Transcript
Speaker: Hello Sam. Hi Jeffrey. Welcome to the Jeff and Sam show. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. Hello Samantha.
Speaker: to the jeff and sam show i'm jeff and i'm sam hello samantha Hi, Jeff. I feel like we've been here forever. We have not been here in a while.
Speaker: Yeah. When was the last time? Like the beginning of June? ah Like the 13th of June or something like that. Did we record that close to London? Probably. I don't know. I don't remember. I have no such memory.
Speaker: I do not recall. I do not recall. That's a good answer. Always. Always. Let's pop our drinks. Let's do it. I'm gonna have myself a slice apple. I was in the apple mood since we got back from Norway. I love slice. I was in the apple mood. What are you having?
Speaker: I am having, because I'm coming from work, a high noon tall boy peach flavor. She's actually going to work. No, I'm just kidding. No, just kidding. Just kidding. Oh, Lord.
Speaker: So what's new? What's going on? How's it going? First of all, cheers, queers. Cheers, queers. Oh, how dare we almost forget that. You would think we wouldn't do that by now. Right? No, it's impossible.
Speaker: Indeed. Yeah. But we saved it. You saved it. Nah, we are one brain. We are one brain with one crown. Okay. Is that a crown or a tiara? I don't know, it's so heavy. Okay, Sam bought a crown for me to wear in Norway and a pink cape.
Speaker: Like a royal cape with a big high collar and everything. tear Tiara, maybe it's a tiara. I don't know the exact difference, but this is heavy. it's It is, listen, I couldn't skimp for your 50th. Well, when you know whenever I let anybody hold this, they were always like, oh shit, it's very heavy.
Speaker: Yeah, true. True, drew true, true. All right, um what's, what I mean, so here's the thing, right? We are going to have to probably dedicate an entire episode to our trip, right? Because, so, in just a brief statement, hey, hi, we're back from Norway. um And you will hear more about it in short, short time, but not today. We'll leave you on the end of your seat. Just a bunch of thespians doing our thing.
Speaker: Those fucking thespians. Thespians. Thespians, thespians. What did you describe? Okay, let me just tell you. This was the funniest shit in the world. And I will tell you this because nobody else is listening. It's just you and me. Indeed. Okay, so Hannah, who speaks excellent English, she looked at me and said, i don't know why she was thinking. Because she was reading my horror movie rules.
Speaker: And does that include the word thespian? it it Yeah, it says if you're a thespian, you're definitely going to die because, duh. So she looked at me and she said, jeff what's a thespian? And with no you know hesitation, hesitation i said, it's though those are the crazy religious people.
Speaker: And I said it just like absolute. Yeah. It is not a crazy religious person. A thespian is a Shakespeare actor. Actor. Actor. Yeah.
Speaker: Actors. Just, you know, I said it with confidence. That's all that matters. And honestly, you do that so well that it it really frequently, I would say 99 out of 100 times, makes me pause. And like things that I know for a fact, you will make me question myself. She said, what's thespian? I said, a crazy religious person. Like, where did I get that from? i do not know. Theology? Maybe you thought that? Yeah, yeah, maybe. don't know. That's the only thing I got for you. I can't. We laughed so hard when you were like, no, it's a Shakespeare actor. you know, it's a theater actor. Like a theater, yeah. Yeah, we laughed so hard about that because I just didn't have it any other way in my mind. Well, and she didn't question it because why would she? I'm the one that speaks English. Exactly.
Speaker: guy I've got news. My English is not the best. Okay. Okay. Well, you back it up with other languages. the Norwegians have better English than I do. Honestly. Don't you love, they would say, I'm so sorry, my English is not so good. And you're like, what's not so good about it?
Speaker: They're speaking flawless English. Yeah. The whole time. There was never a moment where I was like, I don't understand. It was easy, easy. ah ye But ah besides that, what else is new? What's up? What's going on?
Speaker: um I did read a book called The Silent Patient. Finally. What did you think? So good. Yeah? Oh, my God. And that's going to be a movie. I think it is a movie already. Is it really?
Speaker: I think so. oh Claire said it was coming out. Maybe it's coming out. Like next year. oh I don't, listen, my timeline is so like messed up. It was a good book. Honestly, it was like um psychological thriller. Something happens at the beginning. you have to like go through it all to find out why that happened.
Speaker: You know, much like that show that I watched on the plane on the way back, The Perfect Couple. Oh, that was good. Nicole Kidman. Oh. So good. So good.
Speaker: And, like, yes, just as we discussed, like um We Were Liars, you kind of there's, like, a part of you that hates them because they're just ick, rich people. But I think this movie or this show...
Speaker: had a little bit more realness to the humans. Oh, yeah, absolutely. It showed more flaws. um But yeah, you liked them. But they were just a bunch of disgusting people. that I mean, but you liked them a little bit more, of them.
Speaker: and it's hard, too, because, like, Nicole Kidman, Liv Schreiber, like, you can't yeah not just love Oh, I love them. Yeah, so... Yeah, that was good. But Silent Patient was so good. And it's a quick read. It is. yeah It is. i You've read it? I read it years ago. I really loved it. And then there was another one I'm trying to think of that I will have to tell you about later because I can't pull it right now.
Speaker: Pull it out of there. Come on. You can do it.
Speaker: Behind Her Eyes. love Love it. love Look, there's a British show. That's a show, right? oh it was Like a BritBox? No, I think it's a book. Well, no, I read the book. I watched the show.
Speaker: Because it's... Behind Her Eyes, is it by Harlan Coben? No. Oh. Sarah Pineborough. Is it on like Netflix? Let's see.
Speaker: Because I watched a show that was a similar title on Netflix and it was so damn good. Or Amazon or BritBox or something. Behind Her Eyes on Netflix. Let's see if it's based... Yeah, it's based off the... That's probably one of the better British shows.
Speaker: That's a very bold statement for Jeffrey. I mean, well, we're excluding The Fall and Happy Valley because still to this day, yeah there is no better British TV, in my opinion, than The Fall and Happy Valley. And if you are still listening to this and you have never seen those shows, I'm kind of envious that you get to like start them at the beginning. and experience all the feels. My God.
Speaker: Sarah Lancashire and... Happy Valley, strong ass woman, strong woman. She's incredible. And Julian Anderson in The Fall. I mean, fuck.
Speaker: And what's his name? Gray, the guy that, Dorian Gray? The hottie guy? The beautiful, beautiful man that I don't really care what name is. I think played in the Fifty Shades of Gray, I think. Yeah, he did. It's his name.
Speaker: oh My brain. Listen, I pulled behind her eyes. That's all I got that's all i got for today. Um, oh, it's going to come to me at some point. You just shout it out when you got it. Okay.
Speaker: Shout it out. Oh, what's new with you? What's going on? Oh man. Well, okay. Um, again, you know, I feel as though I can talk for six hours about this world cup.
Speaker: Um, but in brief summary, just holy fucking shites. Like, History is being made damn near every day.
Speaker: Records are being broken, personal records are being extended. It's just been it's been unbelievable. Like World Cup always brings some like crazy, whoa surprises and all that kind of stuff, but this one has really been something.
Speaker: Who's your pick to win?
