Weekly Skews - Weekly Skews – Screw It I’ll Do It, ft. BJ Barham

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

This week BJ Barham, the lead singer of American Aquarium, stops by to talk about his run for town board. What’s it like to be in The Rolling Stone the same week you’re being called a Communist for pointing out that local officials are giving sweetheart land deals to their relatives? We get into it. Before that: Jelly Roll-based psyops, the No Kings protests vs. Operation A.I. Sky Diarrhea, and the cartels’ (fake? fake.) bounties on CPB.Support the show

what's up everybody welcome back happy skews day to you it it is october 21st 2025 uh we're recording this on monday october 20th at about 1.30 p.m. on the left coast i'm trey that's mark we've got a special guest coming up for you later if the tech tech guides uh if they show favor uh shine their favor on us anyway we'll have a guest later his whole internet down today apparently because they all use the same company so that's fun i'm tray that's mark how's it going mark yeah man that's uh that's all put all of our eggs in one basket called amazon web services like it's like like i lost track of the number of sites they're down but like it's not just the platform we use for this but like you know i my day job we're we're down because of it

like venmos have struggling a bunch of other fucking shit the ca and state department of both on amazon web services so i wonder if they're able to work today um president she make your move uh so uh before we get to this uh a couple of things uh the government's been shut down for weeks thousands of federal workers are facing layoffs not getting paychecks 42 million people are going to lose food stamps the beginning of november at a time when formula costs four hundred dollars a month and senator jim justice uh west virginia just through his dog a birthday party um that is that is a nice dog look how fat and stupid it looks those are always always been my favorite favorite kind of dogs the one the or stupid or looking ones. Look at that. Look at that fucking thing. You know, they got your cute,

Mark, look at that. I know the world's dying around us all, but, you know, that idiot's happy. Got a fat bulldog in a party hat,

begging for death because it can't breathe. Oh, absolutely. They are affronts to God, those creatures. When asked them the optics of throwing

a birthday party for a dog in the midst of a deadlock, deadlocked and shut down Congress, just as positive that this might be the best time. Quote, this place needs to smile and be respectful one another and that's what baby dog's all about so save us save us from ourselves baby dog uh well let's think i've been laughing for like a like a week about this tell the people about your jelly roll discovery recently on a reddit

i mean okay i was just on reddit and this you know was you know put in front of my face while scrolling Reddit. I didn't seek this out. But apparently Jelly Roll did sex tapes with his girl who had an only fan, at least at the time. And those have resurfaced or at least they resurfaced on

Reddit the other day where some guy posted it made the top of Reddit and said oh God, help me please. I just saw Jelly Roll's micro-panus. That's what the post title said. And everybody was like, the fuck you're talking about. So then people started posting pictures of Jelly Roll getting a blowjob wearing a Tennessee

shirt and pictures of his actually. I've seen jelly rolls paint us now at least purportedly, so that's cool. But yeah, I didn't know and I was like, you know, I still don't really know the exact context of that. So that happened before he was huge. I mean,

like career-wise. That's the part I really want to talk about because this goes back to my thing about how we're living in an era where sciops are so cheap that everyone does them at scale, right? So I tried to figure out the origin of it or what actually happened and I cannot get to it. You know what happens if you Google jelly roll sex video? All the top

results are a song he put on after this, well after this, where that has a music video for a song we put sex in the title. In an interview where he talks about, on YouTube, where he talks about how difficult sex is when you're as fat as he is. And a bunch of interviews with his wife, like soft focus about giving up her only fans for Jesus or something. So, he's been Google-washed. Right. But he Google-washed it. Yeah, that's a, that's a, you know, I mean, that's pretty shrewd, I reckon,

whoever came up with that. Well, that's the thing is like, like, I try to, like, we would just talk about Google washing me, you and Corey and Drew previously because it came up having to do with, uh, uh, you did, Dubai chocolate. I was like, do you guys know the half a conspiracy theory by Dubai chocolate? I'll get that a second, but like, the, it's just, it sounds because of the conspiracy theorizing, but it's just basic SEO stuff. Yeah, right.

No, it's like you get a consult. I'm sure it's part. of like high dollar level like public assistantship probably or whoever the member of a you know a major star's team is that yeah they just bring strategies like that like you said SEO it's like hey we do this and put this out there and flood it with that so whenever people type in this embarrassing thing this pops up instead you know yeah there were there a long time rumors like after salons beat up j z on the night on on on the elevator that like biancy had been in a longroom affair with her bodyguard some cool cool

Coincidentally, soon after that, Beyonce put out a song called Bodyguard, right? You know, what did you get if you Google Gawaine and Yonsei body card? Same thing, Taylor Swift made a song called Jet after she was getting shit over, taking a private jet for 15-minute trips

to go to dinner and stuff, right? The funniest one is delete Uber. Remember, tell her back back to 2017 when the Muslim ban happened and a bunch of New York City cab drivers struck and refused to go to JFK Airport. And Uber did the opposite. They did search pricing, right?

So then there was a delete Uber campaign. Uber rolled out hashtag delete Uber advertising campaign about they were standing against racism if you want to be racist delete Uber it's like okay but the Dubai chocolate one like this is this is closer to a conspiracy

theory because there's no actual like concrete evidence of anything here but like for years previously before the chocolate bars came out Dubai Chavez was a reference to the fact that a bunch of influencers were being flown private to the Middle East to hang out of these sheiks and Emirates and shit.

Yeah. Hang out. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Quote a hang out. By which you mean, get turned into a human turlet, right? That was the...

Right. That was the joke is that people making fun of them. The sheiks were pooping on her chest, right? Yes. Right. So Dubai Chautla was a reference to that. Then all of a sudden, coincidentally, Dubai Chauta becomes like pistachio inside a premium chocolate bar.

Right. So I don't know. But it's also fucking... We live in the weirdest dystopia, man. It's just like, nobody cares a jelly roll and made a sex tape with his goddamn wife. Right. And is it even a micropinus or is it the whole thing where you get sometimes big dudes that just look smaller? Because, you know, whatever.

