wellRED podcast - #175 - What If Trump Didn't Run? + Horse Vaulting and Trae Sits Down with Blair Walsingham!

Episode Date: July 1, 2020

This week the boys discuss who they think would run if Trump decided not to, and also watch some horse vaulting! Trae sits down with Blair Walsingham, candidate for Tennessee's 1st Congressional District wellredcomedy.combluechew.com promo code RED 

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All for $2999. Love that chicken from Popeye. Limited time to participate in U.S. restaurants prices may vary additional terms apply. What's going on, everybody? It's your boy the show. Corey Ryan Forster, well-readcom, W-E-L-R-E-D Comedy.com. That is where you can find out where we're going to be when they start letting us go places. We've also got our book, The Liberal Redneck Manifesto,

I can Dixie out the dark. We've got our album, well read live from Lexington, all that good stuff. Sign up for our newsletter, too, so that you will know firsthand where we're going to be whenever they open things back up. Hope you guys are being safe. I'm wearing the mask. A special announcement. You haven't been able to see me do stand up in a long time because we haven't been on the road since freaking December. But I have a new special coming out this Friday.

It's a half hour special Corey Ryan Forster live at the Bejew. That will be available on this Friday for. for a digital download. It's going to be a digital download situation, PayPal Venmo situation, pay what you can, if you can, you know,

one of those. Like if you can't afford it, I want you to be able to see it. But, you know, you can also pay for it and support the arts. So we got that.

Also, we're going to, we'll be announcing it formally on Twitter, but everybody that listens the podcast gets and finds out stuff first. Would I just say that right?

I think I said, everybody that listened to the podcast, find out stuff first. Good God, I'm sounding like my uncle. We, well read, we're going to be doing an online show, July 24th, more details to come on how you can grab tickets to that. On this podcast, it was a doozy. We started out talking about whether or not Donald Trump will be reelected and whether or not Donald Trump will run.

Yeah, heavy shit, man. Let's get into it. Ski-you! They're the favorite sex daycare. next step makes some people upset but they got three big old dicks that you can suck what hits anything hits that nothing not a thing is what do you think about what you think about my facial hair situation court tell everybody what you said about me yesterday because i thought it was pretty accurate i said that you look like the dude in every western movie that gets killed first

and i still think that's pretty true it is pretty true it is uh drew suggested i know a lot of just listen to this and don't look, but I've got a serious mustache going on. And Drew said the other day I should look into a Van Dyke, which I didn't know what that was, and this is sort of like there's a few different things that are Van Dykes, apparently Drew, there's like a much smaller version that like David Beckham had for a while, but I saw a picture of Pierce Brosnan with a big-ass bushy version that looks sort of like this. And so I did a half-assed at home attempt at it by trimming down the sides. I've got this whole

silly silly bastard look I think I'm going to do the Beckham version yeah it's hard though they won't be honest with you I tried to once already so I don't know what's hard to do anything David Beckham does just because I feel like

everything on him just DNA is perfect so even his face layer is just he pulls off anything yeah of course he hits in any with any setup he's he's one of them for sure. True, but it ain't like Pierce Brosnan is a slouch. No, I know.

And I would never. So Trump tweeted white power. That hits. Does it? No, it doesn't hit that the president did that. It's just like, you know, it's par for the course to see. It's Ravens, very raving. It was so goddamn funny, too, because, like, I have Trump muted.

that doesn't mean everything on my Twitter that's Trump related doesn't get muted I just had him muted for a while because like every day I'd get on there and every day I'd be like God Jesus Christ but obviously when something like this happens you hear about it regardless of whether you saw it from him so when I saw it I started immediately looking in the comments

which is why I got off there anyways and so many people were just like well sure you know that one guy that one guy said white power but like He was talking about all the other stuff that was going on. And I'm sitting here thinking like even if you can write, even if that's your logic and you go, look, no, the guy saying white power, that's bad. But Trump shared the video for the other good stuff that was going on in it.

You still have to then admit that the president is so goddamn dumb that he thought, this will be fine. Everybody will just think around that. Or he didn't notice somebody screaming white power because that's not a thing that registers to him. as a problem. It was, but it's within like the first 10 seconds of that video. You know what I mean?

Like some people were saying like, right, some people were saying like, you know, well, I mean, maybe he missed that. Maybe he didn't pick up on that part or whatever. But it's like if he watched it at all,

it's like the first, it's like the first thing that happens. Also, like I don't see how you could miss that. Unless he was just like, somebody's like, look at all these old people. They say you hit.

And he's like, well, they hit for me. And he just retweeted it without even watching it or something. Right. but even that, though, is still a sign of, like, yeah, as a president, you vet. You are not do that. I'm a comedian and I Google shit before I put it out to make sure that nobody said it or make

sure I spelled something correct or just all that. Like I do and I'm fucking nothing. So like either what, either he tweeted on purpose of white power thing because he's like, look, this is the base, whatever, or he tweeted on purpose because this ongoing theory that some people have and I'm starting to get into is it like he don't want to win. He didn't want to win the first time, and this time he's really trying, I was like, what can I do to not win? And nothing seems to work.

Or, like we said, he's a fucking buffoon that doesn't vet any of his shit. And so either way, it's a problem. Well, of course, obvious, yes, there's no way to spin it that isn't extremely problematic. But as far as it like, oh, he's trying not to win thing. Drew mentioned before we went on the air something that I hadn't even heard yet, which was that apparently there's rumors, Drew, that he might not even, pursue re-election. I guess there's some journalists claiming that some people close to him.

And look, this is one of those things, though, where if anybody says that all these fucking do-good resistors are going to retweet it a million times. Right. So take it with a grain of salt. But I guess he is supposedly thinking about not running because he could save face. He wouldn't have to lose, you know.

You can't fire me. I quit. Right. Yeah, yeah. And I was saying when you brought it up, I was like, that hits for me almost no matter what. Because I understand that I understand that the concern would be that if he did that early enough, that gives the Republicans time to identify a candidate who like could win the election and thus our side would get defeated. But as of right now, you know, famous last words or whatever, I think it would, there is no worse alternative to me than Donald Trump continuing to be the president past. of this year as far as I'm concerned.

So like even if that happened, that is still preferable to him being around. Yeah. In my opinion, like, I'm not sure I agree. I'm thinking about it. On the note of him,

you know, like if somebody else runs, then they'll beat Joe Biden. There's part of me that kind of thinks that if Donald Trump says, I'm not running again, and they put another just running the mill Republican there,

that a lot of Donald Trump's supporters, which first off, as everybody knows, in a re-election, there's less voter turnout for the most part. I've also heard a lot of people from around here in Chickamauga, which this is a couple people, it's anecdotal, but who were pretty big Trump supporters who have told me, look, buddy, I can't vote for Biden, but I'm not voting for Trump again. I'm not, I'm not going out. So there's already at least a little bit of that. And I think that if they don't have their fucking guy, maybe they'll just go, well, God damn it, if we're just going to go back to the swamp. I'm not voting. And then the Democratic turnout is going to be pretty high because

we've been furious for four years. So I don't fucking know. I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing too because I don't think just gun to my head. I don't think we would lose if he stepped down and they identify. I think we could, which could still win. It's hard to say that without knowing who this replacement would be, but I don't. Sure. In that scenario, I'm one hundred like, I don't want to ever. Buddy, I hope I wake up. up in a month and don't have to think about this fucking piece of shit anymore. Yeah, for sure, right. But if

say, did y'all bring up Romney already? That was before they turned it on. Somebody brought up Romney as a guy who's been, you know, he went to a march and held up a sign that said Black Lives Matter. It was a white Christian march and Black Claus Matter was literally

across the street. But he's doing things you know, as if he might, he's trying to stay in the public eye. I don't know gun to my head if I'd rather have four more years of Donald Trump or eight more years of Mitt Romney. Now, I know four to four I want Mitt Romney. I'm not a fucking idiot. Yeah.

But when you look at the Supreme Court, federal judgeships, the continued privatization of otherwise, you know, in the past handled by government stuff, including education, prisons, things that Mitt Romney's four. he's very big into privatization. I don't know. Of course, you know, our far-left brothers and sisters are listening right now and being like,

and Joe Biden's going to stop that? I don't fucking know, man. I'm moving to Berlin. Well, I mean, at the same time. I am. I'm going to teach comedy to Germans.

I'm really going to fucking do it. I need one more TV credit. Good luck with that shit. Yeah, I know. I'll have my work. I'll never run out of work to do. Yeah,

that's true. You'll be busy. Shout out to Flula. He's hilarious. friend of the podcast. Yeah, I mean, it's a stereotype. Right. Yeah.

But I don't know, man. Like, I know that most of the time you do think if somebody gets in and they're, you know, they're not a complete fuck up like we have right now that a lot of times it is eight years because there's fewer Jimmy Carter's than Bush juniors. But there's part of me that is kind of hopeful with the fact that the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and the Stacey Abrams of the world and the current shit that's going on and people are mobilizing and the Democrats maybe at least are kind of knowing that they've got to get their shit together that in four years will be okay and we can at least just not have because like dude it's not like with Trump it's not I don't know man it's chaos it's not right

that's not what it would with romney obviously I disagree with a lot of his policies but at least he's a fucking diplomatic son of a bitch that's not going to go to the goddamn you know some assembly and just start talking shit and sharing white or fucking white power videos like I don't The white power thing I concede, the open sharing of white power memes. But I would love to hear, and I mean this sincerely, you guys make a case that Donald Trump is worse for America in the long run than George W. Bush. And I'm not saying Mitt Romney is George W. Bush. I'm not sure I see it, especially if we're talking four years versus eight years. Okay, Donald Trump does all the same.

you know, philating of the extremely wealthy elite as any Republican does. His tax cuts are, you know, right down the fairway for that type of thing. It's not like he's not an Uber capitalist.

