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Part I- Our Ruined Lives Reunion - Ep 18
318 Plays6 years ago
On this episode our three hosts recount their recent adventure in Colorado together last month. This is the first time the three intrepid cowboys of science have been in the same place since SAA’s ABQ in 2019. Contrary to their own expectations, Carlton, Connor, and David were extremely productive. They talk about museum visits, live streaming, Alpha, powwows, and more! This episode is part one of two. Part two will release later this week!
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- Email: alifeinruinspodcast@gmail.com
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- Facebook: @alifeinruinspodcast
- Twitter: @alifeinruinspod
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the archaeology podcast network. Welcome to episode 18 of a life in ruins podcast. It's another edition of our ruin lives. It's me, your host Carlton Gover with my co-hosts, as always, David Ian, how
00:00:32
Speaker
And it's Connor. We're just gonna say Connor this time. I don't I don't have anything prepped on Connor John and so
00:00:39
Speaker
That's his real name, everybody. I couldn't. I was thinking of coconut, but I did a cook. What is it? Well, yeah, I included her middle name. Sleepy Joe Biden. Oh God. Okay. So as you guys can already tell, it's just the three of us today for this episode for our own lives. It's been a while since the three of us had had the airwaves together, even though we just spent some quality time here in Boulder. So here's another edition of our ruin lives. Your three hosts as always.
00:01:09
Speaker
Chris isn't here. We don't have a Webster dictionary. So it's literally just the three of us. We're getting the books. We off the hooks. We off the hooks books. So, uh, off the hook. I mean, well, so far just a minute of nothing already. So, uh,
00:01:30
Speaker
Yep, here we are.
Humorous Travel Tales
00:01:33
Speaker
So, but for our listeners, we're recording this the first week of March. We just spent, wasn't this past weekend, but the weekend before the three of us got together in Boulder. Got to host my two best friends. And we had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun. Did you guys have a lot of fun? No. Well, that's... Yeah, that was good. The People's Republic of Boulder was
00:02:01
Speaker
I would describe my time as not the worst. I was kidding. I had a great time. Well, the funny thing is it started off great for you, David, didn't it? It was like you went toe to toe and basically broke a Chick-fil-A lady.
00:02:21
Speaker
Oh my God, yeah. Please tell me. I was dying when you were telling me this story. Okay, so for our listeners, we're just going to kind of talk about this for the beginning. Connor, for David Flew out to Boulder on February 21st,
00:02:39
Speaker
Connor drove from Montrose and then like, yeah, just go. What happened in the airport on your way here? They announced my blood type. Do they need to know what date it was? It's O positive, right? That's your blood type. Is that even a thing? That's what I have. Get the fuck out of here. I don't know. Okay. Anyway, I'm heading to Atlanta, which is a two hour drive from where I live.
00:03:04
Speaker
Two hour drive. Two hour drive, sorry. Two hour drive. I'm loosening up. So, wait, Chick-fil-A. Right, so I stopped to get gas in between Atlanta and where I live. And this is like early in the morning, right? Yeah, it's like seven or eight. And I'm like, you know what? I guess I could eat something. But I'm like vegetarian now, so I've got to like, I can't eat chicken.
00:03:31
Speaker
Um, but I did know, cause I saw one of my coworkers eating at one time, they have like eggs and potatoes at Chick-fil-A. And I was like, you know what? I could fuck with that. So then I went into the thing and I was like, okay. And that it was a quick, like line. Sorry, it's been honest. I told the story and I get in, but you know, when you're like at a Chick-fil-A drive through, I've only been like three times in my life, but you're like,
00:03:55
Speaker
stuck in like a two lane drive through. Anyway, I'm going to speed this up. I couldn't get out and I order my food and I was like, hi, I would like the egg and potato scrambler, please. But I would like no chicken in that. And the lady goes, what? I was like,
00:04:13
Speaker
just the egg and potato and chicken scrambler, but just hold the chicken. And then she was like, I don't know if, hang on. Then like five minutes pass and she finally comes back and she's like, sir, okay, I'll have to give it to you all as separate items in one dish. And I was like, at this point, I don't care. Just give, pick the chicken off if I have to, just give it to me. And then she puts it in and she's like, okay.
00:04:41
Speaker
Eggs, chicken, no potatoes. And then I was like, no, no chicken. That just, you know what? Just, just give me the eggs. Just give me the eggs.
Museum Visits and Cultural Experiences
00:04:53
Speaker
I can't remember what the hell happened. She's like, all right, I have to start over. And I was like, oh.
00:04:58
Speaker
And then she's like I'll give you another thing of potatoes so you can mix it in and I was like I don't care I have to catch a flight just literally type in the thing and put minus chicken. I don't know how it works But it can't be that difficult and she finally does it I forget what the punchline to this wasn't I told you guys because it's just a blur at this point But I like I'm almost okay. Well, I guess that's the punchline. I get to the freaking airport then and
00:05:23
Speaker
Parked my car and I told myself, okay, you know, I have a good two hours before the flight But because of chicken McChick chick, I had to get Literally an hour and a half late to the airport to send somehow I don't know how this worked out and then I get to the airport and I okay, and I thought
00:05:41
Speaker
I paid $200 last year for clear with the TSA thing where you literally scan your retinas to get on there and I get to the line and I was like, hi, I'm here to use. I mean, I didn't say that. I was just like in the line where I'm supposed to go and she's like, sir, this doesn't say it on your board and pass. And I was like, okay, well, you can literally scan my retinas to tell you that I do have this clear thing.
00:06:04
Speaker
He's like, you'll have to go on the other line, which of course like camera pan over to what I look and it's like 40 minutes long. And I was like, okay, I'm going to miss my flight. Then I finally get through all the stuff and my flights already boarding and it's the Atlanta airports. Then you got to go through the security. Then you got to go on the tram and then you got to go all the way down. My fat ass runs across the Atlanta airport. And for some reason I decided to take my backpack off and hold it by the water bottle, which then the water bottle
00:06:28
Speaker
I felt like I held my hand, my backpack fell underneath it and just shit fell everywhere. So I grabbed it all up, kept running and someone was like, be careful. And I just like looked at them and then just kept running. Like, what does that mean? And then I finally got on my flight and the guy was like, oh, yeah, did you have like a TSA thing issue? And I was like, yeah, I had it clear. And he's like, yeah, you got to do it online. And I was like, oh,
00:06:50
Speaker
Oh my skin, my retinas, but I got to do it online. Cool. And then on the way back through the Denver airport, I literally asked the lady at the Southwest check-in and she was like, no, you just go through. And I was like, what? And I went through the Denver airport and I literally said, do I need this on my boarding pass? And the guy goes, no, they scan your retinas right this way. And I like just looked at like Jim on the office just looking around like, is anyone fucking watching this? Sorry.
00:07:16
Speaker
That all started because of the chick-fil-a. I was real mad. Okay, okay, okay. So, that happened. You land in Denver. Connor picks you up.
