wellRED podcast - Did We Lose?

Episode Date: June 10, 2026

In this week's Cho-less endeavor Trae and Drew compare the two strikingly different experiences they both recently had which oddly leads to a very similar revelation by the time it's all said and done (you'll have to listen to find out what that is though; what do you think we're just gonna tell you that sh*t right here in the description like some f**kin amateurs?! [love you]). coreywritesforyou.com traecrowder.com drewmorgancomedy.com check out squarespace.com/WELLRED for a free trial, and when you’re ready to launch, use OFFER CODE: WELLRED to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

What's up, everybody? Here we are. Well, Red, doing it, Cholus this week. We were just gone last week. Did he put up a rerun? Do you know, Corey? No idea. Yeah, because he was with me all week, and he might have slipped off and done it,

but I don't know when he would have. We might have just straight up missed a week. But anyway, we're back. He's at the beach now. So it's just me and Drew this week. He's in one of them. Wait, you just went to an Alabama beach. Everybody's been in Alabama Beach.

I don't think he's literally in Alabama Beach. in one of those like golf golf beaches. I was like literally four minutes from the Florida line. There was a bar there called Florida Bama, and I didn't realize it was on the Florida Bama line. You thought they just liked the name of that bar? I knew we was close, but I didn't realize. You know what I mean?

One side of the bars in Florida, one side of the Alabama. Yeah. Well, that's fun. Or maybe they have like multiple properties. Maybe that's really what it is. One of the properties, you know what I'm saying? There's like a liquor store, restaurant, a dive bar type bar, nightclub type bar. It's a whole operation.

It's a whole redneck or redneck adjacent or fake redneck operation. It's really something down there in Orange Beach. Yeah. Were y'all trashing it up in Florida? I mean, like white trashing it up? Yeah, as opposed to what? I mean, since my mom will book this vacation and it's inert, she wasn't like, let me book a white trash vacation she was like i don't know if just always wanted to go here i don't know what it is

mm-hmm it just calls to you yeah like was there fucking airbrush t-shirt stands and shit like that it's like moneyed rednecks you know what i mean it's like it really is the epitome of like eighty thousand dollar pickup trucks with 15 thousand dollars worth of extra work done to them and then like attorneys who aren't of the gentry class on vacation. Right. So to me, that ain't,

you know, that ain't even trash. That's what, that's aspirational, you know. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Remember DJ's joke about how he'd get Mavitke call him a redneck? And he'd be like, Redneck, redneck's got money. Mm-hmm. They shop at fucking Walmart.

Yeah. Yeah. It was like that. Yeah, I figured rednecks with money went to like, I mean, that's an interesting thing I hadn't thought of. It's like,

you know, got like a huge boat on the lake of the Ozarks stuff is what I thought. But obviously they could go to the beach somewhere too in Florida, but I don't know where. I've only ever been to the actual trash places. These are, so yeah, you aspire to that as trash. These were aspirational rednecks too. I'm using that term loosely. This was a fucking, there's no culture anymore. Everything's a cosplay party.

Trump's cosplained as the president, you know, podcasters are cosplaying as comedians. comedians are cosplaying as actors and attorneys are cosplaying as rednecks and their sons are cosplaying as rappers with mullets great culture we have so anyway i was there in florabana just soaking it in soaking it in there it was fine it was fine i had a good time i was with my family razi wanted to ride the elevator over and over again because it had a glass back wall and he could watch it go up and down it is pretty sweet you asked him what's the favorite thing was he said the elevator. Yeah.

We also got him a kite. That was his second favorite thing. The Cabana girl probably just wanted tips, but she was flirting with me to the point that it made Andy annoyed, and she was like in college and smoking hot. So that was pretty sick. Uh-huh. She's like, I like your turtle tattoo. I was like, thank you.

I have more of them than Andy elbowed me. You remember that time we were on the beach in Hawaii and that, was that a hooker, a call girl? But she was like also college age and super hot. There's no way you forgot that. You cannot tell me. Dude, here's how like, I mean, this is a watershed memory for me. This is the only time you hung out with me during the day the whole time we toured together. I thought this happened at night.

Outside of going to a bar. I know where we went to me and you during the day went, we went snorkeling and stuff, which was cool. But this thing I'm talking about happened at nighttime. You're like, no, no, no, not the thing that meant so much to you. this is a very, I forgot about that. That was a nightmare. This is a very different thing. I don't remember this.

Dude, she was like very, very pretty and young. And it was kind of like sad because we were like, we were like, I mean, she had to be a prostitute, right, of some kind. Because she just walked. She just walked up to me and you and was like, said something like, I don't know, could I go back to the hotel with you guys or something like, like, just a very straightforward proposition. I want to come back to the room with you too. And we were like, oh, we're married. Thanks.

And we kept walking. But then afterwards, we were like, that's definitely like an escort situation, right? But again, it's like fucking Julia Robertson pretty woman, except in Hawaii. She was white, like white and blonde in Hawaii and probably 22, 23. But then we could have saved her life. I know. We should have. We just left her there to rot.

We were just like, what? She brought her home with me, told Katie. I'm saving her life, Katie. That's what I'm doing. She's going to stay here for a while. She's going to be a nanny now instead of a hooker, and it'll be fine. And in no way will it be like her past occupation. She'll have very different duties.

