Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 6: "And That's How I Made It Out Of The Basement" (w/ special guest: Lee Bains III)

Episode Date: April 18, 2017

In episode 6, the homie Lee Bains (@thegloryfires) of badass Alabama-based rock band, Lee Bains III + The Glory Fires, rides shotgun as we recount our formative experiences growing up in the church, and analyze the paranoid style of today's American Evangelical Christian Right.

Fox just gave them 274. Fox has declared Donald Trump is president! And I'll tell you what, There's a God that's listening. I have lived through a lot. Yes, you have. I have seen from a child in Michigan. I have helped build the main major television networks for Christ. And I've seen miracles. Every time it took a miracle.

It took a miracle to build CBN. It took a miracle to build TBN. They had to move a mountain at TBN. I've seen the miracles. Beyond miracles. But I believe today I have seen the greatest miracle I have ever seen all the wise men said no

it won't happen they had the numbers they said it won't happen they had the numbers they said it can't I mean almost everybody around me even was giving up the prophets were even giving up because they were showing the odds and the numbers and they said the numbers aren't there all the polls were wrong Oh, oh, the bulls were wrong, Lori. It's really a miracle.

It's a miracle. And the prophets were right. They were. God was right. Backseat Sweating on the sun, no tales Riding the barricade upon the same Next avenue door My spirit blesses you strong You'll be in the prison, twisted Built upon plantations Where their bodies are turned To prophets, not abolished doors

Oh, sisters Can you share my life? Can you share my life? Can you share my life? Sister, can you show me how to do something? Can you do something? Oh, tell me how to teach involuntary servitude. Oh, can you show me how to do something? Yeah, let's talk to me. Can you show me how to do something?

Can you show me how to do something? Thanks for being with us, everybody. Oh, yeah, man. I spent part of the afternoon yesterday with a New York Times reporter from Montevelo. What? Yeah, and he knew you and your people. I was telling him about the podcast, and I said, yeah. And he was like, Lee Baines?

He's like, yeah. His name's Campbell Roberts so the the the glory fire we lives in New Orleans is that where you live Lee no I'm from Burma Montevallo is like a small town probably 40 miles south of Birmingham okay and it's kind of it's honestly like the closest thing to Whitesburg Alabama has it's kind of it's honestly like the closest thing to whitesburg alabama has it's like a really small town but there's like there's an old university there and like a lot of cool people like they have a great arts department and stuff yeah yeah yeah but well um yeah so lee thanks for joining us and we might as well just get right down to it. Speaking of Alabama, I've got to hear about your governor's...

Misdeeds. Yeah, lusty misdeeds. The love gov. I like that. He's the latest in a grand tradition of... The dude I was telling you about wrote this article, and it was titled, like, Scoundrel Swindlers and sex hounds it was like it was like bentley was like the sixth out of the last like 10 governors to end up getting indicted or something no shit yeah wow yeah and i guess it

was like two before him don siegelman who's the last democratic governor is still in prison you know it's insane and it's like it's man that's a crazy story because don siegelman was apparently from what i've sort of learned in the last few years was sort of considered like maybe the heir apparent to Bill Clinton. Like he was this kind of centrist Southern Democrat with kind of wide appeal. Right, super charismatic, thought he was the next superstar. And what brought him down? Well, so he – there was for sure some shenanigans, but it's the kind of shenanigans that are like de rigueur in Alabama politics where the super wealthy guy who also wound up going to prison for a minute named Richard Scruci, who is this insane character. empire called Health South. And he was like an aspiring country singer slash healthcare maven.

And he was like... A renaissance man. Right. And anyway, he was the wealthiest man in Alabama. And he donated to every campaign he could find. You know what I mean? Right. And Siegelman appointed him to some like economic

development council or some mess you know what i mean and so that's what that's what they nailed him on that is they they alleged essentially that scrooge he like bought his position which is like sure you know yeah right it was it right. The prosecution was totally partisan. I don't know. You can totally go to internet rabbit hole about it if you want to. Well, your court systems are also pretty crazy too. Because what's his name? Roy Moore.

Yeah. Who, I don't know. I know you know who I'm talking about Tom but you wouldn't like he's the guy who refused to like comport with the gay marriage ruling of the Supreme Court like yeah and and so he basically was like debarred for that and then he right I don't know if he was debarred but he was kicked off the Alabama Supreme Court and then he was kicked off the Alabama Supreme Court and then he got kicked off the Alabama Supreme Court for something

in the mid 2000's too yeah and that's when I think it was actually I think it was actually the 90's if I remember right but he had erected a statue of 10 commandments

at the Alabama Supreme Court. And he was kicked off the bench. But the Alabama Supreme Court is an elected body. So even though he was kicked off the court and I think disbarred for a while, he got his license to practice back, I guess, and he was reelected. Yeah. And then did the same,

did the same exact shit. Oh yeah. It's a shit show. He, he was for real back on his bullshit. As soon as he got back on the court, he was like immediately back on his bullshit. Got to get handed to him.

Yeah. Yeah. He's handed to him. Yeah. He's consistent. Yeah. So, Robert Bentley, though, which... Who has the worst dirty text game in the history of dirty text games.

I wanted so badly to talk about this. What was the... At his age, it's great he's texting. You know what I mean? He's figured it out. It was very strange. Yeah, no, I mean, the guy's like, what, 72?

What I thought was most fascinating, the text part was fascinating, all that was absurd and hilarious, but I thought the most hilarious part about this story is at one point he tried to get one of his bodyguards to break up with her like he tried to like he he literally yeah no seriously he like sent his g-men to like break up with her like he's some sort of like king or something like a mob boss i saw that uh like those messages were synced to his wife's ipad yes that was just like seeing this like affair like transpiring real time yeah

and she like she kept it close to the chest too it was just like letting him hang himself can you believe that what's what's bentley's? He's kind of like a – was he a preacher, man? Is that right? I don't know. He was a medical doctor. I don't know if he was – he may have been like a deacon or something. Okay. But he was definitely elected on the back of like the sort of good Christian evangelical thing.

