The Bulwark Podcast - Wright Thompson: The Ghosts of Mississippi

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Official Mississippi doesn't really want to talk about the murder of Emmett Till—or teach about the murder of Emmett Till. Almost 71 years later, the intentional attempt to erase the crime lives on. On this MLK Day weekend, Wright joins Tim to discuss the role of history and black history in our public consciousness. Meanwhile, Trump and MAGA are busy trying to rewrite the history of modern-day political violence, including the thuggery of ICE agents. Plus, a ranking of the best SEC college towns, a tribute to Bob Weir, the impact of tariffs on farmers—as well as this year's Mardi Gras— and even the White House is starting to get concerned about the optics of Trump's deportation operation. ESPN's Wright Thompson joins Tim Miller for the holiday weekend pod.show notes Wright's book, "The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi"  JVL on Trump stashing America's money in Qatar  Wright's documentary he did with Mickey Hart, "Rhythm Masters"  Marc Caputo on White House concerns about the optics of deportation  Tim's playlist Text BULWARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Message and data rates may apply. For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/THEBULWARK.

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Hey, everybody. It's Tim Mohn from The Bullwork. I'm so excited to bring our guest for today to you here in a minute. Wright Thompson is the guy I've been reading about for a long time. And one of my favorite books the past couple of years is his book, The Barn, about basically the 30-ish square miles around the barn where Emmett Till was murdered. It's an area that he grew up in and still lives in Mississippi. and I thought that would be just a really interesting conversation for the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. And also, as you'll see, there's just a ton of echoes and lessons from that period that I think are resonating right now. He also just tells a wonderful story about his mother that I think is going to give a lot of you some laughter and comfort and steal you to keep getting in those Facebook comments section wars. Stick around for all of that. Right is great.

I wanted to do a quick news thing at the top because there's just so much happening. And so here's like a little brief news popery and Tim's hot takes. And then we'll get you to write. The first thing is Maria Carina Machado went to the White House yesterday to give Donald Trump the medal, her Nobel Peace Prize medal. Got to say, it feels like this is a little too, little too late for Maria Machado. I mean, Donald Trump likes trophies, but things are already moving down the tracks as far as him garnishing, confiscating, stealing the oil from Venezuela and putting it in a bank account and cutter and letting the communist Chevista still run the country. So Donald Trump doesn't really seem to care a lot about, you know, freedom and the other things that Machado was talking about. I think maybe she was hoping that he would care about the trophy so much.

But I think Donald Trump's kind of the person that says, hey, great, thank you. I appreciate the trophy. I'm going to keep it. I'm going to put it in my trophy room and then not do anything for you. That'd be kind of my assessment of Donald Trump's character. I do have to mention that she gave him the medal in this kind of framed. It sort of looked like somebody ran to Michaels, like an hour before the event, and had the metal framed next to, you know, some parchment paper with the president,

Donald Trump and the people of the United States. it's pretty janky. You know, it kind of looks like, you know, the type of thing that you can give out to, you know, kids for their awards at the end of a soccer season. If you're going to try to go the whole way here and make a big deal out of giving the medal, I might have done some better framing.

You know, I use uptown frames here in New Orleans. They would have taken care of, they would have taken care of Marie Machado a lot better on that. It would have looked a plus. The other thing that's worth noting on this is the Norwegian Nobel Committee says, Trump can have the trophy, but once a Nobel Prize is announced, it cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others. The decision is final and stands for all time. A medal can

change owners, but the title of a Nobel Peace Prize laureates cannot. So a little cheeky tweet from the Nobel Committee yesterday, you know, it feels like we're pretty cooked here if we're in this situation. Like, this is the kind of diplomacy that we're doing. And, you know, as I mentioned, Like this all comes in the context of like Donald Trump's war mongering and saber rattling of our own allies in Greenland. But also JVL wrote in his newsletter yesterday, you guys should go check that out. This cutter bank account that I'm mentioning. Trump is continuing to look for ways to create other funding sources inside the executive branch. So it doesn't have to go through Congress.

It's pretty ominous, particularly as we get to this next topic as you look ahead to how he might behave after the mid- terms, presuming the Democrats take control of Congress, and I would assume if the Democrats had any balls, stop funding Donald Trump's various reigns of terror. Over in Minnesota, the behavior of the ICE and CBP agents continued, and the courage of the protesters there continued. We talked about that a lot yesterday, and it's been really kind of inspiring seeing how many people are getting out in the streets of that frigid Minnesota winter to speak out against this. And I think they should be warned by one thing that there's evidence now, even internally among President Trump's team, that they recognize that this is hurting them from a popularity standpoint. And this is out of Axios,

our old friend Mark Caputo, is reporting on this. Private Trump polling showed support for his immigration policies falling. Those results reflected what we've seen in the public polling, but it's interesting to see that they're confirming that with what they're saying on the internals. One of these Trump advisors told Caputo, I wouldn't say he's concerned about the policy. He wants deportations. He wants mass deportations. What he doesn't want is what people are seeing. He doesn't like the way it looks. It looks bad. So he's expressed some discomfort at that. Here's the thing. Trump doesn't. We all went through this in the first term with the juvonka stuff, right? There's always like Trump would do something. The images on the cable news would be bad.

Javanka would go into him and say, you know, this looks bad for you, and then kind of leak to the New York Times that they objected to the unpopular thing that people would say, thank goodness we have Jared and Ivanka in there. And this is kind of a version of that. Like, we haven't seen a lot of that in this term, but that's kind of what's happening. And one of the only things that has saved us from even a worse catastrophe than the living catastrophe we are experiencing is that Trump, you know, he is a TV person, he's a tabloid person. He doesn't like the bad images. He never really has. You know, I think there are other, I think Stephen Miller likes them, right? Like, you can imagine a different type of despot that kind of wants this, you know,

wants to see liberals crying on TV. I think Trump likes out like a little bit up to a point, right? And then he gets, he tacos, you know, he gets on a weak need. And it'll be interesting to kind of see how that plays out here. He doesn't have a lot of options, though, you know, besides like admitting that he's wrong. And this is a big David from point on the tariffs. It's also true about this. Like Trump might not like the images, but well, he doesn't like more is admitting to these wrong.

And like this is what mass deportations look like, right? There's no way to do it in a softer, gentler way. You know, the toothpaste is already out of the tube and all that. And it's hard to imagine him, you know, on his own accord being like, we're going to unmask these people and we're going to get rid of little Hitler, Greg Bevino and all this sort of. It's kind of hard to imagine him doing that. So I'm not sure what he can do to fix, really, the policy change. And I know some of the Democrats can do is push on the gas on this. Anybody who listens to this knows, I'm wrong.

