wellRED podcast - "F*** Them Kids": Vagabonds, Covid Christmas and Being Too Old for New Music

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

Today we are flying duo as Cho travels for work. But have no fear Drew and Trae are holding it together talking about their time back in the Volunteer state, whether or not it would hit for Drew to be a hobo (of course he'd love the meals), and the struggle to keep up with new music. Come see us on the road as we will be adding a lot of cities in the next couple of weeks. 

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what's up y'all well here we are mean me and drew drew dollars show is on a plane or soon will be um so just flying what's solo but for two people do Was a flying duo? Flying duo this week. I guess that's how you fly usually, though. Yeah. I don't know. They got just two pilots.

How many pilots I got up there? At least two. There's two. There's the pilot and the co-pilot, right? Yeah. There's no throuple pilots. On recent flights, right, and it happens to be when the pilot's going on the bathroom, which people don't know, that's a whole thing.

I didn't realize that either, but there's a whole process involved when a pilot needs to take a shit or a piss. and it's they got procedures and whatnot probably ever since that one pilot locked himself in the cockpit and killed everybody on the plane and himself I guess but yeah it's frustrating when you also need to pay because they won't let you stand up there they make you get away because you might attack the pilot plus the doors open they take the drink cart and they put it in front of the they block they block the bathroom with the drink card and they post up a flight attendant buy the drink card and all this hilarious because it's a safety precaution.

And I guess an unruly asshole, especially with all the stuff going on with people fighting over masks, I get it. But if you're talking about an actual terrorist and you think a 40-pound drink cart and a 110-pound, you know, Julie is going to stop my man from getting in there with his knife or whatever he's stuck in in his shoe. Yeah, that's take more than one Julie. that's for sure. So, all right, everybody, listen up. Go to well-read comedy.com. You don't see tickets to our upcoming shows. We're still at it. We stay at it.

We got Illinois this weekend, Springfield, and then Chicago, and it will be in Omaha, Indiana, Appleton, Wisconsin. These are not necessarily in order. Knoxville, Portland, Louisville, a bunch of places. So go check it out. Well-raycom. We are coming to your town, and if you don't see it,

we'll get there soon. I don't think you skipped anybody. You might have skipped like one. Okay. Well, yeah, feeling pretty good about it. We'll see y'all out there. Drew, speaking of out there, you drove across the country twice in recent weeks, didn't you?

Like you drove to Tennessee for the holidays, then you drove back to return. Yeah, we left at the end of November sometime. I don't remember exact date. We drove to New Orleans for our show there. And everybody that came out, thank you. That was a great time. and then we just kept trucking on the Tennessee.

I knew we were going to have to be in town for the special. We always, obviously, do Zanis right before Christmas. For those who don't know, we filmed our first 30-minute specials on tape. Great time. Everybody involved was awesome. Everybody who came out was awesome. Thank you. Anyway, I had all that going on.

I was like, screw it, we'll just drive. Plus, it's another thing with the flights. So first of all, the P thing's been happening, me too a lot. It's happened to me four times in the last month and a half or three months maybe and never happened to me before that I remember. I'm almost wondering if something changed where they're like, they like demanded more bathroom breaks. Because if you notice they go back to back now and it's longer. Yeah. I mean, I never noticed this until it affected me, of course. And so I don't know what was going on previously. But yeah, seems like pilots are pissing more out here. Nobody's

talking about it. That's what I'm saying. Maybe they like, you know, had a new contract negotiation and they're like, and another thing, we want more bathroom breaks. Anyway, another thing that's new is it's really hard to fly with your dog. It used to be really easy. All you had to do was basically say, sometimes I feel sad and this dog helps me, and I bought a $30 vest off Amazon, and they were like, okay, good for you. That's not the case anymore because all these assholes abused it with their peacocks and their pigs. Did you hear that, dang? No.

I've also, and it always cracks me up. Although I do also think it's shitty, but it cracks me up. I've seen dogs in airports that have like those vest on or whatever just acting like such a little piece of shit. You know, just like yapping and dragging at the leash and stuff like that and just clearly not being a trained service animal. And I always think that's so funny. But I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised to hear that they're cracking down on that because of, I mean, it's clearly been exploited by people for a long. Do you like before people, can you put them somewhere else?

Under the plant. Right. In like a kennel or something? Is that what people used to do? You put them in a cage, if that's what you mean by a kennel. But I think kennel means, kennel is like a jail. Like, you know, like that's maybe a bad, but like a hotel versus a hotel room. Like a kennel, I think is the hotel, not the hotel room.

Am I wrong? Oh, I don't know. Whatever. The box, the dog box. You put them in a dog box. and put them in like a cargo hold or something. Right. And the people don't want to do that, including me and Andy even more strongly than me,

because it gets really cold in there and like a lot of elder dogs do in fact die on airplanes like underneath. So anyway, but people do that though? Yeah. Or is that just a thing that just went, you know, that went, that went away? like a thing that people realize like oh we should stop doing that because that's fucked up and so nobody does it anymore or people still do it okay because you see it every once in a while well sometimes you got to get a dog somewhere else you got to and you have no choice sometimes yeah and well the thing about the what were they calling them service not service animal what was the word emotional support the emotional support animals I knew even before I ever flew with Mick, that people were abusing it with their little yippy dogs or like the dog that wasn't behaving correctly.

