Trillbilly Worker's Party - Bonus: "For God & Country" (w/ Special Guests: @JasonKirk_fyi @mjguen @Cantfearthedark)

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Tom sits down for a pair of chats--the first with author, journalist, and podcaster Jason Kirk to discuss his recently released novel "Hell Is A Place Without You" and the second with organizers Michelle Guengue and Carissa Cunningham to discuss voting uncommitted.

Welcome everybody to this week's edition of the Trillbillies. I'm your host, Tom Sexton. I am running a skeleton crew today as it's just me as my partners in crime are out, maybe doing the crimes of their own. But joining me today to stand in the gap for them is Mr. Jason Kirk, author of Do You Want to Say It, Jason? The book is called Hell is a World Without You, which I mentioned because so many people have called it Hell is a Place Without You, which is fine.

It's just the SEO might trip you up if you go searching for place. And we want you to be able to find it. Of course. And those of you familiar with Jason's oeuvre may know that he's also a co-host of the Shutdown Full Cast, the world's only college football podcast. Jason, what the fuck is going on, man? I'm sorry this took like nine million years to put together, but I'm thankful to be able to fellowship with you today. Well, Brother Tom, it's wonderful to be here. And as you know, nine million years are but a day in the eyes of the Lord, aren't they? That's exactly right. You know, I've always been tripped up on the concept of no matter how many years pass by in

the minds of the church there there if there's only two thousand years old it's like we can't We can't like get off that number for some reason. Is there any rationale for that? Have you is that ever been? Explained to you why why the earth is so young or what's going on with that? Yeah, the like extremely extra literal interpretation of the book Genesis, in which according to the number of days of creation, if you extrapolate each of them to a thousand years based on that other verse, it says a day is as a thousand years. So like, if you take the poetic telling in Genesis and you combine it with another poetic thing and take both of them literally, you can math it out to the earth being 6,000 years old, which leads, you know, to Sunday schoolers asking their adults, then why are dinosaur

bones older than 6,000 years? And those adults having to say, well, Satan placed them there to test your faith and things of that nature. Exactly right. And if he continues to do so, we're going to get Dr. Ken Ham in here to set you right on the issue. Right down the road from you, right? Right down the road from me. It's funny that right before you get to the Ark encounter sign, the turnoff there, there's a sign for big bone lick, which I'm sure is, you know, has elicited a number of giggles from, you know, myself and not a few teenagers over the years. So that's Satan's other bone-based way to test your faith. That's right. On your way to truth, there's going to be some hangups. There's going to be some

stumbling blocks, friends. Was Jesus not tempted in the wilderness? Well, it happens to all of us. Well, so, you know, before we get into talking about the book and what, you know, precipitated all that, Jason, I had thought on my mind today. Brandon and I were talking about the, you know, we've only got about four or five prompts these days. Like, what do you think about polyamory? What do you think about, you know, this, that and the third? And then another one for those of us interested in the arts is, you know,

who really is the great American band? And I wanna pose that to you with a twist. If you had to lift up somebody from the CCM world to fit the bill here, who would be your first round draft pick? So I think the secular band that often gets looked over is the Jackson Five in this discussion. Like I hear Balmany Jones the other day, I believe he named Guns N' Roses as the best all-time

American band, which you know, obviously a great choice. It's me every time I listen to Jackson Five, I'm like, I can't believe this is real. These kids were how old? And obviously that part had its downfalls and consequences. But I think the sheer quality of their work should have them in that conversation. Now from the CCM world, oh man. So like the funny thing is you have the exact same number of genres to choose from, right? As you did in Secular World.

Like, you know, some people might think, oh, well surely there's not a Christian band that did this or did that or right. No, there is. There is. is name it it exists like and and you know there's always some smartass who comes up with a you know the wildest genre they can think of and it'll take mere seconds to give them the answer to to that but whichever metal sub genre they're thinking of yes it's been done by Christians so I think if you're looking for so you're looking for something like in the middle right like well here's here's what I'm thinking. And it's funny because you even bring it up, I think, in chapter eight of the book, but like you used to have the equivalence charts, right? So you have like,

if you like ex secular band, try Reliant K or whoever, you know, like whoever the band may be. So maybe that's how we play this. We come up with the five American bands and who are their CCM counterparts? Well, I think first of all, I think my answer to this question, and like, speaking of that exact chapter and that exact conversation in the book, I think the kids in that book were onto something. It's as if their author weighed in on their opinions. If we look at like each of these genres that Christians have attempted either for cynical reasons or pure artistic reasons or evangelistic reasons or any combination thereof, I try to look at it from the viewpoint of like, which ones did they do

the relative best? Like, which ones are they the most competitive at, right? And when I say the, like, you know, my past tense self would have said we, and, you know, on certain levels I'm still a Christian, but like not a CCM evangelical. So I look at like, you know, gospel, obviously, you know, Christians fare pretty well at gospels. It'd be pretty sad if they didn't. Historically, historically, they've done well there. They punch above their weight when it comes to gospel music. I think we can hand them that.

So like, if you take all gospel music and all devotional music off the chart, I think, you know, like hip hop, like, yeah, there's some Christian rappers and there's a bunch of like secular market Christian rappers, you know, DMX, Kanye, Chance the Rapper, like Tupac, you know, like so many, you know, secular- It is interesting. They are well represented on both sides of the aisle. Whether, you know, if It's Dark and Hell is Hot is Not Your Cup of Tea, maybe try Demon Killah 666 by T-Bone, you know. Or perhaps the original Gospel Gangsters. There's something funny about that. The gospel gangsters? That's right. Team and Killah.

You remember, what was that one? I'll Be Good? That was one of their big ones. You also got God's original gangsters, not to be confused. I think in the punk world, Christians did pretty well. MXPX had a crossover career and they haven't considered themselves a Christian band for like a quarter century. Uh, Reliant K had a pretty good, uh, pretty good crossover run. Um, so like I would, I would have them as contenders, you know, switch foot had a very, you know, it continues to have a successful career and like, as far as I know, what is switch foot up to these days?

I've been meaning to ask the last I've seen. So they like re-recorded some of their, like their, the Beautiful Let Down, their big hit first album. And also their singer has come out to some extent as LGBTQ affirming. So like Switchfoot is officially non-embarrassing to go back to. I think the genre I come back to where Christian bands, and obviously that is a nebulous, nuanced, controversial term because so many of these bands no longer consider themselves that or whatever, is specifically metalcore, the midpoint between metal and hardcore punk, which very mid-90s emergence, kill switch, engage, you know a bunch of those bands came up and like right among them were those tooth-and-nail solid state records bands that like

You know Zayo still stands as like one of the most influential bands in that genre and you have like Norma Jean and Devil Wars Prada Silent Planet still around and you know, it's still very prominent in that scene Yeah still around and you know it's still very prominent in that scene. The band that most registered in the secular markets was Under Oath who started as a Christian black metal band. I didn't know Under Oath was... Oh yeah yeah yeah. Started as a deeply evangelical Christian black metal band and when I say black metal band somebody out there is like oh that was the genre I was thinking that you can't do as Christian music. Well yeah, Under Oath did it.

I was thinking that you can't do as Christian music. Well, yeah under oath did it. Well, yeah, that's uh, you know just aesthetically There's some challenges and you know, if you look at the standard bears of the genre, they've you know, you know Thinking of brother of arg Vikrini sure I think the joke I did in the book is like most black metal bands Burndown churches in Norway Christian black metal bands attend attend churches in Norway. Christian black metal bands attend churches in Tampa. Right. So, yeah, that's under oath. Yeah.

