light of God, if you want to say that's the Holy Spirit, you do that. I think that's a beautiful sentiment. But I've seen some really nasty things be done under the guidance, quote unquote, of the Holy Spirit. And I think it's been bastardized and diluted. What that power and what true like miracle healings and things like that. There are things that happen that you can't explain. I don't know if it's divine intervention.

I don't know if it's divine healing. I don't know what the fuck it is. But I have seen things and I have heard of things in my immediate family that are miracles. And I don't really have words to explain it. And I can hold those opinions and recognize those people as individual, incredible people. And you can call them godly, sure, godly people. But I don't know. I don't know why it's so few and far in between.

Usually you meet a hateful Christian. You don't meet a loving Christian. The most loving people I've ever met, some of the most loving people, have been atheists, agnostic atheists, who have rejected the idea of religion entirely and have just submitted themselves to helping out their fellow man.

Because that's all we have. If God, the idea of God helps you sleep at night, power to you. Okay? I envy the faithful. I do because I used to have that faith. I used to have that comfort of what happens after we die, of what happens for me, of what my eternal reward will be, and that was stripped from me at my own hands, you know? I chose to stop believing for all the reasons that I just listed.

But if you resign yourself to the idea that all we actually have on this planet is each other, that's all the the like divine intervention you need that's all of the sort of wake up call open your third eye moment that a lot of Christians get through being saved you know is that all we have in this lifetime material things aside

jobs and money aside all we have is each other and we are so cruel to each other unimaginably cruel And it's just unfortunate that what could be such a beautiful thing, worship? You know, worshipping life and the elements of life and what made my life possible and your life possible. It is a one in a trillion chance that we're here and we're alive at the same time and we like the same things and we get to enjoy nature and we get to enjoy music and good food and laughter. You know, that's not a coincidence.

And it's just unfortunate that we get so distracted. I don't know, I feel fucking preachy. But I always feel that it makes me so emotional. And when I cried over the Barbie movie and all that, it's the same sentiment that it carries me through life. I'm just so happy to be alive. I'm so happy to be alive and making it out of the really hard journey of leaving the faith and unlearning my faith.

It was hard and I hated myself and I hated the church and I hated God and I hated everyone that made me feel like I wasn't doing things right even though inside I was happy. I hated it and I finally got to a place where I wasn't so angry anymore and I wasn't mad at the world

and I forgave God whatever it is, whoever it is. I forgave it. If I can just live the way I want to live, and I can be a voice for people to do the same, it's just so hard not to resent that and to resent it for ruining a lot of years of my childhood that I could have spent differently.

It's hard, and I know I'm not alone in that. I know that leaving the faith is a very personal thing, and it's years and years of beating yourself up, and just trauma. It's trauma. You know, but I know I'm not alone in that. And every time I talk about it online, I get such a supportive response.

Okay, so, sorry for crying. That was unexpected. Let me go from talking about Call of Duty penis to crying over God. And that's kind of going to be the summary of this podcast. Anyway, Ethel Cain. Um, Ethel Cain, this album means a lot to me

and thank you Ethel Cain for making this because I know that it's a concept album and I know that it's obviously, it's got a much more in-depth and sort of dramatic plot to it. But the themes and the motifs that run through the entire piece of work, I just, I can't relate to it more. And it's nice to finally have people talk about this. It's also weird to still, like, I hear Christian music sometimes and I'm like, damn, it's a great song. You know, or it'll be stuck in my head and I'll listen to it sometimes and it just makes me sad.

It makes me cry. Worship music makes me cry. Because I just, I remember the feeling of being in those rooms, of being a part of a larger organism. Like, you're a living organ, all worshiping together and you feel so connected to people. And I can't do that anymore. You know, the closest spiritual thing I feel like that is at a concert, but that's not, you know, it's not worship music. I guess it's worship in a certain sense of, you know, we're all happy to be alive, especially at like Harry shows. But I don't, it's not the same.

And I don't know if I'll ever find that again. And I'm also mourning that, you know, my favorite part of church was the music. And now I just have such, such sad emotions when I hear it. And I love music. My music's part of the reason I'm alive. Like, I am alive to love and listen to and enjoy music. And I can't with that when it's sad. So anyway, go listen to Ptolemaia and Family Tree and Gibson Girl by Ethel Cane and Sunbleech

Flies. Gibson Girl and Family Tree are probably my two favorite songs. But those are going to be my three or four of the week. So what did I say? Sunbleach Flies, Family Tree. Actually, there's five. American teenager. Talamaya and Gibson Girl.

Those are my favorites. Gibson Girl's so sexy too. It's like about the man hating her, but wanting to fuck her. What's that line in that Beyonce song too? The, you hate me because you want me, just misogyny defined. Like, you hate me and you want to kill me

because you want me so bad. How fucked is that? That's kind of the vibe of Gibson Girl is like, he hates her because he loves her so much and he wants her so bad that he kills her. So that's awesome. So yeah. Okay.

So. Stupid. I want to know why does he eat her? Ethel came. Why does he eat her? Okay, this is from Reddit. Isaiah planned on killing Ethel the entire time. I think one reason why he killed her is because Isaiah despised Ethel the whole time, period.

Hayden said the last verse of Ptolemaa are Ethel's darkest fears speaking to her, and that the man referenced in the line, Blessed be you, girl, promised to me by a man who can only feel hatred and contempt towards you is Isaiah. And we know Isaiah being a cannibal is a moment by itself, and he did not plan on eating her. He kills her before he eats her. And he's not really a cannibal by nature. He just has a psychotic break and they have no money.