Now, I'm a dog person. I know that I'm biased, but that didn't bother me at all. People abusing it. Then I started abusing it. Of course, it didn't bother me after that. But it's one of those, I think this is another example in America of you can break the rules a little bit and then a bunch of fucking assholes start breaking the rules a lot, either to prove a point or because they're in.

insane because they want to fly with a peacock or whatever it is or just like attention. And then it ruins everyone's good time. Like, you know, like you get a little drunk and drive and you like drive off the road run over somebody's, you know, mailbox. Ah, you know, whatever. Then somebody murders a bunch of kids and it's like, well, now none of us can drive even a little bit drunk. We have to do it.

We have to be, do it the right way. It's just like people go too far. That's probably an extreme example. but people go too far breaking rules. Maybe slightly extreme, yes. But now I'll have a little drunk driving here and there. You know, what are you going to do? I've never been beside a person on a plane who had one of those clearly fake service animal situations going on.

But, I mean, you know, that would very not hit for me if I ever was. I've seen people in airports. Because once they get on the, well, a lot of times those yippy dogs, once they get on the plane, they get real quiet because they're nervous around those people. I know with Mick, we pump him full of CBD and he just sleeps the whole time. Like, I tried to do it the most polite way. I mean, I guess that's what I'm getting at. If you're going to kind of be a dick, try to do it in the nicest way possible.

If the dog just lays there and don't do shit, that's fine. I'm talking about if it's being a little asshole while you're on a plane with it, when it ain't really supposed to be there in the first place. Right. Well, exactly. I compare that to the, to the, uh, peacocks and pigs. It's a different version of the same thing.

These two specific examples you've seen in the news or something like because you keep saying peacocks and pigs specifically. Yeah, peacocks and pigs. Everybody knows. But what you're describing is a lesser version of that, but my point I think applies to that too. Okay, you're kind of breaking the rule here. Pump your dog full of CBD.

It is not expensive. And it's better for the dog. Dogs like CBD and they would be better calm and sleeping on that plane rather than nervous. Again, if you're going to be an asshole, be the best version of that asshole you can be, or you'll ruin it for the rest of us assholes. And they've ruined it, and I can't fly with my dog. So we drove. That was long-winded.

Yeah, but assholes generally don't, you know, think about ruining it for other people, not at the forefront of their concern. They're mostly just like, this is what would hit for me. And so I'm going to do that. I know it. It's a real problem with my people. And I've been trying to talk to them about it, but they don't want to listen to nobody.

That's another issue I've run into. So that's, so that, Mick is the main reason you decided to drive across the country? Well, we had to be there for a long time. Either way, we cut it. Like three weeks was probably the minimum we were going to get away with. And when you look at like fees for boarding him, doing it that way, it just seems ridiculous. How much is it to board a dog?

It depends. The cheapest we've gotten in L.A. is $40 a night. It's going to be close to $1,000 for three weeks. But a lot of people, if they're going to do it over Christmas, now they're going to jack that up fairly. Right. I get that. So it would have been even more than that.

Yeah, we got a... A cat sitter, you know, cats are different. You should get, she just came by the house, you know, just made, because we got an automatic feeder and all that stuff. It's like every three or four days she had to refill the water because the water works the same way. So, you know, and I don't even think she had to refill the food the whole time because the tank that it holds is big as hell.

So it was pretty easy, but I still felt bad the whole time. She, you know. Feat dog the cat. Kitty thought we was all dead forever. ever. And it had no effect on her. She did not care. No, I think she was sad.

She was sad. Wondering where your bodies were. She made her sign. She was real happy when we came back. That's cute. So. All right. So, yeah, we drove.

I drove back, though. I think that's what you wanted me to get into was all the places we stopped. Went to New Orleans. This was pre-Omacron. So that was like, you know, early December. That was a blast. I said we went to National. So went back home.

I know you went back home for the first time in two years. I want to hear about that, but we'll save that for a later segment. We'll just both generally talk about being back home. And then on the way back through, we went to Marfa, Texas, which is this very rural area. It's about an hour off the interstate. I've heard of that, but I don't know why. There's something going on there. So they have a lot of festivals.

So some artists, and I can't remember his name. something Judd moved there because like Lamb was cheap and he liked the landscape, it fit what he did or whatever. And then it kind of became an art center. And then I think it's called Dear Dick

was a show with Kevin Bacon in it that was set there. And it's very beautiful. Yeah, there was an artist, there was a character that Kevin Bacon played whose first name was Dick. And this lady moved there to teach or her husband was a teacher.

and she fell in love with him. Andy watched her at the show. So it has Marfa Agate, which is a stone that is only there, like a precious stone that people make art with. It's very Instagramable because it's beautiful, it's desert, and as the art scene has put more money into it, every hotel there is gorgeous and wild-looking. So it's kind of like Palm Springs with Cowboys.

but also very tiny, very tiny. Like how tiny? How tiny are we talking? It has 2,000 people in it. Oh, yeah, that's pretty tiny. Yeah. And so it's a weird spot. If I'm honest, there was a big part of me that sort of felt like the people on the lake when we were growing up. Like, we're just in the middle of this rural place who does not want us here and is mad that we're here. Oh, yeah, because I guess people are, the tourists be coming through there now, like it's a thing.