Yeah, that's apparently, yeah, real thing. I mean, I've, you know, fat kid as a child, I've been up and down over the course of my life. But apparently when you get into the upper echelons of fat, it starts to eat into your, you know, your whole crotchal area there. Like, there's only so much space there, you know, for both wainer and also whatever you put behind it. So if you load up on fat there, it's going to expand outward. you know it's like a fence post on a hill if the hill grew up the poet's post will get shorter exactly actually not sure that that's how that works either but yeah but you know either way that's enough about jelly roll's dick let's continue with the show but first before we continue

i've got my announcements forians uh so if you'd like to see me do stand-up comedy live and in person uh please go to tray crow crowder dot com and check out my upcoming tour dates next up is Milwaukee, Madison, Dallas, Largo in Los Angeles, Oklahoma City, Nashville, with Corey Andrew at the end of the year, and then a bunch more in 2026 already, including Sacramento, Spartanburg, Wilmington, and more, all at Treycrowder.com. If you'd like a pallet cleanser from the world we live in, check out good skews, good people doing good things. That is, producer Matt's audio exclusive available only on the podcast feed for this here show. And speaking of this show, if you enjoy it and want to support this show and get some bonus eps, sign up on

patreon go to weekly skews.com slash more or just go to patreon and search for my name either way it works five dollars a month get you access to two full-length bonus episodes uh including as we're about to do this upcoming week skew and a's we do those roughly quarterly we'll re-answer your burning questions so get some more skews in your life consider signing up on patreon sorry about that all right now as for the show to know a little bit later i teased a guest again if he can navigate the perilous waters of the AWS shutdown and make his way to our virtual lobby here. We will be joined by my good buddy and primo American rock star, B.J. Barham, who is the frontman of American Aquarium, a totally kick-ass band, if you never heard of them,

but relevant to our interest here today, he has decided to be one of those people I talk about all the time. I just say shit, but some people do shit, and he's decided to join the ranks of the people that do stuff. He's thrown his hat into the ring and is running for actual office back home in North Carolina. We're going to talk to him about that decision a little later, again, computer Lord Willing. But first, we begin, as always, with the Daily Dumbass, Matt, graphic, please. Tonight's D.D., the president for celebrating the no-kings protests by spoiling the end of

turd-gun Maverick. So that is an AI video reposted by the President of the United States. It shows him flying a fighter jet while wearing a crown and dropping a payload of diarrhea on the people of Chicago. Yeah. It's a no king's protest. Yes, truly insane times we live in. He loves posting AI slop, and he loves also, you know, shitting on, you know,

half of his constituents in this country or whatever, but combining the two here. Yeah, like, so you want to know how online these fucking morons are? like the only face of a real person you can make out in that video was a 23-year-old liberal TikToker

or they have a hairy system oh that's who that was yeah okay yeah like who can't why is the president

attacking a TikToker so everything about this seems to be designed to drive be fucking insane so the New York Times here's how they described this President Trump shared

what appeared to be an AI generated video who knows we report unicite maybe Trump did learn how to fly a fighter jet and drop Diaryo in Chicago. We have no reason, no way to check.

And, like, oh my God. The media also, the people that did cover us, I thought it would just skip covering this because what the fuck do you say about it? But like, they also refused to call it poop. Most of the coverage said it, quote, appeared to be brown liquid. Yeah, that's clearly poop, dog. Right. So they're Google watching for the president. I saw one person be like, somebody sent that to me and I thought it was a joke and I was trying to figure out if the president really posted this.

And I could not find out because the news means. media didn't describe it accurately. They Google Watched for him. Right. Yeah, the media has been sane washing Trump since like day one pretty much. It's so weird. Like they just seem hell-bent on like trying to pretend like we still live in the same, you know, political reality that we used to or whatever. And people operate under the same, you know, principles and whatnot or rules. Yeah. They took a, I mean, like, it's weird. I mean, I guess it makes sense that, hey, ass lap has become the the aesthetic of American fascism. But it's so bizarre to me how

enthusiastically they've grabbed it. And it's the evangelical movement. You can't get on Facebook without seeing a trailer for a story from the Bible where somebody fights a monster or something. But like the they just go have Doven head first

into this shit. Like the Republican, Senate Republicans made an AI video. Chuck Schumer had a quote that said the politics of the shutdown are getting better for the Democrats every day. And they made an AI video of Schumer saying it where he did it like this sinister Borland Nazi propaganda anti-Semitic cartoon smile while he said it. And they're like, we're not apologizing.

It's like, this is how Paul is going to work now. It's AI. It's like, okay, I guess. But like, Schumer, what are the rules of this stuff? He did say it, but he didn't say it like that, you know? Right. Like, yeah, they spent all weekend during the No King's protest, you know, I guess they they said it was going to be anti-America hate rally

full of violence in Antifa instead of a bunch of old people showed up and my mom went to a no king's protest. She was like, she like made a sign and said a democracy, not dictatorship or something and went and went to a protest at 500 people in Lynchburg, Virginia. And that's who went out and protested.

So, because it wasn't violent. They had acted like it was nothing. So they spent all weekend make an AI slap. Jay Vance posted this. His AI videos arguably better than Trump's at least cinematic quality. You want to throw this up. at it.

Where's a crowd? Don's a crown, draws a sword while Nancy Pelosi kneels before me or kente cloth. I love that he still does

kind of look pretty stupid though just because of how his face looks stupid like even in that video because that video actually

looks like his face so he looks dumb in it but and also like he don't know what to do with the sword

or whatever about that video the first video had highway to the danger zone but that one is an avenge sevenfold song

called Hail to the King playing that song's kick-ass, and I love that song. That's also a bit of like rage against the machine situation where that whole song is like very anti-king. Like, and of course,

they're just completely oblivious to that. It's another you know, Bruce Springsteen born in the USA. It says, hell to the king, which is kick-ass. They just put it over a video of Trump being a king, but the point of that song is that kings don't hit. The last line before the chorus is literally, they're coming to take all your rights and then he starts saying, you know,

hail to the king. So that's another element of it. And you know, J.D., who as a 90s kid, who used to be pretty emo and wore even more eye makeup, at mascara, you know he knows who Avenged Sevenfold is, right? So he's familiar with that. So they had a lot of fun with the AIA, like I said. Here's a White House tweet they posted over the weekend. If you got this, Matt. They posted this picture with the text. We're built different. Have a good night, everyone. that's Trump and J.D. wearing crowns where I guess J.D. is his queen? That's what I was about saying. How do they both have crowns on? How's that? Yeah. Thank you. Right. Yes. And then the bottom two is supposed to, it's Chuck Schumer and I guess supposed to be Hakeem Jeffries. Oh, the AI doesn't know what Hume Jeffries looks like and they're wearing sombreros. That's fucking cool. The Department of Transportation did this. Why did the Department of Transportation is getting involved in this?

