The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Surviving America: 07 Nostalgia

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

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Society in every state is a blessing. But government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil. The future has already arrived. I'm going to go. 90s was the last great decade. It all turns into a blur after that. We didn't realize how good we had it. Anyone else remember playing little games in the street in the early evening with your cousins during birthday parties or holiday gatherings? Maybe playing catch with the football or baseball. Now we've all grown up and apart from one another unknowingly.

These houses definitely take me back to the 90s, especially since they look like they're on the East Coast. And I lived in New York in the 90s. It was such an amazing time. I still remember trick-or-treating there, grinding Mario Kart and Ocarina of Time on Nintendo 64 and watching movies on VHS. Gosh, those were the days. I was born in 93, October. What I miss most.

Life before social media. Life before widespread internet. Windows 98 and Space Cadet Pinball. Endless summers of childhood that seemingly lasted for years. Any time before 9-11. Friday night blockbuster rentals. Damn, I miss the smell of blockbuster. 31 now.

Life before social media and widespread access to the Matrix seems happier, simpler, and far more relaxing. I was only six when people partied like it was 1999. Sadly. Joined the USMC to fight in a war I grew up with. And now the world is losing its damn mind. Nostalgia.

It's a hard realization that you had debatably the most perfect childhood in human history and you can't give your kids the same thing because the world doesn't work that way anymore. Well done. I graduated high school in 02. I'm fortunate to still get together with several friends that have grown up together. Last Saturday,

four of us got together around a fire table, the same place we did 30 years ago. Hope everyone out there has a great fall season this year. Nostalgia, PBN family. Welcome into Surviving America. The topic of the day is nostalgia. There's a million things we could talk about, complain about. But this could be a very different show.

Because I'm always and have always given you what's at the peak of my interest. And for some reason lately I've been called to this thing, largely due to the people's comments on the Internet. You know, you feel that nostalgic feeling. What I just read to you was a collection of comments under a simple video made by Eternal Past. 1993 fall. A vapor wave of true nostalgia. Synthwave chill wave. And it is literally like a VHS, probably an AI generated house.

With a VHS overlay and music that sounded very similar to what we just played. Okay. The track I just played was called Autumn Music. And I'd love to give the person credit, but I don't think that their name is in it. I want to say that the person that created that was called Music for Videos. But it's a 21-minute long... Diddy. Can I say Diddy anymore? You know, I've been a victim of nostalgia since the first Spider-Man.

You know, I've been a victim of nostalgia since the first Spider-Man. And whether you know it or not, Hollywood has almost turned completely nostalgic in order to fill the seats in the movie theaters. Spider-Man, which came out when? Like, 01, you know? When did the first Tobey Maguire Spiderire spider-man come out let's see 2002 i was close and i remember being drove into that well you yeah driven into that because of the fact that you know i watched the animated series growing up and loved it. And who didn't want to see it on the big screen? Right? And now, the American condition is just incredibly interesting to me.

You know, it's one of my favorite things to think about, talk about, write about. Which is why Surviving America exists. You know, because it is fundamentally a show exploring the American condition. Yeah, we talk about prepping. We talk about politics. We talk about health. We talk about all kinds of things. But at the end of the day, man, it's about this group.

It's about this population, this population that's been given the gift of freedom. And, you know, we're just, we're not inherently bad or anything. You know, there's all kinds of people right now who are selflessly entering the disaster zones in the Appalachians and giving their all to save people's lives and to get, you know, it's amazing what people are doing right now. So this idea that we're all sort of jaded, cynical, nostalgic, hungry, selfish losers or whatever, jaded and narcissistic, it's not true, of course.

But what is this calling to nostalgia that is so strong? And the reason I bring up the movies is because I want you to understand the power of it. I want you to understand that the re-releasing of Marvel, the re-releasing of DC characters, the re-releasing of Dunes and Star Wars and all these things, Mortal Kombat and Dragon Ball Z, all these things hitting at this time has always, to me, felt unbelievable that I could share it with my kids, that I could, you know, take them into those universes and show them the things that I enjoyed growing up. And also what a big part of that was, folks, was the nostalgia of the time. It's pulling a 30-year-old man into a movie theater to watch a comic book movie

because it reminds him of a time long past. Now, normally I'll think about this stuff for months before I bring it to you on the air. You know, and this is no different. I was spurred back in September, maybe even early, maybe even mid-August, by a little clip on Instagram. It was just a little silly clip. AI-generated 90s Halloween. I didn't know it was AI generated at the time. My youngest actually had to tell me. I thought I was looking at real pictures in the 90s. And he said, Dad, look here, look there. It's all AI. But whatever, you know,

compiled together with some sound from Nightmare Before Christmas and all things, threw me into this sort of hyper focus on nostalgia and what it is we're yearning for as a people. And why are we yearning for it? And why can't we get it? And who are we blaming? Right? Right?