Yeah. And that probably, yeah, I mean, I probably don't hit for that. But I don't, I mean, that brings in money and all that shit. But I mean, I know that, yeah, the two, the late people in Salina did not hit for us, Salinians. I mean, I'm sure it hit for the people that had to vote docs and whatnot. But, yeah, it was definitely the thing. We met Coach Buck, and we hit for him. Coach Buck taught there, was trying to get us to move there, was selling us on his school.

I guess they have a hard time finding teachers, so they provide him with housing for $50 a month. He danced with Andy all night. He kept showing her pictures of his kids, but I was watching. He was also showing her old pictures of himself back when he hit. I mean, and he did hit. He was like a world-class rugby player. Big old motherfucker was. So that was a lot of fun.

We played pool, lost money, talk shit, drank, had a good time. All right. Sounds like a good time. Let's, you know what else is a good time, Drew? What's that? You know, taking care of yourself. That's right. So our next, I want to tell you about athletic greens here.

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taste I can't put my finger on it's sort of earth I guess, but in a hidden way. It don't taste like dirt or nothing. It tastes like, I don't know. It's got like a smoothie type feel to it. It's pretty good stuff. What the hell am I even talking about? What is this stuff?

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So Vagabond is it for you? You know, I feel about them like I do most people. You know, generally I give them the benefit of the doubt, but I have a little bit of untrustiness of towards them. You know what I mean? Like any of that? I feel like I can see you being a vagabond is what I'm saying. Well, I married to somebody who like definitely puts them on a pedestal.

And I have learned through, you know, as you're with somebody, you change them, they change you. I've definitely done a lot more vagabonding since being married to Andy. And there's some real positives to it. You know, I used to backpack quite a bit. I was younger. It was different. But, you know, when I lived in South Africa and Australia or wherever, there were definitely times where it was like, all right, I'm going to take off for two weeks, didn't have much of a plan, was definitely sleeping, like I said in the ad on an old shoe, renting the cheapest car. And there's something really romantic about that for sure.

I think it's for young people or retired people with enough money to do it in the nicer beds. but there's something appealing about it to me for sure. We've talked about this off the podcast recently for some reason. I feel like we've had multiple conversations. Because of the Lost Dog Street Band, who I introduced you guys to, and the guy who's a frontman of it was a hobo kind of by choice for a while in his life. And what was that dude's name again? Benjamin Todd.

Todd, yeah. And he does hit. That guy hits. But so, yeah, we've been talking about hobos lately. and but not on the show. Not on the show. So like, there's still,

so there's still train hobos out there. Like, not just, not just any old hobo. Like, people are still riding the rails. That's still going on. Sure.

So if you think about it, it makes sense. Obviously, there are people like Benjamin Todd who, well, he had addiction issues. So homelessness is always a weird thing because there's like a lot of

schizophrenics and it's hard for you to say, they're homeless by choice, even if they did leave a home where their family would have allowed them to. Because it's like, yeah, but how much choice do you have if the voices are, you know what I mean? With an addiction issue, you know, I don't know. I don't know if the person got so addicted that they sold everything and lost their job, or if it was just like their family kicked them out and they couldn't afford rehab. I'm bringing that up because if you think about it, if you find yourself, self homeless and your choices are living in a box or like this old boy down here who uh

build him this he stole somebody's like bamboo fencing and he's got it in the park it's just pretty funny versus train hopper of that a while about we had a bunch of that we i don't i don't even what the hell okay i think i hauled it all somewhere or something he could have had all mine but he might that might be who it was because it did look like the type that somebody would throw away it was getting old you know what i mean yeah but if you think about living on a train and moving is probably somewhat safer. You only have to worry about other hobos. Yeah, but.

And I guess train cops. And then you get to see new places. I was going to ask about that that probably didn't, don't hit for the train people. You can't have trains all eat up with hobos and stuff. No, I mean, there's definitely trained cops. So are there trained cops or it's just like security guards at a rail yard type? Well, there's even trained detectives, though,

which is something I learned about two or three years ago. and I think that's more to do with like, you know, thievery's kind of a big deal when you're transporting a lot of stuff. I think with hobos, though, I think a lot of them do choose it, though. So I was saying on that about homelessness to say that I recognize that a lot of people don't choose this stuff. But I think with hobos specifically, there's a romanticization of the

property. That's what I was going to say is like, I know some of our homeless, whatever, but I'm talking and thinking more about the like Christopher McCandless, I think was his name, the wanderlust, the guy from Into the Wild, that guy, that type of thing. And so I may have said this on the podcast, but if I did, it was a really long time ago. Into the Wild, that movie, which I know was based on the books, based on real life experiences of a real dude. That movie got jerked off so hard, Sean Penn directed it, I think.

It was like Oscar Bait and all that stuff. I watched that movie, and I hated that motherfucker the whole time. He did not hit for me at all. movie starts with him ripping up by like $185,000 check that his rich parents are giving him or something like that. And it's supposed to be like, I don't know, admirable or something.

But like, I was sitting there watching it in college just like as fucking poor white trash. Like, you motherfucker. You know what most people would give to have that opportunity? It's like, no, I'm just going to go be a hobo. I'm just going to go ride to rail. and dying on a bus in Alaska. And it's like, well, that's fine.

But I'm not, I'm not moved by that at all. It didn't, it didn't hit for me. The whole thing didn't have for me. If he, like, donated the money first or did something positive with it first and then took off? I mean, dude, I don't, you know what, I mean, maybe he, I feel like he literally ripped it up. But maybe he did do something. In the movie, I know, I think you're right in the movie. I don't know about real life.