And he just kind of goes crazy and eats a piece of her before the cops find him. He doesn't like devour her entire body, L.O.L. What the fuck? What is this link from? Oh, it's literally an old. answering it. Okay, so this was a blog post from this time last year, I think. So someone asked, so I've been seeing a lot of people saying that Ethel was eaten alive, but this isn't true, is it? Wasn't she dead before her lover started eating her? I'm just asking because I want to get a better

grip on the timeline of the plot in my mind because it's so intense. I assumed that strangers was from the viewpoint of her ghost looking on her flesh, looking on as her flesh is consumed since August underground and televangelism represent her death. She answers and says, oh no, he kills her before he eats her. And he's not really a cannibal by nature. He just has a psychotic break. Wow. Okay.

Delor, someone else said, I've always perceived it as a personification of the symbolic way that men took everything from her. It was the last thing that could be taken. She was used her whole life by a lot of people. Just another way she had no control over what other people chose for her. Even her final resting place was taken and consumed by a man in her life. Oh, oh my God.

Oh my God. Wow. Okay. So I know I said I was going to do, listen, it's my podcast. I can do a whole other episode on this album again, if that's what y'all want. But I feel like that's kind of the overarching summary.

We can go through the lyrics and kind of what the lyrics mean to me, maybe at a later date, or maybe we skip, because I just kind of did the whole album, save a few songs. We could skip that and I could do just hosier. But I think I'd rather do Ho's ears. I'd rather do Wasteland Baby than Unreal on Earth because I'm still, like I said, spending time with the third album, still working through it. Because Wasteland Baby, I could quote it literally, I don't know, front to back and back to front.

That's one of my favorite albums of all time. I love him. Sorry for crying, guys. Not crying over religious trauma. Unexpected. Guess I needed to get that out. So that's crazy. Oh, I was going to give you an update on Throat of Glass.

Guys, I finished Tower of Dawn, the seventh book that was 700 pages. I finally finished it. And I know I talked a lot of shit. I came onto this streaming platform. I came onto this YouTube channel. And I talked a lot of shit about Tower of Dawn. But you know what? Kale and his little love interest ended up being.

like two of my favorite characters. Actually, I'm lying. They're not my favorite characters. Nezrin and her little love interest are my favorite. I was like, every time they'd go back to Kael and his girl, I was like, all right, this is fine. Like, it's interesting. Like, Ureene is such a great character, like such a great character, especially when you know, because I read on Reddit, because I didn't read the first book. I didn't read The Assassin's Blade. I just kind of read the summary of it. When you realize that there's a link of Yerine, Urein and Alin from the very first book to the seventh book, it's so, it's such a spider's web and it's such a good plot. You know, I had fun reading those parts, but when it would go back

to Nezarin and, um, I won't say the name because if you want to read it, you got to get into it because it's kind of a sleigh and a shock. Um, there are little moments. I was like, finally, she's getting her moment. And it's so well written. And I'm sorry for talking shit on it before because it was Sarah J. Moss. And I know that she like, bitch, she's going to deliver. And so I'm sorry for doubting you, Sarah. I know you're listening. Um, yeah, I finished Tower Dawn. enjoyed it. And honestly, I was so engrossed in the like, Nezrin and her lover and, and Kail and his lover sort of thing that this return back to Alyn and Rowan is like, okay, so, I was about to reveal what happened to her. I was going to be like, okay, so we got to go back

to this. And okay, now I got to remember, because I didn't do the tandem read. So I only, I like finished book six and then I started book seven. I didn't do the back and forth. So I was trying to remember what the fuck happened to her and all these characters. Where are are we in the timeline? But I'm very excited. I posted on Instagram that I finished Howard on and I'm starting Kingdom of Ash. And all of the booktop girls and my DMs were like, get fucking ready. You are not ready.

Like, it's going to tear you apart. And I'm like devastated. I don't want the series to end because I've been reading it for so long. And it's kind of been this cool thing to return back into like, okay, I'm going back into the world of throne of glass. And I'm going back to a darling or wherever. like I know this landscape. And I'm excited to finish it, but I also like, don't make it traumatic.

Like, why can't everyone just live happily ever after? That's so annoying. Why do you have to make people go through trauma and make them die? Hate that. So I'm going to finish Kingdom of Ash, hopefully the next month. Because again, it's like an 800-page book. I'm not complaining, though. It's great.

And then after that, I'm going to start. Stanley and I want to do a book club and read The Monk, which is like a classic novel. It's kind of like a Jane Eyre sort of moment from the like 18th century or 19th century. And we're going to start that together. I think it's a short little novella, but it's like a horror short, I think. So we're going to start that together. We went to Strand Bookstore in New York City, which is one of our favorite places. We like to go there.

and they have such an incredible collection and the tables are organized really nicely and they have cool merch and they have cool what they call it bookmarks so go to Strand if you're ever in New York it's really fun. They have a clearance section too outside don't forget to check that out

but yeah we're going to start the monk or not the monk yeah the monk I lied the monk um okay go watch Royal Court on my YouTube channel okay new guest September 21st and you're gonna the the

love it. Oh my God, that's, when this comes out, that'll be in two days. So, oh my God, guys, enjoy. And rate this podcast five stars for the love of Christ. If you want me to keep doing this, go ahead and read it five stars. Subscribe to the YouTube channel as well. If you're not subscribed to the Broccoli Report, YouTube channel, go do that and turn on post notifications because we have a video go up every Tuesday, team. So go watch that if you're not. And yeah, love you guys. And be good. And sorry for crying. Actually, I'm not sorry for crying. because maybe that was healing for a little bit, for a little, for a few of y'all. And if it wasn't, then I'm sorry for crying.

Okay. Love you. Bye.