It was mentioned in the comments And part of it was this idea That we had this great childhood growing up And We cannot give it to our children If you have kids, young kids Then you lament this There's no There's almost

There's very few places that exist the way that things existed back then. But before I get into that, the reason I'm telling you about the box office is because nostalgia is very powerful and nostalgia is used on you whether you know it or not. Okay? You just, you have to understand that it is a tool now but it's also wonderful you know it's also wonderful but there are a lot of factors man that led us into this situation where we are now where we think that the 90s childhood which was the 90s childhood such an amazing thing? I mean, I enjoyed my childhood, I think, to some degree. I remember great, horrible times in my childhood also, and I think they get sort of forgotten. Now, it is true that because of the makeup and the model of my neighborhood,

we had epic Halloweens, you know, the Halloweens were the most epic because we had, our town had very clear borders, you know, they were defining borders, and those defining borders allowed our parents to allow us to run roughshod over basically the whole town from the Delaware River to the, to Green Street to Green Street, you know, really to the R2 railroad, SEPTA line. And it was fun, you know, it was fun. And I started thinking about that in general, right? Nostalgia is one thing, but this lamenting of being able to give our children a childhood similar to ours. First of all, who knows, you know?

We must be very cussing careful about a boogeyman. We like to look at our children. We like to look at the situation with children And tell, who's the boogeyman in all this? Right? It even was mentioned in the comments The boogeyman was Technology

Wi-Fi High speed internet Right? High speed internet's done it It's ruined childhood We have to be very cussing careful about boogeyman. Learn from the left. The left has bet it all on the orange boogeyman. And you see where that's got them, right? They've lost fundamentally all credibility except with the captured peoples of their

party. They blame everything on Trump, the boogeyman. But the fact of the matter is, electronics are just one piece of why our kids' childhood is not our childhood. Now don't get me wrong, they are powerful. And they can distract your child from sunup to sundown if you allow it. And they have no need or no desire or no drive to go see anybody, do anything. But I look back at my childhood and I can understand why everything happened the way it happened, why my childhood was the way it was, why it was so, because what was it, right? It was boredom-centric and it was freedom-centric fundamentally. That's what defined my childhood. Now we move. I lived amidst four to five generations of my family, all in the same town.

Do you know what I mean? Generations of my family were within shouting distance in the same town. There wasn't moving. Now we move. We move to college and we move to a new place and then we move here. We don't live down the street from our parents anymore. We don't live down the street from our parents anymore. We don't live down the street from our brothers and sisters or our cousins, aunts, uncles.

And because of that, we enter these new worlds. We enter these new towns. We get these new people, these unknowns. You know, where I grew up in Markasuk, everybody knew everybody. So what did that mean? Well, when everybody knows everybody, and you know that everybody knows your kids, and you know everybody else's kids, and you know that people have got eyes out,

and when new people come into town, people ask questions. Once you move to a new place, now you're scared. Now fearful parents have to say, stay on the block. Fearful parents have to say, don't go past that. Don't do this. Don't do that. I don't want you going over in them woods by yourself. I don't like that kid. I don't know. You know what I mean? I don't want you doing sleepovers. One of the great tragedies of my kid's life is just a bunch of parents that don't do sleepovers anymore. I mean, it's not an isolated issue.

It's everywhere. And it's because, you know, they don't know. You're not sleeping over your cousins. You're not sleeping over your, like, your friends with the woman down the street. You both had kids growing up. Even if you weren't buddy-buddy, you knew each other. You went to school together, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And your kids sleep over at the other kid's house because they're friends. The fear of parents is as much to blame as anything else nowadays

for not being able to recreate your nostalgic 90s childhood. And, of course, we're busy now, right? My generation so abhorred boredom that we set out to create a world where we'd never be bored. And we've achieved that. We've basically achieved that. And now we have to fight for the free time to do things that we would otherwise do when we were bored.