I don't know what the time. It was just yesterday two days ago. I was talking about how wrong I was about Havana syndrome. Happy to admit when I'm wrong. The one thing I've been on since day one of this administration is that these immigration tactics are not popular. And we should fight on that turf. And a lot of Democrats have been hesitant to do so. and increasingly we're seeing more and more who aren't.

I was on a function with some elected Democrats and then candidates last night. And I was pretty encouraged on this point. I was chewing people's ear off on it, as you might imagine. And so increasingly, I think they're coming out of their shell on this. There have been some really great examples of Democrats who are pushing on this. But it does seem like there's still some hesitancy in various places, particularly in the funding fight coming up. You know, Bill Crystal was out yesterday basically saying like, where, is Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith,

senators from Minnesota, you know, making this cornerstone of the fight around the upcoming budget conversations in the Senate. So we'll see how that goes. But I just think that, look, if the White House is admitting,

and basically how these stories come to pass is that there's somebody in the White House that sees the polls, sees it's a disaster, and is leaking about it, so the people talk about it, so hopefully Trump backs off. Like, that's why this story is out.

Like, it's not, you know, it's not like, you know, the polls got left on the print or something at the White House. And Mark Caputo found him. Like, somebody in the White House is unhappy and is trying to get them to back off. And so the fact that that that is happening from inside the House, so speak, is telling. And the Democrats shouldn't let up on it.

One last thing, I do kind of want to laugh. Can we laugh at these fucking little authoritarian thugs? I was a Susan Glass where we were talking about this saying throughout the story is the same, you know, throughout the 1930s, just about how hackish and embarrassing and clownish the authoritarianists were. I kind of feel like we need sort of a segment on that. I don't know. Maybe put in the comments if you have some suggestions on what like a, what a brand for that could be.

Maybe like an award, like a weekly award for the most clownish attempt of authoritarianism. For this week, I want to shout out Trisha McLaughlin. Trisha is the spokesperson for the DHS who has just been kind of unimaginably machine-like in her willingness to defend the worst of the worst actions of this administration. And she's putting herself out there and not caveating it, not even like really spinning it. I mean, Carolyn Levitt, you know, you can tell that when things get ugly, she at least tries to spin it or backtrack or push it off to other people. Like, Trisha is just leaning in and just advancing absurd lies about ICE's actions, defending the most heinous actions. of the ICE officers. And she's been out a lot on Fox over the past week. And this was a clip that

caught my eye and where yesterday, on Hannity, she was talking about the protesters and the danger that is coming from the protesters and how the administration plans to crack down on them. And I got to tell you, you're going to be shocked when you hear what these protesters were doing that is going to demand the full force of the federal government. What other acts of violence have they been committing against these agents? Well, Sean, your viewers can see that that car was driving, pouring cold water on the ground so that it would freeze the ground in front of our federal law enforcement vehicles so that they would potentially slide, crash, and potentially kill them.

That is a federal crime that your viewers are seeing there. That is a federal crime. That is a federal crime in Minnesota, pouring cold water on the ground. that's what the party of freedom wants to tell the citizens this week that if they pour cold water on the ground around an ice agent they might get bullied all right they might get pushed around thrown to the ice have the knee of the agents affixed to their neck they might be detained even if they're a U.S. citizen

that's what these guys have planned so you know because they can't and we've seen the videos I mean there's some pretty funny videos if you haven't seen them of the ice agents walking around Minnesota and just eating shit on the ice, left and right, just like full yard sale like style face planting on the ice. I've seen several of those. You know, these guys aren't trained at all. They certainly might not be trained for winter conditions. A little preview of how the Greenland invasion would look like.

And so because, you know, we're not going to actually do the work to train them and make sure they act to respond. responsibly, when they eat shit on the ice, the administration has to find a boogie ban, and they're going to say that it's, I guess, the Antifa domestic terrorist pouring cold water on the ground, that it's causing them to slip and fall. And who knows, maybe kill themselves, maybe kill themselves, thanks to the cold water spilling. So that's Trisha. I encourage the people out there in Minnesota to be peaceful. And, you know, but nothing wrong with grabbing yourself a subway sandwich and getting a the full value meal and kind of dumping that ice on the ground when you're done with your iced tea. It's just you might want to have a have a hoagie in hand just in case. All right.

Up next is Wright Thompson. I was really just tickled to have him on the pod. His book is wonderful. So do stick around for that. I have a wonderful about this junior day weekend. We will be back on Monday with maybe a slightly abridged version of the podcast with Bill Crystal. but don't worry, we'll be back. There's too much happening to take a day off. So we'll see you all on Monday. Enjoy Wright, Thompson. Peace. He's a senior writer for ESPN. He formerly worked at Kansas City starred at the Times to Cune here in New Orleans. He's the author of several bestselling books, including Pappi Land, which my father-in-law is reading right now. It's about the storied whiskey distillery.

Most recently, he wrote The Barn, the secret history of a murder in Mississippi. It's Wright, Thompson. Welcome to the show, right? How you doing, man? man, I'm great. Thanks so much for having me. Glad to have you. It was good to see at the Sugar Bowl, but wanting to have you on the pod. The barn was, I've been recommending it, baby. It was one of the best books I've read in the last couple years, and I am going to want to get into that with you in depth.

But first, for listeners who aren't like true South super fans, you know, and are like, who the hell is this guy on a politics podcast? Can you give us a little Who's Right Thompson? And what might you have to say about our political moment? Well, it's interesting. I mean, what's interesting to me, I'm from Clarksdale, Mississippi and grew up a family of farmers, which I'm sure we'll get into later because my whole family still farms. My father was a professional political fundraiser among other things.

His trick because he could really code switch because he looked great in a searsucker suit, but was very, very liberal. And so his whole thing was raising money for liberal Democrats in the deep south. And like, that was the thing he could do. I was the only person in my class who didn't vote for Ronald Reagan in the mock elections we had. And I used to ask him, I was like, why do we ever vote for anybody who wins? I was like, where did you get your politics? And he was like, I just hate bullies. You know, I just, I grew up around this stuff in Mississippi.

Your writing has been mostly in sports writing and profiles. And you've done a bunch of just amazing profiles. But I probably had read some of your stuff not kind of noticing the byline. the first time I was like, no, who the fuck wrote this was a series zero free has been called Ghost of Mississippi. And it referenced your dad. So we'll start with that. This is how it started.

When I was five or six, because my dad's political activism in Mississippi, Delta, local white supremacist burned across in our front yard. My parents had a decision to make, wake me or let me sleep. They chose sleep. And you then go into the story of basically the 1962, Ole Miss football team and the exceptionally good football team and that season and how it intersected with. James Meredith desegregating the school. Just talk about that story a little bit, then I have a couple questions for you. Well, I mean, it's called a riot in the way that all racial violence in the South is now referred to as a riot.

