Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 5: Trillbilly Chic

Episode Date: April 7, 2017

In episode 5 we discuss the class analysis (or lack thereof) of anti-racist organizations, the hillbilly chic phenomenon, and how that if Jay-Z can't be cool in his 40's then what chance do the rest of us have? And of course, how sex looks different after 30. Enjoy!

I want to have an episode where Tom and I talk about our lapsed Christianity or lapsed faith. But do you remember when you were a kid, I don't know if y'all ever believed in the rapture, where you would just be literally sitting around thinking that it might happen any second. Any minute. Yeah, and they're like, no, after you watch those Left Behind shows, remember those movies? Those Left Behind series? They made us watch that in youth group. It was terrifying. Yeah. Literally horrifying.

Oh, man. that in youth group it was terrifying yeah literally horrifying oh man it was it was though um an amazingly compelling concept for an apocalyptic like fictionalized like they could do a series on that you know in the same way that they've done like the walking dead and stuff and i would totally watch that shit oh yeah i would totally watch that shit and then you would have like the people that are left behind. I would be left behind for sure. But I'd still be Christian. Would you take the mark

to get food? No, dude. I would be one of those people who rebuild society afterwards because I was kind of a Christian when I was still here, but then I got left behind. Let me ask you a question. Would the Tribulation necessitate the end of capitalism? Probably, yeah.

Because you can't buy or sell, save they that have the mark. So right before you walked in, Tom and I were just talking about a question as old as time itself. Can you be racist by yourself, just alone in your room, itself can you be racist by yourself just alone in your room just with no other external anything like interacting with you you know what i mean like yeah just you alone just you alone racism is a verb i feel like well technically i mean there's also a school of thought that racism is only systemic. And that, like, interpersonal microaggressions are just, like, more like prejudices. Because racism, like the word racism, needs to hold a lot higher.

So microaggressions are tributary. Yeah. lot higher like racism microaggressions are tributary yeah that this is why the people organizing the neo-nazi rally don't think that that that they're it's the same reason have are having trouble connecting the dots to similar campaigns to stop a prison construction they think that racism... You mean the Nazi itself or the anti-Nazi rally? The people who are countering... Oh, the counter rally.

Yeah. Can't get on board with prison abolition. Yeah. So the people who are organizing the counter actions and rallies against the neo-Nazi rally in Pikeville are having a terrible time seeing the parallels in a campaign to stop prison construction here in the same congressional district.

And when they said, why don't you want a prison in your county? I said, why don't you want a neo-Nazi rally in your county? That's literally what I said. And he said, I don't like the lines you're drawing here i mean we could pull it up and read the flame war if y'all want to i was very embarrassed i never get into flames on facebook oh so yeah it ain't fucking worth it but this set me off yeah set me on fire and then he he tried to allude to the fact that nothing can be done on the construction end of prison expansion to address the problems in the justice system. That this was a phallus, that we're silly if we think stopping prison construction will have anything to do with the prison system.

Right, right. Well, what's his name? Fuck off, dude. Yeah yeah that's pretty dumb um but i guess is it because he's a liberal is that why yeah he's like he is textbook you're bookmark democrat and so i just i don't understand how people think racism is just something that you see with the naked eye all the time like the only racism they understand is yelling obscenities at someone. Like, racism is denying people good loans and health care. Right.

And not giving them GI bills when they return from the fucking war. Right. But. That shit's not woke, Tanya. That shit's not woke. It's not sexy. You can't talk about redlining. What? I don't know yeah it's just like once you actually get down to the actual like wonky things that need to be done

to end white supremacy it's it exits the realm of getting 100 likes on your facebook you know what i mean it exits the realm of being woke and enters the realm of being if you can't meme it it's not real well tom and i were talking about this today like to to just pretend that there are no class dimensions to any of our struggles is just entirely it's it's absurd well to come back to this question of can you be racist alone in your room i say first things first i say yes because i think i think we are all racist and because we benefit from white supremacy as white people even though plenty of us are grew up poor or working class or whatever and that's class whatever we are still benefiting from systems

of white supremacy how do you make that sell, though? To who? When you're organizing white people. Well, I don't say it like that, but I think you do. Or rather, how do you impart that? I will say it is very difficult. Asking for a friend. It is very difficult to talk to poor white people in eastern Kentucky about privilege, about white privilege. And I've tried to do it and it's not easy um but I definitely um I think I don't know I don't know what the answer is about it

conversationally I don't I can't think of a time that it's like I've seen some breakthrough with someone through a conversation but through working with black people and queer people um people i've seen people move make moves yeah i don't need to add that that's good um well i think this brings us to an article that came out this weekend. Yeah. What is it? We talked about it already. Me and you did? Yeah, you sent it to me and said, this is interesting. Oh, oh. And I had already read it.

Yeah, no, it was really good, actually. It was about organizations like Surge and white-led anti-racist organizations. The title was great. It was like, it said White's Only. Which is like, you know, she knows what she's doing. She's a great tech. It said White's Only, Surge,

and the Caucasian Invasion of Racial Justice Spaces. Just fucking mic drop. I didn't say this. Y'all got to school. Oh, she lit... I will have to look up her name and give her credit, but...

Yeah. She is a part of Black Lives Matter Boston, I'm pretty sure. And she was a part of the black blocs that shut down... Right. The inauguration. The inauguration. On inauguration day. That shut down a lot of the checkpoints on inauguration day.

Bad bitch. I'm going to go out on a limb here and presume she had a good line in there about how there's probably more white people at surge meetings than kkk rallies which is probably true um she had a lot of good i'm gonna pull it up uh i think it gets at a very interesting thing several things that I've sort of had on my mind and I've just been throwing around all weekend. One of which is that white people stay being ridiculous. They stay being white people.