But I remember it. I remember being draped over my buddy's, one particular day always stands out. Boredom was normal for us, but I remember being draped over my buddy Mike's bed in the summer and having nothing to do and being so bored. Like we just couldn't wrap our heads around how bored we were. And we filled that time up now with busy kids.

We filled that time up now with busy parents. The big difference in my neighborhood growing up was we didn't do jack. And our parents didn't do jack and our parents didn't do jack we got home from school and we played with our friends that was our after-school activity right my parents got home from school and they stayed home that's what they did like they would get home from work make dinner eat dinner stay home They weren't going places. They weren't like, hey, let's go down to the book. Let's do this.

Let's do that. And look, we are busy people for the most part. I love being home. I love casting away responsibilities. I love calling out of things. I love nothing more than a night in. Truly. You have to understand.

I want you all to know enough about me to understand who's at the helm of PBN. of PBN. After all these years, man, I am what I am. And there's so much stability in that, in understanding that you can't be everything. Social media and our addiction to information shows us all these people living all these lives and doing all these things. And there's a time in your life where you will want to be doing all those things and being all those people. And you might even feel bad about yourself if you're not being all those things and doing all those things and doing all those people. You know what I mean? And doing all those people. You know what I mean?

There's a time in your life where. Sometimes it's a person's whole life. And it's really sad to watch. But there's a time in your life when. You're aspiring to be at almost everything. I know. The things that I love in this life. I know that I was put here to write fundamentally.

I know that I was put here to be in front of microphones. I don't know why that is. I'm here to convey my experience of the world, to see the world, Because I see the world. I know I see the world better than a lot of people because I practice. You know what I mean? Do you ever practice seeing the world? It's a good time of year to do it.

It's a good time of year to go outside, leave the phone inside, sit down somewhere, look at the world. Look at it. Look at the leaves changing. Look at the ground covered in leaves. Look at the creatures going about their business, understanding that the seasons define their life, not their boss, not their spouse, right? And I've just always been good at self-expression in a way that, you know, shakes people.

Shakes people from that sort of hum of monotonous life. You have this sort of core of what you are. You can build on it, you know. I've built a lot on this sort of chassis of being a writer and talker or whatever i built a lot on that creative well i don't know i built a lot of cool stuff on that chassis but i'm not jumping from lily pad to lily pad right based on the moment based on the what it is what it is i guess fundamentally you want to build enough on the core of what you are and what you really love and enjoy

to be able to adapt to the times that's pretty important you can't be everything you know i would highly encourage you to sit back and enjoy other people's proficiency and perfection and efficacy of what they do, rather than saying, I should be doing that. That should be me. That should be this. I should be this, right? That leads us down this path where we have these busy parents

who are just, you know, constantly busy. Busy. And when you're busy and you're a parent, what happens? Well, your kids either have to go with you or they have to stay home and be on some limited diet of fun or some digital diet that's nice and safe. And you stay in the house and watch your sister and make sure that everything's okay and don't get in any trouble, right? And this creates the childhood that exists today. This creates a neighborhood of silence, which is both magical and depressing.

Magical and depressing When I would Be sitting in my home As a young man Eating dinner or Even just sitting in My windows would be open Cracked you know And I would always hear children

Yelling, screaming, crying, laughing Whatever Always Constantly hearing children Folks in chat I'm so sorry I've been crying, laughing, whatever. Always. Constantly hearing children. Folks in chat, I'm so sorry. I've been drifting in and out of my own reveries and I didn't even go into the chat. I apologize for that. But I'd always hear kids. Constantly hearing kids. kids. You know what I mean? Moving away from these well-oiled groups of these well-oiled generations of intertwined families, parents who are scared, too afraid to let their kids run wild. Maybe you'll get hit by a bike. Maybe you'll get taken by a bad guy. Maybe he'll get hurt.