And then also, he's a fucking maniac. He's a monkey with a nuclear gun. Like, he's like, and another Uber capitalist pig, none of whom hit for me, at least,

would not have the added factor of being a white supremacist loose cannon, a cannon with nuclear capabilities. Like, that's why I just don't think anything could be as bad as this motherfucker. Okay, that, I think they'd handle the fucking COVID better. I think they'd handle some of those situations better. I think that's fair. I don't know about the, you know, if he presses the button and we end up in nuclear war, obviously you are proved correct and we're all dead.

but up until this point I mean you look at Bush's first term he 9-11 fucked up or falsely you know or falsified intelligence reports about Iraq use 9-11 as an excuse to go in

and get Saddam Hussein out didn't fuck around with Osama bin Laden at all that started a nightmare in the Middle East I mean it was I'm not saying it was like a fucking church camp before then but it started a nightmare that we are still trying to quell.

We've been in a war ever since then. He turned the whole idea of Islamic extremism, and I'm not putting in quotes because it's not real, but he made it into a thing that was obviously real with 9-11 to where now there's a team. He, I'm sorry. I mean, to be fair to me, I was like 17 at the time. But what I'm trying to express and doing a poor job of is

that administration is responsible for in a lot of ways the nightmare that is American policy right now in the Middle East and the world over. Right. Well, Donald Trump, he just don't, he just tweets memes. I'm sorry. He didn't help any of that, but he didn't cause another one of those. I don't think anyone ever has damaged the office of the United States presidency

more than Donald Trump on a global scale. I agree with that, but I'm talking about America. He knows, I'm talking, dude, it just came out that he knows that Putin was putting bounties on American soldiers and didn't do shit about it. He's bending over for Putin and all his oligarchs. He assassinated that Iranian general, and today or yesterday, Iran issued like an $80 million bounty and an arrest warrant on Donald Trump and asked Interpol for their assistant, and arresting the president.

I don't think any of that compares to the Iraq war. It, I mean, it doesn't, but I don't think it's like, for lack of trying on his part. If Donald Trump fell into a 9-11 situation, you don't think he would exploit the fuck out of it for some shit like that because he would. And I'd do, fuck George Bush.

He would try to, but his lack of ability that you just talk, you know. Yes. Would, I'm not saying that I know in my heart that Donald Trump is not as, bad as George W. Bush. I'm saying that I'm not entirely certain in my heart that someone like George W. Bush would be better than Donald Trump.

It would be better for the office of the American presidency, but I think we can get that back. That just takes one or two good ones in a row. Obviously, I hope we win regardless. Obviously, we didn't have a, we didn't have a fucking pandemic during George Bush's term for me to compare this to. But like, if just on body count alone, this fucking COVID shit is turning into,

Trump's 9-11 because I know it's they're completely different things. It's not a war being raged or whatever, but like his flippant behavior towards COVID and him incite and his base to not wear mask and shit is literally every day killing people. So I just think that again, fuck Bush, fuck Romney, all them dudes. I don't think Mitt Romney would be doing this shit right now. I think Mitt Romney would at least listen to the scientist because like for what it's worth, he's not a goddamn moron. He's just a vampire.

who believes in a religion that says Jesus has a planet named Colb. But yeah, you're right. He's a smart fucking guy. Actually, actually, now, I'm just, you know what I'm saying? I would apply that to every, I personally would apply that exact same logic to every member of the Christian right. And half the goddamn Democrats who are Christians, too. Like, it's ridiculous. It ain't no more ridiculous than any of the other fucking.

It is a little bit. It is a little bit. You're right. It is a little bit. But like, to quote the great Lewis Black, talking about Catholicism. versus I think Scientology. Yeah, but you know, it's been a few hundred years. They got a guy with a hat.

There's like, you know, there's something to it. Yeah. Yeah, some committee was talking about the main difference is that the guy that started Scientology had a driver's license. I think it was Sarah Silverman. He was in the guild. He was in the Riders Guild. Yeah, so like it does feel a little different.

Let me say it this way. If something happens to us and Donald Trump's in charge, that is a nightmare that I don't know what to do with. But if you look at it right now, man. Right. But if you look at things that George Bush did, I mean, we're not just talking about starting the Iraq war under false pretenses, costing us millions of lives, making all his friends millions of dollars and putting the whole world in the situation of more violence and turmoil than we've been in a long time. we're also talking about using that as an excuse to start spying on the American people, which I will admit Barack Obama did not a goddamn thing about and didn't scale back at all.

Like Trump don't, I mean, other than what he's done with immigration, which you can tell is that little slithering fucking worm. What's that the dude's name? Stevenson? Stephen Miller. Other than that, I can't point to you to anything Trump's tried to do that is working. Now, that part has worked. he has made our immigration policies, like basically openly racist.

But other than that, you know, he's tried to deregulate some stuff. And he's starting to get there with that. He's manipulable. I don't know. Again, I don't know. That's my thing. We got to win. We just got a win, boys.

I agree. For sure, I agree on that point. And I'll be surprised for the record. We're kind of talking about this as though like this has already happened. I mean, I will be surprised if he's not. the nominee for president for the Republican Party. Just ego. Just ego-wise.

I know what you were saying about. Well, in this way, he can't lose. But, like, I don't know. If Donald Trump isn't truly just trying to throw this game, like it seems like he's literally been doing for four years, even before he ran it seemed like, is he just doing everything he can to make sure everyone hates him? And then they just like them even more.

Like, if he's not doing that, I don't see his ego. I think he thinks I can fucking win this. Hell, I can win three terms. I don't know, man. It's hard to, it's hard to figure that guy out. So, unless you all had other show on this specific topic, Drew reminded me the thing earlier. One of y'all, Corey, you said something about mask,

and it reminded me something that was kind of funny. I want to tell you all about. Katie showed me a post from her Facebook yesterday of some girl. She went to high school with some girl on her hometown. I think she went, whatever. It's some Wayne County person. a lady who have posted this like you know how they'll post like words on a colored backdrop and that's like those are facts those are their facts yeah those are yeah you know what I'm

talking about those posts she posted one of those and it said something I don't remember the specifics of it but it said something like reports are now showing that wearing mask is leading to heart failure or some ridiculous thing you know and X percent of people. Something about wearing masks will kill you. And the top comment was somebody saying, uh, can we get a source on that? And this person surprised me because she was also apparently a conservative Republican because she said something like, can we get a source on that? I always like to have at least two sources before I post something hopefully true. Like I don't remember I should put it, but it made it clear that like she wanted to believe this, but was like, but first, I'm going to

I've been burnt before. Right, right. And the last time I was pulling for people dying of heart attacks, my heart was broken. Yeah, yeah, but the first lady goes, oh, I never, I never check anything before I posted. I guess maybe I probably should because, you know, who knows these days. But yeah, no, I don't have me. I just saw this. You never see them come right out and say.

I know she just openly admitted it. You know, you know that's true for all of them, but nobody. Right. They just ignore that shit. bullshit and then later that night and this is it's not directly related but it was just a funny little tag on that miniature experience that katy had shared with me kind of showed me that word like about that and then later that night katy was like hey you remember that girl from earlier my hometown showed you all and i was like yeah what and she pointed her phone at me and that girl

had punched in another thing and all it said was something it was like Wayne county is anybody know if there's something going around right now with question because she had a kid with like a stomach ache or something but she was just like is there something going around right now as anybody heard and like you know to her you know her little slice of Facebook's credit almost everybody on that comment was you know roasting her like uh yeah maybe you've heard about it it's called coronavirus like everybody was going in on her in the obvious fashion.

So that was nice. But I just thought that was funny. And very disheartening, obviously. There's so many people out there. In this vein, I saw a thing the other day. Now, let me say this. The original post, I don't know if it's true because it definitely reads as it could have been someone completely on the other side,

infiltrating this page to say a very sarcastic thing and see if they can get people to bite. however people did bite and I know that those comments are true so here was the original post was a woman saying that she regretted to inform everyone it was with a heavy heart that her daughter had succumb to the coronavirus but she was so proud to live in I think it was Texas so proud to live in a state that hadn't buckled to the liberal agenda of forcing everyone to wear a mask because her and her daughter were able to spend her last days going is this is part It's like this clearly reads a satire. We were able to spend her last days going out to restaurants

and being with our family and doing things that free people should be able to do, rest in peace, blah, blah, blah. That could easily be fucking fake. That's not the point. The point is all the comments of people who clearly thought it was real, whether it was or not, we're just like, see, this lady gets it. She understands.

She's just gone through this, you know, this terrible experience. And she still understands that being a free American is worth every single, like worth her daughters. life. So again, that could have been satire, but there were so many comments of people like, thank you for understanding your daughter's sacrifice in the war, the war for freedom. Is that not fucking insane? Yes, it is. It's like that, oh, God damn it. What's that? I'm fucking this up. No, yeah, well, I was thinking of, uh, oh, and glorious bastards,

where he's like, uh, he calls in the bear Jew and then he's like, Nazi wants to die for country. Ablige. Ablige. him. That's pretty much what coronavirus is doing right now to all these doves. Yeah, it's obliging the fuck out of them. Yeah, but it's also killing people who don't deserve it. I know, I know it. They don't, they don't hit. Of course.

Of course. But, but like, also, that's sad to me because, first of all, she's a little girl. She didn't deserve it. Second of all, though. I don't think that's true. I don't think that's real. I genuinely have some death cult shit. Yeah, it was, like, because dude, I'm telling you, man, it was

some pose law shit because like I can see someone having that thought there are that crazy people in the world but I don't know it like it was so perfectly written to bait the comments but like again the comments weren't fake like the comments were like yes thank you man right well that's what I meant was some death cult shit like that it is it is actually literally the person who shared it in their caption said this is like the far right is a death called I don't know. Well, there is. It's like fun to make fun of like

Fat cat vampires You know, getting millions of dollars And kickbacks and blah blah blah But like, man, that's just sad. Yeah, but I mean, it's the You know, I'm still When this shit first kicked off and I was like It was, you know, several weeks in

Where it's like, I've got to go to the damn store When I went to the store, I told you all, there was a lot, if not most people were wearing masks. And I went to... Was it the same when you went to the beach? I didn't go anywhere. I just stayed in the beach house, but not at the pool. No, it was very much not.

