Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 281: What If I Stumble

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

This week we tackle some hard questions: is the perfect relationship possible? Who is the Universal Christ? Should colleges be more like prison? After that we finish it all up with some Synth Your Piece. Tarence's article in the Nation: https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/covidreliefkentucky/ Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

now i'm rolling every time i hear that song i'm brought back to college at the uh it was the halfway point of our hour of power mix and so whenever you know whenever you heard clint eastwood by the gorillas you knew that like you're on the homestretch what's it what is that like a hazing ritual no it's just something we did to pass the time. What is hour of power? Is it like you drink for an hour? You take a shot of beer every hour, every minute for an hour. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we set out one long Saturday because at Moorhead, Kentucky, you make your own fun. And I know this sounds like one of those like, oh, man, you're just talking about like when you were wild and crazy type things and you would be right but we set the record and i like to think the standard we did four and a half hours of power and i walked upstairs to see adam adams he had covered the the bathroom completely in puke. The toilet basin, the sink, the shower, all of it. The light fixtures.

And then I was, I didn't know what was going on. I heard this noise and here's what the cadence was. Ugh! It was a whistle followed by a guttural growl uh-huh and then just some chuckling and i walked in there and i found the man laying on his side facing the wall and i said why are you doing that for also what happened in the bathroom he said i had to above it i had to release it. And then I said, what are you doing in here?

I said, what's with that cadence? That's creepy. He goes, it makes me feel so good. So I don't know. Maybe try that as a meditative thing. Just close your eyes and whistle to yourself and then growl and then just laugh a little bit. And just do that for about 10, 15 minutes. See what that does for you you i think it sounds pretty good i'm not sure i might didn't have to try that dude it is really criminal that we send kids to college it really is like like an 18 or

19 year old blacking out like dude there was a legend that went around my town. I'm not going to say her name. Hopefully this isn't even enough identifying information. And it may not have even been. Her hob's isn't very big. Maybe we'll trade lightly. It may not have even been true. But this person who graduated a few years before me, I was probably like in eighth or ninth grade when they graduated.

She went to college, a very popular college in the state of Texas. A&M? Tech? Actually, dude, I don't even remember. It had Texas in the name. I remember that. Okay. You got a very famous party school. Which one? I don't know remember. It had Texas in the name. I remember that. Okay. You got a very famous party school.

Which one? I don't know. One of them. One of them with Texas in the name. One of them with Texas in the name. She went to a party and got blackout drunk. And I sympathize with parts of this story because, yeah, I mean, I did this too. You go to a party where you don't

know anybody you have no friends there and then you just you you like throw up on a wall and then strangers you don't even know will just put you in the corner of the dingiest barest room you've ever seen with like a pirates of the caribbean poster on the wall nothing worse nothing worse than waking up in that circumstance and not knowing where the hell you are either. Truly. Truly. Which has happened, you know, obviously happened to me.

I mean, yeah, imagine waking up 11 a.m. in Lubbock, Texas. It's already 100 degrees. You've got to walk 30 city blocks back to your truck, wherever the fuck it is and hope to god that it's there because public transportation in lubbock texas is not not up snuff huh anyways there's a story about this girl that she she did this at a party um and uh but not only did she throw up on the wall she took a shit on the wall and you're nodding sagely i think this is like an urban legend because we have the same thing okay you know it's like one of those things where it's like if enough people have

like kind of the same story you wonder if it really happened dude this is a real person. Did Eddie Murphy pop out with some roses? I feel bad then, because this was a real person. That means she got this, like, taboo, this stigma attached to her. But they said that she had to transfer schools. She was so embarrassed. Like, I never really understood that, because, like, in college,

like, there's so many people. Like, you can shrug that off and just never talk to those people again if you're especially if you're at a big enough school yeah yeah you'd be fine i don't but that was something that i never understood like how do you shit on a wall like i mean obviously if it's just like a turd it's just gonna roll down the wall it's like yeah it's true it just depends though man you know you get on some of those a good drunk and it's not exactly a roller it's more of a splasher hmm well anyways i'm sorry to go there this early but you know this is like um who is that uhoust Marcel Proust

it's an associative game you said one thing you told a college partying story and for some reason my mind in its reverie went to that college partying story I don't know why yeah you ever pissed yourself drinking

dude never have I've done several times yeah I never have. Never have. I've done it several times. Yeah, I never have. Huh. Probably three or four times, I think. You don't understand. I can hold a piss, which is not good, because I have to pee, like, every 30 minutes. Which is why I've gotten...

I can endure so much pain for so long. It's like why I've gotten scared multiple times that i have diabetes because i pee all the time yeah well you drink a lot of water too i do i do drink too much water probably i'm kind of eating like you these days except for like a lot of it because i'm trying to if you notice in the corner i'm trying to get jacked yeah we got challenged me and some of the guys. Who can lose the most body fat, get the most jacked? Because I've never seen my body at Adonis level.

I'm assuming it could get there. Yeah, for those of you who can't see at home, what he was referring to in the corner is a cardboard cutout of Arnold Schwarzenegger at the peak of his bodybuilding in the 80s. And then Tom's head superimposed on Tom. That's exactly. Just a little motivation to get me through. But it's weird because

I'm eating like cashews, black beans, spelted grains, lots of protein. I like all those things. And all kinds of more carbs than I'm used to taking in too.

I kind of liked your idea from the other day just to get jacked as fuck and then just stop just to see what it looks like. I mean I'm not really interested in being buff. I just want to see what I look like as a buff person. Yeah I'm not really interested in being buff i just want to see what i look like as a buff person yeah i'm not i have no designs on keeping this a perfect body i'm gonna have for six months but um i just want people to let it be known that i will be

you know i will be they'll they'll look at me and then they'll look at the Greek Adonis, and they'll be like, I don't see any difference between these two. In every way. Including the small penis. Speaking of the Greek Adonis, did you read the New Yorker article about the academic philosopher who is in like a thruple type situation with her ex-husband and her former student did you read that that stresses me out just to hear you describe it so let me get this straight she divorces this guy but keeps him in the stable and then brings in a former student.