And like their biggest album 2006, Define the Great Line, it was number two on Billboard behind only Nelly Furtado. That's how big they were. Yeah, I never really listened to them just because that wasn't my thing, but I was very much aware of them and I didn't know that they started from there. So they're kind of like the Gosh like Amy Grant of black mouth

Yes, I've often said long has it been said You'd have to throw in DC talk just because like I think they're the band most people think of when they think of Christian band They had a legit hit and it actually wasn't Jesus Freak. Between You and Me was their biggest hit. Between You and Me was, huh? Yeah, yeah, it was much, much bigger. Like Jesus, it's weird, like Jesus Freak feels like it registers for most people as their biggest song, but Between You and Me had much more, much more radio play. Real travesty that, pardon me, your epidermis is showing. That didn't tear down the charge, you know. Neither did, yeah. I'm thinking of some of the skits on Free at Last. One whose title I probably shouldn't say. One of my favorite things is them harmonizing to that one on the Arsenio Hall Show in the

90s. Have you seen that clip floating around from time to time? Yeah. I think you have to throw in Amy Green, you have to throw in Kirk Franklin. You know, you have to throw in a few of those names, but like, I just want to make sure if we're doing a top five, top ten, I want to under oath on the list and I think they have the numbers to back it up. Yeah.

It's a commercially viable crossover that you could name up there. I'll tell you a band that I think, well, it's really just a guy, but the one Christian band that I actually still actively like listen to is Star Flyer 59, who has actually kind of found this weird like purchase in like the skateboarding sort of like cool New York downtown thing, which is probably the most like unlikely thing in the world that, you know, guys that line up for two days in advance to get stuff from Supreme are really into, you know? Yeah. But the music does hold up,

that kind of sort of my bloody Valentine kind of thing that he was doing. Yeah, I think they're another band that's like legit within that genre. Like no matter how you're raised or what your beliefs are, you have to acknowledge that like Shoe Gaze wouldn't be quite the same without Star Flyer. And they I found they hold up for a lot of people is like a lot of people's like come

down music, you know, metalheads or whatever. They're like, yeah, and that's in there is like the combo breaker, right? Yeah, right. Well, okay, so who we... Let's see. So let's do this then. Give me your five great American bands. We'll do three.

We'll do three for the second. That's a little easier. Just so we're not sitting here for like 20 minutes just being like, oh man, does the Grateful Day go in there? I don't know. Yeah. does the Grateful Day go in there? I don't know. Yeah, I mean three big Great America bands and their equivalence charts in the CCM. So I mean I'll take it from Bomani that Guns N' Roses should be on the list and then I mean the

Christian Guns N' Roses are you going striper? Is that the cop? Let me tell you something. So for Christmas I bought Terrence a To Hell with the Devil vintage retro... It's kind of a... I call it a throwback jersey. It's got the cross on there with striper and Isaiah 53 and 5, you know, down it. And in my humble opinion, I think yeah yeah, I think it's probably Schreiper. And yeah, I think that's a good call. I would call Michael Sweet, again, long, long been known as the Axl Rose of CCM. So I met him one time.

I used to run this venue back in the day, and he was doing these very stripped down versions of the songs on To Hell With The Devil. And it was the weirdest crowd. I mean, not weird as in they were weird people, but it was one of those nights where we ran out of bar mixer because everybody was just buying Coca-Cola's and we ran out of bar mixer because everybody was just buying Coca-Cola's and we didn't have bar guns so we just like crack open a can and you know, ease it to mix stuff with and like we completely ran out of mixer that night because it was like people in their like early 50s or thereabouts that were familiar with them whenever whenever to hell with the devil went platinum

and and Yeah, Michael Sweet though. I say good guy familiar with them whenever to hell with the devil went platinum. And yeah, Michael Sweet, though, I'd say a good guy. Very nice. Yeah, I've heard the same. The funny thing about Striper to me is they're like, for so many people, they are the first Christian rock band that they think of, right? Like they're that sort of like Creed Evanescence type, or it's like secular markets Christian band. Yeah.

But like, somebody did a study a while back that was like the far majority of their fans were secular, who just viewed them as like novelty glam rock band, instead of like glam rock band that sang with Christian trappings. Whereas they viewed themselves as like, no, we're a ministry and we're kind of like in on the joke. But like a huge portion of their fans

were like Japanese metalheads who really didn't care what the lyrics were, which is just funny. That is fascinating. And it's like, how many of those like you, there were always those bands, maybe this is a segment for another day next time we have you home. But you know, like those bands like Creed or Evanescence or those that were like I what you had a term for it I think that you just said they're like They were like the secular markets idea of a Christian band like like like you two's descendants, I guess That's not to be smirk you too by comparing them to Creed but um

Yeah, it wasn't the same as like an evangelical market band that's trying to cross over It's kind of the other way around, right? So do you think like Creed was like an answer to like record companies looking at CCM and said, okay, like they're like kicking ass with basically no mainstream radio play in these like very niche markets and like putting Creed on or putting like Evan Nests or whoever it was, like POD, I guess, was maybe another one of those. POD came from the Christian market first.

Yeah. So they were actually, okay, so that's not. Yeah, they were homegrown. Yeah. So like, in a way, it probably is a reaction to seeing POD and Switchfoot and DC Talk having a rock song or two that people knew, you you know it probably was a reaction to saying like hey Why don't we just make our own of these instead of bringing them over with all their baggage from the you know? Evangelical world all right, but like kind of wink and nod to that like everybody

That's buying like those bands and the Christians yeah And it's funny like going like I was you know a kid when Creed was big and it was you know You go to school and people would say like oh, yeah, you're you're the church kid right you love Creed it's like no like I didn't like Creed I've never like I've never listened to striper on purpose no offense to Matthew Sweet who I've heard yet again as a sweet man but like it was just wasn't the same it was like no they're not they're not ours you know right and it wasn't even like a like a a judgmental type thing I didn't think they were bad people it was just like no they're not on a It was just like, no, they're not on a tour with MXPX, therefore they are not in the club. Yeah. Okay. I think Striper equals... I'm sorry, go ahead.

Well, yeah, yeah. So if we say GNR, then like, you know, striper's like, there are several comp potential calls, but striper. Should we say Nirvana? I think we have to. So Nirvana, obviously Jesus Freak is a like kind of like bar for bar, smelled like Teen Spirit with a rap verse. Yeah, it's just kind of a one to one. But I think the best comp for Nirvana is early Skillet, who Skillet ended up sounding, they had a bunch of eras, because they're, you know,

sellouts who are being all things to all people, wink, wink, like Paul said, wink, wink. Just chasing trends and calling it missionary work. Eventually they ended up as like pro wrestling entrance music. For a while they were ripping off nine inch nails while wearing like bondage gear and dyeing their hair blonde, which I think the reaction to that is what drove their singer to his whole like manly Christian fascism era. But like their first

couple albums, it's Christian Nirvana. It's absolutely is what they're going for. Yeah, I was around for skillets. Yeah, yeah Nine Inch Nails era, but I wasn't I wasn't familiar that their earlier Earlier work was a little more Nirvana esque. It was a lot. It was a lot of literally grungier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I won't have to go back Something I swore I would never do go back and listen skill back to something I swore I would never do. Go back and listen to Skillet. Um, all right. Who are we going to round it out with? I feel like you gotta go Beach Boys, right? Okay. Okay. What's the, what's the pet sounds of CCN? Would that, would that be Jesus, right?

