Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 406: Performing American Life

Episode Date: August 21, 2025

James Dobson (Rest In Piss Bozo), trumpet or sax?, phones in schools, AI data centers, and the data center mine in eastern Kentucky Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

buddy i got something we're rolling yeah i got something hot off the presses for you remember when you failed to tell me jimmy swagger to dine oh i know what you're going to say i'm not going to do you that way i'm going to give you the bud wiser cold hard facts here's the irony i already know exactly you're going to mention and i once again

did you the same way i did you with jimmy swagger i'd hold it out on me i once again did not tell you that james dobson and focus on the family. I had to find out from a friend of the show, Sarah Hughes. And you knew it the whole time. You've been in here 30 minutes and didn't even bother to tell me that. I like withholding information from people. It's how I manipulate them.

I get into the heads. Oh, my God. I withhold information. Well, I'll be damn. Well, how does it make you feel your godfather? gone. James Dobson? Yeah.

Focus on the family. Why's he my godfather? I just figured that you're Southern Babb. I figured you would have... We did have... I do remember... We had an outsized influence. I do remember

back in the day when you would get those James Dobson, what they were were cassette tapes and it would come in like this big puffy booklet. You know what the fuck of that?

Yeah, yeah. It had like kind of snapped in place. It snapped in place. The cassette tapes snapped in place. Yeah, it felt like, yeah, it was like this little

plastic casing. Yeah, but it was fluffy. It was fluffy. It was fluffy. Yeah, it was puffy. It was like,

what do you call that? I got more out of the puffy case than I did the actual tapes. Very satisfying to open one of those. Yeah, and also to squeeze

the outside of it. If you can find a puffy tape case, I recommend you just get it for nothing else. It doesn't matter what's inside just to squeeze it. Yeah. I don't remember a single thing

from James Dobson focus on the future. family. Really? I remember my parents lived with the consequences of his That's true.

I'm not focused on the family. You've clearly not focused on the family adequately. Now you are, I guess. All the old all the old timers are dying off, huh?

Yeah. James Dobson, Jimmy Swagger. Yeah. It kind of makes you well, seeing what they're being replaced by.

I know, dude. That's, we thought we had it bad then. A bunch of, Robertson died just a few years ago, didn't he?

He's been dead a little while. Who else? Poor Robert's been dead a while. Yeah, we thought we had it bad then. We didn't know how good we had it with the 700 Club and Focus on. Listen, 10 to 1, I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this, you know, there's been a lot of talk

of the generational differences of the past couple weeks, not only in the discourse, but I floated it on this program. but if you were a young person out there now and the sort of like religious right-wing zealots of your day are people that believe in interdimensional beings in Innocuan magic you have it far worse than I did where it was just guys that were scamming shut-ins for cash yeah yeah yeah I kind of miss I kind of miss the TV preacher Huxter compared to what we got now yeah yeah this is

pretty bad. Like, because now they're all into, well, it's, I mean, they're millenarian in a way that that old crowd would not have been. Like, I know they sold products for the apocalypse, like Jim Baker's, you know, doomsday seeds. But, like, I don't think they actually wanted it to come. Whereas I think that Mike Huckabee literally wants a nuclear Armageddon. Yeah, it's, you can imagine a world where, like, uh, James Dobson and all. all the old heads or all the heads are like bringing them together me like huck like we don't really we're leveraging the fear of that to make money and huck's like no we got to breed the red heifer you know like just dead-eyed saca yeah yeah did you ever watch huck on

kenneth copeland program back when he was running for when was he running for president like 08 or something like that oh i'm pretty sure it was oh eight and i think he also ran No, he was in that McCain race? I think so. He didn't get out of the primary, obviously, because the Straight Talk Express ran his big ass over. But didn't he also run 16?

He could have. Sorry. That sounds right. Now he's just God's faithful, faithful emissary to God King Donald Trump. But he used to be on Kenneth Copeland's program doing pseudo history.

Oh. Talking about, like, talking about like, um, you know, uh, transparently, um, sort of, um, allegorical, biblical things as if they actually happened in history. Hmm. Like treating like Washington's crossing the Delaware with the same, um, you know, uh, veracity as, uh, Jonah in the

belly of the whale. Okay. I remember, I was just talking about this the other day. Um, I'm sure I've told this on the, program on the program before but um when i the reason i stopped going to a southern baptist church in high school i was like in 10th or 11th grade i remember in sunday school one day i was just like well we don't actually believe that everything in the bible happened exactly as it's written right like just statistically speaking like there's no way that a book written 2,000 years

ago would have the honest to God exact events as they happened, right? And everybody in the class looked at me like I had taken a shit on the floor and done like a satanic ritual or something. That girl you like just rolled her eyes and she just walked past you instead of

like flirting with you a little bit. Yeah, they were aghast. They were like, no, that's what we believe, yeah. I was like, oh, all right. After that, I started to go into my friend's dad's church in like a garage. I started going to like garage church.

That's kind of punk rock church. Not non-denominational. Yeah. You went underground. You went underground. Yeah, yeah. Listen, if you are a former Sigma Chi who now works for SunTrust Bank as a loan officer, and you're living in the suburbs of Montclair or Memphis or Montgomery or wherever,

the SEC school you attended as their third largest city in that state is not dissimined what we're doing here and you know you married like a travel nurse or a or hopefully a librarian yeah not that there's anything wrong with any of those professions i'm not saying i'm just painting you the an archetype here okay well i would a librarian librarians are usually kind in I'm not intending for a librarian to catch a stray here or a travel nurse to catch a stray or even a loan officer A travel nurse can catch a little bit of a little bit of scab sorry They're kind of like scabs

They scabs, they scab a little bit Okay, well if this takes a negative tone And if I know myself it will I will I'll take the library now this equation, okay I took umbrage with the inclusion of the library I admit no disrespect I've had many

Every librarian I've ever known has been the best person if you want if you could say bookkeeper not my mother was a bookkeeper I can't do that well not for a not for like a public not for like a town municipality what's a bad give me a bad traditionally

myth dealer yeah a myth okay well here's all I'm saying a secretary for an accountant whatever whatever job you have okay and let's say you go home

for molding young minds or whatever it is you do for a living and your husband comes in from SunTrust bank he's got the punch and the old miss golf haircut that's receded about two inches up the skull uh-huh he's just coming back from his morning dalliance with his mistress well i don't want to get in all that i'd probably just play golf with his fraternity brothers uh i don't know i'm i like to paint a little bit more of a lurid picture well i'm not trying to go too lurid here let me let me just I don't even remember the original point. And you've got a golden retriever

and two and a half kids and you've got it alive. Okay. And you go home. And that husband comes in from whatever he's doing. Whether that's having an affair or playing golf with his fraternity brothers. And you look that man in the eye and you brought life into this world

with a man that believes with his whole, whole heart. That's what we're talking about. that the rapture's coming. That a man actually was swallowed by a fish. That a man was swallowed by a fish. That, you know, you know,

a man was, somebody was turned to salt, a pillar of salt. That's tasty. Yeah. That. He probably honestly thinks the great horror of Babylon is going to be like an actual. Sexy.

He's jerks. Sexy cryptid. going to come and you know and not like an allegory for the rod at the heart of the american empire as i tend to view it if my you know yeah liberal interpretations of liberation theology what my overall greater point here is that otherwise normal ass people have some insane views about what comes next yeah you know i wonder if that pillar of salt was like pink himalayan salt or just like kind of like You just turn to salt

And you're like Your family dog comes up And gets a little Yeah yeah yeah Like big Was it chunky Chunky Chunky salt

Or was it like that fine Table salt West Virginia Yeah Artisanal Himal Artisanal Himalayan salt Well You know

But if you really think about It's not just the Christians For time immemorial We've been making up Some wild stuff Or a pillar of meth rocks Medusa Oh yeah

Medusa With seduce you And turn you into stone. That's not very different from Pillar of Salt, even though the circumstances are different. That's true. Medusa was a Gorgon. She was a Gorgon. Or Gorgon.

Yeah. I'm not sure what that is, honestly. It's some kind of beast. It's like Typhon? Or Python. Typhon and Python are interchangeable. I'll send you some literature. On the sub... On the Gorgans? On the Gorgans. I have a little experience with that. Yeah.

Yeah, people believe in some weird stuff. Well, and the thing is, It's like, you know, we're all trying to make sense of our own failed finite existence. So why couldn't you be turned into a mineral, a big slab of something? Lithium salts. Lithium. And then everybody would be chilled, man, when they come around. Yeah, they come around to eat you and they're chill.