Hardly anything good ever comes from a group of exclusively white people, especially anti-racism, which we talked about this last week too. I still am unclear what the fuck white-led groups mean when they say doing anti-racism which we talked about this last week too like i i still am unclear what the fuck white led groups mean when they say doing anti-racism like it's still so it means nothing it just means that you're not publicly racist when it comes to surge unfortunately i think it's a lot of book clubs they're like i have reading lists and shit because i've been on a couple surge calls a couple years ago which some of them is like it's like campaign driven they like whatever but um one i think

common misconception about surge is that they are intending it to be multi-racial but the end goal is to it's to like activate white people against white supremacy right but of course the inherent the inherent flaws are just through the roof yeah my favorite part of the article so her name is Dee Dee Delgado Delgado and it's BLM Cambridge Cambridge Mass yeah organized in anti-racism. Oh, my God. That's not even Boston. Down by the piers. Watching a Pats game. Oh, God. Jesus Christ.

Sorry, go ahead. My fave was that she emailed all the search chapters and asked them a series of questions. It was like, who are you accountable to? What black leadership are you allied with? Blah, blah, blah. Something, something. But the best question in that was I can't even find it right now but it was

how did you celebrate Beyonce announcing she was having twins and I was like fuck yeah if people cannot answer that question what are they about what are they about where were you when Beyonce announced dropped her whole fucking pregnancy photo shoot

the greatest thing we've seen. You know, I'd say since Beyonce's Super Bowl appearance. Right, right. The best thing we've seen since then. We were just talking about Jay-Z. I think about Jay-Z a lot these days because he was my hero as a kid. Not hero, but he was my favorite rapper. He's not still?

I'm surprised you know that. No, but that's the favorite rapper. He's not still? I'm surprised you know that. No, but that's the segue into what we're talking about. Is that when men hit 40, from 40 to 60, they're just very creepy. In 60, you kind of soften up a little bit. You've got some grandpa-ish qualities. You get a little gray in your hair and you're less threatening. You're more charming. Yeah, but between 40 and 60, you're a total creep.

Bad years. But even if you're not creepy, you're definitely not cool. Jay-Z's in the throes of the not cool period. Yeah. A guy that I never imagined being not cool. Yeah. Tom said this to me the other day, and I was like, Jesus, you're right.

When you think of Jay-Z, if anybody was going to be cool through their 40s and 50s, it'd be that guy, and he's not doing it very well. He's not doing it well. I mean, he's still dressing like he's, like, 20. Yeah. You know what I mean? He's not aging well.

You know what I mean? I don't know. I still think he looks good. But the only time I ever see him is on award shows when Beyonce's performing, and they, like, flash over to him in Ivy, and I'm just, like, so giddy that I don't fucking know what the fuck.

And then occasionally I'll see, like, an Instagram picture of them, you know, courtside at a When he's wearing a tuxedo, he does look cool. When he's wearing, at 46, a sideways Knicks hat. Yeah. It just kind of looks like a, like, you know what I mean? It's kind of like the same effect as, like, you know, like, when, like, you'll see, like, grown men around here wearing, like, Teen Mall brand.

He's 46. Yeah, he's 48, man. Wait, how old's Bea? She's not 40. In her like Teen Ball brand. He's 46. Yeah. He's 48 maybe. Wait how old is B? She's not 40. In her mid 30s. Like 34 or something. I didn't realize

there was that big a difference between them. No JC was like his first album came out in like 96 or 97 and Beyonce was still probably it.

He is so stupid. If he is really pulling this shit on her God he's done. Oh gosh. Tongue in tongue yeah. They're making millions of dollars off putting these thoughts in your head

so i just finished reading kind of like the other book besides hillbilly elegy that talks about the white underclass it's kind of on everybody's tongue but not but in a much different way as this nancy eisenberg's white trash the 400 year history of class in America and my takeaway is that in our organizing whatever that is we are project of mine it's a project of mine yeah we well first off again the c word when you say that people automatically think that you're prioritizing the white underclasses oppression over that of people of color that i think that's kind of not accurate and listen who says that the most hillary people it's the hillary it's the hillary people yeah it's the Hillary people. It's the Hillary people. Yeah.

It's all about identity over here on our side now and all that kind of shit. Right, right. But what I also took away from it was that while the white underclass might not ever be victims of the legacy of Jim Crow and pigmatism and all these other things, I think people really go out on a limb and say, like I heard somebody say, oh, well, America doesn't lynch its hillbillies. Historically, not exactly true. Forced sterilization programs. I mean, there were what they called tallow people in North Carolina and Tennessee and eastern Kentucky

and southwest Virginia that were massacred in the early 1800s. There were a lot of forced sterilred in the early 1800s. There were a lot of forced sterilization of black communities, too. Yeah, I mean, it's exactly what I'm trying to say, though, is that we need to use this as an organizing tool to sort of bring poor and working people of all colors together. Yeah, because if you think about it, like, that argument, or if you work from the framing of identity politics like what

you just said it sets it up into this what becomes like oppression olympics if you don't have any sort of like larger framework to put it into class then it doesn't make sense it becomes a competition among groups and identities and that's not how we're going to get to change we're not going to get anywhere. Well, I was drawing these lines today with someone, which you all probably heard me say this before. I've been on this kick. I just do this.

Every so often I'll have an epiphany, and then that's all I say for the next month. And then I'll have another one. That's all I say for the next month. You all must not care because you still hang out with me years later. So the epiphany I'm on right now, the kick I'm on right now, is about how wealth transfers. And it's basically only generationally. And maybe I, did I talk about this last week? No, but we talked a little bit about it over the weekend, I think.

Oh, maybe. Maybe. We spend too much goddamn time together. Y'all need to leave me alone. Yeah. Anyway, the point here is is maybe i've already said it and cut it out if i have but well basically like any economist will tell you like 95 90 percent of wealth is generational like all wealth just moves through families right and you know we've

talked about this tom of course black communities couldn't build wealth they were they were working for free for 300 years essentially um and then they were sent to war and when they came back they didn't get gi bills like those are huge markers in history where black people were cheated out of any wealth so that there's no wealth in so many black communities have very little wealth and so and it's basically impossible in america to move yourself out of the class you were born into but that's completely opposite of the american dream right everyone probably have trump voters who are poor um which you know there aren't that many of us you're already here um feel like they are going to get rich one day and so they like to feel some kind of kinship with Trump because that's them one day.

