Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 43: Twenty Tons

Episode Date: March 21, 2018

This week's episode is brought to you by Ira Glass and the good libs over at Buffalo Wild Wings.

every glass wbez chicago this week this american life i was i was uh fucking around with this and this thing has some like presets on it that that um they kind of have this sort of like um i don't know what the word would be sort of like airy xylophone type stuff that when you play it it sounds really poignant yeah like something you'd hear on this american life and i was thinking about how funny it would be to have a episode of this american life about um honey i shrunk the kids could you imagine iron glass like WBG Chicago? This week on This American Life, we're gonna go to the Midwest with a man named Wayne Zielinski.

His kids got into his lab. They shrunk themselves. What happens next will astound you, break your heart. I don't know. I can't really sustain it, I request. Made famous by Rick Moranis. Yeah.

Did you know the guy that directed Honey, I Shrunk the Kids also directed October Sky? Who's that? Jim? His name is Joe Johnston. Joe Johnston. I know it's two J's. How'd you know that? No, I didn't. I thought it was Jim Jarmusch. I thought Jim Jarmusch

might have been chasing the money for a minute. You think Jim Jarmusch did Honey, I Shrunk the Kids? No, I didn't really think that, but I knew the guy was two J's. Oh, man. He did October Sky, which is about West Virginia, virginia right one of the

one of the few movies i've seen about west virginia that actually doesn't shy away from the um you know like most movies you see shot in appalachia they're shot in like western north carolina right or somewhere where there's actually sun. Like most movies set in Appalachia, they shy away from the holler. And October Sky is one of those movies that doesn't. It's very bleak and sort of like cloudy throughout the whole thing. Frankie Taylor's in that one too, right?

I think so. Have you seen Logan Lucky? Oh, is that the one that Channing Tatum did the tour? Yeah. It went all Blue Lives Matter on us. Oh shit, was that what that was for? He went to the Harlan KSP post.

Were they shooting that in Harlan? I don't know if they were shooting it in Harlan. He was doing some kind of press tour thing where he was going to these places. Oh shit, well that would make sense. So Logan Lucky is set in West Virginia. Okay. Well, it's weird.

It's one of those movies that's like they sort of do the justified thing where they think that like Charlotte, North Carolina is a hop, skip, and a jump away from Boone County, West Virginia. Right. Yeah, just a short drive. Right. But it looks like they shot it in Western North Carolina. And, you know, I think it's actually good. I thought it was a pretty good. You watched it? Yeah, Carolina and you know I think it's actually good

I thought it was a pretty good you watched it? yeah I watched it last night I thought it was really good actually but it's one of those where they like make West Virginia look like it's this sunny beautiful place I love West Virginia

West Virginia is beautiful but you gotta understand that if you live in the coal fields you never see the sun. You never see the sun. Literally right now. Ain't no sunshine. Like that song that everybody sings at Open Mic Summit on Wednesday nights.

Well, the sun comes up about ten in the morning. Yeah. The sun goes down. It's not an exaggeration. That shit's real. That is real in the feel. No, it's pretty good, though. It's not an exaggeration. That shit's real. That is real in the feel. No, it's pretty good, though. It's like the Hillbilly Ocean's Eleven.

Really, the guy that directed it directed Ocean's Eleven. Really? And Magic Mike and Steven Soderbergh. Okay, Soderbergh. I didn't know Soderbergh. Yeah. It's pretty good, man. I enjoyed it. You know, I could see it being one of those movies

where, like, the woke Appalachian crowd would want to write a think piece about it, about how it's got problematic elements. Like, what are some of the problematic elements that they would identify? Well, two of the main characters are your sort of, like, typical... Are in the throes of opioid addiction. I think that's the subtext but the two

of the main characters are like your sort of typical like Cletus Appalachia you know missing teeth that whole thing but I do think the movie is actually interesting it kind of flips it like it

sort of sets these two different worlds where there's this like inner world of these Appalachian sort of like former coal miner rough type guys who are like pulling off this heist and

the first three quarters of the movie kind of makes you think that oh they're stupid they're never gonna get away with this right but like the last sort of quarter of the movie is just like oh this is brilliant like the rest of the world is stupid for you know what i mean for so i thought it was like i thought it was good for that reason like it sort of like turns a lot of stereotypes and things like on its head yeah and um i don't know again i'm turns a lot of stereotypes and things on its head. And I don't know. Again, I'm sure a lot of people would disagree. But let me turn these levels up.

You should check it out. I'll check it out. I'll do that. Yeah. You should check it out, baby. So I had notes for the show but um i lost them yeah what are those these are some more notes that i just sort of drew up today but could you imagine finding the notes that i draw for this show

and like food City parking lot. Man, it's taken me a while to really get this whole setup like, you know, figured out. We're in Terrence's beat lab. Yeah, we're in my, the kind of beat lab where I make music beats, not where I beat off. Although,

I do have a, yeah. Where I make music beats uh yeah yeah yeah terrence makes music beats it's a lot of problem solving to be honest and it's really funny it's kind of nice in a in a challenging way like i feel like a lot of adulthood well okay just for me personally i can't really speak for anybody else because i watch my dad you know do all kinds of incredible things like build bathrooms on our house you know what i mean i'm 100 convinced i'll never be able to build a bathroom yeah yeah yeah uh me neither but like i feel like adulthood for me is, like, I really rarely have to problem solve. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, when's the last time you really had to solve a problem? Gosh. Well, one that didn't involve my sort of mental health, I can't recall. I've always been, though, let me tell you what I've always been. I say I couldn't build a bathroom i in a pinch i probably could but dig a hole in the ground i've always been sort of the

gopher of the job sites you know what i mean yeah the running gopher the gopher yeah like if something needs to be tested out or try it out Yeah. Tom will do it. Well, not exactly. More like, more like, so I'll give you an example of something that happened to me one time. If you've ever found yourself on a job site in eastern Kentucky and all the old heads there kind of suspect you're a little soft. In which they can do that by looking at your hands, the hands, the hands, the hands heaven.

And I, my hands are pretty a feat for now that there's anything wrong with that. Right. But I count about six calluses on that. And I've had those for years. I've not added any new calluses. That's better than no calluses. That's true.