Yeah, and then they just levels them out. That's a service. That is a service. Well, anyway, the people that believe those things with their whole heart have shaped our lives in immeasurable ways. Yeah. They're now in charge. Well, they always kind of have been Yeah, you're right

They always kind of have been Do you think the Xerxes of the world Really believed in the Persian deity Well, I don't know It's hard to say At the height of American Empire I really don't think that George Bush And Reagan did

Because he was a fucking moron But like George Bush And the Richard Nixon Like the Republicans of yesteryear Weren't really religious people Not super now what was they were what was nixon was he any of quaker yeah i think he was a quaker yeah yeah which is interesting yeah for a republic god damn it god damn queers he didn't absorb all the lessons at

the mating house seems i saw that dr phil is in trouble for he's in hot water he is in hot water Dr. Phil accused of massive fraud scheme by world's largest Christian TV network. You don't say. Man, man, man, man, isn't it? Yeah, it really is. He over-promised and under-delivered, quote-unquote. In a more than... I didn't put that on my headstone.

Tom Sexton, over-promised and under-delivered. In a more than half a billion-dollar contract that he struck with Trinity Broadcast Network, after leaving CBS in 2023. According to the complaint, Phil McGrath's production company reiterated numerous representations related to the then-current advertising revenue product integrations production costs

and viewership of the Dr. Phil show. He then used false figures to convince Trinity Broadcasting Network to pay him $20 million up front and $50 million a year for a decade to produce 160 new episodes of Dr. Phil. So he moved Dr. Phil to TBN. Yeah.

And I guess it's just not really getting the viewership or... Who would have guessed that? Nobody actually watches that shit anymore, I guess. Like, your viewership, your median viewership moving from whatever daytime show you were on with, like, Oprah, what was that? Like, CBS affiliate or something? To TBN. It's like your average age goes from like 45 to like 73 instantly. Yeah, he's, I guess that's why he's going on ice raids.

and stuff because like no one watches Dr. Bill. Yeah, dude.

Season my wings and I'll learn how to fry. I just came up with that just name. Is that like Vanessa Carlton?

She's making fried chicken. Do you buy a trombone or something on your way here? I tried to buy it. I went and

checked out trumpets in saxophone. trying to decide which one I want to learn. You go left, I'm about a cornet. But get you a cornet. Why, cornet? I want to trumpet.

Well, a lot of people probably come there and like ask for a trumpet. Yeah. How many people are in there like, hey, man, I need a good cornet. When I was in a high school band, I feel like people that played the cornet were like lesser than. I mean, I'm just kidding. I mean, it was like a trumpet was more of a tenor instrument, whereas a cornet is like a second tenor. Right? Is that a good analogy?

I ain't getting it. I ain't waiting. That's like basically like, I remember, I remember making this joke off, offbeat. Before I really got into jazz, I feel like I'm doing the thing where, you know, a man gets into jazz, ages into jazz at a certain point. You're getting into jazz. Why you look so surprised? Go for it, man.

You should do that. I'm going to get into physical media, too. I'll just go ahead and warn you what's coming for me. You're getting into Jazz L. Listen, I'm getting into Jazz LPs. I'm getting into Criterion. Oh, man. DVDs?

Maybe Blu-Race. Don't do that. No, I'm going physical media. I've earned it. I've got patina, man. Look at me. What else am I going to do? I mean, you should, if you want my two cents.

I'm asking. Jazz is, I can't even say it. I was going to say bullshit. You think jazz is bullshit? okay hold a second is this is this one of those takes where you just want to i just want to piss people off okay that sounded like a terence ray antagonistic like when you said bluegrass sucked in front of the most ardent bluegrass heads imaginable i guffawed when you said that at a bluegrass show i don't know what's wrong with me

what do i do this the thing is i know you don't i know you like jazz i do like I like jazz, yeah. So jazz for you, for thee, but nothing for you, but none for thee, or whatever. Jazz for me, but not for thee. You're gatekeeping jazz. I'm gay keeping jazz, yeah. People don't understand it like you do.

I wonder what was more controversial. Your librarian take or my cornet take? I immediately walked it back. The entire time you were winking at me, like, I'm not walking it back. This is my true genuine belief. Don't believe it. This man is full of deceit.

It's my incontented belief. I slid you a note across the couch that I actually feel this way. I'm saying not because I don't want to cancel, but I actually feel this one. Uh-huh. Do you remember a school librarian that changed your life? No. No? No.

No, I don't think I... Okay. Hold a second. are you one of the more well-read people I know and there's not a single librarian changed your line. No. Really?

I mean, I like the librarians in Weitzburg at the Harry Cottle Memorial Library. Yeah. They were nice. Yeah. I mean, like a school librarian, like, set you on your way earlier. Lina?

Remember Lina? Lina T-D-D-D-D-L. Yeah, of course. She was the goat. Yeah, she's the shit. Well, she's the, yeah, the Ku de Grave, the queen of the species. Mm-hmm.

That goes without sale. but no growing up no I didn't need that I was like I'm gonna read my own books I'm gonna go my own way I don't need one day I'm gonna say Bluegrass and jazz suck

and just piss people off man when I got I tried to read all quiet on the western front when I was like 10 or 11 and I did not I could not understand it at all I mean it's probably pretty straightforward now a bit.

It's probably pretty pretty between the lines nowadays. Then, that was a big one. I don't remember any librarians, no. None. No, I don't. I can tell you the name of every librarian. What?

Yeah. Why? Miss Fields. I have something I have to apologize for her for. I stole a copy of curses, hexes, and spells by Daniel Cohen right under her nose. Damn. You stole a book from the library? Not only that,

Nana was, she was also a sheriff's deputy. So she could have went, hold the, nowadays she would have, wasted your ass. She would have caught me stealing a book. She would have shot.

You stole a book from the library? Not only that, a child's how-to guide to witchcraft. What? Yeah, I was interested in spells and things. Damn, dude. That's not like in a,

unforgivable, really. Not like in a way where I was like, I want to do the spell. but I just wanted to see some creepy shit. Is there nothing sacred anymore? Kids just can still from libraries, have phones in schools, talking movie theaters. Well, I saw it.

My family's tax contributions, which I think we didn't even have a tax burden until I was probably in high school. Went toward that, you know? I mean, technically probably not right because it's property taxes, right? Yeah, I think so, yeah. We lived in public health.

made no money. Oh, man. My mother raised several children on $13,000 a year and I ain't do that. Yeah. Anyway. It's because she was a G. Well, figured it out.

Yeah. I mean, the debate, speaking of children in schools, the debate currently raging the salons this week is, should we allow phones in schools i don't think we should allow listen i i'm i tell you man i've gotten old and crotchied in the last couple weeks yeah just in the last couple yeah what happened what happened a couple weeks you

nothing nothing in particular oh you turn 40 that's just the passage of terence the heavy hand of time comes forever you turn 40 and immediately can't i did man i said as soon as i turned 40 i I was like, we got to go analog. We got to walk all this shit back now. Yeah. We got to open up Blockbuster again. You know, the normal things. Everybody bemoans the physical media now.

bemoans the passing of it. The unfortunate thing is it's not coming back, brother. No, I know it's not. Oh, okay. I know it's not. I'm going to choose to live in the 80s, though. Oh. I'm making the choice to live in a nostalgia trip.

Okay. All right. That's something that'll happen to you too one of these days and you turn forward. Yep, 10 years from now when I turned 40. Yep. I'm so happy I'm only 30. Yeah, man, that's...

I'm so happy, I'm such a young boy. Yeah, you are, man. Got your whole life ahead of you. I don't think... I got into jazz when I was like 18. Oh, okay. John Coltrane. Okay, what was your, what was your on track?

I really liked John Coltrane. And, uh, Cannonball Adder's, What do you know about cannonball alley? You're a cannonball guy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, wait, this gets back to why I wanted to learn trumpet or saxophone. I can't decide.

You don't have kind of a Bill Evans quality to you. Do you? Kind of like one of those nerdy white guys that everybody just kind of fucks with a little bit. Yeah. It's me. A nerdy white guy that everybody fucks with a little bit. Well, at a certain point, you're going to have to start wearing a pencil mustache and kind of dressing a little lush and questionable straight. Interesting.

But for the time being, you're doing good. I'm currently wearing like five-inch seam shorts that go up to my dick and balls. Call me when you get those to about a three-and-a-half. Wouldn't you say, dude, there's no way I can do a three-and-a-half inch seam. Oh, you can. No. Might not be made for TV, but you can. Dude, no.

The older you get, the saggier your balls get. Like at Tom Selleck, Magnum P.I. Well, he's probably had like a scrotum tuck or something. Also, you won't hear something weird? He's probably younger than us when he did that, even though he was. Even though he looks 10 years older than us. I just refuse to believe that his... Look, as you get older, your balls really do hang lower.