Pretty much. Yeah. Dude, I I would. OK, here's the thing about this article. It it punches all the notes that we've talked about on this show. But the thing is that it is so it's so rich. It's not rich. It's honestly it's like it's like feeding on a carcass it is genuinely disgusting it's a disgusting article like but every sentence packs so much protein if we read it it would take us four hours to get through there's you gotta just stop and choose so much dude he's the meatiest this the gamiest like fucking 64 ounce t-bone in that one place in amarillo if you could finish it everybody gets their meal for

free that night yes i like i guarantee you we would vomit like your friend like your like your cousin adam we would we would fucking cover our respective rooms head to toe in fucking vomit. Oh, man. What's the deal then? What's the deal with them? Dude, it's like... I'll chew a little bit. I can't even begin to explain it.

It's like she's a philosopher, and she's applied the Socratic method to every aspect of her life, including marriage and relationships. And part of the tension of the article is, is an ideal, perfect, platonic relationship possible? Like, if you start out like what's better is it better to start out your relationship with the perfect ideal in mind and then you work towards that or is it better to start out with just someone that's kind of like schlubby and you don't really have any expectations of each other project yeah yes it's like kind of like when you draft a guy that's seven three but he's not coordinated at all you know you can't teach hot but he needs some coaching up well i i think that was

i think this article honestly it misses a fundamental thing which is that like okay i've been in a relationship with an older woman i mean she's not way older than him but like the age gap is like eight years and he's like 27 and she was like 35 and i mean let me just say that like having been in a situation exactly like that before there's a lot of ways that it can go wrong oh let me tell you something i i'm with you right there i i too was in a relationship with a with a woman about 10 years my senior and you can go sideways yeah but like when we talk about age gap discourse no one talks about no one talks about that like that's that's no one no one talks about

driving your best friend and roommate crazy by her playing the goddamn fiddle at fucking seven in the morning as loud as she can well you want to talk about a project like that is that is project territory like a 45 year old woman woman dating a 21-year-old male is like, that to me is fine. But you narrow that window a little bit more, like 35 to 27, sirens are going off in my head. Like alarm, alarm. You mean like, what do you mean, like a 45 and 31-year-old? You said 21-year-old. No, no, like when Demi Moore dated Ashton Kutcher.

Okay, okay, okay. Like that to me is like, all right, man. Oh, I see what you're saying. Like that to me is like, oh, like we're going to have some fun with this. Yeah, yeah, it seems low stakes. You know there's a shelf life. Yeah, yeah, it seems low stakes. You know there's a shelf life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, yeah, you narrow that window.

I don't know. Combustible elements. Combustible elements. That's exactly right. Yeah. It's a very strange article because it's just about, like, two highly neurotic people who can't stop talking about what they believe and who they are and in a cup chair and i just do i mean really and like the whole article the

author is like asking him the cuck like are you sure you're okay with this and he's like like he's just smiling through the tears like i'm good man everything's great i don't want to kick shape anybody but i wonder how many of those guys are like you know just going on to get along you know what i mean i don't know i think that uh i think that you can i think of all the things to overthink polyamory probably isn't something you want to overthink like it's not for me but for those of who it is for or they think that they want it i don't think you need to overthink it i think it just is what it is yeah just i know what you mean well the funny thing well the funny thing was that she

wound up leaving her husband for this student um and she and like all of her friends and her family were like why would you do this like your husband's great he's perfect they were like they literally they were like why don't you just have an affair? Listen, hey, before you get into all this thing, why don't you just consider it a good old-fashioned affair? Yeah. You know, I thought that was interesting. Yeah, I think, you know what, listen, having an affair with a 21-year-old and nobody's the wiser for it

might be the prudent course, and then if it goes on a certain amount of time, then maybe you consider the throuple thing. Yeah's like you gotta have a trial you can't buy your shoes before you try them on yeah i wish i could read this article because i'm not doing it justice um but like on the autumn app it's like a 50 minute long read and so i know that if we read it it would take hours it would take fucking hours but like that's the whole thing all of them are talking about like socrates and aristotle like the whole fucking thing is they get them talking about how their relationship fits into

the thought and traditions of socrates and aristotle well that might be might be enough to just sort of give the whole thing pause right there you know like if you're if you're basing your relationship on the classics tap the brakes a little bit i mean particularly if your wife says i think the nature of our relationship is platonic that's not good. There's like, someone pointed out, a friend of the show, Robert Jones, pointed out that the protagonist of this story, like the subject of this profile, was also the main character of Twitter back in the fall around Halloween teacher.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The professor. What was she went viral for a tweet. Maybe you recall this one. I vaguely remember it. It was this was the tweet.

Nine year old mama. You didn't throw out the halloween candy background we have a halloween tradition where after the kids go to bed i throw away all their candy in the garbage the next morning they are filled with rage thank you so much hugs and kisses reader i forgot i don't know it's partially nonsensical i don't even know what the fuck that is, but do you remember that tweet? I'm still trying to put it together. I feel like I do. Yeah. I don't know.

I mean, it's... The article struck a chord in Rod Dreher, though. Apparently... Imagine that. Yeah, apparently Rod Dreher was... saw parts of himself in that article. I can guess which parts, I bet, almost.

What did Rod have to say about it? Basically, he just says he sees parts of himself in the wife, the professor. That's not where I thought that was was thought that's not what you were thinking that's the first line of his thing is look marriage is hard um god damn it right the thing about rod that's so funny is like the man just wears like his sort of psychosexual hang-ups on his sleeve. You don't have to even dig too far to know what that man's struggling with. I'm jealous of that.

Maybe I do wear mine on my sleeves. I don't know. I can't tell. People would have to point it out for me. I'd be horrified. Well, that don't sound good please no one do that please god nobody do that please no one psycho analyze my my hang-ups but the thing i've always wondered about him is like he gets roasted thoroughly every week does

he just does he just let it glide off of his back like water off of a duck? I guess so. How does he do it? I want to know how he does it. Maybe it's one of those there's no such thing as bad press things. Maybe. Maybe he loves it. He's like, fuck yeah.