Right. No, I think that's exactly right. I think Republicans and elites in general, regardless of politics, have pulled this trick on the middle class. And I think it's really at the root of why during the campaign season you always hear it's the middle class, it's the middle class and i think it's really at the root of why during the campaign season you always hear it's the middle class it's the middle class it's middle class never poor and working people because it gives them a sense of superiority over somebody and at the same time convinces them that they're in the same elite circle as like the mega wealthy and that while they may be deluding

themselves they still feel like it's aspirational and they will get there eventually and they're just like on the cusp of it and look these people already welcome me in anyway yeah it's it's like that article we were just talking about in dissent it's actually funny how tom and i wanted to talk about this article and it's just like the conversation just naturally presents itself basically the person who sort of like legitimized uh or you know there's been a lot actually like i think that the whole history of american literature in art there is this very real like pull yourself up by bootstraps horatio alger type thing garbage but um but dolly's one of them dolly is a huge purveyor of the redneck chic like she did do that.

Right, because she raised from hardscrabble nothing, and now she just talks about counter money all the time, which is great. But as a story for making it in our society, I don't know, it's the same thing with J.D. Vance. Conservatives do this all the time. They're like, see, they did it. They focus on the outliers.

Right, they focus on the outliers, but they don't talk about the fact that, yeah, wealth is generational. Well, these, I love that you They focus on the outliers. Right, they focus on the outliers, but they don't talk about the fact that, yeah, wealth is generational. Well, these, I love that you said this because the other piece of that is that you can see that also on the Central Appalachian side. Immigrants moved here. Native people from here were literally working in the mines for script. They never made any real money. They never were able to buy a house, buy land.

The company owned all the land and all the homes and they never built any equity or wealth so it jams things up for generations yeah so for of course there's literally no fucking wealth across the south at avalachia besides concentrated in a few families right same thing all the companies and plantations and shit um and so what you're saying about dolly is like you know so the the 10 percent of people who are able to like shoot through all the class structure are. With your 10 percent, I think you're being very generous, too. You think 10 percent is generous? I think it's got to be like two or one.

I think percentages of percentages. Yeah, I think you're right. Well, I'm saying because I'm saying. For every Dolly Parton, there's 600,000, you know. Sure, but what I'm saying is... Donald Blankenship, that's another one. I'm saying there's entertainment. So that's sports, so athletes, musicians, producers.

And then there's the tech bros. A lot of poor people were tech savvy and popped off into the new tech economy. And so maybe it is. It's 95% generational. You have to have money to make money. Capitalism, and, like, popped off into, like, new tech economy. And so maybe it is, like, you know, it's 95% generational. You have to have money to make money. Right. Capitalism, blah, blah, blah. But what you, the good point you bring up here is talking about Dolly,

talking about counting her money, and it brings up a really important parallel between country music and rap music. Yeah. And our friend Ada had a friend in college who did like her whole this like whole end project like she spent years building this case around this um this theory about imagine violence called imagine violence do y'all have y'all heard i've only heard of this from ada telling me about this story, but it was literally like this whole theory about how the only two genres of art that imagine violence are hip hop and country because it's poor people's music. And so they literally like you can name 50 rap songs and 50 country songs right now that imagine violence and talk about having to fucking kill people for something or or like take up for themselves or blah, blah, blah.

And so this is literally poor people's music. Yeah. Yeah. Now, that's a good point. It also raises my – an idea – I already told Tom this. An idea I had when we were – and we were talking about this in a second when we were at Pigeon Forge this weekend. Yeah. I want to do like a mystery science theater 3000 on this show,

but we just watch 90s country music videos, like the Shania videos we were watching. We watched like the whole Shania discography while we were high. Georgia Pine. So can we actually talk about Gatlinburg a little bit? Can we talk about our experience? When you said that, what I thought you were going to say is about how many big-ass trucks drove through the Gatlinburg Strip bumping rap.

Yeah, yeah. Every block, it was like another huge truck coming through. And they were mostly just, like, blasting, like, 90s rap music. It wasn't even, like, I mean, it wasn't future. It wasn't fucking blasting at all. It's dated rap. Listen, when I used to lifeguard at the swimming pool in Wattsburg here, and there was this guy that drove this late model gray fucking old 80-something S10 or something,

and he had the Confederate flag and all that shit on it. And you could set your fucking watch by it. He would drive by the pool every day bumping you don't really want to go knock a tail but i'm gonna take you anyway what the hell daily song yeah i'm pretty sure i heard country grammar yeah yeah yeah i could probably count it on three or four hands the number of times i heard Country Grammar. That's like if you were to do the Hillbilly Top Ten Hip Hop Albums, Country Grammar's in there on everybody's list. The other one, I don't know about you all,

but Eminem's Superman makes the rounds pretty well. Jaw Roll, Pain of Love. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, Jaw Roll's big in this. And Dr. Dre, 2001. Oh, yeah. That might be number one with a bullet I know him oh shit

yeah so damn that is spot on it really is I do kind of think that I don't listen to a lot of modern country but it seems like a lot of the country now though has changed a lot and it's like themes not not the ones coming from men and women the ones coming from women still like uh adhere to that what you're saying but the country songs

for men now are so vapid and um they're just completely substanceless and and a lot of them are patriotic and you know what i mean or or or co-op the hip-hop aesthetic or co-op the hip-hop aesthetic yeah yeah and this is i swear this i just keep i need to just write a fucking book about this or something i wouldn't ever write a book because i'm lazy but my whole theory that men you know not you all but men not all men okay maybe you all yeah probably us but men are just like maybe it's not an evolution thing because like people get all whatever about the actual science of evolution about biological determin determinants. Yeah, who fucking cares? But my point is that for so long,

men have been expected to do so little in the world. Like the outcomes that men actually have to deliver are so little. Like they don't raise any humans. They are mostly think tanks. But the bar is set so low. Yeah, the bar is so low. You basically just have to sire an heir and then hand it off to the woman you sired the heir on.