00:07:28
Speaker
And do you guys, did you guys go immediately to Denver museum of nature and science? Uh, after like three hours, an hour of just delirious laughter in the car. Yeah. We went to, oh, we got sushi too. Yeah, we got sushi. Yeah. There's a, I can't remember the place of it. I'll look it up at some point, but there's a great sushi place in Denver that serves. Um, it does. It gives you the role and doesn't slice it up. And there's like, apparently like a certain style hand roll and then we went fucking ham on some
00:07:58
Speaker
some sushi, even though you just came from like the coast, which should have been fresher seafood. It's, it's, it's whatever. It's whatever. Um, yeah, it was good. We had a good time. But then we went to the Denver museum of nature and science because David, you had some sweet connections there, right? Yeah. Slit into Talia.
00:08:22
Speaker
is it Talia H. No, Talia, no, hang on. Talia does science. There you go. Yeah. So split into the DMs. There was like a dramatic pause. We don't. Yeah. I slide in the DMs constantly on Instagram. Not, not for flirtatious reasons. Sometimes I do, but this reason is literally just because she does stuff at the Denver museum. And I was like, yo, how do I get in the Denver museum? And she was like, oh, let me just ask somebody. And then I literally assigned her two things and I was the next day flying out there to go take pictures of skulls. It was pretty awesome.
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah. And we also had, uh, we met our friend, uh, Megan grizzle. We went to university of Wyoming with who was on one of our feature Fridays. Go check her out. She's a lot of fun. She's one of the, is she a curation assistant at the, I think. Yeah. Like collections assistant. Yeah. Yeah. So, so we knew both of them are David knew Talia and, and talked to them. And then we, yeah, we got it. We got into the side gate. Didn't have to pay. Whoa. Whoa.
00:09:19
Speaker
Whoop, whoop. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah, I was waiting. So while they're doing all this, the reason why I wasn't present is the weekend. Because he hates us. No, we planned this weekend like a month or two ago. And so it was planned in advance. But during that time, the Antho department at Boulder just started doing like pre-acceptance weekends for potential grad students. We used to not do that before. It was basically like, here's your offer letter, come or not.
00:09:47
Speaker
on your own dime. And so we changed that. And they decided, I mean, like, I, of course I'd had nothing in the planning. They were like, all right, it's this weekend. I'm like, great, sweet. That's the same weekend Connor and David are here. And since I'm an idiot and I'm the president of our, you know, Anthro grad association, I had to be at all these things.
00:10:05
Speaker
And so I couldn't. So I was I was entertaining new students, but also some of us on the Instagram a while ago, this 3D scanner of a triceratops, the university heard about this and they wanted to do a media piece about it. And that was that Friday. So when they were at Denver Museum of Nature and Science, I was at the CU Boulder Museum of Natural History doing this public piece about this of the capabilities of 3D scanning. And they're doing an article in a video about it. And so like while they're doing their thing at the museum, I'm doing my own thing at this museum.
00:10:36
Speaker
So that's why I wasn't there. But I think it was like better that we did these. So, I mean, we had a fucking busy weekend. I mean, this whole, the whole process of them coming here was like, film new content and like get ready for SAAs to make sure we're on track. And last time the three of us got together, we really didn't do much except like we had this whole SA plan to filming, did like none of that.
00:10:58
Speaker
We did a bit of it and it was mostly of a weekend of us just broing out. And then we ended up having, so you guys did went to Denver. I mean, the pictures look great. You guys have got some awesome content and I'm super envious. Yeah. It was actually, if you don't mind me going for a minute on that, um, the, like, we got to go see the anthropology department and then, which was like the, the collections, which is awesome. And then we got to go down to the zoology collection and that was like state of the art. It looked like.
00:11:26
Speaker
I mean like a collections facility looks like or a repository looks like the end of Indiana Jones where there's like just a whole warehouse full of like stuff but it's all organized into climate controlled boxes and like shelves that move and like
00:11:40
Speaker
Denver had it on lockdown. It was good. And then we saw the anthropology department and like got to hold all sorts of cool stuff. Connor and I like nerd it out and his cool. Yeah. We also got, we started out, I think at educational collections. So at the Denver museum of nature and science, people just donate stuff to them like regularly. They just call them up constantly. Yeah. They call them up and they're like, Hey, I've got this.
00:12:05
Speaker
What did they have that was like, they had like a, what was it? Like an astronaut, just like a full astronaut suit. Yeah. They're like, all right, I found this astronaut suit in my basement. Well, can I donate to you? And because they don't know exactly where it came from originally, or there's some sort of lack of context.
00:12:24
Speaker
They put it in this educational collection, which is basically like the fun collection that they used to entertain people with. So we started off there,
Adventures and Experiments in Nature
00:12:31
Speaker
got to see the astronauts, got to see tons of animals, like a huge grizzly bear that's hand had fallen off.
00:12:39
Speaker
like a stuffed grizzly bear that had kind of, yeah, it was like, we took pictures of the deer. I didn't see the hand, I guess. Strong hand. Yeah, they do that a lot at, I mean, big museums, a lot of people just donate. So, and then we finally all got together Friday night at my house. I was late because we had a dinner that I stayed too long at. And then like immediately once we get to my place, we start filming.
00:13:05
Speaker
Oh yeah. Did we? Yeah. We started like, it was literally like two seconds of do we have all the alcohol we need? All right. Set up the equipment. Oh no. As soon as you got to your house, I was already trying to spew. I remember that. Got some Cosmo. Got some Cosmo's pizza. Yeah. So we started, we did a life in ruins and ethnosynology watches alpha, which was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. And we weren't 10 recommend.
00:13:32
Speaker
Yeah, we were basing it off. If you haven't checked it out, we mentioned it earlier. At Dig It With Raven, she does a review of other things. She did Indiana Jones, The Mummy, and watches it with her friend Jude. We were basing it off that, and we wanted to do Alpha.
00:13:50
Speaker
It's a super interesting movie and it's super applicable to what we do. It's about hunter-gatherers. It's about wolves. It's about crappy drive lines. It's got all these parts to it. So yeah, we based it on that and then we just went ham.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, so basically dig it with Raven and her friend Jude are doing like all the big name archaeology stuff and we're sitting here like Scraping at the bottom of the pot like all right Yeah, we're cropped is like cool look at her. She's using guns. That's not really accurate. It's like
00:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, we we heard it out hard. It was pretty it was really good. Then the next day was we were supposed to get it was like the next day was also just busy. So Saturday morning, I there's my cousin hosts this powwow for all the native kids in Colorado. He hosts it, asked me to dance at it.
00:14:49
Speaker
I went, he was really busy. I didn't want to add any frustration with him, so I just decided to help out. Then my older brother and my nephew showed up. They have our family's drum, so then I got to sing with them at this powwow and talk to David and Connor about the different kinds of dress, the songs, and we got more footage there. That was a couple hours, and then we went back
00:15:10
Speaker
got back to Boulder and all this is filmed by the way. So everything we're talking about, like we'll be on our YouTube channel at some point. Cause like it was, we have over, I think I, I have over like 200 gigs of footage on my own.
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. We filmed a lot of stuff. Like the whole weekend was pretty much filmed. Then we went back to Boulder. We had dinner with some of the new grad students that accepted. So Connor and David got to meet some of them, meet our new students. And then we went back and did our live AMA session.