But in the movie, I think he just was like, I don't. want your money. Now, if he don't it, that's fine. I just, I don't know. I understand the woman or lust and romanticize. That's a, that's a subculture that exists is what I'm saying.

Still today, there are people who do white people, I imagine, who do that type of thing. Still, and they go out and they voluntarily hobo around the country. They voluntarily ride the rails. I get the idea of romanticizing

and riding the rails because you're going to get to see a lot. And your nemesis, Riley Fox, used to have a great joke about looking homeless. And then the second part of it was like, hell, I want to be homeless. They ain't got no bills. They got nobody telling them what to do. I think that he was kidding. But I do think that a lot of people look at the vagabond hobo-type lifestyle as freedom.

It's almost like piracy without the rape and having to get scurvy on a boat. How does this tie into like, I know you've had experiences with these people. You go to like certain cities, Pacific Northwest, I feel like ate up with- You've had experiences with these people. You know, the pores? No, that's not what, like,

I have met people that are like begging. They're beggars. They seem to be vagabonds or hobos or homeless or whatever. But they look like the 24-year-old version of me or you or whatever. Like they don't, they're, um, like crusts. They look like they got their shit together. They look like a normal young college student or something,

but they're doing. Like you don't know what I'm talking about. You haven't run in them people. No, I've run into crust punks with, you know, they look a little bit like DJ, but like dirtier and younger. And the crust punk scene is a little like the hobo scene

in that my understanding is it's mostly chosen. And the idea is like you're thwarting, you know, you're rejecting all forms of this bullshit. shit culture kind of thing. And then you end up begging for your food or busking, you know, which is what a lot of hobos do too. I think the crust bunk and hobo world overlap a lot.

I'm not sure about the world you're talking about. Are you just talking about people who just beg because they want to do that instead of work? I don't know, really. I was, I was thinking, I've, I have been in cities and had a person walk up to me that, like, looked like a college student or something. and they start talking to you and it doesn't seem like

it does not seem like a homeless guy hitting you up for change type. They don't feel like that. Yeah. But then it, they turn, they pivot at some point into asking you for, asking you for money or whatever.

They've got some kind of story that they set up that they then ask you. And that's happened to me multiple times and I'm talking about specifically with younger seemingly like what, and I don't know about well-to-do. They don't look homeless, is all I'm saying. I have three theories on that, and they're not separate. They're all together. Number one, I think you grew up poor in a poor community, and people who are poor don't look as poor to you, if that makes sense. Does that

make sense what I'm saying? You're saying these people, they just are poor, and I don't recognize it. But they're not, but they're not that poor probably maybe yet. But also, I think more people are becoming homeless currently with everything that's been going on. I think that's a fact. I think that we're seeing the numbers and people are losing home. So maybe they're newly homeless, so they haven't been on the street that long. And then also homeless outreach is different and changing. So I think that a young person who isn't violent and doesn't have a record can find a shelter to live in can get clothes that are donated. That's another thing. Nobody keeps clothes for very long anymore. So you can get new-ish-looking clothes for cheap, or if you're staying at the Salvation

Army, they'll just give you clothes that are donated. You can get a shower, et cetera, et cetera. So I think that all that's combining to wear, that's what you're observing. You're observing somebody who has better clothes than a homeless person did in the 90s or on TV, who is newly homeless, so they haven't lost their teeth or been in a lot of fights or gotten hepatitis. it's D through F. And you, you know, growing up around white trash, it just, they just look normal. Yeah. And me too.

Yeah. Yeah, maybe. So, but you, y'all, you ain't got no interest in or what's our life? Van life appeals to me a little bit more than, well, then riding trains. Yeah. Well, sure. Right. Yeah, a van is different than a train.

Everybody knows that. But I mean, like, I'm not autistic. Van life is separate from, is that a form of vagabonding? You vagabonding? I don't think so. I don't think so.

If it is at all, I would say that most people in the vagabond world, as much as they would give a fuck to talk to anybody or comment on it, would be like, because van life, I mean, for the most part, it's rich people. for the most part, because what van life has become is a hobby that's expensive to maintain because those vehicles are expensive.

But I have been not necessarily interested, but intrigued by the notion of living in an RV, kind of like what Bobby, our buddy Bobby's doing. Have you seen Bobby's Mercedes van? Yeah. That's van life stuff. So, you know, that's an expensive hobby. Now, you can get on YouTube and find people who've committed to doing it for a year, instead of paying rent. Obviously, that offsets a lot of the cost.

So many people did that during the pandemic, and it's driven the prices of RVs and vans up, that it's now also just expensive to do that for the most part. But van life used to be a bigger subculture, more of a subculture, I should say, where now it's becoming almost mainstream, again, because of Instagram and the pandemic and stuff. But I have been seeing all these articles at the start of the pandemic

where it's like, because the pandemic, people are considering it. And it's like, the pitch or the way the article reads is like, people are considering alternative. I'm like, no, people are desperate. And that's sort of becoming the thing. I never, you know, I've been lucky enough not to ever have to consider it out of desperation. But it does intrigue me to have something you could live in and move around a lot

because, well, like I said, I backpacked through Australia. I backpacked through South Africa. most of my memories associated with that are very positive. You see a lot of the country. You meet interesting people. But you obviously miss out on roots and you miss out on integrating yourself into a community. Now, the last two years here in L.A., there haven't been no goddamn community. Can't go out even to a bar, much less, you know, I don't know, little league games or whatever you would do as a parent.