But I remember the first time i was on this job i was roofing you know the stage at the uh walking track oh yeah did you build that i didn't build it i helped roof it okay well i was uh they told me to go get like some uh some uh t-bar and some fucking shingles and all this stuff sent me on a run and then they said um um go get a uh protracted what they call it a protracted something another something that didn't exist probably something well you've you've beat me to the joke so i go up to taylor middle and roofing and i go i go uh all confidently yeah yeah if you got um any protracted whatever it was i just remember the word protracted Whatever it was.

I just remember we were protracted. I need about four of those. And that guy looked at me and fucking died laughing. He probably knew exactly what... He said, Lanny Day sent you that. He knew exactly what job you were on. Oh, man. Yeah, he said, buddy, so that don't exist. Don't let him fuck with you.

I've been there. I've been there. Yeah, no, you don't get challenged as often. However, though, I think I guess for that reason it would be kind of fun to work in a power plant. Yeah. Especially like a nuclear power plant. Yeah. Can you imagine the problems you have on a nuclear power plant?

What's a bad day at the nuclear power plant? Chernobyl. I would say. I would say there's plenty of good examples of bad days at the nuclear power plant? Chernobyl. I would say. There's plenty of good examples of bad days at the power plant. Do you think there's ever been a nuclear meltdown that was caused by

an inter-office affair? What do you think is the worst thing that's ever happened in a nuclear power plant that was not caused by an earthquake? What was Chernobyl caused by? I forget.

It's like Fukushima was like a bad earthquake, right? That sounds right, yeah. Imagine just being at work and the ground is shaking real bad and you're at the worst possible place for that to be happening at. Fuck, man.

I felt that way in my life at times. That you're in the worst possible place for that to be happening at fuck man i felt that way in my life at times that you're in the worst possible place you're in the worst possible situation at the worst the worst possible time conceivable time interesting say more about that uh god well hmm i was trying to think i i want to tell stories but you've heard all my stories no i i haven't heard all your stories i told you about told you about going never mind i'm not going down this well it's like uh you know it is funny to think about like if really catastrophic things have occurred just because of like ego well okay that's every day but but i guess what i'm talking about is like

at a power at a nuclear power plant the one place where you cannot fuck up there's no margin there's no margin of error you cannot fuck up at a nuclear power plant yeah yeah i was reading this article yesterday or something about fukushima and how japan has like 17 000 spent fuel rods for our new... I've got one of those. A spent fuel rod. Do you need like a hazmat team to get rid of it? My spent fuel rod.

Call in FEMA and get this man's spent fuel rod out of here yeah no Japan's got they've got like all these spent fuel rods they need to get rid of and they're highly radioactive and it's a big problem like apparently you know I was reading this article apparently it's like in Japan

now that I'm thinking about it the way this article framed it it was kind of just like, so, you know, we don't have anything going on in Fukushima right now because, you know, everybody left. So what if we just put all these, okay, no, okay, all right. Forget I said it. Forget I said it.

But the article is basically like, in five more years, they'll come back and basically propose the same thing. Apparently, Fukushima has been fucked over. It's kind of like, from what I understand, it's kind of like East Kentucky in a lot of ways. It's just like they sort of just use the place for its resources. For what it's worth, and now they just... Yeah. Now, and that's probably what they'll do to east kentucky you know and we're gonna be getting spent fuel rods yeah baby hell yeah did you see the other day uh i think this

happened just yesterday um one of the trucks was coming down from uh fucking he was coming down the mountain you see that look where was it coming down from you see the look on my face i hate recalling details of story i i love it because uh there's a lot of gratuitous cursing that goes on with that. Yeah. I don't know. Fuck. Wherever the fuck we were. Right. Why don't we cuss some more? Well, that's how you pad a story out. That's how you pad a story out. Exactly.

Yeah. But fuck, man. So, you know, one of these trucks, one of these, like, 18-wheelers or some shit was coming over the mountain right here in Payne Gap. Yeah. And I guess took that turn a little too fast getting onto 119.

Is this the chicken truck? Yeah, dude. The raw chicken? 20 tons of raw chicken. Dude. Just all over the road. I started to retweet that and just said, that's just peak Eastern Kentucky.

That's just like, that's par for the goddamn course. Could you imagine if it would have happened in a dead summer, like in August, and they just start frying on the fucking highway? Man, if it would have been near water, they would have just said, ah, just push it in the creek, it'd be fine. That to me is one of the more sort of banal things of capitalism. You know what I mean? Just like, just the waste just the everyday

waste that we don't even see like that story didn't register on any store like larger story outlets media outlets except maybe wymt and ekb here in in east kentucky like and that shit you know happens everywhere on a day-to-day basis. Oh, yeah. Think all those 20 tons of chickens went to the slaughterhouse. 20 tons just to end up on fucking US 23. Dude, they had like a wildcat out there fucking, like when the video that I saw, it was Chris Anderson, and they had the wildcat behind him, and he was just picking it up and scooping it up and dumping it in one big ass pile it's all wasted what are you gonna do with it nothing feed it to fucking wild animals or some shit i guess you could do that yeah you could take it to the bull hole feed the living down there yeah feed the politicians living down there um

yeah man crazy crazy crazy so uh so trump's dick yeah are we gonna get to see that well if there's any if there's a god no but uh I read something today that said that it was bullshit that Stormy Daniels' lawyers were just bluffing or something like that. You think so? Who knows? I don't know. But you know how you can kind of tell how a guy's hung about his other physical features? I'm not saying like his shoe size or anything like that. I think that's been thoroughly debunked.

Right. But you know that a guy that's like tall and skinny is hung like a fucking bank meal. You think Trump is? Is he tall? Trump's 6'3". Okay. And 6'3 is probably like six foot even. He probably likes to tack on a few inches.

He's probably like six foot even. He probably likes to tack on a few inches. That would be the only narratively funny thing. If Trump actually did have a big dick. Because the running gag about him has been for years. Is that he's clearly got a micro pan. Dude, I don't know why. But I'm kind of rooting for Trump to have the biggest hog that ever existed.

And the one reason I am, kind of yeah and i'm ashamed of it's like for all those fucking libs that didn't call that didn't call that body shaming down the middle you know yeah i know what you're saying um you think it'd be poetic justice is what you're saying that's the only thing I want him to have in this life. I hope all the worst things happen in life to him, but I hope he's just fucking rocking a monster. You. Yeah. That said, that said, that said,

I'm going to make an educated guess here. Okay. He's a little doughy, which means that he's automatically going to lose about a half inch i'd say if my calculations are correct trump's clocking in at 5.8 inches hard as a rock with with with with decent girth but not optimal girth. I don't know, man. I sort of anticipate his dick to look like one of these raw chicken tickets that was on the highway home here. It's not going to be pleasant for anybody.