Speaker: Yeah. Portugal. Oh. If they can beat Spain, if not Portugal, because they lose to Spain, then
Speaker: I don't know. You know what? No, my correct answer should be the USA, right? That's what it should be. Yeah. I mean, well, no, we're saying who do you think will win? I don't know. The teams that are competing now in the round of 16,
Speaker: They are all very, very well matched. and And the matches have been really great.
Speaker: And so somebody might come out of the woodwork and surprise you. um i i have a lot of feels about Croatia being knocked out. um I don't know if you know this, but I can already tell you I don't. want There's... um In the balls that are used for this World Cup, they have like a microchip processor thing inserted in the ball that is a that serves as a sensor. So this World Cup has been really, really high tech. That's incredible. um So like they have... it But it is it's incredible, but it is also... There's a lot of controversy because...
Speaker: um
Speaker: the The video slow-mo, like all of these high-tech cameras that they have are supposed to provide like undeniable, yes, this happened, no, this didn't happen, yes, this was a foul, this is so-and-so, so-and-so touched it, this is whatever. And for a lot of things, it's very good.
Speaker: But also, as USA well knows, It is not infallible. So the USA red card on ah Flo Belligan the other day, when you look at it in a normal at normal speed, you have two grown-ass men who are nothing but muscle, both simple physics. They are both in a trajectory to go towards a ball.
Speaker: When you have that much weight and that much mass moving in a direction, completely stopping forward momentum or redirecting it is hard when you're running full tilt, right?
Speaker: So full full speed visual shows that Balgen was just, he was moving and he was already leg up and couldn't stop from putting that leg down because where was he gonna put it?
Speaker: can't just hang out in the air. When you slow it down, it looks as though he is raking his cleated foot down the calf of the other player. yeah Which everyone who has ever played soccer knows,
Speaker: It happens all the fucking time. As evidenced by all of the the freeze frames that are out there that are showing that it happens all the fucking time. So in slow-mo, they called it a red card, which...
Speaker: Fucked us because he was out for like 30 plus minutes of that last game, which was hard fucking fought to begin with. And then we had to play man down the entire rest of the game.
Speaker: And he's out for the game on Monday night. And he is a vital piece of our puzzle. So it's going to be rough. Whose puzzle is he a piece of? USA. Oh, okay. Yeah. um But then also the Croatia game, that super high tech fancy sensor that is supposed to be like...
Speaker: a benefit to to make things more realist er to make things more clear, it's so incredibly sensitive that they're playing in this game and it is neck and neck and they are fucking fighting hard.
Speaker: A hair, a hair on someone's head touched the ball as it was in motion.
Speaker: They didn't head the ball. They didn't intentionally make a move towards it. They didn't do it. They just, the hair, as the ball was arcing, grazed his hair. And that registered as a sensor that it was hit.
Speaker: And so that ended negatively in terms of possession. Yeah, and just such a, there are so many tragic things that are happening, but there are so many magical things that are happening. And again, I could talk forever, but yay sports.
Speaker: Yay sports. I did have fun watching the game in Norway. I did. It was Norway versus France. It was not a good game. But their second string was in. I do know.
Speaker: I did learn their second string was in, so that game technically didn't matter. but but and they were and And that's the thing, right, is they were resting their first line because... the The positions, they already knew that they were ah proceeding to the round of 32. So they didn't have to like blow out their mainline guys because they wanted to conserve that.
Speaker: And even still, even though they lost the game, they held them. you know it wasn't It wasn't a total blowout. It wasn't like France whooped our ass It's fine. Go Norway. Yeah.
Speaker: that's fine go norway He i even had flags painted on his face. It was amazing. like That was a lot for me. No, no, in a good way. Oh, good. Like in a really good way. I enjoyed the company too. And honestly, like the fun thing for me watching that game was not actually watching the game. Although it's easy to understand. um But it was like watching you guys. yeah That was such a good, that was fun.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. You know, it it never fails. No matter how many times I tell myself whatever game I'm watching or whatever I'm watching, I always tell myself, like, hey, it's fun. You don't have to get emotionally invested in this. Like, neither of those is even my team, right?
Speaker: But you you do. You end up getting, like, one team will always pull ahead in your your heart and your mind.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Just can't help myself from getting just into it. Yeah, you were definitely into it. Yeah. Definitely into it. Such a cool, such an awesome fucking chance to be in Norway yeah when they played their first, second, and third games in the World Cup for the first time in 28 years. And I think about the bartender in Stavanger that said he was 27 years old, so his whole life he had never seen the Norwegian team in the World Cup.
Speaker: his Because he's 27 and they haven't been in it for 28 years. So he was kind of excited about that, right? How cool. such a How cool is that? Good for them. Unbelievable. Yeah. um But that's it. I mean. Should we do our thing?
Speaker: Yeah, let's do the thing. Let's do the thing. Oh, hey, you know what? Here we are. We're doing two stories today. We're back to time. The first time in so long. Yeah, it's back to a little bit of normal show kind of stuff for you today. We're going to flip a coin. We got two new coins. One's from Japan and one is from Budapest, Hungary.
Speaker: Which one are we doing? Let's do the Hungary one was ah there first. So let's do it. Okay. All right. We have a I think that's a stork. I'm not i' not a very good ornithologist.
Speaker: And then a five. You want to be the stork? I to be the stork. I haven't flipped a coin in a long time, Jeff. Watch your head. I'm scared now. It's a very small one. It is a very small Yeah.
Speaker: But that makes it harder.
Speaker: It a five. You go first. Okay. Let's fucking do this. Do this. Tell me a story. Okay. okay
Speaker: Everybody loves a good tale of the Roman Empire, right? Yeah, you like them. okay Gladiators, heroes, sleazy. I loved Spartacus, does that count? um Why did you love Spartacus? Well, you know, it was very ah a bunch of thespians.
Speaker: bunch of thespians. On that note, sleazy politicians, honor, victory, and a whole fuckton of betrayal, okay right? Okay, yeah.
Speaker: The Roman reach was extensive. At its height, it stretched from Britain's Atlantic coast east to Mesopotamia and then south into northern Africa, which we know because, you know, the whole Cleopatra thing, right? We were in Egypt, they told us about it.
Speaker: Emperors, dictators, triumbrates came and went. What began as a republic devolved into a rather brief dictatorship. And then after that tiny little dramatic association assassination of Julius Caesar, In 44 BCE, there was a brief return to the Republic until another civil war and the first emperor took power.
Speaker: From 27 BCE until the complete downfall, which kind of was a slow roll, it wasn't just like a one day the empire falls, right? In 476 CE, there were ups and downs as some only five out of the many emperors, good rulers, led fairly and saw the empire prosper while the rest festered under corruption and greed.
Speaker: In 41 CE, Tiberius Claudius Drusus, the names, man. Tiberius, know that name. Well, that's the name of one of the hawks that surrounds the Morton house.
Speaker: He's a badass. He was made emperor suddenly and unexpectedly. He was described as an unlikely ruler because of his, quote, ill health, unattractive appearance, clumsiness of manner, and coarseness of taste, which I don't know what that refers to. Like, coarseness coarness of taste sounds like a backhanded way of saying, like, you're Trash?
Speaker: What's that word?
Speaker: What did they used to um call gay people? What's that? What they call serial killers and all that kind of stuff. What's that word? I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, well, there's a word. So I don't know if it was that or if it was just like his literal taste, right? Yeah, yeah. Coarseness of taste. um Though he was son to Roman general Nero Claudius Drusus and nephew to emperor Tiberius, he was a scholar and a writer who had previously kept mostly to his own studies and amusement because his family was like, yo, you're fucked up in the face and everything else. Let's not put you in the public life.