I guess I can only assume. I'm basking the hate the article is like the article I don't even really know what the point of the article was I think it was like trying to explore our strange definitions around marriage and monogamy but it used as its subject

someone who is constantly trying to get to the bottom of everything using a 2,500-year-old philosophical method that was created by a person who was a notorious grouch and killed himself i mean i don't i don't know what you do with that well i mean that's everybody's plague right i mean what really has to happen is this and we kind of talked about it a little bit on that episode about the forums is that it's very likely that the average slack jaw yokel today is smarter than some of the guys that wrote the classics one thousand percent yeah so why are

we hell-bent on basing every facet of our lives on ancient documents you know be it be it be it with i'm not saying that there's not wisdom to be gleaned from the past that's not what i'm saying but i'm saying that like taking a 25 year 100 year old document or even like for the constitutionalists the 200 year old document 300 year old document and sort of i mean that might be fine if you just assume life is not dynamic and nothing new ever happens you You know what I mean? But like, eh. Dude, that is interesting.

There is currently this big debate roiling the American Historical, what is it, Association? The AHA or whatever the fuck. um that like i think that this was a point or like a like a sort of like accusation made by a former director of it of that organization that like historians and society at large is plagued by like what they called like presentism where like increasingly fewer and fewer people are interested in the past and we're only interested in the last like 100 years or so but like i i feel like it's the opposite i feel like everyone is obsessed with the past like you know what i'm saying like i think that's exactly yeah i would think the exact opposite i think everybody's living in the past look at our just fascination with pastiche and nostalgia yeah it's there's nothing

new happening everything that comes out is uh repackaged or rebooted and that's to some degree that's fine like i don't want to be a killjoy about it either but like feels like you know yeah i definitely think yeah if there's one thing you couldn't say about our society today is that we're we're not obsessed with the past yeah maybe i'm misunderstanding the contours of that argument but it definitely seems to me yeah that people are if they're not blatantly obsessed with the past, like, constantly trying to apply Aristotle to their polyamorous relationship, they do have, like, an outlook that would probably be more, you know, apt or appropriate for the 15th century. Yeah. for the 15th century yeah or like sort of the sort of the the i'm just going to say a lot of things in succession here because i don't know how to concisely sort of lump all these things

into a group but the sort of uh tech joe rogan mma's rap leaning uhaning Jordan Peterson, whatever. Their fascination with the classics. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Interesting the touchstones that we've picked to guide us into the future here. Yeah, I feel like if you're going to be about that life, if you are really going to be into that, you've got to be about that life. You've got to fucking start getting Latin inscribed stone tablets in your

house. Instead of those like inspirational. And I'm not talking about Veritas cause you watched a boondock saints. Yeah, no. Instead of like the inspirational quote, throw pillows, your couches need to have stone tablets on them.

Those are your throw pillows, and they're inscribed with Latin quotations or sayings like, habeas corpus. Yeah, here lies Commodus Thabius Macmudius the 18th. the thebius macmudius the 18th yeah you gotta be you gotta lean into yeah stung the scorpion with the tip of his uh stinger or so you know so something cryptic like that that's like weirdly sexual and like you know sort of what it's saying but at the same time you're like what the fuck are these dudes on oh yeah no i know exactly what you're talking about yeah yeah yeah they love that dude they would have been crazy i mean what what do you think the craziest thing what would be your if

you were in a roman if you're a gladiator in a roman coliseum what would you prefer to have to wrestle? Because I feel like your options are lion, bear. Where did they source these creatures from, too? It's not like there's a bunch of lions roaming the Italian hill country. Was it ethically sourced? Before I fight in the Roman

Coliseum, I'm going to need to know if these game animals were ethically sourced. I have no qualms actually yeah i'm gonna stop the proceedings with doing the timeout gesture and i'm gonna call out to whoever whoever the emperor would be at the time i guess but listen not gonna make a big deal about this but i just want to know i got it i need to see some documents on how ethically treated these animals were when you brought them in there. I'll gladly slay this beast, not a question about it.

But I just want to know, like, did it have a happy life? Was it fed organic grass? This is a free range line? Yeah. What are we talking about here? yeah what are we talking about i mean okay italy i don't know if it had lions like in in the early ancient period but i do know that hannibal the the general the carthaginian general brought lions and elephants with him when he was trying

to invade italy like and what a fucking way to make an entrance right just like yo dog there's the thing about it man you had thought that you really couldn't get more ostentatious than an italian and then here they come the north africans and you're like oh damn what was just thinking there is like i'm gonna bring some fucking wild cats with me i'm gonna unleash them on the roman soldiers god terrified prospect be perfectly honest so you're saying some of those cats got loose and they just corralled them for you know for roman for gladiatorial purposes they might have i don't know interesting i mean personally if i'm going to get torn apart by a lion i guess i'd rather it be done in front of a massive auditorium of people just he's fucking ripping your intestines out and people are like yeah and then you're just saying

something in latin like where you're talking about inscribed on that pillow some cryptic like your final cryptic message to the world and the cloud dumps poison on my ashen body people are people are like throwing up wine in the stands yeah just totally debauched yeah just people just puking chicken parms like on the next person in front of noodles and what the fuck man i mean it's, these are the people you want to emulate? I know Socrates wasn't Roman, okay? I'm not that stupid.

But he was the next worst thing, which is Greek. That's a lateral move, to be perfectly honest. Yeah. Dude, all kinds of crazy shit happened back then. I feel like stampedes and shit were happening, like human stampedes. I think there was like a Justinian or something. I think maybe there was like a massive stampede at a race

in like the 5th century or 6th century. For all of like conservative commentators you know shit about like the teaming masses and mobs and stuff we haven't really seen a huge stampede

you know what I'm saying in a while not since like that great chart or the great white concert remember that the great white concert not the band yeah the band did that happen at a great white concert remember that the great white concert about the band yeah the band did that happen at a great white show and at a who show i think oh yeah it happened a lot in the days of rock and roll before the music died yeah yeah yeah before the music died. A weird thing is happening to me. What? I don't know if this is noticeable or not, but I have Tourette's syndrome.

Mm. And I don't know what it is, but I think eating a lot of protein is kind of giving me tics again. Really? I was walking into the YMCA the other day, and I just had the weirdest interaction with the guy at the desk, because I was like, I blink a lot, and then I kind of just say strange things. I don't really have them much anymore. I guess if you watched our CNN thing, you could see me ticking. But there's something about my diet over the last two weeks that's been making me.

Was the YMCA guy ableist to you? I think so. Should we go fuck him up? He's like, man, you know you can't scream pussy in here, right? I was like, no, man, it's not that kind. It's a different kind. Yeah. I'll scream pussy wherever I want to because the ADA says I can't.