What's your guess? On his dick size? Yeah. Fuck, man. I think that he probably has an average size dick. At 6'3"? God. I don't know. Well, that metric also is deceptive.

I had a buddy named Tyler. I won't say his last name. His name's Tyler. Tyler was about 6'4". He used to play point guard at the Division I level. He used to go around high school and say, yeah, boys, they call me old Nine Iron. God damn.

You know why they call me Nine Iron, don't you? Yeah, we get it we get it tyler but nobody questioned him though because he was like tall and lanky you know people really wonder where jordan peterson people like jordan peterson come from this is where they come this is where they get this is this is where this is jordan peterson is only the logical endpoint of guys like that walking around and saying this is this is what it's like to be a man.

I'm saying this seriously to our audience. This is why we need Tanya here. Yeah. Gosh damn it's so lonely without her. Anyway.

No it's bad though. It's terrible. I don't Well Tyler as it turned out had more of a more of a sand wedge No, it's bad, though. It's terrible. I don't... Well, Tyler, as it turned out, had more of a sand wedge than a nine iron. You're saying it bent dramatically at the end. About a 58 degree.

Wow. No, it was a lot smaller than I expected. A guy that should have a case of the tall dick. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess if you're a really big guy. See, for me, I'm a really just sort of fragile

I'm a very wiry guy, so you know, it's all about proportion. Deduct your own conclusions, ladies. Oh, man. Let's get off of this one. Okay.

It's, uh... Well, this is not ground we've not tread before. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Damn, dog. Well, another Letcher County news. Another Letcher County news. Did you read about the bridge in Perkins Branch?

Perkins Creek. The one that got washed away and stranded? The one that got... A community. Stranded a community, but the one where the Kentucky National Guard brought in the bridge? You heard about this?

Yeah. It's a... And the next day yeah yeah yeah well the the the news article was funny about it so okay so for the audience the kentucky national guard there's a flood it washed a bridge away the kentucky national guard brought in a bridge i guess it was the army corps of engineering and um they wanted the county to have armed guards around it at all times, patrol it, make sure nobody touched it or walked on it or anything. And they wanted the county to foot the bill. But the reason this is funny is because none of this shit got worked out in advance.

They showed up with the bridge and then just expected the... It's like they wanted a cash payment it was yeah when you really like look at it it was like a wild west showdown or something two people just not on the same page at all yeah they wanted yeah they wanted cash payment armed guards around the bridge at all times fucking Andy O'Moore Coney's playing the background tumbleweeds right floating by it was funny Jim Ward's quote was pretty funny because he said, he was like, what are we going to do, shoot him? Like if somebody's trying to get on the bridge,

what are we going to do, shoot him? And he's exactly right. He's exactly right. Like what the fuck is the point? Armed guards? Yeah. I was talking to Caroline about this on Sunday and I think this story is interesting for a lot

of reasons because i can't figure out if the story here is like the increasing militarization of literally every aspect of our lives that is that is bizarre or or austerity and i think that's i think it's the two go hand in hand i think it's just a classic tale of you've got several elements here yeah you've got the increasing militarization of every aspect of our lives then the fact that our county's broke as fuck yeah and then you've got the ego of the people at the army corps of engineer just who just would show up and just be like uh yeah you're gonna we're gonna need you to patrol this at all times and you're gonna have to pay for it like it just seemed like they wanted to show up

and have a big presence. Yeah. And the county just wasn't really... And, like, yeah, kudos to Jim Ward for taking that stand, because it's like, okay, yeah, some 14-year-old kid's pounding the bridge. What the fuck are you going to do? Exactly.

It's so absurd. Yeah. It's so absurd, man. But, you know, I was in a pretty bad i was in a pretty bad mood last week well that's new well you know you uh you know i was feeling pretty defeatist as you said and um and it was was partly because of that. Like, that story is absolutely absurd to me. But the other thing that really just sort of got under my skin

was this Pikeville cop that got shot. Oh, right, right, yeah. And the story, that's pretty wild. Apparently he was, I think his name was Scotty Hamilton. Scotty Hamilton, yeah yeah he was patrolling uh this area called hurricane creek where they say it's like apparently the cops knew it to have high drug activity right and he was patrolling the area with his with a state trooper a kentucky state trooper and they split up to i think they were like, they had an arrest warrant, or they were gonna go check out some guy.

But they split up. The State Trooper heard gunshots. He ran over there and found the officer, Hamilton, dead on an embankment. He'd been shot in the head. Yeah. But I guess what is, and that's awful it's terrible he left behind a wife and a kid and all that but like it's really the the reactions to it are just absolutely

absurd right there's this absolutely absurd and the and the thing that depresses me is you have no way to talk about this with it's measured yes there's no way to talk about this in a way that's measured insane or anything yeah i mean this is like cops they're i mean i don't know it's like the way people talk about it the way people talk about them um you know is like basically that they're citizens who have extra rights they have have rights. Right. They have more rights than the rest of us. Right. And, it,

and, you know, and so you've got that, which clearly sort of hints at this like higher military caste in our society. Right. And then you've got that like Army Corps of Engineers thing where they come down and it's the same. I, I really do wonder if it's the same

sort of mentality this is like no we are a higher station above you are just poor peasants you are you're I mean it's really just feudalism it's just like you're peasants you I mean like I guess we it is a little bit different because you know you can rise up from the sort of lower classes and go into the military or the well cops And I think, I think also, I mean, I'm not saying that I kind of set that up like, oh, well,

lower stations are dumb and all this stuff. But one problem with the whole thing, with the military industrial complex, with the police thing is there's also a terribly low barrier to entry. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I think that's a problem i was talking to matt about this over the weekend and you're just like um i don't remember why we

were talking about this but matt made the point like you know if you you shouldn't be able to be a cop if you can't take a punch without just immediately wanting to murder somebody and i was just like fuck man they can't even cops can't even get flipped off without thinking they have retribution yeah without yes without thinking that they they're robocop and they have the right to just fucking injure ass right and you have no way to talk about this you know i mean in all the only reason that it depresses me is, like I said, all these Facebook statuses and people talking about it all around town. And it's just like, you know, like first responders, cops, and everything were giving, you know, 50% off all meals at Buffalo Wild Wings

and all this. That story was funny. Dude, cops in this town, cops used to not pay to eat anywhere. Yeah, right right it went well it's fucked up dude the mexican restaurant they used to go down there and you know like their bill was no good and but the the subtext was they were afraid that you know there's gonna be a call to ice made you know what i'm saying if they didn't get their goddamn burrito for whatever right you know what i'm saying it's just fuck i guess it's always been you know and i shouldn't be exceptionalist about this it's this is just it's been like this for a really

long time you know me and you even got really into the whole mountain eagle firebombing thing and the whole subtext behind that is police brutality right um which we should probably do an episode on it's one of these days. We got a lot of audio that we could turn into something. Right. But but still it is very