I mean, I think just like considering the number of genres that DC Talk was trying to throw together and they were kind of a boy band and they started out as like one thing and then they got, you know, way more like they started out as a hip hop group with a singer in the group and then next thing you know, they're throwing every genre they can on an album. I mean, there are worse comps, like sonically it's not the same, but I mean, you know, they got hooks. Yeah. Yeah, totally. They're very early nineties rap group kind of stuff. Like was it, was

it David Austin Green and James Conson had young black teenagers? Both of them were definitely not those things. I think DC Talk kind of played with that being a little too comfortable around race. Mm-hmm. And that's a what? But yeah, no, I think that is, yeah, I think that's a pretty good, pretty apt comparison there. This is literally the only way you could call Beach Boys and DC Talk. But I'm fine.

Like there were Christian surf rock bands. I remember that. I'm blanking on their names right now but it was absolutely like ones who leaned into the the beach imagery but like Beyond just the Sonics, I think there are traits the Beach Boys share with EC Talk, which is a sentence I never thought I'd say. Yeah, I think so. Well, you know, another thing I'd throw in there too is like, wasn't it like Bruce Campbell

and the Wrecking Crew famously are like the brains behind pet sounds? Like, I've heard this from a lot of like, you know, people when you start praising Brian Wilson a little too much, like, well, actually, Glen Campbell wrote most of Pet Sounds. You should know that. In that same way, who's the guy from Jars of Clay that has become the big black sorter record producer? He's got like that place in Mississippi, like he, I know he like put out Modest Mouse and like a bunch of like, I hate going back and saying secular acts because I think you have to be a Christian to say the word secular acts. But put out like a lot of big bands like I can't remember their name, his name though. I think it's Dan the lead singer.

I know he does a lot of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I've saw, I once watched some Lude Behavior while they were performing Love Song for a Savior at a music festival in Johnson City, Tennessee one time. It was something that I was, you know, little me was not, was ill prepared to wrap my head around that. I was being that I was there trying to find my wife, you know, at 17.

Well, it's a love song. Yeah, that's right. It's about drawing near, it's about fellowship, it's about if you got a hand, hold a hand, we're all gonna come together. Well, not like that. Well, let's jump in there and talk about this book a little bit here. Like there are, you know, many such examples of hilarity ensuing. And also to another thing that you do so well in this other than it just being and I mean this sincerely, I'm not just saying this to gas you up because you're here. It is a

beautifully written book and in a strong way, not like a MFA flowery purple way, like it is just very well crafted and you get you you just have all these different turns in there with Isaac the character and that like make me like weirdly nostalgic for an era that I've tried to mostly put out in my head but like you sort of, you sort of seem to make the case that like it wasn't all bad. I mean, you know, the, the, the, the various traumas and the guilt and shame and all that stuff. Yeah, that's bad, but here are some things about that era that, that, that, you know, maybe those of us that were there

and I, and I was there and in exactly the timeframe you set this at, that you can't hold on to. So maybe I'll just start out just kinda talking about that, maybe even talking about your own experiences that informed some of this stuff. Some of the stuff that maybe, you said, that you sort of nominally still consider yourself a Christian, what about, early 2000s church era, really the golden era,

really, honestly, the attitude era, the attitude era was to WWF. That was the CCM. I feel like it was like a certain zenith, you know, and maybe it is a bias, I hope. But, you know, wondering if like, you know, what, what do you, Jason it is a bias, I hope. But, you know, wondering if, like, you know, what do you, Jason Kirk, as a man, like, hold dear from your pulling your time there in the in the God minds? From my time within evangelicalism that overlapped with Stone Cold's career and the WWF, I... You had to be there, kids. It was wild. There's a lot of theatrics

in both of those worlds, that's for sure. A lot of problematic males in charge of stuff. There's a lot of correlations you can find. You're not wrong. I look back on my time, which is, you know, it's very similar to the time in the book, within hardcore, I grew up Southern Baptist, but to me, a lot of the churches I look back on,

they feel very coded similarly to like current non-denominational churches. It was just like, you know, it was a Southern Baptist church that hadn't rebranded as like safe, welcoming, non-denominational, you know? Right, right. So, you know, we- I'll just tell, I'll just interject real quick,

tell everybody that us Pentecostals catch a few strays in there Yes Yes, um Like wait, you know we the main church that I attended was a mega church. I attended a variety Of sizes of various Baptist churches all basically, you know, very hardcore conservative theologically and politically conservative, uh, theologically and politically. Um, but at the megachurch of my teenage years, we had like these charismatic leanings to where it was like, hey, uh, you, you, you, the praise band on stage has drums.

That means we can, our rock band can practice in the, one of the, you know, youth auxiliaries, right? And, uh, so we always had, I don't even know how many rock bands I was in that practiced at church. It was literally like just like one would morph into another and you know, it just, you see who shows up and okay, that's which band is here tonight. Yeah, yeah. But like the stuff I hold on to from that era, you know, a few musicians, I've mentioned a few I'm still cool with. And like, not really any of the movies,

not really any theology, definitely not any of the politics. But like, the main thing that made me start writing was thinking about all these lifelong friendships that I have from this group that like, defy the expectation, the stereotype of what young people within high control religion are like? Because what we get in pop culture is, you know, either they're just super self-sheltering Flanders kids, or they're total, like, you know, awful, nasty, poisonous, fake, goody-goody hypocrites. I didn't really know anybody like either of those. Sure, they were probably around. They probably just didn't want to hang out with

the solid state record skateboard kids and that's fine. But the kids I knew, it was in hindsight what we were doing is forming enough critical masks so that we could escape, right? Like in one way or another, we all left together. And that was kind of the beauty of a megachurch, is that means there's enough weird kids to find each other.

Like if it had been a youth group of 10 kids, well, you might be the only weird kid, you know? But if it's a thousand people packed into the youth warehouse, it's pretty easy to find each other. So yeah, I look back on the relationships and the friendships. That was sort of the ground floor for the book is like, well, wait, I want to show what these people are actually like, because I don't think everyone's getting a complete picture. And that means the people who were in that world are not seeing themselves represented very often in fiction. It's not to say it's not out there. But I just

very rarely encountered it, that sense of nuance and complexity to like, yeah, we grew up, we had the dumbest political ideas dumped into our brains and we were told God basically hated us, functionally hated us. Like we heard, you know, the worst of Calvinist theology and the worst of like, like the same shame and guilt and stuff that Catholics get. And on top of that, we were there, you know, 30 to 60 hours a week. Right, right, right, right. Yeah.

I would always want to say to my Catholic friends is like, yeah, they always like, you know, bemoan Catholic guilt and all that kind of stuff. And it's like, well, at least you all have like ritual and ceremony and all this pomp and circumstance and, you know, everything that goes into that. And like, like I'm attracted to those kinds of things. Like there's a sense of tradition, I guess, that in our own traditions feels like absent it feels like very something very much of a time and In reading this I'll say this It's kind of changed my view in a similar way that you're talking about now Whereas when I think of like people still in this or like my nephew now's interest in this like I feel like a little sad

for in this. I feel a little sad for, or I did feel a little sad for them. But now I've softened on that to some extent. Maybe it's just because you watch the show, The Righteous Gemstones, which sort of lampoons it, you know, that sort of culture in like a, a real way, but also to like shows like, you know, in the most ridiculous way possible, like some of that sort of, uh, the good emotional underpinnings of it, I guess, I guess you might say. So like, I don't, it, it, it's like in reading this and then like sort of, you know, just examining sort of the cultural interest in that time period now, like I've kind of changed the way I feel about people. And all that was wrapped up in me just kind of wanting to run from it for the longest time.