He was – I don't know if he'd ever held elected office, but that's totally what I remember him running on, was that sort of just good Christian grandfather kind of guy. Yeah. So I was just trying

to connect these dots, how you get from the Love Gov to the church cops yeah what's going on there lee do tell i was i was just been having a really fun time all week trying to think about like what church cops would actually enforce like what's the kind of shit that a church cop um is gonna enforce you know what i mean, why would you need a church cop? Why do you need them? What's the kind of church crimes that are going on

that need to be enforced? I guess is what I want to know. Matt. It's horrifying. Yeah, Briarwood, where the church cop church, from what I remember, I want to say they were among the first kind of megachurch slash schools. I mean, they were probably the first kind of mega church slash schools maybe the i mean

they were probably the first mega church in birmingham for real yeah cathedral of the cross was also an early one but um and they wound up with this youth outreach thing that cathedral of the cross that my grandmama was like on me about joining. She's like, you've got to go out there and, you know, join in this thing. It's called the basement. They had 4,000 people. Dude, we had the same shit. We had the basement. Y'all had the basement?

We had the basement. It was probably a different basement. It was probably a much rattier, decrepit basement. Yeah. And denomination by denomination as well. I'm not familiar with this. Hold on. Explain the basement's very interesting. And denomination by denomination as well. I'm not familiar with this. Hold on. Explain the basement.

Well, the basement that she was talking about was like, it was basically this one dude who had this sort of reformed bad boy narrative, and he'd gotten saved and everything was cool. He was like the drummer for Skillet or something like that. One of those Christian rock bands.

Fuck yeah. I think he was... I saw Skillet, man. I saw Skillet in like 2000 and probably one. And they had, they were all about X-Files,

you know what I mean? Like, their show, I remember seeing, I saw them in like Middle New in Middle New Mexico or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, but no, X-Files was a huge theme of theirs in the show. It was all about aliens. Would you ever cop to listening to any of those Christian bands when you were a youth? Man, I never was into it.

Never? I never was. I was very much into it well there was like like MXPX and some of those like were no effects

were they they weren't a Christian no I always got those two yeah I always got those two MXPX MXPX yeah

yeah they're kind of ambiguous about it but you know I mean like they were signed to a Christian label I remember that and they were on tooth and nail tooth and nails yeah yeah that was the thing you did right because like there was a point where like if you're on a Christian label it was almost like when rappers signed to

Koch or something is like he just like made so much more money and there was just occupy that niche yeah yeah tooth and nail was one of the honestly I remember going to a Christian bookstore in the late 90s early 2000s and I remember I bought this like little guide they were putting out where they would list a bunch of secular artists and then and then in the next column it would be the Christian artists that you would listen to if you like those segulars. No! If you like, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the Kmart cologne brands. Right, right. Compared to Cool Water. Exactly, right. Top deal figures. Exactly right. They were marketed in the same way.

Stick a pin in there. We need to circle back to that. I'm sorry for cutting both of you off about the basement. I got excited about the basement. We all got, yeah, on a tangent. Anytime you get me started on Christian music, I'm going to fucking. I will take that bait every time. Every time.

So your basement. Yeah, our basement. It was really this one central dude, and I forget what his name is now, but this started when I was in high school. And it was up to a point where three or four or five years ago, they'd outgrown the building and they were having to have services like in the big city park in birmingham yeah i mean yeah and it was right about that time that this central figure whose name i just totally forget uh got busted twice down by montevallo actually for impersonating a police officer he was just tearing ass tearing ass down i-65 like 140 miles an hour with lights on and like a cop pulled him over because he didn't have the cop tag or anything. The cop pulled him over and he flashed him a badge.

It was like a DARE officer badge. I got my credentials. And so they locked his ass up. And then he just had this complete come apart on the local news. Like, they interviewed him. And, like, the interviewer was asking him about all this stuff, and he just had this freakout on the air, like trying to explain what had happened. Is this on YouTube?

Oh, yeah. We should insert this. We can edit that in, for sure. You gotta peep it. But anyway, so the basement isn't doing so hot now. Long story short. How about your basement? Yeah, how about your basement, man?

The best basement story we had, our basement was kind of like the youth ministry of the Presbyterian church here in town. And the most notorious act that ever happened at the basement is this, I hesitate to call him a friend, like we used to play basketball together and whatever, but he was on video at the base but this was a pretty big scandal in the community at the time

getting whacked off really yeah but it was on like the video it's so my brother my brother's like the surveillance like was it on video? Like the surveillance. Like, yeah, like, you know, because I think they like, yeah, they like, they like sold like those like Hunts Brothers pizzas and shit there. Oh, okay. So like they had to watch their stash, but. Right, right, right. Old Mikey was his name. I won't say his last name, but.

Oh, shit. He got, he got excommunicated after that. Yeah, that'll get you kicked out of the basement. And I'm going to tell you something, man. If you fuck up in the basement, your trajectory in life isn't always the same. Man, God bless him. He seemed better in Dixie.

Yeah. That's rough. That's rough. Anyway. Well, I don't know. I'm trying to figure out if I had an equivalent of this growing up in the church. What would be the sort of overall, like, philosophy here?

Like, what's the overall, like, how would you explain the basement to, like... I guess it's just youth group, right? Yeah, you had, like, a youth group. Okay, yeah, okay, right. Who, like, you're, like, there's this, like, youth pastor archetype. And, like, you know, it's like the reformed bad boy kind of dude or, you know, some dude with a checkered past with a story to tell. You had this guy, right? Oh, for sure.

I remember you on the digital bedroom, you're telling one of the best stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Maybe the best story. I did have a basement. I've got a story to go up there with both of y'all as well. So, yeah, no.

I went to high school with this guy named Lonnie Creed. Fucking Lonnie. Come on, Lonnie. And he went to this church. When I was, like, a junior, I didn't really have a church that I was going to. And there was this big sort of charismatic church in town called the Christian Center um wow good time yeah took a took a page from um Sean Spicer's recent commentary about the Holocaust it's just the most banal uh nondescript word for something Christian center Anyways so it's this church in Hobbs The town that I grew up in

And It was very charismatic and they would like Speak in tongues and everything So anyways this guy Lonnie Creed You know like he was up in front of the entire Youth group one night talking like giving his You know how you like give your testimony To everybody in the group

Well like Lonnie was telling this story story about the thing he struggled with the most is premarital sex. It's premarital sex. And so as a sort of symbol to show to everybody that he was cutting himself off from premarital sex. His carnal pleasure. Yeah. His Robert Bentley's lust dreams. He pulled out a box of condoms in a match, and he burned a box of condoms.