They just... Had noticed that part of aging, yeah. You've not noticed that part of aging? My shit's tout as hell. What? You're just tout as hell. Yeah. What?

Yeah. It's like a leathery cocoon. Like in that movie, The Abyss. Like on the abyss. Yes. That's what my ball seconds like. That's what's your shit's like. I don't know.

It's gravity, man. They fall, they, they get pulled down. Maybe it's because my nuts are massive. And maybe you have little tiny baby balls. That's why your shit's taught. That's, you know, big potatoes make me look small, you know. Look, I'm, the reason I want to learn trumpetered saxophone is because, I read this study

that said that the headline of it was research finds that the ancient practice of blowing on a conch shell can improve sleep apnea and so I got I got a conch shell

and I've been blowing on it every day you've been listening to Lex Friedman and Andrew Huberman haven't you? I've been blowing on the conchel every day you're going back to ancient Greek methods of trying to... I think apnea is probably a Greek word, isn't it? Yeah, this is how desperate I am.

I'll try anything. I'll try anything. And they said that... And so I blow on the conch shell every day, but the problem of blowing on a cont shell every day... Other than the optics. Other than you announcing to the neighborhood that a madman is next door.

A totally chill island time guy. Yeah. He's next door. That's exactly what I was thinking. An island time guy. The problem of blowing on a conch shell every day is that there's only like two notes you can play. There's not a whole lot of variation. It's just one.

It's not like playing the cornet or something like that. No, that's what. And so I looked into it and it was like really playing any woodwind, wood or brass instrument is probably good for your OSA, your obstructive sleep apnea. obstructive. Yeah, because it helps. Is that the bad? I thought you didn't have the bad one. Central sleep apnea is the bad one, I think.

That's when the signals don't signal. That's when the signals don't signal. That seems like bad, because it seems like you'd probably just get diagnosed when you die. I shouldn't laugh at that. I pastored out of that when I was a young boy. Speaking of Dobson. Yeah. Speaking of James Dobson?

Yeah. Did he like James Dobson? He didn't. I don't think he disliked him. Oh, okay. He was in concert. As a matter of fact, that man told, the first time I ever heard the phrase, you know who the most discriminated group in America is right now, don't she?

He took me aside when I turned 12 and told me that white men were the most discriminated against group in America. Dude, this was in, well, that'd been, 97. 97, great year. Man, listen, I went, I got Jay Z's Volume 2. A lot of good albums came out in 97. Janet Jackson, the Velvet Rope. That's 97, baby.

Good one. Third Eye Blind. What else was 97? No, wait, hold on a second. 97 would have been Jay-Z. I've been September 98 is when Equimini, Volume 2. There was a big release date. I think September 14th, 1998 was a big release date for music.

Yeah. 97 would have been like... Like, hum? I've been like Black Street. Remember the band Hum? Hum. You never listened to Hum? Oh, wait.

That's Millennial Cringe. Never mind. You think I'm against the whole winner prize. No, not you. Not you. Oh. You did Millennial Crunch. I did it?

Did you? Is that what you were saying? I think I just did it. It's millennial cringe. Maybe. They might have been. I feel like Everclear was a big band in 97. Well, you know what's funny?

If you listen to music from the 90s, go look remember the beta band yeah I'm a proud member you never listen to the beta band oh man they only put out like one album and it's like three EPs

but like I love that fucking album but go listen to a band like the beta band or Everclear or any other band really from that time it's like the music is so much more relaxed As opposed to now, like the The language of the current moment

Is neuroticism, anxiety Like that fucking Doichi song that's everywhere Like, I'm getting anxiety Me, me, me, me. Did I say that name? I thought it was Dochi. Dochi, who's a fucking Doichi? That's pretty embarrassing.

I think the point is, is like, because every interaction is now mediated by social media basically it means that every interaction is loaded with a meta text, like a meta context

and a in a sort of like meta narrative because it means that nobody trusts anybody to be presenting their true selves. Nobody thinks that anybody is presenting their true authentic self. So they

it breeds like neurotic's and throughout society and anxiety. And so everybody is constantly, like, on edge. Like, listen to all the popular songs of today compared to all the popular songs of, like, 1997. I guess the lyrics of those songs in 97 were, like, you know, take Everclear, like, Father of Mine, or, like, Third Eye Blind, the song about Crystal Myth.

Like, it's like... You gotta be more specific. It's depressing, lyrically, but it's... Upbeat, sonically. Sonically. And it's, like, it's couched in, like, kind of just like, like chill vibes, like everything's... Now the rappers aren't even having a good time.

That was a good time genre for a number of years. Now look at them. You're just talking about being like on Xanax and the strip club and being alone at night. Everything's just, yeah, loaded with anxiety and like neuroticism and self-loathing. And again, I attribute it solely to social media. It's our age of anxiety, man. I think so. I think so.

I think that's why they shouldn't let kids have phone. in schools and in circle back to the yeah they should have they should let kids have guns in school so for sure I think so well um don't you think so uh water pistols water okay that'd be cool poisons and potions would be poisons every kid should be a necromancer and a potion master well I've been thinking about that a lot since you brought that up since you finish Jordano Bruno yeah And I think that we are due for like, you know, famously there's an episode of King of the Hill in the original run called The Witches of East Ireland where Bobby gets mixed in with one of these like, which, you know, groups of nerds that like to do spells and stuff. I guess that's kind of what I was, I was a little too into basketball to go full bore into it, but visually I kind of like this stuff.

I was like, ooh, this is fascinating. Anyway, in that episode, you know, Hank pulls him aside and he says, you know, I know you think this is cool right now, but I promise you it isn't. Maybe that's going to flip on its head. Maybe a guy that's a necromancer is going to be getting all the pussy nowadays. I think so, yeah. I saw a headline on, like, popular mechanics yesterday that was like, scientists say that gut feelings could be a result of your consciousness being able to predict the future and it's it's like

popular mechanics like the website like the publication that like debunked 9-11 you know that was like all about like no no no nothing to see here yeah it's just like jet fuel can melt steel beams actually uh huh it's just it's like it's

like you're starting to see because there is this breakdown of what's considered rational science like a center of gravity in the scientific world. It's like opening up the space for like more mystical stuff. So like science in the future is, I mean, I just, I just feel like it would have been inconceivable like 15 years ago that like major mainstream science publications would be publishing quote unquote scientific studies that insinuate that the consciousness can

predict the future, that it can bend and warp time and essentially, you know, be able to read the future. Yeah, yeah. Right? Don't you think that's kind of interesting? Is that a vibe shift thing? I think it is a vibe. I think it's more than a vibe shift thing.

I've said it for years. I think thoughts and words are causative. So you agree? You agree with the scientists? It's not so much that I agree with it. I think it warrants more exploration. Oh, okay. More study.

That's good. Yeah. That is good. I agree with that. You know, that's how I would address. I'm going to quit. I've become known for just sort of, well, you were ripping me about this yesterday, and you said that sex and I heard said,

Weapons is the best film ever made. And I said it's the best film of the summer. But for some reason you took that as I think it's the greatest film of all time. And I am known for that sort of those grandiose statements, but now I'm being temperate. Well, and as I told you yesterday, I'm not going to see weapons because I disagree. I won't see any movie with the word weapons in it because I disagree with violence. That's just as a moral stance. A moral stance, yes.

Yeah, if you wanted to pill to more people, you should just call it. Scary stuff. Little kids running to a witch. Yeah. Well, it's hyper-literal titles, you know, snakes on a plane. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what they should want.

Little kids disappear. Yeah. That would have been a great title. Yeah. Speaking of the future and what might be coming, here's two local news stories. I'm not sure if you saw these. Your shit really that's saggy.

My nutsack? Dog. My nutzeg is so saggy. Really? I'm going to have to get like a little tuck or something. A little nutoplasty. Yeah. That's what they call.

Well, when I go in next month to get my septoplasty. Say, hey, why I'm here. Why I'm here. My shit can use a little tightening up down below. Here you go. Kentucky judge killed by sheriff ran courthouse-like quote-unquote brothel and traded sex for favors at twisted parties. Have you heard about this? do you know it that first came across my desk last night

friend of the show jack berrigan sent that to me and said is this true i said it's it's even more sinister than that if you can believe i mean you know there's not much basically this all comes down to this woman in whitesborough letcher county tia adams who basically said that the judge mullins was running a sex ring out of his office, that one of the deputies, I guess... That is documented, well, famously, or notedly. I guess I should say alleged. I don't know.

This is all alleged. Now, I think he's actually in prison for the crime of... The sheriff? No, the deputy. The deputy. Yeah. Ben Fields, right? Right.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think that it wouldn't be surprising to me at all to find out that the judge was involved in some sort of sex ring. What's the thing? I'm curious how a publication like the New York Post is covering something I know a little inside baseball on anyway. Uh-huh.