Yeah. And then you're lionized. Yeah. And women have literally had to basically do all the work that men decided was important and plus the things that they cared about, the ideas that they had, they needed to see to fruition, plus raise every fucking human that is operating on the planet right now right and i just feel like we've become so different like and and gender is a construct too like you know there's some like real biology um that to take into place but gender is a total

fucking capitalist construct and it has fucked us over so badly that we're just like unrelatable. That's why I feel like people are just like, fuck it. I don't want to be a woman or a man. It's awful. This construct is god awful. It is exhausting. It's terrible. It really is. Because men are pitiful and women have to do everything.

Not all men. God. Yeah. 10% of men are good and there are so many like i really have a lot of proof of this in the workplace of men being praised for the work that women do right taking ideas you know whatever and and like getting to you know like at my last job um every time we would have a big event the men would get to all wear suits and the women would have to wear matching fucking t-shirts with our logo on it and it used to grind my gear so bad because you know i love to rock a blazer oh yeah and i was just oh i was just me and willa both would just be fucking livid that we were all standing there

looking like a fucking cheerleading squad and all the men were in three-piece suits looking nice like they obviously did all this work and then we're literally working the lunch line at the event that we planned bullshit i mean i can't even tell you how many times this happened like literally every event and so like the i have a lot of proof from uh my own personal work experience but i hadn't even thought about the proof in the pudding of country music yep there it is right in front of us right in front of us yeah yeah yep so gallenberg pigeon forage baby full disclosure um 97 or 8 percent of my weekend was fueled by marijuana brownies and the uh not the nonsensical absurdity that arises from such a mental state yeah i know a few times i looked at terrence and i was like lord have mercy he is he has

withdrawn into himself he is contemplating the universe in ways we cannot comprehend hiring groceries right right he was so gone. I was on a higher plane. So gone. Yeah, no, the first instance that I just knew that the merry-go-round had totally, like, gone off its hinges. So we all, you know, made weed brownies on Saturday morning. I drove the van a couple times, so I. I drove it once. I took one for the team and didn't partake in one evening, so and i drove the van a couple times so i yeah i drove her once i took

one for the team and didn't didn't partake in one evening so i could drive the van well so we went to this place called parrot mountain i've always heard about this but i had no idea there was literally parrots there yeah there's a lot of parrots there that's about all there is that's about all there is so the first thing that happens when we walk in there is that we we walked in there there's about 10 of us and in my mind in my in my recollection of it didn't really happen this way but in my recollection of it there's 10 cockatoos like white cockatoos like on these wooden stands right in front of us and like we walk up to them and then we're all talking and then someone says hey and then one of the cockatoos goes hey and and then um it was just like hello what's up and then one of us laughed like haha and then one of the cockatoos started laughing

and then we all started laughing and then all they all started laughing so we laughed even harder so we laughed even harder and they laughed even harder and it just like kept the volume kept rising and we were paralyzed i bet you i bet you were we were all so high and i looked up and was backing away from us because she she knew we had all took the rallies and she was back in the stroller away and just like looking at us we looked great i'm sure we looked crazed just like and then after i saw her i looked up and everyone in the place had stopped and was looking at us the people who worked there there was like a huge family there oh it was so fucking hilarious i was just like

we have to stop but we all could just get feeding yeah and couldn't stop. Yeah, and I was like... I think those cockatoos were just like, I don't know how much further we could go. I was wondering later on if they told the story the same way. They were just like, man, so, like, y'all should have seen it earlier. We were just, like, chilling, and this group came up,

and they started laughing. You know how, like, we gotta, like, repeat everything they say because it's just, like, what we do? Well, we started repeating it, and then it became genuinely funny to us and they were getting so loud they were going they were shrieking like it wasn't even like just like replicating the human laughter it was like visceral this is actually what set it

off the the you left this out because you weren't in the van on the way down in the van on the way down somehow we got on some new metal kick we're like making fun of new metal and and and someone went oh yeah we were trying disturbed song and we were trying to remember what the song was for what that song was and like it took us like an hour yeah we realized it was down with the sickness and then we were joking that we were going to try to get the cockatoos to do it right when we got to parent oh my god that would be so funny and and lil did it lil was going and and one of the parents went and that's when we just fell the fuck out we all just fell apart and that's when they all started laughing and then we were laughing harder it was just like i felt like i was in a vortex and i couldn't escape and then i was like looking around i started getting scared i was like

yeah oh my god it was so good it was funny crazy we're going to get arrested. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. That is so good. It was funny. We need to get a cartoonist to sketch this out. Oh, yeah. No, seriously. Seriously. This is a good, this could be my Christmas present to everyone. I'm going to get someone to sketch this whole thing out.

It was, in my mind, it is an actual sketched cartoon. It is so fucking funny. But Parrot Mountain ended up being so fucked up. Yeah, but other, yeah, yeah other than that Parrot Mountain was traumatic and like I saw this one cockatoo like screeching and swinging on its swing and it was so bad that I was just like humans are the fucking worst man like this and you know I went down one of those just like um you know they're creatures they deserve sympathy and I was like talking to a crow and I kept making these like you know crows talk some crows talk crows are incredibly intelligent

very intelligent and they had one locked in a cage and I was talking to it and it like leaned real far down and it goes like it did that to me we understood each other on a level that just couldn't be put into words

on a podcast. Did Alex tell you we saw two fucking? Yeah, they saw two fucking. Me and Alex did their awkward... No, it was two... They were small birds. I don't know what they were. Maybe they were just like small.

I don't know. Did they like see you catch them and kind of were embarrassed about it? No. They just like. We actually. Her and I realized what was happening and like stayed a few more minutes to keep watching. And then we like got so uncomfortable like standing side by side. Like I got uncomfortable.

And then I was more uncomfortable because I knew she knew what I was seeing. Yeah. And we just were both like, maybe we should leave. So we just like walked off. But then when I got to another one of the women there, I'm not going to say her name again. I was like, you need to go back over there and look at that. Yeah, go check that shit out.

Go check that shit out. But right when she got over there, they like dismounted. I went to the aquarium in Atlanta one time, and these two beluga whales started having sex in front of this large group of people and there were kids in everywhere and it flopped its dick out. Beluga whale got a big old dick.