But, yeah, that's no kings, but Schumer and Jeffreys and princess dresses in front of a Disney castle. To Trump said, told the Associated Press, they say they're referring to me as a king. I'm not a king before, he said early Friday, before he departed for $1 million per plate MAGA incorporated fundraiser at his club. Yeah, I mean, they started tearing down part of the White House to build his quarter billion dollar ballroom today. And, like, I don't, like, the optics of this shit are all awful. I don't know why they think politics don't matter anymore, but, like, it's so weird. The, uh, so hanging over all this, um, but I told you they were expecting, uh, Antifa to show up and throw a bunch of black block kids to throw bricks and shit. Right.

That didn't happen, of course. Um, but Trump's executive order labeled Antifa, uh, terror group is called NSP 7, NSPM 7. They have started arrested people under this law, under this, it's not a law, it's executive order. What happens is they nab people for allegedly being part of terror networks. They blast their name out to the press and then immediately release them because they have no case, but they're, you know, they reversed Google watched them. Right. For the rest of their lives, you're going to be labeled domestic terrorists, right? So how about the case of a guy named Elias Sipeda?

He's an English professor who was arrested September while participating in a protest outside an ice facility in Broadview, Illinois. And detained just for his speech, let me read here from the Department of Homeland Security Press release. A journalist and teacher at the University of Illinois, Elias Sepeda, has suspected ties to domestic terrorist organization Antifa and has a history of glorifying violence against our brave law enforcement. The press release included a bunch of his social media posts, and the most inflammatory one was a link back in 2020, he tweeted to a documentary on YouTube about anti-fascist resistance in 1930s Germany.

Right. You could see how they would be offended by that, you know. Yeah. Another one in his post expressed support for arming teachers to protect students from ice raids. They said that was glorifying violence, which maybe it is. I thought they were the ones who wanted to arm teachers. I thought that was their whole thing for a while there. You know, that was their solution to school shootings was to arm teachers.

Yeah, to stop school shootings, but not school kidnappings, right? Right. I hear of all this is, like, they have been routinely arresting people for legal gun, for legal gun possession. Sepeta is one of those people. They, they blast out in the press release that he had a firearm on him, which was true. He has a license to carry. Right. Are we four against that. Right. Again, that's, they love that shit. I mean, that's all, you know, to be fair, they've kind of, that element of their hypocrisy has been evident for a while with, like, you know, some of the black. guys that got shot by cops or whatever that had guns but were totally legal and there's nothing wrong with it or we're defending their homes or whatever but you know the NRA never gave a fuck or the right wing never gave a fuck even though they spout that shit all the time so you know it's kind of it's sort of par for the course for them yeah and i think like the trolley argument from the you know that pro maga people were like what is trump done to be a king what are you guys even protesting and you can get the constitutional arguments about impoundment of funds violating article one and two of the constitution um openly directing the justice department to prosecutes, political enemies, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But they're also, like, federal law enforcement is out there every day at Trump's direction violating people's first, fourth, and fifth amendment rights.

Now they're violating people's Second Amendment rights. And they're also, they got mad they couldn't violate people's third, third amendment rights. That's the, is that the quartering one? Yeah, they wanted to, because they're sending soldiers to these cities. And so it's like, because I saw people point out, it's like, my whole life, when you learn about the bill of rights, I was always like, I don't know that we're going to need that third one or anything. It's like, turns out I was wrong. I'm glad we got that one right now. But I tried to make it a legal issue when a bunch of businesses in Chicago and state

off and state government buildings refuse to let Christy Noem use their bathroom. Right. Yeah. So if you, they're trying to, you're trying to violate people's Third Amendment rights so Christy Noem can take a shit in your house. Jesus Christ. All right. All right. Honorable mention, the cartels for not getting more publicity for this sweepstakes giveaway. In the meantime, tonight, Homeland Security issuing an alarming warning, saying Mexican cartels are now attempting to track, harass, and target immigration and border patrol agents with violence. These alleged threats come as tensions rise here in the U.S. over crackdowns in Chicago and Portland. Here's Pierre Thomas.

So, to what degree do we think this is absolutely not fucking happening? I watched this whole report. There's no quoted source. It's all anonymous officials from three-letter agencies from Donald. Trump's administration who were claiming that the Mexican drug cartels have put out bounties on border patrol agents no pushback

no questioning this is like the Iraq of war invasion all over again except more credulous and for stupid or reasons like for one reason I don't think this is true and I don't have access to whatever made up intelligence are going off here but like why wouldn't if you're putting

out bounties you publicize those why is the federal government have to uncover like uncover the shit on like secret wiretaps yeah well i thought i thought that they all uh had that like secret dark net thing that they log on to at certain black sites like in uh you know uh movies assassin movies you log on there and they tell you what the bounty is and who you're gonna you know assassin that you got to like an internet cafe and type into what's the fucking what's the movie just came out where that's how it works it's an assassin movie uh i don't think it was the one i don't think

was the David Fincher one with Fassbender end it. But I watched some assassin movie recently where that's how it works, Mark. So maybe you need to rethink that a little bit. But they're not talking about like hiring Hitman. They're talking about putting out bounties to the public, right? I'm talking about trying to, like, you, if you kill, you, you, you're a member of like, Trenda, Rago in Chicago and you kill a... The Jackal, the TV show with Eddie Redmayne.