Well, it's springtime. Springtime's here. And you know what that means. The Bradford pear trees are blooming. Is that the cum trees? Yeah, yeah. It's a very funny thing to me that like i was thinking the other day so like everybody knows that's what it smells like right well not everybody but people who know

know yeah you know you're walking on the trail and you pass a dude and you guys smell it at the same time and you're looking at each other like yeah that's what's up or or more embarrassingly you just happen to walk by your third grade teacher and you're both standing there catching up for a second and the thing that's you're saying all these pleasantries but the thing that's going through your mind is it smells like a fucking smells like there's a bunch of fucking cum around here that's just the elephant in the room you know yeah yeah all spring long anytime you cross somebody where there's those trees that's what everybody's thinking yeah your crush your third grade teacher your aunt yeah whoever the sexy buff dude that you see in The Walking Trail.

Yeah. He's thinking the same thing you're thinking. I want to meet a guy, though, that doesn't know. I want to meet a guy who... So, like, there's all this... I keep seeing these, like, educational videos about how you need to cut these trees down because they're really bad for the environment.

Are they... What are they? Are they these trees down because they're really bad for the environment are they what are they are they invasive i think they're invasive well they're certainly invasive to our minds and our olfactory senses but ecologically speaking yeah i don't know maybe we're scandalizing the bees that could be it too like the bees are getting really prudish because they're constantly having to smell it. They're coming back to the hives, and everyone's like, yo, where the fuck have you been, Gary? You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Come back with Bradford pear pollen all over you. Everybody's like, oh, dude. Gary, Gary.

It's like, man, no, you you don't understand it ain't like that i like i ain't on that shit man i want to meet a guy i want to meet someone who's like who thinks that the smell they smell that is the cum smell is the smell you smell when it's being cut down like the smell of sawdust like that's their reference point for the smell of cum it's sawdust and they're like oh yeah they don't realize they're saying it to their friends and their friends are like what the fuck like have you ever smelled cum before gary i have a b you can meet god damn it spring you gotta love it spring uh beware bring it full circle here beware the odds of march coming up yeah but you get stabbed on the odds of march by your best friends by your best for

you don't even see it coming man um there's an interesting article that was sent to me by our friend jimmy fallon gong of the podcast program to chill this very topical uh issue for our show this is in cbn news the christian perspective cbf you know cbn is i think it used to have a tv channel christian Broadcasting. Isn't that Pat Robertson's outfit? I think so. They used to play Christian music videos. They would be like... Christian news is so tight because here's what it's like. It's almost like that game Two Truths and a Lie.

So they'll just sit there and with the same sort of oratory and and level of seriousness and everything they'll be like well um um conflicts rising in x place and and then they'll say well inflation's at an all-time high and then they'll say and they'll just hit you with something like, Christ projected to come back in March 21st, 2024. And then, like, they just don't bat an eye. You know what I mean? It's almost like when I was a kid, I was just, like,

so afraid of, like, those type of people because like i knew i could get my news from cbn to a certain point and then when that point comes and i know it's gonna be something insane right and you guys sound stupid in front of your homeboys at school when your homeboys are standing around talking about, like, inflation numbers and employment statistics. All you're going to have is, well, I mean, did you guys hear Christ is coming back? Yeah, just next week. Or the Lord's slighted to return next month. Shut the fuck up, Tom.

Shut up, Gary. And go take a bath. You smell like a gum tree. This is an interesting article. The headline is, DC Talks Kevin Max is now ex-evangelical. Says he's been progressing for decades. Damn.

Ex-evangelical. So wait, hold on a second. So even when we were listening to him, he was progressing then. I guess he was progressing then, man, because of the decades. That implies when DC Talk was still active. I kind of want some money back then.

Yeah, same. The money, the DC Talk dollars I spent, I didn't need my guy progressing. I wanted him. But now that I know that he was progressing that whole time, good for him. Kind of want my money back. Same. I bought the Jesus Freak album and the Jesus Freak book that had 300 accounts of Christians being tortured around the world.

300 accounts of Christians being tortured around the world. It's like this was like a book geared toward teens, and you just kind of flip through it, and you see a man being disemboweled. Broken on the will in modern-day Somalia. It's like, I don't think that this happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a little-known preacher in Peru. You've never heard of him.

Don't worry about where he's from he had his uh his head cut off and used in a bowling match god fuck man i hope my devotion to christ matches that one of these days my my martyred head can be used as a bowling ball. You gotta think about what that does to the long-term psyche of a person. That like at age 13, I was reading these lurid stories of martyrs and I was like, could be me one day, man.

You thought it was. No, you thought it was. You definitely thought at some point you might have to give your life for Christ. Oh yeah, dude. Did you think that was a distinct possibility? I thought it was a distinct possibility. A virtual certainty maybe even.

In the worst way possible too, that like someone was gonna heat an iron spear over a flame and like use it to skewer you from asshole to your mouth. And then roast your wife. Roast everything, yeah. Yeah, there's only one way I'm going out for christ and that's with an apple in my mouth like at age 13 you know that it's gonna produce some interesting um psychology to put it lightly well here's the thing man if we're talking about and i mean this is a sort of a

crude metaphor we've used many times but like sometimes people on the left can be we'll talk about you know like i remember like when people started talking about they were radicalized like they joined isis or something because they voted for bern or whatever. But, like, if there's a comparison to be made there, here's what we've got to figure out. Christianity is not like a great sale on its face, right? Right. Because basically what they told us was that everybody in the world is going to hate you.

Your life is going to be devoid of pleasure. Maybe you'll be roasted over a spit or boiled in peanut oil but trust me bro there's this place where everybody's going after all that you know the numbers just were coming in that's why we have to just it's kind of like the same thing it's like were coming in that's why we have to just it's kind of like the same thing it's like we got to figure out how to take how to like sell people on like something that's like you know there's some marginalization involved yeah people will think you're a lunatic i mean you got to get them young you have to have a 13 year old literally envisioning in his mind that a gang of marauding godless bandits will cut him uh the skin on right down the middle of

his head and then pull apart the skin. Pull the skin off of him in both directions like you're opening a bag of potato chips. Just flayed. Yeah. Yeah. This is what awaits you, Fran. But the reward is so much greater.