I don't know. For folks that don't know, the Mountain Eagles are a town newspaper that's a Peabody Award winner and a Hugh Hiffner Free Speech Award winner. I think Tom Kidders even won the, I could have sworn he won a Pulitzer or some shit in the early 70s.

Might have been, yeah. It's widely considered the best. It was. It was the highest selling album. It was the highest selling album. No, it is the best, widely considered one of the best rural newspapers in the country. Well. If not the.

Yeah, it was. Traditionally. It was very antagonistic to the coal industry in the 60s and 70s and the Tennessee Valley Authority. A lot of big writers came through Mount Eagle. A lot of very good investigative journalists. But they were so antagonistic to the coal industry, like around the time of surface mining in the 60s and 70s, that their offices was even firebombed at one point. And a lot of people speculated that it was because of their coal coverage,

but really what had happened, it was because of their coverage of police brutality against local teenagers. Cops were shooting kids. The cops paid two, three little just dumb shit teenagers to burn it down, because they were pissed about it. Two of which are first responders now.

I understand. Yeah, you're right. You know, the irony is the main kid implicated, and to the Gish's credit, they lost their whole fucking livelihood, and they still chose not to press charges against this kid. Right, right. But that guy's a firefighter now.

Yeah. Oh, shit. is against this right right but that guy is a firefighter now yeah oh shit um but you know it's interesting though like that we bring that up right now because did you see that thing going around today i didn't i only saw the headline i didn't read the article, but about how the decline of rural journalism, rural newspapers, is making places more susceptible to disease epidemics. Yeah, no, totally. I didn't see it, but I can believe it. Yeah, it's just because, like,

yeah, I don't know. People don't really, I think most people now in a lot of these areas get their news solely through local regional news through outlets like wymt which is like your local what is it cbs affiliate or some shit like that right or um maybe as sort of like smaller outlet but this sort of like main ideological tendency of a lot of these outlets is total they they are totally I won't say in the pocket but they're they are not adversarial to the corporate interests in this region not in the way whatsoever I had a YMT I had a reporter from WYMT literally tell me one time,

she didn't know that what she was saying was absolutely insane. Completely devoid of journalistic integrity. Yeah, she said this like she didn't know what she was saying was the most cowardly, absurd thing I'd ever heard. But it was after that Pine Creek mine blow out. And she told me, she was like, oh, you know, it's just my editor, you know, they get

really weird about stories that are really, that aren't antagonistic to the coal industry. Yeah, that aren't kind to the coal industry. So they really just sort of tamp that whole shit down. Yeah. Weird. But I do think that is a main

factor behind why um a lot of people in you know i don't need to generalize but a lot of people that i work with or that i know who are more conservative like their their their conservative views are only informed by these incredibly insane stories like the one of the police high school police officer getting murdered you know what i mean and it's all like this whole sensationalist like the opioid epidemic like this is what it has wrought under community it is what it is you know wearing away morals and you and values and all this other shit. And how do you call that out? How do you bring attention to the total fallacy of that without sounding like...

Callous. Yes, exactly. Yeah, I don't know. Even when you were talking about the guy that that got killed i was like even me and i still felt like okay i hope i hope he doesn't go john mccain on this you know because like no it's true it's there's no way to well no way that I know of right now to sort of dispel some of that stuff and talk about it in a measured way. And something's got to give though. Oh, I do wonder if one of the ways to sort of combat it, or I don't know what other word.

at it or i don't have i don't know what other word maybe to i do i do wonder if like an alternative vision is literally like um uh the way it's like sort of advocating for the dignity of addicts for the humanity of addicts and and porn working people i hate to conflate the two but you know what i'm saying like it's tough it's tough because i don't know i don't know what uh alternative it's tough because i i when i would come home from college i would dispatch at the fire department and here and so like i would obviously have a lot of dealings with, like, the police officers and stuff that came through there. And the way they talk, there's such a culture of dehumanization of addicts. Like, here there's a phrase that makes no sense, but it's sort of a deviation of the word hybrid. Uh-huh.

And they call them hybrids. Really? hybrid uh-huh and they call them hybrids really and it's sort of slang for um you know people that are you know in the throes of addiction right kind of stuff right and how do you how do you combat that at the same time you're combating this sort of valorization of fucking police and stuff right it's it's tough because it's so ingrained in us that these guys are the heroes and these people are the worthless pieces of shit. And it's like, no.

It really all does come down to how you identify who the villains in society really are if people had half the vitriol for cola companies that they did for the addicts yeah you know but yeah shit i don't know uh one of the funny things that was fun the one of the funny things i saw in the middle of all that though was uh there was a facebook post i think i sent it to you i can't remember there was a facebook post about a guy who was a firefighter him and his wife went to buffalo wild wings and they got their whole meal paid for oh i know this guy well what was funny about it was i don't know if you noticed at the end of

this post he was like i don't know what people are talking about people saying that buffalo wild wings is a bunch of liberals they sang the amendment and everything and everybody stood for it like he painted this wild picture of the who okay i want to know the person that accused buffalo wild wings of being lived being a bunch of lives i love that though i love that we need to run that is exactly what i thought i was like who the fuck is accusing buffalo wild wings if you're a principled socialist you won't eat at buffalo wild wings because they're a bunch of lives because that's all i associate it with is just like the pledge the american allegiance fucking america baby i don't know what everybody's talking about buffalo why are we such a liberal it's like is that how far we've kept is that how far off the

that's how far off we've gotten you know it could it could have something to do with the fact just serving beer makes you a little more free thing you You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I guess so. I mean, I guess I could see that, but still, I don't... Nah, I can't get there. I can't get there. And the picture he painted of that experience was insane. They gave him a free fucking

meal, and they sang the pledge of allegiance! I went and buffled Wild Wings expecting it to be a bunch of homosexuals waiting on me. Just playing grab ass as per their reputation.