What's... Just as a media literacy exercise, I'd be curious to read this. Not often, Widesburg shows up in the, you know, the Eric Adams Times. Honestly. At the time there are the times of Tel Aviv. the Tel Aviv Post the New York Post is just

basically summarizing from a news nation story so this was on news nation it's kind of a news aggregation yeah yeah not really original reporting

she says we would do sex parties and perform shows and have sex with them for money things like that it was consensual but it was the thing that we were so young

and then they used it against us to destroy our lives later they would make sure to make you you feel as small and degraded and belittal as possible to take your power away. Yeah, I believe this. Then again, I guess we have to say it's alleged for legal reasons, but that seems to be...

After this happened... There are some problems in that court. This is no question about that. Yeah, after this happened last year, there was a lot of speculation that that's what was going on. I was a little skeptical just in the sense that, like, America is weird and people kill each other for, like, anticlimactic reasons all the time in America. Well, and let's, lest we forget the sheriff in question,

who was the subject of an earlier episode of ours when I remember he told Tonya he would die for? Yeah. I just hate that sheriff a lot. Yeah, also, yeah, it's like, are we letting our hate of that sheriff cloud? I just really dislike him. Cloud the narrative.

But let's not forget that he also thought his wife and daughter were AI people. He was very noticeably coming unglued per testimony. Mm-hmm. So, and what does that make him? An American? Because I'm going to tell you something. Mickey Steins is probably the median American at this point.

Yeah. Is he? I think, I think probably. I don't know, not necessarily that the median American would, you know, murder somebody. But I think the sort of brain addlement that, you know, precedes that, I think most of us are infected by this point. Right. Now, here's the thing, though. Here's where the rubber hits the road, though.

The ones I worry about are the ones that can't tell obvious AI from the real thing. Yeah. That's the, there's the cutoff for me. Right. Right. If somebody's commented on something It's obviously AI like it's the truth Then I can safely just

Put that person in the bin of Don't listen to them anymore That's true And I want to talk about It's not a high bar, but I want to talk about AI in a second There's a local story on that No

That's a Mal and Iverson cover Yeah I did just make the mistake Of opening Twitter And realized that I apparently stepped in it I made a take this morning That it is not going over well What did you say this time?

I said, I was kind of... Cannonball, utterly. Over us the goat. I said, I was kind of surprised to learn that the biggest proponents of keeping phones in schools are parents who want to text their kids all day. Surely they'd want their kids to excel.

But then I remember this is America where our commitment to national suicide is unwavering. And... What's controversial about that? I guess it all comes down to people, a lot of it is like scolding over like me not understanding

the fact that like there's parents want to be able to text their kids all day because the regular school shootings and massacres and stuff makes them want to be able to contact their kids I think that's true but

it still doesn't change the fact that like it's probably in that negative for education to have kids on their phone all the yeah and then and then some one person said these are teenagers who are old enough to babysit, cook, clean, hold jobs, and drive

It's sweet that parents trust their own kids to have good judgment and self-control versus schools, especially after COVID. And with school shootings, of course, they prioritize being able to reach them in emergencies. Someone said, it's really not that simple. We rely on the phones to coordinate with our kids for after-school stuff. The obvious solution would be for the school to collect the phones at the beginning of the day and return them at the end of the day, but that's too difficult logistically. I think that, like, the thing is, I don't understand why people can't just approach this, like, phones are so. similar to cigarettes like you're just

you cannot own one to your 18 you know what I'm saying and if you give your kids a phone before they're 18 it would be like giving them a cigarette well I don't know if it's child abuse giving your kids cigarettes

I mean you don't think so I guess maybe it is it's not a good it's not setting a good example it's not a good look people are so viscerally like passionate about this this is another one of my

this ain't it y'all topics where people are like is your contrary and streak just rooted and wanting to start a dialogue I just want to start a dialogue it's not about attention you want to dialogue well once again my thing with this ain't it y'all is that like it

it tackles topics that are hard to talk about they're not hard to talk about necessarily it's just that like all the people that engage in it, the tone and tenor of the conversation is fraught and overdetermined. Does that make sense? I see what you're saying. It's like way too overdetermined. It's like the accepted line on these topics still doesn't feel quite right. Yeah. Or nuanced enough. And the insinuation of the other person that they are cruel or heartless in holding their opinion. If they don't hold that

orthodoxy on whatever the topic is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I also engage in. I did just call parents. Oh, I've dog pile. I made a career dog pile. I've called people on Twitter. I thought about this and how like insane this is with me. Like, I've not done this in a long time, but I've called people like dumb pieces of shit over just like a mildly annoying tape. I said Matt. That doesn't really have any. Right. I said Matt Iglesias was a waste of a human life the other day. Would you agree with that? I don't. Did you think it's a waste? Do you think he's a waste of a life? Well, I don't want to say it's a waste of a human life. I think he's wasting his one life doing what he's doing.

I don't think he's a waste of a life. See, there you go. I engaged in it. It's all in how he's saying. It's all in how you say it. And I also engage in, fucking kill yourself, bitch. You do that?

Well, I kind of did that with Matt Ecclesias. Oh, you told you to kill him. I mean, I do, yeah, I do wish sometimes that I could bully him into doing that. it's a part of me I don't like okay but I'd be I'd be lying if I said I haven't been so homicidaly angry at his bad takes that I wish he would just

you know uh-huh yeah I don't know I think that there's got to be a way to approach the phones and schools issue of um like yes maybe it is too logistically hard to like collect phones in schools but like maybe if we had I don't I don't know if there's any solution to it honestly

like genuinely like there's no remaining semblance of a civic society anymore so how do you even get parents it's gone so how do you even get them to coordinate on a mass scale to help the children it's not happening it's uh everything is too atomized everything's too cyclically fragmented all the kids are running to the witch in the middle of the night Uh-huh. So it's cooked, basically. There's no solution to it, really? Listen, here's what I really think about a lot.

It's just because I've been, you know, Lexington or anybody who lives in a college town can understand this, too. In the summertime, it's like everybody just disappears. It's like the rapture happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get anywhere in town in 10 minutes when school starts back, it takes you a half hour to get anywhere because the population like doubles. Right. But I've been thinking about this. We were like walking to the movies the other day, and I was just like, if I were a kid,

going to college right now and I'm reading headlines like all entry level jobs are basically going to be wiped yeah what's the fucking point is going to college just American ritual now it does make you wonder you know what I mean is it just like another right of pet like just like high school college because it's like the way it was sold to us like from working class backgrounds is like we're going to better ourselves we're going to be like some of the first people in our family to graduate college right like turn the tide right yeah I don't though that really shook out that way. However, that was the impetus for going to school,

get an education, you know, that sort of thing. Now what is it? Is it obligatory? Is it just, is the best four years of your life? So just like a very expensive, like... STD, it's, yeah, you pay to get STDs in Blackout Drink, I guess. I guess so it's a social thing. It's a social thing, I guess?

It's a four-year party, man. It's a four-year party. Like, this story... It's a four to six year party. This story, that's true. This story in Fortune, AI is gutting the next generation of talent. In tech, job openings for new grads have already been halved. Okay, so, okay.

So here's my question. CEOs are warning entry-level jobs are on the brink of extinction, thanks to AI. Okay, here's the thing, okay? When we were, I hate to sound like an old head because I hate to even tee things up like that, okay? but we had enough master we we you know there's prince warning of the matrix at that award ceremony and he was like it's fine to go on the computer but don't let the computer go on you're like you can go on the computer but the computer shouldn't go on you or run you or whatever see when we were in school we had enough mastery over the machine yeah that it actually enhanced our job

prospects well but now the kids are behind the eight ball and paradoxically they spend way more time online than we probably, I don't know. I mean, I was on ICQ. It's hard to say. It's hard to say. It feels like a lot of the kids that, like, friends, like kids of friends and family members, like, they're not that. They're online less than you would think.

Then again, it's hard to generalize. They may even have been online less than us. But I think the point is, the point you're trying to make is that when we were growing up, we were told that the machines were. supplementary and complementary to facilitate our upward mobility

exactly they help you get a job yeah yeah yeah now the machines will be the job so like what do we because the anxiety then with older people was like I don't know how to do Microsoft word I'm getting priced out

the job market or whatever you know and we were like ha ha ha millennials were a weird a very weird bridge generation in the sense that like and GenX too to a certain extent we're in the sense that like we were able to

master things like Microsoft Office and you know rudimentary coding and stuff to be able to just keep up just to keep up like those are the entry level jobs now being automated out because AI can do Microsoft Office writing copy and rudimentary coding like that's very good at that stuff and I guess the point is is if you are a student now yeah what incentive do you even have to learn anything at all.