It's just a code for strong people. We're killing defenseless people, and we need a new word for it. But basically what happened is the governor of Mississippi had cut a deal to allow James Meredith to enroll. He cut a deal with John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. And then he goes down to the Ole Miss football game that weekend in Jackson. And he got such cheers from the crowd when he talked about, I love Mississippi. I love her customs.

He was talking about segregation. And he got so sort of drunk on the power. So the governor called the Kennedys and said the deal was off. They sent in U.S. Marshals. There were students and non-students who attacked the marshals. Like, guy almost bled out in the main. building. They were a sniper set up on the Confederate statue on campus, shooting at the U.S. Marshals. And finally, they brought in the military police and the 82nd and 101st Airborne,

who, you know, literally fixed bayonets, who cleared the campus. And James Meredith was enrolled. And it's interesting because that's the only undefeated season in Ole Miss football history. And, you know, these things happen simultaneously. And, you know, these things happen simultaneously. and, you know, you go on that campus now and, like, your people died. So what I mean, you talk about ghost of Mississippi and ghost of Ole Miss, I mean, they're everywhere. The competitors said you're still there now and Meredith, too, you know? I mean, look, I don't want to be one of those people who says, like, one of the great myths is that it was all outside agitators. And that's, you know, obviously not true.

But a lot of those people are still alive. A lot of people that were agitating against James Meredith. Yeah. Yeah. It's not that long ago. It's not that long ago. A lot of those people are still alive. I do want to just talk about the football part of that just really quick, though, because your point that says governor, Governor Barnett, is Ross Barnett that's there. And it is kind of crazy to think that like he changed his mind on school integration

based on the response of the crowd at a football game, at a halftime speech at a football game against Kentucky. I mean, like this is an odd thing to say, especially on the political podcast, but I just sort of think, that politics self-select for the worst of us. And like, not the best of us, the absolute worst of us. Our side, their side, your side, my side, they all suck. Like Ross Barnett didn't have any principles. He was kind of like a civil rights pioneer lawyer until he lost an election and decided he was never going to lose an election again.

If you want a great political deep dive, just go on newspapers.com and read Mississippi any governor's election media coverage from the UPI and the AP through the 50s and 60s, because they said crazy shit on the stump. I mean, like, you know, we'll get into the Emmett Till thing, but people forget that there was a incredibly hard-fought primary entirely about Brown versus Board in 1955 in a governor's election. And these people said wild shit from the stump. And that election was on a Tuesday.

and on a Wednesday, Emmett Till and his cousins and friends went to that store and money. And so, like, Mississippi has such a history of hack politicians saying crazy shit to get votes without really understanding the forces they're playing with. The Barnett history is so important, though. Like, the fact that he was a civil rights attorney is important because it's more people like I recognize that like these villains, like most everybody has, you know, know, demons and angels within them, you know? It was like, who was I talked to? It was Blitzer last week. We were talking about Oscar Romero. It was like now, I think a lot of people see him in El Salvador is like, he was like, the inverse story of Barnett, right? He was not like a leftist human rights figure at all. He was an institutionalist, conservative priest who

just kind of rose to the moment. This is kind of, you know, what we learn from from these stories. One of the real problems with the sort of discourse around all this stuff, especially from the American left is that you want everybody to be pure and nobody is pure. We all have all of this in us. I mean, you know, it's not to get like Catholic on you, but it's like, you know. This is a safe space for getting Catholic. Everybody has sinners in them and everybody is trying for their better angels to win. And, you know, I have been kind to people. I've been really mean to people. It was interesting. I watched that George Coney movie, Jake Kelly, the other night, and was just thinking like, you know, shit, I've done some people dirty and have been done dirty.

So that thing you're talking about, like, we have to sort of get to a place where everybody understands that we all have light and dark and are all capable of things and that a mob is always wrong. The mob is what's wrong. This episode is brought to you by IQ Bar, our exclusive snack, hydration and coffee sponsor, our IQ Bar Protein Bars, IQ Mix, IQ Mix, Hydration Mixes, and IQ. Q. Joe mushroom coffees are the delicious low-sugar brain and body fuel you need to win your day. New Year means a clean slate. We've done this few times for some, for most of you all. Okay, not in New Orleans. In New Orleans, it's like Lent means a clean slate. But for most of the country, the New Year means a clean slate. And so it's time to transform that holiday, you know, overeating, that holiday lethargy into fuel and power your day with some IQ bar. The ultimate

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And so something I'd recommend you give a shout as well. And right now, IQ Bar is offering our podcast listeners, 20% off all IQ Bar products, including the ultimate sampler pack, plus free shipping. To get 20% off, text Bullwark to 64,000. Text Bullwork to 64,000. That's Bullwark to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply C-terms for details. I want to talk about the book, The Barn.

the scope of it is really remarkable. So you grew up 23 miles away from the barn where I'm at Till was murdered, as you referenced a couple minutes ago. The book is about basically the 36 square miles around the barn. When I got it, I was kind of like, okay, that's a fun conceit. You know, I'm going to learn about the civil rights and the Delta, which is why I wanted to learn about, which is why I got it. And, you know, then you get to chapter four or something.

All of a sudden you're talking about the Indians. and since 1400 or some shit. Like, I mean, you really go far back to talk about just this little plot of land and how it got us to Emmett Till and how it got us to now. So talk about why he did it like that in the conceit of the book. In 1785, Thomas Jefferson came up with this thing called the Land Ordinance Act. And it sounds simple now, but it dropped a grid over all of America. And it basically turned this sort of wild American frontier essentially into government-backed

securities. It was this huge gold rush. People were buying this land on maps, and they'd never seen any of it. And so the grid numbers became very important. So the grid number where Emmett Till was killed is Township 22 North Range 4 West measured from the Choctaw Meridian. And when you start looking at all of the people in and out of that square of land, and especially all of the money in and out of that square of land, you understand, first of all, that Mississippi has never really been governed for the benefit of Mississippians. I mean, it was a colony of Manchester, Liverpool, and London for a very, very long time until the price of cotton collapsed.