If you were in a position where you were getting a nanny, would you be like if there was British? Old and British, that's fun. But let's say there was a really good candidate who was also a. attractive. Would you just like let that ride because it will seem weird if you have a problem with it? If my wife proposes it, yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. If like, if like my manager proposed it and I hadn't ran it by my wife yet, no, I don't care how weird that looks. I'm going to be like, hey, what are you thinking about that? No, okay. Tommy

Johnigan, I think, had an old bit that was something like when their kid was little, they were looking at nannies and there was two candidates and one of them was hot and he was like, well, not the hot one. And his wife was like, why would you say that? What is not like you're going to bang the nanny? And he was like, no, I'm not. He was like, but every guy that's ever banged the nanny, you know, started out by saying, I'm not going to bang the nanny, you know.

It's also like if I'm going to start worrying about what other people think outside of my life because you said, you know, would you just say no or would you feel like that's kind of weird? I meant too in your marriage. Like if you talk if you to go to your wife and be like, hey, I don't think we should have a hot one and she should go. Why would you say that? Yeah. Well, what about looks? Like what about like.

Yeah, I know I'm not going to bang her. First of all, because I don't want to. And second of all, because she doesn't want to bang me. And I don't think people are going to think I'm banging the nanny. I think they're going to think that I think I could. bang the nanny yeah let me tell you something that bothers me more than anything in the world not when someone thinks that i'm an idiot or bad at something or like whatever if they think i'm not in on it it kills me it kills me i put this thing out once it was like national

mental health day or something and i was like hung over and depressed we were on the road and i just had my phone and i just made a wrap up and it like started to do some numbers and then everyone was like, this dude thinks he can rap. Oh, okay. Killed me. I know. I'm with you on that. I am fine with you saying I can't wrap.

You think I think I can wrap? Yeah. No, I know. You think I'm delusional. I just, so like, no, Andy, we can't have a hot nanny because everyone's going to think I think that I could bang her. By the way, Trey, I could. For sure. I mean, how have you just heard the story?

It's a funny story. It's all started because, you know, cool. There's power dynamics there. If you've got a nanny, you've got some money, you know, or whatever. Oh, that's true, too. Yeah, I meant right now, rich me. I'm saying it's a thing for a reason, you know, but I guess that's true. You know, but you're right.

That thing you said is part of my larger thing that I've talked about a lot of, it just drives me more insane than anything else on planet Earth whenever, like, basically when when someone thinks or straight up says a thing about me that is not true or accurate or whatever or like says I'm wrong when I know I'm right that type of like when people like early on at the very beginning people would say horrific shit to me on the internet and it just got rolled right off my back but when people would be like I'm from Alabama and I can tell you right now that's a fake accent this guy's not from the south this he's faking all this he's like those were the ones that always pissed me off the most for that reason but yeah what you just said too where it's like it's like dude I know

like you think I don't know that like I'm doing a thing you know uh it drives me insane I was I don't want to get too deep into this but like I was at this we've we've talked briefly on here before about Corey's like saving the world through comedy shit that he does every now and then with this group you know to compare you a week to my weekend so this is good do you know where I was this weekend I got to be careful with this but yeah I don't know why I say that whatever I should just say what I mean but I'll get like pretty fired up if I don't watch it is what I'm saying this is a public public venue okay yes well I'll you were doing like a CMA award country music thing and I was at a woke comedy think tank uh Corey's done a bunch of them and again we brought him up on here before in passing when he's done him and he's self-aware about him he takes the ripping or whatever but this one in particular was ostensibly aimed at like the left is losing white men how do we stop losing white men white men period, but also obviously like young white men in particular. And I was like, when I,

when they came to me, I specifically through Corey, I was like, yeah, I think about that shit all the time because of my sons and everything. Like I've got, I've got thoughts and opinions on that. I feel like if it was any other subject matter,

no shit, maybe not literally any, but almost any other subject matter, I would have told them, no, I'm not interested. But because of it being that specifically, I was like,

I do kind of want, to involve myself with this. And I go there thinking, I'm like, it's a think tank thing. They called me. I'm going there to be like a consultant, basically, to tell these people what I think as a white male comedian and in the era of fucking comedians, you know, reaching everybody. Rosen versus Rogan. Yeah, right.

Exactly. The influencer. Yeah. And so like for my expertise. Yes, you know about that. Right. Exactly. And that's why they asked me to go there.

That's what I'm thinking. not. I've known that you thought it was annoying and did not know that you didn't. So I got there and it was more like they brought me there to educate me on stuff the whole time. But also, not only that, they didn't seem at all interested in the things that I did have to say. Like I found, I realized pretty quickly. Did you tell them that? Which part? You don't, like, I'm here and it doesn't seem like you're interested in the things I have to say, which I find to be ironic. It said, they said, it's super ironic. And it was like, and yeah and I was just told like things like I'm afraid it seems you you know I think maybe

you've misunderstood the mission a little bit or whatever like that type of shit and I it was but anyway related to what we were talking about here without going into all the gory details of it in my head I kept thinking I was like I know I know that the people running this thing think one of two or a combination of both things one is that like I I think I'm a bigger deal than I am and I've got an ego, right? I'm being like a diva about it in a Hollywood way. Or two, that, you know, I'm an entitled white guy, which is the whole problem or whatever.

And I'm not, you know, taking this shit well or whatnot. Because they, a lot of, I said they educated us. They put us through what amounted to like corporate sensitivity training about the reality of systemic racism and shit like that in this country. And of course, it's like, not just me, but all the other guys that were there were all like, yeah, no, we know, like, believe me, we're on board with that already. Like, I thought that's why you asked us to come.

So, like, oh, that's weird. It's super fucking weird. And that's what I'm saying. That's almost like they thought these guys do reach young men. Right. Let's make sure they're doing it. That is exactly. That is what it felt like, like in practice.

As if they could afford you if you knew how to reach young men. Call Shane Gillis. maybe. I know. Well, that needs to be educated. Right. You can't afford to do it. It felt like that that is like more what it felt like.