Speaker: When the ruling emperor at the time, his older brother's son, Gaius, also called Caligula, was murdered, he became emperor the next day.
Speaker: He was considered, oh no, no, there it goes. Hold please.
Speaker: He was considered a key factor in stabilizing Rome after the violent, bloody, and chaotic reign of Caligula. Claudius proved to be an efficient and transformative ruler, but not without struggles.
Speaker: his
Speaker: Placement as the emperor and his previous lack of social appearance and that kind of thing kind of left him at a disadvantage. So his desire to gain popularity led him to be more aggressive with military tactics than maybe necessary.
Speaker: Instead of pandering to the senators who thought he was weak and vulnerable, he found favor with soldiers and gained their loyalty through financial rewards for service. Which again, knowing stories of the Roman Empire, the the soldiers and the military, that was a very key aspect to being a ruler then.
Speaker: Part of his military conquests gained him and Rome significant territories. In 43 CE, the empire began their expansion into and conquest of Britain.
Speaker: Although Rome's initial forays into Britain had started many years earlier, as far back 55 54 Julius Caesar,
Speaker: julius caesar That time, the contact was not intended as conquest, but like expeditions. During that time, diplomatic and trade connections were established with the Southern British tribes.
Speaker: And in the decades after, influence grew in the form of alliances, trade, and quote, client kings. With the exile of British King Verica, Claudius took advantage of the opportunity to invade and conquer more thoroughly.
Speaker: The invasion was brutal and effective. and slow. By 47 CE, the Romans had washed across the south, defeated the Britons, and controlled all of southern Britain.
Speaker: Their control brought some positive things to the British Isles that forever changed them. Their influence could be seen in politics and law, advancements in infrastructure and architecture, roads, bathhouses, aqueducts, and culture.
Speaker: Some tribes benefited greatly from the Roman influence, and the elites prospered. However, the majority of the indigenous people suffered. Taxes left them impoverished, slavery skyrocketed, and traditional customs and lands were swept away. Resistance in this region was led by Chieftain Karatekas, but he was defeated in 50 CE.
Speaker: Years before the conquests into Britain, a girl was born in approximately, maybe, they think, 30 CE in Celtic, and I'm going to butcher these names, all right? Just like do what I do. Just go for it. Just fuck it. Camulodinum. Love it.
Speaker: Which is now Colchester. She was born into an elite family. Because of the era and the lack of records available, there is little known about her childhood. The only historical documentation available about her is from Roman scholars.
Speaker: Amanda, they have a lot to say. At the age of 18, she married Prasudagus, the king of the Iseni tribe, which is an area that now consists of modern-day Norfolk and East Anglia.
Speaker: With this marriage, she became Queen Boudicca. The Iseni people were fiercely independent, well-organized, and sophisticated with a complex hierarchical structure.
Speaker: Their economy was primarily agrarian, but they did ah partake in trading with neighboring tribes and then kind of more progressively with the Roman Empire. As was the case with most of the Celtic tribes of that region, they had rich spiritual culture and traditions.
Speaker: There existed sacred groves and natural water resources that served as a center for their spiritual practices. So land mattered. After the Roman conquering of southern England, most of the Celtic tribes were forced to submit to their rule, lost everything. Some tribes, like the Essenes, were able to keep their rulers in power as forced allies of the empire.
Speaker: Prasutagus remained king as a kind of puppet almost for Rome. There was increasing pressure on the Iceni and other tribes to smother their, quote, pagan practices and change their cultural beliefs to better reflect Roman ideals.
Speaker: This caused worsening tension and animosity between tribes and the empire. At the time of his death in 60 CE, Prasutagus had no male heir to inherit the throne.
Speaker: In the Iseni tribe, this would not have historically been an issue. Boudicca would have taken over as the ruler of her people. The king ah had actually, ah much ahead of his time, crafted a will to protect his people.
Speaker: In it, he naively named his supposed ally, Emperor Nero as co-heir to assist with anything like battles or anything like that if necessary. So he was hopeful. He was like, this is me protecting my wife and daughters.
Speaker: Unfortunately, the Romans refused to acknowledge Boudicca's right to rule because she was a woman. They considered Prasuticus's will an act of submission. They basically read it as, look at him, he's turning over all everything to us. yeah So the empire seized control of all of the tribal lands and took everything away from them. a dash Additionally, the Roman soldiers took it upon themselves to publicly flog and torture Boudicca and then rape her daughters.
Speaker: The Roman financier increased economic strain on the Iseni and surrounding tribes as well. More taxes, more taxes, more taxes, calling in loans, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: As was the norm for Celtic women in that time period, Boudicca was not just a queen. She was not just an elite raised woman. She had been raised and trained as a warrior, even though she was born elite.
Speaker: Wow. Upon her removal from power and the seizure of her lands, a provincial governor, Gaius Suetonius Polinus, was appointed. There you go. With with conviction. Yeah.
Speaker: Tensions flared. The outright humiliation, disrespect, and exploitation by the Romans of the tribes and of their ruler... who was widely respected, sparked significant indignation and hatred. Roman scholar Tacitus recorded a promise of vengeance that Boudicca claimed after witnessing her daughter's humiliation.
Speaker: In it, she said, quote, nothing is safe from Roman pride and arrogance. They will deface the sacred and will deflower our virgins, win the battle or perish. That is what I, a woman, will do.
Speaker: And so she did. Paulinus left to lead a military campaign against the Druids in Anglisi, which is Wales. Boudicca took advantage. She timed her strike perfectly.
Speaker: She led a rebellion of Iseni tribe and others who felt resentment towards the Roman Empire. Because of her personal experiences and shame that everyone knew about with the Romans and her placement as queen, she was perfectly positioned to rally like-minded peoples against the invaders.
Speaker: She amassed an army that would turn out to be responsible for one of the most severe challenges to Roman rule in Britain. Despite being from differing tribes with various cultural and social differences, their hatred for Roman oppression fueled them and allowed a unity to grow.
Speaker: They had many successes, and each success increased their dedication and strength. The resistance became amplified. Their first attack was strategic. They targeted the Roman-founded colony of
Speaker: Camulodinum, Colchester, that had previously belonged to Trinaventus tribe, but now represented Roman domination. The surprise attack raised the city to the ground and annihilated its inhabitants.
Speaker: Next, the resistance focused on Londinium, which is London, hu that stood as a thriving commercial center with a rapidly expanding population. However, just like with...
Speaker: Camulotum. Camulotum. this I've been trying to say these words. I mean, to me, it sounds perfect. But like for days. Yeah. And every time I look at it, I'm like, it's... Camulotum. The city did not have strong fortifications or defenses.
Speaker: As the British rebels reached the city, Governor Polinus returned from his campaign in Wales. He saw the overwhelming numbers of the rebels and acknowledged that the city was indefensible. So he abandoned the city.
Speaker: Londinium burned to the ground and the inhabitants were massacred. The third target against strategic was
Speaker: Verulamium. there you love me um There you lemme em. Sounds good. Lemme me, lemme me, I don't know. St. Albans.