What? In front of everybody. The sacrifice safe sex. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I... Getting everybody pregnant. That's what I'm giving up this Lenten season. So it smelled like burning spermicide,

latex, and cardboard. The funniest part of that to me is that, like, he was just clearly trying to signal to everybody that like he gets it in you know that's the subtext there it's like it's not about him like you know being chased it's about the funny thing is i didn't even really catch that subtext until i told you the story many years later and you were like you told me that i was like actually that makes a lot of sense a lot of sense a lot of makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, I know.

I had a basement. That's what happened in my basement. There you go. Yeah, I feel like we all had one. Whether it was in a basement or called a basement or not. Right, right. So how did we come out of our basements to get to where we're at today with, you know, American Christianity being what it is? I mean, how we're involved, Taryn, it sounds like you were pretty involved in youth group.

Yes. Or at least to a point. Were you a leader? No, I was. You held an office. Not really. I was in youth group up until I was like 15, 15 or 16. And I guess around that time, I had really gotten to... I had started getting into punk.

Mostly, I was just listening to like Five Iron Frenzy and shit, though. You know what I mean? Like Christian Scott. Scott, yeah. I was still very lame. Make noian sky i was still very lame make no mistake i was still very lame uh but um i guess around that time i guess is when i first started to notice the sort of i don't know like how consumer driven a lot of modern christianity was you know especially as a southern baptist and so it was just like you kind of just see how much of a business it is and i don't know i was pretty disgusted by that and it's kind of like i was mentioning earlier like the list of bands that

are sort of marketed in the same way it's just like i guess that sort of like gave me a political conscious of a sort yeah and uh and so you know it took several years after that. I stopped going to church, really, but I still hung out with a lot of, like, Christian friends. But, like, it took several years. And then by the time I was, like, 19 or 20, I had totally, like, gone, like, pretty hardcore atheist. You know, like, I sort of, like, went to college and didn't really have the understanding or the wisdom to know that like without a real community of Christians I wasn't gonna be I don't know like my faith was really pretty tenuous at that point and so like that's sort of like um like you forsook the gathering the assembling of yourself together I guess I guess you could put it like that. But anyways, I went through a pretty bitter reactionary phase in my early 20s politically, philosophically.

And I think that was because sort of belief in a higher intelligence, belief in God had totally imploded for me. a higher intelligence, believe in God, had totally imploded for me. And then it took several years after that, after I graduated college, where I really started becoming more progressive. That's a really – I'm sorry for boring you out with my life story. No, no. Here we are anyway doing a shitty podcast about smut and politics. I still don't believe in God. I will send a copy of this to the love gov yeah please do please sit in my best living over much in prayer for him

please do so uh anyways here we are um yeah that's how i got out of the basement that's how i got out of the basement that that's your title of the episode right there fuck yeah that's yeah that's fucking perfect they don't make them any better than that yeah that's true no what about you mr baines let's tell us your uh tell us about your walk i i love i'll tell you what it is invaluable to be able to speak christian it's hard like when you just said that, like, I don't know. It just felt like we were, I feel like I have to say fuck a few more times. Like, we're not doing. Let's ration it.

Yeah. I felt like I was listening to a Donald Miller type thing with, like, godly men. Oh, God. Right, right. We're degenerates. Let me get done with this bath salt right quick yeah we're mainlining dope in this studio yeah trying to figure it all out good god oh damn no i mean it's interesting to me because i i fucking hated youth group like but, but I was forced. I had to go, you know what I mean? Right, yeah.

Mama wasn't gonna, you know, allow hooky from Sunday school or whatever. Right. But it was weird because like, I don't know, because we're all right around the same age and I've wondered if that period of time in like the late 90s,

if that's really when youth group went from being like, like oh this is like for kids that are a little too old for like sitting indian style and reading bible stories right to then being this whole like it's like a crusade kind of oh for sure yeah you know what i mean yeah no totally that's what i thought because like i always hated Sunday school too, but I didn't hate it. It was just boring. Right. I guess.

I'm like, whatever. But then youth group is when I remember sitting in a room, like, in our church. You went to Sunday school after church. And, like, I'd be sitting in there and, like, people would be like, well, are you saved? Like, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus? And I'm like, man, we're all in fucking church. What? You know what I mean?

It's not like we're out shooting dope in the alleyways. It's so interesting to me. We're in church. What? You've probably heard this refrain in church before. It's like, you can't be good enough. You can be

the best person ever but if you've not said the right combination of words and made the right got put in literal water yeah and been dunked or whatever the case may be yeah then it's off or not which you know anyway i'm sorry carry on no no no but that but that exact thing you're talking about is what just gave me total fits. You know what I mean? Yeah. I remember asking Sunday school teachers, like, so are you saying Mahatma Gandhi is in hell right now? Like, that's what you're saying? Right.

And they'd be like, well, yeah. Right. It's like the audacity. Is this real? Like, do you really believe that you know and then like or uh or another thing i was thinking is i remember them talking about how the reason we need to evangelize and i grew up in an episcopalian church which okay pretty progressive in the grand scheme of it in theory yeah theory but like our church was super it it was weird. It was like an evangelical church. And actually the pastor that, or the, it was the Cathedral Church of the Diocese of Alabama.

So he, the head of the church, when I was in, I just left for college, the last couple of years of high school, all he would do is preach about how homosexuality was an abomination that's all he would preach about and actually like when i'd left for school and and that's when my mom finally let me quit going to church because it was every fucking sunday and i was like man this is fucked up like this guy's just fucked yeah right yeah and um it's interesting though because what weren't the episcopalians the first ones like gene robinson the dude from kentucky is the first openly gay bishop right right okay yeah nice segue tom so i set you up there there we go doing it doing it so um yeah this is the fucking alonzo Mourning fucking alley-oop right here.

But when Gene Robinson was appointed, the dean of our church, of the church I grew up in, took down the Episcopalian flag from the church, the Cathedral Church of Alabama, and ran up a black flag and said, I secede from the Episcopalian church. Holy shit. I like that choice of language though it's just you know it's just built into your society yeah exactly exactly man so anyway it was like but going back to the earlier point like i remember when they would talk about the need to evangelize like there are people all over the world that don't know about Jesus. And like, so I'll ask the question.