Sorry. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah. I enjoyed the show. Yeah, I did too. I liked it, too. Yeah. I wasn't going to be able to continue until I thought of that. Anyway, all right. So, but, like, one reason I sincerely doubt this is happening at all is the Trump administration has been a godsend for Mexican drug dealers. They're rolling in cash like never before because Donald Trump is president. And to explain why, I'll let Donald Trump give you the first reason. Here's him on Fox News. The water drugs, I call him the water drugs, pretty much stopped. In fact, I think water fishing, I think almost anything

we have to get into a boat right now in that area would not be doing too well. We have to stop the drugs from coming into our country. Yeah. We're blowing up boats in the Caribbean. The other way to put that is they're taking out all the Mexican cartels smuggling competition.

You know, and also like while they're taking up their competition in the Caribbean, the border's wide to fuck open because border patrols in goddamn Chicago. Right. Here's some facts for you about cocaine prices and the cocaine trade in America right now. Cocaine use is up 154% in America since 2019. This is quoting here from New York, the Wall Street Journal, sorry.

The Trump administration's war on fentanyl created an opening for El Senor Mensho to smoke cocaine into the United States by the ton. Basically, the American government has been so focused on Sinaloa and El Chappo's kids in fentanyl that El Minchot, Adam L. Mentiono has now become the Jeff Bezos of cocaine. Cocaine prices have fallen by nearly half to around $60 to $75 a gram compared to five years ago. What else is the price of anything else half of what it was five years ago? No, absolutely not. But yeah, I thought that, you know, I'm glad to see cocaine having a rebound, you know, because I'd definitely gotten the impression that it was on the way out.

But I thought it was related to fentanyl, you know, it was like spiked with it and people to be dying and stuff. So it was falling off. But either way, yeah, I'm sure, you know, it makes sense that all their policies would actually end up helping drug smugglers for the reasons you, or Mexican cartels for the reasons you said, but also it's like they're focused on, you know, they're out here rounding up landscapers and janitors and door dash drivers and shit like that, you know what I mean? And these, like, actual, like, professional criminals who operate in these like billion dollar operations and shit are, you know, I'm sure laughing all the way to the bank while they fucking, again, chase. fucking task graphic guys all around Chicago and shit like that so where do you even get like so much like I can't believe ABC News

ran that report I'm still like I like I think they're trying to give me a stroke or something but like what how did task from reality do you have to be how racist do you have to be to not understand the drug cartels are actually up to to think they like they why would they do this out a sense of racial solidarity with their Mexican brothers and sisters who are being deported right right yeah

the people the people being deported by the way are also profit centers for them because they'll have to pay someone to smuggle them back into the United States. The drug cartels do that, too. So, like... Yeah, also, they generally try to avoid that type of heat, right, obviously. The murder of that,

the Kiki or... Kiki Camerino, like, that was like a turning point in the whole cartel situation that they were super pissed about because of it leading, helping exacerbate the war on drugs and all that. So they don't like just go out of their way to do that sort of thing to begin with. But the, the

administration is just hell-bent on like, this narrative that these guys, meaning border patrol and ice agents, are just like, you know, their lives are endangered all the time. They're just like these, you know, working class heroes are trying to do their job and they are scared for their lives all the time. People throw things at them and now, you know, there's bounties out for them and people don't know how hard they got it. Like, they're trying to push that hard, you know, that like you should feel, you should sympathize with the stormtroopers, basically. Because they keep shooting people and get caught lying about it. And then, like, we talked about it.

They fucking got me a couple. I assume they wouldn't lie this brazenly. They said, though, they said a woman they shot had a gun. And they went to file, when they actually went to file charges, the gun wasn't in the report. They just shot a woman while the fucking ice agent said, uh, do something, bitch, right before he shot her. That's on camera. But it's like, it's like all these people are engaging and pretending. Like ABC News, my guess is they're playing along to go along with the weird fever dream.

happening online with AI and their right-wing fucking information sphere. Like, just over the weekend, Department of Homeland Security, going along with this, like, bounty story, they posted a TikTok that's attributed to a kid named Florida named Jit. All right. I don't actually know how old he is, but he has braces. And what he does, he makes content where he sort of pretends to be a gangster and talks about whatever's in the news, like he's riding out with his boys to, like, do dirt or whatever. I'm not sure if it's the same video, but he made a very similar one that it appears very similar back in June or July when we were bombing Iran, where he basically told Iran to come after him if they wanted that smoke, right?

They took that video and treated like it was a sincere threat on Border Patrol's officers' lives. And it's just, it's fucking insane to me. Like people were saying it's the same video that they recaption from like whatever. And the Department of Homeland Security was arguing with. with like a Twitter account called hood logic, a hood genius about it being sincere. Like the whole thing, they've gone insane, right?

And like, I don't know whether or not the video is real, but it's important that Jit is kidding. Right. He's making content. Yeah, he's just, yeah, he's doing a thing. He's doing what he does.

It's like, it's sort of like we, it's a similar but different version of the thing we were talking about, I think last week, with the the Portland frog guy or gal whatever

who has that like semi ironic or at least sarcastic bio on social media that said like you know just a trans

antifa terrorist trying to fucking whatever and it's like clearly a joke but then they just print that they just run that it's like self-admitted trans antifa terrorist

it's like that type of thing they're just and they they fucking like so Jit posted a video straight to camera being like, I just got, I woke up and I had a bunch of basically death threats and people letting me know that the government had put me on blast. The Department of Homeland Security is trying to get one TikTok or killed, right?

And like, it's just, the whole thing is goddamn insane. And like, they apparently just have decided they can lie their way through any problem. Like the death toll in the Caribbean is up to 29 now, including they killed a poor fisherman in Trinidad from Trinidad, who. his family showed the picture of the kind of boat he fishes in. It's essentially like a rowboat that he's strapped an outboard motor to and they're pretending like he's a high-level drug trafficker. They blew up a submarine the other day.