But, like, went the other day to get some eggs. I've still got my mask on, which we joked about the other day. I like it just because it's like, oh, look, you can have some anonymity. People don't know who you are, but then, you know, clearly I'm still wearing clown shoes and a trucker hat with tibular. on it and they know who I am. But I was... I'm about Kenny Chesney being gay

and they're not clear how you feel about it. Yeah, but I guess my point is, now it's pretty much just me and the employees at the food line. Like a random old lady every now and then, who I think is genuinely worried, but for the most part, and they look at me,

nobody said anything. You know, one time I got the, but now everyone's just looking at me, like, look at this fucking communist with this goddamn mask on. Yeah. I mean, I totally, I know that that's true, and I have no trouble believing that,

but it also is kind of wild to me. Now, if you go to a park or something, if someone just hypothetically were to go to a park for some reason right now during all this, people in the, you see people in the park and outside not wearing masks, but out here, and it's different because there's a law, but like, you know, I go the grocery stores at all the time and wherever, and like, I never, I almost never see anybody without a mask on. It's literally against the rules, which makes it very different.

People don't have a choice, but it is still, it is still weird to me. I'd still like to think that most, it's still weird to me to think about that being the case, like to think about going into a store wherever, and nobody's got a fucking mask. The grocery store and salina,

the employees don't wear a mask. Well, now that I'm thinking, now that I'm thinking about what you just said about, well, out here it's different because it's against, the rules not to wear a mask. I kind of almost think it'd be worse if they if around here they made it where it was against the rules. There would be people going out that didn't need to be going out just to fucking show their face without the mask. Like I know my people. You know what I'm saying. Dr. King talking about how you got to break laws that are unjust. Yes. Yes. That's a good 100%

just because something's law. I don't mean it's morally right. That would 100% be it. It's so frustrating because like it don't have to be this way. Like you know, cases are going back up. getting worse again and everything. And it's like, we just so goddamn dumb in this country. Like, it's un-ridden. Because,

like, it don't have to be like this. Like, it's not, there's so many countries around the world. They're phase three of reopening. And some of them are fully reopened. I want to bring up New Zealand later for a specific separate topic I want to

talk to you all about. But anyway, and I know America's difference. It's huge, whatever else, but like, it don't have to be like this. We are actively making it so much worse on ourselves.

And it's fucking infuriating, And the thing is, it's really not that big of a fucking deal to just wear a mask around the grocery store. Like, I don't, like, I'm, look, I'm a fat motherfucker and I sweat and I get hot. And so, yes, the mask makes me a little, a little bit more hot. But, dude, not near enough to be like, it's worth it to not do this. I also, if you wear it and you can't breathe and you lose your breath, take a break. all anyone's asking is that everybody do their best. If you work somewhere and you're supposed to wear a mask there

and you like fucking feel like you need some fresh breath mask down, go somewhere outside, take a cigarette break, whatever, and put your mask down for a bit. You don't have to torture yourself, but you do need to try and be a good person. And honestly, that's it. And you can say, well, if somebody takes their mask down for a second at a grocery store, they might give it to somebody.

They might, but if they had it up for the hour before, they prevented themselves from giving it to 10 other people. And that's all we're trying to do here is slow it down. We're not asking anybody to personally defeat coronavirus. Just fucking do the right thing. You selfish piece of human shit. You fucking, I've seen all these views of these like Karen screaming about. And you're not going to tell me what to do.

lady your husband has told you what to do your whole fucking life i don't understand just just be a good god damn person for a month have you all ever fucking month can we be a decent human being just one month have y'all ever seen that viral article i mean it's been shared a lot and it comes up a lot recently especially because it's always relevant i think it was originally in the huffington post i'm sorry i can't remember who wrote it or whatever but the headline tells you everything you need to know. It's directed at conservatives. And I think at the time it was probably immigration or whatever. But again, it's relevant to almost every one of these types of things that ever comes up. And the headline article was, I don't know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.

And like, that's pretty much what the whole thing comes down to. Because it's like that's like, nobody, my freedom taken away. It's like, it's literally not about you. Like it's not about it's about everybody else. And I don't know how to make you understand that like that you should care about that you know like so many of these issues essentially come down to they are incapable of even thinking about anyone else other than themselves at any moment and that's what fucks everything up so much and it just don't hit and it's say it's so fucked up too because a lot of those same people are like your hardcore pro second amendment people who like their whole thing is like look man the reason i open carry it's for not only my safety it's for everybody else's safety.

If everybody was open carrying, it'd be a safer world. If safety really is what you care about, this is safer. It's just safer. Again, it's not just for you. It's for fucking everybody else. It's not that goddamn inconvenient. It doesn't make you look cool to not wear a mat. Like, the way I look at it is like, you know, in North Carolina,

you don't have to wear a helmet when you ride a motorcycle. I think you look dumber when you don't. When I see somebody right down the road and they don't have a helmet on, that to me looks dumber. I don't need fucking protection on my head. It makes no goddamn sense. So like I just don't, even like the people are,

I just think we're overreacting. First off, the CDC says completely otherwise, and I'm sure you're smarter. But secondly, maybe we are overreacting. That's way fucking better. Let's just overreact for a while.

Right. Just overreact for a while. And then when they'll be over and take your fucking mask off or don't go out. I just, I just genuinely don't get it like, it's just so fucking. Yeah, like you said, Don't go out.

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and Andy used it. We used it to buy, Andy bought me one of them, uh, mold a willies. What? Where you make a vibrator, but it is actually my dick.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I'm gonna pop a blue two. So it's actually not my dick. That's the way I'm gonna do it.

Now I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, get a new dick. I cannot imagine Amber being like, I want my thing that's supposed to be better than your dick to be your dick, but, you know. I guarantee you that Andy thought it was the funniest thing on that website

when I told her that they had given us $80 or whatever it was to spend. Amber just be like, Corey, can you just put your arm in there? I mean, you can. You could do that. You have to get a big mold for your boy. Woo! So big mold. Oh, boy.

We're not that great of a segue. but there's one thing I want to talk you about. Before you segue then. Okay. This is also relevant to the conversation we were just having. I'm kidding. Go ahead. Never mind.

I'm not going to do that. I can no mind. I bailed. Okay. I was saying it don't have to be this way. Other places are opening back up. New Zealand is like completely reopened. They had zero cases until somebody died and a bunch of British,

a British person died and their family flew in and brought the whole disease with them, naturally. But they like, they locked those people down. and I think got that under control. But at one point they had... He freeze for you, Corey? He did freeze for me.

The fact that they opened back up has allowed the incomparable James Cameron to recommence production on the Avatar sequels down there. That's one of the huge issue in our industry is how to go about production with COVID. They still ain't really figured it out. A lot of places of trying. But like he was shooting. in New Zealand, and New Zealand is COVID-free.

So they all just flew, everybody who wasn't already there, flew back there. They were quarantined for two weeks, and then they fired production back up. And as far as I know, it's already going again. So it's just like an example of how things could work. But I wanted to talk about Avatar specifically for a minute because, like, I actually think that it's underrated in terms of how wild. Obviously, South Park made a whole episode about how wild James Cameron is. But like, that motherfucker is wild.

because like he barely ever does anything in terms of directing movies. But every time he does something, he smashes the fuck out of it. Like literally at the highest level that anybody's ever smashed it because like think about this, Avengers Endgame was the culmination of over a decade's worth of a undeniable cultural phenomenon in terms of insane marketing campaign all the world building

the rise of the superhero blockbuster and it's something that's never been accomplished before and it all culminated with Avengers Endgame and Avengers Endgame the biggest cinematic event

of about 10 years or so at the head of this whole huge movement of so long it took Avengers Endgame everything in the end game everything in the had and multiple weeks of extended theater stays to actually

surpass Avatar on the lit as the number one highest grossing movie of all time. And Avatar was a one-off, the start of a franchise that nobody knew anything about. It didn't have any of that 10 years build up shit or none of that. Now, a lot of people forget about now is that a big part of it was the whole

3D thing. That was the beginning of like, 3D is about to be the next big thing. But yeah, I was going to make a couple arguments in favor of Avengers, but literally only to say them, not that I necessarily agree. Number one, yes, what you're saying, when Avatar came out, it was the first of its kind. It was like, this is a completely new cinematic experience. This is the first of what's going to come for generations. Secondly, yes, it didn't have the world, but it still was James Cameron,

who had a great track record and all that shit. And thirdly, the movie-going culture was a lot different. then. Like when Avengers came out now, Netflix has been a thing for a long time, staying at home. We've just gotten just real used to it and shit like that. So I think if you factor all those in, you've got to give Avengers a little slack. However, it still can't compete with what you just fucking laid out there. I just wanted to put those in there. It, well, it also, the other thing is those box office records, they don't act, they don't take into account inflation. Inflation, right. So if you took into account inflation, Avatar would probably would still be

more. Right. But, but, you know, the reason they don't, though? The reason they don't do that is because if you

took into account inflation, nothing would ever fucking touch gone with the wind. But like, that's not, that's not fair, though, because back then, nobody had shit to do.

Well, also movies, they were in theaters literally for years, because you couldn't see them anywhere else. So like, Gone with the Wind was in theaters for like,

fucking 10, 15 years or more or something. And it wasn't competing, it wasn't competing. It wasn't, competing with the fucking transformers. Right. But like, and here's the thing,

everybody now, and I mostly agree with this, by the way, Avatar hit for me and it still hits for me. I don't think it's like, I don't think it's that great. But retroactively, Avatar's gotten shit on by a lot,

and people always point out the same things, which I agree with. They're like, oh, it's just Ferengue. It's just Pocahontas, or oh, it's just dances with wolves. The story is the most unoriginal, mediocre shit you can imagine.

And Harry Potter's Jesus, and it's Star Wars. Right, yeah. And I agree with all that, but it's gotten retroactively trash quite a bit. But here's the thing, dude, just simply because, like, I just refuse to bet against him, sort of like Bill Belichick in that way. When he finds, and it's, he's, no one gives a shit about Avatar anymore other than to shit on it. It's been over 10 years at this point.