And so because of that, I was like, the second thing is they'll think that, again, entitled white guy who's lashing out because I'm uncomfortable with the challenging nature of the truths that they're hitting me with or whatever the fuck. And it's like neither of those things is what's happening here. And I know some of y'all think that and that's not what's happening. Did you just say that? Fucking nuts. No, I did not say that.

I love how you were unable to do anything to dispel that belief. And not only was Corey not dispelling it, I guarantee you all he was doing was reinforcing it all week. Well, the thing about that is- Then we can't educate this one. Well, they've known Corey for a long time, you know. Yeah, that's where they reached out to you there. Like, we can't get him.

Let's try to get his buddy. Well, Corey was there too. Me and Corey were both there. And like, even Corey, he said that, again, he's done a bunch of these. and he was saying, even before me and him had really talked about it to this degree, he was saying that that one was like,

not like, it was worse than the others, basically. Did he tell you that ever, you were already there before you all went? Oh, well, how would he have known until we were already there? He didn't know this. And I don't think he's lying. It's just how his brain works. He has like a history of like, no, man, this hits. And then you get there and it don't hit.

And then he feels bad about telling you it hits. He's like, man, it ain't. they usually like this. Maybe, but it seemed, Corey seemed also to be organically upset about the whole thing the whole time, even like independent from me. So like,

I don't, but either way, no, I'm still, I'm flirting, Drew, with sending one of my manifestos, crafting a manifesto.

Yeah, will you wait until they give me my $150, which by the way, what fuck do I get to that? Yeah, I know. Well, I don't think,

we haven't been paid yet either, and that's part of it, but it's like, I was like, I'm going to wait till the check clears and all that. And then I'm going to, you know, send him a manifesto that I'm going to be professional and diplomatic and not be a fucking, because again, to hopefully dispel this notion of me being just a diva who's being a pissy bitch about it all. But it was ridiculous. But anyway, that's the overview of my week. And so, but it also did it.

Part of it was like, I do care about this. subject matter. I do want to... That's the way you came. I know. I know. And I did say that to them repeatedly. I was like, I feel like some of y'all think I'm being difficult or defeatist about some of this shit. I was like, I want you to know. The reason I'm acting this way is because I am legitimately passionate about this shit and I do care about it. And, you know, but I get there.

So another thing I just kept thinking was like, I've worried before like, what are we doing? What is the left doing about this? anything, right? And so I just kept thinking the whole time I was there. I was like, well, the left is. The liberals aren't, but go ahead. Right. I was like, well, if this is, if this is emblematic of like what we're doing, we're just so fucked. You know, like, yeah, like I was like so, like disheartened by it the whole time. I was like, I was like, oh my God, dude, this. And I talked to Matt about it, who was on the Harris camp. Oh, I shouldn't say that.

I shouldn't say that. He was on the Harris. campaign. Obviously, I don't know if you guys know, but they didn't win. It didn't go well. And he said there were some great people in there, but there were also some people that sounded like the people I told them about from this thing who had that kind of general attitude about it. But it was just also emblematic of that like milk toast, like liberal idea of fucking, I don't know, how shit's supposed to work or what to do or whatever. And it's, and it's just, it was just, it was disheartening is what it was. But I think it's genuinely, not sarcastically, not being a dick, not being a troll.

I guess the word is impressive that you had something inside you that could be disheartened about those things still at this point in history. Yeah, I mean, yeah, no, fair enough. But yeah, for sure. Well, I think the laugh comes from maybe my trying to make it not funny and it made it funnier. But I like mean that. It was like, this is fucked up, but it reminded me the last time my dad got mad at my brother.

Yeah. And then he was like, why ain't you mad? I'm like, because this is exactly what I knew was going to happen. Why the fuck would I be mad at the sky? Right. Yeah, right. Yeah, no. No, yeah, no.

I mean, yeah, you're right. Like, it's beautiful. You still got hope, Dad, you know? Yeah. And then I, under my breath, called him a slur like I am you in my mind right now. It's beautiful. You still got hope, you know. Yeah.

No, it is. It's interesting to think about, I mean, maybe they thought you and the other guys, because maybe they are aware that a big part of your demographic is women, gay, trans, or that rare young straight white man who is in the way you do and doesn't need as much. And they went, okay, Trace clearly one of the most talented people out there. maybe if he gets around these other talented people, they can together figure out how Trey and the others can reach the people they're not reaching. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I don't know. One of the guys. Not like it, Trey, come here and get educated, but like Trey, come here and get inspired by other people like you. Well,

one of the guys who's basically running it halfway through said, I said, I was like, so I thought basically I was coming here as like a consultant, yada yada, talk about that. And he said, he was like,

well, it's more like, we like what all you guys do. we thought we'd bring you here, expose you to all this, right? And then you could take this stuff with you and the work that you do afterwards or whatever. And I was like, and I said,

I was like, well, y'all wasted your money on me. I was like, because I'm all, I've already do that. Like, I don't, I don't need you to tell me to do that, you know. And the other dudes, though, who were all great, like, I really liked the other comics a lot. With the exception of Corey, the other guys, like, I mean, they don't really. I say what I'm saying Corey's like they're not really like they don't do that kind of thing.

So it may it's like it made more sense that that's what they were doing. I just don't get why the fuck they invited me at all. And they they definitely are not happy that they did now. I can promise you that. But that's really interesting. So that so. Okay. Well, anyway, it's fun to think about like, I mean, essentially what they're trying to do is like affect culture.