00:15:42
Speaker
which we were also filmed. So like we so if you saw it on Instagram and Facebook, it was really bad quality. But while that was going on, we also had our professional cameras filming as well so we could get better so we could throw it online. Do we? Yeah, we did. And then Sunday. What did we do Sunday? No, we didn't. Did we? I have it and I have footage. Oh, well, I didn't know that. Cool. So we had science. What did we do Sunday?
00:16:09
Speaker
We did science. Sunday, we went with A.R. Dutt at Lattel and science stood up. Yeah. So our buddy Alex Crave from Wyoming came down because he missed us. And us, Craveau and Devon, A.R. Lattel went out to the mountains and did an experimental study, which we also filmed in the mountains. It was like a gorgeous backdrop. We found like this amazing little side off in Rocky Mountain National Park.
00:16:32
Speaker
and gorgeous scenery. And we threw out bottles, shot boats. What is it? Was it Roosevelt National Forest? Roosevelt National Forest, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. And did all that science. David hit the ground a lot. That was a long day. We got empanadas. No, we didn't. Did we? No. No, we didn't. Oh, I definitely did hit the ground a lot. I shot the ground quite a bit. Yeah. It was, it was, that was it.
00:16:58
Speaker
We did get some stellar pictures, though. It was actual research. Connor was our note taker. Me and David were filming a bunch of stuff, participating. Devin brought his two very expensive slow motion videos in high quality. We had four cameras going. Went home. That was a long day. Connor decided to stay the night. Thank God. He left the next morning. Connor had to go back to Montrose.
00:17:21
Speaker
which ended up being like a seven hour drive and when it's usually like a five hour drive because it's snow and shit. Yeah. And then David came to school with me on Monday and we filmed, then we filmed Donnie Dust did a live recording with Donnie Dust. Got to show him around Boulder and watching that
00:17:42
Speaker
man nerd out over archaeology was super fulfilling. This guy is a wildlife expert, primitive survival skills expert, who has a very limited knowledge of archaeology. He knows a lot, but then when we were showing him other case studies, he loved the stone tools. We showed him the happy cash.
00:17:59
Speaker
Just awesome, dude. Filmed all that, showed them around, then David went to a department talk with me and we saw some radiocarbon stuff. And I'm actually doing a public piece with that guy. I remember at the end, he's like, I wish more people knew about the hoax that's going on.
00:18:15
Speaker
I reached out to him and said, do you want to do a public piece? Will has connections with Smithsonian Magazine, and we're going to write a public article about those statues and how ufologists are using them to show ancient alien connections to Maya based on the dates of these statues. But really, they're dating the glue. When you date glue, which has all these different materials, it gives wonky dates, and they know they're going to be older, so they only want you to date the glue.
00:18:40
Speaker
But the guy running this lab is like, I don't know what to do because they know it's fraudulent. I know it's fraudulent, but they're going out and telling everyone these are real and people are spending their salaries in Mexico trying to buy these objects, which they think were made by aliens. You forgot about the other part you talked to the guy about though. What I talked to him about. You were like, hi, I'm Carlton Gover. I had recently contacted you and I too find the peak in the radio carbon dating process a little weird myself.
00:19:10
Speaker
I was like, look at this little guy networking over here kissing ass. And it was awesome. Well, it's cool. Well, we're doing that, but then I'm also, yeah, no, I'm really like, I'm actually going to work with this guy in Arizona. He's going to teach me how to run my own radio carbon dates and I get half off the price.
00:19:25
Speaker
So if I can run the dates myself at the isotopic lab at university of Arizona, he's going to teach me how to do the whole process. And I got to run my own dates for half the price. So I got to double the amount of radio carbon dates I get for my dissertation. There you go. That's fucking that's really dope. And on that half off dates with Carlton is on sale right now. Lana, we're sorry we're selling this on the podcast, but we're going to end this segment and we'll meet you on the other side in segment two.
Networking and Survival Skills Discussion
00:19:52
Speaker
All right.
00:19:53
Speaker
Sorry, babe. Welcome back to part two of whatever episode of Lyper North's podcast we're on. We're here with Sleepy Joe Biden, trying to ask him about nuclear things and Bernie Sanders, healthcare, Hillary's email. All right. Sleepy Joe, take it away.
00:20:18
Speaker
Guys, say anything, we're not talking politics on here, but just think about how lazy the name Sleepy Joe is, and it makes it infinitely funnier. Anyways, keep going.
00:20:34
Speaker
So, yeah, I networked with Greg Hodgins at Arizona. But then, yeah, Donnie Dust, if anyone doesn't know, he is a primitive survival expert. He was on the History Channel show alone.
00:20:51
Speaker
Like it was amazing having him. Like he was so nice. I like, David met him first. Cause I thought I had a meeting that day and I didn't cause I'm an idiot. So I came back. I was like, hello, Mr. Dust. It's nice to meet you. He was like, yeah, don't call me dust. Uh, my name's Donny. I was like, yeah, sure. Thanks, sir. You were like, Hey, he's upstairs or he's downstairs. And I was like, Oh shit. And I went to go meet him and I like, you know what? Like when you're about to meet someone that you've never met and you're like, gotta put on a face and you're like, okay, I got this. Of course me being.
00:21:21
Speaker
Five foot zero. I'm actually a five four, but you know, no deal. I go and I'm like, oh, there's this man. Oh my God. And I have that pin up and he's like Mount Doom over me. And I was like, hi, I'm David. He was like, hi, I'm Donny Dust. And I was like, Oh God, he's going to pick me up in front of way.
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah, dude, he was, he was so nice. He like showed up, brought all this, all this equipment and we like laid it out and we were just kind of talking to him. He's like so easy to talk to. We recorded this episode with him, which we live stream part of it, brought Devin in who we've never actually had on the show, but we were like, Devin does ancient weapons. He does ancient tech. We need him here for this. So Devin just shows up in the middle of the episode. They just start going at it.
00:22:06
Speaker
Like, not like in aggressively, but they're like, Devin's like, well, what about this? And daughter's like, oh, wow, dude, I do that too. And then Donnie was like, have you guys ever just like used a, you know, you could use an ad ladle to grab something out of its hole and bludgeon it to death. We're like, what? We never thought about that. So it was like having, Oh yeah, Connor, did we tell you that? No.
00:22:24
Speaker
He mentioned that on atlatls, you're going to have it with you all the time. So you want it to be a multi-purpose weapon that's durable. And he uses the hook at the end to stick it into a burrow and hook the animal and pull it out.
00:22:39
Speaker
And he was like, if you, if you have to a little hook onto the end, you're not going to be able to do that. But if you have one that's thick and carved in there, it's a whole bet. And then you can use it to like whack a rabbit or something too. And I was like, what? It was, it was not. So he's like, yeah, I make these little crescent points. So imagine like a crescent moon and I use them to decapitate turkeys. Cause you can't, they did their arrow. Their feathers are so thick, they deflect darts and, uh, and arrows. So if you cut off their head like that and Devin's like,
00:23:06
Speaker
Dude, we actually see that in the archaeological record, and that's what we thought they were doing. Having those two together, where Donnie's like, here's my real-life experience living primitively. Then Devan would be like, here is archaeological evidence that we think is used in the same purpose. To have them go back and forth, it was literally like doing an ethnographic study. This man runs survival schools. He teaches people how to make their own weapons. He went vegetarian.