Like, it's been weird. Yeah, it definitely has been weird. That's true. So I find it appealing. I could see myself doing it, but here's the thing I'll admit about myself. I would need to do it in a way that I can't afford to right now. Like I couldn't do it in a van.

I would want to do it in like a pretty long bus type thing. Yeah. And I would want to be able to stay wherever I wanted to stay, like the best campsite in Yosemite or I need a week off. I'm getting a hotel, you know, something like that. And those, so the campsites, those are expensive too? well with like yosemite it's probably not but it's hard to get you got to book that shit a year or two in advance but with some of the private ones yeah like if you're just because that's the other thing you talk about like toilet and water those things can stack up

what do you meant what toilet and water go on how toilet and water work so let's say you got an RV it's important for me to know so let's say you got an RV and it has hookups for for all that and that's really not a bad way to live but the campsites that will hook that up and have that capability, especially in a place you'd want to be, like outside Austin, they're pretty expensive per night. You know, we're talking 80 bucks.

I mean, a decent hotel is 120. You know what I'm saying? Plus the fucking RVs or even used ones are 20 grand. The nice RVs are 150. How do you find a place to park it every night? You know what I mean? If you're not paying for it, or what do you mean?

Well, I'm saying, like, Like, do you have to have one of it? Everywhere you ever drive your van, you got to have an arrangement, don't you? Well, like in L.A. I mean, I'm sure you could get away with just parking it in certain places, but you're not really going to know that, right? Or you're going to have to figure out where it's okay to park it on any given night, or you're going to have some kind of site or something that you've paid for and that you've planned for in advance. It seems like a lot of like logistics and stuff.

It is definitely a lot of logistics. There are websites that will help you. And then obviously in a city, you can just find street parking and you're allowed to park there for a certain amount of time. But then you don't have the hookups. And then that goes back to the money thing. And what some people do is get gym memberships and then they can shower in a gym. But like, I don't think that lifestyle should be too romanticized. Again, if you have a lot of money, you can work it out.

Or if you just say, I'm not going to save any money. but I'm not going to rent a house and blah, blah, blah. I could see like a young family taking a really nice RV on the road for a year and it being a cool experience for those kids instead of sitting at home during a pandemic. But having to live like that, people who have to live like that, it doesn't seem fun, dude. I mean, you drive through North Hollywood and Burbank and see them parked under bridges and shit. It don't look like they're out there living their hashtag blessed life.

Right, right. Yeah, I don't know. But I admit that it appeals. to me. So any Morgan or Scott County shit go down or anything? I'll preface that by saying I didn't

I don't, nothing really did for me, but I'll still talk about going home in a minute, but what about you? No, I mean, everybody got COVID, but there wasn't anything super spectacular go down related to that or anything else. It was pretty low key. Everybody hung out.

Andy's dad didn't cry when we left this time and that was a relief. Um, everyone's still trying to get us to move home. I don't know if you experience that. Yeah, I mean, no, not really just me, ma'am. I mean, Paige, like my sister, she like, uh, she's got a new baby. And I mean, she's like, you know, she'll say, I wish y'all were around, whatever and stuff like that. And then, but ma'amaw, you know, God.

She's 83 and pitiful. And she's just like, I. I don't know what I'm on do when y'all leave again, you know, and all this. She's already called me since we left, and she's so sad and whatever. And it is a huge bummer, but it's like, even if I, like, even if we did move back to Tennessee, man, I ain't fucking moving to salon. No, it would be nasty. That's just, that ain't, that just ain't happening. And, you know, it makes me feel bad.

Sure, like, I enjoy beating her, but I also feel bad. And also, like, the boys, my sons, they got sick. immediately upon arriving in Tennessee. It was like the third day they were in Tennessee. They got sick. Not COVID. We had them tested for COVID twice. It wasn't COVID. They just had regular child illness,

just a cold or whatever. It's, you know, the weather was fucking schizophrenic in Tennessee over in December. It was weird and wild. It'd be 70 something fucking degrees and then up 40 degrees. It snowed the day we left.

It snowed a shitload. the past few days right after we left. But anyway, and I think they live in California. I think they moved there. The weather's been weird and stuff, and they just like got a cold, you know, but they had it the whole time. I mean, we were there.

We were in Tennessee for like three weeks, too, and the boys were pretty much sick, not like that. I mean, they, you know, it was up and down, but, like, they were pretty much sick the whole time, which impacted a lot of the plans. We didn't really do much, but we never intended to do it. that much anyway. We just like saw people and whatnot, but that put a little bit of a damper on it,

but it was still, you know, nice. But yeah, I mean, people would definitely love it if we moved back for sure. One thing that I noticed, and I don't know if you noticed anything like this, is the context of conversations. It's been so long since I've been there. I forgot how different the context of every conversation is. So it doesn't even have to be political, but just, as an example of something like COVID, my parents and Andy's parents, they're vaccinated. They believe it's real. But living there around people who don't is so normal for them. And it's people they know and love and respect.