Right. I guess. political or whatever, comedy or political culture. That's such a, sometimes noble, but always wild goal. It always, no matter what the goal is, ultimately, if it's equality or letting people know that straight white guys have ruined the world or whatever, it's still, no matter how you go about it, it feels a little like, like madmen, kind of like, hey how do we sell this shit to these dumbasses? Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. That's what you went through. Right. I hope they paid you very well. Not really. Well, look, here's the thing.

Obviously, I'm not going to say a number. I mean, you would understand. It's like in a vacuum for a week, it's like, yeah, that's okay. But, like, compared to, like, if I go do a private event that's one night, you know it's less than that for five days right so it just depends on your perspective but Corey also said it was the least he's done a bunch of them and they're all sponsored by different organizations so they're all slightly different and he said this one was like the least uh paid the least yeah how's that white guys getting paid the least nobody's talking about that when they

When they did their lesbian think tank, look how much they got paid, but a straight white guy, no, a fraction. When is somebody going to talk about it? And the budget on tampons alone, am I right? Folks, they all sink up, folks. So you had like a totally opposite experience, right? Completely opposite experience. I had such a wild, I've been calling it non-cultural, cultural experience. because I don't really know.

I feel like I have culture shocked, even though I expected it to be what it would be. It was still different than what I expected it would. I know none of this makes sense. Look, I found out that I was sick halfway through. I thought I was just old because it was hot and I've been drinking. And I'm not going to act like that wasn't part of it. But then I found out I had a fever,

and it turns out I was fighting a really gnarly sinus infection. I don't know how much of my fever dream situation is going to affect my ability to relate to you all of what I was experiencing and feeling at the time. But what I said to our buddy Nathan, who's going to be on the podcast next week, Nathan Evans Fox has a great album. He was not at the event.

He's a great country album coming out with leftist undertones. Anyway, I wish that I had the talent of David Foster Wallace or David Sedaris or, damn, fear and loathing. Hunter is Thompson? Yes. Because it felt like that's the kind of voice and ability. that would be required to express to you fully how insane it felt as an Appalachian who grew up with like a grandma who sang on the Opry.

You know what I mean? I do, yes. And I think that that is a fantastic tease for this that I hope is going to take a while. So what we're going to do is we're going to let you finish this story right after this word from our sponsors. this episode of Well Red is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed down there on the internet there. Whether you're just now starting out or you're scaling your business up, Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website,

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All right. And we're back. So to set up the specifics, you. were hosting an event for the CMA, like a was like a third party event or like a for the city taking place at the same time. It's like some music publisher

set up a show for their, very big one for their talent. Rimes with Pony. Okay, for their talent at their at the CMA or with the CMA awards and you hosted that concert. So there were two days. The first one was sponsored by Sony. The second

one was the same group putting it on. But they just kind of did it themselves. mostly with those Sony musicians. That, I think, is important to what I experienced. It's probably not important to the story. And also, let me say the people who set it up were great. Let me say that the main musician who set it up as sort of like his cherry on top of his big weekend at the CMA Fest.

The second day was called Frank Ray and Friends. Frank Ray had a great set. I would compare it, at least what I heard, to like, a Paisley or a Dirk's Bentley. where this is not something that I listen to every day, but it's not something that makes me want to like apologize to my grandfather on behalf of what we've allowed things to become. Does that make sense? Yeah, of course, yeah.

And Frank is from New Mexico, but he's of Mexican heritage. And call me a DEI, Liptar who should have been in Philadelphia or whatever, stuff like that appeals to me. There's like a cross-cultural thing going on. if it's sincere. You'd honestly think there'd be more Mexican, a Mexican American specifically like country stars, because I mean, you know, dude,

they're into all that cowboy shit too. I think they know that they can make more money quicker if they just do it in Spanish and then semi-crossover. But what I gathered here from some of the people, not just Franks from others, is like people are trying to do it the other way. They're trying to become national stars,

and then once they're big, start singing in Spanish. And you know what I'm saying? Uh-huh. so I appreciate the people who had me on and I appreciated some of the musicians let me also say before I wind into this the two that I had pegged from the

poster on name alone and I'll name them because shame on me the names were Scout Spear and Bryce Leatherwood and I thought what in the fucking AI if I walked into where they just spun the wheel the skull can and let it pick their name and their stage name and this is created in a lab and all that.

My new theory on these two, they were the youngest two, they were just named by dipship millennial parents. Right. Real name, asked them both, and brought it. I mean, look, dude, if Bryce, the stuff Bryce sang,

if he was 40, I would hate it. But he's not. He's 24. He already saying, about how much fun it is to get fucking drunk and how she showed him a little bit more leg when she climbed in the truck. That is exactly what I want.

He reminded me of a young Alan Jackson. I'll say it. Wow. We were way down your honor at the Chattahoochee, but Gen Z style. Okay. Many of the others I liked, many of them I did not, but I don't want to get into that because I don't want this to be about that. What I want this to be

about is like this ever-broadening, morphing, broadening, while also narrowing. That's the paradox of country music right now. And I'm sure that people who know more about other music would tell me the industry is doing the same thing. It's ever expanding while ever narrowing at the same time.

And what I mean is we're ever expanding because we're going to have Mexicans come to it. We're going to have a pop influence. We're going to have rap beats. But it's also ever narrowing because still somehow they all sound the fucking same. One dude, bless his heart. He had 30 minutes.

He did four covers. And maybe he just knew. and he was a real nice guy. He did a song by the group, Train, which reminded me of a literal horror story you told about the first time you realized Nashville

was going the wrong direction, starring your buddy. Thompson, yeah. I meant to send that to Thompson, but I was at this fucking, or no, I was coming back from the, whatever.