Like, I mean, truly, like, if you're not going to get any entry-level jobs that help you, like, level up, why study for anything? Why, why does it even matter if you do or don't have phones in school? Like, what is even, what are we doing here, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What is? Is it just theater? Is it performance?

Because, like, in the past... Is it performing American life? It's performing American life. It's right. Like, in the past, like, we were told that education, like, our education system prepared us for the job market. That's the whole point. That was why it exists, right?

Am I our glass? This is performing this American life. But like now, like, what do you do? Like, if you just, now, if there is no job market, like, why go through any of it? And, like, the value proposition is even worse than now. Yeah. It's like, oh, there's no entry-level jobs. So, like, and I'm going to wreck up massive debt.

to get an obsolete degree. Yeah. Because that was the thing when we were in college. You remember there was like a lot of people that got like a two-year associate's degree from my community college. They went and got a great job.

Yeah. Like there was like certain nursing degrees you could get in health care degrees. And then like I remember when I was coming in they were like, oh, that's going to be obsolete soon. And the bachelor's degree is going to be obsolete soon. You should like get a master's. I think that most of that was just like a cash grab

to push people toward like, master, you know, grad school and all that kind of stuff. Not that there's not value in that, but you shouldn't pay for an art degree. Right. That lesson than I, I probably could save myself a little bit of cash if I would have just learned that art. You got an art degree? No, I didn't, but I started to and just like... Well, I don't think there's anything bad or wrong with it on the face of it.

No, no, no, there's nothing wrong with getting an art degree. I got a fucking history degree. What the fuck do you use that for? Well... Anyway, sorry. to talk about Jordano Brugo you become a streamer the coming

the coming class of necromancing pussy ham I did learn to write better in college like I don't I would not be able to even construct a argument really that is true but like are kids even doing that now

that's the upshot of the liberal arts education right yeah but we don't view higher education in America as like acquisition of knowledge we look at it as like just a process of credentialization to get a job well you're right but even when we were in college it wasn't even acquisition of knowledge it was just acquisition of skills but like we're kind of now we're at a point where it's not even that

because it's just theater yeah it's just kind of theater right because the skills you would be getting are all basically able to be performed by AI and I had people in my mentions because I was talking about this on Twitter I had people in my mentions like Like, what do you mean like it does basic tasks? It sucks at that. And it's like, I mean, sort of. But like, I... But it can get you to 80%.

What people that I know that have used chat, GPT, would say that, like, it can get me like a body and then I can make some tweaks to it and it's perfect. Right. I mean, I don't use it. But it's 80% correct right out of the gate, you know what I mean? I think the point is, is like, a lot of those entry-level jobs were... They weren't bullshit jobs by any means. They fulfilled and served a specific role.

But if you can just have machines do it. For example, my first job of washing tires at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. That was your first show? No, I had a lot of buddies. At E-RAC? I had a lot of friends that worked at... My first job was Water Plan. Oh.

I had a lot of friends that worked at Enterprise. They called it E-Rac. It's like to stay out of Iraq. You got a job of Enterprise Rent-Card? Yeah. These were the Bush here. Is there really Bush? Yeah, man.

I mean, like, I guess what we're kind of, like, working towards here is that, like, we can talk about, like, should kids have phones in school or not, but, like, and obviously I don't think that they should, because I don't think kids should have devices, like. An abacus. You think this debate raised in the ancient world about the abacus? Listen, God damn it. It's a slippery slope. Okay.

People were very nervous about the advent of writing. Really? Yeah. And then, obviously, about the advent of the printing press. Yeah. Because they thought that it meant oral traditions would go out. And they thought that it would harm memory. And, in fact, this is kind of strange.

But a big part of what Giordano Bruno was trying to do was create an art of memory, like a mnemonic system to help your memory be basically like superhuman to use magic to essentially expand your brain you know that meme of that guy being like boom i just turned six hours into three like that's kind of what renaissance magic was in a way like they were kind of like trying to do new tropics for your like maximizing your brain capacity this is not an optimization's not a new phenomenal. The Romans had a mnemonic system. They had a memory system.

We learned it in college. I never got good at it. But basically what you do is imagine in your mind a palace or a mansion with many rooms and you walk down the hallway. Is this the line from the monologue from Bobby's dad on Twin Pinks? Was that what he was practicing? Talking about the dream, you know? well um okay so the way you do it was like imagining your mind like a palace and in each room are six objects and each object is representative of a certain body of thought or or something

and this is how you build in your mind like this is how they did oratory this is how they did like six hour speeches with no paper or anything they and similar to probably what stand-up comics use as well I don't know if stand-up comedians realize they're doing this but this is basically what the Roman orators did. They would imagine like a palace and then they would go from room to room and that's how they would

build their argument and memorize it without using paper or parchment at the time, whatever, to write down your speech. Sort of mental architecture. Mental architecture. Exactly. But Joan Arnard Bruno was trying to build a new mnemonic system like something that would like be even more sophisticated in power

and allow you to like channel the heavens and all this. Anyways, I'm getting it out of myself. You talked about the abacus. It's called getting down your knees and prayer, everybody. If only we follow it, if only we listen to him, dude. It's been right there in the scripture the whole time. I know. You asked about the abacus.

I think the larger question of like, should kids have phones in schools? It's like kids shouldn't have phones at all because it's like I said it's sort of like cigarettes like it really it's not good for you it's not just that like it's bad for education and it's bad for learning and pedagogy and socialization it's also just bad for you physically and mentally for your mental health for your physical health your vision your neck like all this stuff these are bad abacus never they didn't have a thing called abacus neck back in the ancient right you know what I mean I mean not sleeping i bet they didn't see little black floater spots in the periphery from playing with the abattoes you know that was something i liked about eddington too just like the little details like no one ever sleeps everyone's on their phone at like three in the morning and stuff yeah it's like that's what i'm talking about like it's what i'm talking about that's what i'm talking about man it's got externalities is the point i'm trying to make and so i guess the point is

is like there's no even incentive for kids to want to learn so of course they're going to want to be on their phones all day to get the dopamine rewards that phones have because what fucking job are you going to get like yeah used to the prospect of home ownership is what gave us that dopamine hit and the hope of a better future uh-huh absent all that fuck you might as well go on your phone you know might as well I get it I read something the other day that was like Millennials have have it better

than anyone in human history like they've got better they're better off in standard of living and it's just like

I don't remember what article this was in that I was reading it was in like Politico or something I think

but I just don't see how you can say that when none of us can buy homes yeah not of us

can buy also I've got a twitch in my left eye and briefly entertained heroin use about a month ago. But yeah, yes, you're right, man. Got it better than anybody. Well, I want to talk about AI. You know, it's entirely plausible that this AI thing is going to go the way of NFTs and, you know,

bored apes and whatever. Uh-huh. and I hope that is the case but it seems like like nobody treated the board apes and NFTs as an inevitability you know what I mean well you're right and also

the reason I don't think AI is going anywhere is because that would be good yeah oh it's just not in the cards for us to have any semblance of dignity when has anything good happened recently the last good thing that happened in the last two or three years. People want there to be some, you know,

dropping out of the bottom of the market for this, but like... Isn't it sad? That's what things have to come to before we decide it's bad. Right, like the market is the thing. Yeah, the market's spoken. We're so fucked, man. We're not a fucked as in like we're... I don't mean to take a negative tone like fucked.

I just mean like we're fucked in the head that, like, how we approach things. Yeah. Also, you can say that... that, like, you know, in the past we've had bubbles collapse, right? Like, you've got speculative bubbles that build up around either technologies or commodities or whatever. But AI has been landed upon as the hope for the future. It's got national security implications because we're currently in an AI race with China, basically.

it's it accomplishes multiple things in the world of like profit and exploitation I don't see a scenario where we do away with it now like I just don't like that Sam Altman guy is obviously a total con artist

but he says the things that the national security state wants to hear and so why would I guess my question is why would they like you're basically useless if you're born past a certain day

year? Yeah. I mean, I think that that's a very resonant message with captains of industry and the leaders

of state right now. I don't want to go ahead and tell you, I'm starting to think this American thing is a bad, I'm starting to think it's not so above board.

It certainly has some flaws built into it, doesn't it? I think it's a bit of racket. I mean, he says that there's never been a more exciting time

to be, uh, he says it's actually the most exciting time to be starting out in one's career. Probably just what I'd say to Sam is there's not a more exciting time in human history to turn to cannibalism, either. A lot of exciting things happen on that front, Sam.

That's true. Honestly, there's probably, and I do mean this, historically, I don't mean it literally. Like, I'm not encouraging anybody to do it. But I will say historically and from a narrative perspective, there's never been a more exciting time to shoot executives and CEO. That is true. There's recent precedents for it. Here's the other thing I'll say, too.