00:23:30
Speaker
for like a couple months, just so when he went out to the wilderness, the bush, he would just survive off of plants and learn their properties. And now he's on an all meat diet. And it's like, he does these things to get better in tune with nature and himself. And like, it's phenomenal. And it's like just sitting down with him and just talking about his experiences, the toolkits he uses, and you're just like,
00:23:52
Speaker
How much of this is not found in the archaeological record? Because, like, it doesn't last. And it was just like, holy shit, because we're all like a structural functionalism and like every time we look at it. Yeah. But he he. OK, Connor, I forgot to tell you this. We don't update you. He had a tool that he used. It was this multipurpose tool that he had for it was courtside, it looked like. And it was literally shaped like an actually in hand action. He's like, I've had this for years. Doesn't break when I drop it. And if I need to re sharpen it, I just flick off the ends and I keep going.
00:24:22
Speaker
And it's like, one, that's awesome. And then two, like the fact that it's like shaped like a naturally in hand axe means it's just like the age old good tool, like a bi-face looking thing. And then like in his hand and then he was like, and anyone who wants to shit on behavioral ecology come at me. But he was like, I was like, what's the first thing you do when you go out there? And he was like, well, I'd make a fire or make shelter than fire. Then he was like, well,
00:24:46
Speaker
You know what? I want to make a fish trap. I want to be able to have passive calories coming in while I'm resting. So if I'm sleeping, I'm catching fish. There you have to where I can rest and still get calories. And I was like, oh, are you familiar with behavioral ecology? And he was like, no, what's that?
00:25:04
Speaker
Shit you're doing in your brain right now. Yeah, and it's like people in the past didn't like Calculate out there like, you know calorie expenditure and how much they're gonna get but like he was doing it in his brain, you know, like it is Like he was doing like pre-cost analysis
00:25:21
Speaker
as well. He has a rank system of food, and we were just losing it in the theory with behavioral ecology because he's like, well, yeah, of course, if I have this presented or this presented, I'm going to go for this because it's easier to get, but I get maybe less calories. And it's just like all these things we learn about what prehistoric people used to do, this guy just does.
00:25:38
Speaker
as a person living in the bush in a primitive manner. And he was like, I have several rock shelters that I frequent throughout the year. I have different ones for the seasons. And I like leave catches at different ones and stuff, too, in case like I need them. David and me, David and Devin were literally just like,
00:26:00
Speaker
Like I don't even know how to explain it. Like I want, if you're listening, make a picture of me or Carlton saying behavioral ecology intensifies.
00:26:10
Speaker
It was so cool. And then he's like, oh, and then the other part we're like, Hey, do you want to like, he's like, you guys want to go? Because I was like, yeah, like I just like to go fuck around the woods with you. He's like, you want to go fuck around the woods? I'm like, yes, Mr. Dust, let's go fuck around in the woods. And he's like, just like looking at his schedule that's booked and he's like, Hey, I got some weeks in May. Do you guys want to like go live primitively? He's like, I won't be naked this time, but maybe next time. And so he invited the three of us and Devin. No, he said, I'm going to be naked. You guys can wear shorts if you want.
00:26:36
Speaker
Yeah. So so he invited the three of us and Devin to in like sometime in May to go out with him to like go live primitively. And I shit you not. This came out of his mouth. He's like, it's out of hunting season. However, I know a place where there's a lot of cats and we can scare some cats off from their deer kill. And we're not talking about domestic cats. He's talking about let's go find a place that's ridden with mountain lions, chase mountain lions away from their kill so we can have fresh deer meat. And I and I was like, yes.
00:27:06
Speaker
Yes, please. Wait, he says it's so nonchalantly like it's just Wednesday. He's like, yeah, it's me and the cats hanging out. Let's go steal some food. And it's just like, okay, I feel safe. I feel safe within a 15 foot radius of that man. Like if anything bad was going to happen, Donnie would come and save me. And like, I'm like, okay, cool. Let's do it. He was literally a dunadine ranger, like in real life. It was awesome.
00:27:35
Speaker
It was, it was so great. So I think I might go, um, I was texting today. I might go through out laddles with him on Friday cause I have the day off. So I might just go hang out with Donny. Oh yeah. But I've been watching all those alone episodes with him on it. And there was a lot of stuff like, uh, he mentioned in that podcast that he, uh, got really sick and the Bush and what had happened was he had caught a muskrat and I don't know what happened, but he got sick from the muskrat and, uh, he had like a widow maker.
00:28:03
Speaker
heart attack the year before that happened. And because he couldn't keep anything down, he couldn't take his heart medication. So he had to call the emergency button to get him out of there because he has a family.
00:28:19
Speaker
And this show wasn't worth, you know, him them not having him anymore. But I like it was heartbreaking because like I just met the man like I really like him. And I was watching this episode where he's just like crying because he has to get together. Yeah. Just crying because he had to give up. And it was just like, oh, my God, like it sucked. But yeah, he teaches primitive skills. There's a bunch of classes he takes. He also teaches like eight to 12 people how to make their own ottlottles and then go hunt wild pigs in Texas and like in in in groups.
Cultural Reflections and Native American Powwow
00:28:48
Speaker
Oh, that sounds awesome. Yeah, I'm looking at grants to fund a bunch of archaeologists to go take his school so we can just go do that. Don't don't drink too much wine, though, before hand. God, no. Yeah. Oh, look at you. Look at all the fantasy references we're throwing out here today. This is a good episode. Why not? What was that one? I missed it. Robert. That was a Robert Breath again, dude. A fucking bull next. There we go. Killed by a bull.
00:29:18
Speaker
But yeah, so we will throw all that information about Donny Dust on the show notes. So Siri, remind David to do something. What am I supposed to do? Alexa, remind me to do something tomorrow. 1 p.m. 1 p.m.
00:29:47
Speaker
Oh, boy. She's talking. I'm done. What am I supposed to do? I don't know. We need to talk to Donnie. So what else is going on? So, yeah, we had a very fun weekend. The three of us together is really great seeing everybody. We got to hang out. We've got to film. So we got like culture anthropology and we got museum work in. Oh, yeah. I mean, like everything like we did all aspects of human
00:30:15
Speaker
material culture, from the excavation, the experimental, ethnography, and to repositories. We did a full, basically, four-field approach to a lot of that. Did we do any linguistics?
00:30:33
Speaker
But also we talked about, well, at the powwow, we talked about the difference between Northern and Southern and like different linguistic characteristics and powwow culture. Yeah. I thought we skipped over that a little bit. Thank you, Carlton, for letting us view that. It was super cool, super interesting. And if you're ever
00:30:55
Speaker
I'll ever allowed to go view something like that. Go, go be a fly on a wall and watch what happens or participate in what that's my, that's my little little piece. Go, go, go observe these things. These, these, uh, these celebrations are super, super interesting.