When you sent that, I was like, I need to send that to Thompson, but then I didn't. Maybe I'll go find it. Let me say that I'm aware of my crumudgeonness and my age. You know what I mean?

And some of this stuff ain't for me. I acknowledge that on stage. One of my biggest jokes that, like pop the biggest both days was it's thrilling to see gen z here genuinely it's a little shocking for some for a millennial to see young people being in the country music i know y'all have made it one of the number one genres but up until very recently i got made fun of for it in college i said i like country they called me toby quiff and then i was like i love y'all i'm glad you're here

and then i made the joke you know i'm doing a version of it on stage right now but i'll go ahead and give the punchline, which is just like, the only problem is now that y'all are there, I can't get in fights at the show anymore. Used to love getting in a fight of the country music show. Worse that could happen, get my ass whip. Didn't mind getting my ass whipped by a man named Bubba. Now I'm getting my ass with by a kid named Braden. I can't have that. I can't be on the ground, cheek on the grass, boot on the other cheek. And he's saying, say it, say it, say it. And I have to go, Kyler is my daddy.

Everyone got that, even the Gen Z kids. Everyone knows what it's like to be an old man and watch it go away from you and everyone knows about cross-generational bitterness. But I think it's beyond that. Because by trying to be ever broad while all so narrow,

we've lost something. It was a very, very strange cultural vacuum situation. And I don't even blame any of the artists individually. I don't, I definitely am not, I'm not blaming anyone because this has nothing to do with Sony or the guys who hooked me up or even the artists I like or the ones I didn't like. This has to do with like country music and where it's at right now. It felt like Gatlinburg and Los Angeles at the same time in that town. There was a British dude there who liked my comedy and he pulled me aside.

And then immediately, and I mean like after one exchange about, he's like, you know, he's like, you know, he British jokes. and I was like, no, I don't really do any British jokes. The only thing I'll say is like, the reason we get along is we both got fucked up teeth. He hated that.

And then he just immediately started doing, you know, grievances. Immediately was just like, it's just, I've been in 10 days. It's great. I feel so free. Like, I don't like where this is going.

Yeah. Oh, what do you mean, sir? Well, just like back home, you know, everything, If I am, I'm racist. Right. Can't even love the flag without being told you're racist. I was like, first of all, you think we're allowed to love our flags without being called racist?

Second of all, there's a reason when we love our flags, we're called racist. My tip is when you get home, stop being such a fucking pussy. If you're worried about what someone with purple hair blogs about you, maybe you're not really conservative. And then I walked away. Thinking he hated me. Every time he saw me after that, he was like patting my back and trying to buy me beer. I think he thought it was like a bad. pep talk rather than an insult.

Right. Well, see, that kind of thing is, I know we've talked about before, but that's like related to the kind of shit I was wanting to talk about last week. Yeah, dude. You got to fucking speak their language. Right. But if you do, you might be misunderstood. Right.

And maybe I just, because I was on stage and in stage mode, maybe I was dancing a little bit. They paid your boy very well. I don't want to come across like I went in their guns ablaze. And here's the other joke that I could live with, but it wasn't the one I wanted to tell. And I told you all on the thread, if my job here today was stand-up comic, I'd say it this other way. But my job here today is host, and I genuinely believe that's a different job. Yeah. But in one of the bands, and this happened to be a Hispanic band, the key player had a big

giant, back the blue flag. And I wanted to go on a tear, and I did to the sound guy, just to get the poison out of my veins about Johnny Cash and outlaw country. And again, to me, it's like, Dude, if you back the blue, then back the blue. If you like country and you back the blue, black country and back the blue, but the disengagement with our cultural heritage, which is crazy because I thought that's what Jens was all mad about, what the British guy just talked to me about.

It's heritage, not hate. Your fucking heritage is what you do hate. Your heritage being a goddamn outlaw. Anyway, what I ended up, what I did say was, and I borrowed slash stole a Trey Crowder joke or a version of it was, you're back in the blue see we're back in the blue

country music back in the blue look we all back the blue we all back the blue you know till they show up to your field party so you're not allowed to breed a leg you're not allowed to have a how fuck how do you say because I said the way you do

breeding illegal reptiles yeah tell me you got to stop your illegal reptile breeding ring some version of that we're all loving the blue till they knock on our window and they're like crawl off your first cousin it's Friday you're not a lot

allowed to do that on this day. Yeah. And I could live with myself doing that joke. They loved it. They loved it. Of course they did. Yeah, right. I got in a thing with the lady about her smoking pot. I don't even remember what it was.

We started talking with the almond brothers. I went into my liberal redneck hippie bit. I had fun in that sense with the crowd. Like I said, it feels risky for me to talk about it because I'm so appreciative of Jonathan for giving me the gig. and he knows me, knows what I was going to do. He was like, do you think? You know, these are fucking country music fans.

Do you? We'll see if they can take it, you know? His partner was into it. Like, he was like, I know that you're probably worried about cussing. I don't give a fuck, bro. Like, some of the artists were great. It was the cultural experience of, it was like being at Hillbilly Golf in Gatlinburg. Hillbilly golf rules.