He's making all the sequels at once. But I bet you, when that motherfucker comes out, it will smash. Absolutely. I guarantee it. Despite all the years of everybody, like, oh, fuck. luck Avatar and not and not caring about it. You just don't bet against James Cameron, man. Do you know when the tentative date is for the first one?

I think the first one, the Avatar 2, the first of the sequel, I think was supposed to have been the end of next year before the pandemic. So presumably it'll probably be like 20, 22. Okay. Well, I was going to say, like, yeah, if it also happens to somehow open up next year right when everything else completely opens up, then, yeah. Lord. It'll still be a little bit of that. Like, it'll be, it'll be one of the first blockbusters that comes out after all this shit

because everybody's having to stifle their production. So, yeah, it's going to have a lot of advantages, but the main advantage that it has is the man at the helm, which is James Cameron. Has he ever missed? No. No, not really. Literally never. You might be due.

They haven't all, they haven't all been, obviously. The Titanic. Right. Well, yeah, but he's like, he has set the record multiple times just himself. This is a famous story. He's never floped. He's never floped. I'm sure we've told it on here before, too, so I'll make it the quick version.

But like, there's, yeah, there's a famous Hollywood story that when he went to pitch the sequel to the movie Alien, which had been a big hit, all the studio executives walked into the room, he had on a whiteboard written Alien, and they walked in. And his entire pitch was, he walked up to the board, wrote an ass on the word alien, and then turned that S into a dollar sign, drop the marker, they wrote them a check for $100 million or whatever. And it was a huge smash.

And that movie rules. As the most gangster, I tell all my friends that story all the time. Like, that's my little, here's what I learned out in Hollywood. And every single time, no matter who it is,

like, dude, James Cameron's a fucking gangster, dude. That is awesome. Yeah, without a doubt. He's like the only,

he's like one of only two people to have been to the deepest point on the planet. in the Marianas Trench or whatever. It's like him and, of course, a marine biologist. Yeah, and there's part of me that thinks, like if we were somehow living a hundred years in the future

and James Cameron still existed and all this COVID stuff happened and he was trying to get his movie done, he would have just been like, all right, well, let's just go to Saturn. We'll just film it up there, and he could pull that shit off. It sounds like he's due, though.

For a flop? I miss. I don't think he'll ever flop. A movie like that can't. It's just in, what terms, like, we wanted to make such and such money and we didn't hit that mark, but like, yeah, it's going to be fucking, hey, speaking of, I, I don't know if I brought this up to y'all the other day. If I did, just tell me to shut the fuck up, but speaking of big, huge

box office movies that took a long time to make and people spend a lot of money on them, Waterworld. Yeah. Off the top of your head, do you know how much money Waterworld lost at the box office? No, I know that, I know at the time it was considered. like one of the biggest bombs in movie going history, but the story- It's made $220 million fucking dollars. Right.

Like that's the thing, like, because you've, it's become a thing of lore. Like, Waterworld is just that movie that everybody, oh, don't waterworld this. Like, it's just out there. Some people have never even seen a movie, but they've heard that phrase. But like, I was looking the other day, I was going to watch it. And I was like, let me go look at what the budget was and, like, how much they actually lost. And I was like, God damn, they still made $220 million fucking dollars. Do you know what this is?

This is Hollywood accounting. I don't know how much regular people are familiar with that term or whatever, but that's like a thing Hollywood's famous for. It's like nothing ever makes money according to Hollywood accounting because then that determines like how much people get paid out and things like that. That's why it's like if you have the negotiating power, you're always supposed to get a portion of the gross, not the net, because there won't be a net because like the budget doesn't include the marketing budget.

and they can make the marketing budget be whatever they want it to be and whatever else. And it's like almost everything ends up in their internal ledgers, you know, not making much money even though that it did. And I think the argument for Waterworld at the time was like, oh, with their marketing budget and everything else, it ended up being, you know. But no, yeah, no, yeah. It's just if you,

if you've only ever heard the Waterworld more and never looked it up, you would assume that it was a complete failure. And like, again, I'm sure. compared to what all they had to do, the studios were still like, well, if we got it out on time and not done this shit, we would have made more. But like, still, Jesus Christ. You know, another thing is weird about Waterworld. I was thinking about Waterworld not too long ago. Also, DJ brings up Waterworld a lot of. This is, actually, this is how long this has been in my head because DJ brought it up and I saw that and I was like, I want to bring that up to the guys and I always keep forgetting. Well, but I, but I, we, my wife loves amusement parks, mostly Disney, but not just Disney. And, you know, they hit for my bowl. boys too, obviously, probably tell they don't hit for me, even a little bit. I love them. I get drug along to them. Sometimes we go to Universal Studios out here, very famous amusement park.

And did y'all, do y'all know that they have a massive water world attraction to this day? Yeah. Isn't that super weird? Yeah, it is. Waterworld is not, it's not, I'm sure, because it was supposed to be a massive, huge thing for them. so I'm sure at the time they went ahead and started building the attraction at the park

before the movie even came out because they were like, this is going to be a smash. And then it came out and it wasn't and they were like, well, we're pot committed now. Right. And also the ride still hits. It's regarded as a huge flop and all this and a major misstep and yet they have kept that attraction open at that park for 25 years now. And that's super weird to me. And it's not a ride.

It's a like, what are those called? They have a live theater. You go and you sit in the stands and there's real people riding jet skis and shooting flamethrowers and stuff and this big open. They just don't have a new thing to call it. I was going to say they don't have another water movie. The title Waterworld, if you're at a theme park,

it don't matter if an eight-year-old knows what Kevin Costner did in the 90s or whatever year that was. That's true. I want to go to Waterworld. And also, I love that movie. I like that movie too for the record. It always had for me. I went and saw it when it was in theaters.

I was into it. I feel like that's also one of those. And Corey, you've lented some credence to this based upon what you just told me. I think people know that movie. I think people like that movie. I think everybody knows what Waterworld is. Sometimes I think Hollywood,

the movie's not doing great, wants it to become a quote unquote flop so people will keep talking about it. Yeah. Also, I mean, if Universal had had Pirates of the Caribbean and instead of Disney, they would have just changed all the shit and made the Water World ride

the Pirates of the Caribbean shit. They just ain't had another hitting water movie, I guess, and you don't want to tear all that shit down. I mean, when's the last goddamn Universal Hitting Water movie? You said? Name three. Name three. Another huge, huge attraction at Universal Studios

is based on the Fast and Furious movies, and that's way less surprising. That makes complete sense, obviously. But I'll be honest, I don't watch, like, Neither one of y'all watched The Fast and Furious movies. You just watched Hobbs and Child, didn't you, Corey? No, I started it.

And then we started, something happened. I was on the text thread. I can't remember what it was, and I stopped. But the first five minutes was hitting for me because it was perfectly the amount of dumb that you would think it would be. Right. I watched the first two. The only reason I watched the second one is because Ludacris was in it. And that's when Too Fast, Too Furious, the song came out.

But then I tried to watch Tokyo Drift and it just didn't hit for me because it was a different cast and all this shit. And then after that, it was like, well, fuck this. But apparently they, like, when Fast 5 came out, they, like, really, they kind of turned it around and they started hitting. But I'm actually just, I just listened to a podcast the other day with the main producer of those movies. And so I actually know some of this shit because he talked at length about it. But yeah, I'm like, when the Fast and the Furious first came out, the first one, I was like a teenager. Yeah.

And I loved it. Yeah, hot chicks, fast cars. I thought it was cool as fuck. I love that. Literally the coolest dude in the world. Too fast, too furious, you know, also it for me. And then Tokyo Drift kind of didn't hit for nobody, right? It's the thing.

And what happened was the studio, even though the first two movies had been major successes, they, for some reason, were like, tap it on. A bit different thing. Well, like, trilogies are just not, like, generally well regarded. And I guess they were like, I know it won't. It's not a good idea because they were never critically successful, obviously. Right. And the studio was like, ah, we're on.

borrowed time with these movies. It's kind of what they thought. They're like, we got lucky with the first two. And the third one didn't have much support. So they had to do it on a much smaller budget, which was why it was a completely different cast and all this other shit. And then this main producer guy at the very, like at the 11th hour, they already have filmed the entire Tokyo Drift movie.

It was done. And then he had an idea to bring in Van Diesel for a tag. I've never seen Tokyo Drift actually. I've never seen any of them after Too Fast or Furious, but there's a tag at the end of Tokyo Drift where Van Diesel comes back and teases a fourth movie with his return.

And this fucking producer guy essentially broke into Vin Diesel's house to convince him to do this because he tried to call him stuff and Vin Diesel wasn't wanting to do it. He drove to his house climbed over his wall into his yard. Yeah. and like, you know, fucking went full romantic comedy stalker level shit,

courting Van Diesel to do this one little tag, and he got him to agree to do it. And then that movie was like just fine, but everybody lost their minds over the tag of it, which gave them enough momentum to make the fourth one. Then the fourth one became, you know, it blew up, and they just went full or lunacy after that. But I think I don't even watch those movies.

But I think that's one of the wildest, massive franchises that I can think of. Because, like, who would have ever thought, like, the Marvel universe, the Marvel, that makes sense to me, you know? But, like, Fast and Furious, like, nobody saw that shit coming. I said that I didn't. It's almost as if people really love stuff about racing

and they make more shows and movies about. I agree with that. I lied, by the way. I forgot that I had, I said I hadn't seen any since too fast, too furious or whatever, but that's not true. I saw the one, I think it's the last one Paul Walker was in and Rhonda Rousey was in it. And I literally just watched it because it was like, they did that. Paul Walker was in CGI for part of it because he had died during the filming of it or

whatever. And I watched it didn't. I mean, like it did well. And I think of them like it was more critically acclaimed than the other ones. But I was, buddy, there's this one fucking scene where Rhonda Rousey's up doing something. I remember in Vendiesel and I think Luda or. trying to get the they're trying to break out of this uh this building and the way that they decide to do it is there's a car like in this huge building there's like a showroom and there's a

fucking fast car in the middle of it really just go figure and they break into this car and they rev it up and they drive it around as fast as they can to try to get momentum and then they drive out the window they're like a hundred floors up they drive out they drive out the window and into another building through the window and then just throw it and park and get out. So if you're into that, it's that. And I am. But the first one was a lot more grounded. Like they were just street racing like, but once you do that for nine goddamn movies,

you got a fucking King Kong some shit. What was the Nicholas Cage? That was gone in 60 seconds. That came out, I think the same year or the year before. The Fast and the Furious, because there was, there was also a movie called Driven, I think it had Stallone in it or something like that.