I was like, okay, so like, let's say this kid is born in sub-Saharan Africa in a tiny village. Nobody knows about Jesus. He lives a good life. He loves his mom and daddy. He does, you know, doesn't lie, whatever. And he dies when he's 10 years old. Is he going to hell?

Yeah. And some of the Sunday school teachers would be like, well, yeah, that's why we've got to go talk to him. Did you all have the concept of the age of accountability? Is that anything that was ever on your all's radar? I feel like that was a thing because some of the other people would say, well, if he was a child, then he might not necessarily know any better. And if he never heard the word to reject it then he

might go to this other heaven like he might get a pass the other have called sort of heaven why are we gonna go fuck that up like this kid is like gonna be fine so why do we have to go be like hey here's this jesus thing you can either go with it or go to hell right yeah right you know what i mean just let him go to fucking heaven like you just didn't you know what i mean yeah didn't make sense it's just like such a good any god worth serving in my mind is not wouldn't get hung up on such a petty you know it's minutiae you know what i mean and and also it's just like it's the same thing that uh i have this uh aunt and uncle but they're like you know diehard trumpers and all this and they've worked in the coal industry and all this stuff and uh i like to i

like to razz them a little bit on thanksgiving and you know just kind of shit on the israeli state not the jewish people the israeli state the netanyahu government they go off to fucking hell over that and now it's like you know and i bring up the point it's just like like does god condone like the fucking israeli military bulldozing palestinian children in their homes shooting them in the fucking head and it's just like right like how do you how do you reconcile that? And it just seems like they believe in this weird cosmic fate thing where

well, it sucks to be Palestinian, you know, or whatever. There's no sense of recognizing the humanity of other people. No, it's because a lot of the people who create the culture within, I think, mainstream Christianity are complete fucking lunatics are literal psychos like like Tim LaHaye

like the guy that wrote the Left Behind series like he started this think tank called the sin I think it's the Council for national policy I think it's the Council for National Policy. I think it's what it's called. And it is the one that... So benign sounding. What's that? Oh, yeah. So benign sounding. Oh, yeah, yeah. The Council for National Policy.

Yeah, it's so fascist. They are total fascists. But Steve Bannon is on their board and Kellyanne Conway and all the sort of dominionists within the Trump administration are part of this... What is the the sort of dominionists within the Trump administration are part of this. What is the deal with the dominionists? Have you read about this? Like Ted Cruz's dad?

I don't like that. I don't want to think about it. Is that what you said? It sounds pretty sinister. Oh, I also don't want to think about it. It's terrifying. Sounds like the Indian Grove or something. It's terrifying. Sounds like Bohemian Grove or something.

I would say that, okay, so from my best understanding, dominionists are, I think there's two kind of strains of dominionism. There's the seven mountains of dominionism or something, which is like. Honestly, let me buckle up here. Yeah, buckle up here. Where they take a goat to the top of the hill. It's not far from it, Lee.

They're the moderns. Ted Cruz and his dad are a part of this strain of dominionism. They believe that Christians have to take back over the seven mountains of civilization, of society. And it's like arts and entertainment uh politics education like and i can't remember all of them it just you know it's just like so that's like tag treason is dead and the other kind is i think it's called christian reconstructionism but i don't know a whole lot a lot about it that sounds weird they're both incredibly apocalyptic obviously you know what i mean and for that reason i think they're fascistic like they they're their whole their whole goal their whole mission is to instill

fear you know what i mean is to yeah is to give you this sense of of um if you can make people fear they can um justify power more and i noticed this a lot when I was a teenager, when people would talk about George Bush, like, I don't know if this happened to y'all, but I remember my youth pastor and all my sort of like people of authority around me would say like, you know, the Bible tells us to, you know, we have to support the government,

we have to support authority, or, you know, they always quote all these things. Very topical today. Give Caesar what's due Caesar. Yeah, and all that. Obey the laws of the land, all that shit. And I just remember thinking when I was like 16, that's fucking bullshit.

And how does that jive with Christ? With Jesus Christ. Yeah, I hate to use, I think it is a sort of liberal cliche to be like, Jesus is a socialist and all this. But he is – he was subversive in a way that was very sort of unprecedented in the Bible. And I don't know. It's just like he's totally – he's just totally the polar opposite of what the Old Testament says.

But a lot of these dominionists, I think, base their worldview off the Old Testament. And that is fucking crazy. And I've noticed this a lot talking these dominionists, I think, base their worldview off the Old Testament, and that is fucking crazy. And I've noticed this a lot talking to Trump people. And they base a lot of their worldview and justifications off of the Bible. And it's just like any person would do. It's like they have this text. They use it to analyze society and around them. That's the text they're using.

That's why it's kind of fucking terrifying. Yeah. It is. to analyze society and around them that's what that's the text they're using that's why it's kind of fucking terrifying yeah it is and yeah but i think your your point to the fear as like a necessary means of sort of solidifying this authoritarian outlook is like pretty fucking right on definitely resonates in church bodies you know where it's like the mega churches that you talk about the bigger the church the more liable it is to be this sort of like prescriptive and behavior you know what i mean yeah oh yeah yeah absolutely i'm like if you don't you're gonna be left but like the whole left behind thing feeds into rapture and all that feeds into that yeah yeah i i think i grew up in a tradition. Well, not a tradition. I said that like it was really serious.

But I grew up, my mom had a lot of, I grew up with a single mother. And she had a lot of anxiety and mental health problems when I was a kid. So we spent her first couple years as a born again, just staying home and watching TV preachers. So I came up on like the worst motherfuckers you can imagine, like the Benny Hens, like, you know, these guys that were like,

like Oral Roberts, like the guys that were like, like they're going to fall out, slain in the spirit, all that kind of stuff. And like, send me $200 and your cancer will go away, that kind of stuff,

which is really, really pretty dangerous stuff. When you start like that kind of stuff, which is really pretty dangerous stuff. When you start parsing it out... Which is another thing I just want to point out, which is it's a con in the same way that conservatives are always conning each other. You know what I mean? That is a part of the sort of like...