To watch them die in agony in public. Dude, here's the thing about Sam Altman that drives me mad. I've been mad at Sam Altman and Spike Lee's this week. Mad as hell. My anger with Spike is fleeting. I don't get over that as soon as the memory of this movie gets out of my head. And I remember him as he was with do the right thing and some of his better films. Summer of Sam.

some of his better films Sam Waltman here's the thing about how he's irredeemable because do you remember when this fucking pussy-ass bitch was up in arms and thought the government should have covered his NFT losses remember when there was like Black Friday thing that happened everybody lost their money

that were over leveraged in these fake currencies yeah can you imagine a historical analog to that I thought that was David Sacks him too Sam Altman was in that too he was in that too

there was a lot of them but could you just imagine could you imagine being overly leveraged in Confederate notes and the Confederacy's defeated and you're like but I had all my

future tied up in that Confederate money though now listen Uncle Sam I need you to like give me fair market value actually to the dollar for that and cover it. And then the union is just like, yeah, we've just spent several years fighting you tooth and nail

and, you know, brother and against brother and killing you all. But yeah, I think that's about right. Which brings us to the failures of reconstruction. That's true, because they did pretty much do that with slave owners. They kind of did make the slaver class whole. Right, right. Planner class or whatever, which is a horrible Miss No, Mar.

but just listening to the guy talk oh yeah there's just that too like what was his thing on Theo von's podcast where he said yeah Sam

I can't do Theo Vaughan that's close though that's because I'm already like 75% of the way there I think you're a sweeter cooler Theo Vaughn personally thanks man um

what did Theo Vaughan what did he say on Theo Von show that we should build a big Dyson sphere around the solar system? He said, Tim Altman said, I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time. Theo Vaughan, do you really?

Altman, but I don't know, because maybe we put them in space. Like, maybe we build a big Dyson sphere around the solar system and say, hey, it actually makes no sense to put these on Earth. I wish I had, like, more concrete answers for you, but like, we're stumbling through this. Why the fuck would

they put data centers in space? Why would you build a Dyson sphere? By the way, that's another this ain't it, y'all topic. Dyson spheres. Dog. My fucking mentions, after posting about Dyson spheres, everybody on the fucking planet is apparently an expert in these things. Really? People have really strong feelings about Dyson. I heard this term for the first time about four minutes ago. what's the what are they saying what were some of the things they were saying just they were eat shit Terrence you clearly don't have a grasp of this technology they weren't really targeting me they were arguing with each other about whether it was

feasible or not oh yeah yeah here's my thing on this I think we should listen to a former colleague of the black panthers preacher man festerman and we should the moon should be for the people we gotta stay away from the moon listen we already gave these people their little fake currency to make more money off of we're giving them A-eye and rendering ourselves obsolete you know

like we were walking by that wood chipper yesterday yeah I almost got into it yeah I thought about just dying head first and just just it just catches your fingers and pulls you

the rest of the way there but I was thinking about that I was like, we absolutely, absolutely cannot give them the goddamn moon to monkey around with up there. Like, they want the moon to put up. Well, there's talk of that nuclear reactor, there's talking about mining the moon and all that kind of stuff. Like, if we're not going, okay, if we're not going to draw a hard line for ourselves, if we're not going to respect ourselves enough to kill these AI people and put them in the wet chipper, because this is existential.

So make no bones about that. You cut a man's income off. You might as well be fucking killing him in this country. I mean... Okay? Yeah. I'm serious about this. This is existential.

This is, this is... This is class warfare, yes. But beyond that, it's also like actual warfare. Right. Physical warfare. Okay. So even if we're not going to respect ourselves enough to just... We're just going to go along to get along and see where this all shakes out at.

When they start talking the moon shit, that's like... That's like, suck us all into a black coat, which honestly, if we don't respect ourselves enough to combat the AI thing, we might as well let them have the goddamn moon and suck us into a black fucking hole. I'm kind of astonished that there's even any debate about this at all. Like, that you have people like Taylor Lawrence, is that her name,

whose whole thing, she's like the Marlboro Man of Phones. Like, she's been driven insane by phones. And it's made it her life's mission to be. make sure that every child has a phone and is online and like she is a paradigmatic person who's the Marlboro man of phones she's a paradigmatic person who's been

driven insane by phone like I don't I'm genuinely shocked that there's even any debate about this like it's so bad for people and for humanity but but setting aside okay think of the crazy shit that happens when the moon's just like

when there's like a lunar eclipse or something we saw a goddamn car explode the birds and bats are coming out midday it's not a it's like an apocalyptic scene it's a force you don't want to mess with right now imagine just we're going up there and build a goddamn nuclear reactor in a data center in a data center imagine if we have a shernoble on the moon surenoble on the moon episode title maybe but Chernobyl on the moon dog Oh, Tom I just

You know Do you know Like I'm going to be totally honest with you here I was kind of in the dark about what data centers even are I'd be honest with you My frame of reference is Eddington And also everybody was talking about that data center

They wanted to build an Appalachia back when I was in Appalachian organizing? For what? I don't know if people weren't to fight a data center and I just I'll be honest with you

I didn't really sink my teeth into that when I waited until they were doing the crypto mining then I was like yeah that's the one I'm with Keown Well they're trying to build one

in Mason County Kentucky and I think they're trying to build one in Western Kentucky too close to Paduca that's going to be powered by that nuclear plant out there

the thing is is most of these data centers they're such massive drains on the local grid. Like, the one they build, the one they want to build in Mason County, for example. I'm going to get this number wrong, but Kentucky County wants residents to sell their land

for massive, mysterious new development. One of the largest... Don't ask. What is the weird thing about this? Is that the public... Talk about this like Bob Dylan one. I ain't need done Dylan a while. I'm retiring.

Oh, come on. It's not funny. One time for the road. For me. I'm not funny. For me. Oh, Dom. I'm not funny, man.

We'll use him in a domain on you if you don't want to sell willingly. Kentucky County wants residents to sell their land. I'm not doing it. I can't do it. Maysville. Under a setting July sun, 30 frustrated farmers and landowners gathered in the shade of a neighbor's garage. blah blah blah the problem was

nobody quite knew what the development was who owned it or when it would come the weird thing about this is that the Mason County public officials have all signed NDAs

so they won't tell the people okay I got a question what they're building so we fought we you know we've talked to a lot about fighting the prison back home and all that kind of stuff

at least we knew what we were fighting is it like here they're just like there's a big idea coming they need you on board. Well, it's weird.

Don't ask what it's about. Trust us. Yeah, it's weird that public officials who are elected by the people can't tell the people what it is that's coming. Yeah. That's this weird like superposition.

You know what I'm saying? Where they like can't, it just, it goes to show you the extent to which they're completely bought out and sold to corporations. Yeah. But. Or maybe it's my theory

that they're building them out rush more to pedophiles there and they it's a public monument work

Mount Touchmore is that what you say yeah well that's Steve oh Steve came up with

Mount Touchmore yeah that's good but it's like apparently it will cause Jeffrey Epstein the new

data center is a 2.2 gigawatt project but the closest power

plant like utility can only supply like half of that and so they don't know where the remaining watt gigawattage is going to come from this county had already basically gotten a solar farm killed there because apparently they were worried about what it was going to do to like the ground like the soil and the groundwater and everything um but like in this in this article it has a link to this New York Times article. At Amazon's biggest data center, everything is supersized for AI. On 1,200 acres of cornfield in Indiana,

Amazon is building one of the largest computers ever for work with Anthropic, an AI startup. This is a 1,200-acre stretch of farmland. The one they want to build in Kentucky is 5,000 acres. What is that? Oh, damn. Yeah.

The facility, this is the one in New York. Indiana. The facility will consume 2.2 gigawatts of electricity and up to power a million homes. Each year, it will use millions of gallons of water to keep the chips from overheating. And it was built with a single customer in mind, the AI startup Anthropic, which aims to create an AI system that matches the human brain. With hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber connecting every chip and computer together, the entire complex will form one giant machine. The complex, so large that it can be viewed completely only from high and

the sky is the first in a new generation of data centers being built by Amazon and part of what the company calls Project Reneer after the mountain that looms near its Seattle headquarters. Project Reneer will also include facilities in Mississippi and possibly North Carolina and

Pennsylvania. What could go wrong? These data centers will dwarf most of the ones already existing, the ones that they're planning to build, which were built before Open AIS chat GPT chatbot inspired the AI boom in 2022.

The tech industry's increasingly powerful AI technologies require massive networks of specialized computer chips and hundreds of billions of dollars to build the data centers that house those chips. They're saying that the one in Mason County that they want to build will create 400 jobs. The state of Kentucky itself has basically rolled out a shitload of tax breaks and stuff

for all these, for anybody who wants to build a data center in Kentucky. I mean... I'm just going to blight our landscape. The most beautiful state in the nation. More coastline than any other state. River coastline. Yeah.