So those conversations are very much like people who prefer brownies to ice cream. if that makes any sense, it's like, like they talk about my uncle who refuses to get the vaccine, almost like the way they talk about my uncle who prefers Chevys to Ford's. I'm not sure if I'm explaining it well, but there's no, I mean, it's not charged. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I understand what you're saying, but I also can't really like picture what that actually sounds like. yeah so it's very yeah so it's very much like um like yeah that we've got a COVID explosion at church again and you know some people want your dad to cancel and some people don't I just don't know it's like well do you

think it's dangerous yeah I do think it's dangerous but you know some people just don't think it is and it's almost like okay but you do yeah like And there's like no anger towards those people, which I guess in some ways is healthy for a community. But it was shocking. It was jarring. Yeah. They weren't angry at any of the people who aren't vaccinated. They weren't angry at any of the people who refused to wear masks. That's what I mean is being on the side of we should do this, but having no anger or resentment towards the other people.

Like it ain't their fault. Right. Like what could they have done? I don't know. What you did? Right. Yeah. That's jar.

Yeah, that's weird. We, you know, I just don't, Katie's family, they don't, I don't think politics got brought up in any, even like COVID. We talked about, I mean, the boys were sick. We got them COVID tested, and none of that was weird, you know,

none of that was at all weird or anything. They just don't talk about politics at all. And then, you know, it's a lot of my people, I mean, we didn't really talk about politics. but they're all on the same page as me really so I don't even have to deal with all that. I've got boys and stuff

in Salina who are different but because of and if people weren't sick and all that shit wasn't going down I might have endeavored more to see everybody but Katie that was right when Omicron was it really popping off and the boys were sick

everything and Katie was real I wanted to like invite some people over and stuff like that, you know, but Katie was real apprehensive about that other than like a very small number. So I didn't really see people except those closest to me with whom I don't have any real disagreements for the most part. So I don't even get into none of that shit. Well, it wasn't just politics, though. You know, like I forgot how everybody going to church and I know you don't deal with that either was a given.

Like the kids will be like, why not? Andy and Drew going to church. And they're not old enough to be offended by it. You know, it's just I forgot what it was like to be around people where it was like, what do you are they sick?

You know? So you all don't go to church ever when you go back? Sometimes I will. Like I do genuinely enjoy hearing my dad preach sometimes. Some stuff that's going on in our families that I I freak that I can't get into because I would out somebody

that's apparently not out even though I thought they were made me really realize just how like just being there can be poison for people you know what I mean? The context. Yeah. And that kind of got it, I got it in my head

for one, there was a time very recently where I was like, I'm never fucking going back. But what I've just decided is I'll never go if I don't want to ever again. And I didn't want to this time. Can we talk about that text message you get involves family adjacent people in a gathering? Yeah, I'm trying to remember exactly how that's cool to say. I just, the way I remember it was you showed us a screenshot of a text from somebody in Andy's family.

Yes. Then the text message, it was a big group text to the whole. whole family, like 20 people or whatever, the whole family. And it starts, it's like, hey, all bad news, whoever, papal, O'Dell, got COVID. It's, you know, he tested positive this morning. Dot, dot, dot. Now, we're all still going get together later, obviously. So, you know, y'all just come over. If you're not comfortable, you stay in the yard or whatever, we'll put him on the porch, keep the kids away from him. But, you know, everybody'd be at the house at noon.

That's the perfect example of what I'm talking about. And without making it political, there's obviously political undertones of that. But the whole, if you're not comfortable with it, you can stay in the yard, was not meant to be like a challenge. It wasn't meant to be like, and if you don't want to be here, fuck you. It was like, no thought was going to that. We're in a different world altogether. That's kind of what I'm saying. It's like, I'm swimming in water.

So the person who sent that turns out to be patient zero. Okay. gave it to the papal three days before that told me that while we were having wine in the same room masks off and said it's like it's day five so I'm good now because the CDC just said it was five to seven days now yeah just one and what it was was I realized with that particular person is wanting so bad to like I mean, not necessarily consciously, but what I realized, to own the lips. Like, see, it's not a big deal and we will get together and we won't die. And, you know, no one did die because they were all vaccinated, everybody that was old.

And they immediately went and got monoclonal antibodies, which is like, all right, so you do like science. Right. Just as long as it allows you to be right or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, well, you know what? Let's talk about Lucy for a second. Y'all, y'all know Lucy's been sponsored for a while now. We love them.

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That's important. I like the fruit flavors they got. The gum is good, the lozenges, the pouches. I like it all. My favorite thing about it, as I always say, is the, it's discreet. So, you know, I fly a lot. You get on a plane. You can't vape on a plane. You can't do anything.

You can't get your nicotine on a plane. They tell you you can't have smokeless tobacco either. I don't know. We got like the dip police on a plane there. But you chew a piece of gum. What are they going to say? Nothing, not nothing. A little lozenge in.

It's like, throat hurts. I don't know. It's the best way to get your nicotine in public, which is increasingly, you know, antagonistic towards us nicotine users. So Lucy's out here doing the fake Lord's work for all of us as far as I'm concerned. So if you enjoy using nicotine, you should definitely check out Lucy's products at lucy.c. That's lucy.c-o-l-u-c-y-y-y-o and use the promo code red. That's our ed at checkout.

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I have a question for you, Trey. First of all, let me plug our sister podcast, Bubba shot the podcast, a 90s country podcast. It's full of nostalgia and irreverence. And we also got our good buddy, the Indian outlaw, Tushar Singh, to give us the insider outsider's perspective, meaning an Indian who grew up in Alabama. And it's a great time.