They said it was a submarine, but they also rescued two people from it. So I'm not sure how you survive a submarine being hit with a torpedo or whatever, but that's their story. And the two survivors, they just gave them back to their home countries of Ecuador and let me find it um columbia and ecuador so follow me here the logic is they're committing a crime so bad you don't need to prove it in a court of law and you can summarily execute people for committing it or you get off of the warning right yeah no no it's like uh what's the word for that when you have like like your logic is clearly uh circular in a way that's counter and

intuitive or antithetical to itself. Do you know what I mean? Because, like, they do that. It's like the same thing with, like, with people in Portland, you know, they're both emaciated baristas and also Antifa super soldiers, like, at the same time. Like, whatever, if there's got to be a word for that, but whatever that is, like, they love that shit. They live for that shit, you know.

Yeah. So they blew up another boat off in Colombian waters. The president of Columbia, Gustavo Petro, says, quote, This is a Google translative of Spanish quote, so forgive me if it's not even if it's a little clumsy or not entirely accurate. The boat attacked on September 16th was Colombian, had an engine on top as a sign of distress and was turned off. Presumably, he was in Colombian waters. The guy who was there with a lifelong fisherman, Alejandro Carranza, he has not returned home. He's called for the Attorney General Columbia to try to file international war crime charges basically or a lawsuit against the United States government.

the boat was it was in distress the boat was sitting still and I hate to be like a you know what do you call it nitpicky here but if a drug if a boat can't move it can't move drugs right yeah no reason to explode it right it's incapacitated yeah if Petro said openly said accusing United States government of the case I made a couple a month or two ago that the Trump administration just wants Venezuela and Guyana's oil. And in response to this, Trump says he's cutting off, quote, aid to Colombia. I'm putting quote marks around aid because that's money we give them to be our frontline soldiers on the war on drugs. We're on drugs. They're the pawns. They're the fucking guys getting shot in their home communities for our war. And we're taking away their aid like we're punishing them.

And again, the point of this is to stop the drug trade. right what the fuck and and like what we're itching up to here is like so I think everyone knew or suspected that like a lot of our targeting of like an overseas wars

was bullshit and made up we were killing a lot of innocent people in like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, whatever but they didn't have trustworthy governments for us to get reliable narratives from they didn't have stable governments and there's a huge language barrier there with most Americans.

This war they're going to try to fight is right over the yonder. Mm-hmm. Right. There's tons of people here with like connections, family and all that stuff, back to where they're, like you said, the language is the second most spoken language

in this country and everything. So it's nowhere near. Like, yeah, a lot of that Middle East shit, like might as well have been on Mars to your like average American, you know, but that's not the case for Central America,

obviously. roughly one in five Americans speak Spanish. I had to Google Translate Petros quote. They can just hear it. So good fucking luck bullshit in your way through this, I guess. I don't know. But I think Americans of all stripes are sick of like unnecessary foreign entanglements. And I don't really want to do it.

So Donald Trump can give Chevron a huge contract in exchange for 10% of their stock. Right. Whatever. You know what else a lot of regular Americans are sick and tired of Mark? What's that? corrupt local bureaucrats and fucking bloodthirsty developers ruining their communities. And that leads right into our guest today. We've got an interview coming for you with renowned rock guide and frontman for American Aquarium

and my buddy, BJ Barham, from Windale, North Carolina, where he has decided to throw his hat in the ring and run for office, step up and actually do something and push back for once. My man, what's up, buddy? How you doing? Thanks for being here. Thanks for having me, man. Thanks for always jumping on the horn.

Yeah, I was very pleased, but I'm not entirely surprised to hear the news that you were throwing your hat in the ring over there back home. You've always struck me as a, you know, fucking put your money where your mouth is type of feller. But yeah, you're actually doing it. Running for office, huh? Yeah, I didn't have that on the bingo card this year. Sure. You know, I'm putting out three records in the next 10 months and touring my ass off. I didn't really have running for public office in the car.

but I think I'm the only one that's surprised by me running for office. All my friends are like, yeah, we saw this coming. My way. That's what I just say. Like I said, I wasn't entirely surprised either, but it is, it is cool. What happened? You just get too fed up with bullshit. Is that what happened?

I got fed up with bullshit. I got fed up with, you know, status quo shit. Like, you know, it's a small town chicanery and, you know, back scratching and, you know, nepotism and, you know, the same kind of family. in businesses running this town for the last 20 years. And when you show up to speak out, it's gotten to the point now how they're so comfortable in the fact that they're these, you know, it's a small amount of power makes these guys' heads pretty big.

And when I made concerns, they kind of laughed it off and said, there's nothing you can do about this. And then we found out that the developer was first cousins with one of the commissioners. And so they jokingly looked at me and said, what are you going to do run for office and uh that that was that the worst thing you can ever do for me is tell me right you know tell me that you know no i know exactly what you made from that you're like all right motherfucker you know what yeah i ain't yeah turns out it's all it only costs $25 to throw your hat into the ring for a meaningful election so um i'm i'm in

the middle of we got two weeks tomorrow is two weeks until election day so um i am in the thick of the local mud slinging and just absolute nonsense. But I'm having all in it. Good. Well, I definitely want to know more about that, but Mark, go ahead. We're talking about you're running for, by the way, we've solely spoken once before, a big fan of your music, a long time. Thanks, ma'am. I think the first time I became familiar with you was after Geraldo died, I saw a video of you on YouTube,

eulogizing him and talking about how good artists die young and hacks like Carlson and see it live forever. And you've always had a special place. some of heart since then. Yeah, just to remind everybody, and maybe including perhaps BJ, I'm not sure, but we did our, we did an election night special in the 2020 election and we had correspondence on the ground in every swing state. And BJ was our official North Carolina correspondent for that. So thanks for doing that, buddy, all those many.

I wish we could deliver a better outcome. Yeah. Well, that one was okay. 2020 was all right. Generally across the board. Yeah. Yeah. So we're talking about you're running for town board and went.