Maybe he'll get made fun of, you know, whatever the fears are. The fears have crushed our children's ability to really get after it the way that kids do. You know, one of the things that, and I miss Joe Prim, I need to reach out to Joe Prim, but one of the things that Joe Prim always used to talk about was the concept of kids going out into the world and getting in trouble. In other words, not waking up and pretending or not waking up and living with this idea that you're a kid and you better be perfect. Get the good grades, do good in your sport. Don't get in any trouble. Like, everything in that sentence was the opposite of me growing up. I didn't get good grades.

I didn't play a sport. And I got in trouble a lot. And it was fun. You know what I mean? It was fun. You know what I mean? It was fun. Because at the end of the day, you know, you know what it takes. You know what I mean? You know what it takes to be somebody who is going to have some level of success in life.

So, you know, there's some other symptoms, right? Parents and division. Parents and division are a big deal now. This is new, you know? Is a Kamala Harris voter going to let her kids hang out with a Donald Trump voter? Is a Kamala Harris voter, which is basically like saying you're Christian, right? It's like same order of effect, same hierarchy in life now, right? I'm a Democrat. Are they going to let their kids hang out with a Christian? Is an overly religious person going to let the kids hang out with a Democrat who's got rainbow flags hanging and trans rights stickers on the car? Probably not. Probably not. They're certainly not going to get along as parents.

And that affects everything. to get along as parents. And that affects everything. Since parents have decided to wear their religious and political affiliations on their sleeve and their car and their house and their everything that they do, you know, we didn't know. One of the things about it was you didn't know

And you didn't even care Like nobody knew who the next door neighbor's religion was Or political party was Or who they were voting for And you didn't know these things You didn't care You didn't ask about them Right?

You might get mad at them for the way they parked. The most furious, dude, you're in my spot, you know? That's the most furiously you would get at them. But these divisions, these things, right? These things, these are what, these are also These things, these are also part of the equation. It's not all electronics. It's easy to find that boogeyman and say, my kids are stuck inside because nobody's kids come outside because they're all worried about playing on phones and playing on this and playing on that.

Well, they also weren't brought up with it. And so on and so forth. I don't need to go down the list again but you understand there are many culprits in this thing and what I worry about most for kids nowadays and future children is that parents and people my age and maybe the next generation of parents

are going to shun technology. I see it with some parents already, like, no, no tech. And we have to be careful about that because the infrastructure, everything I just mentioned, the infrastructure for the 90s child isn't out there anymore, right? It's not just sitting out there

waiting. There's not jungle gyms full of kids. There's not parks down the street with kids playing baseball and football and kickball and so on. Like, you have to build that. You could build that. It's not with nothing in America is out of reach. You can gather together your neighbors. I've tried this. I've done this. I've failed at this several times. It's not easy. But you could do it. You could pull it off. For sure.

But to send a kid out into today's modern world, particularly in a neighborhood where there's not already an established group of kids playing together, and say, hey, play with kids, and then you look out your front window, and they're digging in the dirt alone for six hours. You know what I mean? Isolation is a thing. Is mean isolation is a thing

you know isolation is a thing and it's not a good thing for everyone you know I remember the day that I was made to stay inside

when the drugs began to take hold of everyone around me my mother who was an addict at the time herself, crazy enough, but also it kind of makes sense, basically forced me to stay in. She forced me to stay in and to not go out. And I was, you know, probably 11, 12 at this point. She didn't

say you can't leave the house, but she said you fundamentally can't hang out with anybody in the neighborhood that you used to hang out with. And as crazy as that sounds, there's a good chance she saved my life. Maybe. I'm not sure about that. But there's a chance that she saved my life. Because most of the people that I hung out with in those days are dead now from heroin. The vast majority, the vast majority of cousins and friends, gone. And, you know, there's something to be said about the parent's instinct in a moment like that, even a parent who's compromised by her own addiction. It's hard to believe, but it's real.

But the isolation was real, PBN family. It was no joke at first. You sit up in your room and you start to realize it's you and a Super Nintendo. It's you and a Sega Saturn and a radio. And that's how you create a writer, I think. You know, that's how you create someone who has to... I played incredible amounts of guitar to survive that, you know. And then, of course, you have to reach outside of your neighborhood

and you have to go discover. You have to go discover. You have to go discover. You have to go discover. Now, I know we're ushering in Milton. Milton will be making landfall later today. We have what's going on in the Appalachians. I realized the other day listening to Judson Carroll,

I've been calling it the Appalachians my whole life. And he said that that is not the right way to say it, and it's actually an insult to the people of the Appalachians. There's a lot to talk about. There's a lot of prepping stuff and politics stuff and Elon Musk and Donald Trump and Kamala doing podcasts while people are drowning in mud. Dark days ahead, so on and so forth. But today I wanted to talk about nostalgia.