I thought that that Alex Perrine piece... Rick Perlstein has written about this a lot too, about how conservatives just con the fuck out of each other all the time like selling snake oil and all this shit and it's the same thing

as the Benny Hinn people and literal snake oil I can remember like my mom would get all these like little like prayer cloths and little like

just these little trinkets and amulets they would send out and it was like send us you know like it's always a solicitation for some sort of, you know, for money and all this kind of stuff. Like a bottle of holy water from the River Jordan. Yeah, yeah. Oil from Mount Sinai.

Right, yeah, like from the Holy Land. Yeah, that was the big thing. And there was like – they would show like this video montage of like Oral Roberts sticking his hand in a vat of olive oil and praying over it and all this stuff. I was laughing so hard. Yeah, like do you all know who Vic Berger is? He makes videos on YouTube, on Twitter, but you would love him. I mean if you like Choppo and you like all these things. Like they had him on Choppo and Tramp House. But he makes these incredibly bizarre videos,

and he's got this video. I don't think it's Oral Roberts, but it's this televangelist. And they have these, like, massive, like, shipments of rice that they're just, like, sending to Africa. And so, like, on the show, they're just, like, dumping it in these huge tubs and frying it up. Yeah, I'm going to have to show you the video video it's not that funny when i actually try to explain it it's just dawned on what's your beef man

no it's just so bizarre though like it is like it is uh what it is is it's like a sort of soylent what they're trying to sell like they're trying to hawk to people is like a type of soylent that they've like come up with and it's basically like snake oil i mean it's just a sort of soylent what they're trying to sell like they're trying to hawk to people is like a type of soylent that they've like come up with and it's basically like snake oil I mean it's just like you can survive on this if the rapture happens tomorrow

and you're like left behind and stuff like that it's just oh yeah there's that Jim Baker um that might be it that I saw that might

is that what you're talking about this is probably what I'm talking about Lee okay I'm terrible at fucking explaining things and usually the thing that I explain is so far off and uh people are like This is probably what I'm talking about. Okay, I'm terrible at fucking explaining things. And usually the thing that I explain is so far off.

Yes, that is literally what you're talking about. Where it's like rapture rations. Yes. Rapture rations. Sorry, but it's for the rapture. It's like... Is that what you're talking about? That is exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, you've got to go.

Who was doing this? You say it was Jim and Tammy Faye? No, Jim Baker. Well, you know, Tammy Faye is out of the picture now. Right, yeah. I think she finally left his ass. I was reading... Speaking of the love, go.

Yeah, yeah. I was reading that Nancy Eisenberg book, White Trash, and I don't know if you saw this. What did you think about that? It's pretty good stuff, but they devote a lot of time to Jim and Tammy Faye and how they had this folksy southern effect, and Jim was from Michigan and Tammy Faye was from Minnesota or something, but it totally played.

And Charlotte, I guess, is where they were headquartered at maybe. Yeah. Somewhere like that. That sounds right. I really don't know. I'm not sure either. Anyway, point being is just that whole sort of flamboyant over-the-top, like marketplace spirituality plays really big where

we're at and and i i don't know i don't know why or how i've been trying to sort this out in my head for the longest time uh just because you know i came up like you know watching like creflo dollar down there in atlanta world changers you know like ed Eddie Long I had this like weird fucked up he just passed I think yeah but those are the prosperity gospel guys right right like the God wants you to be rich people and and I got into a into a Twitter debate with the lady that was big into that like that gospel right and like I felt so sorry for like I wasn't even like trying to put her down or like I was just like let me tell you something I've been where you've been okay nothing there you know right but anyway it was like you know in Trump it just seems

like a natural extension of that and he you know that's when he was went to Liberty University yeah oh yeah to Corinthians when he did that whole thing with Billy Graham's son. Yeah, that's the thing that I've been wondering a lot about. On one hand, yes, there is this sort of dominionist movement within the government, i i always wonder like how influential it really is and um like i've always kind of thought that like the the dominionists are to me like the most terrifying like form of government we could have like because like i've always thought that like fascism could never really happen in america just because we're so corrupt you know like we're so fucking corrupt and like we more like americans are like we have no morals and we're like constantly you know it's like so it's like but

we're persuaded that we're the city on the hill and all that oh yeah yeah exactly like we we think we're incredibly religious but we really aren't whatsoever and so it's just like our power structures are incredibly corrupt and like just always selling out and i've kind of thought for that reason we could never really have fascism although i think we have had fascism before for sure i think we've got it now i think we've had it with bush i think we you know and i think honestly there are elements of fascism clearly in every president we've had okay let's just say forever i was just like in my in my mind i was like clinton and and carter and all of them god damn it they're all fucking anyways but but it like i'd be interested to uh about Jimmy Carter's fascism at some point. Yeah.

Well, okay. All right. All right, fine. Sorry. Sorry, Jimmy. But so, like, the Dominionists, though, really are just, like, these total ideological, like, fucking fanatics. Like, just insane people. You know what I'm saying? fucking fanatics.

Just insane people. You know what I'm saying? I was feeling very dark after the inauguration because the Dominionist aspect of all this was really terrifying me. You were on a completely different wavelength from the rest of us on that one. I didn't even heard of them until right then.

Well, I just remember... You told me about the Dominionists and I can remember thinking that sounds really scary yeah yeah well the global dominionists my brain really did break there for a little bit

but like that whole mostly because I come from that world I grew up in the southern baptist church and I come from that world I know grew up in the Southern Baptist Church, and I come from that world. And I know that the society that they want to see, their vision for society, is so bleak. It's so fucking bleak. Right. And it squashes nuance.

I mean it just totally destroys humanity. And that's why it really terrified me that people like Bannon and Kellyanne Conway and all these people, Betsy DeVos is another one, and her husband, Eric Prince, who used to run Blackwater. There are all these dominionist types. Wow. Yeah. Eric Prince is a dominionist? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, they're both big Christian.