Yeah, and jizz went everywhere. All in the water and all the kids were like, what? So it pulled and prayed. It pulled and prayed. That's crazy. Pulling and praying in captivity, dude. I'd look in captivity and just be like, fuck it. Well, I was like, that baby ain't mine.

Shit, I got that dick control. They're supposed to move me to tank C in a month. I'm going to be out of here. It's a good word, baby. I shouldn't be laughing at this. Yeah, yeah, it's bad. So that was bad. That was a scam. Yeah, yeah, that's bad. So that was bad. That was a scam.

Honestly, it's all a scam. I think the best way to sum up how much of a scam it actually was, everything about it, was we went to the Smoky Mountain Opry in, is that in Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge? Pigeon Forge. And they had this intermission in this show. This is what you were saying. You enjoyed a little too much.

Yeah. Indeed. They had an intermission. It wasn't even ironic. It was like you enjoyed it. I was like a giddy child. I want to hear about your debriefing because we haven't talked. We haven't debriefed about it.

But I thought the thing that summed it up the best was during the intermission, they were selling American flag sunglasses and wands. And on the screen, they had ten dollars plus five dollar add-on and me and alex are sitting there just like so fifteen dollars like why not just say fifteen dollars like everything is such a fucking scam that they like they've tried to you know what i mean like make it seem like they're not just ripping your ass off and you could tell they use very strategic language to say, to make people think that the money

they were spending on these like light up fucking flag sabers and American flags. What the fuck? It was like patriotic. It was like a wand

of red, white, and blue wand. Light up wand. Baton. Yeah, baton and American flag. And they showed a bunch of videos of their like

veterans programs. Oh yeah. And made it seem like it was going. But they never said exactly that that's what it was going toward. They just said, you being here makes possible. Right. These programs. Right.

But they're such a huge corporation that they have to, like, write some shit off. So they have, like, a fucking supper once a year or some shit and write off a million dollars of veterans programs. And buy, like, eight vets from the, like, DeSavereville area. Yeah, they do, like, a toy year or some shit right off a million dollars of vets about like eight vets from the like yeah severe valeria yeah they do like a toy drive or some shit like which means literally other people bring toys they deliver the toys like how much money can that fucking anyway uh but you could tell it was very strict very strategic wording so that they couldn't get caught up didn't wounded warrior project didn't they find out that shit was like also a scam that was one of the ones that they said

they worked with was Wounded Warrior they were like we work with the Wounded Warrior Project and they were like and that sounds good on the surface

until you know the Wounded Warrior Project is an absolute fucking scam it is it is well so I think the

Smoky Mountain Opry is also a scam in it's own way but at least they put on a show I loved it and what here's what I'll say

what made me feel like I liked it a little too much was the ending. The ending got so fucked up that I was like, I've been enjoying myself. I love this. Now it's horrible. I'm like, oh my god, I've been giddy this whole time. This was a trap. This was a goddamn trap.

They pulled you in and did this really sneaky, fucked up thing that made you feel like you had been co-opted into the American. Yeah, yeah. Did they plant the flag at Iwo Jima or something? Oh, yeah, basically. My face was hurting. I was smiling so big for so long.

For like an hour, I was just like. Because I was literally so happy. My face was like this for like an hour. I was just like mortified. Oh, God, I love it. Then the last, what, half hour? Oh, shit. The last half hour was.

Got uncomfortable as fuck. Oh, it was wretched. And. Tell me what happened. Here's the other part. Some of it was so cheesy. It was genuinely funny. And I was laughing.

And then I would feel like, oh, am I not supposed to laugh right now? Am I being disrespectful? Because I didn't want to disrespect the artists. Like, these are, like, paid actors and actresses and performers. And I, like, really respect that they got good work. They were flying around on fucking cables playing guitar and shit. Like, what? There were, okay, my favorite part were the aerialists.

Yeah, they're doing aerialist shit. It was, like, a Russian couple, Leanne and Samir or something. I think she made those names up. Leanne. Something. No, it was Leanne. Oh, you're right. I think she made those names up Leanne No it was Leanne And I was just like every time they came out I was falling in love with them I had created this whole fucking backstory about them

I'm writing them into my will She was like they came across on a boat in 1987 They had nothing to eat but like cheese and crackers and bread for 14 weeks. Oh, I loved them, and they were beautiful. They were so beautiful. And they were, like, nothing but muscle because they were literally hanging upside down, holding both.

Like, both of them could upside down hold both of their own body weights from a hoop. It was pretty fucking phenomenal. Or from a ribbon. They did the ribbon. And they were playing guitar while they were attached to the ribbon? Well, that guy was a little, he was attached to some wires

and he was like fucking, he came out over the audience and they kept it quiet, like they kept it dark so you couldn't see him coming out over the audience, but we did because we had the VIP seats in the back.

We were in the mezzanine. Yeah, we were in the mezzanine. So you could see everything happening before it happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he got over the audience, but we did, because we had the VIP seats in the back. We were in the mezzanine. Yeah, we were in the mezzanine. So you could see everything happening before it happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he got above the audience, and then they fucking turned the spotlight on him when he was about to solo, and everybody just looked up like, wow.

And he was just like fucking ripping the frets off this motherfucker. Shredding. I was so into it. We were just like. But then things got dark. What happened? That's you all just keep was so into it. We were just like... But then things got dark. What happened? You all just keep going back to it. Listen, man. There was people hanging by a ribbon

and playing guitar for the last 30 minutes, man. It peaked at Lion King, I think. I think Lion King was the peak. I loved it. They did a short line. They did one of the songs from Lion King. Which was good. Which is actually good. The music is actually good from that. Lion King the musical.

Yeah. That's not what they did. Well, I think they did a compilation of songs from that. Yeah, they did a compilation. But the costumes were phenomenal. Like, it was beautiful. They had a costume. Like, they had two people the costume had made an elephant and the elephant was like walking around slowly on the stage.

They had two giraffes. This dude was on stilts, four stilts as a giraffe. It was pretty impressive. And then all of these dancers, these female dancers were like antelopes, and so they had huge horns. It was amazing.