00:31:12
Speaker
Yeah. Intertribal powwows. They happen pretty often. Anyone's welcome to go. It's like just kind of a fun thing for indigenous peoples to get together, sing and dance. There's like, there was like 10 drums there. Yeah. I was just going to say that. Like it's like, I guess I've never been to an EDM festival, but everyone's like, you all feel the rhythm at the same time, man. Like that kind of stuff. Like I get, I get that now because I'm sitting there and there's like 10 different drum and like, I don't know, there's no cooler sound to me than like,
00:31:40
Speaker
a bunch of like indigenous American like drumming happening at the same time with like the dance and the bells is cool. Yeah. Yeah. And I got, I was like, I've been like, um, like, uh, my hair was standing up on the back of my neck. It was like a crazy, like I almost like primal response where it was like, it was insane, man. Like, yeah. You just like feel like that cool, like this is dope feeling when you're in it. Yeah.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah, and there's only only two drums are officially invited. So you have an official North drum and official South drum. So my family was the official South drum and then just a bunch of other people brought drums and they're just like, welcome in. And we took turns singing songs. We had a bunch of dancers from a bunch of tribes. And so like there's different styles of dance. So you had some like sports, ceremonial ones. And there was a guy in a fancy dance outfit. That's one with all the colors and all the and all the stuff. And he was going hard. And that's like, if you ever go to a fancy dance competition where everybody's doing that,
00:32:34
Speaker
Like the only time, I've never fancy danced, but like the people that I do know fancy dance, they have to be super fit. And it's mostly high school students after two a days. Like honestly, that's what a lot of those fancy dance contests happen. Cause it's like, you're taking all these high school males out of two a days from football and they actually have the ability to do all that.
00:32:53
Speaker
and the stamina, because it's so much freaking work. And you could probably see him in those, either Instagram or the YouTube, that we, if we eventually put it up, you can see him, because he is moving, I wouldn't say significantly more, but you can, noticeably more than some of the other dancers. Yeah, it's far more energetic. There's much more moving parts to it, because he's like- Yeah, like one of them's like a shuffle, and then the other one's like a straight up, just like,
00:33:20
Speaker
dance. Because he's trying to make all of the feathers and all the tassels and the bells move in certain ways to create these rhythmic effects where the other traditional dancers are kind of doing like a basic two step, two pow wow step where it's like pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, and he's just like, and every time. So for people listening, like when the dancing, your foot is supposed to hit the ground when the drum hits.
00:33:44
Speaker
So like that's kind of how you're supposed to dance is you have to know the songs and the beat of the drum because that's when your foot is supposed to hit the ground. It's supposed to be in sync. So some of those fancy dance songs, like they get fast in those competitions. The drummers are trying to trick you. So they're trying to make odd stops in there.
00:33:59
Speaker
It's a whole it's it's an interesting if you don't know it, you just think people are just going out there going wild, but it's like there's actually a formal sense to it. That's insane because I actually I was wondering how they judge those competitions and it's like it's your ability to hit that and and there's other parts to it, right?
00:34:18
Speaker
Yeah, so if you actually go on YouTube and you listen, so they wear bells on their legs, and the sound of the bells coincides with the drum beat, because what you're doing is you're trying to hitch your heel in a way that makes those bells jingle. So you get rated based on the jingling, so you have to use different bells of different materials to get these different sounds. So if you actually watch it, you can see those bells are ringing at the same time the drum beat is, because that's coinciding with their foot hitting the ground.
00:34:46
Speaker
in a way to make them flash like that. That's super interesting, man. Dude, it's nuts. The more I learn about it, because I'm just getting back into dancing again. That's the whole reason I was there, sitting down with my cousins and my brother and talking to them. And there's so much anthropology that's going through my head. Oh, well, this is why this goes. And this is why you wear this, because it represents this. And everything to do with those regalia ties back to historic
00:35:14
Speaker
period of the long trails that are behind people where they trail the ground, that goes back to warrior culture in which you would wear these long loincloths that would trail in the back that would cover up your tracks as you walked around. There's a lot going on. It's not just wearing all these beads and skins. Each one of those skins means something else. There's a reason why we use otter. There's a reason why we use kinds of bells.
00:35:39
Speaker
and all the beating that goes on in the designs are family or tribe specific. So there's a lot of symbolism going on to these things. So it's just like, if you just sit and talk to someone about these things, you're like, oh, this isn't random.
00:35:54
Speaker
You know, Connor and I were sitting up in like the top of the bleachers. It was in a high school gymnasium, but like we're sitting up there in the bleachers, like asking each other questions back and forth. Like, why are they doing that? You're like, what is, what's the function of that? And like, just like, I don't know. It was just weird having such an anthropological training and then going and seeing something that's like the epitome of anthropology. It was cool.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yeah, it was like a throwback to Julian Stewart or some of the early folks who were coming out and doing these Native American ethnographies. And I understand with all the questions I had and all the things that I kind of observed, if you don't actually talk to folks, you make a lot of wrong assumptions.
00:36:40
Speaker
Yeah. So I could totally see how early ethnographers, if you weren't able to speak the language or ask the right questions, might get these things wrong and assume things. And yeah, yeah, it was just, it blew my mind. It was the experience blew my tits off.
00:36:56
Speaker
Yeah, I was really worried that you guys wanted to enjoy yourselves and I was super happy after we left and we like talked about it, how happy you guys were. Cause like, that's a, like, you two are actually the first of my friends that have ever seen me in that atmosphere. Usually I keep those things separate. I have my personal life, I have my academic friends and then I have the Pawnee side of me and like I keep those things very separate. And so that was actually the first time I've ever had
00:37:24
Speaker
friends outside of the indigenous community come to that event. And like, I get really weird about that. Cause it's like, that's a huge part of me. And I don't want people to get like upset or, you know, like be like, Oh, that sucks. Cause that, you know, that, that sucks for me to hear. But like the fact that, you know, you guys A wanted to come B you did come and then three, you enjoyed yourself and had these questions and then appreciated it because you're anthropologists. Like if I brought like maybe some of my high school friends who don't do anything, I'm like, Hey, come to this. They'd be like, Oh, I don't fucking get it. But like to have you guys, it really meant a lot.
00:37:51
Speaker
to have you guys there. And then- We really enjoyed it. It was a good time. Yeah, thank you for sharing that little bit of your culture with us, man. Yeah. I mean, it was great. The Wind River dancers would come to the Ark Fair all the time in Laramie. And I always was assigned with John Laughlin to watch the shitty kids cut themselves with the stone tools. And I couldn't Joe over there and watch the dances. I could just hear it. And I was like, man, I want to see it. Because I was saying to Connor, out east, we don't have a lot of tribes.
00:38:20
Speaker
at least in the metro areas where I grew up. So it was really hard to see all that and like just to get sucked into a room full of it was awesome. Yeah, glad you guys liked it.