I'm not mad at the Germans are having fun. it's just weird when one of the cartoons on the wall does literally look like your neighbor. Yeah, right. It makes you understand the problem the Indians have with the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Redskins and all that. We can talk all day about slurs and whether Redskins are slur or Indians not a slur and it's meant to be honoring them or whatever. No, it's fucking weird to see culture as a cartoon that you're not removed from. and that's what I saw. The Cracker Barrel cosplay party

I've been joking about for years has come home. It boomerangued. We exported it to Brooklyn and they all pretended to dress like our uncles because it was in or whatever. And now it's back. People are pretending to be Nashville

in Nashville. It's a wild experience. A wild experience. Yeah. Let me be the final. butt of any joke. There'll be a little bit of a joke about someone else. But there's a chick that I

recognize from TikTok. A musician on the stage that we can? Okay. Yeah. And if you're just talking about cloud, if you're just saying you've got to respect to winner, you know what I mean? More followers than all of us by a lot. Maybe not you,

but I mean everyone there. The headliners and me. She does what I would call Suboxone rock. Okay. It's rehab music. Yeah. It's weekend custody shit.

Yeah. Okay. I love my kids. God damn it, even though I don't get to see them. And I knew her from TikTok, and she mostly got big by people making fun of her. And then her defenders defending her, and then that puts her in the algorithm. I've had several people send me her videos like, you believe this shit? The only artist there, other than maybe the headliner.

the only artist there. I'm not saying it was great, but I'm talking about that bitch believed every fucking word. Mint it. You know what I'm saying? And there was a part of me that was like, yeah, dude, shame on me. Because, yeah, she is the easiest one to make fun of.

That's because there's something to her. There's something to her to latch on to as a comic. So it's easy to make fun of her. It reminded me when I did those car videos. Those car videos are easy in California because people got wild cars and they don't, rust so there's old shit lying around. You can't do that to 97 of the same looking Ford Corolla out here.

Right. So, yes, I was making fun of her in my head. And no, it's not my kind of music. But she was the only non-Ford Ford Focus there other than Frank Ray. Shout out Frank Ray, the Mexican-American who had me. And he did kill it. Well, that hits. I thought before you were talking about a cartoon on the wall looks like your neighbor or whatever.

as far as radio country, I had this revelation years ago, and I mean, we'd talked about it at the time, but like what I think is the equivalent of that for, and I mean, this is going back to when, for my ear, popular country, like really started to really shift and get much, much worse, in my opinion. It's like the Florida Georgia Lion era and stuff like that. And back then at that time,

what I think would have been the equivalent, of that in like rap music you know or even before that in rap music stuff like you know like the fucking yin-yang twins or whatever that type of thing that it's like you know it ain't kendrick and it ain't fucking tupac or whatever but i always love that shit you know and fucking hated florida georgia line and i was always like and i was like i assume that's because you know like I don't have a personal cultural connection to the yin yang twins are not I don't take the yin yang twins personally

like I don't look at the yin yang twins to be like oh they're making me look bad right carlos miller's way more me than me about his culture i would argue he fucking loves the yin yang twins well see so there's something different about it I guess because that's what I'm saying it's like I couldn't describe you know but I thought I was like, but like Florida Georgia line, like, again, I take it like personally almost because I'm like, this makes me look bad. Let me back up for a second, especially in case Jonathan and or let me just, not, well, I don't want to say just in case Jonathan's listening because he does listen.

Because, no, I want to say this for me too. I ended up like if I broke it down, I would say I like most of the acts or had some like amount of respect for them. It wasn't just that. It was also the crowd. This was a very surreal experience. It was very, very wild to see, all right, that lady that I was just talking about, she has some fans because she's a real artist.

Again, not my cup of tea, but she's up there doing her thing, you know what I mean, boldly or whatever. It was wild to see her like biker dad fans setting beside like weird, rich people in cowboy boots they bought yesterday. it was very strange for me it was strange for people to like because I was on stage and I had a mic it was like oh that dude's part of the show

people would be like oh where we meet before you think you met me because everybody started dressing like how me and you try dress which is weirdly fine good even and awful at the same time does that make sense yeah no I feel like it sounds like I'm saying every band sounded like

of Georgia line. That's not true. Only like two did. And I haven't talked about them yet. And those two were awful. Yeah. Right. And we're put together in a lot. So yeah. So it's more about the crowd and the, uh, the surroundings or whatever than even the musicians that you saw there. And the CMAs in general and just how strange it is. It was just a lot. It was too much for me. It was too much for my fever, tequila. I mean, that story I told you know, my last time on Broadway in Nashville, I was all screaming. Toby Keith was a Democrat and all that shit or whatever. That was like almost 10 years ago.

It was like eight years ago. And the thing that got me so riled up about that was like just standing in the back of the stage or whatever and just like scanning the crowd and looking around and seeing all these people, you know, cosplaying or whatever as fucking my cousin Kenny Ray and that type of shit. Like even back that I got already started back then. And that's what was like, that was like the first time that it ever bothered. me and I haven't been

confront, I haven't been back, I haven't not been back in that type of situation like since then. I've been to like Sturgle shows and shit like that, which is obviously different. It's like, you know, that's the other thing. It's like, obviously, any, Sturgle or Isbler or any of those guys will have,

they will have some fans who get mad at them if they do any kind of like lefty shit or whatever because I haven't been paying attention. But generally, if you go to one of their shows, you know, it ain't going to be that kind of crowd, Because, like, I'm sorry. People, people that have, like, good taste and stuff,

usually it aligns with, you know, not being a closed-minded dip shit about other stuff, too. I feel like it's not universal. There are some closed-minded dips shit who love Sturgel, but, like, you'll have a better experience at a start. And I'm saying Sturgle, because that's how long it's been since I, and I know he's still hit,

and I'm just saying, you know. But you know as well as I do that, like, a pretty annoying liberal person being at a Jason Isible concert, and I don't mean him on stage. I'm kidding. You know that that exists. Yeah. They wouldn't be cosplaying as you while there. Right.