That's really the sell. It's like you will see no treasures in this world. The one after this. Will you die a broken pantyless? Most assuredly. So I don't know. Kevin Max, for those of you who don't know, for those of you who haven't already tuned out,

For those of you who don't know, for those of you who haven't already tuned out, thinking this will be a Sunday service, CCM heavy episode. Kevin Max was one third of a group known as DC Talk, which honestly, if you looked at my Spotify, probably have logged more minutes listening to than any other band. District of Columbia talk. District of, they were from DC. That would be, if we were based in DC, that would be a great rebrand for the podcast. Yes, they were from DC, but no, DC stands for Decent Christian Talk. They were decent.

Is that really what it stands for? That's what it stands for, yeah. I never knew that. I thought they were just from D.C. and it was just that. No, Decent Christian Talk. They started out as a rap group. Then they morphed slowly over time into like a rock group. And then they were kind of like a pop group.

then they were kind of like a pop group uh and um kevin max was always kind of the uh he was like the one member of the group who was always kind of saying some like edgy shit yeah you know like like he was the guy that like if like you um let's say that you thought something was wrong with masturbation, for example, and you jacked your little bird one day. Uh-huh. And then you would go try to find solace in the art and music of DC Talk, and you'd read an interview by Kevin Max, and you'd come away thinking, this man's had extramarital.

He's probably the one guy in the group that was like, didn't pay much attention to that. I think he literally did. I think he had an affair on tour. He was like, well, fuck. I think he did. He's kind of like the Kanye of the Christian music scene in the sense that he was always saying shit

that made people kind of vaguely anxious and nervous and you knew that nobody would be able to contain him and be like tone it down dude because he was kevin max he was on top of the fucking world he can say anything he wanted yeah man this is a this is a 12-time dove award winner we're talking about here not a mere mortal no exactly um so because you know i've told this on this show before but like i remember reading early on like when i was probably in like seventh or eighth grade when i was like on forum boards and shit like i read an interview that kevin max gave where he said he wanted to hang out with Marilyn Manson. And I was like, oh, oh.

It's like that gift from the wire. I was like, oh. You're like blown away that he would do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I'm sure he probably doesn't say that now. Actually, they should hang out now,aryland manson and kevin max you know what's funny it's like there are there are eras of like sort of moral absolutism i don't know if that's even the right way to frame this but like when we were coming up like it was even

frowned upon to listen to secular music and i feel like now it's like christians like don't even bat an eye like listen to secular music you know it's almost like a separating the artist from the art type of thing or whatever dude and do you notice that like that like it feels like the cultural mores and norms have all kind of swapped up in that world a little bit. I think it's because Christian music now is like mostly worship music. And so you can't really jam that in your car. The thing about like 90s and early 2000s CCM was that it was like an attempt-

It was just knocking off the pop music of the day, essentially. Exactly. It was an attempt to build out the subculture. Yeah. And and to varying degrees of goodness i mean there's some absolute dog shit christian man there's some very good christian band oh yeah i would go so far as to say that dc talk was a good christian band i mean i say their catalog runs the gamut for me i mean you're right like there's there's some very bad stuff and there's some like damn this is really good stuff and the awful shit but. There's some very bad stuff, and there's some, like, damn, this is really good stuff. Some awful shit.

But then there's some really good shit. And I always thought Kevin Max had a great voice. It was very unique. Yeah. When Pitchfork re-rated Jesus Freak, which was the job you were born to do, and somebody came out and pulled the rug out of your hand. Someone fucking beat me to it, man.

I was even going to pitch it, like, it like that week yeah what did they rate it i think they gave it like a six point something this is a pretty good record to be perfectly honest yeah i remember thinking it was way too low but at the same time like you gotta take it all on balance like i've got such strong attachments to that album that I can't really probably... 6.7. I probably can't give it an honest, neutral assessment. You would give it a little...

You would give it the Terrence Ray bump. Minimum 7.5. I'm giving it 7.5, maybe 8. minimum 7.5 i'm giving it 7.5 maybe eight dude the reason why is because there's no skips there's no skips and there's some good skits the skits are the best honestly they hold the whole thing together if i were to go back and listen to it i think i would be like this is a master class honestly whatever you think of the music is whatever but it's a master class on how to track an album it really is start to finish dude it really it really is and honestly that's why it's like every time i if i turn it on and i listen to

one song i'm listening to the whole album you know what i'm saying so that's why it's got to be at least like an eight for me it's like yeah but if you look at it objectively there are songs called for example colored people there was a black member of dc talk but in in in the song itself was a kind of like 90s liberal like well we're all once you know we're all one color but it's like but dude you are exactly right it is a master class in how to track an album yeah uh i haven't even gotten to the article yet but hey yeah sorry i didn't mean to derail us again no i mean you gotta add context for dc talk kevin max a member of the popular christian band dc talk announced over the weekend he is now ex-evangelical, noting he's been

deconstructing his faith for decades. The singer dismissed some on social media who claimed he is no longer a Christian, saying he didn't say that, and clarified he follows the universal Christ, although he didn't explain what that means. Okay. I think I know what that means.

The universal Christ. The universal Christ. It's like, what that means the universal christ the universal christ it's like it's like is that like the who's the guy reverend spear uh-huh yes the um like the god machine like the spiritualist yeah the universal christ um he said i have no idea how many people people's blogs or podcasts are using that announcement for further division, but I'm here for the grace. Well, this is one podcast who will not use it for further division, Kevin. You have a standing invitation on this show anytime you want.

If Kevin Mack Smith came on this program, we need to throw it out. If Kevin Mack Smith came on this program, that would make my... We've had some great illuminated guests on here, but... Yeah, he said in another tweet posted Monday, he described himself as anti-war, pro-peace, anti-hate, pro... I think he meant love, but it says live. Pro-live music. Hell yeah, man.

Pro-live nation. Pro-LGBTQIA. See, dude, I gotta hand it to him for that because like in today in like our current absolutely insane reactionary moment he's still like trans rights dude like he doesn't fucking care what's toby mac say on the subject i'm sure toby mac does not have the best views on this subject hey toby Toby Mac's not here for the grace? No, I don't think he's here for the grace. Kevin Mac said he's pro-BLM, pro-open-mindedness,

anti-narrow-mindedness, pro-utopia, anti-white nationalist, pro-equality, pro-vax, pro-music, anti-one-percenter, pro-poor, pro-misfit, pro-Jesus, etc. Interesting. Damn. Damn, etc. Interesting. Damn. Damn, dude. Damn. Max's comments come not long after former DesiringGod.org writer Paul... Okay, interesting website.