Yeah. You don't know. And they just want to... They just want to take our beautiful land that we weren't not even supposed to be on to begin with in the data center. This kind of stuff is a good example of

what neoliberalism is. that buddy's dad said things like that or slapped to Daniel Boone's face it's probably more like slapped a Tecumse's face but yeah yeah well Daniel Boone probably also would have hated it but for different reasons

he's like white people are supposed to live here um in Indiana a subsidiary of AEP suggested that Amazon tour tracks of farmland 15 miles blah blah blah Yeah, I don't know, man

That's a big-ass fucking project, though Did you imagine how much fucking power goes into one of these things? Dude, I couldn't even think about... I don't even have a frame of reference for that. 5,000 fucking acres. To bury the fiber optic cables connecting the buildings and to install other underground infrastructure, Amazon had to pump water out of the wet ground.

One permit application showed that the company requested permission to pump 2.2 million gallons an hour for 730 days. State officials are now investigating of the process, known as dewatering, is the reason some neighbors are reporting dry wells. Some locals have protested the way the project has progressed, complaining that it has caused water problems, increased traffic and noise, it significantly altered the look and feel of this agricultural community. 2.2 million gallons of water an hour. I like it's called dewatering. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Only in America.

Only in American. Dewatering. Dewatering. Uh-huh. Well, so basically we're going to let Jeff Bezos suck up all of our resources, so he can do what we're. world domination I don't know

why does he get to do it it's pretty fucked up that it's that it's that guy yeah and not me not me I wanted to do it I wanted to do it

I wanted to do it god damn it mm-hmm it was Greg Allman that was the organ played the organ for the Allman brothers it was

yeah you shot that down last night what did you say about the almond brothers last night I said who played the organ for the almond brother no but there was something about like the oh the songwriting process the songwriting process for the almond brothers the songwriting process for the almond brothers who I love

is like how could we how could we compare the perils of having woman problems to the horrors of slavery and that's the recipe for a hit uh-huh i'm assuming this means we're gonna give up we're giving up serious time talking hour we're gonna we're pivoting to silly time talking hour now i'm fine with it by the way i'm fine not talking about serious though i'm well i thought i thought you'd want to know i didn't no i do want to know i just when i when i when i got confirmation i put out uh that text

message and finally got the word back uh-huh and it turns out that i didn't want to keep you in suspense any longer uh-huh where the hell did you go in the movie last night you just disappeared for most of the second no i was i was sitting in the row behind you all oh god i didn't i got i kept looking over i was like he's missing the whole thing no i got i was i had to pee and i was like in the middle of the row and i just i've always wondered where you go every time we go to the movie you disappear

for about you time it to where you don't miss a lot of the uh-huh you make sure you go like toward the end of the first act Well, yeah, I've got a process figured out to where I, like, I know when things are dipping down and, like, I can go in the... I looked over one time, it looks like you were wiping sweat from your brow. I was like, damn, is... Is Ephes that suspenseful? Oh, you mean in a moot? Not last night, but just in a movie in general?

Just in general, I've noticed, and I'm just curious what's happening. Well, I am very taken in by the movies, yes. I'm very impressionable. I get really freaked out. I didn't sleep well last night because I got so amped up because we went and watched heat. Yeah, that's true.

Man, I'd tell you what, that first time I was sitting at the theater. Yeah? Yeah. Great viewing experience. It really is, isn't it? No, I watched, I was there. I just didn't want to get back.

I hate making people get up for me in the movie because I have to go pee. And so I'd already done it once, and then I did it a second time, and I was like, I'm not going back again. I thought it was a cavalier move for you to follow me inside to the middle of the row. I was like, yeah, I should have, we should have said Tance, we saved you an aisle scene.

I have to pee a lot. Is it a nightmare if you're on a flight and you get the window seat, but a three-roar? Yes. Oh, yeah. I don't fly anymore, though. For that reason. Yeah. Heat.

Man. Do you like it? Loved it. keep the heat off of you do you think it's the best movie ever made uh no i think it's a fine film though i put it in my top 10 or 15 films what about a movie called meat meat meat and they have the meat off of you they have to keep the meat off you you have to keep the meat off the action the the juicyness the action is the juiciness never be never have any attachments never have anything in your life

that you can't walk away from in 30 seconds if you feel the meat around the corner never yeah never eat anything you can't digest in 30 seconds if you see the meat if you see them

on the plate on the grill if you see the meat on the plate around the corner send it back if you think you can't digest it in 30 seconds and get out of there before the cops come

unless they're shooting at you true for a totally unrelated crime Mm-hmm You don't want to be slowed down by the thermic effect of food That will fuck you up, yeah Yeah, that's true I'm sorry, I think I ruined this episode By trying to get serious in the middle of it

I guess I need to commit I need to either be silly or serious But trying to do both I don't think you have to choose I try to get them serious Here, let's go back to being serious I don't want to No, we can

But I really don't, I genuinely don't want to I didn't even want to in the first place You didn't even want to read that about the Maysville I didn't even really want to read anything at all. Do you ever hear anything about the mushroom mines? The data centers over there in Carter County? Mushroom mines. Yeah, apparently there's some haunted mines that contain data centers.

Like old data centers? I'm going to get to the bottom of it. Humb a few bars here. Wait. This is how we'll thread the silly with the series. My problem is that I got, I made a stupid controversial statement on Twitter, and then I let it get to my head when people were like, you fucking, you're a moron.

You don't understand kids at all. And then I was like, Jesus Christ, maybe I don't understand anything at all. And I was like, maybe I can make up for it by talking about something serious so people will think I'm smart because we've been doing these silly episodes lately.

But the only reason we've been doing these episodes lately is because we just think that maybe talking in person is more personable and proprietary. so that our podcast doesn't sound like anything else out there. We want it to be totally unique. But in the process, perhaps I've made a product that nobody really likes. I think that's true.

Doubts that keep me up at night. So I can't decide if I want to go serious or silly. So in 2006, there was a scam that was perpetrated on the fine people of Carter County. Uh-huh. Okay. Uh-huh. Um, there was a limestone mine, Lotton limestone mine, aka the mushroom mine. Uh-huh.

Okay. Now, in 2006, the mine was the center of a scam involving the building of a data storage site. Read more history here. Hold on a second. I'll click. Okay. Um, more bars. Um, see, the problem is that I can't, about your age of anxiety.

I, the problem is I can't, I'm even more nervous about money now that I'm about to have a child. And so I'm trying to make the perfect product that will make me more money, but it seems like we're just kind of boxed in here, and we just have hit a plateau, and I guess we're just never going to make millions of dollars. And so it's made me hyper aware of the product. Okay, cool. On May 8, 2006, the former mushroom farm sold a global data corporation, a high-tech data storage company from California for $996,000. Global data desired to construct a security. underground data storage center, which would be one of the largest in the world. Referred to as the Stone Mountain Ultra Secure Data Complex, it would create 1,500 to 1,500 jobs.

Seven buildings were to be built in the first phase to house data and security personnel would employ 35 to 50 people. Global Data hired Smart Business Advisory to provide advice on the construction of the complex and J.P. Morgan's specialty asset division to manage the property. Uh-huh. It seems solid so far. It also enlisted prudential commercial real estate, TELAXIS, and J.P. Morgan's Realty Division to represent the development. To jumpstart the project, Global Data hired Danny Sparks, Olive Hill, Kentucky's mayor as a project administrator.

Nothing, nothing to miss so far. Nothing missed so far. A field office was opened in downtown Olive Hill in December. Construction began in early 2008 on the first seven buildings as part of the first phase. This is underground in a mine. All underground in a mine, yeah. In Carter County. In Carter County.

Where's the mushrooms come in? I don't know why they cut. Maybe it's just like... Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. All of the structures would be two stories in height and contained 12,800 square feet of space. I guess they build them in these mines because they get overheated and they want them to be cooler. Bingo. Bingo.

Other phases included more than 400 data centers within the mine. Office buildings, warehouses, support, security structures. Now, could you imagine going to work in the mines, but you're not mining anything? You just, like, go underground every... Like, it's kind of a silly thing. It's like... I guess you are mining people's data. Yeah.