It was what, you know how Hollywood does that sometimes? They have these like pockets to the box office. Everybody does all the same concept. Yeah, wide our, wide our stone. Right.

Well, the Fast and the Furious was part of that, and it's the one that became this massive franchise. And I remember after that movie, I have one buddy in particular, but he was, you know, a good friend of mine.

He's still a good friend of mine. His name's Thomas, and he got super into, into that, like, world. and the closest like big town to us was Cookville, but Cookville's a college town or whatever else, but there was like a miniature,

like street racing scene in Cookville, Tennessee, and I used to go with my homie and check it out and shit. And I mean, it was, you know, like, looking back on it, it's like silly and, you know, but like we were 18, 19. I mean, I think it's rad. I think it's rad. And I think it's dangerous.

My kids don't want to do it. This obviously existed before those movies, but I think those movies are almost single-handedly the reason why it is what it is now. The dude who bought my Jedda, I just sold my Jeddah, bought it to be like his drive-to-work car because he had put so much money in his regular car

souping it up the way that the kids do now that he didn't, like, he felt uncomfortable. You know, he raced it all the time. There's a huge, huge, post-NAS car. I guess I'll call it racing culture now. That has to do with Fast and the Furious type fucking cars. They build up old Selicas, old nisons, old fucking accords and civics, I mean.

And that movie, again, that world existed. But that movie made that world super huge and popular. Absolutely. Without a doubt, yeah. One of the times I did Jake James Radio show back before that got canceled, that's crazy his show got canceled before he did. but they had a dude on who was from one of those places. Like I was that was that I hung out with him all morning and they had a guy come on and do that.

Come on out. We've got a race this weekend. And that dude was just, he was just a guy who started souping up cars. And then him and his buddy started the club. And then they got together and bought an old racetrack. And now they do drag racing. And are we talking like this is the two cars sitting there revving up and they got the girl in the middle with the scar. That's drag racing.

Yeah. that hold that's what they were doing because they did some of that and then they do some where it was like one or two turns and they i think they called it drift racing i'm certain i'm wrong where it was like it's not go for 500 laps like nascar but it's like can you make two turns right the in cook bill the way i remember we we never had the girl with the scarf unfortunately not the ones i was that i mean maybe they did that sometimes but it was like what they would do is they would agree upon a stretch. They would agree upon a stretch where the race is going to take place and there would be like

a landmark that's like that's the green flag. And they would sort of like approach it at the same time and then you hit that agreed upon landmark and fucking then go. Right. And then also there's an agreed upon, you know, finish line or whatever. Did you know anybody that got hurt doing that? Like was it all? No, no.

I never saw. That's surprising. I never saw or was there for any kind of like wrecks or accident or something. And I went with Thomas, I rode with Thomas to that shit. I mean, in my memory, a bunch of times. Thomas did, it was Thomas' car. You didn't stay in the car? No, I was, yes, I was in the car with him.

I never drove because I hadn't. But you rode in a race. Yes, multiple. Yeah, I'm kind of getting. My buddy Brandon used to do that. And then one night, this is so fucking red ass and funny. If we put this in a script, that tells us it was too cheesy. One night, this old boy from Scott County came down and was

in his mouth. Brandon had a Ford truck that he'd souped up. And I don't know what he'd done to it, but for a truck, it would fucking fly. Is it a razor? No, it was one of those Box F150s.

Yeah. And Amber, Jeffers was there, and he'd been flirting with her. And that dude kept running his mouth. And he was like, all right, buddy, you know, get you $100 bill out. Let's do it.

And that old boy, him and all of them finally agreed to race him. And then Brandon looked over at Amber and he looked back at me and he goes, hey man, you're sitting in her seat. And then they got married the next year. Hell yeah. And he won the fucking race. That's good shit.

I just got like, y'all talking about this, I just got like really bad butterflies in my stomach thinking about like how grateful I am that nobody in this area was into that shit at all because my fucking pillhead ass at 16 would absolutely have driven into a goddamn wall and died. We was fucked up almost every time Brandon raced and him and Austin used

to get in the wild shit. And I just remember God damn, this is such a downer. I don't think he was racing, but Brand's little brother did die in a car wreck. I don't think he was racing. But they were a car family who all drove too goddamn fast. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So when you got too much time left, I don't know how you all are going to respond to this, but there's one other ridiculous white person subculture thing I want to talk to you all about. Street racing and that, it is, it's cool. I understand the appeal of that. This thing, I just found out about this. Maybe y'all both knew. I had no idea this existed. I just found out about it. And I kind of can't stop thinking about it because it's like, it's just so white and silly. Do you all know what, uh, you don't know what vaulting is? I mean, unless it has something to do with like pole,

like is it like some type of like parkour with a stick no it's nothing remotely like what it sounds like uh it's the elevators horse girls yes yes it's gymnastics on a horse is what it is okay so well i'd like to see it but that i'm trying to share it with you but you won't you won't let me hold on i'll let you hold us i don't think i'll be able while you look i don't think i'll be able to get away with this as a bit. I've been working on it. And what I mean is right now, like I'm going to have to put some distance

between us in quarantine and cop murders. But I'm working on a bit right now. Did y'all ever have donkey basketball? I've heard you talk about donkey basketball. Did people ride donkeys and cheat basketballs? It was a dude's job. You can only go one or two way, and either way hits real hard.

He brings donkeys around, and then you ride the donkeys. while you play basketball. And the thing is. I know for a fact I've heard of that. I don't know if I heard about it from you or what. I don't ever remember seeing that. You think the first person just lost their wheelchair

and there just happened to be a donkey. And so it just kind of worked out. Yeah, somewhere in Mexico. Mexico invented that. Well, maybe, well, I don't know. They'd have been donkey soccer. Yeah, donkey soccer. They got that too, probably.

Well, what made me think of it? The donkey would have to kick it. And I want you to talk about it. Yeah, the donkey would have to kick it. You're right. Yeah, I don't know the logistics of that exactly. What made me think about it, and I want you to talk about vaulting, but what made me think about it is I think donkey basketball is somehow more white.

Like, it didn't make it as a sport because even it was, even for the people who were into vaulting, we're like, buddy, that's embarrassing. Well, for the record, this is. It's more white trash, but the vaulting sounds more like white, like. It is. It's rich white people. It's rich white people shit. Like all those horse.

I would never play. basketball on a donkey, that's embarrassing. My daughter does flips off a horse. Right. Okay, so I'm trying to, here we go. I don't think. The donkey is the redneck of the horse world, I guess. I'll click share computer sound because maybe there's some funny commentary on this.

I don't know. I haven't watched this specific video. I just want y'all see a little bit of it, some clips of it. Are you seeing it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it. I can hear it too. Yeah, yeah, that's good stuff.

Again, I have not curated this specific video. Who cares? So let me, let me, let me, here we go. Here's a routine. Look at this. Jesus. I mean, it's, like, it's physically impressive. Yeah.

Of course it, of course it is, but like, she's horse surfing. Dude, don't get me wrong. It's insane that the skill involved with doing this, but like, man, what the fuck is? this. Oh, she jumped. How did this become a thing? Just like bored, rich people? Like, also, people who own horses often have a lot of cocaine.

I was about to say, I can definitely see like a rich white girl on Molly just getting out there, doing a backflip on her horse. And then immediately breaking her neck and dying, like, she's not this good. Look at that. I'll be honest. And I mean this, I mean this feminist as a compliment. I cannot believe this is a woman thing.

Really? Because the insanity of it, this is, this feels like something a dude did. Well, it was a man holding the whip. What I mean is like, you know, I mean, dude, I'm gonna stand up on his horse. Watch his son. You know what I mean? Yeah, but horse girls though, you know, that nobody's paying to see a dude do it. Some girls love horses and flipping and shit, you know.

Look at that. Look at that. God, damn. Look at that. But like, I'll get my niece involved in this. What do you think? My niece is going to be the number one in the world. He's only eight.

What do you think that horse is thinking, like, you know what I mean? Like, nothing. He ain't thinking shit. They don't think anything. But, like, if he did, like, imagine aliens watching footage of this or something. Like, I don't know. I don't know. We ride the ocean.

And you turn to the volume out of it. There, I'm just going to stop. We ride the ocean. And, I mean, sometimes that's, like, lighthearted than fun. but sometimes what those dudes are doing, I'm like, y'all are going to die. Surf and shit? Oh, dude, some of them videos were like,

bro, like, these fucking waves are like literally the size of the apartment building I lived in in goddamn New York high, and then they just disappear under them and it's like, yeah, that's under them. That's where all the hits are. And then they just zip out there. Like, I don't, I mean, that's what's up. But I guess the difference there is you don't have to, like, you know, go through the training of the horse and all that.

Yeah, because you've got to get to. the right horse. That's the thing. That'll just keep going left for a while. I mean, there's a good. It's tied up. It's tied up. I think you just need a horse that won't fuck with you or buck you off or whatever. And you looked up to see if it's happened before? No, I mean, I'm sure there's been some Black Beauty. I don't like the way she smells and he just throws Karen into the third fucking row.

I'd pay for it. I'm kind of surprised because Trey is constantly sending me videos of women falling down. And I was just, he follows Hold My Cosmo. Yeah, because I'm on Reddit and one of the popular subreddit is Hold My Cosmo, which features women falling down and anybody falling down hits for me. But yes, women falling down does it for me.

Yeah, I don't look, I wasn't trying to call you out. I'm just saying it surprises me that when you learned about this, you didn't just go, I bet there's some women fell off these horses. Okay. But don't get defensive trait. That's literally what I just did.