Is it Wendell or Wendell? So here's the tricky part. It's Wendell, North Carolina, named after Oliver Wendell Holmes. The reason the inflection on the syllable is we're a train town. We're a tobacco town. So the train used to come through, and the conductor had to enunciate one of the syllables. So it became Wendell when they were coming through. And we went from being a town named after Oliver Wendell Holmes to just be in Wendell.

nice that's a like i like that story uh so uh you're you're so that's a it there three vacant seats on the town board and they're you're one of eight people running for those three seats and everyone gets three votes right that dynamic and all cool um so i quote here like uh i i think that's all interesting because like one you're not the kind of person usually runs for office for several reasons it usually doesn't work first of all because skeletons but you basically be right what's an attack at against you like, considering you make your songs about doing Adderall and bathroom styles that you told you. Well, I've been a lot of the door-to-door mud slinging has been, I'm a communist.

One of the things is I'm a drug addict. And then I have to, it gives me the ability to talk to people. I've been in recovery for 11 years now and haven't had a drink, haven't used in 11 years. And it gives me a little bit more to talk to people about. So when I knock on their door, they're like, oh, are you the drug addict commie that they told me about it? And I was like, kind of, I guess. You know, it's funny, you know, when people toss around those, you know, ist titles, most of the time they have no idea what they're talking about. And so it's funny to explain to people that I run an entire business off selling T-shirts and art that I create to put a roof over my family's head.

And it's kind of the opposite of what communism is. But yeah, yeah, it's luckily, you know, I spent the last 11 years of my life, you know, kind of being a story of like turning around when you're heading down the wrong paths and finding happiness and finding sobriety and finding a family and finding your calling and building a successful business, you know, through just sheer work ethic. And so it's been nice. If you, if I'd have ran 15 years ago, it'd have been like, that dude is a problem. But luckily, I'm kind of in this, like, transformative phase of my life where, you know, I've put my money where my mouth is for the last 20 years. And it's kind of earned me a reputation with being a straight shooter, with being relatively transparent. And those are two very good things when it comes to being a local politician is not bullshitting people and backing up when you say something. it is funny to sit on somebody for like being a recovered and recovering or recovered i know

recoverings that should have the right word right but like at it because the whole point of like quitting was like yeah 15 years ago i wouldn't have voted for me either that's the point yeah it's it's it's funny because like a lot of people have to run off of their um previous uh what they've delivered we have one incumbent running and he has to run off of what he's done for the last four years which is just rubber-stamp development. And so it's fun when they have to run off of the sheer merit of the last four years. And so a lot of times one of the other big things that's getting tossed around is inexperience. You know, and I get that.

You know, I've never held a public office before. But neither is anybody else running for this. Well, I was about say, isn't this like a good place to start with that, I would think. Like at the level that the office you're running for, you know, I would think that that's like typical. I mean, you just said that's true for everybody, right? Yeah, if I was running to be a state senator, I might not run off the fact that I'm inexperienced. Yeah.

When it comes to local politics, especially municipal politics, I would much rather be in the hands of a dad, a local business owner, a mom, somebody who doesn't have political aspirations, somebody that isn't bought by developer, realtor money, I would much rather one of me be making. the decisions instead of somebody who has aspirations of this just being a stepping step and stuff. Right. Well, that's, I mean, that's one thing I know a lot of people say that are, you know, really into politics and what's going on there and friends that I have like Mark, but also my buddy Travis Irvine, a bunch of people, big advocates for, you know, getting involved at the local level. It comes up a lot. And I'm just, so saying, you know, that you're doing that for a lot of, you know, the reasons you just gave is inspiring and everything. But I bet there's a lot of people in our audience that also have thought about it before and what it.

So I'm wondering about the like nuts and bolts of it. You talk about the door-to-door mud slinging and stuff at the office like that that you're running for and it's you and eight people running for three spots and all that. Are you all doing like, are you doing like town halls with these people? Are you doing like postings in the newspaper? You said you're door knocking and stuff. Or is the shit talking all like, you know, overlapping each other in the ether? Like, what's the actual form of running a campaign like that against these other people?

like man it's it's it's it's small level like to put this in perspective uh four years ago when the election happened the top vote geter got 670 votes so to put that perspective like we're not talking about like an untangible number right hundreds of thousands of people we're talking about less than a thousand we've already knocked on more doors than that than it would take to win an election um a campaign is relatively easy um if you're not backed by big money, the average campaign raises between $750 and $2,000 in North Carolina. It's yard signs. It's a couple Facebook ads.

It's printing up flyers and realistically going door to door, knocking, meeting your neighbor, asking what their concerns are. And if their concerns are the same as yours, give them the old-fashioned pitch. You know, when I walk up to a house and I see somebody that I don't agree with, yard sign out front, it might not benefit me to knock on those doors. Um, they seem to already have their mind up if there's a sign out front. So, um, I highly incur, I always always put off because I was like, man, I don't have the time. I don't have the resources.

Right. Um, it really is if you want to get involved with your local politics, it's as easy as going to the board of elections, paying a $25 filing fee. And then for the next three months, just trying to meet as many of your neighbors and get them out to the polls. In a race like that, do you, are, do people run? Is there like a party affiliation? You know what I mean?

No, they're not affiliately. So obviously you can be a registered Democrat, Republican, independent. But in municipal races, especially in the state of North Carolina, they're nonpartisan. Yeah. But when you get the ballot, there's not an R&D beside of your name. Yeah. Well, that helps. It helps.

And, you know, it goes alphabetical, so I'm thankful to be at the very top of the list. Yeah. But it's one of those things where, you know, certain people can't say that they're running with other people because of party affiliation. And so in a rare move, I broke away from the Democratic Party to be able to run with two other candidates, an independent and a Republican. Because it's partisan politics, like national scale, like identity politics don't really exist on the local level. Sure. Like, I can't outlaw abortion or take your goods away. Right.

You know, what we're really talking about is tax allocation and zoning is what my town commissioner does. And I don't really think that's a Republican or a Democrat thing. And that's what we found knocking door to doors. They don't care about your party affiliation, which is in 2025 is a wild thing to learn. As you're knocking on, you know, back the blue doors. And they're like, oh, yeah, you're against, like, crazy growth. Like, we like you. You might be the only Democrat will ever vote for.