But yeah, no, I think that's like really important because yeah, it's like you say, like, I don't know anybody that was, you know, that was there in the good, you know, in the, um, and, uh, demonic wars of the early odds that, that, that really came out like as a total weirdo or like you say, you know, like just some sort of like hypocritical or whatever, usually they just turn out to be like fairly well adjusted people, which is no small miracle considering, you know, all the guilt and shame and everything that you have to wade through, which I guess is like the next thing I wanna ask you about is like, you know, and I don't mean this in like a really like, you know, Terry Gross NPR way Like, you know of saying like well, how has this process been cathartic for you or whatever?

But like in writing this in like thinking back on that period like are there any things you would be comfortable sharing on a podcast of some consequence anyway that Like just revisiting this sort of helps you with like in terms of like you know the guilt shame all those things that come with you know with the whole pie oh yeah absolutely I mean I when I started this it was I didn't set out to um to do therapy on myself wasn't the intention which is always the funny, that's always funny how that works. It was just like, you know, I wanted to A, depict this world

and B, show how complex it actually is and how much reason for empathy there is for people who are stuck within it. Not so much for, you know, the people like profiting on it or the people preaching the harshest hate, but, you know But I just saw cause to have a little patience and a little understanding because everyone is born into one indoctrination system or another. Everyone has been colonized by one thing or another. Even any blue state liberal with all the correct opinions, well, were you born into those opinions? Have you ever had to fight for those opinions? Have you ever had to fight for those opinions?

Have you ever had to do any deconstruction of your own? So like, that was the starting point. Where it went from there was like, oh shit, I'm actually thinking about my upbringing for the first time since high school. And that was rough. And like, it actually, I started, well, I started this like right before

2020 quarantine but like the bulk of the Like ground floor work was done during quarantine when it's like a lot of like sitting in silence with my thoughts for the first time In my entire life, you know And I'm going back and just realizing like oh, that's that's why I kind of hate myself and like oh, that's why I don't trust like any that's why I hate myself and that's why I don't trust any person in charge of anything ever, and just all this stuff on and on and on. It's just ripping up all the floorboards and realizing, there's a whole other dungeon down there I haven't ever gone back to.

Let's rip that up too. It goes even deeper. It was a couple of years into writing it that I was listening to a song by Julian Baker about, one of the final lyrics is like, if there's enough after everyone else has taken their share, well then why not me? Why is there not left enough for me? And I realized that is what I had always thought about religion is I traded my adolescence chasing this high, chasing this experience that it seemed like everyone else is feeling, right? I went to church camp, went to, you know, Bible study accountability group, did the entire evangelical career Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, like,

you know, all this stuff. Well, you also have this beautiful line that stayed with me that I've actually screenshotted when I was reading this and have kept it that kind of speaks to that a little bit. I remember asking them a version of the only thought I've ever had, please choose me. I think it's in the very opening scene actually of the book. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I just want to tell you I really enjoyed that. No, thank you. Yeah, I mean that's... That was the whole thing. Like, yeah, I traded half my life, you know, chasing

something that I believed everyone was feeling. I don't know if they were. I don't know if they weren't. At that point, I realized like, okay, I, well, after, you know, a couple days of weeping and whatever, I realized like, I have had those moments. I have had those moments of transcendence. They never came within the walls of a church, right? They came from looking at the stars,

the first time my daughter laughed, like all this kind of stuff. A Death Heaven concert. Yeah, yeah. I've had that one. But like moments like that. The ringing in your ears for four days after. Yeah, you're like, wow, I'm still here in the spirit, right?

But like those moments, those moments count. Those, like when people make a joke're like, wow, I'm still here in the spirit. Right. But like those moments, those moments count. Those like when like people make a joke about like, I went to a football game and my team won, it was like a religious experience. No, it was a religious experience. It was a moment of transcendence. It's not a joke. It's OK. Like to say it was, you know, like to make a joke like, oh, it was like a religious experience.

That is like seeding that experience to the church and saying they get the real thing and I got this knockoff at a concert or whatever. No, you got the thing. They profess to have a version of it. They don't own it. They didn't monopolize it. They didn't invent it. How did people feel it before those walls went up? Right? So getting to that point, that sort of unlocked a lot of stuff. And then there's like, you know, finally going back and digging and realizing like, okay, I've said, you know, for half my life, I don't believe anyone goes to eternal hell. Let's actually dig into what the Bible says and let's like, like, let's use the Bible as a series of, you know, solutions to its own riddles.

And like, you just, just all like,, I threw away the right-wing politics as soon as I could, but inwardly, all this stuff just lingered until the process of writing this. Oh man, you know, I do that too, as much as I want to act like I'm above that, you know, or whatever. I mean, I'm still moved by the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I'm still moved by a lot of these stories. I'm still moved by a lot of the scripture and verse and everything. If I'm being honest with myself, it kind of never leaves you in that same way. So it's like, yeah, when you said that I consider myself at some level, not the same kind of Christian, but a Christian, in exactly that same boat.

And it feels to me in reading this like, oh, well, it's nice that somebody's out there that feels that kind of same way, that still feels like there's some sort of value to some of this stuff, but it does require a process of setting aside the ugly parts of our tradition that we know are not of any kind of loving just God and getting into what it means to be human and the fact that we're going to die soon. And how do we deal with everything that comes in between and how do we deal with, you know, everything that comes in between and how do we deal with that moment? Yeah.

Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to get too heady about it. No, the Lord put a word on your heart. Let's see. I love those country preachers. I'm sure you've ran into them. It's like, oh, I didn't mean to preach on this today. It's like, yeah, I don't know.

It kind of feels like maybe you did. Or someone sings and they're getting like, they're getting applause and that wasn't me. That was the Lord singing through me, right? And then sometimes you're like, yeah, well, I wish he would speak to us a little less frequently. Yeah, man. The book is great. In reading this, I mean, I hate to say it transported me.

That sounds so stupid, but it took me back to going to Sea Salt in South Carolina and all these things that we used to do and just the whole culture around it and helped me really to kind of see it. Yeah, in a way again that was not. Well, that was really embarrassing, but it's just, you know, part of who we are and it's just yeah, man. It's just it's just great I think one thing I've heard from people is and I didn't there there were a lot of reactions I anticipated like I anticipated hearing from people who didn't grow up in the world saying like oh now I understand my weird neighbors better, you know, and I anticipated people saying like wow

I've seen myself in a novel for the first time and you know not to sound arrogant But it was just like that is how I would react if someone handed me this book, you know? I didn't anticipate people saying, like, this book helped me forgive my younger self. I was like, damn, wow. You know? Like, in a way it was like, well, yeah, me too. You know, it helps. It does help you to just, and, and I mean, I think that speaks to how good of a writer you are, firstly, but also too, it does help you to just kind of accept that, like, you know, we don't choose the things that, firstly, but also too, it does help you to just kind of accept it. Like, you know, we don't choose the things that like happened to us really. You know what I mean?