And you have to understand that we are blitzed out of our fucking course on marijuana brownies. Yeah. So all this shit's happening and then this guy the guy the mc comes out he's just like you know what like we couldn't do anything tonight on this stage if it wasn't for jc if it wasn't for jesus christ almighty or god and all this i don't know if it wasn't for Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter.

He wrote a grant, actually. The Carter Foundation supports us. If it wasn't for Jason. Jimmy Carter, everybody. So they started singing How Great Thou Art. Did they do an altar call? Well, people did this spontaneously. They started standing up

and praising God. It became praise and worship hour. It became praise and worship hour. It flipped like that. And you have to understand. What about you stoners in the mezzanine? Yeah, people. Oh, we got so uncomfortable.

Did you get into it? We got so uncomfortable. You still got your praise chops? Well, after that, they asked people to stand up who were like first responders, cops, soldiers, and all this shit. And Alex was like, you should stand up. And I thought about standing up and being like, yeah, yes, that's right. And be like, April Fool's.

It was April Fool's that day. It was April Fool's. How did you do that day? I don't know. I was way too high, and I just saw all these. You were just too disgusted. Yeah, I was very disturbed. So it was praise and worship hour, like three or four songs.

And then the big finale is when you're supposed to pull out your $15 flag and wand. Was it a proud to be American or something? It was that Toby Keith song that was like. Put a boot in your ass. No, it was a nicer one. It was like. I'm fighting for my freedom. Freedom don't come free.

I love this part. American soldier. I'm an American soldier. I love this part. American soldier. American soldier. I'm an American soldier. It starts out with that little drum. And all the girls were in American flag sequenced dresses. They were, yeah. Just to draw this parallel, we're talking about country and hip hop.

Isn't it funny that Eminem and Toby Keith basically write the same songs? Oh my God. Yeah. Eminem writes all those Call Oh my God. Yeah. Like Eminem like writes all those like you know like Call of Duty soundtrack. Yeah. Like it's very patriotic in that way.

Honestly if you're an entertainer or someone who calls yourself an artist who just sells out for fucking America like that fuck you.

Like you don't deserve to call yourself an artist. Do you think there's ever been like a okay there's one exception to that pro-American rule. It's when James Brown does the song from Rocky IV. four yeah he comes out there dancing living in america living

in america okay well that's the exception though yeah um yeah we left there feeling a little weird yeah no like i said as you can imagine a bunch of people who were blitzed, like totally fucking just loaded out of their minds, like just having a blast, you know, singing some Lion King, singing some Journey. That brownie body hat. Yeah, meatloaf. And then it goes to a dark place. Praise and worship. America's the shit. Like, you know what I mean?

Fireworks were going off. It was total bootlicking hour. It was like total. And then they made all them girls in them sequins American flag dresses stand out in the hall. And we all had to walk past them on the way out. Yeah, we were like ashamed. We just like had our heads down. I was like, y'all are beautiful.

Yeah. If you want to come with us. Get out of here while you can. It would have been cool if they did something subversive and went out like in the American flags and just dropped it. And it was like the like this the american flag upside down or if they burn their sequence i was trying to think of like some revolution like the cuban flag oh yeah hezbollah they had hezbollah flags that'd be tight they got ak's um so you know yeah it was it was this constant

mixture of like we're gonna do something that's badass it's gonna be badass and it was badass and then it got dark and then we would all come together

and have a great time you know the only way the only way that story would have been better is if y'all would have all went down there and prayed

and received Christ as a group like all of us. Down to the front. I want to dedicate my life to the ministry. I'm on drugs tonight. I don't want this anymore. Oh my god. I'm on drugs tonight. I would have gotten left.

Did you have any debrief about Gatlinburg proper? No, I love Gatlinburg. I No, I love Gatlinburg. I mean, I go there all the time. Do y'all go to the outlet malls? No.

You didn't have a goddamn Gatlinburg break. We went to the island. Me and Sarah rode the Ferris wheel on the island on the way home. Yeah, it was good. Well, I was telling Tom about all the moonshine tasting yesterday, and actually I wanted to tell this story at the beginning of the radio program, but it's kind of funny that we've gone literally backwards in everything that I've wanted to talk about, which is perfect.

On Monday morning, yesterday morning, Tom and I were doing the radio show, and people from CBS News came in there to record us for CBS Sunday. And we went from on camera, so if you watch CBS on Sunday morning, you'll probably hear us talking about... That's not airing until the end of the month. Okay, well, one Sunday morning this month, you'll hear me and Tom talking about...

Bob Schieffer will go off, and then you're going to cue up me and Tans. Talking about... We talked about our plans for opening a heartburn bar a uh an antacid bar um and our own sort of bubby run uh like equivalent of what you would do in gatlinburg but the weitzberg version which is that you know you go and um they pour you a shot of moonshine but instead of it being flavored you just put like a package of crystal light in there it's like ten10 cheaper.

And then they ask you what, if you'd like Gaviscon or Pepto, whatever. Chosen NS. So we talked about that. And then we talked about Brother Claude Ely and James Brown. And then we talked about Anthrax. So we kind of went the full gamut. On air.

Yeah. I hope they use all that for CBS Sunday. CBS audience will think that Whitesburg is just home to a bunch of craze. Ain't it? We got a madman in the White House and all arts funding's just

going to support these two limp dicks. They're just talking about how there ain't been any anthrax attacks since 9-11. Because the story's about NEA cuts and shit, which goes to show you that they've probably been listening to our podcasts, which I just want to point out that all this talk about J.D.

Vance really ramped the fuck up after our first episode. It really did. Just pointing it out. I'm inflating our own impact. I talked to someone about today, and they were like, well, Tyler said this yesterday when I talked to him, he said he were like well you know and this is uh tyler said this yesterday when i talked to him because he said he liked it but he said you can't really

argue with somebody's personal experience i was like sure i can yeah the hell yeah i can argue with his conclusions about his personal experience damn right i don't know if y'all saw this i was expecting this to get a lot more likes and retweets, at least like three. But like some dude that I follow had found J.D. Vance in the McDonald's in Portsmouth, Ohio. I saw that. Chris Armandi, which I've never really liked. I don't know. He sort of rubs me the wrong way.