00:38:31
Speaker
They didn't, they didn't cut themselves at the Wyoming arc fair day. Not on purpose. It was a, it was an incidental thing. So she was like, should I be bleeding? And I was like, no, we're not quit napping. If you're not bleeding. So you guys got the fun parts. When I did the Wyoming arc fair, the first I got stuck in like the sandbox, the fake children's excavation out
Identity and Heritage Conversations
00:38:55
Speaker
in the fort. And then the second year I was with, uh,
00:38:58
Speaker
Oh God, what was his name? I TA'd for him. Anyways, like we had a, we had like a technologies thing, like way out there near the Atlanta stand. So I was always like by myself, like watching kids eat sand or like watching kids try to like beat this $3,000 ground penetrating radar lawn mower. And I'm like, please don't touch that. So sweet. Well, I guess on that note,
00:39:25
Speaker
I think it's time to wrap up segment two. I think I think we hear Elizabeth Warren Warren claiming that she's Cherokee. We need to go. We need to go check this out real quick. Not. So we're going to take care of that real quick. We'll be back with segment three. Later.
00:39:57
Speaker
OK, now that we shut that asshole off. We were talking, we ended the last segment and this is segment three, so we ended segment two talking about kind of Carlton's culture and our experience with it. We had someone on Instagram react pretty negatively to the art that we produced or that Ettore Mazze
00:40:06
Speaker
Hi, I'm Mike Bloomberg. I was mayor of New York City for more than five years.
00:40:23
Speaker
Is that right? Etore. Etore Mazza produced. This guy on Instagram had a really strong reaction to Carlton and the
00:40:35
Speaker
his appearance on that and kind of the clothes he was wearing. So we thought we'd break, we thought we'd like mention why Carlton chose to use that type of clothing in this art. And yeah, yeah. So it started off with this guy going ham on him and saying, why is this white dude wearing native guard, blah, blah, blah? And it just, it devolved into just insanity on his part. Um, yeah, it was just,
00:41:04
Speaker
And then Carlton sent this to us as like, uh, you know, like, Oh my God, what the, what the fuck is happening? Um, and it just, it just went, it just went wild from there. So, uh, so Carlton, why did you choose to, to, um, have the regalia, uh, outerwear, whatever you want to call it. And, uh, the, the piece by a Tori Mazza.
00:41:29
Speaker
For everyone, we're talking about our podcast cover art. I'm the guy on the far left. Connor's the one in the middle with the face tattoo and David's to the far right. Part of this whole thing with The Life in Ruins, we wanted to look prehistorically. Connor and David's outfits are prehistoric European. Connor's is more geared towards Celtic, and David, yours was Eastern European. Then mine was
00:41:54
Speaker
North American Indians. So basically, we're all represented in prehistoric clothing of the populations that we're descended from.
00:42:02
Speaker
Now, part of the problem that we continue to get on our podcast and with me is that I am a white passing native person because people intermarry. My mom is very white with blue eyes. My dad is very brown with brown eyes. And when my dad used to pick me up from football practice, my Hispanic colleagues would start speaking to me in Spanish. I would not know what they were saying. And they said, you know, they're like, we didn't know you're Hispanic. I'm like, I'm not. This is my dad. He's Pawnee. You had colleagues in middle school?
00:42:31
Speaker
Sorry, I'm used to it, no, my football friends. You guys played football with my football guys. And everyone that's going up with me knows Carlton's dad looks very Native American, because he's half. And when you're a quarter, it's a thing. So I've dealt with parts of this most of my life, but because most of the people I interacted with knew my dad, there was no question, but now that we're in the public sphere,
00:42:56
Speaker
It's different. So, you know, Bing Pawnee is a huge part of who I am. I'm on the museum board. I'm now on the new cultural center planning board. And, you know, I do a lot for my nation.
00:43:07
Speaker
And so they didn't, it doesn't bother them at all. Like there's a lot of ponies. There's, there's only 3,500 of us in the country. So we're not like other tribes where there's a lot more, what people would call or, you know, or Slytherins would call pure bloods. Most of us are mixed. I mean, that's just kind of, that's just how it is. And like, it doesn't, you know, to native Americans, blood quantum doesn't mean anything. It's like, are you enrolled sweet? And you know, that's a whole thing. Um, but on social media and things like this, like
00:43:34
Speaker
We've gotten comments before of like, why did this? That was a beautiful fantasy reference. I think that's number three. Gotcha. On Instagram, Etorre shared the art that he did with us. So he allows us to share the art that we commissioned, and then he waits a little bit, shares it on his page. And Etorre tagged me in a post. He's like, I think Pawnee, archeologist, which is my handle, can answer this question. This guy comment is like, why is this Caucasian guy dressed like a native?
00:44:05
Speaker
So I responded, I'm that guy. My name's Carlton. I'm Pawnee. These are all the things I do. I'm Pawnee. And it was like, it was a huge paragraph. I'm not going to read it to you guys.
00:44:16
Speaker
And usually that tells people like, OK, I looked at this guy's page. He's affiliated with the Crow tribe somehow. He's primarily of sub-Saharan African descent, which you can figure out. And then usually when I say like, oh, these are all the things I do for my nation. I'm native. Like, don't worry about it. He's like, he responded rather negatively. He's like, why are you wearing this? What time period is this? And I use the term outfit. He's like, we call it regalia native circles.
00:44:43
Speaker
in our native circles. And then I was like, okay, at first I responded like, who gives you the credibility to ask me these things about my heritage? And like, would you like to get into the DMs and swap CIBs? And a CIB is a certificate of Indian blood. And that's something the United States government, there are three things in the United States that are quantified by blood, and it is horses, dogs, and Native Americans.
00:45:05
Speaker
Those three things have pedigrees. Native Americans are one of those. I am given at birth, if I'm part of a Native American tribe, my own tribal ID, which I keep in my wallet. I have two of them. I sent them both to Connor and David because I was so upset by this comment. I sent them my original one that was given at birth and then the new one I got at a powwow when we switched to digital and got them laminated.
00:45:27
Speaker
So I told this guy, if you want to have this conversation, where's your proof? Where's your CIB? Where is your proof that the federal government calls the view being native? And he immediately backed off. He's like, OK.
00:45:39
Speaker
And that happens a lot when you talk to people who, and it's a shitty thing to do because like, I was upset, I shouldn't have said that because like that qualifies people of like between enrolled and descendant communities. Like I regret it. Cause it was like, cause we, you know, we've had Emily van Alst on this podcast and she is definitely Lakota Sioux. She's not enrolled because of some of her ancestors not living with the tribe during the enrollment period.
00:46:05
Speaker
but she's Lakota, but she doesn't have a CIB. She's a tribal descendant. And it's like, there's all these politics that go into it. And like, she's gotten it too. Cause like Emily, if you look at hers, Emily Van Awesome, she's similar to me. She has one native parent who's mixed and then her other parent is white. So we are both white passing native Americans. She has blue eyes, eye blue eyes. We both have white skin. We're super involved and we're active members of our community.
00:46:31
Speaker
And I was texting her, I was like, what do I do? And she gets similar stuff. There was a comment on one of her posts where she's wearing some awesome beaded earrings and some girl was like, if Emily Van Awesome can call herself native, so can you.