The circumstances we're born into or the milieu, whatever you want to say about it, you know, and you just, you know, uh, we're all just, uh, you know, cracked vessels trying to love our own crooked neighbors with our own crooked hearts. Yeah. Uh, but, uh, no, man, it's, that's, that's phenomenal. cracked vessels trying to love our own crooked neighbors with our own crooked hearts. But, nah, man, that's phenomenal. And before I cut you loose here though, Jason, again, I appreciate you. But while I have a sports podcaster here, and because boogie cousins won't answer any of my DMs. The University of Kentucky, as you may have heard, is part of the company with long-time coach John Calipari, and in his place

we have hired former Wildcat Mark Pope, who is, you know, Latter-day Saints, which is not squarely in our milieu, but I would say adjacent. In fact, I know it's not squarely in our milieu because I'm sure there's no shortage of evangelicals that probably think LDS people are going to hell. But just, you know, need a little comment on this. And also he's a pope, right? There's all sorts of schisms and rivalries going on there. They're really running with it. Are they? Oh yeah, it's bad.

It's bad. I think one thing they were going to do is to put some blue smoke coming out of referee and I was like, please God, no. I mean, the only thing I've seen is apparently he's going back to playing the Maui Invitational, which apparently Coach Cal was not in favor of. That's the only change I've been made aware of so far. I do think it's probably a sign that things will change to have a coach from BYU come in and be used to not having the most talented roster every time. Which sounds like, you know, a net negative, but maybe. Yeah, like to

anyone but a Kentucky fan, that sounds like a bad thing. But like, like Kentucky spending years having the best roster every time and with, you know, so many years of little to show for it, it might be good to try like, hey, let's, let's just recruit some guys. We'll stick her around for awhile. Let's try a different approach. Uh, and, and you know, here's the thing too is I, I, it's, it's kind of funny cause it's almost an embarrassment to riches. Like one of the things people are the moaning of the Cal era is that we got

the number one class every year. It's like, no, what we need is, you know, what I don't want to see it venture into is, you know, what I've heard my entire life where somebody will invariably sometime between beers six and nine say, what we need is more white boys that can shoot. Uh, I don't, and, and, and, and then I'm looking at our roster and we're pinning all of our hopes on our loan, our loan. Well, a starting white boy coming back. And then I saw today we've signed our first kid who is, uh, was number, the number 33 player in the class of 22.

But as you know, when you recruit, uh, Mormon kids, you have to, you know, it's almost like, uh, you know, how the NBA draft used to like draft a guy from Slovenia and he would come like three years later after he finished his club contract and wherever, you know? So I don't know, maybe that's our new normal, but I say that to say that I had to inject a little dose of, you know, of the big blue nation report into this because I've not, I've not commented on it too much yet. So thanks for indulging me.

Absolutely. You're a football school now, so it doesn't matter. Yeah, of course we are. Always have been. Always have been. Always have been. Jason, man, I appreciate you so much coming in here and again for bearing with me. The book is called Hell is a World Without You, not to be confused with Hell is a Place Without You, The Life

and Times of Tom Sexton. I am Tom Sexton and yeah man thanks for coming by and let's do this again sometime soon. Absolutely, you guys rock. Thank you for having me on. And And welcome everybody to this week's special bonus episode of Trillbillies. I am one third of the Voltron that forms this Mickey Mouse outfit. Tom Sexton and joining me today are some friends from the Great White North coming to tell me about being noncommittal, mostly. And welcome guys. We've got Chris Cunningham and Michelle Gwingy.

And yeah, thanks guys for being with us. What's going on today? We are really tired because we're two weeks up until, it's two weeks up until the election. And once again, all I'm doing is telling people that you can vote for not Joe Biden in New Jersey. You actually don't, you actually do not have to hand it to him, it turns out.

No, you don't, you actually do not have to hand it to him it turns out. No, you don't. You can complain. And complain I did yesterday when I went to Maxwell Elementary, which is a Spanish immersion school, kind of close to my house, you know. And I had an interesting experience because I was going to vote uncommitted, which is a funny thing to do, to just go to punch one in for the faceless avatar of the make your own character screen. However, you guys are gonna make the case that that's what we should be doing today. So I go in there and I don't have my ID on me,

first of all. Second of all, I'm walking into an elementary school with this mustache, which is gonna raise all sorts of things. I had to reassure the people there like, listen this is just what we're doing now. It doesn't mean doesn't, not the signifier it used to be. And then they said well we're gonna need some identification. I said well turns out I don't have any. They said well do you have anything in your car like a credit card something like that I said well, let me go check

So I walk all the way back down the street Look at my car and I had a recall notice for a part on my truck that spoiler. I've not addressed yet And but it did have my name and address on it. So I was like well this work and They just started laughing at me they were like it's interesting let me go to the rules on this and they were like I believe it's you but like technically it has to be either a photo ID or like a credit card I'm like well what's the difference the credit card has this has more information on it than my credit card they both have my name this one has. Eventually, we got it sorted out because I pulled up on my Apple Pay and showed them

that I was, in fact, who I say I was. You used Apple Pay? Yeah. I showed Apple Pay to vote. I used Apple Pay to vote. Wow, it's really 2024. Well, it's a shame, really. No, yeah.

I don't even... Why do you even have to show an ID? You don't have to do that in New Jersey. I ID? You don't know constitutional to ID somebody the polls. I Also thought that I I don't know what was like I was accepting at face value that this is something weird that Kentucky is doing I swore off voting anyway, and then because my friend Michelle Gwingy said it's important I go vote for this uncommitted fella that I did that and it was an exercise and the restriction of my constitutional rights.

I thought, but in the end we sorted it out. I punched one in for uncommitted and, uh, here we are. I did. Uh, so I did the thing. Why don't you tell everybody else why they're supposed to do the thing. They're actually Kentucky. I think that Kentucky's results are in and Kentucky did great. They got like 30,000 votes for uncommitted

It was like 16 percent of like almost 20 percent like 17.8. Yeah something like I was so impressed with Kentucky That's I know that those guys were fighting an uphill battle out there And I'm so proud of the work that they did bad for a bunch of brush clearing Hicks People underestimate the style a lot a lot of people in the South are deeply unhappy. So what is what's like, give me a little bit of background about the the movement for to vote uncommitted and all that kind of stuff and explain to me a little bit if y'all would how uh that's been appearing on ballots and what that process is me a little bit if y'all would how that's been appearing on ballots and what that process is like a little bit. So it started out with Michigan because Michigan

is a swing state that has a really big Arab population and you know they had the numbers there to make a really big difference. I think that their goal was 10,000 votes and they ended up getting like five times that amount. And the point was to show that there were enough, that there are enough people out there that aren't, that are Democrats that vote, but aren't tied to Joe Biden if Joe Biden doesn't make changes on how he's he's handling Palestine if he doesn't, you know, call for restrictions with they don't call for a permanent ceasefire if they don't stop giving Israel obscene amounts of money with no restrictions with nothing asking nothing in return billions of our dollars Yeah, not totally it's and it's like, you know, it's one of those things that it feels like Yeah, like I like since this whole thing has been going on like I've like

Particularly in Michigan, like you said like, you know, like I think Dearborn has the biggest Iraqi population outside of Baghdad or something insane, like some kind of insane stat like that. And I've, and like a lot of those folks had typically historically voted Democrat, like it feels politically suicidal, but I've heard this whole thing described as like sort of a murder suicide pact, the United States and,. It certainly seems like it's trending that way. May I ask you all this? Suppose somebody says to you, Michelle Carissa,

yeah, sure, I could be persuaded to vote uncommitted. But what if, and I think you know what I'm getting ready to ask? What if Biden loses and our bulwark against society crumbling, the last vestiges of our protection against the encroachment of fascism? Well, I think it would depend on- DJT too, what happens? Talk to me. I think it depends on who you're talking to, right?