And I was shocked to find that actually they fucking turned all the goddamn TVs off off all all 73 of them it's saying they stood up on the fucking tables and they sung the national anthem just for me motherfuckers and that's what he says though he says that he says uh no one kneeled not everyone's not one person not god damn it if i'm ever in a fucking buffalo wild wings and hear the anthem i'm kneeling oh my fucking god hell yeah you will too and you will too hell yeah i don't want to be on the wrong

side of history god damn dude Kaepernick didn't get cheated out of millions just so I could stand up for the end of Buffalo Wild Wings those are the times we live in my friend that's how fucking stupid everything is Buffalo Wild Wings

the gay man's hooters oh fuck man wow yeah yeah wow that is unbelievably dumb i remember you sending that to me and i looked at it for a second then i got distracted yeah that means there's literally people out there who think buffalo wild wings is like queer eye for the queer for the for the wing yeah for the wing eating contest this would be if we ever turn this into sketch comedy that's gonna. That's gotta be our... My guy wants a ranch dips honey mustard. I don't fucking know

what... There's not... God damn it. It's so fucking funny. This is crazy. Damn, dude. Damn, dude. My mom texted me a minute ago um she uh she was like me and my dad are really or me and my dad she's like me and your father are really glad you're not still in austin handling packages right now i was like damn i bet you did handle my packages in Austin. I handled the fuck out of some packages.

That's why I worked at the Queer Eye Buffalo Wild Wings. Dude, dude. I fucking, I, the, you know,

during the winter time, or during Christmas time, when like, all the package companies need extra. Yeah. All hands on deck. During the winter time Or during Christmas time When like All the package companies Need extra Yeah All hands on deck I always lose it

Because the Hazard UPS Depot Always puts out A job posting For a part time Package handling Yeah And I cannot think Of a job listing

That it's literally The only job listing That I am completely Unadulteratedly qualified for yeah it literally not full-time full-time's too much but part-time part-time package handling you get their drive around the little golf cart yeah you do yeah with the little thing on the back yeah it's the shit man i hated working for UPS during Christmas time. Yeah, you're a UPS alumnus. Yeah, man.

Yeah, I was in the line of fire, so to speak. Like, if I was doing it now, I'd be risking my life for getting blown up by packages. God damn, dude. That shit is so wild. And you know what? At first, when that story broke, you know, people were like, nobody's talking about this. Nobody's talking about this. Literally, nobody's talking about this nobody's talking about this literally nobody's talking nobody's the media response to that is not proportional to how big of a story

that is yeah i don't it's weird i can't ever tell if like something's not getting enough coverage or i have no sense of it that's what i that's what i mean by when i say that i've been sort of obsessed with it in a weird way because if it is a serial killer this kind of he picked a bad time to try to rehabilitate the unabomber my friend no no no no no no no no this seems like it this seems like a white supremacist deal doesn't it the unabomber i know what you're gonna say you know what i'm gonna say it was The Unabomber was about something. No, I was going to say that the only person that can stop this bomber, they've got to bring him out of retirement. You prophesied this a month ago.

Exactly. If you were assembling your Social Justice League team, you'd want the Unabomber. You want those skills. His skills are wasting away. The man has, I mean, you can say whatever you want those skills his skills are wasting away the man has i mean for whatever you say whatever you want to say his skills anyways anyways so i think there's a story in this whole story like every you know like everything there's a story in this whole story about the the package bomber which is that if i've i really do think

that you know i was watching the press conference about this the other day but they they gave a press conference from like the the neighborhood travis country that the fourth bombing was in on sunday and and um they gave a press conference about it yesterday it's really fascinating how they like you know even you know regardless of whether people are saying the media isn't covering it enough or what, there is media covering it in Texas and, you know, regional media and stuff like that. The local actors still have to respond to a heavily saturated media landscape, all this other shit. Yeah. And I think that that makes it a lot harder to like solve crimes oh yeah and i believe and i and i really do wonder if that's the reason that like some people like

the zodiac and all these other serial killers haven't been caught urans or whatever it's like they can't actually do thorough investigations for the betterment of society because we live in such a media dystopia right right no i think that's right i think that's right and also just the cops are stupid yeah they're on the beat because you see the right we've we're reaching out to the bomber asking asking for his demands oh what the fuck is this this i did that was fucking incredible they were just like uh give us a call yeah that'll do it our dms are open that was insane you know and i don't know i don't know if there is because you know they talked about at first how like the first targets were black people or people of color in austin and

you know i used to live in austin and i can can confirm that the sort of places where these bombings went off are are in uh black neighborhoods yeah and in poorer neighborhoods in east austin but this fourth bombing it does not fit that at all didn't go off didn't go off at a fedex facility or something well there was oh guess that's the fifth built bomb. That's the one that went off today. Oh, so that's a different one. That's a different one. There was one that went off Sunday.

The fourth one was triggered from a tripwire. A tripwire, yeah. And so that was part of the press conference. They were advising people about tripwires. Like if you see any wire on the ground. If you see a hard-to-see wire on the ground if you see a hard to see wire on the ground exactly they were like it might be it might be translucent maybe a little difficult that'd be a little exactly uh may resemble fishing line exactly um god these cops are so fucking it's no it's incredible if

you see a trip wire it's incredible man it's like if you see a needle in a haystack tell somebody there are just moments when like the mask sort of slips or whatever the veil sort of drops and like you just see they really don't give a fuck about this yeah and that nobody's in control you know what i mean and that all the people really what it is it's the but and i and i got this with the jim justice thing during the west virginia teacher teacher strike is like, the people at the top are so profoundly fucking stupid. They're just stupid. They're just rich. That's why they're in that position.