She can ban him. That's shocking. Yeah. And so, you know, and I don't know how much influence they have within the administration. I have no fucking clue. And I don't know what weight to give it that this is like a thing, but it's pretty terrifying and it's really terrifying when you think about the fact that

this sort of ideology gets peddled to kids and their teens and that's what brings them on board to it, which is why I think we, as leftists, we have to be organizing the youths. My little nephew, the youths,

I was picking him up after school there for a little bit when my sister was working, and one of his teachers said, because I'd admittedly been trying to indoctrinate him into the Bernie stuff a little bit yeah I mean

you know were you ever just like hey little guy 99% he's like what the fuck are you talking about

let me tell you something we gotta expropriate yeah you're like little buddy glass seagull

have you ever heard a little thing called glass seagull yeah and But little buddy, Glass Seagull. Have you ever heard a little thing called Glass Seagull? His middle school teacher said, when he was, you know, sort of regurgitating some of the stuff I put into it,

said that, Westbury Elementary School said that Bernie Sanders was a crooked, commie Jew. His teacher said that? In school, yeah. In school. But this is the same elementary school that's like, they're like, you know, they're trying to, I was telling you about them trying to build this local,

this federal prison down here. Yeah. And like the elementary school put out this Facebook status last week that was like, everybody needs to come out and support this. This is going to be a great thing for the community. Yeah. You know, blah, blah, blah.

Jeez. So, yeah, they get it. Kids get it from the administration, and then they get it from the fucking youth group. Like, you know, like, they're totally batshit insane, warped worldview, like, worldview that just sees humans as these just terrifying, selfish, like, I don't know. Yeah, it's just a very bleak view of humanity.

Yeah. And kids buy into that. Because it's scary. Because it's scary. I mean, you scare them shitless. Right, right. You have enough people telling them. Right, right.

But that is one of the great things about being a teenager is you are you are less scared in general of society like you you are a little more sort of open-minded to things and you're just sort of like yeah it's just like I think I had kind of like one of those fatalist apocalyptic kind of it's not like in like a fuck everything everything's horrible so whatever kind of like flipping you but like i was so indoctrinated into this stuff that i thought the rapture was going to happen any second i was never going to like grow old and like have a family or yeah stuff or do anything meaningful in life so yeah all right i used to think well i still believe that you know it's like i still believed in all that part of it The part about eternity

Just used to fucking blow my mind You know what I mean I'd just be sitting around Alright well I'm gonna die And then I'm gonna live And then I'm gonna keep living And then I'd just go through Circles in my mind

And just terrified by that concept now that this is not happening to y'all as 16 year olds no no definitely no for sure it's kind of scary but on the other side i'm sorry go ahead oh you know i was good i mean i do remember being terrified at that age and i think i did have some faith that the world would kind of work itself out you know what i mean like even when the arc of the moral universe exactly right that kind of shit you know what i mean and like even when 9-11 happened and you know bush invaded iraq and all that like i didn't quite go to a place of like we're fucked like it's all just gonna but the the place where i did always go to everything's fucked is when it had to do with my soul you know what i mean and that's the issue here in youth group you know for sure that's the shit

where it's like and then and that like when you're talking about the bleak fatalistic view like i remember having conversations with people in church because i was like when i was six i guess 9 11 happened when i was 16 or 17 something 16 i guess and like there were protests at the fountain downtown you know yeah i'd go to protest iraq war and stuff and i was like fired up about it it was just like me and a bunch of like old hippies pretty much and uh and i would like to be talking to people about they'd be like well there's really nothing you can do about that man it's like if it's time for the world end you know what i mean it's time it's like are you ready yeah you know what i mean yeah no no exactly that's fucking terrifying exactly like

that terrified me for sure yeah right yeah it's those type of people that like i had saw this that where have you all heard this like that's there's some group that's trying to breed this like red calf to bring it out you know those What? That's what I'm talking about, dude. Like that cat. They were like trying to actively usher in the second coming and all this kind of stuff. Right.

Yeah. That's fucking true. Exactly. That was the stuff that kind of fucked me up. Yeah, dude. Big time. And it's same shit with like the Israel policy.

Cause like, I remember cause we had some friends growing up who were Palestinian. Well, they're, you know, they were ethnically Palestinian Christians. And so they would get into these long debates with people because people would be like, well, the Jews are the God's chosen people, and they need to return to Zion and all this. And they're like, well, my family is Christians, and we got driven out of our homes you know like that yeah and they'd be like well man that's just that kind of thing it's just what's gonna have to happen for the end times to come right and i was like why the fuck are we trying to why are we trying to bring this on now yeah like can it wait for a minute no yeah totally get my driver's license no yeah

right right that's what i mean by the fucking terrifying intersection of religious ideology and political ideology. Because when you get down to it, the goals of that are going to at some point be diametrically opposed. Like, the Israelis have to be just totally fucking, like, just putting a stiffer upper lip and not fucking acknowledging the inherent anti-Semitism of, like, trying to bring about the second coming. Like, what the fuck? Like, that's what they want. They want the nation of Israel to be, like, obliterated so, like, so like when Jesus comes back like I don't understand the political trajectories like the objectives there are at heads like they will at some point collide

what the fuck but that's the weird fucking reality we live in and of course who bears the brunt of that in society it's like all this anti-Muslim stuff going on right oh yeah but on the other In society, it's like all this anti-Muslim stuff going on. Right.

Right. Oh, yeah. But on the other end of that, and when we were talking about doing this episode, it's kind of why I thought of you, Lee, because I can remember the first time you all came and played here. I was drunker and Cootie Brown, and we were talking about Cornel West and all this kind of stuff. Yeah. and we were talking about Cornel West and all this kind of stuff.

And when I discovered people like that, and the turning point for me where I thought, where I basically went from a reprobate, kind of backslidden and kind of back thinking like, okay, maybe there's something to this, was Cornel West had preached this message about, it was called the Saturday-like condition. It wasn't a mess you know how he does it wasn't necessarily right it was just kind of his is you know his preachery style right but he said that that and it stuck with me and it's you know topical

because this was just this past week yeah but he had said something that had stuck with me he said that that you know america and christians are all about a winner you know what i mean yeah but the death and all the stuff of christ is not about a winner my god my god why is that forsaken me is not a declaration of faith you know you know what i mean or victory yeah right yeah right and you know he said that that you know we we on on good And, you know, he said that, you know, on Good Friday, you know, he has risen. They want to skip over Saturday. Right. But if you're really going to get at what it is to be a Christian, if you're going to be a Christian,

then you have to accept Saturday is God is dead, and it's unlikely there's even going to be an Easter at all. Right. And it's unlikely there's even going to be an Easter at all. Right. Christianity is about doubt. Nobody had ever put that to me before because it was all like, well, yeah, the world's going to come crashing down. But, you know, he's going to swoop in on his horse and take us to this celestial place where we just like, you know, sing and dance and stuff like that. Right.