00:46:47
Speaker
And Emily's like, what does that mean? And this girl's like, a friend and I had a discussion about white passing native people more open about claiming ingenuity versus people of color that do not feel as comfortable doing so. Came across this, reminded me of that combo and how indigenous presenting folks are more hesitant to embrace their ancestry.
00:47:06
Speaker
It's like, I ended up commenting on that. I was like, why don't you actually talk to her and see what she does? Because it's like, it's, it's, it's interesting. Like we, we white passing native people have a very, we're in a weird space because to a lot of white people, we're not native into a lot of native people. We're not native.
00:47:26
Speaker
And it's like, it's really weird. And it's like, you know, I can understand that. And it's like, my younger brother struggles with it because, you know, I'm with the museum. I do all this other stuff. Like I can literally throw a fucking thesis of oral traditions and like all my background and my resume of like, yeah, I'm not native, go fuck yourself. And my younger brother, same amount of Pawnee as me, had the same upbringing as me. He's in Florida and he tries to tell people, yeah, I'm Pawnee. And they're like, and my brother, like on the spectrum of color that represents my siblings and my cousins,
00:47:54
Speaker
like my brother is the color of white, you paint your walls. I can at least get a tan in the summer. Yeah. Like I can get a tan in the summer and pass his native and like, he can't, he just gets burnt. And it's a huge struggle for him. And he's like, I don't do what you do. Like I don't have any of this. And you know, and I really feel bad for him because like, as bad as I get it, like he just gets shit on.
00:48:18
Speaker
And it's weird. And, you know, we get this a lot. So we just wanted to bring it up on the podcast, like, you know, some background for some of our newer viewers and listeners. It's like, this is a thing. I am Pawnee. That's why I chose to be represented just as David and Connor got represented as, you know, their ancestry. And it was like, and plus what I'm wearing isn't even like ceremonial. It's like a ribbon shirt, some brass, and then a bone chest plate, like nothing crazy.
00:48:49
Speaker
and we got attacked on it. Nothing that's forbidden, right? There's nothing that's forbidden for you to show. Exactly. I'm not out there wearing anything crazy. I'm not wearing any paint or colors or anything. And even when we did post it on Instagram, someone asked about it and we were like, why don't you read the description of the post? And they're like, oh, right. Yeah, I can't read. Because there's a lot of people, they just want to comment to comment.
00:49:11
Speaker
But, you know, that's how it is on Instagram. And I'm really glad that like when I texted you guys, you guys were both very supportive because it's like I was just having a rough day and then I had that shit of like having my identity questioned is just like not fun. No, I mean, and the reality of people today is that.
00:49:29
Speaker
I mean, the people mixed together. That's, you know, of different races, of different creeds. As they always have, Don. Yeah, as we have evidence of it, you know, with non, you know, not even homo sapiens, we mixed with other, you know, so it's hard, you know, questioning people's nativeness is not something that should be trending or should ever, you know, happen. If you participate in your tribe, if you
00:49:58
Speaker
You know, if you have a little bit of heritage there and you want to, you know, you want to express it, do your thing. That's, you know, it's just, it's, it blows my mind that it's even something that people can can actively do. But it's, it's this part of this a little bit like political correctness, but also policing native
00:50:21
Speaker
people who are trying to express themselves, you know? And natives do it too. It's not just like non-natives. Like a lot of natives do it as well, especially ones that have like what we consider high percentage of Indian blood. They, they're very protective of it. Like I remember reading a Facebook post is like, I only will have full blooded natives because, and like, there's like this tiered system and it's like created just because of like, if someone to say, Oh, I'm Irish, they don't say how Irish are you? Like there's this weird,
00:50:47
Speaker
When you say you're native, the only time it's not questioned is if you support the Washington football team name. It's like, oh, well, I support it. And like, oh, sweet. This native guy supports it. And that's the only time it's not questioned. Like, it's really weird how people get grilled about it and when it's acceptable to ask when it's not, when you need proof, when you don't. And it's like, especially with Native Americans, it's like,
00:51:09
Speaker
That those are the people you can question about their ancestry But if you were to walk in and be like, oh i'm french and people just play. Oh sweet It's like well, where's your french card? Well, they don't exist like it's weird like right like am I making any sense? No, no, no, I have plenty I could say about this from the other side but No, please go ahead. No, dude. We're here Uh, like okay. Okay, like I always hate like announcing this but I mean it's not I don't hide it like I have jewish ancestry and there's people that
00:51:39
Speaker
As soon as I say I'm Jewish, that is the only thing they remember about you. And it's like, oh yeah, that's a Jewish thing to do. You know, just the teasing stuff. And that's fine. I'll jab back and forth with it. But I'll be told by some Jews that I know that you're not Jewish. And it's like, you know, if this was 1940s Germany, I would very much be Jewish. So it's like, I don't know. And it's weird. And people will ask you to prove it on that end.
00:52:08
Speaker
Like I grew up with it. It's like a cultural thing that I have and like my whole mom's extended family. Like it's, it's part of like my young childhood and like it's some, I don't like fill it out all the time. I'll just say like white. If I have to give the option, if I had the option to say other, I always do. Cause fuck ever answering a racial question, but I don't know. It's odd. I think we talked about this in bio theory, Connor, like Damien is Scottish and Japanese and I'm Scottish and Jewish and like,
00:52:37
Speaker
It's I forget I was going with this, but like you couldn't looking at Damien and looking at me you couldn't tell that we have like Scottish ancestry, but like and only until I tell somebody and like the dude that was in Wyoming that was like
00:52:52
Speaker
man do you remember that post I had where the guy we're talking to some hunter and he was talking about how you can just stack elk like jews uh no yeah and he was like yeah man elk herb will just come through and you just shoot him just stack him like jews and i was like and i'm sitting there with ben pearlmutter who's also like way more jewish than i am like he's religious about it i'm not religious but sitting there and we were like okay have a good night man and just like let him go because look he he did
00:53:19
Speaker
You didn't mean anything by it, but it's also just a slight passive thing to genocide. So it's like, but like the ironic thing is like, you can look at me and just assume I'm white, but you did like, it's just stupid. Um, but then like.
00:53:35
Speaker
on your end it's like you're really proud of like the non-white stuff that you have and you don't look it to some people I don't know like I'm proud of both of it yeah I am too I love my like I'm scotch Irish my middle name is fucking Quinn I mean like I you know my family is very Roman Catholic some people saw on social media like I got confirmed in the Catholic Church not because I'm religious at all but
00:53:58
Speaker
I was practicing in a ritual that my Catholic family does. I didn't see it as a religion. I was just practicing what my family has been doing in the Irish Catholic Church for thousands of years. So I participate culturally and ritually in both of these things. And it's like, I don't hate white people. I am white. But it's also easy. From the other end, if I didn't want to support or help indigenous issues, I could just not and never say anything about it.