Yeah, he is kind of a, yeah, I could see that. I quoted the picture and I said, and just think, Chris, had I not worked so hard to get into Yale Law School and the Marine Corps I could have been on the other side of that counter. And nobody took the bait man. I thought that was Twitter gold. Twitter's weird like that.

You think you got a banger and then no likes, no RTs. Damn I thought that was my star turning tweet. Oh shit. Let's end this But For now

Alright well Signing off Signing off Yeah Although I could tell A quick story about The ride down Yeah

Yeah hit us Yeah hit us with one My favorite story From the ride back From Gatlinburg In the van We were all like Half asleep and drunk

Except for me I I was driving. And we started kissing and telling. And someone told us about another someone in town who this is the first time I've heard this term an unsolicited butt lick.

And I see that person all the time now. And we talked about how there's like not a normal way for dicks to perform because no dick like dicks are different all the time and like yeah dicks literally never do literally that's what we talked about dick like men are so like stupid about their dicks expecting their dicks to do things that they're just literally not gonna do and and we all women know like we go into any or like people who are still fucking with me and people who fuck with me and are just like we know that this dick ain't gonna do whatever you thought whatever you think dicks do in porn right like that's not how dicks

operate they basically never do what whoever thinks they're gonna do do, you know? Yeah, no, 99% of dicks are going to be anticlimactic. Yeah, completely. What do you mean, like, just in terms of aesthetics or just performance? No, no, no, performance. Like, they are rarely hard when they're supposed to be. They, like, you know what I mean? Like, there's just, there's plenty of things. It just depends.

I've noticed this. But the point is that it's normal. Like, dicks, there's not a, like, normal way for dicks. And men are just constantly in this, like, insecure rage about their dick not performing right. But it's just like that is literally how dicks are. Yeah. There isn't a right way for dicks. You don't agree?

In the early aughts, I went four months out of bone at one time. That's what I'm saying. I mean, I was asexual for a while. That's not I'm saying. I mean, I was asexual for a while. That's not what that means. I thought I was asexual. Dry spell is only asexual after you've had sex for about three, five years.

But this is the, like, this is the problem with cis men thinking that sex revolves around their dick. Well, I agree with that in a lot of ways. Sex starts when their dick is hard and it ends when they cum. That's crazy because it's never. Let me tell you something I learned from the late great Prince Rogers Nelson. If you're a straight guy, you really have to introduce queer love into

your life in some capacity. And that could be something as simple as just like being willing to experiment with something that some people might find emasculating or... You have to completely, you've got to completely reject

masculinity in the bedroom. Like it's just fucked up. It doesn't help anything. Well, I've also, just because I was personally traumatized for the first eight or nine years of my own sexual becoming, I've never been in the process of telling what people

they should and shouldn't do in the bedroom. But I do think that you know when you know. And you're turned on by who and what you're turned on by. And that if you're with somebody, you know what you like and you know what you don't like. I don't know. Yeah, I think that a part of patriarchy is telling men

just like we tell women. All of our messaging is also geared towards telling men to be a certain way, and it is very toxic in many ways. I agree. I'm the other end of that. Our language toward men. Well, no, I don't mean that. I mean the images that we – so, for example, let's just take –

I was growing up. Who were two idols that you looked up to when you were a kid? I can tell you right off the bat, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. And it's dumb that that even exists, but that was just like, you have an idea of masculinity in your head. I can tell you were born in Lubbock, Texas.

And it's, yeah. Clint Eastwood, outlaw Josie Lee. Yeah, well. Come on, man. I told y'all I was genetically cowboy in one episode. But, no, I mean, you're right. Yeah, well, come on. I told y'all I was genetically cowboy in one episode. But, no, I mean, you're right. Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. Like, yeah, dicks don't do

what we want them to do. And it's not that. I'm having our, like, the conversation was that men always expect their dick to do something that's not gonna do. Or, like, something different than what it does. And then they're just like, you know, it's just like hard. Do you see what i'm saying like yeah yeah men have all these expectations about sex and their own performance and it like tampers the whole fucking experience because

you're having to just like navigate the the identity crisis that's unfolding right before your eyes oh yeah yeah yeah and it's not always that traumatic or anything. It's more just like. Annoying. It's just like, you've set up these expectations, not me. I knew your dick wasn't going to be what you thought it was going to be. Like, we know this. We know.

That's why I've really gone into it with the only expectation I have is generally to just have fun and try to make her come. I mean, yeah, if that's what she's into, if that's what she wants, maybe she... I don't know. It's just like, it's an adventure, folks. Yeah, and don't go in with so many expectations, maybe. But anyway, that was a lot of our talk was just like...

Going back to unsolicited butt licks, is that taboo? Well, I never heard anyone say it, and I have never done that unsolicitedly. Honestly, Alex is going to kill me, but I just kind of thought that was part of the package. How do you do an unsolicited butt lick? Is it when you're eating out with someone and then you just go too far? Yeah, basically. I mean, I've probably done that.

Definitely people have done this to me, but I'm always like, what's the situation? Like, I want to know. Oh, yeah. I want to know if you had a bad day. Like, you know what I mean? We had this conversation. Yeah, let's shower together. Yeah, I don't want to deal with your poop ass.

You don't want to deal with poop ass. Like, let's shower together, whatever. Like, whatever. We had this conversation because we were talking about being in a hot tub with a bunch of poopy asses. Exactly, yeah. But you all remember me telling you this from like two partners ago. Yeah. First encounter.

And y'all were like, that's a red flag. That was an unsolicited book. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a red flag if he's got his tongue in every ass from here to wherever. Right.

Yeah, if he's gonna stick his tongue in your poopy ass, then he's probably stuck his tongue in a lot of other poopy asses. You can tell you what's so weird about this. Before we go on any further, I just want to say, I literally had a friend send me a message

and she said, you know, y'all keep, who loves the show, by the way, she said, y'all keep just enough of your sex lives in this show to make it interesting for people. You think this was too much? Did we just reveal too much? No, I think it's perfect.