They have brute power and force behind them in the form of a fuckload of money. And that's the only way they get their agenda. It's just Don Blankenship. One of the stupidest fucking people I've ever ever existed ever existed yeah same shit oh dude yeah fucking blankenship but um but this so the so the so the bot so that one

the fourth one was trip was triggered by a trip wire yeah somebody was riding a bicycle by is that's right i guess or two kids were sort of walking around and they found it but it seemed to have been set you know and who the fuck knows these cops are again they're just making it up as they go along but it seems to have been sort of like ran like its targets were sort of randomized they weren't targeting somebody specifically which would complicate the narrative that this this was the person behind this was all right they're they're also the there's softness on it. It would not surprise me, at least if it was fucking cops.

Yeah. And I only say that about half-jokingly. Well, that's the thing. That's exactly right. When it was sort of conjectured that the bomber was targeting black people, it's like, well, maybe the actual cops are doing this.

Right. Maybe the, you know what I mean? But I mean, like, if there was like, if this was a more big media story and they were like doing something other than fucking fucking 1980s fucking cop movie investigation tactics you know what i'm saying right right fucking i would say okay yeah maybe that's just conspiratorial but not outside the realm of possibility dude a year ago in western kentucky do you remember there was this black guy that killed a state

right out there right right and that's like that's a whole separate that's a whole separate thing and but a state police captain out there said that this guy was with black lives matter he was a terrorist and all this kind of stuff yeah it's absurd right like okay the black guy killed the officer or whatever we could right talk about that or whatever but that was not with black lives matter they literally fabricated it fabricated it yeah so anyway that i mean that's just one example it's fucking insane it's like shit that you would see in like one example it's fucking insane it's like shit that you would see in like the 1920s yeah and it's like people pretend that like that shit doesn't still go on they're fucking criminals you know what i mean they they make shit up right you know

what i mean right and i don't know who this guy was i mean he may have been fucking howdy doody barney five i don't know And you know I don't even know How to talk about that But Who's Barney Five? You know From Andy Griffith

He kind of shoots himself With the You know Don Knotts' character Oh okay I never watched Andy Griffith Anyway

Like I'm sorry If you know I'm a complete Police and prison abolitionist and i you know i stand by that but uh if there's a leg to stand on in the fucking cop world like i just don't understand how that like it's just such a weird fraternity where they all like cop for each other and under the most vile shit yeah and i think it's fear of retribution like

i mean it runs like the goddamn mafia but like a corny ass like lame version of the mafia yeah it's not a cool muff it's fear of retribution but it's also this that's it's one of the really weird things about like the whole blue the blue thin. The sort of idea behind it being, it's like, yeah, it's fear of retribution, but it's also this idea that society is this mass of just irrational violence, just violent hordes of people that need to be corralled and kept in order at all times. And the only thing holding that back from just pure

anarchy and chaos at all times is this thin line is the thin blue line baby of people that we have arbitrarily decided should have that designation basically because they can run two miles in a certain amount of time and do 20 push-ups you know i know i say this like i feel like i need to say like i don't say any of this to disrespect a recently fallen individual i'm not trying to say that but i am i am trying to say that people need to examine why we do have a station of individuals in our society that are infallible that are immune to all you know and this is scrutiny I mean you know I don't know most of our audience

probably actually lives in cities so this is all probably preaching to the choir to them but I don't know but I really do think that like this is yeah this I don't know this is directed more at people who don't live in our our rural listeners all six of you I don't know, this is directed more at people who don't live in... Yeah.

Part of rural listeners. All six of you. Shit, I don't fuck all six of you. One of these days we'll get an audience in actual Letcher County. I hope they don't hear this one. They'll run us out of town. It's funny that you were talking about that investigation and Bevan potentially putting the kibosh on funding for all that. It's another, I meant to talk about it with you, but there's really not a whole lot to

say about it other than to say that, is it tomorrow that teachers in several East Kentucky counties are walking out? Walking out if it's... Yeah, it's like for, Are they going to Frankfurt to protest? I'm not sure. You went to the demonstration yesterday. I did. What was...

Talk about that. Well, it was pretty cool, honestly. It's a pretty cool idea. If you've got a lot of people. I'm not... If you've got a lot of people. It's funny. I'm not used to organizing like...

Like our DSA pool party that we literally got. Six people. We threw a DSA pool party and got six people, five of which was our organizing committee. Yeah, I'm not used to organizing anything more than ten motherfuckers at a time. Anyway, so it's a pretty good idea to at least raise awareness,

and I think that was the whole point. But it is pretty interesting to see how wildly reviled Bevin is. Oh, he has zero chance of getting reelected. And I really do hope, though, that people don't just think that, like... With me, the whole Bevin thing is kind of like the Trump thing. It's like Bevin is rightly sort of like, everybody talks about how much they fucking hate him and all this, and he's a piece of shit. Matt Bevin is our governor, by the way.

But he's just like, there's a, like the guy that was speaker of the house in the General Assembly, who just had to retire or resign because he had got caught sending lewd messages. He was sexually harassing people. There are people that are even worse than Bevin in the Kentucky state government. 100 million times worse than Bevin.

I don't know. The target for a lot of this ire and outrage should be Matt Bevin, but it should also be the fucking monsters who have been, like, sticking up or who have been protecting the coal industry from all fucking any kind of accountability for the last 50 fucking years. Democrats, too. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. Exactly. Democrats, too, man. Democrats too. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Exactly. Democrats too, man. It fucking kills me. Fuck, dude. Me too, man. It'll actually probably end up killing us literally. But on with Trudge.

Fuck yeah. It probably will. Okay, you got your red Coors bandana over this. You know how when Lil Wayne would do his freestyles in 106 Park and he'd throw his red flag over the mic? Over the mic, baby. I want to do it from now on. I'm coming here.

This red flag over my mic. And it's Coors. It's Coors. Hell yeah. You like that? you like that aesthetic I was like that would be cool Tom will think

that that's cool Tom will think that that's cool man I like recording here it's fun if we could get Tanya to come out more often we recorded it

Matt and Carrie's last week did you listen to that episode I haven't yet no I haven't yet and I can tell I haven't because people are adding this

with like the inside jokes. And I'm like, okay. Have they mentioned Toilet Poplar yet? They haven't mentioned Toilet Poplar. I forget which one. Somebody said the song from, was that Tiger Woods Golf or what was that? Oh, YLA Tribute League. Oh, that? Oh, YLA Trillbilly. Oh, yeah, no, YLA County Club.