Speaker: That was another prosperous settlement. Again, her forces prevailed. They raided the city, took what they wanted, and then left the city in ashes, and its inhabitants dead. She's on a mission. She is. She's on a mission. Yeah, right?
Speaker: um The empire was in shock. The Ninth Legion was had been destroyed, and symbolic cities had been decimated.
Speaker: Unfortunately, Boudicca's victory was not complete. After abandoning Londinium, Polinus rallied his army and met with Boudicca's rebellion. He had carefully planned a response to her increasingly increasing and seemingly unstoppable tide of re rebellion.
Speaker: Knowing that he could not muster a large enough group of soldiers, he managed to choose a narrow gorge with a forest at the back, In a final and decisive, brutal and bloody confrontation known as the Battle of Watling Street, the two armies clashed.
Speaker: Although Boudicca's army was significantly larger, the Roman army was well organized and experienced. They fought with a cohesiveness, discipline, and strategy that were far superior. Boudicca's numbers could not serve as an advantage on the battlefield that Polonists had chosen. The Britain rebels fell, and the Boudiccan revolt was ended.
Speaker: Before Boudicca and her daughters could be captured and suffer the Roman punishments or embarrassments that they were absolutely destined for, they each ingested poison to end their lives. Her final act of rebellion was to take away their chance to cause her additional shame.
Speaker: Her overall campaign, though brief, resulted in the massacre of approximate approximately 70,000 and pro-Roman Britons, destroyed strongholds and symbolic cities. Her efforts caused such significant concern for the empire that Emperor Nero could not ignore it.
Speaker: The mighty Romans learned the severity of consequences from mistreating or disregarding indigenous populations. Polonist retained his position as governor very briefly, but his harsh and violent handling of the aftermath of the rebellion led to his replacement and recall from Britain.
Speaker: His replacement was...
Speaker: Publius. Oh. Petronius. Okay. Turpolinus. Really? That was his name? Deadass. Mom. I mean, come the fuck on. The us's. The alien is. Publius Petronius.
Speaker: Turpolinus. leonu He approached the Britons with a more conciliatory manner that caused a shift and began a relatively peaceful period in Roman Britain.
Speaker: The Roman administration learned valuable lessons and adjusted their policies and handling of locals, and they rebuilt the sacrament sacred that thought the sacked settlements with better city planning and fortifications.
Speaker: The governing changes included more respect for local customs, reduction in taxes, and attempts at cultural assimilation with a gradual introduction of Roman culture, instead of an utter subjugation.
Speaker: Today, Queen Boudicca is considered a national heroine and symbol of resistance against oppression and the embodiment of struggle for justice and independence. Her statue stands outside of, whatchamacallit, in London.
Speaker: It's her and her daughters and she's riding horse. Did we We did. Yeah. It faces Big Ben and it's like a big, big thing. I know exactly you're talking about. Yeah, it's such a glorious statue. Yeah.
Speaker: And that's the story of Queen Boudicca of Britain. ah Who knew? I didn't. And congratulations, Ju, on picking the story with the hardest names. but oh That was a lot, that was good. Good job. I don't know, does that rival the Norwegian...
Speaker: the old story, all the the words? ah I couldn't even begin to pronounce some of those. So, Rebenasoya, I remember that word. You did well. You know, not not to in a Norwegian. Convincing.
Speaker: But to some, they enjoyed the story, and I'll take that. But good job. That was good. Thank you. Okay, so mine has two similarities to yours. Okay. Okay?
Speaker: Have you seen the movie Billy Elliot? Yeah. Do you love that movie? Yeah. Oh my God. It's one of my favorite movies. Really? Yeah. It's just something about it is so heartwarming to me.
Speaker: It's a feels. It's a feels. Yeah. it's a feel And it also kind of takes place in the eighties. So, ah Coal mining, the whole thing.
Speaker: So it's a touching story that I have for you today. I'm gonna take you to Great Britain today, where in the 1980s, there was an unlikely alliance that formed between the coal miners of South Wales and the queer community of London.
Speaker: You know the story. You know the story. The gays are here. But first... Your gays are here. Your gays are here. But first, we got to talk about mining in Britain and even the world.
Speaker: And I found this quote from George Orwell, and it sort of fit this perfectly. Interesting. And mining, the the the things that England did to their miners and that we did to our miners, is so horrifyingly fascinating to me, you know? Yeah. I don't think I know enough about. It's just, that's a whole, that's a, like a 10 part series that,
Speaker: I could try to do because it's just horrific and the thing with the Oxycontin, then sending that to the mining towns with these people that have, you know, I don't, it's a whole thing, whatever.
Speaker: um But so the quote is, our civilization is founded on coal more completely than one realizes until one stops to think about it. The machines that keep us alive and the machines that make machines are all directly or indirectly dependent upon coal.
Speaker: In the metabolism of the Western world, the coal miner is second in importance only to the man who plows the soul soil. So in the United Kingdom, most of the homes and businesses in the late 80s were reliant on coal for heat. And up to that point, there was a huge demand for coal.
Speaker: There were many coal mines or pit towns. But Britain's so warm. Why would they need to warm things? all Right. Well, they were also called pit towns. It's a very British little thing, as the UK refers to them. Especially in the north of England, Scotland, and the one for today's story in Wales, specifically in the south of Wales, okay?
Speaker: Coal mining, it's a hard job, blue collar, long hours, and a lot of risks to miners' health. Some of the risks include rockfalls, explosions, injuries from machines, black lung. A lot of miners lose their lives because of these risks. So because of that, it is a decent paying job and they can provide a good living for their family, right?
Speaker: Mines were generally located far from big cities, so mining communities would be formed into these little villages. Little nuggets, yeah. And these villages are like financially dependent on these mines.
Speaker: a big thing for the story. In 1947, the coal industry was nationalized in the UK, so there was a lot of investment into mining. They got the newest equipment, they used the newest mining techniques, and coal mining in the UK was very efficient and as safe as it could be.
Speaker: Interesting. However, the world started to turn away from coal in the 1960s. Mining companies closed. Of course, you have these villages dependent on the money from mining, and now they're starting to get a higher and higher unemployment rate.
Speaker: And it was in 1979 that Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher headed the Conservative Party, or the Tories, as they're called. She wanted to make the coal industry more profitable.
Speaker: She didn't like to compromise either. She was known as the Iron Lady. Really? Under her leadership, coal mines started being privatized. She thought the coal mining union was too powerful, and she didn't like that. She had her eyes set on getting rid of the union and closing a lot of the mines.
Speaker: The argument against this, obviously, is that unemployment was already high, and closing the mines would just make it higher. 1979, there were men working in two hundred and twenty-th three pits Say the first number again. 235,000 men working in pits. And just four years later, that number fell men working pits.
Speaker: south wales was among the hardest hit mining communities Arthur Scargill was the president of the National Union of Mine Workers from 1982 until 2002, and he was a big defender of the miners. He warned the government that closing the mines would devastate people's livelihoods, and because of the suicide rates,
Speaker: and also possibly domestic violent rate domestic violence rates would increase because of this. He opposed the closure to any of the mines except for the mines that were unsafe.
Speaker: And he also had a big personality and this made him a little bit controversial. In the 1970s, he used flying pickets that were sent to mines to specific, well, that flying pickets were sent to miners to specific plants to prevent the transportation of coal, and those strikes were successful. What's a flying picket?