I asked him if he'd ever had an STD and he was like, well, do you count pink eye? And I was like, what? That's a myth, right? You can't get a pink eye from a butthole. He claimed he did. That's off a movie. It is off a movie.

It might be conjunctivitis from maybe if you stuck your face in it. Yeah, he claimed he got pink eye. Eye to eye pink eye to eye stuck your eye in the brown eye well and he was also he said it basically he said it really started out as him like going down on her from behind so that's why do you see what i'm saying you really are like out of booty hole yeah yeah it's the natural progression right i could see that so and he said he got pink eye and i was like oh my god it's like so do you never do that i said i bet you never did that again he was like no i do right now if you let me oh shit i was like oh god i mean it's kind of like not to be a great lover by the way

i was gonna say it's kind of like jumping off uh it's kind of like uh rock climbing like you know people who fall you know they get back up there and do it again they may break a few bones but they'll get back up on their on the feet you know I had I had a you talk about I had an ex that like got to be good friends with some of my friends like she moved in was like roommates with him and I went over to watch a like they've been partying all night I'd been gone for a weekend. I came back, and, like, they're all, like, passed out. And I'm sitting there. I'm watching that fucking Brendan Fraser movie where they go to the center of the earth.

What's that called? Journey to the center of the earth. Journey to the center of the earth. I believe. Well, I go up from the kitchen table. And they had, like, written down, like, all their lovers and, like, ranked them. Oh, God. And I looked at hers.

Holy shit. The girl I lost my virginity to. Holy shit. Mind you. Oh, my God. And she had ranked me 11 out of 13. Damn. And so I was like.

Oh, God. That has to be a turning point in your life. Well, why it hurts so bad is because I wasn't meant to see that. Yeah. So I know she was being honest. I had a friend that this happened to, and he found the list, and he wasn't even on it. Oh. Honorable mention.

Well, yeah. Totally. Just unremarkable and unforgettable in any way. That sort of happened to me, too. We were in college. I lived with a bunch of guys. And I had hooked up with one of them one time, like, before we lived together. But literally, we didn't even speak of it.

It was not a big deal. We were just drunk. And then we did a count. We each did a count and, like, counted and named our people one time. And I didn't even include him. And he was like, later, he was like, you didn't even fucking include me? And I was like, oh, what do you mean? Am I? No. Yeah. Oh, he was like, you didn't even fucking include me. And I was like, oh, am I?

No. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I was just like, no, I guess I did. I was like, I just didn't think about it. And he was like, damn. I was like, I'm sorry. It wasn't anything.

I was just like, just like. Damn, that ain't good to me like that. But we had lived together for years and like nothing yeah yeah yeah i was like i'm sorry fucking chill that's great he's like what the fuck yeah me we tie up so much of our self-worth and our sexual prowess and like it's not unfounded it's not i mean you know yeah you're Well, because I think that we become sexualized, like we become aware of sex in a highly oppressive, fucked up environment.

You know what I'm saying? Like middle school and like the American family structure. You know, we grow up in these institutions that are just woefully inadequate. And you do a good job with sex ed, but for the vast majority of kids in this country, they don't get a good sex education. Yeah, that's the whole concept of sexy sex ed.

We don't get it. Well, yeah, and so that's why a lot of men, I think, are probably just total fucking basket cases, especially in the bed, just like, oh, I don't know, I total fucking basket cases, you know, especially in the bed. Just like, oh, I don't know. I can't get it. You know what I mean? I think, I mean, I don't want to make the age-old assumption that men watch more porn than women, but I kind of think it's true.

Maybe that's not true, but I think men are a lot more likely to base what they think normal sex is on porn that they see when women are not as likely to do that. Because the women in porn look so unreal. Right. And it seems so unreal, but the men are just usually pretty normal, look like normal guys. I disagree. How many fucking normal guys have a 10-inch and rock hard abs not all porn has huge dicks well you're watching i have watched plenty of porn where the guys are normal fucking looking whatever i mean how many how many fucking hogs have you seen i have never seen a porn where i

was like yeah i could rival that guy not once i will say the vast majority of porn because it is so maybe one guy that marcus lond dude, he's pretty modestly in doubt. I used to like watch, it's sick, I used to watch him because it made me feel like I was desirable. Well, I think there is a rape culture dimension to the big old dick, you know what I mean? Oh, totally. I think that is partly why it exists in so much porn, because it's just like, this is what stimulates women, you know what I mean? Like, this is,

and also, like, when you're growing up as a boy in a locker room, like, that's honestly- You think you're the smallest guy in the room. Yeah, you think, and there's so much of socialization in young teen boys

about their dick size that it can't be a coincidence that so much porn has massive dicks. You know what I'm saying? What's the monetary driver of that psychosis though? Of like the

whole dick size anxiety? There's a name for it. You're talking about a name for the psychosis? No, no, no. What's the monetary? What do they stand? How do people that produce porn,

how do they stand to profit off playing on our dick-sized anxieties? Oh, I mean, that's how they sell cars. They sell suits. They sell watches. Well, it's like you said. If you watch the Super Bowl, if you watch a football game, you said it in the first episode, I think.

Every ad is geared toward commercial reinforcing hyper-masculinity. Oh, yeah. We have seen four different versions of Viagra ads during March Madness, during our live stream. Isn't that so funny when Jonathan said that she just spears right into your ED? She kind of does. She does. I've never watched that commercial the same. Every time I see it, I'm like, oh, God. It's all social control, folks.

All right, we got an hour and a half. All right. Yeah, we're good. All right, so let's end the conversation there. I like how many times we disagreed on this podcast. I think it's good. It's good. It's good for us.

It makes for good radio. It's good for us. Yeah. We should get a bail. Yeah, all goes back to what you're saying. We're not a cult. We're not a goddamn cult. Okay, all right. Well what you're saying. We're not a cult. We're not a goddamn cult. Okay, all right.

Well, goodbye, everybody. Until the next time. Adios. Hit the space bar.