And since then, it's essentially been a ward of the United States government. A lot of the sort of like anti-government stuff that is very much tied into Brown v. Board of Education, it's very much tied into Truman desegregating the Army. There had never been a Confederate flag in an Ole Miss football game. until Truman desegregated the Army in 1948. I mean, that's when it started. And it feels like a lot of the sort of anti-government stuff is in the knowledge that without the federal government, there wouldn't be a state of Mississippi because the state existed for a commodity that no longer really exists like it did. I mean, so I grew up there and I didn't realize that agree to which, you know, cotton was oil until 1933 when DuPont invented nylon and Mississippi was Saudi Arabia.

everybody that's growing up around Mittel Barn is growing up in a declining power center, right? The most irrationally arrogant people in the world are the people in charge of the bottom wrong on a commodity chain because they think they have power, but they have none. If you grew up in the Mississippi Delta, it's like you grew up around a failed experiment and you can't quite figure out what happened here. Like, the degree to which Emmett Till was murdered for his optimism and for trying to test boundaries in a place that felt more and more closed in on itself. I mean, those things aren't unrelated. And so, like, the heartbreaking thing about the history of the book, because you're right, it does start off and you think, is this going to be like an academic exercise? And what it ends up being is a history of the United States of America told in 36 square miles. and the number of times in which one decision going the other way could have averted everything that happened in the state of Mississippi is incredible.

I mean, I love to talk about, was it the panic of 1837? All of the southern states defaulted on all of their bonds and all of their loans from the international capital market. And all the other states paid their money back. But Mississippi didn't. And if you go read all the reasons, they invented culture war reasons for just not. wanting to pay the money back. And the problem, of course, is that after the Civil War, when everything is wrecked and people need to go borrow money to rebuild, Alabama has great credit. So they have a steel industry. And Mississippi has no credit. To the point that in the 1930s, the country of

Monaco was still suing the state of Mississippi trying to get its money back from a century earlier. And so the degree to which Mississippians today are prisoners of political decisions and policy decisions that were made a hundred years before their parents were born. One of the reasons the water doesn't work in Jackson, Mississippi, is that Mississippi didn't pay its bills in 1837. You're going to be in the upper echelon of fellow Mississippians who have read and familiarized yourself with all the stuff even before you started writing the bar. But one of the things you write about is like how you, I think it was after you graduated high

school. I forget if you said high school or college, you didn't know who I'm at until was. right like you hadn't heard the story no i never heard the name tim i mean it's as embarrassing as that is to say it's just the truth he gets killed in this barn 23 miles from your house and the thing that strikes me when i first reading the book i was like oh my god you know i can feel the chill right now just thinking about it as you go to where the barn is which is really close to you where you grew up and it's still there and a dentist lives in the house he's lives there with the barn and he has just this random detritus is in the barn and you know he's got

his grill outside of it it's crazy to think about and when he bought the house he didn't he didn't know that emmottilla died there and that is crazy i don't understand this especially southern modern urge to not want to tell these stories because like if i'm just going to be real blunt i mean like my family was farming not far from there in 1955, I still own that land. So I don't really understand how hearing this history has hurt me in any way. My children are going to own that land. I don't understand the reticence of saying, this is what happened here. It is just a weird line to draw in the sand. I'm not being persecuted. My life is in no way negatively affected by standing up and saying, this is the truth of what happened here.

You know, a child was tortured to death. Why can't we all confront it? I don't understand the cultural insecurity that leads. Maybe this is just being a landowner in Mississippi. You know what I mean? Maybe I'm disconnected from other people's insecurity. But like, I don't understand why anyone would feel so insecure that they wouldn't want this history taught and wouldn't trumpet it.

Because by the way, shit isn't great, but you read the history of 1955. It's a lot better. You know, like, I actually find great comfort in reading about how horrible it was. I just don't understand why people don't want every single person to know that history. I don't get it. It goes against people's nature in a couple of ways. Some of it is embarrassment and shame. Of course.

And people tie themselves to their ancestors. Like, if they did this bad thing, if they looked to the other way when this, you know, little black boy got killed in the bar. And then does that say something? about me or my kids. So there's that. That's one element of it. Another element is just like nostalgia. You want to have positive views. And it wasn't just, it wasn't just his dentist. One of the other parts of the book that was like, what was Archie Manning grew up three miles from this house? Yeah, 100%. And by the way, like, I love nostalgia, even though I know it's dangerous. Yeah. I don't understand why multiple things can't be true at the same time. You know, and like,

my defense of Archie is that because of the nature of his father's suicide that Archie isn't from anywhere, that Archie is from his own pain. And so when he talks with such nostalgia about Drew, I don't think, I really don't. I don't think he's talking about, you know, boy, I wish I lived in Jim Crow, Drew, Mississippi again. I don't think so either. It's just crazy, though, to think that, because you read that, it's like, oh, he lived three miles away from where Emmett Till was killed. And it's like, oh, it was just Mayberry. It's wild. It wasn't Mayberry. Actually, it was like your neighbors, like, kidnapped a little boy and murdered him because of his skin color.

And, you know, you go out to that barn and the thing I think about is, I mean, you've been out in the country, like, sound really carries. Oh, yeah. And there used to be lots of houses out there. This guy named Michael Murphy, who was an architect. He was with a group called Mass Design. They designed the EJI Memorial in Montgomery. But he taught a class at Georgia Tech in the Architecture School. And I was, like, a jurist for, like, their final.

projects because it was all about what to do with the barn. And one person, I wish I could remember her name to give her her flowers, she basically figured out how far screams carried and how far the sound of a gunshot carried. And she found out where every single house was in 195 and then drew two circles basically to indict all the people who could have heard the screaming or heard the gunshot. And like, to me, like, I wish I'd have thought of that in the book, honestly. But I saw that. My first thought was, I had two thoughts. My first thought was fuck. And my second thought was that's really smart.

But the idea that, like, there were a lot of people out there. I mean, you know, the witness is a guy named Willie Reed, you know, you read about it in the book. And the thing that kills me is that Willie Reed, he has to leave Mississippi. He has to walk six miles to get to a highway where he's picked up in the middle of the night in a car, driven by the NACP. The guy driving the car, by the way, was Medgar Evers, drives him to the airport. He flies to Chicago. He changes his name. He works at the Jackson Park Hospital. He marries this woman there together, I think, for 12 years before she finds out that, like, he had this other life. And then in the early 2000s, the FBI calls him and said, we're going to reopen this case. And you're going to have to go through your testimony again. Can you come to Mississippi? And he didn't want to do it, but he did it. And the FBI agent, Dale Killinger, drives him from Tunica, where he, he, was staying over to the barn. And like the thing that really shakes me is, I mean, the Mississippi

Delta wasn't urban, but there were people everywhere because used to have a family every 25 acres. So, you know, if you were farming 10,000 acres, it's 400 families. And so, you know, which is a couple of, 12 to 1,500 people. And now you can farm that land with 18 people. And that's just because the tractors can't turn themselves around. I mean, we're 10 years away from farming that with four people. So Willie Reed shows back up at this barn, or Willie Lewis, that was his new name, he shows up at this barn and the house where he grew up is gone. The house where his brother lived is gone. Every single piece of evidence that he or anyone he ever knew in the first 18 years of his life had ever existed at all, had been completely wiped clean, except that barn was still there. And the FBI agent said it really like, like he lost his balance almost, like just the cause.

weight of it. And like, it's not ancient history, man. You know, when I started doing this, there were probably 12 people left alive who knew Emmett Till, and now they're probably eight. I mean, they're dying in front of me, but there are people who really knew him. Yeah, and Wheeler Parker was another person. Wheeler Parker, who's a Church of God and Christ minister in suburban Chicago, who was Emmett Till's cousin. He was his best friend and next-door neighbor. He rode the train south with him in 55, rode the train home alone. The kid The kidnappers pointed the gun in his face first. He's the last living eyewitness to the kidnapping.