Speaker: I don't know. But it's something to do to prevent the coal from being transported, i think. Okay, okay. Anyway, they they were successful. Successful, okay. I should have looked that shit up, but I didn't.
Speaker: Prime Minister Thatcher appointed Ian McGregor to head the National Coal Board. Now, McGregor had already made the steel industry in the UK profitable, and the way that he did this was that he slashed the workforce in half, causing high unemployment.
Speaker: Thatcher wanted to do the same thing to the coal industry. You know, the good old starve the people out to make a profit thing. do know that. yeah In March of 84, the National Coal Board announced the plan to cut the nation's coal output by 4 million tons. Whoa!
Speaker: The National Coal Union estimated that about 20,000 jobs would be lost because of this. and The Coal Union president, Arthur Scargill, called for a nationwide strike. Scargill called for this strike, but he didn't actually have a vote.
Speaker: He feared that those miners who thought their jobs were safe would not vote for the strike. So he didn't hold a vote. The important thing to note about this no vote strike is that the government opposition would weaponize this to delegitimize the strike and turn public opinion against the strikers.
Speaker: People were saying that Scargill was acting like a dictator and the miners didn't want this strike. But in reality, there was a chance that the strikers would have actually voted for it.
Speaker: But simply because he didn't ask. Fucked it all up. It was better to ask forgiveness than permission. Fucked it all up. Scargill was right about one thing. Thatcher did want to speed up the end of the coal industry, and the government had been preparing for this strike by stockpiling, this is incredible, this was Thatcher, stockpiling six months of coal and converting stations to burn oil instead of coal by hiring transporters who could transport coal in case the railway staff supported the strikers.
Speaker: She plotted. That's, that's. It's, what's the word? um Brutal? um It's not the right word. Cunning? Cunning, very cunning.
Speaker: So when the strikes started in 84, Thatcher responded with force. This led to clashes between the police and the miners. It was really ugly, but there was never an actual vote.
Speaker: Miners didn't have the choice to work in some cases, but. What a hor a really hard choice for the miners. Some would choose to work because they did need the You've got to fucking have the money, right? Right. like This is Billy Elliot. This is so in line with that movie, Billy Elliot. No, I get it, yeah.
Speaker: So you need the money. You've got to work. But the National Union of Mine Workers would send these flying pickets to mines and sway the miners not to work or attempt to sway them not to cross the picket line.
Speaker: I get it now. Well, cause yeah, when I Googled it, flying picket is a an acapella group. I don't think they were sending an acapella group.
Speaker: Maybe they did. Maybe they did. Please don't cross. So um even the police would show up at these picket lines and it would get violent. The newspapers would play up the violence and they would exaggerate it a bit more.
Speaker: Make the miners seem like bad guys. Boom. They would turn people against the miners and for the police. That's exactly what would happen. Which the police were in Thatcher's back pocket. Right.
Speaker: In June of 84, miners from all over the country went to Yorkshire. They met with eight thousand they were met with 8,000 cops and 60 police dogs. On the day of the clashes in June, the striking miners wanted to stop the lorries carrying coke. Now, lorry is a truck, and coke is a high-carbon solid fuel made by heating coal. Right. they wanted to... right so they wanted to stop the trucks from carrying the fuel, the coke, ah to Scunthorpe steel furnaces as they thought disrupting production would help win their fight against closures and job losses. But violence involving the police and miners left more than 100 picketers and officers injured at the coking plant.
Speaker: A total of 95 men who had been picketing at the plant were arrested and faced trial on riot and unlawful assembly charges. But the case against the miners collapsed in court due to allegations that the South Yorkshire police had falsified evidence.
Speaker: It's still considered one of the most violent episodes in British industrial history. This is referred to as the Battle of Orgreave. Now, who knows...
Speaker: at this time in the 80s, the first-hand violence the police can do out. The gays! And who loves to stand up to the government?
Speaker: The gays! The gays have arrived. In London, in the 1960s and 70s, the cops would use entrapment to catch gay men doing stuff. gay men could even well you know yeah Gay men couldn't even dance together in the 60s in England. And it wasn't until 1970 that homosexuality was decriminalized in England and Wales. This extended to Scotland in 1980.
Speaker: That blows my mind. In an article from The Guardian that I'll put in the show notes, an estimated 15,000 plus gay men were convicted in the decades that followed the 1967 liberalization.
Speaker: Not only was homosexuality only partly decriminalized by the 1967 act, but the remaining anti-gay laws were policed more aggressively than before by the state that opposed gay acceptance and equality.
Speaker: In total, from 1885 2013, nearly 100,000 men were arrested for same-sex acts. 1885? think I meant 1985. Yeah, I
Speaker: i don't know well because gayness didn't exist back in eighteen whatever of course not definitely not damn so either eighteen ninety five eighteen eighty five or nineteen eighty five We'll find out when done. I don't know. The age of consent was set at 21 for sex between two men compared to 16 for sex between a man and a woman, a decision that pandered to the homophobic notion that a young young men are seduced and corrupted by older men. Definitely, definitely, definitely. Sex between two consenting men remained prosecutable unless it took the place.
Speaker: It took place in strict privacy, which meant in a person's home behind locked doors and windows with the curtains drawn and with no other person present in any part of the house. ah Just real quick on that note.
Speaker: That's where we are at in America right now. It's crazy. There are laws that are shifting towards that where it's, it's, It is a crime unless done in the privacy of your own home in those circumstances. So according to the ACLU, there's over 500 bills in the legislative branches in the states that are anti-LGBTQIA. 500.
Speaker: five hundred right now in America. Anyway, we digress. So um it continued to be a crime if two men had sex together or they were filmed or photographed having sex by another person. So it's possible to imagine, it is, that the queer community understands on some level the fight of the coal miner, right?
Speaker: Yeah, it yes. Yeah. And because this takes place in the 80s, we now have the emergence of the HIV-AIDS epidemic. One effect of the HIV-AIDS epidemic on the queer population is that it pushes gay rights the gay rights movement back by years.
Speaker: So this is similar to what's happening to the minors. The minors are being dragged in the press, not unlike the gay people, specifically of the 80s. To help with the minors,
Speaker: Mark Ashton and Mike Jackson decided to form an activist group in July of 1984 called the LGSM. This is also known as the Lesbians and Gays Support the Minors.
Speaker: Nigel Young, who was also part of the LGSM, also confounded he co-founded the Gay Liberation Front. Jonathan Blake, a gay man and actually the second man in the United Kingdom to be diagnosed with HIV, knew well about how the queer community was treated in the 1980s.
Speaker: They were treated like they had the plague and treated with vitriol. Jonathan saw his diagnosis with HIV as basically a death sentence. So when he saw how many when he saw how the minors were being treated, he decided to get involved with LGSM.
Speaker: Because if you think you're gonna die, fuck it. That was kind of his attitude. He saw back in 1972 how the miners, they were powerful, how they took down Prime Minister Heath's government.
Speaker: yeah but They were big yeah for a long time. Jonathan said, quote, for us as gay men and lesbians, we understood the way the state could attack and oppress you.
Speaker: They were continuously are continually harassing gay men in a way in any way that they could. So in a way, we were natural allies with the minors. And this is from the People's History Museum in the yeah UK. Beyond class solidarity, LGSM saw parallels between the vilification of the National Union of Minors and the queer community.