Paul Maxwell announced he is no longer a Christian, which he said in April feels really good. It's made him really happy. Man, when a guy who's made his whole life off of that says, I ain't into this anymore. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't have a, I no longer have a dog in that fight. I don't care.

But I do care about the music and I do care about the grace. So we're right there with you, Kevin Max. That's right. Okay. I had another article I wanted to read, and then maybe we can do Speaker Peace. Maybe we can get through this. If we have a longer episode

who cares? It's Wednesday. Unless you have somewhere to be. You have somewhere to be? I wish. This is in Wall Street Journal. We talked a lot about college last week. And we talked a lot

about college earlier with the New Yorker article. It seems like everyone everywhere wants to talk about college. It's all we can talk about. It's all we know how to talk about. Yeah. This is an interesting take on college in the Wall Street Journal. In some ways, it's an example of my... Something that I've always said, which

is never write an article that's vague enough to where the headline could get you, yeah, spit roast, you know, roasted over spitfire, uh, just because it's able to be construed one way or the other. Basically, what I'm saying is'm saying is don't let the editors make you walk out and take an L. This is an example of the editors letting you walk out and take an L.

Because the title of this article is called College Should Be More Like Prison. Oh my god. Yeah, let's hear them out here um as if it's like like what what it is it's like someone who teaches in prison so it's like that's a noble pursuit i think people you know yeah sure but the way that it's, like, construed and the kind of, like, paternalistic attitude

they have towards the prisoners is interesting. Yeah. So, many of us who care deeply about education and the humanities can only feel despair at the state of our institutions of higher learning. Enrollment in these subjects is plummeting, and students who take literature and history classes often come in with their rudimentary ideas

about the disciplines. Interviewed in a recent New Yorker article, Professor James Shapiro of Columbia said teaching Middlemarch to today's college students is like landing a 747 on a rural airstrip. Okay, I've read Middlemarch. Middlemarch is good, but I have no fucking clue how you would teach it to

any college who is that jeffrey eugenitis no you're just no you're thinking of middle sex middle march is george elliott ah that's right um oh yeah who was a woman. A woman. Middlemarch fucking goes, man. Middlemarch bangs. But it is very long, and I don't know how you would make it appealing to any 21-year-old at any point in history. Like 1950 or 2021. Well, that's when you hit them with it being

International Women's Day today. That's what you hit them with. Actually, it was a female George that wrote this masterpiece. Good point. Good point. Never have I been more grateful to teach where I do, at a men's maximum security prison. My students there, enrolled in a four-credit college program program provide a sharp contrast with contemporary undergrads. These men are highly motivated and hardworking.

They tend to read each assignment two or three times before coming to class. Some of them have been incarcerated for 20 or 30 years and have been reading books all that time. They would hold their own in any graduate seminar. That they have had rough experiences out in the real world means they are less liable to fall prey to facile ideologies. Fucking hate it. So you're saying that all of our undergrads need to lift weights and convert to Islam. They're falling prey to facile ideologies.

And that's a serious issue. I think it was this sentence that kind of graded me where I was like, okay, I see where this is going. A large proportion of them are black and Latino. And while they may not like David Humes or Thomas Jefferson's ideas on race, they want to read those authors anyway. So basically this is like the circuitous way to something about the Academy being woke and that like. Yes.

People will die to keep human Thomas Jefferson in the Academy. They will do anything. They'll go teach at a men's maximum security prison just to prove that. Just to prove that wokeness is really destroying the fabric of society. Dude, I... There's a lot of assumptions in there, okay? Like... Yeah.

Anyways. They want, in short, to be part of a centuries-long conversation that makes up our civilization. Classes are often the most interesting part of these men's lives. In some cases, they are the only interesting part. Best of all, from my selfish point of view as an educator, these students have no access to cell phones or the internet.

Okay. So, captive audience? You know? I mean, this is like... This is so weird. This is such a weird tone to take about this subject. Presumably, you would go teach prisons because you feel... You care.

...compelled, a sense of duty, you love people, you think everybody deserves an education, whatever. Uh-huh. No, he's like... It's like, no, I know the perfect place. Nobody in the world wants to listen to this motherfucker, so he had to go get a job at the one place where they didn't have a choice but to. Exactly.

Yeah, cyber cheating, even assuming they wanted to indulge in it is impossible, but more important, they have retained their attention spans, while those of my modern college students have been destroyed by their dependence on smartphones. My friends who teach at Harvard tell me administrators have advised them to change topics or activities several times in each class meeting because the students simply can't focus for that long.

My students at the prison sit through a two-and-a-half-hour class without any loss of focus. They don't take, they don't yawn or take bathroom breaks. I have taught classes on the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, Romanticism, George Orwell, South Asian fiction. We've done seminars on Adam Smith and Alexis de Tocqueville. Mont, Montaigne, Rousseau, Cates, Erasmus, Locke, Montesquieu. Every single one. Marcus Aurelius.

Every single one of these authors is, like, a Western white author, which I guess is the point that this author is trying to make. But, like, I have always, this is the thing. I've always been very skeptical of people who claim to speak on behalf of prisoners. I may have even done it myself, just being in positions where I've interfaced with them. And if so, people should view that skeptically as well. But I feel like you should always be skeptical of people who claim to speak on behalf of them because, well, I mean,

I probably don't have to spell it out for you. They're not in a good situation and they don't, they don't have agency to speak for themselves for the most part, unless they can get messages out in various ways, um, themselves. You know what I'm saying? But like in the editorial pages of the wall street journal,

I just don't know if I trust someone. It's a representative sample of yeah of people's thoughts inside right um like students at elite institutions most of my incarcerated scholars are politically liberal unlike them many are religious and that proves surprisingly enriching in studying these authors who would have been amazed to know that they would one day be read by classrooms full of atheists. What? Is he talking about college? Like, are most college students atheists?