I went with him to the African-American History Museum. They let us in before it opened. And we went down, and he went in and sort of paid his respects at the Emmett Till exhibit. And then he walked out of there, and, like, he couldn't even talk, man. He was just making noises. And when he could finally talk again, the first thing he said was, we can't let people forget. I would love somebody to explain to me what the difference is. I mean, I obviously know what I think.

I don't think there is one. But I would love for someone to try to explain to me what they see is the difference between critical race theory and just black history. What's the difference? It feels like there is very much a war on black history going on. Yeah. Which is a war on American history. And I don't really understand what the problem is with teaching about Emmett Till.

I think that representing the Chris Rufo of the worldview, I think that a lot of these situations, what these people do is, they take a kernel of something that is true, which is they take an example of, you know, overreach in how your critical race theory ties race into everything. Which is absurd, which is, you know, they're not wrong about that. That's absurd. Right. You know, and so then you end up with these things.

You're separating out kids by race again, kind of kind of back into liberal segregation. But then the pernicious part is, I think they take a critique of something that, like, where there is a true, legitimate critique and say, okay. okay, now everything about black history is actually critical race theory. And the only reason they want to teach you this is because they want you to hate yourself and hate your ancestors. And so now we've got to hide all this. And that's where we get into trouble. And what I would say to him is only someone who already hates themselves could be convinced to hate themselves by just learning about some history. I love my family. I used to think

there were good people and bad people around these issues. And now I sort of understand that they're just brave people and cowards. Yeah. And, you know, I have family members who were brave. I have family members who were cowards. We all have brave people and cowards in us. You know, I have two young kids. Before I had kids, I was liable to say a lot crazier shit on the internet than I am now

because, like, I don't want them to have to deal with it at school. Like, I absolutely censor myself. So, like, is that cowardice? Probably. And I think we all have all of those urges within us. I think we get into real trouble when we, you know, our side's good and their side's bad. I was listening to a different interview you did with my buddy Ryan Holiday, who was on the show about a month or two ago. And you gave this anecdote to him that I feel like I would be denying my audience if we did not repeat it.

And that is about your mother. And this question of how, like, of, you know, what is important to share? Where is the line between cowardness and courage and recklessness? And what you were talking about is how she's like a Facebook post. now. I don't know if that's still, this video is, this was from a year ago. Yeah, she does it constantly. And I mean, she's incredibly brave. She's also incredibly smart. So it's fun to watch idiots try to argue with her and just get owned. And that doesn't mean she's right and they're wrong, although I think she is. It just means she's better at this than they are. And they just run chin

first into fucking haymakers. You asked her why she was doing it, though. What did she tell you? And so I asked her one time, I was like, I was a little worried. I was like, everybody knows where you live. And I was like, what are you doing? And she said, I was silent the last time this happened. And I didn't really understand what was going on. And I just told myself that if it ever happened again, I was not going to be silent because silence is complicity. Silence is approval.

The vast silent, self-interested sort of American landscape is why anything bad happens at all. And like, she lived through it in the Mississippi Delta in the 1960s. And I'm really proud of that, honestly. And like, she just refuses to go gently into that good night. One of the reason I loved it is because I think it will resonate with some of our listeners and with me because, you know, this is my job. I got to do this. I'm paid to do this. But sometimes I've got people in my life who are maybe posting a little bit more than is probably healthy.

But at some level, I know it comes from a good place. And so when I was hearing you tell that story about her, it's like for the first time where I was like, there is nobility in Facebook posting, actually. There's some nobility in posting and in having a hundred different Instagram, you know, stories in a row with your favorite reels showing all the different views of what happened to Renee Good in Minnesota. Like there is some nobility in it because the alternative is silence. And we saw and she saw.

what happens when there's silence in the face of this type of evil? And she's a lot braver than I am, frankly. She was in my head when I was thinking about the barn because I just was like, whatever happens, it's just going to be true. This is what happened here, and this is who we are, and this is what we did, and this is why we did it. And, I mean, a lot of that was just watching her just utter fearlessness. All right, y'all, at this point, we can shop for groceries, furniture,

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that had been killed at the barn, you know, that he had just purchased. And so I'm just wondering, you know, what other kind of lessons you had from that. Well, you know, if there's tremendous silence, I went in the Olmas library and the famous look magazine where the killers confessed is in the library, but the confession is torn out. If you go to the Delta State Library in Cleveland, Mississippi, they have the MET look magazine in there, but the confession is torn out. When the FBI got to the courthouse in Tallahatchie County in, 2000, because they were thinking about reopening the case, they went and got the file, the file was

empty. There was it a single trial transcript in any official storage facility, anywhere in the United States, they had to go find one in private hands on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. I mean, the erasure of this started almost immediately. It was incredibly intentional. It was driven by the press offices of Jim Eastlin and John Stennis. I mean, this was a unbelievably sophisticated operation. And so, you know, when you talk about how come the dentist, who I really like, how come he doesn't know, it's because every single authority figure in his life from the time he was born, every coach, every preacher, every scoutmaster, every aunt, every uncle, every person he went hunting with, everybody in his life told him that this had nothing

to do with him. One of the reasons, obviously, that people are so against the teaching of any sort of black history in Mississippi at a certain political persuasion is because Mississippi has been doing critical race theory for a very long time. It's white. Yeah, white. Yeah, let me read you something real quick. I could find this very quickly on my phone. So the textbook that's being taught at my old high school, this is the only mention of

Emmett Till in the entire book. Current day? Current day. This is what's being taught. In 1955, J.P. Coleman, the attorney general from Choctaw County was elected governor in Mississippi's first general election after the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Coleman promised to keep the schools segregated. He proved to be a moderating force during a very difficult time. Just after, oh, just wait. Just after the election, Emmett Till, a young black man

from Chicago allegedly made a pass at a white woman at a rural store. Two men kidnapped him, beat him, killed him, and threw his body in the Tallahatchie River, even though it was a lot more than two. The coverage of the trial and acquittal of his accused murderers who later had admitted their guilt in an article in a national magazine, painted a poor picture of Mississippi and its white citizens. Those are the right answers on the test today. And so... That is fucking insane.