Speaker: they were the vilification they were experiencing from the government and much of the press. At the time, homophobia and transphobia was normalized in British society, increasing in ferocity as the HIV epidemic grew.
Speaker: The fake news that was spread about the queer people at the time made many of them less predisposed to believe propaganda about the minors. They knew that what they were reading about themselves was bullshit bullshit. So they figured the miners were going through that shit too.
Speaker: So this was sort of fuck you to Prime Minister Thatcher. Not all gay people are from a city. A lot of queer people came from these small mining towns and live in these small mining towns. It's harder to hate a person up close.
Speaker: Others... Some people you hate more when you know them close. But it's harder to hate somebody in the large scheme of things, right? You hate what you don't understand.
Speaker: Others, like Mark Ashton, respected minors for doing difficult and dangerous manual labor jobs. They wouldn't be doing themselves. When asked by a journalist why the queer community should support the minors when, quote, the minors don't support us, Mark replied,
Speaker: What do you mean the miners don't support us? The miners dig coal, which creates fuel, which creates electricity. Would you go down in a mine and work? That's a good question, right? Boom. Yeah.
Speaker: Just walk away at that point. And what's the one big thing that the miners need the most since they're on strike? Money. The LGSM members took a collection took collection buckets to queer venues across London, raising thousands of pounds for the miners to use as they needed.
Speaker: this We do love to throw money in a good cause. Or at a bad cause. So they were going to venues across London, raising thousands of pounds for the miners to use as they needed to buy food, other necessities that they couldn't afford while they were on strike. They gave out schedules or lists as LGSM committee meetings at LGSM committee meetings to keep track of venues.
Speaker: which venues had been visited and how much they had raised and where they had raised it. Collections were also taken from a certain little bookshop called Gaze the Word, which we fucking love this bookstore. And a little side note about this bookstore, it opened January of 1989. It's iconic. It's fabulous. It is.
Speaker: fabulous Gaze the Word started out as a space for queer literature, which which other bookshops were too scared of homophobic to stock. It has been a place of solidarity ever since. It's not just for the LGBTQ plus community. In 1984, it played a large part in helping the minors. It's always been a place where peer queer people could be themselves.
Speaker: And if you're ever in London, go the address is 66 Marchmont Street. Buy a book or five like we did. Or a bookmark or a pin. Something. some Postcards, magnets. So the police went on to harass collectors and on one occasion arresting LJSM members for their fundraising activities with no legal reason to detain them.
Speaker: Sounds about right. Jonathan Blake explained that the police would take ah positions across the road from Gaze the Word bookshop and if the fundraisers stepped over the property line, which were marked by tiles, for even a minute the police could arrest them for obstructing the public footpath.
Speaker: Did this deter people? No. Collections continued through the strike, raising enough money to buy a van for the village, which the miners painted with the LGSM pink triangle logo, proud of where the money had came from.
Speaker: gays Gay Sweatshop Theater Company staged benefit performances of Dear Love of Comrades, a play about writer and poet Edward Carpenter. for LGSM just to raise money. Jonathan Blake designed the now iconic LGSM logo badge, which was printed using funds from Manchester LGSM and sold at Gaze the Word and Pride events. And I think that was still at Gaze the Word.
Speaker: They raised so much money at places like Gay's the Word and Gay Sweatshop Theater Company. They even raised money at nightclubs. Now, they got a lot of pushback from that because some of the men at the nightclubs were Tories, part the party of Thatcher, and they didn't like that the gay people were being were raising money there.
Speaker: Well, duh. But they got a lesbian bouncer named Heaven. God forbid you get a lesbian bouncer named Heaven, okay? Don't fuck with Heaven. Heaven would not let anybody into the club unless they put money in a bucket for the minors.
Speaker: We love Heaven. We love Heaven. There was even a drag performer named Lily Savage who was very supportive of the minors. Lily Savage, who's well-known in England, very well-known, she would not let anybody leave the pub without donating, and people were slightly terrified of Lily so Savage. Of course. Yeah.
Speaker: There's nothing more fierce than a queen, you know? Or a lesbian named heaven. Or a lesbian named heaven. Put the twos of them together. Unstoppable. You're done. Take over the world. Meanwhile, in the mining communities of Wales, the women were taking charge of that support group. After all, women were more familiar with fighting for their rights, and people were starting to starve in these communities. Oh.
Speaker: Thatcher allowed this because she wanted them to give in and go back to the mines so that she could dismantle the mining industry. The London LGSM group was paired with mining areas of Neath Valley, Dulay Valley, and Swansea Valley, all known as the valleys collectively.
Speaker: In September of 84, Donovan told the mining town that he had been he had invited the LGSM down to the valleys for the weekend. He wanted them to come and see the community that they were helping so much.
Speaker: The mining community of the valleys, they were shocked. A group of gays coming to their valley from London? My stars, clutch my pearls. Truly the most Tu Wong Fu.
Speaker: Thanks for everything Julie Newmar moment ever. When it was time for the members of the LGSM to visit some of the mining communities in Wales, truthfully, they felt a little scared. It seemed that often people in the small towns are homophobic and men are taught to, quote, be a man. So maybe some communities would take the money but wouldn't acknowledge a relationship between the LGSM community.
Speaker: Hewell Francis said yes to the money and yes to the relationship. He sent Di Donovan to London to pick up the check. When Di met with Mark Ashton and Mike john john Jackson, he was struck by how similar their struggles were.
Speaker: So the LGSM sent a letter to Swansea Valley Minor Support Group saying essentially, hey, we would love to come and meet you. When the letter was read out loud and the minors were told that the lesbian and gay people supporting the minors they were the ones supporting the miners. At first there was like a nervous laughter, but immediately, and then there were some jokes, but then one of the members of the miner group said she didn't care who these people were. They had gone through all the trouble to raise money for them. So they would accept it and say, thank you.
Speaker: What is it? Don't? Don't? Bite the hematheja. Oh, yeah. Look a gift horse in the mouth. Right. Also, FYI, there were some people in the queer community who weren't in support of the minors. They, like I said, posed the question, would the minors do the same for them if the tables were turned? And truthfully, the tables had been turned for many years before this, and the minors didn't do anything to help that the queer community. Yeah, but you have to... That that brings a topic of, like, are you...
Speaker: Be the change you want to see in the world. Treat others the way that you would want to be treated. don't The whole point of this story, the whole it had to start somewhere. Be the bigger person. Be the change that you want to be.
Speaker: It had to start somewhere. Nevertheless, the queer community did raise a lot of money for the minors. It seems like the idea of working class and rural communities are more homophobic than others is rooted in classism. Even in large cities in London, in 1985, most queer people anticipated the risk of experiencing homophobia or transphobia anywhere they went.
Speaker: Some LGSM members had grown up and left pit towns because of bad experiences with homophobia and were unsure about how they would be received in the small town of Onilwen.
Speaker: Ah, Onilwen. Yes, that town. Their worries were unfounded. Mike Jackson said it was like coming home. In an article from BBC, Mike Jackson from LGSM told with teary eyes about his first time meeting the miners.
Speaker: He said, quote, when we walked into that welfare hall, there were 27 of us. We were very conspicuous. The queers walked in and the whole tenor of the conversation dropped. And for a split second, I was a bit worried.