I guess what it is getting at. One of my more devout students, a Protestant who converted to Islam, was so distressed by Voltaire's disrespect for established creeds that he had to be comforted by other class members. Dog, why are you putting him on blast like this? He probably doesn't need to have his shit aired out like that. They informed him that he wasn't exactly the sort of person Voltaire was aiming his polemic at,

and therefore he could understand the force of it in a way his irreligious peers couldn't. My hours at the prison are rich in such moments. In many ways, it is the platonic ideal of teaching, what teaching once was. What? The platonic ideal

is that you're captive? That everybody's immiserated and that learning Hume and Voltaire does nothing to change your circumstance know your circumstance but it doesn't sound like these guys have a lot of say over what they want to read it sounds like this guy this person is bringing them the materials and making them read it and because

they're in a prison and i know for a fact that like a lot of reading material is banned in prisons you'll read pretty much fucking anything you can get your hands on that's probably got more to do with it than anything yeah uh i mean yeah like you you literally i mean like in in some prisons things like marks and uh that kind of shit is banned like you can't of shit is banned like you can't you know there's literature that is you know not allowable in prison so yeah and that's not mentioned here so that's your platonic ideal it's like there's there's certain things that are completely off topic or out of bounds um no faculty meetings no sole deadening committee work no bloated and overbearing admin, no electronics, no students whining about grades.

Quite a few of our students are... It sounds like he hates his students. That's like... Contempt for your regular college students is really what's driving this whole thing. That is it. It's just like, he could not spell it out more clearly. I fucking hate these goddamn kids.

Yeah. Quite a few of our students are serving life sentences I fucking hate these goddamn kids. Yeah. Quite a few of our students are serving life sentences and will never be able to make use of their hard-won college credits. No student debt, no ideological intolerance, no religious tests. Whoops, I mean mandatory diversity statements. Okay. Oh, my God. And in our courteous, laughter-filled classroom,

there is none of the, quote, toxic environment that my friends in the academy complain about and that I experienced during my own college career, teaching career. If prison inmates, many of whom have committed violent crimes, can pay close attention for a couple of hours, put aside their political and personal differences, support one another's academic efforts,

write elegant essays about the aid of technology, and get through a school year without cheating is it too much to ask university students to do the same or ask professors to try to create an atmosphere where these habits can prevail perhaps prison education can serve as a model of how to return to true learning and intellectual exchange. Oh, man. Yeah, I'm going to just once again reiterate that I think literally all the success he's got is that probably a lot of these guys, they work in forced labor. They spend most of their days alone in solitary confinement.

They don't get to read certain reading materials that anyone else in the outside world gets you know free access to at any moment um they're probably starving for any kind of fucking creative outlet or you know fellowship or anything like that like yeah like no fucking shit you're gonna be able to teach Montesquieu in a situation like that I mean it's like what the fuck are you talking about basically basically what he's saying is that like I've had success like teaching people at the point of a gun and so like we should just do that in colleges. If you ask me, we need to go back to that. Yeah.

Anyways. Oh, man. Anyways. Wall Street Journal. I like the illustration on this. It's got someone holding open a book, and prisoners are walking into the book with their own books. Oh, man. Yeah. are walking into the book with their own books oh man yeah i have ex-evangelicals no no atheist bitching and whining and moaning about their grades oh fuck um Oh, fuck. Well, was there any speaker piece, dog?

Let me see what we got here. Anything good? Did you send them to me? I emailed them to you. You still have the same email? Don't say it on the show, people are gonna fucking ah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i almost baited you into saying your email on the show you would have gotten so many nudes you would have gotten so many i'm sure if you'd like to blow some money letting people take advantage of your gullibility,

you can attend a lecture on the non-existent Bigfoot in Harlan County. What a shame that people who have already suffered so much have to be further taken advantage of and that anyone would promote it. Oh, man. We're coming out hot today. Yeah, no, that was the first speaker. That was the very first one. Amazing.

I'm tired of being kept awake night after night by the cat lady in neon harboring all those cats again. All night long, they fight and squeal, and they use my backyard as their litter box, and they've already ruined some of my spring flowers she's probably the nosiest person around because every time a car goes by or people are outside talking she jerks open the door and pops her head out looking around sometimes she comes plum on the porch and eavesdrop or ask questions about everyone's business. Was that the end of it? That's the end of it. See, the thing is, man,

poetry doesn't need a beginning or an end. I like that one. That you got just dropped directly into the middle of someone's life. It's just a screenshot. Just a screenshot of a moment in time. And you should cherish that. I like the start of this one already. Am I the only customer?

Excuse me. Ex-customer of a restaurant in Letcher County where you can smell the marijuana when you pull up to get your food. Hell, I can't be the only customer that can smell it. No matter what... Who are they talking about, you think? I think I know who they're talking about, but I'm not going to snitch on the pod, man. No matter what time of day you pull up to get your food, you can smell the marijuana. If you ever wondered why your pizza is half-baked...

Dude! I fucking knew it! I fucking knew it! It's because most of the employees are half-baked themselves trying to cook your food. It's why we're no longer customers. We got tired of wasting our money on half-cooked

food because the employees are higher than a kite. Dude, I mean, come on, man. It's not, as someone who used to make pizzas, it's not the easiest job in the world. It's not as easy as it seems, okay? Standing in front of that oven. There's some good ones this week here's a couple is anyone else in this town going through a spiritual awakening or am i the only one brother take it take a ticket this is the this is the duality of man okay so is anyone else going through anybody else in this town going through a spiritual awakening or am i the only one

here's the other side of that coin i'm 66 years old and still having hot flashes can i look for any real relief besides death? Thanks, Eve. And then juxtaposed with that is this. Does anyone want one or two sweet bobtail kittens almost seven months old? I mean, that is... You know, there's a lot of themes here I'm picking up. Cats.

God, they're on fire this week. Cats, death, rejection, self-imposed exile. Anyways. My neighbor has an old swimming pool and it's all broken down and full of frogs. Every spring the croaking keeps us awake. I'm talking thousands of frogs, man. Cookout featuring frog legs coming soon. Dude, it's like the natural environment is slowly making its way back into everyone's life.

Like you've got Bigfoot. You've got the feral cats. You've got the frog spawn. It's like taking over everyone's lives. It's kind of the natural world's retribution for our encroachment on their world. It's like, well, we'll give it back to you a little bit. Yeah.

Hmm. I think it's awful that the best properties in McRoberts have been destroyed. We now have the Church of Holy Junk and the Elementary School of Trailer Park and Motorcycle Club right next to each other. Sad. Sad? In what world is that sad? That's awesome. That's awesome.