I literally just went, I bet there's some women fell off him horses. Right. But I have my defense, it's because I'm like on the team of the horse. I want to watch this horse uprising revolt. You know, I don't,

it's called vaulting. That means launched. They're lying to me. Yeah, I don't like it when people actually get hurt falling. Now, if I don't know where they got hurt and it just,

the fall is just funny. And I can listen to that. But if I somehow, if I know, while Washington is, watching something that like this person was paralyzed from this. Yeah, or what not.

Or if I just hear something crunch, I can't do it. Like, I don't like that. Like, and honestly, man, like a wiffleball bat.

Bro. That's all right. But I don't like to see most people getting hit in the nuts stuff. Dude. It hurts me. I looked up horse vaulting accidents. I did too. The third video is a young woman in a wheelchair.

So I don't know if I want to see that video or not. There was apparently a very famous case. it looks like there was a young gymnast named Julissa Ulysa Gomez who rapidly rose through the ranks of elite gymnastics in the late 80s but it was cut short during a vaulting accident that left her a quadriplegic and she later

died from the injuries and it led to massive reforms to the faulting discipline of women's gymnastics so that's a nice upward note to leave on. I always put it in the way to just get to the, you know, the death. So this was just part of gymnastics? I know.

In the middle of the poll. I mean, of course, all the shit they do is wild. It can't be. It can't be. Because I watched gymnastics at the Olympics, and I've never seen this. That might be an Olympic event. I don't know.

It's not a standard part of regular gymnastics. Oh, dude, I know what it is. No, I think what it is. No, no, hold on. That's a completely different thing. You know when they run down there and they spring onto that thing? that's called they call that a horse

yeah okay that's a vaulting horse that thing that they okay so they're just well wait you froze Trey with the greatest but I just showed y'all that that thing was a thing and in the title of the video it said vaults

so there's two separate gymnastics disciplines that are both called vaulting I think so that don't make any but that's that's horse vaulting though that's their balling no no I don't no I don't think

that I don't think it. Also, the problem of calling it horse vaulting is that in vaulting in regular gymnastics, they call the thing a vaulting horse. Right. All right, now I believe they're connected. Now I believe the

origin of the sport was real horses and then somebody was like, why don't we just use a pole? But they do a completely different thing. The thing you're talking about, they run up and they like leave both, that has nothing, that looks nothing like. Sometimes they stay on it and do tricks. Also, that's called That is called like the pommel horse, ain't it?

Pommel horse, yeah. And that's also called the horse ball. There's got to be a reason it's called horse stuff. Anyway, if you go to YouTube and just type in vaulting, not horse vaulting, all of the results are horses. Like that horse shit is called vaulting, not horse vaulting. That is horse shit. But what I'm saying is on Wikipedia.

It says vault, parentheses, gymnastics. and then the first line is not to be confused with equestrian vaulting and it has a link to that. So, all right, that's the vault. But it's also known as a vaulting horse. I'm telling you. I think that we need to go our simple way. Okay, make it where I can share my screen. I did.

I made it where everybody could share. All right, what do I do? I was going to say we could go do our own independent horse vaulting research. I don't think that thing. Yeah, vaulted. All right. Well, my only point is that's stupid. I agree.

It is stupid. They shouldn't have two things. I literally was just looking at this page. Look at that. Yes. I know, but I have also objectively proven that the other thing is also called vaulting. And my only point is that doesn't make any sense. Or simply vaulting.

It makes sense to me. me because what I'm arguing is once upon a time these are splits of the same route somebody was like hey why don't we just get rid of the actual horse and some other people were like fuck you that's my heritage

that's what I think happened I think that would be listed on the thing you're showing us there and I'm not saying it it yeah it seems more to me that they were doing it and then thought I bet I could do this on a horse yeah you know what I mean anyway why do it on a fake horse I got a real horse right I got damn real horse out here got some donkeys when go play basketball and fucking street race you all know shit uh well about to wrap it up show is that what we're about to do

sure I mean I want to tell where can we go from here well I tell you where we're going to go from here and I don't even think you know this although I did text you about it but I'm certain you've forgotten you'll be getting an email for me to this effect but for our listeners what we'll what's about to happen is we're about to play an interview I did with a woman who's running for Congress in Tennessee. Your name's Blair Walsingham. She's a liberal Democrat, but of course running in the northeastern corner of Tennessee. And it's a good conversation about the challenges that she faces, you know, campaigning in an area, a lot of rural people, rural southern people, and trying to hit there as a female Democrat.

But, you know, she's doing good. She's doing her right. So that's what this conversation that's just about to play here in a minute is. And I hope you enjoy it. That's all I wanted to say. Otherwise, we can close it up. Well, skew. Okay.

Skew. All right, everybody. I'm here with Blair Walsingham. That's how you say it, right? Walsingham. Walsingham. Walsingham? Which one is it?

Walsingham. Blair Walsingham. I would have said Walsingham, but that actually is what led me to say Walsingham instead because I tend to assume that whatever my first assumption is on how to pronounce something is not the preferred way or the correct way, because I've been pronouncing things wrong for so much of my life, you know, in most other people's opinion. So, yeah, Blair Walsingham, who is with us here. She's running for Congress in my home state of Tennessee is a Democrat Tennessee's

first congressional district. So, hello, Blair. Thanks for joining us. Hi, everyone. Yeah, thanks for having me on, Tray. I'm been excited to be here. So I guess let's just start with you giving sort of a little elevator pitch overview of, you know, who you are and what you're trying to do here. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I can tell you guys a little bit about myself. I'm first and foremost a mother of four. I have a one-year-old, a two-year-old, a 12-year-old, and a 13-year-old. I'm a six-year-year-old, I have a small dog grooming business.

I have a 68 acre homestead out in Hawkins County in the middle of nowhere. And we started some farming. I'm hoping over the next year or two to expand to be able to actually get produce out to the people out there. It's hard to get groceries in that area, especially fresh produce. But I ran for Congress largely because I see too many issues. They list is way too long. But they all connect back to one main thing, and that is poverty. From lack of jobs, lack of education, lack of internet, electricity, and running water,

all stem from the same thing, and that is being broke with no hope of a better future. And these are things that we can address in the 21st century with 21st century solutions. We can make Tennessee the best it can be, and I want to do that for people. Right on. Well, I mean, it seems to me like you check a lot of boxes. I don't mean that in a cynical way. I just mean that more in a hopeful way, you know, veteran mother, you're, you know, got the farm thing, the homestead thing.

You said you're out in the middle of nowhere. I'm going to admit my own. Hawkins County, what's the county seat of Hawkins County? What's the town there? So, Rogersville is the closest, like, major town. There's Sneedville, Rogersville, and then we're about an hour from, like, Tri-Cities area a little more. Okay, right, yeah. Yeah, that's a little bit further up in the corner than I ever got.

I lived in the Knoxville area. I lived in the Knoxville area for like six and a half years. I'm from Middle Tennessee myself. I've done shows in, like, Bristol. Kingsport and stuff, but other than that, I haven't been up in the far northeast of the state very much. So how are people up there, you know, how do they feel about what you're trying to do generally, in your opinion, from talking to them? Because I've had someone else on here before. Her name's Carol Abney, and she's running for state-level office from my hometown in that area

in Clay County. And I talked to her on here about the challenges she faced. and apparently they are myriad, varied and numerous challenges she faces running as a Democrat there. So how are you finding it so far? Yeah, that's a, it's an interesting concept. And Carol's great, by the way. She's in my emerged training too. I've worked with her phenomenal woman. She's definitely out there if you guys have the time, look her up to.

It's tricky. A lot of people are a little closed off and they're used to the same redundant messages you've heard in the past. However, when they're presented with this new information and somebody like me, I'm not a career politician, I'm not making all these insane promises. I'm not up here talking in fancy verbiage. That doesn't make sense to a lot of people. I'm being very real, very down to earth and explaining why I care and what I want to do. The best way of connected with people is just by walking the walk, not just up here talking about policy, but actually getting out in my community and being involved. One of the major things I did was a fundraiser with a group called Tri-City.

mutual aid, we raise $6,000 and we were going to give groceries, and we still do that. If somebody is in need right now, they just ask for help, and that's it. All you got to do is ask, and we will come help you. And that has really been the best way to bridge that gap, because it has been Republican for so long. So just having a D next to your name can be a little daunting to people at first, but just they want change. They want the same thing we want. It's not this, us versus them. It's all of us and this together. We all want to be happy, healthy, and financially. secure and we can agree on that. In your opinion, how much of the challenges that you face as far as all that go have to do with being a woman running as a woman? Is that also, I assume, must be a part of it?

How much do you run into that on a daily basis? More involved in education, healthcare, all of the issues that are really affecting Tennessee. So the fact that it is, people are apprehensive about a woman running is this a little bit of a struggle. I get asked all the time like how can you run because you have children. There's plenty of men who run with children. So. Yeah. Another thing Carol told me about the experience and you sort of alluded to it already, but she said that what she finds over and over again is when she's,

first of all, she talks about the importance of going out and talking to people, you know, face to face, but she says what she finds when she does that is invariably people want to make any political conversation about, one or a number of like federal wedge issues. It's the way she put it. Like you, you already mentioned the things that are important,

you know, healthcare and jobs, the economy, poverty and all of that, opioids, people who, people from, you know,

Tennessee, especially rural Tennessee, should care about regardless of political affiliation. But she says that even when you try to stick to that, what they have a natural tendency to do is to bring up the, other things like gun control, abortion, you know, whatever, on and on.

Is that also your experience? And how do you go about handling that? Spot on. Those are the two first hurdles you have to get over before people will actually listen to the bigger issues. And it is what we call wedge issues. That was perfect. And it is abortion and gun control.