I think different people have different reservations about it like the most common I would say among like a Lot of older white people seems to be this no concern about Trump getting elected Although it's not restricted to older white people just a trend And like usually usually what I point out to them is that like, there haven't been a lot of substantive differences for a lot of people in this country under Biden as compared to Trump. Things are objectively worse for a lot of people. And so it's really actually on Biden to provide us with a reason to vote for him. We should feel like we're being held hostage in order to vote for Joe Biden, right?

So I think the idea is to actually push against this idea that we're obligated to vote for Biden, that Biden should actually do something for us. And in this particular case, right, the community is by and large very much against the genocide going on in Palestine, the United States involvement in that genocide, right, by providing weapons, by providing material support. And so I think like, it's really a pushback on foreign policy,

but also more generally, it's kind of like how people were talking about defunding the police, in the sense that they were saying, defund the police so we can fund our communities, right? So same kind of concept going on with asking the United States to stop supporting Israel through military aid.

We spent billions of dollars right on that. And all of that could be invested in the American people, right? And Joe Biden really needs to do that. Yeah. It's also like, it's such a, it's sending aid to Israel, sending military aid to Israel is so unpopular.

It's something like, I think there's a Gallup poll that was like, only like 36% of the country asks, thinks that we are, you know, that supports the military actions of Israel. That's like, you know, that's almost 70% of the country that thinks that we shouldn't be doing this. And I've never seen 70% of the country that thinks that we shouldn't be doing this. And I've never seen 70% of Americans agree on anything. Like, no, I would venture to say that that 30 something percent that she sat, it's probably been a little generous too. I'll tell you this. I was on a golf course in Cincinnati, Ohio, not too long ago, and was within earshot of a bunch of old gray haired white dudes who were incensed about this.

Now granted, I'm sure that it's not out of some sort of like, you know, bleeding heart for the Palestinian people. However, I feel like in a lot of this kind of organizing like this, I've, we experienced this with the prison fight, for example. There were a lot of people that we had to sort of, that we brought into the fold because their assumptions about what it would mean to bring a federal prison to our hometown were kind of rooted in some racist stuff. Right, like people were scared to death of MS-13 for a long time, if y'all don't remember that.

It's like, yeah, you know, MS-13 is largely a fiction, one, but to the degree that they do exist, mostly in El Salvador, far from Lettsburg, Kentucky, but you hear like these isolated horror stories and people lose their goddamn minds on stuff. So you bring them in and you kind of have to give them like, I don't want to sound turnalistic when I say this, but like when you get into that fight, you sort of slowly introduce new ideas to them. And over time, you see that hearts and minds can't change around this stuff because they're rooted in, well, we don't want this prison.

When we started out thinking, well, I don't want this prison because X, but really and truly, I don't want this prison because it's no benefit to my community. Whatever, whatever. So to your point, I think that there is a lot of that like, people are just pissed off at like, people like us pissed off because, you know, like we, I have to, you know, risk financial ruin every time I go interrogate a strange pain in my body. And, you know, some dickhead in Tel Aviv does not you know and that's because of my money because of my money yeah yeah because of my money and it's i think it's a lot of the same thing and i think there is you know and i don't want to like say like you know oh there's like you know we should be necessarily finding common cause with people with fucked up

views or anything like that but like the history of struggle does involve some of that, if we're being honest and candid about it. And I think this is a prime example of something like that, where, you know, people might be pissed off with their tax money is funding like, you know, you know, all the things that we want out of a society for somebody else. Because of, yeah, you know, yeah the things that we want out of a society for somebody else because of, yeah, you know. Yeah, I've absolutely like Candice saying in phone banking, I've, this is actually so I've been phone banking and this is the nicest that people have ever been to me while phone banking.

I like anybody who's ever done phone banking knows that, you know, it's you can end up in some weird conversations. Totally. But phone banking for this, people have, even people who have agreed, like are like not sure that they're going to vote uncommitted or have said, you know, I'm scared to, even them have been saying,

even they have been saying, this is such important work that you're doing, thank you. So it's the closest I've ever felt like I'm ever gonna feel to being a veteran because they're like thanking me for my service on the phone. It's the nicest thing I've ever tried to convince people love in my life the way people react to it is very encouraging and very like sweet a lot of times and you think part of it is like New Jersey is a very blue state but part of, New Jersey is a very blue state, but part of the reason it is

a very blue state is because the Democratic Party like has such control and basically keeps third parties really from having any way to actually viably run. And so as a result, I think there's a lot of people who are excited to just see something to vote on the ballot that they on the ballot that they actually care about and support. Like, I mean, um, we recently abolished the line in New Jersey, which is a big steps towards like, um, making our elections more competitive. Um, but I feel like uncommitted, part of the reason people are so excited about it or so into it is because it it's also a lot easier because there is no candidate. There's no

candidate to debate over. It's just the idea very easy permanent ceasefire now justice for Palestine, right? That's our slogan. And it's literally on the ballot. I think we may be the only state that actually was able to get a slogan like that on the ballot, as far as I know. Yeah, I don't know if other states have done it, but New Jersey has a lot of really fun laws. Like we look so we are allowed to have a slogan on the ballot with the candidate up to six words and our slogan is justice for Palestine, permanent ceasefire now. So the word Palestine is actually appearing on the ballot in New Jersey.

We have a similar thing in Kentucky, but it doesn't allow for a slogan. It allows for a nickname. So for instance, we've had guys like Harlan Tootie Seals run, Tim Bird Dog Matthews run, and Joe Reese Cupp Steel most recently, the right estate representative. So I know in a manner of speaking what you're talking about, because sometimes a nickname, a moniker can be a slogan of a kind. You know?

Yeah, for sure. I'm sure Bird Dogog was trying to say. We actually, I feel like, I feel like politically like Kentucky and New Jersey can be spiritually similar. I've actually, I'm not, I'm not the one that's the best at, you know, like Chris and I are both on the steering committee, but we're not the section of the steering committee that's really into the rules. That was not our part of the shop. But I think

one of the guys who is said that New Jersey's primary, like the process of getting uncommitted on the ballot in New Jersey and Kentucky were actually really pretty similar. Like in a lot of other states, it just appears on the ballot always. We had to petition to get it on the ballot. In one of the most absurd processes I've ever heard of, we have delegates assigned to uncommitted. And another weird, fun New Jersey rule is that you're not allowed to have, we had to get rid of some of the women that were delegates because we had too many women. I ever agree honestly. I'm a dog kid. The opposite of a club we had a gender problem in the wrong direction. But it was it when we actually kind of so because part of what so New Jersey like I said is a really blue state and one of the things

they instated was having uh gender quotas for the um for the delegates uh so we had put a lid on these on these women and their ability to speak their mind okay before it gets no that's what is happening like it was supposed to like keep man off, but it ended up actually keeping women. And funnily enough, non-binary people can count for either. So that was really fun. And we had a we had a ton of non-binary. I think we have like at least five or six deliats who are

non-binary. So like we we had a whole lot of fun joking about how we broke the Democrats gender quota. And when we went to turn in the votes, it was so not the votes We had a whole lot of fun joking about how we broke the Democrats' gender quota. When we went to turn in the votes, it was so, not the votes, the… The petitioners. The petitioners, we got to meet the Trump guys. They came up and talked to us because they have to petition.

Everybody has, the Biden guys were there, the Trump guys were there, and we were there, right? We definitely had the most people there, but the Trump guys, they were so funny. They looked exactly like what you would think they would be. Oh yeah, they were like these little dudes with these little haircuts and their little suits. And like one of them came up over to us and was like, I really love what you guys are doing.