Speaker: But someone started clapping and within seconds the whole hall stood up and started giving us an ovation. Gives me chills. That has to be the most amazing moment of my life. No way did we expect that.
Speaker: On the contrary, families were very happy to host the LGSM members. Jonathan remembers being open about his HIV positive diagnosis with some friends he made there and he experienced no bigotry and no cruelty.
Speaker: No one went. Nope. Alliances and friendships for life were made between the LGSM and the mining community. Until long after the miners' strike was over, LGSM members didn't know that the miners had held a meeting ahead of the LGSM's first visit and made it very clear that there would be no discriminatory behavior toward these guests. It would not be tolerated.
Speaker: ah for After the LGSM went to Onilwyn to visit the minors, the women of Onilwyn started visiting their new friends in London. This was a new world for them. They went to gay clubs. They were learning about casual sex, which just wasn't a concept in the valleys. This was a new, fun part of life that they got to learn about.
Speaker: And the men of the valleys, to them, these gay men were people who wanted to listen and who wanted to help. It was around this time that the LGSM hosted their biggest fundraiser ever.
Speaker: the It ah had the best fucking name. It was called Pits and Perverts. Everything about that, let's take the words that they used against us and like... Make it happen. Say fuck you and use them for ourselves, right? Yeah, because it's only a negative derogatory thing if you don't...
Speaker: Own it and flaunt it. Right. Right. right So pits and perverts. Pits and pervs. That was the name of the big thing that they were having that night. And they had this band at the time called the Bronsky Beat.
Speaker: All the members were and of the band were gay and they had some songs at the top of the chart. 1,500 people crowded into the ballroom, minors and the gays alike. They managed to raise 6,000 pounds that day and this led to an upsurge in donations.
Speaker: So much so that the miners thought it was more than they needed for themselves so they were able to help other mining communities. However, it was December of 1984 and times were very tough, not just for the miners but also for the queer community.
Speaker: This was almost right smack in the middle of the HIV AIDS crisis. Gay men were being attacked in public and it was becoming more difficult to fundraise for the miners.
Speaker: Georgina Morris in BBC had an article and she said union funds were running low by early 1985 and striking miners had endured almost a year of hardship with only donations to support their families.
Speaker: But the miners were on the brink of starvation. Thatcher was not giving in. I think this was something horrible that she did. Which our government also did some shit like that too to the miners.
Speaker: With some of the miners still working and police protecting coal deliveries, the union's position was very much weakened. When the National Union of Miners held a special conference on the 3rd of March, 1985, coal-filled delegates narrowly voted to end the strike.
Speaker: Miners returned back to work, in the pit on the 5th of March. The closures prompting the strike were just the start, with many more over the next decade. They included 32, which were announced in 1992 as natural gas became the fuel of choice for the power stations.
Speaker: Even though it was a sad time, something positive did come out of it. These two groups of people who would have never crossed paths Lifelong friendships were forged.
Speaker: It shows that you can make friends in the most unexpected places. But pits across the United Kingdom started closing immediately. This will get me.
Speaker: It will get me, I'm telling you now. At this time, and I haven't read it before I went to Norway. So at this time in 1985, gay rights had taken a hit and neither side of the government was on their side as far as legislation.
Speaker: At least they thought nobody was on their side. Remember the gay people asking if the minors would do the same for them if the tables were turned? Well, the tables were turned. And so now it's time for the minors to come through.
Speaker: The National Union of Minors had never really supported gay rights, but after LGSM supported them, minors started to wear the LGSM badge as a show of solidarity.
Speaker: So when it was time for the 1985 London Gay Pride in June, members of the LGSM asked the minors to march with them.
Speaker: To be clear, In 1985, pride was definitely not the celebration that we have today around the world. It was hard fought and it was also more political and it took bravery.
Speaker: But this beautiful, over the top, long, month long celebration of pride that we have today is only because people around the world in 1985 were doing the work to get us here. So nobody expected the miners to show up to the parade.
Speaker: The LGSM group decided that they wanted to march in the middle of the parade with their banners even if the miners didn't turn up. But the miners did turn up. They arrived to the Pride Parade in a mini bus that LGSM had donated to them as well as another large bus absolutely full of miners, full of people they had never even met.
Speaker: Just miners wanting to show up for the community that had helped them. and it wasn't just the community of miners that helped, it was people from all across the valleys. In fact, there were so many people from the valleys that turned up. The Pride Committee told LGSM that they would have to lead the Pride Parade.
Speaker: And that's what they did. in front of the Pride Parade, behind the Pride sign, there was the LGSM with their banner. Over a thousand people turned up for this parade.
Speaker: As it turns out, this was a pivotal moment for gay rights in the United Kingdom. It brought gay rights movement to the forefront using pressure to force the Labor Party to finally include gay rights on the agenda for October of 1985. Included in this included in this motion committing the Labor Party to backing gay rights. It was a motion committing the Labor Party to backing gay rights. It was put to a vote, and of course people still try to get it removed from the agenda.
Speaker: But, my dear Sam, here's where what the LGSM did changed the course of history in the United Kingdom. The National Union of Miners got on board with the legislation.
Speaker: That was huge. They wanted to use their weight to help get this legislation passed, and they were heavyweights, and they brought a lot of the other unions with them.
Speaker: The Miners Union was powerful at this time, and in part because of them, the pits and pervs, won that vote with over 600,000 votes. This is the first time a gay rights motion ever got through at the Labor Party.
Speaker: Talk about the butterfly effect, right? The queer community of London simply wanted to help the miners, and it turned out that when the table was turned, the miners would indeed do the same thing.
Speaker: This legislation was just the first step in a very long journey to equality, but a step is a step, and the universe had plans. Only two years later, Mark Ashton, one of the founders of LGSM, would be diagnosed with HIV, and he would die 12 days after the diagnosis from complications.
Speaker: Jonathan Blake, who was diagnosed with HIV in October of 1982, the second in the UK, he assumed it was a death sentence, so he decided to dedicate all of his energy to helping the minors.
Speaker: Jonathan Blake is 76 years old today. He's a fucking gem. He's a whole story on his own. have This man is amazing, but he's 76 today.
Speaker: In the Vice article, he talks about finding out that he was HIV positive in 1982. He said, quote, there's a little... the kind of rough language in here.
Speaker: He said, quote, I was going to do the Roman thing and get pissed, warm bath, slit my wrists. But I'm appalled at the thought of someone having to come in and clear up after me. i couldn't do it. So then I thought, if you can't do it, get out and live.
Speaker: It wasn't straightforward because you've got this virus in you and you feel like a real leper. But then I saw there was a group of gays for a nuclear free future who were going to leave for a march from the bookshop Gays the Word on the 1st of April 1983. arrived full trepidation.
Speaker: i arrived full of trepidation and I saw this guy wearing these extraordinary pantaloons, Wellington boots, and a shock of black curly hair.
Speaker: And we connected. And his name was Nigel. And we're still together 33 years later. His partner, Nigel, passed away in 2022. And you know how we always see the speeches of why we still need pride, why it's important, right? Mm-hmm.
Speaker: In that Vice interview, ah Jonathan Blake was asked why Pride is an important weekend. And Jonathan said, quote, it's difficult because it's changed.
Speaker: I come from the days where there were demonstrations and we were still considered to be illegal, vile, faggots. People would say burn them and hat what have you. The reason it's on this date is because when the police raided Stonewall Pub in New York and the drag queens fall back.