Yeah, dude. Like, this is... Today. That's today. And so... The governor that was doing segregation was a moderating force. Emmett Till was a young man. Yeah.

A young man. What grade would he have been in there? He would have been... Eighth grade or something? Eighth grade? Yeah. He had... By the way, he had just turned 14.

and he was at like that real specific age. Like he liked comic books. His mother at his birthday party, she and her friends were laughing because they overheard him and his friends playing Spin the Bottle. And so he was at that really specific age of young boyhood where you maybe might be sort of interested in kissing a girl, but you still like Spider-Man.

Yeah. That's who he was. And the textbook says he was a young black man. Young black man. Whistled. And yeah. And like, it's just, that's infuriating to me because we hadn't even really started to teach the real history of Mississippi. And so the fact that there's a backlash against the idea that something that isn't happening might one day happen is, it's insane.

And it's embarrassing because it is rooted in like such insecurity that I don't think we as Mississippian should feel. It's just weak sauce. It just makes us look awful. Yeah. Mississippi loves talking about history. Like, you know, who likes talking about history more than like, you know, old Southern dads, you know? Southern dads love talking about history.

Dude, I love it. And so, like, you know, all of it. I tell my daughter, she wants a funny story at bedtime. And so I tell her stories about Bentonia, where my dad grew up and Shelby, where my mom grew up, just about funny stories from their childhood out in the country. And, like, my daughter just looks at me like, these are. fairy tales. And I'm like, every one of these things is true, man. I want to take us to present day because there've been a couple of things you've been

said. It's just been inside, you know, because I have Trump derangement syndrome. Like every second answer, you've said something that made me want to be like, you know, there's some echoes here with Donald Trump, but I've held it for this long of the podcast. And so before we get to Trump, and there are just so many anecdotes that were crazy in the book where you're learning, is there one you just want to share with folks just as you're kind of doing this research where you're like, this could not have possibly been real. And you realize that it was. So the barn was owned by a guy named Leslie Milam, who was J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant's brother.

Who are the killers? For people who have done that? Who were the killers? Yeah. I was stunned to find out that Roy Bryant and this is how Embredd this is. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam have the same mother, have different fathers, but have the same, I believe, paternal grandfathers. Like, this is like wild. Same mother, different fathers, same paternal grandfathers. Wild stuff. So Leslie Milam was never charged. The reason the killers made up this whole fake story in Luke magazine was because they didn't want to indict him or didn't want to like point the finger at him.

And on his deathbed, his wife called their preacher, Mackle and Cleveland, Mississippi, and said Leslie would like to see you. He drives out to this house on this road on the outskirts of. Cleveland, Mississippi, like going toward Dockery, the dead ends into a cotton field. There's no shade. It's just hot. And the preacher goes in, and Leslie Milam is stretched out on a couch in the front room. And he's there because he wants to confess to his preacher that he was one of the people who killed him at Till. And I talked to the preacher just before he died. He was an incredible man. He was in his late, late 90s. So he sat there and he prayed with him. And then he left. And the preacher said he had such a bad taste. in his mouth because he felt like the guy was trying to lawyer his way to heaven. Like it didn't feel sincere, but he's like, it's not my place. I like preachers who understand they're not God. You know what I mean? And like, because it's more and more rare.

And then he drove out to the store and money and just to sort of sit there with himself and think about it. And, you know, I was at what would have been Emmett Till's 80th birthday party that his family and friends through in Chicago and they invited me. And I'm in this room. It's unbelievable. And this old woman stands up, and it was his aunt, and she's tiny and frail and, you know, beautiful. It looks like a bird almost.

And she stands up, and she says in this really soft voice where everybody has to sort of lean in. And she said, I wasn't there the night he died, but I was there the morning he was born. You just realized that, like, yes, this is a crime that happened to a race of people. It is a crime that happened to a country. There's a reason that people don't know this, but whether it's Fruitvale Station or Trayvon Martin or whatever it is, whenever someone has killed, their phone will ring,

and it'll be somebody from the Emmett Till family privately, just being like, we know something about your future that you don't know yet. And so they've done a very good job of that. But it's also a crime that happened to a family, and in many ways it's still happening to them. And so I don't think I've found. fully appreciated that it's stupid in hindsight not to.

There is a storage unit somewhere in Chicago right now that his family keeps paying the monthly bill on. It was Mamie Till's storage unit and in it is Emmett Till's toy train. Man, that's tough. Yeah, it's really something. And like, if you want to know whether you're a monster, ask yourself the question, am I comfortable with that story being told in my children's classroom? room. And if the answer is no, then you need to go to church, man.

Well, that takes a couple of the present day things I want to talk about. And the two, I think, direct elements of the story that are relevant for now is they relate. One, as you alluded to at the top, this murder happens the day after an election. Doesn't seem like that's an accident, given all the rhetoric that you're talking about. No. And we have the situation now where there is political violence happening in the wake of some rhetoric happening from the president. And just particularly using the example of January 6th, I mean,

you have this whole thing repeating over again, right? Where this violence that happens that day and Brian Sicknick dies and Ashley Babett dies for that matter, one of the writers. And, you know, that happens only because of the political rhetoric. And we now have the people in power trying to just rewrite it and change it and erase it. And they've made that change already at the Smithsonian in D.C.

And he's putting it in the White House, you know, where they have little plaques that tell a different story. And like, you know, maybe he's doing it in a more hackneyed way than the lost cause guys did. But it's the same deal. Well, that's just the only relief is that, like, if these folks do what they were doing, this is really dangerous. Yeah. Like, this is so absurd that, like, this isn't going to stick. Like, you know, I mean, the history book I just read you, that's dangerous. Yeah.