Like, that's part of it, right? And it was just surreal. And okay, I said a minute ago, I'm not really saying this in case John's listening. I'm saying this for me. This I'm saying in case John that is listening. I was super appreciative of being there. I was super appreciative of having the opportunity. I love country music.

And I had fun. the bands are great. I kind of feel bad that I'm like laying it out like, hey, I did this this weekend and it was surreal. Like I should have maybe started with like, I had a good time. But man, it was a mind. But it was a mind fuck. And going back to the Ying Yang thing, maybe the comp is not how do black people feel about

the Ying Yang Twins. And I'm not sure you can ask them if you're wondering people listening at home. But maybe the comp is like, how do black people feel about seeing white people watching the Yingang twins? Right. Like, is it like, they're dancing to the y-yang trends, and then they look over and they're like, ah, this something's off.

Is it, you know, Chappelle like, I think you're laughing at the wrong part of the joke, so I'm going to go to Africa. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's like seeing yourself through someone else's eyes. This is what you think we're like? Yeah, right, yeah, 100%.

Which is kind of what my joke about, Carhart stuff was about. And I guess it's kind of what my joke about Gen Z. young people watching country is about to now that I think about it because I even have a part about Beyonce's country record and how like black people did it on purpose by people put young people on to country music to get them out of their yin gang show not yin gang I don't know who yeah who's the modern reference I don't I have no clue but I was going to say this was a while ago now but when you're talking about that that old thing I had about you know breeding illegal reptiles

I thought of that last week because, and no one was there to appreciate it. I think the car I was in. Corey wasn't even in the car. But we were, you know, we were in a, the place we met every day was in a, like, seemed to me, it was in a, like, becoming gentrified area of Philadelphia, right? And so on our way out every day, you drive through, like, what is still definitely a black neighborhood, which obviously, of course, is fine, everyone. I was at a woke white guy thing.

That's fine. But what super hit was, about halfway through the week on the way out every day, a guy had set up like the equivalent of like a lemonade stand or whatever, but it was a grown black man who was selling, selling what I think were illegal reptiles that he was breeding. Hell yeah, do you? He had like little turtles and like snakes and shit and little terrariums

that he had set up on a folding table on the, the side of the road that he was selling. You didn't buy me a turtle and mail it to me? Well, you can't do that. The turtle will die. You know, you could probably mail a turtle. I don't know if you know what the fate of those turtles was anyway, Trey. It wasn't living in the sewer and growing up to fuck a news reporter. Hang out with a rat.

I'll tell you that. Yeah. But I just, as soon as I saw it, I got all. I was like breeding illegal reptile in my head, but none of these guys know the reference. Did you bring it up on a no, never mind. I'm an idiot. I'm stupid. I was going to say, what's your other podcast?

P-O-A. Because that one is how rich people do exactly what red-ass people do. But in my head, black people do what red-ass people do. But that's a very different podcast. Yeah, it is a different podcast. But it's also around that same time, I had a bit about that too that I used to do. But you remember Ethan? Gorgeous young black comic that opened for us or did a guest spot at

Carolyn, Carolines, so funny. He was like 24 at that time and you were like, Jesus Christ. Well, anyway, I pitched the hands. Yes, dude, I was thinking, wow. I was, for some reason you said Caroline's in my brain heard like good, Charlie Good. I was thinking Charlie Goodnott's in Riley for some reason. And I was like, Matt White. I was like, that was Matt White.

I thought you were mixing the black guys. Three more people discomes with us in 10 years and you're confused. of them and the other one's an old gay man yeah but uh i don't know why i thought carolines was good nights for a second but yeah okay yeah carolins yes which isn't there anymore well i just all i was gonna say is you ever have like a thing and then it gets spit back so i pitched i was like dude we should do a podcast together hood the holler blah blah blah blah blah blah and he was like yeah that sounds like it sucks dude i was like all right thanks gen z i'll see you i'll see myself out cool cool cool yeah but um but yeah back

to that. I wish Corey had been here because I'm curious now how he would play me talking about that whole deal earlier. Because again, it wasn't just Corey. Everybody else there. Corey. That's a bit I'm doing from now on. It wasn't just Corey. Everybody else there had a preexisting relationship with the people that ran this thing too. How did they do that if they weren't woke? No, I don't mean they weren't woke. They all were woke philosophically. I mean, that the stuff that they do the comedy they do and shit is not like political or cultural or right so how'd they meet these people i just doing shit in that scene in new york for a long time i guess

i just want the money if you can't tell much is my angle here like who do i got a call i don't know if they're going to listen to cori about anybody anymore so you i might have oh i know that's that's what i'm trying for out a new angle yeah but um but yeah but they all had pre-existing relationships with these people. So it was kind of a weird thing for them. And Corey, too, because Corey also, and, you know, Corey's like, man, you know, I love them. And he kept saying that and I was like, well, I don't,

I don't know them. So I find this to be, I'm not happy about any of this. But all the other dudes, like also agreed about everything I was saying earlier. Like, we commiserated about it a lot. But they had this added personal element, too, of like, so part of why at the end, it ended with this whole, like,

presentation thing and all week, dude, I was in my head going like, I'm just going to go up there and just fucking read, you know, read them to filth as they say. Like, tell them what I really think. Yeah. And then two, and I pushed out of that for two reasons, one of which I'm kind of fine with, but another one I'm like, I hate myself for. And one of, one of them is that genuinely in the lineup of this, I was second out of six. The only person I went after was the guy who also was one the people that ran the thing. So all five of the other dudes were all after me. And I was like, I don't want, you said earlier about I'm not here.