And as a veteran, I was brought up in a very gun-enthusiastic household. I shot my first gun at the age of 10. I went through safety training. I own many firearms. I'm not anti-firearms. But people will make that assumption initially. And I'll get messages from random people who will just say, no Democrats,

I don't want you to take my guns. And I'm like, hey, I don't want to take your guns. So we do have to meet these questions first in order to get over that hurdle. Yeah, I talked about this when I talked to Carol. So if people listen to that and listen to this,

I'm sorry, and bring up the same thing again. But I run into that too. Like, and I'm not a politician, literally just in talking to people, there's this natural assumption that people make right off the bat. If you have a D next to your name or if they just know that you're a Democrat in your daily life, they assume that means you're in favor of any number of things that they don't appreciate. And this exact same thing happens in reverse.

Don't get me wrong. It does. But like, you know, what can be done about that? just continuing to have one-on-one conversations and telling people that's not the case, because I've run into that all the time. My friends of mine who've known me my whole life who assume that I want their guns to be taken, you know, they're like Pat Paul's hunting rifles to be taken away from them or whatever. And it's like, nope, dude, I don't want that at all. I've never said that. I've never believed that. I don't know why you would think that other than just knowing that,

you know, I'm a godless liberal or whatever. So, I mean, what can we do about that sort of thing in your opinion? It's a challenge, but what we have to do is, like you said, we do have to keep talking to people. And we need to hold the news industry accountable because that's where a lot of this comes from. It's this fear-mongering to divide people

to get you to pay into the systems they want you to pay into. So it's basically you're being brainwashed into thinking these things from the get-go. And it's terrible. We have to take back accountability within ourselves to actually do the research, to have the conversations, and know what's really going on and not just blindly accept this information being shoved down our throats. So that is what we have to do is to talk to people and prove them wrong.

Well, on an anecdotal level, because I know that's as high level as you can speak to it on, when you are talking to any given person, right, who's on the other side of you, and this sort of thing comes up and they assume you want to take all their guns or whatnot. and then you tell them, no, that's not true, but here's what I do want to do. And then you sort of pivot into these other issues that, you know, they also care about. On average, are people receptive to that? Do you feel like they actually hear you out and go, oh, okay, all right, then? Or does you think like a wall just kind of goes up?

It's a mix of both. But the lesser is the people who just shoot up a wall. They don't want to hear it at all. But most people are common sense. They're wise. They don't want their children to pick up a gun. They want to understand the safety aspect. They don't want somebody who has beat their wife to go out and get a gun and come back and shoot her. And we see that a lot. That is a really high number in Tennessee. It's the same for children in Tennessee. A common death is to pick up a firearm. So nobody wants that. We can agree. And that's what we have to find is what we have in common and build off of that. But it is. Some people just don't want to listen to anything. It doesn't. You could be the ripest peach in the world. world and they go, I don't like peaches. So you can't win them all. Yeah, right. Yeah. And I, and I know that to be sure. I figure that's what you would say because I've been, I've done a lot lately to try to convince people that like, you know, rural America at large is not a complete lost cause as far as, you know,

any kind of progressive ideals or whatnot. And I believe it to be true. And I always try to go out of my way to say, like, you know, don't get me wrong. There are plenty of people there who, I mean, yeah, They're not going to, you're not going to reach them. You're not going to convince them. But I don't think that it's enough or a high enough percentage to just write them all off completely. You know, like I've felt for a long time there's a huge missed opportunity that the Democratic Party at largely is a lot on the table where rural America is concerned because they should be the party of, you know, working people, which is, that's all rural America is, not literally, but for the most part. do you agree with that? Do you feel like there's a missed opportunity there and has been? And, you know, how can that be better handled by just Democrats, capital D? Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad you actually

brought that up because I've, I've thought similar at points in my life. I've got disengaged from the system. It felt like it just didn't matter. We didn't have a voice or we weren't being heard. But it is. It is just kind of writing off these rural communities and they get left out so, much and we have a saying that hurt people hurt people and basically people uh people need hope they need to know they are being heard and i believe there's a ton of people out here who have suffered enough who have learned enough uh especially the hard way to really want and need change now and the democratic party would be foolish to ignore it right especially now we're on this like really big tipping point of people who are really noticing what is going on around them and who want change

and are going to take action. Right. Well, that's another thing. Since you sort of brought that up, that was another thing I wanted to ask you about while we were talking today. When I talked to Carol, I also talked to this guy,

Matt Hildrith, who runs a progressive rural organizing nonprofit, and I'm all about the stuff that he's doing, and we got into this whole discussion. And then I've had other interviews where people had asked me, what would you say to these people, like, from where you're from,

who are, you know, like, indecisive maybe, or not sure about things. And to me, I just feel like it should come down to the question of, you know, is anything really better for you right now than it was not just four years ago, but even going back further than that, but all these promises were made four years ago. And they've had the reins this whole time,

not just the president, the whole party and leadership and everything. They've had ample opportunity to deliver. on those promises. And I feel like objectively speaking, you can't deny that, you know, rural America. So look around and actually survey it and answer the question, how do you assess their performance? And I think if you're being honest, the answer you'll have is ain't shit better, you know, that's how I've been putting it.

Ain't shit better because I can't see any group of people really other than the 1% of one percent wealthy elites who can make the argument that things are better right now than they were, but especially rural Americans, people in the South, things like that. I guess my question is, do you feel like that that viewpoint is shared by a fair number of these people, or do you think that, you know, they're still in some kind of denial phase or trying to tell themselves otherwise or what? it's you you said it you really said it best not shit has changed uh in the past hundred years you can look at where we were and where we are now and if anything it's gone downhill

fundings are cut the school education is rapidly dropping the only thing that has gone up is suicide rates and that is the harsh truth uh so people do need to be just like pragmatic and really look at the facts of what's going on and a lot of people are but it's hard when you're stuck in like a little bubble. So you guys think about a lot of people who are out here who maybe have never seen another way of life. They've never been exposed to a different area or they don't have internet access. They don't even maybe aren't aware of what's even going on in the world right now. And that is part of the battle too is educating people on what is happening and showing them that there is another possibility for even them. A lot of my friends are multi-generational families

here. They grew up on the same farm that their mom-mom-on-papa grew up on and their mom-m-ma-mom-maw. No. And it's not that anything's wrong with that. It's just the fact that it could be so much better for them. They could have a better education. They can have better jobs. They can get more investments to have their farms be more successful. They don't have to be on state assistance. They don't have to grow without running water or electricity. And it's really just connecting again with those people. It's the thing that's missing most is the connection within our communities other than accountability within the people supposedly representing us. Right. Yeah. Yeah. A couple of specific issues that I just want to bring up and just

see where you stand on them, how you feel about it. The first one, health care. Healthcare, I would think to me, should be like one of, if not the number one thing that I would be talking to to rural people about just because of it's been a really serious issue for a long time, starting with the beginning of opioid epidemic and then leading up to the, you know, rash of rural hospitals closing down, like one in my hometown closed down. We actually were able to get it open back up, but a lot of other ones haven't. It just keeps getting worse and worse, you know. I was talking to my ma-ma on the phone the day before yesterday,

and she was talking about how her medicine has gone up like four. It went up for like $10 to $40 just most. she has literally no idea why. And like she don't have, she's 82 years old. I'll fix it. She doesn't have 30 extra dollars, literally doesn't have it. Where is she supposed to get it? What's supposed to happen?

And that's far from a unique story. What are you saying to people about this? And also what do you intend to, you know, do to help or make it better if you get into office. Like, what's your plan? Yeah, this is a, it's a huge problem. It's a huge problem in rural Tennessee, but it's a problem actually across the nation. In many rural communities with hospitals just closing down and these monopolies coming in and taking over. It's a massive problem.

But right here, locally, it is one of the biggest problems that we face. Absolutely. And you're absolutely right. How are they supposed to just come up with this extra money they've never even had before to pay for these prescriptions? So to me, healthcare should be a basic human right. Nobody should be without health care. I don't care what other outside factors there are. Nobody.

We have hundreds of thousands of people in Tennessee alone. without health insurance. I am one of them. I get asked this a lot because I'm a veteran. Well, don't you just have health care? No. Unless you retire from the military or you're injured in the line of duty, you do not get forever health care. So news flash for everybody. Your veterans aren't always as well taken care of as you think they are. But for here, for all of our local people, that is definitely a high priority, like 90 days in the door. A lot of us are across the nation army fighting for expanding health insurance. The debate I'm currently in and still listening to is expanding Medicare versus expanding Medicaid. I've talked to local experts,

advocates, doctors, people within the health system, people out of the health system. And it honestly seems like expanding Medicaid to include anybody and everybody who doesn't have insurance is the right way to go. Instead of messing with my grandmother's insurance, uh, our senior citizens have already done enough and they have Medicare and they're doing okay with that and we still need to improve it. And I don't really want to take away from that. Our senior citizens are one of our more vulnerable communities and they need a lot of help and attention and I don't want to disturb the work we've already done for them. But there's other things we need to do. Let's just say we do get either one, Medicaid, Medicare, everybody has health insurance. We can call it whatever we want. We still face a huge, massive amount of problems like

co-pays or being able to afford the prescriptions. We also have a problem with the rural hospital still. So there's actual laws in place now that you can't just put up a hospital. Even if everybody out here in my community says, we need a hospital over here. Ballot Health can just say no. That's it. So we need to change like a ton of laws other than just get people insurance. This does touch on legalizing marijuana, ending the war on drugs, helping our veterans. There's another topic I have to throw in here.

I know we don't have a whole lot of time, but a lot of people who work, in like the top secret field actually can't even talk to a therapist about a lot of their things because there is a confidentiality blip there. So you have a lot of people within the military and veterans who are dealing with issues that they can't even logically discuss with someone

or get the help they need. There is a massive amount of healthcare problems and mental health is a huge one. We need to start treating people with mental health and not criminalizing it. Yeah, absolutely. It's just a few. Right, yeah.

Well, and a quick aside, because I don't imagine, I figured this one probably pretty brief, but you're a veteran, veteran of six years. Obviously, care a lot about veteran issues in the veteran community. So as a veteran, are you offended when someone kneels during the national anthem? Yeah, so I am not offended at all. I think if we, people are going to hate this question, but I'm not offended. And I think if we want to be proud of it, then we need to stand up and take accountability and make the right changes to rightfully say how great America really is.