00:54:26
Speaker
I'm cognizant that I put myself in a position where this happens. And like, I choose to do this because it's like, I think it's important. And because I'm white passing, there's, when people don't know I'm native and I'm at some anthropology conferences, like, and they don't know, I can hear some pretty fucked up things. I'm like a fucking
00:54:45
Speaker
Native ninja, like I can just go into things and just like listen to people's unbridled responses. I mean, I do. I love that. Yeah. Being able to do that. I mean, there was a moment at when we were in essays in D.C. and there was a professor that was making fun of Indian names. He's like, I forget her fucking name. I think it was two dogs. Fucking, you know, those fucking stupid ass Indian names. And I was just sitting there like an essay. I was like, yep. And you're a professor and you teach people and you used to be a student here. And I was just like,
00:55:14
Speaker
what and the person I was with who was a colleague of mine like looked at me awkwardly and we kind of shared this like, yikes, that's not cool. But it's like, I'm privy to that. I'm like kind of grateful I am because I get to really hear honest truths of people and then I can be like, I don't want to work with this person and like people that work with them I'm not too stoked about. If that makes any sense. It's like I'm also given this privilege of being
00:55:40
Speaker
of information that if my cousin walked in or my dad walked in, people wouldn't say those things, but because I'm white passing, I'm privy to some things that other people would say behind closed doors. Same. Yeah. My last name is very English, but if it was Steinboy, my mom's maiden name is, life would be a little different. Yeah. I mean, your mom's practicing. Is her dad practicing?
00:56:04
Speaker
Oh no, my dad's not Jewish at all. My dad's Scottish, English. My mom's is, she vehemently opposes religion, but her whole family is, she's raised, she's like a New York City, Seinfeld, Bernie Sanders, Jewish person. And like- Offered me mozzarella soup when I visited.
00:56:26
Speaker
He hadn't thought it was true. See that? We're that kind of Jewish where it's like, we're not overtly speaking Hebrew every Friday and we don't really do anything religious, but we have that culture of Judaism in our family. It's super concerned that I had nothing packed for my trip to
00:56:44
Speaker
Texas, she was like, she gave me all those cookies. And I was like, you know, I don't plan on stopping. And she's like, but you got to eat something. And I'm just like, I know. But, you know, it's just I always get stuff along the way. And she was like, super concerned. Like, I felt so welcome in the house household when I showed up, like they made this huge dinner and got to hang out with David. And it was like, and his mom was just super welcoming. And it's like, yeah. So it's like, yeah, I didn't know
00:57:09
Speaker
you were Jewish until, and it's not like something I ask people, but you wore that jacket that had the... You Jewish, bro? Yeah. You wore that jacket with the Star of David on it, and I remember the first time he did it, and we were sitting there, and I think that was the day those Palestinians stepped up to you on campus, if you remember that.
00:57:28
Speaker
Yeah, I will forget that. So, Connor, what's your heritage now that we're, what do we got? What kind of mud are you? I'm just, I'm a mudblood man. I'm just like this ugly mix of German, Irish, French, Italian. I'm just like a big shit show is my heritage. My parents are practicing. They're basically like the European royal family, just everything combined.
00:57:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's interesting to see because I think my heritage isn't oppressed or questioned or made fun of unless it's like, oh, you're just a drunk Irish guy or something like that. So seeing you guys having to go through these issues has really opened up my eyes to how I should talk about these things and how should I address these things because I'm
00:58:23
Speaker
I'm not actively oppressed, I'm actively in the majority in the US and I, you know, I want to be more vocal and more outspoken for you guys because I care about you and you're good people. Except for Strider, he's a fucking asshole. I miss that dog. Careful, he's jet black. And German.
00:58:47
Speaker
Yeah, it's an oxymoron household for sure. There was a guy in Laramie, that Halloween thing at the Ranger, who was just dressed as a Hasidic Jew for his Halloween costume, like with the...
00:58:59
Speaker
the glasses with the big nose and stuff. And I was like, yeah, that Native American costume. And if it was a dude in a Native American costume who was white, I would have gone up and be like, dude, but like this guy was like, I couldn't tell. Maybe he was Jewish. Maybe he wasn't because he was white. So I was like, uh, maybe I knew most of the Jews in Laramie because, you know, there was like four of them. But like,
00:59:24
Speaker
I don't know. I just didn't want to bother. I was like, just let him have a good time. Like, he doesn't know any better. But like maybe now I'd have been like, dude, what do you want? Do you want something worse at this? Which is full of anthropologists for their Halloween at a costume contest. And one of those anthropologists dressed up as a Native American. And not only did they do that, but he won the costume contest. What the fuck? And anthropologists did that.
00:59:52
Speaker
an anthropologist for him to win. Like you hear about this shit and you're just like, they just don't know any better.
Cultural Sensitivity and Episode Conclusion
01:00:02
Speaker
But like, if you're an anthropologist, a sociologist, like, or even someone who's a decent fucking human being who like knows other cultures exist and don't like being appropriated, like that's not okay. But like anthropology, especially, no, that's, that's not okay.
01:00:20
Speaker
And on that note, PSA don't fucking culturally appropriate on Halloween. Don't be a dick. It's like, also just, you know, just enjoy other people. Everyone, you don't need 23andMe to find out that you're, you're inter-ethnic. Everybody is. And like, yes, there are shades of colors of human beings. There have been for millennia and like subspecies getting together. Like everyone gets together. Everyone has it. And like, don't take away,
01:00:45
Speaker
someone's identity because you don't believe it. Because like, what do you know? Like, don't be an asshole. Subspecies in the distant past. Yeah, there's no subspecies currently in the distant past. Like, don't be an asshole. Like, it's honestly, just don't be an asshole. Someone says, hey, you know, this is who I am. This is what I believe totally straight. Now, if someone believes that their identity is Apache attack helicopter, maybe you should talk to them. But, you know, other other than that, just let people be. I'm half poor.
01:01:15
Speaker
Now that we have alienated the purposes and the Apache helicopter people, uh, that's end of episode 18. Thank you so much for listening to us. Like and subscribe rate and review. Yeah. Um, before we leave it on like a super depressing note too, just as a recap, we did, um,
01:01:36
Speaker
Everything we talked about that we did the past weekend in Colorado will be on our podcast Instagram. It's on my Instagram and it will be on the Life Interference YouTube soon, but just keep an eye on the Instagram. Connor and Carlton, was there anything else we had to say? Oh, also this is part one of an episode. Episode 18 part two is our interview with Donny Dust. So that's why there's two episodes coming out today. So one is just the regular one and the one after this is just our interview unfiltered. So you guys got a twofer because we love our fans.
01:02:07
Speaker
And, uh, fuck. Well, I guess, uh, we've done this before. Uh, I'd live a life in ruins again. Connor, would you do that? No. No. David, would you do that? No. Yeah, I really didn't either. I think I said this before, it's going to marketing, so... No, I would do it. I would do it. I mean, yeah, of course. Like, this was fun. The powwow resolidified that for me. I was like, yeah, I would do this. Connor's still hard enough. No. All right. Well, with that, uh, we're out.
01:02:42
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer.
01:03:09
Speaker
This show is produced by the Archaeology Podcast Network, Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle, in Reno, Nevada at the Reno Collective.