And I was just like, what are you talking to me? Please leave me alone. Did you see the Trump guys, Michelle? I wasn't there. I had to work. But I saw pictures and it's just a bunch of like, it's like a bunch of weird little dudes in suits for Trump. And then a bunch of like half dead DSA members, because this was DSA led. So like, like who'd been stayed up the whole night yesterday, like organizing all of the petitions. I thought you made, there was DSA people on the Trump side.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that were just barely alive because we had been getting signatures up until the last second.

It was fun. It was a good time. One of our guys came up to them and was like, wait, who are you guys with? To joke. They're like, where are we, Trump? And then they were hyping each other up. They were like, oh yeah, we're the hottest guys in here. Can't they tell? Apparently they actually said that, that they were the hottest guys in there. A bunch of guys in ill-fitting suits.

It looked like they played golf at the University of Mississippi. I'm sure there were some real, some real lady killers. Greasy, greasy, greasy looking fellas. I know, I yeah. Well, listen, let me ask you this a little bit before we, before we, you know, get too far down the road. But like, last time when we did a little check in pre-call about this stuff, y'all were telling me all kinds of wild ass New Jersey, you know, politics stories. Well, each of you pick one that's a personal favorite. And just give our listeners who might not be from the area traditionally a little flavor of, you know, how things are up y'all's way.

Chris, do you want to go first? Definitely not. Listen, after we did the free call, if I started talking about something about New Jersey, Michelle was about to pop through the screen and drag my ass back to Texas. So I'm not saying nothing. I forgot Chris. Okay, definitely. My favorite is, so I'm from Jersey City. I was born and raised here. And Jersey City is, this is, the city council meetings are a chapter out of one flow over

the cuckoo's nest. It is wild out here. And we had a mayor for a long time that was just like a notorious alcoholic, Jeremiah Healy. And he does sound like a guy that be traditionally alcoholic, just the name alone. He was okay. So one time he got in trouble because he was photographed drunk and naked on his porch. And when a reporter asked him, excuse me, Mayor, why were you drunk and naked on your porch? He said that these, I think it was something like these Latinas, these three Latinas, like these three Latina girls were, were making fun of me. So I ran out, they're like ringing my doorbell

and mocking me. So I ran out there to yell at them. And then he said that he had consumed, I think eight beers over the course of three hours, which I think is a low estimate of probably what he had consumed. But, and he like accidentally went out there to yell at them and then accidentally

fell asleep. I've had eight bears. I didn't fall asleep in nude on my porch. No, I didn't. Three Latinas. And he just, I like the strangest excuse of just blaming three Hispanic teenagers. I've had people ring my doorbell, like, because, or like try the door because they were like messing with their teenagers teenagers messing around. And I still did not end up drunk pass out outside.

Hey, I think you're being a little short-sighted, you know, because it can happen really to anybody if you think. I am, I, I don't, I'm going to knock on wood, but I can almost say with almost certainty that this is not a situation I'm going to find myself in. You say that now. I'm a millennial. I don't answer my door. That's true.

That's true. This is, we say that with phone banking too, like I'm not getting phone banked because I'm not answering my phone, but you guys should pick up your phone and answer your phone. And just in case it's us calling you. Well, let me ask you this before Chris is still thinking about her is like, what's the wildest conversation you had doing the phone banking? So everybody that I've talked to has been so, so nice during this phone bank. But one of the other guys who was phone banking, well, one, he accidentally, he phone banked

somebody that was on the call with us. Like he called, he phone banked like another member of the phone bank while he was on the phone. So that was pretty funny. And then another guy was, oh, he, another guy was like very strangely telling, like very supportive of this, but said that he was a Republican, even though we were only calling Democrats, like registered Democrats. And then he said that he was actually running for president against Trump. And we didn't understand what he meant, but we were like, okay, you're voting and committed. Great. Moving on. Yeah, hell yeah, man. I'm Catholic too. Whatever, man. Whatever, man.

Oh my God. Well, it's in service to you doing Lord's work. Crystal, what you got? Also, I apologize. I reflexively misgendered you just a second ago. I apologize about that, my friend. It's all right. Don't worry about it. Let's see.

What do I do? Well, I could talk about the encampment. I've been a lot of those. What's, what's going on? Give us a little, a little. Oh yeah. What you talk about? What were you at Purdue? Purdue?

No, no, the encampment. No, but the one, it started with a P it was in New York. I think. No, I know Princeton. Is she about to do any purchase college? Dude, purchase. That's what it was. I, I know Princeton. Is it about SUNY Purchase College? Dude, Purchase, that's what it was. Purchase, yeah.

Purdue? I don't know. Little far away. I have no idea. I have no idea where Purdue is. I don't think most people do. I'm pretty sure Purdue is in Texas, right? Isn't it?

In a weird twist, my friend used to be the tennis coach at SUNY Purchase. Really? Yeah. Gosh, that's really interesting. I ran a tennis camp there, something I forget now. Ran a tennis camp, that makes sense. It is out in the middle of nowhere.

Um, so I've been in a team since the last time we talked. I was at Princeton first, um, just for a day, just visiting. And then, uh, I was at Rut Rutgers New Brunswick, which ended unfortunately. And then, I mean, they want some of their demands, it's complicated. But then after that- It sounds like they were pretty conciliatory at Rutgers. Like that was like one of the headlines floating around, is that right?

It's a very complicated situation, but basically they had 10 demands. And the top two were disclosure and divestment and then cutting ties with Tel Aviv University. And I'm going to let you, they basically agreed to eight out of 10 demands, but I'm gonna let you guess out of those 10 demands, what were the two that they didn't go for, you know, so. I bet I could hazard a pretty solid guess. Yeah, exactly. So kind of the news out there

about Rutgers-Dubrunswick right now is like, oh, like they won their demands, Brunswick right now is like, oh, like, they won their demands. But really, they really want aid of the demands and the administration is already trying to walk it back, of course, in these situations. But then I went to Rutgers Newark as well, and they're still holding out. So Rutgers has multiple campuses. And so Rutgers Newark is still hanging out there.

They have additional demands, mostly related to reinvestment into the city of New Brunswick, Newark, I should say, not New Brunswick. So they've got some interesting stuff cooking still. They just finally, yesterday, they were asked to officially leave because New ark is one of those cities. I don't know if you've heard about their police force, but they're like supposed to be more chill. Um, they're kind of like the liberal.

That wavy gravy town. We all know and love. They got into a lot of trouble the liberal dream. Newark, that wavy, gravy town we all know and love. They got into a lot of trouble about police brutality some years back and they, they, liberals like to hold up Newark as like this like perfect city where cops don't do anything violent ever. And so I think that's part of the reason why the cops haven't been pulled in, into Newark. But they just finally got asked to leave officially yesterday, but they didn't get like a

timeline or anything. So we'll see. They could be out there for God knows how much longer, because they got a lot of community members out there, which is a really fun, like this morning, I was actually, so the last encampment, perhaps the one I was like most involved in was at SUNY Purchase College. And the students there, I actually wasn't there the first night, but the first night they went out there. And they set up, they didn't actually set up tents at all. They were just, they had like blankets and stuff on the ground. And they were basically planning on just staying out there, being physically out there.