Okay, was that like an old Nintendo Golf thing? Okay. Dude, that's the fucking. I remember YLA being a course, I think, maybe on PGA Tour. Speaking of people adding Trillbillies, there's a motherfucker out there who if I ever find you,

I'll fucking murder you for calling my boy gay Alex Jones. I look like the gay Alex Jones dude looking dude from the Trillbillies. I mean. Okay, I don't photograph well. I'll say that. I'm instantly more handsome in real life than I am on the internet. That's not true, Tom. No, you're good.

You got good photograph skills. Yeah. You got good... Some people... I guess that is a thing, you know? I guess, like, you know, people who don't photo well, people who... You're huffing gas. Yeah, I don't know, man. I'm just my fucking wife.

You pivot that photo. You sound like Matthew McConaughey on that Lincoln commercial. It's a vibe, man. It's spiritual. Oh, geez. You think Matthew McConaughey would come on True Billies? That'd be pretty tight, man. It'd be on brand.

Kind of. That'd be pretty tight, man. It'd be on brand. Kinda. You know, when I lived in Austin, I did see him one time. He's used to sort of drive around campus in a Suburban. He's kind of like, I think he was going through a divorce or something. Oh, I know what he was doing. This was like in 2008 or 2009 yeah um and he uh i think he

really for a short while there i think maybe his real life really was like his character in days confused except he would do that at ut he's on the poon stroll and that's suburban university of texas gosh damn dude if you're trying to pick up girls in a suburban i don't care if you are matthew mcconnell it's a little this is because it's black this fbi suburban oh yeah yeah this is probably totally libelous um who knows what he was doing i probably only saw him once and i'm just i thought isn't he like the assistant football coach met one of his job titles i know he's like he's the uh brand ambassador for wild turkey and have you watched his Wild Turkey commercials? Damn, that's pretty.

I mean, I would never do that personally because I'm not a sellout. Maybe for Randy's Rolling Papers. I'd probably. I'd compromise my values for Randy's. I might be a Randy's Rolling Paper spokesperson. For sure. But I wouldn't be able to be cool like Matthew McConaughey. I would be just my normal Randy's.

We did a Randy's commercial. I always forget about that. That was in the earlier days. We should put that back out. Yeah, we need to boost that again. That was in Trill Billy's early days before we got a lot of followers. Yeah, back when we had 23 followers and we were tweeting to the ether. And we were on Mixcloud.

Mixcloud, baby. Trillbillies, we got our start on the Mixcloud, everybody. And now look at us. That's worse than, I wonder if there's Mixcloud rappers. Now we've got a Beatlab and microphones. Every time I get down on ourselves, I have to remember we're from a town of 1,500 people tucked away, isolated in mountains, literally. Like, us having 4,000 Twitter followers

is like some motherfucker in Brooklyn having like 60,000 followers. It is kind of funny that I wish I could explain this to people on Twitter. Like, whenever I see DSA drama and other shit just going on on the generalized capital L left. I'm so thankful. Yeah, I'm thankful that I live in the middle of nowhere

with, you know what I mean, with no connections to any of these. And it's so great, because I'll chat it up with some people that fuck with us a little bit, you know, like I'm just messaging and stuff, and I don't get any of these. And it's so great because I'll chat it up with some people that fuck with us a little bit. You know, like I'm just messaging and stuff. And I don't get any of the references. But like

I do, I'm like, oh shit, that's fucked up. Yeah, no, same here. No, it's pretty nice. And not only that, like we are also sort of completely out of, you know, disconnected from a lot of just conversations on the left in general right now. Which is it's a

good thing but it is also a bad thing you know it's it can be kind of isolating sometime yeah but poopy butt agrees bb what's up peeps um dude i've been so paranoid that she's pregnant so paranoid oh yeah fucking uh jR. Smith came to the window. The fucking J.R. Smith of cats. Trying to get the pipe. Honestly, he looks a lot like Arrow. Can you account for Arrow's... Arrow's a girl. Oh, Arrow's a...

Okay. Well, that's fine. That's fine. Dude, a horny cat, though, can let out the most blood-curling, banshee fucking scream you've ever heard. Yeah, oh yeah, fuck yeah, dude. It got in here, though.

It got in my actual house. Did you, it was, it's like, you know cats have that, like, weird spiky dick? You ever seen a cat, a fucking cat erect? If a, I don't think I have. I haven't, like, in real life you know is it like a drill books and magazines no that's like that's the duck the cat is like it's got like fucking like i don't know somebody somebody confirmed for me that a cat has a spiky dick you know it You know, it is interesting. One of the things about our evolved selves, you know, one area that we did really just sort of luck out on

was the whole dick thing. Smooth dick. Yeah, like, that could have been really shitty for a lot of people if, like a dog, you got stuck to somebody for like eight hours. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That would be so bad. Or, you know, there's spiky penises.

What if, listen, what if Trump has baculum? What if Trump doesn't even have a dick? He's got a baculum. He's got a baculum. We're like, oh. That's a curveball from hell. Trump had a dick bone. It's often been rumored.

It's often been rumored. Kentucky's basketball coach before Calipari was this drunk named Billy Gillespie. And he was famous for just being a shit show drunk and hooking up with college girls. being like a shit show drunk and like hooking up with like college girls but like all like the salacious like anonymous stories of hooking up with billy gillespie which god damn i wouldn't even uh i'll talk about how he wouldn't like he wouldn't like fuck him like he wouldn't get his dick out like he would just want to eat him out and then like really yeah and like everybody's like oh he must have had a small penis counterpoint counter argument maybe he had back maybe he had baculum it's we we have overlooked this you know the people who wanted to laugh wanted to laugh it up

about maybe him having a micro peen or big dick here Here's what, comedians? There's a fucking other option. Yeah. There's other dick options. Yeah, you fucking problematic assholes. Oh, damn. Yeah, there's other things besides dick and pussy. I never thought about that. And it's boned dick.

I guess it's possible if the whole David Icke, was it that guy's name who believes that the people that he does is like lizard people. I guess that could be a scenario in which the dicks would be weird. The dicks of the ruling class. God damn dude.

That's true. Yeah. Lizard dick. Doesn't an alligator have like a two penis, a two pronged? Yeah, doesn't an alligator have like a two-pronged? Yeah, it's got like two dicks. Wow. Damn, dude. Well, we'll have to do a show on the weirdest dicks in the animal kingdom.