If you like 90s country or if you just like us, you should give it a shot. Bubba shot the podcast. We release new episodes every Friday. Here's what I want to ask you. Obviously, in that podcast and even more so on this one, we have gotten into country music, the state of it, the industry, pop country, what that means,

what real country means, et cetera, et cetera. Do you think we will see, or have we already scene, an industry plant, an industry version of Jason, visible, Sergio Simpson, Margo Price. The alt country scene created its own niche and created its own fan base and created its own world when you and I were in college and right after college. Some of our friends are involved in that. You know, Hayes Carl with the Red Dirt Circuit, V.J. Barham and American Aquarium.

and Sarah Shook and the disarmers. As they've grown, the industry is recognizing that. Now, some of them have become industry. You know, Jason Isbell's a co-owner of 30 Tigers, and I respect the shit out of that. But what we're also starting to see is the industry itself is recognizing the money to be made there and playing better music. You've got to give some credit where credits do.

Are we going to see a fabricated authentic, or have we already? first of all this is kind of weird because when we were talking about bands and stuff earlier i was thinking okay in the final segment after the last a half before we go i'm going to bring up music i'll tell what i was going to say later it's kind of funny it's sort of ironic the question you has given what i was going to say but we'll circle back to that thank yeah i'm i'm surprised that it doesn't already exist i personally have thought that what you are talking about would I've been expecting that to happen for a few years now personally, for Nashville to try to, like, replicate the whole Isbel Sturgele, Margo Price.

Well, one thing I know that. Maybe they have. I don't keep up with Nashville. Like, maybe they've done that and it didn't really work or something. I don't know, but I definitely expect them to attempt it. Yeah. Well, one thing that I know that's happened, and I can tell you later if I haven't told you before who, but a friend of ours has been paid a significant amount of money to add authenticity

to songs of up-and-coming stars. Yeah, right. And so I know in that regard, I mean, all Nashville really cares about what's going to sell. Now, pop country's still outselling the American aquariums of the world. Yeah. But as Isabel Star rises and Sturzel Star rises, et cetera, et cetera, they are going to recognize that, obviously. I'll go ahead and say, and I'll say their name,

and I'll say their name because I think I'm wrong, so I'll admit that I'm wrong. I thought I had pegged one. I thought I had found a industry plant in our midst, and I thought it was Coulter Wall. And I'll tell you the amazing. Why did you think that about him? He's got an amazing voice, and that's his main asset.

His first album was co-written. You can find it in liner notes by a full band that already existed. In my opinion, the next album, the lyrics didn't even come close to being as good. His father is

some kind of senator or whatever the equivalent of is in Canada. So he's very rich. Now, he's a farm boy rich, so he's probably worked. He probably had to work on the farm, but he was probably the boss by the time he was 18, you know, telling grown men how to

steer that cattle or whatever. shows how much I know steer that cattle. He probably steer cattle. I don't know. His first... His first album was imaginary Appalachia. And that's fine.

You don't have to be from Appalachia to name your title, something Appalachia. But he's not, is my point? Like, it had all of the making... Yeah, but imaginary Appalachia, is that not... I would just... He's Canadian, as you mentioned. I hear that title, and I assume

that's supposed to meant, like, I'm sitting up here in Canada. imagining that I'm in Appalachia or I think you're right. I'm channeling Appalachia with this music from Canada or something like that is what I think you're completely right. And I didn't even think it was anything other than that. I just all that to me at that time, I was like,

that feels very crafted. Whereas most singer-songwriters, they just put out their songs. And again, his voice is unbelievable. and I'll never take that away from him. It was just like, so they found this kid who grew up around cattle, so he looks good in the cowboy hat.

He's got this incredible voice, and instead of making him compete in Nashville, where being Canadian is a huge strike against you, which is ironic. You know what I mean? It's the fakes industry in the world, but if you're from Canada, that ain't authentic enough or whatever.

Maybe they did this. I don't think they did. I think I'm completely wrong about it. him, which is why I felt comfortable saying his name. If you ever hear this Coulter, I'm sorry. Frankly, I thought you were too good to be true. So take that, you know, for what it's worth.

Well, I Google Coulterwall, and one of the first results is from saving country music from a year ago and the headline just says, I haven't read the whole thing. Headline says, Colter Wall passed on Joe Rogan because he was working on his ranch. So,

I don't know what that. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's literally his ranch that his daddy has owned forever. But there's nothing you know, look, just because you're rich don't mean you can't make good art. It was also the fact that his first album was co-written by people who've been around for a while,

which is a very common thing the industry does. But I think that was just, you know, some people that liked working with him and vice versa and it just so happens to blow up. You know what I mean? Yeah. So what I was going to bring up about music is I was

going to say, like, Like, I was going to, I mean, I know you still be, I mentioned this in the green room recently. I don't, I'm so surprised by this more than almost anything else about my personal aging process. But I just like, I just don't listen to music the way that I used to. The music I do listen to is the stuff that I already know that hits for me. Like I, like I think about my, my dad, actually my dad. Actually, my dad was pretty good about my, when I was a kid, my dad, like, he loved third eye blind and R&M and stuff like that. So actually, really, my dad wasn't like that at all.