Speaker: So really, that's what gay pride is about. It's remembering that we had to fight for our rights and we still have to fight for them. And that is the story of lesbian and gay supporting the minors and the minors supporting them.
Speaker: so Well done. That was even better than I could have imagined it being. And I've been waiting for that story for a year and change.
Speaker: Right? yeah and i was Yeah, that was one of my favorite stories. i i think it brings up
Speaker: quotes and and comments and... and kind of rallying statements that are currently being discussed with our current political climate about complacency.
Speaker: um A lot of the rights that um people nowadays are have been born into,
Speaker: um culture and the acceptance that some people are used to, if you just sit in it and don't continue fighting, it can be lost as we are experiencing. And it's one of those things where people in 80s, 90s, early 2000s, across world,
Speaker: early two thousand like across the world for each of their own different causes, there were agitators, right? there were There were people that spoke up. There were people that made the first move. Because no, you supporting someone does not mean that they will support you in return. But you know what? You do it because it is the right thing to do and it needs done.
Speaker: And not continuing to fight and not continuing to raise your voice and and
Speaker: experience what it is to share a common cause. Common, loose term, right? Because it's not the same for different groups of people fighting for rights, but Complacency is dangerous.
Speaker: And everything that these people did, everything anything that all of these people did, minors, the LGBTQ community, all across the world at that period of time,
Speaker: can be lost if people don't continue to fight for it. And it's stories like what you just told that will hopefully remind people that it's worth it to continue fighting.
Speaker: And for me, the theme of it's hard to hate up close, that is always so true, i think. Because it is, i think for us, and no, not just for us, for the world, everybody in the world, every country, there's this thing where, maybe in Norway it's not like that, but there's this thing where the government pits people against each other. The leaders pit people against each other.
Speaker: And I think that is... very divisive. So horribly wrong and it's hurtful to the greater good, but it's harder to hate up close and yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it's, it's, and I made a joke at that point, right? And that was probably ill-timed. However, it is especially in today's society, the world that we live in, again, across the globe,
Speaker: There's so much on social media, on news outlets.
Speaker: If you make decisions only based on what you're seeing on the screen reading on the, do people still read? I read the newspaper still, but do other people still do that? I don't know. Okay. um You and all the 80 year olds out there.
Speaker: I have an old sto-so. But no, I mean, you have to you have to think about it because you don't know a person until you know a person and you can't know a person just based on what's on. I mean, especially now with AI. I mean, fucking hell. It's like, we don't know what's real. I watched a thing earlier today and I genuinely thought it was real and I was like,
Speaker: So I had to Google it. I had to Google it. and I was like, oh no, that was fake. that was fake That was entirely fake. But it's dangerous. and And people being so willing to accept the things that they are fed by the media,
Speaker: it's toxic. And so yeah, it's harder to hate someone up close because you don't see the human. You see only what you are about.
Speaker: primed to see what someone else is deciding you need to to view. And also the the part of the story that I also thought was very important was mentioning that we only get this month-long celebration today because of the tough work that they put into it in 1985, right? And all the years, all the years before. but like And it was very much a political statement then for like the coal miner union to come to London and be in that
Speaker: Pride parade. It's not like it would be today. I mean, a lot of people enjoy coming to be in the parades today. I know because I was in one in Hawaii, but all these companies. Accidentally. Accidentally. You led the parade. It was such a fun experience and I didn't mean for it to happen.
Speaker: But like now a lot of companies come to be in the pride parade. But in 1985, it was a political statement, right? I think that we, and that's the craziest part, 30 years later, are we are re-entering this thing though, you know especially in the US. I mean, you look at you look at other countries who just within the past few weeks have officially made things like conversion therapy ah an actual crime, not just a, oh, you shouldn't do that, but the the laws that are being passed around the world
Speaker: are pretty extraordinary. And I think that those steps that they are taking,
Speaker: I don't think that we will ever see that here in the U.S., you know, because of freedom of opinion. But i can only hope that it doesn't continue to regress back to But I also think the thing that we're seeing in the U.S. with this backslide is also in other countries, too. And we even talked about it when we were in Norway.
Speaker: In some of the little communities, they were no longer having pride. yeah And that's fucking Norway. yeah That's a beacon of like liberal liberalism and inclusivity. inclusivity And acceptance even in Norway, right? They're having a little bit of a backslide.
Speaker: It's very, it's very small compared to here. yeah You know, but like, it's still there. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. That's a whole different topic. But like, I hope you like the story. I loved the story. I've been waiting for that fucking story, Jeff, and you fucking nailed it. And hope that other people understand the significance of you doing that story. Because And I think I sent you that Instagram post about the movie. Yeah.
Speaker: Have you watched it? Well, that came out in like 2014. So have you watched it? No, I haven't. ok But I've read the book Pride. i think I bought that book at Gay's The Word. You did. I bought a book on Josephine Baker at Gay's The Word. I just went like a little batshit there. See, I bought a book on, um it was called Curing Queers. Uh-huh.
Speaker: i which was about nurses and the diagnosis of, i still can't think of that word But I really enjoyed being in that little bookshop. Honestly, I did. And I talked to the guy that was working there. I don't know if he's the owner or just an employee. I don't remember that. But he was so lovely, had such a good conversation with him. And it do you know that when I, this was so much fun for me, when I said that sh the one thing I really wanted to do in London
Speaker: was go to Gaze the Word. And you and Ashley and Alan and Lena, you all immediately, you were like, okay, we'll we'll focus we'll put everything else around that. We'll design the trip around going to Gaze the Word.
Speaker: And we did. And it's nothing like, you know, it's nothing fancy. It was just a little bookshop. But a little bookshop with such a rich history, right? It was, and it was...
Speaker: it was It was cozy, it was small, it was like, um it was just exactly what you wanted it to be for, deviant, that's the word, I had to look it up, I couldn't, I'm sorry, I couldn't pull it.
Speaker: um It was exactly what you wanted. And, um you know, they, They had all of the different sections that you could imagine, historical, and it was and it's all LGBTQ literature. So they had romance, they had fantasy, they had history. And, i mean, oh you got your Stonewall. er I have a Stonewall book, I think.
Speaker: Maybe you also got one. think you got the Stonewall Yeah, yeah. And then, again, like every other book little bookshop, you know, a postcards and bookmarks and little pins and badges and that kind of thing like everything that you would want in a small cozy little bookshop and it was right there in fucking london and we went we did we got to set our feet in history that was amazing It really was.
Speaker: You did great. You know, and I always think I could, you remember the quote from the, okay. No, what? The quote from the end of the Matthew Shepard story. And I think that quote applies to this story as well. it's not going to make you cry. It's just a quote. a Okay. So it's right here.
Speaker: um When you're walking in the mountains, people say, as I'm sure that Matt may have once heard in Wyoming, that you shouldn't take breaks when you're walking uphill. It'll only further break down your energy.
Speaker: I say take this advice to the fight to erase hate, which is apparently only getting difficult more difficult to climb in our current environment. Take care of yourself, of course, but perhaps more importantly, continue to love, to care, to passionately and persistently defend what it means to be yourself without the fear of hatred.
Speaker: Let's end it there. Well said. Remember, we're here for a good time. Not a long time. boom bye