But anyway, my money's on Trump having baculum. I've seen a lot of animal dicks. I even ran a blog one time about, devoted to bat balls. You remember this? Did you? Yeah,

when me and Hooman were netting bats. What was it called? Oh, fuck, what was it? What's the latin name for a big brown bat Oh A pesticus fuck I think it was a pesticus fuck yeah

I think that was the name of the blog No no no I don't know how to I don't know how to actually spell it They're not a myotis brown bats aren't a myotis No little brown bat is Yeah little brown not a myotis brown bats aren't a myotis are they no little brown bat is

yeah little brown bats are myotis yeah I forget what big browns are damn dude

all this knowledge I used to have is deteriorating and eroding you know how that

works yeah you know I was I was when somebody who should ever make

nameless published a article on bat sex and like some girl in Syracuse, I got a mention there for providing the video. Oh, you did. You're excited. We were playing tennis one night, and I saw bats fucking, which is rare. Doesn't seem like something. It was two eastern red bats. Yeah.

Which, I will say this, they are one of the species that migrates. They are migratory bat species. Yeah. Tree bats, right? What's that? Are they tree bats? Yeah, migratory bats are tree bats, right?

Yeah, because the... You just hole up in a cave if you don't migrate, right? Yeah, I don't know. I forget. I was talking to somebody about this earlier this week because we were talking about the bats that make it, that go to hell.

Yeah, that's that. Hell bats. Yeah, you know, like you would expect bats to be in hell. I mean, they kind of are a part of the whole hell aesthetic. So like that would suck if you were a bat. That was the only animal that died and went to hell. What do you think died and went to hell like bats snakes and bats snakes rats yeah what about the bear i'd say they've done bad things but they i'd say they got into heaven they've done some bad things bears are just kind of like big and dumb ogre-ish and they're like,

okay, I ate some people. I guess maybe I'm being too anthropocentric here. I'm defining good and a species' goodness and badness by the chaos that they've wreaked on human civilization. Bears have done bears? What animal do you suppose

is killed? And don't say fucking mosquitoes, smart guy. Like, what, what real fucking animal do you think has accounted for more human deaths than anybody else? Anything else? Uh, depends on how you define an animal.

You think dogs, since we've kind of co-evolved longer with dogs, you think more wolves and coyotes have killed us than anything else? Damn, dude. I would say, well, again, it depends on how you define an animal. Because a lot of, like, infectious diseases. Okay, mammal. All right.

I would say. But rabies still, with the mammal thing. Fuck. But here's the thing. I guess here's an ontological question is it the bat that kills us or the rabies virus itself yeah no no rabies i'm talking straight up the blame fucking claws on your fucking shit fucking i would say probably alligators probably account for yeah they fuck some shit up yeah you don't don't jump into a fucking water hole in

louisiana i can't you know uh snakes i would oh but they're not mammals i don't know what i was thinking but no okay okay i would accept snakes they have killed a fuckload of people that's true venomous snakes yeah that's the answer i was laughing the other day i'm stupid that's the answer i don't know why i was laughing the other day I'm stupid That's the answer I don't know why I was laughing the other day About the thought that Like a snake bite

Is the least problematic Way to die I don't It just It makes sense On an intuitive level There's just something about it That makes sense to me

Like humans should Should die from snake bites It's pure It's wholesome It's got a It's pure and wholesome That's what That's what

The Spartans call beautiful death Right right The bat thing I was talking to somebody about Because there's a species of Oh shit What's the big ass What's the big

Not the evening bat The evening bat has got a big old dick The evening bat is renowned in the bat world for having a massive peen. How fitting that a bat called the evening bat. He just like swoops down a little smoking jacket. Hawaiian whore. Tumbler of whiskey. Yeah.

This fucking big old dick. A Hawaiian whorey bat. Yeah. This fucking big old dick. A Hawaiian horibat. There's a species of horibat that is only found in Hawaii. And it's kind of a mystery how they got there. A lot of biologists think that they came in two waves.

One of them went like 800 years ago, and then another one went like a few thousand years ago or some shit. Yeah. But goddamn, could you imagine making that trek from like California to Hawaii? How the fuck would they do something like that? Where would you pause that? I don't know. You like post up on a driftwood or some shit?

Yeah. I don't know. Well, that is interesting though. Maybe they got... No. Do they... Hawaii is rabies free. But... Is that true Yeah that's true

You ever just hear Scientific facts That just really make you wonder If maybe God is real God is real God is real Wow Well things that

That are really hard to explain Like how the fuck Did a species of a horibat Make it all the way to Hawaii Yeah Eh Yeah Eh no i'm with you how do how do we have a viable podcast good question maybe god is real no i i don't mean that really but i do mean that like uh there are some things that just really make you wonder like yeah how did that it's crazy you coming around to god no no fuck no definitely not definitely not look at that little kitten's eyes and tell me there's not a god i hope she's not pregnant man i've been fucking

like pathologically obsessively checking webmd i'm like symptoms of cat pregnancy oh you'll know soon because their gestation period's not very long. Dude, it's fucking crazy. They can have kids. They can have babies as young as four months. Yeah, I know. That's fucking crazy. Not fair.

Oh, she's getting a little doughy, too, dude. She's definitely pregnant as fuck. She's probably pregnant as fuck. You could take her to the vet, and they could see. They could do an abortion? They can do a cat abortion, yeah. No shit! Yeah. But, bad news for you pal our vets christian missionary that's that would be interesting yeah like how does all this and i know

you're kind of against this for humans. But, man, I can't come off that kibble money, man. I'm stretched in already. I would absolutely pay for that fucking shit. I don't want to be a cat dad, a cat granddad. Dude, wow, wow. Cat granddad. Would that be tyrannical? Is it wrong to have a cat?

I think only when it involves cats I'm against abortion. I think we should just proliferate the world with cats. I'm a hardline conservative when it comes to cat pregnancy. The sanctity of cat life.

Damn. Well, I respect that. I respect it. We're so fucking stupid. How much time we got over there? That's an hour and 14 minutes, my friend. That's a good episode. All right.

Let's stick it. I think this was a... This had some high notes. It did. It did. It was all high notes. It did. It did, and it was all high notes. I wonder if you can take us out with a good trap beat. All right.

Play us one on the fly. Oh, shit. Check that out. You can just... All right, all right. I'll take us out with a good... All right, here we go oh yeah oh Uh.