Come on. Get your own punctuation. That's trumps. All right. The worst gas station I was ever in is the Speedway in Mount Sterling. You know, I low-key kind of concur with that. Yeah, I can't say I've been. The food was bad.

The service was bad. That Speedway is nothing like Double Click. Somebody wanted to say that. Here's my favorite of the whole bunch. somebody wanted to say that here's my favorite of the whole bunch this is like this is to speak your peace what Jesus wept is to the Bible

YouTube has got to go that's it God bless America Mr. President what have you given to ukraine about 75 billion now we thank you for the food stamps that were extra but we know there's a time when all good things must come to an end well now it's time to put a bad thing to an end uh let's see where's that at so yeah i cut them they're a little truncated sorry that might be yeah it's all right maybe it's all you need if that's an

aftershock well now it's time for a bad thing to end okay this is topical um i'm all the time hearing that this prison's going to be built. Now I'm hearing they need 200 places to build houses. What good is that going to do us? It's just like these millions of dollars that went and got spent on the hotel in Whitesburg. I've seen an outhouse that looks better than that dump. Where did all the flood money go? The swamp needs to be drained.

There's a lot of interesting threads there that could be pulled together. Oh my god. Alright. Please print this. This is concerning the chief of police in Jenkins. Dot dot dot. Interesting.

Editors note. Oops. At this point, which apparently occurred early last Wednesday evening a mechanical issue with the speak your piece machine kicked in and wasn't fixed until Friday afternoon apologize if your comment is missing

if what you phoned in for this edition does not appear please resubmit it for the next issue I think that's awfully convenient dude it's a fucking cover up they were getting ready does not appear, please resubmit it for the next issue. I think that's awfully convenient. Dude, it's a fucking cover-up. They were getting ready to fucking roll up the entire ruling class of Letcher County and some Epstein-type shit.

And then they're like, whoops, tape's missing. We use a 1993 answering machine, by the way. People, when you get down and old, you better not let vultures into your house, or they'll plumb clean you out. That's true. People are out there looking for people to prey on. It's a shame people take advantage of the elderly. It's true. To my warm friend, I wish to be paid for the work that I have already done.

Warm? Like, warm, like W-A-R-M, warm. Interesting. That's how I address you all the time. I'm the cold one, you're the warm one. I hate that two of my friends have separated. I wondered how long it would take. Not because one of them is no good, but because of all they have had to work around.

I hope the one who has caused this is punished too. I hope his woman finds out as well what he's been doing behind her back. Wow. It's like a fake friend calling out somebody else for being a fake friend. I hope his woman finds out as well what he's been doing behind her back. Oh, wow. It's like a fake friend calling out somebody else for being a fake friend. I know. It's like fake friend by proxy. Damn.

Let's see what we got here. Yes, I called last week about the magistrates voting themselves in a raise and you corrected me i beg to differ the magistrates did vote themselves in a raise the cost of living raise was only for the judge the sheriff the jailer and the county clerk the magistrates voted themselves in a raise you need to do your homework. Thank you. The editors know. I knew there would be one. The five Letcher County magistrates began their terms in January and they have not voted themselves a pay raise.

Nor could they have even if they had tried. Kentucky state law requires that magistrate salaries be set by the first Monday in May prior to a general election. State law also requires that the salary not take effect until the newly elected magistrates take office in the new term. Letcher County's outgoing magistrates did not vote in May 2022 to increase the salaries of the magistrates who took office in January 2023. Seems to be some dispute there about that.

January 2023. Seems to be some dispute there about that. Yeah, I mean, you guys are just going to have to work that one out off the page because I fell asleep one sentence into the editor's note. So it's not a compelling story, Mr. Editor. I support taking down the magistrates that are lining their own pockets. Last one here and we'll sign off. It's amazing how a certain person always gets on Facebook showing pictures of her kid. get down the magistrates that are lining their own pockets last one here we'll sign off it's amazing how a certain person always gets on facebook showing pictures of her kid

especially when that kid looks like a gorilla that's been speak your piece for the week of march 7th uh if you have anything to unburden yourself with, email it at mteneagle at bellsouth.net. Subject line, speak your piece. Just really fucking bringing out the haterade on that one. That was a good speak your piece.

That's a pretty good start to fetish, honestly i mean it's like yeah could would you say it's your platonic ideal of a speaker piece it's close i mean it could it could during the trump era there were some unbeatable ones yeah but that's why i don't i'm not fully i'm i'm bearish on the trump thing because once again i use speak your piece as my kind of barometer and it seems like they don't they don't care as much the fire has died down a little bit well you can only bring a man down so much you know that's true i mean you got tucker saying that he hates trump passionately did you you see that? Oh, I saw that. Yeah, the text came out. Yeah. Which makes sense

because they're two egomaniacs and obviously two egomaniacs are going to hate each other. But just interesting. Strange bedfellows in 24. Yeah. So we'll see how it shakes out. Yeah.

I guess that about does it for us for this week. I have an article published in The Nation about the ending of emergency snap benefits for everybody. First, I mean, Kentucky did it last year. Kentucky ended those emergency benefits last year, like last May. And now the rest of the country has done it now,

like as of earlier this week. Terrence spells out how you have to be in dang Ukraine to get them now. That's right. That is exactly right, honestly. That is the truth. So yeah, go to The Nation. Go to thenation.com, go to the search bar and just type in my name. That'll probably

get you there. I guess. That'll probably get Yeah it should get you there I guess Yeah I think that's about it I don't think I have anything else for the day Do you Tom? My heart and mind is clear

Well you, me and Kevin Max We have heart Clear hearts and minds That's exactly right Come on the show, Kevin Max. We would love to have you. Everybody start tweeting at Kevin Max telling him to come on the program.

I bet he'd do it. I bet he would. I would not talk to him about any of the ex-evangelical shit. I would literally just ask him about the rap era of DC Talk. What was that like like did you feel like the odd man out kevin being the one guy who wasn't really a rapper like who thought that who rightly thought

maybe we should air away from this just ask him about that or like ask him about the Jesus Freak sessions. Yeah. And is Toby Mack back? Is Toby Mack back? With no slack. Is he Toby Mack, Mack Daddy? On the DC track. Remember when Tiger Woods was Mack Daddy Santa? Oh. We should have Toby Mack Daddy Santa.

Yeah. Turned out good for Tiger yeah okay all right well thanks for listening this week friends we will see you next time adios