I think Christianity is very much about what you're doing here. You know what I mean? I don't think it's about saying some combination of words or making some declaration. But I had never had that presented to me, that God experienced all the same fears and anxieties on the cross that we did. Yeah. Right. And I think also in talking about the crucifixion as hell,

you essentially have this figure who time and time again has rejected the material world, has rejected the powers that claim authority over him, or material satisfaction. Like the question of serving either God or mammon. You know what I mean? You gotta serve one. And if I'm making a billion dollars off

a fucking Blackwater contract, the needle's pointing to mammon. Right, right, right. It's tilting that way. To me, like what Terrence was saying, and I hadn't really thought about it in these terms, It's tilting that way. Right. To me, it's me. I think like what Terrence was saying,

and I hadn't really thought about it in these terms, but I have said, because I came back to Christianity in a kind of a roundabout way for sure. And before I got back to it, I just got, because I was like fully, well, I guess agnostic. I don't know if i ever had the

gut to be like full you're still kind of hedging your bets a little bit exactly i had a little too much fear going on there but um but i got into the idea of like just some higher being or whatever and this dude told me once that i really looked up to was like, um, religion is for people who are afraid of hell and faith is for people who've already been there. You know what I mean? And like, and I thought that resonated with me because that's what drew me back to a concept of God at all is just real difficulties in my personal life. You know what I mean? at all is just real difficulties in my personal life you know what i mean and like the question of an afterlife didn't cross my mind anymore at that point and it still doesn't to this day me either me either never give a shit no i mean like i just don't care but it's like that's what

terrifies children and that's what terrifies fucking grown people you know what i mean like yeah and and i i feel like that sort of apocalyptic vision that um that uh constant threat of damnation is is what you know allows people to fucking fall in line with that way of thinking right just like Trump just like Trump accomplished in the election that's right everything's fucked carnage folks Chicago Chicago yeah that was really what was one of the darkest i mean like there was several points during the election where i saw like the fucking just the full darkness of everything that was on display and uh how the sort of media narrative itself necessitated that he actually win this is that this is the actual society that we live in i mean like just like the worldview that they have is just so i i put leon to uh hyper normalization

did it fuck you up man you done fuck me up bro i watched that and that werner herog that last Werner Herzog documentary did y'all see that? Lo and behold was that the one about the internet? yeah I've seen it I watched that the same week as Hypernormalization

and I think I'm still in like some kind of a waking techno dream actually well do y'all mind if we take a quick break I'm still in some kind of waking techno dream, actually. Yeah. Oh, gosh, Dave. Well, do y'all mind if we take a quick break? I've got to pee so bad. Let's do it.

Take your pee-pee. I'm going to take a bite of a sandwich. Imagine he runs with thick black dye through thin and thin Squeezes some hip-band's t-shirt on Thank you. Follows a mission to sunny dinners, babies crawl past He's the only one to keep it real She says they arrived from New Haven early that morning She'd assured her of what to expect Inclined, unplaceable tones so refined, so correct

She waved her hand across the moons and interstates All so clean and bright and young But that fresh painted old sign Shall go to church, shall the devil look at you Locked up her jaw and steeled her tongue steel i was first I'm fairly certain I was spinning in the static The first time I heard God I heard God

I heard God I heard God There's like a sign, like a roadside sign in South Alabama that I reference in the song. It's been up like my whole life for a really long time, I guess. And it's like this badass billboard. It used to just be wood, like wooden handmade sign with like a red silhouette of a devil with a pitchfork. And then shit. In big black writing, it just said, go to church.

And then in red cursive under it, it said, or the devil will get you. Man, I'll give Satan this. He's never not going to be cool. No, no. give Satan this. He's never not going to be cool. No, no. I mean. Yeah, man. I mean, Van Halen sings about you that much. Yeah.

Yeah. You know what else I always loved? I don't know if you ever saw the Chick Tracks. Oh, yes. I used to collect them in high school. Oh, dude. I mean, they're like vile. Like the content.

But like they're so well done though they're so what are they? you know the Chick Tracks you've probably picked them up it's got like this very like distinct style illustrating

it's always like what's it about? you can catch AIDS from a toilet seat oh god that is terrible yeah I know so much messaging directed towards the youth

is be afraid of fucking everything right oh gosh That is terrifying. Yeah, no, so much messaging directed towards the youth is, be afraid of fucking everything. Oh, gosh. And Chick tracts, I feel like by the time we were growing up, they were passe, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, like, kids, like, I would see them in, like,

truck stops or, like, barbecue restaurants. Like, I feel like it was targeted to, like, maybe older people. I don't even know. Yeah. You know, speaking of that, one time we were in Whitesburg, and we were driving home, and it was, like, the middle of the night, like, through the mountains, you know? Yeah. Everybody was kind of wasted and, like, kind of – it was kind of quiet. And I found this radio station. It was, like, an AM station because, like, back in the hills, the hills you know like you can't get the fm and uh it was like this old school serial like radio serial show where it was like it was

then that jeff decided he would try yes drink of alcohol i've heard those and like you'd hear this step what is it i've heard those yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but they're all, like, evangelical. Yes. Yeah, yeah. They're fucking insane. And then they're insane. I thought you might have been talking about Coast to Coast for a second, which is awesome. No, no, no, yeah.

No, they present, they have characters, they present characters with, like, these one-dimensional moral problems. Right. Exactly. That's how Chick tracts, Chick tracts are the exact same. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Gosh. What was your favorite? Do you remember what your favorite Chick Track was? Man, there's one that's sticking out in my mind where the dude just vanishes. Like, maybe it was a Rapture one. I was going to say, it's for the rapture My friend Kevin growing up had this

His parents had this big painting in their garage And It showed like Jesus like coming down on a cloud And then like airplanes Fucking just hurling towards the earth And like car crashes And like all these

Souls going up to heaven. And it was so fucking badass. I wish so bad I had that. Oh my gosh. Was it on Black Velvet? Fuck, I need that. That has to exist it's got to

I think it was Blake and Adam they said that their granddaddy growing up had a painting it was a black velvet painting of Bear Bryant on a mountain top holding the ten commandments I still don't believe it but they swear up and down top holding the Ten Commandments.