But our president of our university basically called in the police, but called in like the police that were there were not just UPD, like not just university police it was like police from like five different counties um and so they showed up with like batons and like all kinds of crazy stuff and apparently like so 70 students actually got arrested that night because basically they used the excuse of quiet hours. They said that they tried to claim that quiet hours were curfew, they're not a curfew, but they basically used that to basically arrest 70 of my students. And you know,

city purchases in an area where a lot of the students that go there are coming from the city, meaning New York City, And it's a really high black and brown population. And the police were incredibly violent with the protesters. And in fact, they also, there were six professors who live on campus who happened to be there filming. And they actually arrested the six of the professors, some of them quite violently as well. So, and you can imagine like

that backfired. That did not go over the way I think that they planned it to. But then the kids were back out there the next day to their credit and they set up another encampment. And that's when I got involved in went out there and I really didn't do much. I just kind of hung around the camp and lifted their spirits in as much way as I could. But I was really proud of them. They were able to get all 10 of their demand, including divestment and disclosure. And obviously, like, they couldn't get divestment and disclosure at the SUNY level, because they're kind of like, they couldn't get divestment and disclosure at the SUNY level because they're kind of a, they're a campus under SUNY.

So in order to get full divestment from SUNY, you even have to get all of the campuses. And it's not like Rutgers. Rutgers has like three campuses. SUNY has like 20, you know, some crazy number of campuses. So, but they were able to get quite a lot and there's so many funny stories of things the students were doing. There was one point where Patricia Weiss comes out and she started handing out basically notices of suspension.

But the problem is they can't suspend you without your name. So the students were just... It's a classic trick like when landlords try to like give you an eviction notice and it's like, eh, you have to go through a court of justice. Exactly. You can't just say I'm kicked out. Yeah.

Exactly. So they literally were just like balling them up and throwing them at her. It was really funny. Oh my gosh. But yeah. Are you going to tell me that story. No, no, there's so many crazy things that were going on. The first night Patricia Weiss came out there, they were yelling at her. It was really, it's a really interesting case and I don't think a lot of people know about

it because it's like kind of the middle of nowhere in New York, Westchester, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But people know how it is. Wealth kind of the middle of nowhere in New York, Westchester, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wealthy people up there, yeah. Well, Westchester, yeah, the surrounding area is quite wealthy, but the school itself, so there's two aspects of the school. One aspect of the school is the conservatory, so that's where like all the artists and musicians are. Those people are like, where like all the artists and musicians are. Those people are like, they are trying to come to SUNY Perp, which it's highly competitive. But the rest of the programs are not well known like that and they're not being funded. So it's actually more kind of local working class people that are

in those. So in political science, which is the Nissel in, like, that's kind of more so the vibe of the students. And so the student group that ran all of this, there were some students who were from the conservatory as well. It was a real mixture. The whole campus kind of came together. And because of the brutality on the first night, because of where it was located, because a lot of these encampments like are in front of administrative buildings, but what was interesting about Purchase is they actually set up around the dorms. And this actually worked to their strategic advantage because the dorms, people were watching. And so people came out, some of them to watch what was happening. And that's how so many students

ended up getting arrested because the cops started arresting students who were not even a part of the program. Just hanging around. So, and then the second night when they came back again apparently there were like 250 students out there. So they just was too many of them to arrest. Yeah, at a certain point, it's our numbers count for something.

Yeah, no, it's really interesting. Like at Princeton, they did some de-arresting actually, which I was like, which was really interesting. They de-arrested a couple students. They had a lot of tactical issues with like people kind of basically Princeton wouldn't kind of like if you got arrested, they would like kick you off campus. And since there were small numbers of students getting arrested at a time instead of like a big number like at SUNY Purchase, it was difficult for them to like do that. But yeah, no Princeton ended peacefully for

right now, but they're planning stuff for reunions at Princeton, which is a whole other crazy thing we could get into. But I'll stop. Yeah, these these students have been like so incredible. And I'm so angry for them. I just so I actually heard a rumor that Columbia was, and I don't know if this is true, I just saw it floating around on the internet, but they're already archiving the protest signs and stuff as historical material. As soon as I saw that Hind Hall sign, I was like, oh, I hope that the administration didn't get their hands on that because they

will save it and they will put it up in a nice shiny like frame in five or 10 years. Like a time capsule thing. And then forget that they were the ones that arrested all these people. Or conveniently forget. Yeah, some of those people still probably be on the University Police Force too. You know what? Every generation talks about kind of like, you know, their potential, like we're the one or they feel like sort of ordained by something higher to like change things.

But, but this, this crop, kids man are incredibly impressive and are really, really doing the thing. And without getting too, you know, schmaltzy, it's, you know, it's encouraging and uplifting to say for sure it in closing gang. Let me ask y'all this. What can citizens of New Jersey and other places that this might be on the ballot, you know, y'all got any parting thoughts for those that are still on the fence saying, you know what, Michelle, you make some cogent points.

You know what, Carissa, good point. But you know, maybe we just need to stick it out with this guy whose brain is like the, you know, a crusty jar of apple butter sitting in the fridge for a little too long. I would say that this is specifically for the primary. This is Donald Trump is not on this ballot. The only other person on this ballot, besides Uncommitted and Joe Biden, is a woman named Teresa Bukovnack, who her entire thing is just putting up fake pictures of fetuses. And she's like a pro-life Democrat. So these are your options on this ballot. It's Joe Biden, us, and then that lady.

So looking realistically at your options for this ballot, we're not endorsing anybody for November. We're not telling anybody what to do in November, but as a measure of just voicing your displeasure for this administration, as a measure of a means of admonpleasure for this administration, as a measure of a, as a means of admonishing them, vote uncommitted, please, and tell bug your family, bug your friends. It's on June 4th. It's coming up. We're, there's, I think there's a couple of other primaries that

are, that are still happening that have uncommitted on the ballot. I think maybe New Mexico is one. I can't, I know Kentucky just happened, Maryland just happened, but there's still a couple of others that have uncommitted as an option on the ballot that they're doing either write-in campaigns or they actually have uncommitted as an option. So if your primary hasn't happened yet,

check and see if there's uncommitted see if there's an uncommitted movement in your state. If you want to hear more about us, Chris and I, we're uncommitted and our handles are uncommitted NJ everywhere. Chris and I personally answer a lot of the DMs. Might not want to say that. everywhere, Chris and I personally answer a lot of the DMs. I don't want to say that. I was struck that from the minutes.

Okay. Yes. If you're being weird, I'm not answering now, but you're being nice. Or maybe you don't want me to say that. Whatever, I'll let y'all to say it. Just at least be funny. Yeah. If you're funny, I will absolutely answer you. I could use a laugh. But follow us, repost us, annoy your family and friends, please, because this is important.

And we've actually set up a goal number for the votes that we want to get in New Jersey, it's 50,000. And if we don't hit 50,000, I feel that I will have to move up from shame. So please come vote. But yeah, let's, let's don't make Michelle have to do something. I'm really tired. I would tell voters to get their ass on the right side of history. Like this is one way you can do it. Right. I always tell my to my students at the end of my classes vote protest and read as necessary and vote is number one. So get to it kids. And vote is number one. So get to it kids. I

appreciate y'all so much for stopping by and and glad that we was finally able to put this together and Let's do let's do stood again soon Yeah, for sure. I'm sure that New Jersey will Have something ridiculous that they're doing soon worth You ridiculous that they're doing soon. Worth talking about. We'd love to. Watch by the. You next time that there is yet another corruption scandal will absolutely come by in chat. Well, I appreciate y'all so much.

And if, uh, yeah. And if y'all like what you hear at the program, as always, one reminds you can give us money. You know, $5 a month gets you an extra episode every week. program.