I'm a host at this, which is different. It was that thing of like, I don't want to just completely fuck this for all these other guys who I do all. I really like all of them and I don't want to be that guy, you know. And so that was part of it. And I don't have any kind of problem with that. The second part of it, though, is that, you know, we were let, again, this is rich, white people shit. And they're like, oh, some of these rich white people, they might, you know, they might want to give you money to do a thing that you want to do.

And so immediately I'm like, oh, I'll shuck and jive for them then. And I'm not not happy with myself about that part, you know, because they were never going to do it anyway. But like, yeah, but I mean, you know, the racists all love me, dude. So clearly I didn't do. Right. You know what I mean? Like that British dude was my buddy even after I called him.

Well, that, it's not the same thing at all because of the part, the personal element for you. Like years ago, I did that hard rock concert or hard rock festival, rock on the range. Oh, yeah, yeah. In Columbus, Ohio, they had a comedy tent there. And I headlined the comedy tent, one of the three nights of the festival. It's a whole weekend festival, like a big deal in Columbus, at least then. I don't know if they still do it. And a newspaper, the Columbus newspaper got the lineup or whatever.

And somebody that wrote there, like, called this, like, wanted to interview me for the paper. And when I talked to them, they were like, do you, like, do you know what you're like getting into with this? you know and I was like I mean I think you know I was like I love that fucking music I was like three days grace is the headliner fucking that rocks I can't wait for that and they were like uh they're like no I we we just mean like you know like politically like this is you know this is this is going to be very why basically what they were saying is this is going to be a super without saying it this is like a super white trash crowd and their politics are probably not going to align with yours we came up doing that I know and that's what I told them that's what I told them on the thing I was I was I was I was I was I was I was like, no, yeah. That's why I'm funny. I was like, and this has people who do what I do who were born in Brooklyn ain't. Right.

And that's what I told him. I was like, yeah, that's fine. And I said, I was like, dude, I came up in like Knoxville and in the South and shit. I was like, I've done that a ton. I was like,

it'll be, I'm white trash. It'll be fine. And I went up there and I was doing that whole big chunk. I had about cop rednecks and cops at the time. And I just leaned on that and also how I'm white trash and my mom's sold pills and all this stuff or whatever. And, you know,

they fucking loved it. And all the other comics afterwards, you know, we're like, well, we didn't know how that was going to go, but like, you fucking, you know what you're doing or whatever.

I was like, yeah. And then you call them slurs under your breath. But with that, it's weird because it's like, I am white trash. So I, a white trash butt rock crowd also is my people,

but it don't have the element of the, the south part like the the country redneck south part was not there but makes it different but i went to railroad with john that's what he wanted to do when he graduated high school john robert john robert was who wanted me to take him to flora bama john robert is who your week wants someone to figure out how to appeal to yeah and the country music industry for the most part has figured out how to appeal to but i'll be honest he didn't he doesn't like a lot of the new stuff you know when I asked him about new stuff. He's like, why at Flores?

Somebody, you know, that's like kind of underground, you know what I mean? My point is at Railbird, which was three years ago, a lot of country acts, it would have been a crowd very different than me, but I would have very, I would have felt that it wasn't surreal. CMA Fest, I'm actually really glad you brought this up. It was surreal. It wasn't that lady, her name's Mary Cutter, I'll say her name. she had fans there those fans would not have rock with me

if I did my full set but I know who they are those are real people it's like I hesitate to say this but it's like I went there expecting some of these artists to be fake and I think a few of them were

but for the most part it was like whatever the crowd was fake yeah the crowd was chasing cloud the crowd was posting right the crowd was hashtaging the crowd was doing PR You see what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, right. The person who had on Hillbilly Blackface, as we have said before, wasn't more than ones on stage. If I wanted a hook, if I wasn't going to write an essay about it, that was it right there. And thank you for getting me there. That's what was fucking me up. It wasn't fake dudes with fake teeth in Lucasey $9,000 cowboy boots.

They were there. I saw one of them on stage. Good looking dude. Good voice. boring. It was everyone in the audience mirroring back to him. Yeah. I think we lost.

Right. Yeah. On that I got to go. Well, it seems to be the takeaway that we both had from our very disparate experiences. Ultimately, it was I think we lost. So that's good.

All right. Well, thanks for listening. We'll get show back next week to see what he thinks. And unless it falls through, we'll have a guest for y'all next week that Drew alluded to earlier. Hell yeah. Nathan Evans Fox.

Evan Spock. Sorry, I was looking at my phone because I also. Who again, as Drew said, a musician, but not the type that would have been at this show, Drew just did. No, he was making fun of me for doing it. He was texting me, how was it going? He was calling me all kinds of names. I will be at Woodcourt Saturday at Bonaroo coming up. 11 a.m. if you're there, come see the show. I don't really know how it's going to go exactly because it's a very crowd-involved show.

There may not be a crowd. And then I think I got some dates, but whatever. I'm going to go. I can't wait to hear about that next week. too. As for me, I'm going to be in Florida this weekend, Gainesville, Orlando, Tampa, Tallahassee, all with the

sweetest boy alive. Donnie Singstack will be with me. And then next week is the Carolinas, Wilmington and Spartanburg, and then San Diego, the end of the month, and then Lowell, the Grove, so you drew Lowell. Love this club in Arkansas

in July, and then a bunch of other places after that, all at Trey Crowder. com. So I guess that's it for now. We'll see you now. Oh, shit. All right. I know.

Don't hit one show. I ain't here, but what are you going to do? Thank you all for listening to the well-read show. We love to stick around longer, but we've got to go. Tune, tune, tune. Tune to next week if you got nothing to do.

Thank you. God bless you. Good night. And skew. Scoo. Whop. Fart. All right.

Bye.