I still don't believe it, but they swear up and down. Gosh, dude, that's too good. That's fucking hilarious. That's too good. These are your bandmates? Yeah. Yeah. So what's going on with Glory Fires?

Let's talk Glory Fires for a bit before we cut you out. Oh, man, we got done with that record. I sent it to you. It's coming out at, well, at the sort of beginning of the summer, I guess. And then we're just going to be hitting the road in the summertime. Well, you got lined up. Will you commit to coming back here

in the fall? We're trying to get a verbal out of you. Hell yeah. Let's consider that a verbal. Yeah. Our loggers will. Yeah, we're going to hold you to that. Is tenure playing last year? Our bass player just had a baby.

But no, we're getting back into it. I feel like all of tenure took maternity leave paternity leave you got a cat yeah so yeah I know but it sounds like by the time you come back

we'll be playing again hell yeah we should put something together for sure yeah yeah yeah man that was that was fun as hell last time yeah so we we normally have a third guest on the show lee uh i know but we just we decided is is all dudes now baby we no i'm just kidding no she had somewhere to be she had late work stuff she had to do she was supposed supposed to meet Bernie Sanders, but she got bumped. She's really upset about it. So, yeah, our good friend T.

For all of our names, Tanya, Terrence, Tom. I was thinking about that earlier. We should have, for our show logo, it should be the three crosses. T, T, T. It's too much bad juju. It's part of the brand, baby. I would, uh, you would be the unrepentant thief.

Yeah, oh yeah, hell yeah. That was my favorite one. Tanya would be Christ. Yeah, that thief was, yeah. I'd just be the guy like, hell, paradise, it gotta be better than this shit. If Jesus was a socialist, that guy was yeah I just be the guy I help paradise to go be better than this shit if Jesus was the socialist that guy was an anarchist just like no everything I'm burning it all Tom's like No it's cool man

Just remember me You're fucking us up man I guess that makes Tanya Jesus Yeah Right Fuck Tanya

She's got some Crass like quality Yeah Poor Tanya She couldn't make it This week But she'll be glad To know we called her

Jesus on the show Oh yeah That'll be good She'll appreciate that She'll appreciate that Well The original setup We were gonna do Hell yeah, that'll be good. I appreciate that. I still appreciate that. Well, the original setup we were going to do, and we might do this next time we have you on if you want to subject yourself to this again.

Hell yeah. Is we're going to review Tim Tebow's memoir. So there's something about this I want to talk about, actually. There's something about this I want to talk about actually so we should do Tim Tebow's memoir and or this book that Tim LaHaye wrote in the early 80's I think it's called Battle for Your Mind

and this was like the sort of seminal like dominionist text this is like the really yeah apparently I'm just saying that because I exaggerate everything. But from my interpretation, it looks like it might be. This is mounted on it. This is mounted on it.

But no, but it does... It is like... I was checking out the Amazon reviews for it. And it was like, a must read for all Christians. It's the culture wars. They're out to get your kids. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, it's totally everything that we're talking about right here,

and it probably gives you a pretty good insight into the man who wrote it, Tim LaHaye, the guy that wrote the Left Behind series. So we've got to do those two books. Jeez. That Tim Tebow thing, man. It's called like, I don't know know it's kind of like a Christian II self help it's probably like the subtitles probably like how to succeed in like the game of life it's the kind of book just like every like Tony Dungy all yeah you

know you see it next to the cashier Walmart and it's got like 30% off sticker on it really that's the only book that guy should be writing that's the only wasn't wasn't he like doing like appendectomies on poor filipino kids or something he like saved somebody i think he really did yeah they were saying he whatever weird like some kind of yeah it was like circumcisions wasn't it oh god wasn't it some weird I mean like he personally

but like whatever he was personally they were like yeah what if man you would have the coolest story ever

if you were circumcised by Tim Tebow and you know and you know he did a good job man oh shit dude if he did it while he was in college.

That's so badass. That's so badass. Remember when he had that really hokey speech? He's like, I'll let you, everybody. And everybody's like, oh, he's just the best leader and all this shit. Yeah, yeah. I think at Ben Hill Griffin they still have that on the plaque or something. Oh. Anyway. That plaque or something. Oh.

Anyway. That guy, man. Yeah. Talk about a youth group leader. Oh, man. He missed it. Well, he's probably going to cash in on that at some point. Oh, yeah.

Big time. Yeah. Big time. Yeah. If he doesn't, he can at least go give circumcisions because that's a fucking brand. That is a brand. That is so fucking brilliant. Tips by T-Bone.

Yeah. Yes. Oh, shit. That's too good, man. That's too good. Oh, God almighty. Wow. Yeah.

Oh, God almighty. Wow. Yeah. Oh, shit. Well, that probably covers the whole gamut of things, Lee. I feel like we talked about a lot. Yeah, we covered a lot of ground there, man. Well, we appreciate you doing this, man. Oh, man. Thank y'all for having me. This was fun.

It's good talking to y'all. Yeah, for sure, man. Thank you. I always enjoy it. Thank you, Lee. Get back down here and see us. Don't be such a stranger next time You've been gone like two years man No has it been that long?

About a year and a half I think We've counted down the hours and minutes Right yeah Yeah we do nothing but Where's Leah? When's Glorify's gonna come back? If we pan the camera around you'd see

all these posters of you in here yeah with lipstick smacks on them yeah like a hair dog yeah

we're Glorifier's groupies down here so nah dude yeah we we'll be you let me know

if y'all are coming down to Atlanta too yeah yeah for sure man for that thing yeah well should we You let me know if y'all are coming down to Atlanta, too. Yeah, yeah. For sure, man. For that thing. Yeah. Well, should we?

Yeah, all right. Yeah, we're going to call it. But thanks, man. Until next time. Until next time. Yeah, next time. See you, bro. Adios.

All right, see you, bro. Adios. Hey. We bounce from engines and snakes like Truman Park Go like clowns to streetlights for a day They go to plays and clowns Put the best of our parents' cars They shake in the city streets This party isn't to speak Drinks and trains make it to city and sing

Make it to city and sing Thank you. Woo! Bye. Thank you. you you you you