And it's like, well, thanks, guy. Well, that's what's so. It's like, it seems to be, we're circling around here. There's a crisis happening all over where, like, politicians seem to represent somebody who's not in the community often. Like, like, he's often not in the community. It's whether it's, you know, your town board selling out to real estate interest from elsewhere in North Carolina or, you know, the federal level operating on behalf

of other countries, for example, their investment funds and shit. And they, they, I don't know how to describe this, but like, they're calling you a communist, not for opposing your constituents making money or having better lives. for opposing your constituent's money and going into the pockets of outside people. Exactly. The hardest thing is to convince these people they're voting against their own interest. You know, once these developers build these homes and sell these homes, they don't give a shit about you. They don't give a shit that 10 years later, once you build a 60% impermeable surface over to the top of a community,

that that water's got to go somewhere. And over the course of 10 years, it's going to eat away at the back of your property. to the point where you have flooding issues, you have watershed issues, and all it takes is, and we're seeing it a lot more these days, all it takes is a 10 to 20 year flood, and it's wiping your home out. And that's not anything we had to deal with over the last 50 years. But now it's becoming a very, very real thing because we're building so much that the water doesn't have anywhere to go. It's crazy to me that, you know, I don't mind being called a communist. I don't mind being, you know, the name calling. We've only got two more weeks of it, and then it will miraculously disappear until four years from now. But it's been really neat to kind of go door to door and meet your neighbors.

And for them to learn that you're not the boogeyman and you learn that they're not the boogeyman and that on a local political scale, really and truly, do you, how do you think this town should grow? And that's what we're aligning on. We're not aligning red team, blue team. It's, do you like Windale or do you think it needs to be Raleigh? And the overwhelming majority of people think that it should remain kind of this quaint, little idyllic town, 15 miles from Raleigh. So I don't like, I do think, like, you got as far as a local politician, you have a really interesting, I mean, two bits of political advice, a free concert would probably give you more than 600 votes or whatever you need to win.

I almost said the same thing earlier. I was like, you probably get enough people in one show just to sway that thing. Yeah, it's a get-out-the-vote rock show when we set up a voting machine beside the stage could be neat. I'm in a rare position. I think most candidates don't, you know, have,

you know, we had a town forum. They wouldn't let us debate each other, which, oh, God, I wish they'd let us debate. But we had a forum where you know, we got to introduce ourselves for two minutes and then we answered two, one-minute questions, and we got to rebut four questions with a 30-second response. So very quick to the point, kind of big ideas, you couldn't really go into detail. And it was, you know, I was the only one that had ever touched a microphone. And so there's obvious benefits of talking in front

of massive groups of strangers every night for the last 20 years that kind of lends itself to being a charismatic person, being someone that can go out into a room of strangers and shake hands and talk about really hard stuff to talk about. Also, the infrastructure, I have a built-in fan base. I have a built-in group of people that when I put a T-shirt on sale, it finances a campaign.

There's a lot of people that don't have that. There's a lot of people that have to turn to business packs and builder packs and realtor packs. I'm lucky. I can just think, hey, guys, I got a T-shirt for sale. and then all of a sudden I have a pretty hefty campaign. War chest? A war, as they call it.

You want to something funny? There's a couple. So I was told when I put my name in the hat to the average North Carolina municipal election costs between $750 and about $1,500 to run, you know, a couple yard signs, a couple mailers, whatever. There's one candidate that's already 35 days in had already raised $30,000. and another candidate who had $27,000. And when I asked where that money came from,

it's like, oh, we just have a lot of friends from, like, outside of, because like less than 5% that money came from Windale. Are those candidates the pro-business, pro-growth? They're very pro-business. One of them moved here six months ago. Right. You moved here six months ago, registered to vote five months ago, and then through his name and hat after three months of,

of living here. He was like a hand-picked candidate by one of the guys who's getting out of local politics and kind of went to Raleigh. He's an attorney for the North Carolina General Assembly. He's a Republican. And he moved here and literally is just like, nobody

knows who this guy is, but he's got $27,000. I can picture exactly who this guy is. He wore a bowtod a third grade with a briefcase. He ran for class president, fourth grade, lost by a million votes because no one liked him, but somehow can still get elected to public office statewide

because that's how shit works. Man, he's got a war chest. His signs are everywhere. You can't do a Google search in this town without him showing up as like a sponsored ad in the middle of like a recipe when people are cooking dinner. But he won't talk to anybody. He won't go out like his campaign manager

won't let him answer anything on Facebook. It's like make an appointment to talk to him if you want to ask him a question. I was like, this isn't like a state rep position. homie. Like, this is a local election. You've got to get out there and talk to people face to face. And so I'm hoping that we have a couple opportunities to actually talk face to face and really have a healthy discourse in front of other people. So my first political advice was a free concert. My second one is like, I feel like the most pressing issue, every politician has to support is a huge, like every town needs a huge AI

data center that gives everyone cancer and gives two people jobs, right? sick yeah there's uh it's funny because like that's that's what people talk about around here we have a giant like a commerce center coming um i don't think it's going to be a data center i think it's more of a like a massive business center um which will which will be great because that you know when you bring in those giant business complexes it really does take a lot of the tax burden off of, you know, Joe Plummer out there. We have the highest tax rate of any city in Wake County. So we have higher taxes than Raleigh. We have higher taxes in Apex. We have higher taxes. Then some of the faster growing markets. So bringing in some of those big businesses

are a really, really easy way to kind of offset some of the tax burden that hits your middle class. Can I, so I saw, as of a recording this morning, I saw you had a interview, come out with Rolling Stone. Congratulations, man. That's fucking, that's dope. Thanks, man. I think it's the first time Windale, North Carolina's ever been mentioned in Rolling Stone magazine. So I feel good about it. I hope the mayor saw it. That's a campaign mail. How many other candidates for town board or this month's issue of Rolling Stone? Yeah, luckily there's a lot of people around here who are like big fans of the band and they're like, man, it's crazy. I get to vote for like my favorite songwriter as