But I feel like a lot of dads, you know, they just listened to what their shit was when they were younger. And I never, ever would have thought that I would be like that. But I'm only in my mid-30s now. And I don't know if it's a phase I'm going through or what. But, like, I only really ever, I used to, like, seek out new music and try to keep my finger on the, pulse of the genres I liked and stuff and was pretty good about it. And I cared about that stuff. And that's just all gone. And I don't know when or how exactly it happened, but I just ain't got that anymore. I don't know why. A bit that I started probably eight years ago that I wasn't ready to

do, or maybe there wasn't enough there. I've been wanting to circle back to it. It's funny you bring it up, like, I thought about this like two months ago. This is the smell of the leftover tuna fish sandwich you left in your lunchbox over the weekend in a wimpy trash bag. Whippy, wimpy, wimpy! And this is the smell of that same sandwich in a hefty ultra-strong trash bag. Hefty, hefty, hefty! Smell the difference? Hefty ultra-strong has arm and hammer with continuous odor control, so no matter what's

inside your trash. You can stay one step ahead of stinky. And for bigger jobs, try the superior strength of hefty large black bags. it was about how like that is your right of passage as a like that's one of the things I think arguably that hits about being an old person is being able to hate all the things the young people are doing like fuck these kids is you're right right and obviously you're going to be missing out on something and that's what you sound like to the 18 year old is like someone who's afraid of change and I get that and there's probably some truth to that for most people But I think for a lot of people, it's just like, I'm tired. Like, I don't know. I think you're better about this than me. I remember we've talked about this before.

I got to listen to a song about four or five times before I know. No, I'm like that, too. I have to, like, if I sit down and listen to somebody's album, I can't listen to it just once and tell you what I really think about it. I have to listen. And, like, and yeah, that's the thing. That's what I have to, like, make a commitment to sit and to do that, you know, and that's part of it for me, I think.

That sucks. Yeah. And then also I think as we age things that we know just are comforting. I think there's some science behind that. I'm not super sure what it is, but it's like when the brain starts, stops developing, then you plateau for a little while and then it deteriorates. Some time in the middle of that, you just really, really, really seek out comfort in things you recognize. But that's like a mushy thing in my head that I've read, but I can't pinpoint where I got.

But you be knowing about. new stuff still. Sometimes, like, what do you mean? Like, I think I do in the American country. I don't know. Every time, every time, every now that Mark, I don't know, you and Mark will be talking about some, it's usually some rap shit or something. And I'm like, I ain't got a fucking clue who they're talking about. It's funny you say that, man, because this happened over the break.

It's so funny you brought this up. I thought so, too. And who was it that I was talking about with my nephew? It wasn't Mac Miller. It might have been Isaiah Rashad. I don't think it was. It was somebody that I consider a young rapper. And my nephew said,

that guy, that guy is lame. He hasn't had a good record in years. And I went and looked up. He's only had three records. But if you're 14 and the first one came out when you were 10, that's old as hell to you. So, yeah, I might be a little bit more up on it than you. But I don't think in hip hop I'm even close to actually being up on it.

like Mac Miller is dead and I consider him a new rapper which is hilarious well so like I heard I heard the rapper prof on a podcast oh I love proff and he hit I know well so I'm saying I never had no idea who he was I heard he just happened to be on a podcast I listened to he hit for me on the podcast so I was like I'll check his shit out and it and it hit for me and then I put it in the group chat and you're like yeah proff fucking rules and you started talking about you already have been knowing about pro you already have been knowing about pro But there's a reason for that with Proff, and you might try this if you have any desire to not become the old boring cremugent, which is I keep up with Americana country like the stuff we're into. If somebody's opening for BJ in American Aquarium, I'm going to check them out.

If somebody's on the same label as Sarah and I ain't heard of them, I'm going to check them out because I think I'll like it. With Proff, Proff used to be on Rhym's. He got kicked off because a guy in his entourage got accused of some really gnarly shit, and then he defended him, and Atmospheric Sluggo kicked him off Rhym Sayers. But Rhym Sayers, entertainment, I keep up with. That is a rap crew that everybody they sign, I have liked, except for maybe one person. That's where Prof, Sluggo, Ideon Abilities, what's the Albano guy, Uncle Sam, Goddame, I don't know. There's an albino rapper.

Yeah, you'd know him. When I say his name, you'll be like, oh, shit. You're not talking about logic, are you? No. Logic's mixed. He's not albino. I know. I know he's not. But I thought, for a second, I thought you thought logic was albino. But I know he's mixed. He's very light-skinned mixed. I was like, there's true. Like logic is albino? Logic loves sluggo, though, for the record, who's the front man of atmosphere.

Well, it was you were also saying, like, No, you know this guy. You for sure know this guy. And I was like, I don't know many rappers. Logic is huge. Brother Ali. Okay. Yeah, I don't know.

You don't know Brother Ali? I don't know nothing. Now, this guy's old, though. Brother Ali's from the 2000s, mostly. He went on sway in the morning in, like, 2012. My turlet just started making a funny noise. It's been acting weird lately, the guest house turlet. Also, we're at an hour, so I'll check Brother Ali out, but let's go, I guess.

All right. All right. I'm going to end this broadcast. See y'all later. Thank you all for listening to The Well Red Show. We don't worry about it. We got to go. There we go. And the next week, if you've got nothing to do. Thank you, God bless you good, not asking. All right.