Because it's gripped me. It's gripped me not in the way that I find myself calling for that time. When it comes to nostalgia, it's nice to go back. It's nice to talk about. But I don't want to. I don't want that. I certainly don't want to go back to Marcus Hook circa 1995. And I don't even know that I want my kids to live that kind of a life. Truly, everything changes. You know, I remember when my son was very little, man.

My first son. We were playing Roblox together. And, you know, his little brain wasn't ready for it, but mine certainly was. And there was a song, and the only lyric in the song was, everything changes. And I remember sitting there with him playing. He's having a blast, I'm having a blast.

You know, we didn't really even know what Roblox was yet. We were just playing it together. And I remember listening to that, everything changes. Diddle-doodle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle. And I'll always remember it forever. But, you know, that's life, man. That's life. These evil books are going to screw up your whole life.

This evil television, this radio is too much. It's distracting you. I don't know. Everything changes. That's the reality. What I want to leave you with today is... That's not a warning. It's a reminder.

It's a constant that exists in my head because of the life that I live. When I listen to people lament the past, complain about depression, the struggles of life and so on, I just feel like I understand what they're going through, but I'm certainly not going through it myself. And because of that, I have to convey the idea that, you know, you have to start crafting your life today. You have to start creating the life that you want today, right now. Don't wait a second. If you don't understand the value of a second yet, you have to understand it. You have to wrap your head around it.

You have to understand that there are times in life where the time is all, that nothing is more valuable than your free time. Nothing is more valuable than your time, than your projects, than your desires to create what it is that you were put here on this planet to create. You have to understand that Elon Musk can't buy a second. have to understand that Elon Musk can't buy a second. He can never buy another moment with his child when that child was younger. Bill Gates, the king lizard, can never buy a moment with his daughter who's grown up now. He can never buy the moment when she was five

and they were sitting in the backyard of the lizard mansion having a good time. No matter what you achieve financially, no matter what you achieve, period. You always have to remember, and you know, you can't drive yourself crazy about it, but you have to remember that the moments are priceless. Moments

and people and places and things while you're in the moment, it's priceless. You can't ever get it back. Maybe they'll come up with AI or holograms or whatever it is, but you'll never be there again.

Don't wait a second. Start crafting your life the way you want it today. Go after the big things. Go after the projects. Go after what it is you want. I don't know what you want. I don't know what you want. For me, I want to sit down and write a story

Or write a book Or do a podcast These are the things that drive me I want to put these things out into the universe You have something like that I don't know what it is Get more of it Get much more of it in your life.

Okay? Build the infrastructure around you to protect it. That's what prepping and self-reliance is all about. You're building fortifications around something. It's a family, but it's also you. It's also your desire and what it is you were put on this earth for. Prepping is just a means of fortifying it all. Making sure that as you build your sandcastle

one single wave doesn't come up and knock the whole thing over and now it's back to the drawing board. But even if it is back to the drawing board damn it, get drawing Because the ink in the pen of life Runs out, PBN family And once it runs out We don't know when it's going to run out either

That's the roulette of it all That's the great gamble of it all You push it off for another day You might not get that next day So don't wait another second. Okay? I'll talk to you soon, folks. I appreciate you. Thanks for taking this crazy journey with me. I know it was a weird one today. And, you know, you don't understand how much I appreciate you letting me be weird. Here's to nostalgia.

A wonderful past and an even better future. Okay? Cheers, folks. Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon Thank you. EMP Protection is on the minds of all preppers. And since the massive geomagnetic storm back in May that brought the Northern Lights to Texas, more and more people are paying attention. Faradaycontainers.com has some of the largest and most fortified EMP protection on the planet. 20-foot and 40-foot shipping containers built with copper beryllium gaskets for maximum protection. beryllium gaskets for maximum protection. They also have five-foot workboxes that can be loaded with solar generators, solar panels, comms. Visit faradaycontainers.com. Wisconsin-built EMP protection. you you you you you you you you you you you