It's like a town commissioner. So it's been nice to kind of go around and shake hands. And the conversation always starts with, man, I'm a big fan of your songs. I'm like, well, let's talk. Tax allocation. Yeah, that's awesome. I must piss off those other people, I imagine. Yeah, nobody's a fan of that guy's like, you know, dossier building or filing practices at the law office.

that. But I did want to say just because, you know, we'll let you go in a couple of minutes, but since you sort of segueed into it, I also just wanted to ask or give you the opportunity if you wanted to to also let everybody know what's up with the band, the music, what you got going on coming up. American Queryum. We are going back in the studio next month with Shooter Jennings. We'll be out in Los Angeles for a couple weeks, making a new record over at Sunset Sound with Shooter. We got three records coming out in the next 10 months. months. So I'm very excited about that. But the new studio record with Shooter comes out next summer and we'll be doing a pretty extensive tour. I haven't booked any shows next year just waiting on this election to happen because if I get elected every second and fourth Monday of every month, I have to be home for the town hall. So book tours around my commissioner duties is going to be very fun.

That's so funny. Like it's so funny to me because like it's like to get. Like, how screwed up things have to be for you to choose to do this instead of being a rock god? It's insane. Like, it's like being a rock star is cool. Being a member of the town board is fucking uncool. It's very uncool, but like, and I think that's why people ignore it a lot of times. Like, nimbism is a real thing. People don't really pay attention to local politics until it does hit your backyard.

And the crazy part, you know, we have 18,000 people here, 700 people voted in the last election. Like, the local level is what directly affects you daily. It's your police, it's your fire, it's your EMS, it's your roads, it's your stop signs, it's your schools, it's your medical facilities, it's the zoning. It's everything that you want to bitch about on a state or national level. And you have a chance to do something about it. I'm just, if nothing else, win or lose, I hope I bring a little bit of attention to how important

these elections are, these municipalities. elections are massive for what everybody goes through on a day-to-day basis. Like the big politics that everybody shows up for every four years and puts the signs out and flies the flags for, that really doesn't touch you. This affects you daily. And nobody gives a shit. I go to every town hall. If I'm home, every town hall meeting this year I've been home for I've been at.

And there's maybe five people at these towns. I'm talking about we're going over budget. We're going over how our insane tax dollars are being spent, and nobody's there to, like, raise their hand and be like, hey, maybe we shouldn't do that. Maybe that's a bad idea. And then, you know, the only time people show up is like, hey, they're building 1,900 homes behind your house. Unfortunately, it's already been decided. You showing up is literally just pointless. And then they talk down to you for an hour, and then you leave being like, well, I never want to go back to town hall because,

what's the point and what I'm trying to change is I want people at town hall I want people to ask questions I want people to hold their leaders accountable and I want the leaders to listen that's really all it is I've been pushing this the whole election

is if you're elected officials stop listening to the people that put them in the chair elect new officials until you get people that give a shit about what you have to say if 30 people in a neighborhood don't want something in a neighborhood. I don't give a shit what your master plan says about it. You vote against it because those 30 people do not want it.

There's no excuse for people to say, well, you make some good points, but I know better than you even though I don't live in your neighborhood. Right. Yeah, the lifeblood of American democracy locally anyway is annoying this shit of somebody who's trying to ignore you. Hell, dude. And for the last year, I've been annoying people and they've just ignored me. and I really think that that's just what they've done for the last 10 years.

I don't think anybody's had the ability or the desire to be like, well, well, fuck off. I'm going to throw my name in the thing. And you're up for the guy that I'm, that told me to, I couldn't do anything about it. It's up for re-election. Let's run. Let's, let's give the people an option here.

Do you want the same old guy that's just going to ignore you for another four years? Do you want a guy a rock and roller that is willing to put the rock and roll and hold for a second and listen to what you have to say and make judgments accordingly. And the really fun part is there's an overwhelming amount of people who are like, man, why is the musician the voice of reason? Why is the former drug addict communist the one that I tend to agree with? And that lets me know that we're doing something really special. When everybody we're running against isn't posting like, this is what I believe in.

They're posting, this is why you shouldn't listen. into what the other guy believes in. It lets me know that, oh, wow, like the establishment of local politics here in Windale feels threatened. They feel like for the first time, I think, in their entire lives, there's a guy who's lived here for 10 years that has a national base financially and socially

that is well-spoken, articulate, and knows what the fuck he's talking about. Like, maybe we shouldn't have pissed that dude off. and now it's you know kind of fun because we're two weeks away and I'm really enjoying it you know I'm really enjoying learning a new skill set I'm really enjoying you know knocking door to door and meeting my neighbors like I don't think most people go out and you know meet every single one of their neighbors for a five-mile radius definitely that sounds like a nightmare to most people yeah yeah and it's been really fun like getting to know people and finding out

where the guy that works on your car lives, you know, I always feel like, you literally live a block for me. How did I not know that? Like, tell me what you're pissed off about and just being kind of an ear and finding out that most people are pissed off about the same stuff. Right. Well, amen, brother. But, uh, I wish you, uh, I wish you luck in your glorious drug idle communist revolution in window. Yes, me too. No, thank you, Conrad. Thank you, comrade. Do the Lord's work down there, brother. I always been one of the coolest motherfuckers I know, and this included. uncool the position itself may seem.

It would be an uncool position, but I think at the end of the day, especially if we can get in there and actually make some real change, that'll be a really cool thing. Right. Well, thanks, buddy. Thanks for joining us. Always a pleasure. Wish you the best. If anybody out there, he skewers listening or in Wendale, vote for BJ, please, in two weeks

on Election Day. All right, that's it for this episode. Thank you all for watching. I appreciate it. Reminder, go to Treycrowder.com and come see me on the road. I'm not taking time off to affect change in my community. I'll be out there. So, Tracker Outer.com for all those tour dates.

And it's considered signing up on Patreon weekly skews.com slash more or go on Patreon and search for my name. And check out the auto exclusive good skews on the podcast version of this show. But if you keep showing up on Tuesdays, we will too. That's it for now. We'll see you in seven days. Love you. Bye.