Because it's written in a measured way, even though the idea isn't measured. I mean, the political violence is scary. And everybody, everybody in one of those offices should sort of tone it down. Every politician knows how to run a populist campaign. They just have all chosen not to for a very long time. What you don't want to end up is in America where you have 80% of us just trying to raise our kids. And then on both extremes, you have the American versions of the IRA for the next 100 years. You know, and like the political violence, even if we tamp it down, even if we sort of get out of this moment and find some sort of radical center to return to, you know, the lesson from 1955 in Emmett Till is that once unleashed political violence cannot be controlled.

and it has a very, very, very, very, very long tail. And so the scary thing is that what's being unleashed now, even if like our better angels emerge and everybody is like, shit, we got to like all of us. Like, hey, we got we got too crazy. The algorithms ran our lives. We have to like put our sabers down and figure out how to be neighbors again. Something has been unleashed that we have no idea how it's going to ultimately. manifest and it just feels like let's slip the dogs of war. Like something terrible has been unleashed. I'm worried about the apology for political violence across the board. I also, though,

just in this moment, like this specific element, the state element of it is different. I mean, they killed the woman. And maybe this is probably more analogous than a Mitchell situation than January 6th. But you just look at that guy who shot her and he's just such a, excuse my French, he's just a pussy. Like, do you what I mean? Like, you don't think nothing. guys working for Bull Connor were pussies? Of course, no, but of course they were. And, like, that's the thing. Like, I'm just like, this guy, like,

what's this guy going to do in five years? Yeah, I guess that's right. But the rewriting of it, like this idea, and they have out today that he has internal bleeding. And like, you know what I mean? Like the, like, all of that stuff is. But here's the thing. The American people know.

Most people know. That's insane. And like one of the things, the laws are getting more and more. less people who believe them. And so in some ways, it's almost a sign of the sort of the sort of death rattle of something, right? Armier my just being hopeful and naive. I love it. I wasn't expecting you. Yeah, I think you might be a little hopeful and naive. Yeah. I think that there is definitely backlash to it, some. But I think that what we've learned is that there's a lot of people

in the country that have a taste for this kind of thing. I want to excuse it and want to see the people that they don't like suffer, you know? And also, it's not like these ice guys are like X Green Berets or X Delta. No. You know what I mean? Like, it's just a bunch of Fobbits who got a 5-11 tactical fucking gift card and are like, do you what I mean? I'm like, yeah, bro, I could shop at nine line two, you douchebag.

It's just that. It's just cosplay. And so, like, I sort of feel like people see through it, right? That like, this is clearly cosplay. Like, if you want to be in the army, you can go. join the armies. They just flew into Venezuela and like, whatever we think about that, that was a badass shit. Those dudes are legit.

Like, and so they weren't scared of a 37-year-old lady and a Honda pilot. That's what I'm saying. Like, the dudes who flew in blacked out helicopters, green-eyed boys rolling into Venezuela, they aren't shooting 37-year-old mothers in the face. And so, like, I have a fundamental belief that, like, a core American tenant is we don't like bullies, even if we're in this weird thing right now. We don't like cowards. We don't like people who attack women and children. And like these guys are un-American. And I feel like most Americans know it. Nobody is going to call those Delta guys, whether you agree with the mission

or not, no one is going to call them un-American. I think everybody thinks these guys are just un-American. I mean, maybe I'm totally wrong about that. No, look, I hope you're right. It's good. That's why you're on. You know, I get in my little bubble. This is related to the definition of Americanism is really to one other thing I wanted to ask you about. Have you seen this this new invoked thing about being a heritage American? Have you seen this? I don't know what that is. Okay, great. It's better that you don't know. It's this popular thing on the right right now that is emerging on the new right, kind of the younger MAGA folks, where they feel like people that have been here longer deserve more rights, basically. Like heritage Americans are in some ways

in a superior cast. You know, if your people came over on the Mayflower. than people that came over more recently and that that should be honored. That's absurd. My mother's family was on the third boat after the Mayflower literally. And the idea, yeah, and the idea that I should have more rights

than Marco Rubio is insane. Do you know what I mean? Like, that's insane. Don't you think there is something to it. The reason I want to ask you about it is one of the slogans, right, of the South, talking about the Confederacy is heritage, not hate. Oh, Jesus.

That word has, like, power in people. It was interesting to see that echo, like, pop up among, like, young MAGA TPSA types. Well, it's interesting because we are very much, like, we're very, we're all tribal people. The American tribe has been under assault from the right and the left for 30 years. I don't like that what aboutism and this side, that said, but this is true. Both sides have been attacking different fundamental foundational elements of the American tribe for the last 30, 40 years. And they killed the American tribe. and people were very tribal.

And if you don't give them a tribe, they're going to find one. And so some of all this, like the lack of logic through these various groups just feels like people flailing around for tribes in the absence of one. I've never heard of Heritage American, but it's sort of, but it feels like that's just, you know what I mean? It's just people like. I'm sorry that I had to expose you to that. Well, you know, it's also like anybody who is a Heritage American isn't going to call themselves one. You know what I'm saying? I don't know, man.

Like, live and let live, dude. I don't, like, people are crazy. The other thing that's relevant now, mentioned to the start, you're still doing farming. The tariffs are both hurting us personally in different ways. You're, you from a farm perspective, me from a Mardi Gras perspective, the throws, a lot of plastic chotchkes coming from China is the thing that brings the youth joy. You know, outsiders think of Mardi Gras, they think about like bourbon street.

You got to have the ladder. Throw me something, Mr. No, Mardi Gras is families. uptown with a ladder and kids' Christmas morning level joy as they grab stuff that costs 15 cents to make out of the air. And that brings my child and my friend's children's great joy. And it's going to be down this year. The throw, it costs too much. Like you can't, you can't fucking import random bullshit from China anymore because of these terrorists. So the farming and Mardi Gras hurting. Well, it's the two most important things in the world. By the way, like I rode

Rex probably like 15 years ago and spent like $1,200 on throws. I can't imagine what they cost now. I mean, yeah. Three grand at least. That's fucking insane. The tariffs are incredibly bad for farmers. I mean, by the way,

anybody who deals with commodity markets knows that tariffs are terrible on commodity markets. So like any farmer who didn't know this was coming, frankly, should just have to give me their farm. You know, it's like, I can't help you, man. But it's killed us on a couple of levels. One, you know, we have lots of rice right now sitting. in storage that we can't sell at any price.

All of the stuff about China's going to buy American soybeans, that's just a lie. They bought 5% of what they bought last year. Those are the real numbers. And so nobody's buying soybeans. The other thing is that the incredible investments in Brazilian agricultural infrastructure have brought Brazil up to, like, growing industrial crops. So that has driven the price down of cotton, soybeans, rice, and corn. I think the day Obama left office, the three,

industrial-sized cotton crops in the world were China, India, and the United States. Now it's China, India, Brazil, and the United States. And so, like, having all of these massive industrial-sized crops brought online directly because of tariff threats the first time. I mean, it's taco. He always chickens out. But the damage has been done. Like, if we elected an entire new government tomorrow, I mean, I don't know how long it would take to get those markets back. and the prices aren't coming back for a long time. I mean, this is like a real existential threat for the American farmer.