We need to be true to that. And right now, it's not that great. We have to take that accountability, step up and fix it. I'm sorry, doesn't cut it. It means I won't let it happen again, and that's what we need to do. However, my father, who is, he's recently retired lifelong, military war veteran. We actually had this conversation the other day, he was like, he hates it.

He was like, you still got to respect the flag. And I tried to explain there's a difference. We're not disrespecting the flag. It's more of a call for accountability so that we can hold true to that respect. Right. Yeah. And also, like, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to lie to you. I don't know if you understand this or not.

But most of the people who will see and listen to this are probably not going to hate your answer. that question or hate the question at all. There's plenty, most of the people who would have hated it, like, i.e., the ones who, you know, hate watch me, uh, I'm sure that they still, like, exist, uh, in some numbers, but I mostly ran them off a long time ago, so I think you'll be okay. The other issue, um, near and dear to my heart, uh, for most of my life that I wanted to ask you about, that you also alluded to when talking about health care is, uh, opioids,

the opioid crisis. I found out when research it for the book that we wrote that if you mapped out on a, if you took a map of America and you color coded the number of overdoses from opioids, right,

fatal overdoses, and put it above a certain threshold, which it's been four years. I don't remember the actual number, but, you know, a catastrophically high number, right? and every county that was colored in bright red like that, that's where that statistic was high,

that, you know, above that threshold in the country. It literally starts in a coal country in northeast Tennessee, where you're from, southeast Kentucky, southwest Virginia. It starts right there and spreads out like, you know, like a virus or an epidemic spreading out and, you know, basically in circles from that one area. So you're kind of at the epicenter of this national crisis up there. And I know that.

And I'm sure everyone around there knows that too. So where do you stand on how to address that? And how are you talking to people about that particular issue going forward? Yeah, it's definitely a huge problem still. We're still in the top three in America for opiate overdoses. We, I actually have a great friend who I met who is, who's from out here. And he went through some issues with this. And I have some personal friends on the other side who got into a car crash and were prescribed opiates and then were addicted. And they routinely go through where they lower their doses. And then they get to the bottom and they basically crash and are unfunctional. And then they have to up their dose again. And they feel like they're failing at life, even though they're doing everything they possibly can. Right. To get out of this loop. It's a vicious. cycle that we have to great break. And where we go wrong is criminalizing marijuana. Cannabis can really help people get off of opiates and it's incredibly safe. It's safer than cigarettes. It's safer

than alcohol. There's absolutely no reason we're not using this, not just in a medicinal way, but in a recreational way also so that people maybe won't even turn to opiates in the first place to deal with their pain that they're going through. So this is like a multifaceted, there's tons of problems here because we criminalize it, right? So we need to, first of all, stop treating addiction as a criminal behavior. Right. We need to put it in the mental health category.

We need people, the treatment they actually need. We need to legalize cannabis so that we can help with these transitions. And we need to hold the pharmaceutical companies accountable in the first place. A lot of people have lost their lives over this. And they had these pills shoved down their face by prescription in the first place when they knew in advance that these problems were likely to happen. So we need to start putting people over profits. It's really what it boils down to. So I did this piece for an unaired news pilot that was about a medical marijuana bill in Tennessee.

I'm not sure if it was the last one, but I know it was one of the last ones. It was a couple of years ago. And I went to Tennessee and I talked to the people that authored the bill, also people who worked in opioid addiction and pain treatment and addicts and all this stuff. But the guys who authored the bill at the state level were both, they're both conservatives, they're both Republicans, and they authored this medical marijuana bill. And when I talked to them, I asked them both,

when you're talking to your constituents, how much opposition do you see to this type of thing? and they both said independently, I interviewed them separately, they both said essentially zero. They're like pretty much none. We almost never talk to anyone who has any real problem with it. And these are Republican state level, you know, congressmen from, who represent rural districts in red state and Tennessee or whatnot. And they said, we never really see any, you know, noticeable opposition to this from our constituents.

And so I said, well, I said, okay, so how do you expect, you know, what's the likelihood of this passing? And they both said, ah, 50, 50 at best. And so the obvious question is, well, how can that be, you know? And they were both up front about it. They were like, well, you know, there's a lot of interest, like, you know, other political interests who are extremely opposed to this. And they said the two top ones are law enforcement and the prisons, the prison industries are the ones who oppose it. And they were very upfront about that. And there's a lot of opposition to it. So I guess my question for you is, how are you going to navigate things like that?

The moneyed interest and, you know, the lobbyists and all that type of stuff that we all know have eaten up our political system and objectively wield a massive amount of power. How do you intend to sort of navigate that minefield? Yeah, Trey, the list is long. There's definitely not one easy answer. We have to do a ton of work for all of this. And this is criminal justice reform touches in here too. So, yeah, we need to get health care. Yes, we need people to get better education, better jobs. Happy, healthy people don't turn to these dark avenues to begin with.

But right now we have a for-profit prison system that we have to abolish that. No more, no more profiting off of people. This is part of the problem is because they want to arrest people on these charges. And that's when I'm saying we need to stop treating addiction as a criminal behavior. That's what that means is stopping this. pipeline to prison and actually helping people. And that is, it's likely to be tough. But people are more powerful than we think.

A lot of us have just tossed their hands up, say, what can I do about it? But you can do something about it. It starts with showing up. It starts with voting. And then you have to hold yourself accountable to follow up on these issues and to support your communities. But it is a, it's a massive problem. We're going to have to do justice reform.

We're going to have to change some laws. And we're going to have to end the for-profit prison system. If you look in your paper, like the local paper, I like to look at it has, it'll have their like mugshots and a little information about it. So many of these charges are nonviolent offenders. A lot of them are like parking tickets or they couldn't afford their car insurance or they missed probation. And I've looked up a lot of these stories and it's like, well, I was off. I had to go to work. I was going to lose, you know, my home. I needed the money or whatever. And we are really criminalizing poverty and we're criminalizing mental health. And this is this is where

it ends. It has to start with us saying no more. Right on for sure. And yeah, we are We are running short on time, but there's one topic I wanted to make sure and get to with you. So I guess we can sort of close with this. As I understand it, you are, we have a mutual acquaintance. You're part of the Yang gang. Is that right? Mr. Andrew Yang. This is true.

I am endorsed by Andrew Yang and Humanity Forward and I worked on his campaign before that. Oh, so is that, okay, I was going to ask how that sort of got started. So is that how you worked on his campaign and sort of got hooked up with him that way? I started as the canvassing operations manager for the state of Tennessee for Angie Yang's campaign and before that I helped out with Bernie Sanders in the last election. Right on. So, so I'm assuming that may, and I mean, also I know this from looking up your other stuff, but one would assume that means that you're a proponent of UBI. Is that accurate? Yes, I wasn't initially, though. At first, I was like, this is crazy. Heck no, I was so against

it. And then once I researched and learned, I, there is no better plan. Right. I actually, that's exactly my experience with it. I met Andrew Yang from working on a documentary about UBI that, you know, like any documentary, we've been working on it for a long time now, but hopefully, you know, getting closer to the finish line. But that's how I met Andrew and he, I interviewed him for the podcast and all this. But before I got involved in that documentary, I was just like you, I didn't, I said, I had no problem with the concept.

I was just like, that's not, that cannot be feasible. Like, sure, it's a good idea, but it's pie in the sky. And then I, like you said, then I started actually learning about it and researching it and very, very much ended up, you know, firmly on the side of not only we should be doing this, but I still kind of think that we're going to have to do it eventually. Like at a certain point, I don't know how long it's going to take or how much people push back on it. I see it as almost inevitable personally. I mean, either that or a very terrible alternative. So are you talking to people around there about it? What's the general consensus on that?

As part of our documentary, we went to my hometown and talked to people about it. And it was very, there was definitely apprehension or whatnot, but not outright like, you know, bile. I can't see ID or anything. So how do you feel like people generally are feeling about that, you know, around there and the path forward and everything? Well, I definitely talk about the freedom dividend in many ways because it affects every community out here. it's a hit or miss. A lot of people are apprehensive, but a lot of people just don't understand it. They don't know what it is.

They don't understand. They don't see it's feasible. When you're out here and you're struggling to pay your bills every week, a trillion dollars sounds like a massive amount of money that we just can't come up with. But when you delve into politics and you look at how they throw money around a few trillion is actually nothing. And it's this weird concept that people think when we're putting trillions of ours, dollars and let's be clear it's our money trillions of our dollars into these huge conglomerates

and it's an investment but when it comes to investing our own money in ourselves people look at as a handout and we really just need to get over that gap right there that this is your money that you earn that you deserve just for being an american citizen working here and improving america as a whole that is who we are it's what we deserve and it's already our money uh it's just going to you instead. So that's really the biggest hurdle I see is just explaining that part. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, well, I mean, I feel like you got a lot of hurdles to face, but it sounds to me like you're well equipped to do so. So, you know, I definitely wish you all the best. And I'm glad you joined us. And if you have any parting thoughts or want to let people know how they can support or find you

or anything like that, please feel free to do so right now. And then we'll close up. All right. Yeah. First of all, thank you for having me on. Trey. It was great to meet you. I love all the work you're doing. I saw some of your clips for your documentary and it was very, very inspiring. Please keep up the good work. To everybody else, you can go to Blair for Congress.com. You can read policies on there. You can volunteer on there. All my social media is on there. The really terrible part about campaigning is I have to raise funds to win. So if you are able to contribute, please do and know that it will come back to you in an investment situation. So we have to, to win, though. We have to do this for all of us. And please go forward. I always end with this. Go forward more grateful and kind tomorrow than you were today because that is how we heal as a country and as our communities. We're lacking that. We need to really get back to loving one another and taking care of each other. So please do. Well, who could argue with that? Thank you very much, Blair. Blair, Walsingham, everybody running for Congress at Tennessee's First District. Thank you all for joining us. We'll see you next time.

Ski-un. Thank you all for listening to The Well Red Show. We'd love to stick around longer, but we got to go. Tune in next week if you got nothing to do. Thank you, God bless you, good night and skew.