Right? And why? So it's extractive in a way still. So this is a mine, not a cave. It's a mine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. By September, companies working on the project report having gone...

reported having gone since July without pay from global data. The civil suit was filed on September 4th. Wolpert Incorporation of Ashland, Kentucky, reported over 232,000 unpaid architectural services, and McKinsey Concrete Company claimed 20,000 in outstanding receipts. Other companies that filed include Wells Ready Mix, Saoto, Block Company, Wayne Supply, Greg Greenhill, Kenneth Day, Fifth Street, Electric. Well, hell, I wouldn't have paid Fifth Street Electric. Larry Porter, Wayne Jones, Simplex Grinnell. gooch construction

ponders that's what I need for my sagging nuts I need Gooch construction Gooch reconstruction The alleged fraud was not unfamiliar to Liam P. Russell owner of global data he had been found guilty on 36 felony counts in California

where the charges ranged from grand theft by embezzlement, bad checks, forgery false personification perjury and yeah and just perjury So they started construction on it, right? Yeah, yeah.

But they didn't finish because the money dried up, basically. Yeah, basically. There's a mine in eastern Kentucky with half-constructed data center. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can go in there. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just kind of like one of those, like, abandoned churches or something like it.

Oh, fuck. The land that Global Data had acquired for the data center was put up for sale in May of 2009. The property was then transferred to Russell, who later filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Santa Bar. Harbor, California, one day before the land was put up to a court-ordered auction in December of 2010. The bankruptcy did not stop the sale, and while it was appraised for $1.2 million, it sold for just under $800,000.

In January of 2011, the bankruptcy petition was dismissed because Russell had failed to continue the process. In February, Russell attempted to set aside the sale of the land but was rejected in court. He then burned himself alive in protest of the Black Lives Matter movement. Wait, are you... I'll throw that in there for a little. I'll throw that in there for a little color. Anyway, long story short,

my hackles go up anytime I hear data center. Because you were traumatized by that. Well, it's not that I was traumatized. It's not that I was traumatized by this scandal. But I remember being in college and people, my buddies were from Carter County and be like... I'm going to get a job in the data center? Yeah, they were like, man,

you heard about that. They're building it underground. And I just think about that. Think about like working at a job where you don't see the sun. Like your smoke breaks, it result in like methane explosions or something like that. It's like working on the moon. Kind of. Already.

Yeah. So they've already been working on us working on the moon. They've put the plan in motion as early as 2006. Man. So anyway, I'm sure Bezos will finish his or whatever. but whatever they're doing there. Well, I guess we know what they're doing there, right? In Mason County?

Well, I mean, just the data. It's like, they know that data's worth something. Now it's an actual... Well, but these data centers, this is all for AI. So, like, those ones back then were just for harvesting regular data. Digital files. And also, you know, just... Your browser cache.

Your browser cache Right. Well, it's Terrance been looking at. But this is for AI. We know what to sell him. Ball augmentation products. For these data centers, it's all housing information and queries about, you know, all the various... I guess, what it is, I guess, is all the various queries that it stores to be able to develop its intelligence.

It's quote-unquote super-intelligent. it's like not so it's it's such a massive amount of data you can't just keep it on a little floppy disk yeah well if you just showed it one day i got all the world's data right here yeah right here on this little this little bitty disk all the it's like the AI thing really is it's just another obviously it's another extractive end game where it's like it's so overbearing on the local ecosystem, like the fact that it could power a million homes for that center in Indiana, that it takes like 2.2 gigawatts. Like, that's really astonishing. And the one that they want to build in northern Kentucky, no one knows who's behind that one. They just know

it's a data center. They won't say who it is. I mean, it could be Amazon, it could be meta, although apparently meta laid off a lot of AI people this week. Could be Bob Dylan. Could be Bob Dylan. Yeah. It could be. Getting into the game, Dougie. That would be crazy if someone did a

Bob Dylan impression. We should get James Austin Johnson Johnson on the show to do the Bob Dylan impression. Oh my God. Well, I mean that he does a good one. Oh, my God. You're selling yourself short. I don't, I can't, I don't,

I don't know how to riff anymore Oh my God What do you read one comment You spiral It wasn't a comment I'm just saying You've been reading the comments again I can tell you've been reading the comments

I can tell What have I read What comment have I read This data thing's got in your head a little bit Yeah They've gotten to you too They have gotten to me too Oh

God damn I have to go though because I'm hungry. I'm busting the piss, I'll be honest. All right. Well, we're going to end this episode. I guess the takeaway lessons from this episode are don't let kids have phones. No data centers.

No, no moon stuff. Don't let, no moon stuff. Don't let kids have schools at all, actually. School's theater. School is theater. And I'm going to learn how to play trumpet. that's right that's a side we've covered a wide swath

we didn't we didn't decide whether I should learn trumpet or saxophone what do you think I should Are you wed to the brass section It's got to be because it's supposed to help me It's going to help my sleep apnea It fortifies the muscles in my upper airway And once a scog, I always a scotia Yeah it's got to be I gotta have

It's got to be a brass or woodwind Could also be clarinet I could learn clarinet What about the obo what's the market look like for obo player well you also got to consider money as an issue here

an or obo is probably pretty expensive I gotcha I got you sussophone something crazy okay I think it might be a little more expensive than a trumpet

what do you think of sousapone just off the top of your head what would you say a good a gently use sussophone goes for on the after market I don't even know what a susaphone looks like

is it like a big trumpet is it look like a it's one of the big dogs Does it look like a... Large heavy non-transporting brass instrument in the tuba family. I was going to say it's in the tuba family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess I could learn tuba.

That's also got to be expensive, though, too. I want to learn something... I need something a little cheap. I can't spend that much money. I found a $400 trumpet at that doo-wop shop. Somebody's going to listen to this and go buy it before I can go get it. Do you want the... If you're still...

I don't know if you're completely... disregard of the sousaphone conversation, but we can get you fine. We can get you in a sousaphone today at musicians friend for $8,979. Interesting. What do you want to imagine like approaching a susa? I guess that's how like musicians fan of those do it. You know, it's like used car salesmanship tactics but for music instruments. At Terrence, what's going to take to get you in this gently used Yamaha sousaphone today? what kind of payment would you like the $400

trumpet I'm underwater on my sousapone they just come and repo it I mean the $400 trumpet already seemed a little steep I don't know if I can afford it You got the sousapone on

they're trying to come repo it and they're like you can have it when you pry it out of my cold dead hand you're just running down the street with it just blowing it As long as it helps me sleep better

I'm all for it dude, but I don't know if I can pay $8,000. You just call me crying when I met, man, listen, I got the kid coming. I'm upside down on the sousapone. I'm four payments behind on the sousapone. The bank's coming after it, man. I don't know what I'm going to do.

God damn it. Well, look, if it's all in service for our, I guess it's worth it. That's true. It's all worth it. I went to the Woodland Art Fair last weekend. You said that you walked away impressed by the diversity of talent there. Definitely.

I was making myself laugh. I was getting a good laugh out of the concept of like an Ocean's Eleven style heist of bad art. An art hist at an art fair. An art heist at a bad art fair. It's like that scene where, what's that guy's name? He does the, the laser alarm thing and he like dances over it or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which what I'm talking about?

Vincent Cassel. I was imagining like something like that, but to steal like a heavily daubed oil painting of like Jimmy Hendrix. like you don't want to be careful not to trip the alarm yeah like um you let blow smoke out of your mouth to like let the invisible line show yeah off over like creating a distraction so that you could come in and pull off the biggest bad art heist of history like they're reporting they're reporting that six thousand dollars of paintings because i mean like you know well actually those paintings actually were very expensive it was like paintings of like paintings of like like um Tupac Kirk Cobain Tupac Kirk Cobain Biggie and then there's also

guys that are doing like surrealist stuff oh yeah Rothsbury Ginsburg's one there was also this one guy though who was doing surrealist stuff where it's like

imagine if a whole city was on the back of a turtle like imagine if the world was a big turtle or like imagine if a cowboy was wrangling a rhinoceros like that kind of stuff

yeah yeah yeah it was selling for like $2,000 a painting so it's like okay They're calling it the most expensive bad art heist in history. Over $1 million of bad art was stolen from this art fair. Well.

In the most sophisticated heist we've seen. In the most sophisticated heist we've ever seen. It's really, you just got the ride. You were supposed to go to the Louvre, but he's right at the Woodlawn Art Fair. Yeah. Do you like that concept? It was funnier in my head. You wearing a cat suit.

It was funnier. I can't actually riff, see. I was, it was funnier in my head. Oh, God, stop it. It didn't work. Stop it. It was a fucking riff didn't work. I'm just going to quit.

I'm going to go work in a library. Oh, wait, but you don't like libraries. I do not say that. I love libraries. I love libraries. I misspoke, okay? I do need to find a job because I can't do this for 40 more years. Yeah, you can.

I don't think I can. I don't think I can. I think it's time to. Turn it off. I don't think. Turn the zoom off. All right, let's turn the recorder off. 40 more years, folks.

We'll see you next time on Patreon. Bye.