And I don't think that government payments are going to get it done. I mean, your farm buddies going oopsie at this point? Yeah, yeah. A lot of people are going oopsie because, like, I think they just sort of thought that, like, people just want to own the lives and, like, sort of thought that, like, this was all talking, nothing was going to happen. And, like, people are going to lose their family farms. I mean, there are people who aren't going to be able to get at crop loans.

You know, that's coming up pretty soon. And land values are going to go down. And, like, it's really bad. And I don't know how long this is going to take to come back. I mean, somebody's got to go over and, like, try to kiss China's ass to buy these soybeans. I don't really see that happening. So I don't really know what's going to happen except that, like, the American farmer is in existential trouble. and anybody who tells you anything other than that is lying.

Right. We're to end with two audience questions on topics of interest to you. All right. One is on SEC College Towns. Okay. They would like for you to power rank them. They want a power ranking. They want a power ranking of SEC College Towns.

Okay. On a football Saturday. On a football Saturday. You know, don't rank, you know, Baton Rouge in November Wednesday, you know, against Athens. All right, that's not fair. So, all right. The best place to see.

a sporting event in the world, and I have seen them everywhere from India, Pakistan, and India to, you know, whatever, is absolutely Saturday night at Death Valley in Baton Rouge. I mean, like, you know, it kills me to say it, especially now, like, honestly. Yeah, I'm sure. But it's just true, man. You go hang out with big ragu and, you know, get some sauce be called in the parking lot, and you go in or those folks that start drinking at Freds and Mamu at like 830 in the morning, and that place closes at 2.30.

And the grandmas are drinking. Dude, the college kids are drinking in every in every... That's right. The difference is that the grandmas and Tiger Stadium are blackout drunk saying STTDB. Yeah, yeah, yes. Play neck. You know, you got... The grandma's going on somebody's baton.

That's the difference. You got somebody's Baptist grandma on a stripper pole. And you're like, holy shit, you know, like the evil twins got her stripping. But, you know, so I would say game day, I would say Baton Rouge, I would say Oxford. I would say, I mean, this pains me to say it, but Tuscaloosa's great on game day. My favorite SEC College Town is Athens.

You know, I've got to get my panic on. And the least favorite is Starkville. Is it Starkville? Is it? Yeah, it's probably, well, I hate to say that, but yeah, it's probably Starkville. Do we count Columbia? Columbia is okay.

Columbia in Missouri. It's not really a college town. I mean, it's sort of like, is Lexington a college town? Yeah, I guess it is. I like Lexington. Auburn. You want to make Auburn? You just say Auburn is the worst,

so you don't have to hurt your Starkville friends? Auburn's pretty bad. Somebody should do a story about the effect of real estate investment trust on American college towns with Auburn as Ground Zero. Because, like, all of the mom and pop stuff is now like chains. It's all private equity. The town has been really, really changed for the worst. Sucks.

Although there is a graduate hotel there that has like, that's very cool. So we'll see about that. I think Starfield's, You know, restaurant, Tyler. I don't know. I like Starfle. This wasn't my question, though, but if you're doing restaurants, can we have a favorite, do you have a meal, an Oxford meal record for people?

Yeah, my Oxford meal would be a cheeseburger and Handy Andy or a muffaeta up at the bar at the city grocery. Go up there and see those guys. That's a good bar. I mean, it's like one of the great bars in America. This is the last thing. You mentioned your love of panic. And Athens, your love jam bands broadly.

We lost Bob Weir this week. Do you have a Bob Weir story? You've had to have spent some time with him over the years, no? I heard a story recently about him cutting his feet up. He was playing tennis barefoot on mushrooms, which makes me smile, like down in Mexico or somewhere. I think he really fucked his feet up. I spent a little time sort of inside the Thunderdome because I made a documentary with Mickey Hart. And they were all really nice.

And they were like people's grandpaws. And they kept faith with each other in a really beautiful way. I mean, that much money, that many years, that many drugs, that much ego. Like, I love that thing Bruce Springsteen said when he inducted the East Street Band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And he said, to stay together, you have to be accepting of your friend's fallibilities and they of yours. And you hurt each other in big and small ways. And just this idea that these guys made it through this together and never lost faith with each other. That's just the best of humanity.

I mean, in addition to the fact that I love the music and I love going to the shows and all that. But these guys, the fact that they never turned on each other through all of this and suffered all this loss together, that was really moving. And, you know, I remember so clearly when Jerry Garcia died because it felt like the end of youth. And, you know, I think that Bob's death is symbolic too, just in a very different way. because I think those of us who've spent an irrational amount of time and money traveling around the country for, you know, longer than I care to admit, I think that makes us stop and ask questions about our own mortality. And, you know, I got to know his wife a little and, you know, his daughters were always around. I don't think people realize it agree to which the Grateful Dead Enterprise is still very much a mom and pop thing. I mean, Mickey Hart's longtime assistant was introduced to him in like 1967 by Jerry Garcia.

Like, all the same people are there. I mean, this is real mom and pop. And it's very much like a big weird family. And so there are a lot of broken hearts out there right now. I mean, I don't love the grief junkie thing on the internet. You know what I mean? Like, if your name is not. I'm an extra of me with this famous person.

No, by the way, well, that's so funny. My joke was like every motherfucker in the world who ever had their picture with Bob Weir is posted in the last 48 hours. And like, if your name is not Natasha, Monet, or Chloe, or Mickey or Billy, or Bruce Hornsby, or John Mayer, Jeff O'Tiel or Jay, maybe you shut the fuck up, like, and let the family mourn. But, like, you know, in typical, I guess, narcissist journalist fashion, I mean, my whole thoughts were like, what does this say about me, mainly that I'm old?

Yeah. But, like, you know what? He was lovely. Yeah. And his family was lovely. And his wife, they were very nice to me and my girls. And anyway, I always say don't meet your heroes, you know? Yeah.

And like, I'm not entirely sure what I would have done if Mickey Hart and Bob Weir had been just dicks. And so it's a bummer. Yeah. And I really feel for his family because, you know, the guy, the guy was mystic in that way. So there's an awful big Bob Weir-sized hole in the lives of his family now. And they have to figure out now how to live with the absence of him while simultaneously living with his myth and his ghost. And I imagine that grieving process is not going to be easy. And I just have like nothing but love and respect for Natasha Monet and Chloe Weir.

They have some rough months coming and just kind of makes me, anyway, it just makes me sad for them. I want to give him a little audio podcast hug. That's great. I'm glad I asked that. We'll leave it there. That's right, Thompson. He's mystical in his way. The book is called The Barn, Secret History of a Murder, Mississippi.

All right, I mean, next time you're in town, right, brother? All right, man. The board podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.