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Ep. 62 - From Hot-Wifin’ to Simple Lifin’: The Falwell Saga Snyder Cut
85 Plays4 years ago
This week, Sam and Casey discuss the recent Vanity Fair interview with former Liberty University president and Baptist edgelord idiot failure, Jerry Falwell Jr. At last, Jerry and his wife Becky are telling “their side” of the seedy story, and needless to say, it differs slightly from the established narrative… Poor ol’ Jerry is ready to torch the whole family in order to provide some context for his behavior, and Becky is with him all the way! Read the full article here: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2022/01/inside-jerry-falwell-jr-unlikely-rise-and-precipitous-fall/amp
Later, friend of the show and discord ride or die, Antony, joins in to talk about his upbringing in a small, insular northern Michigan religious community. His outlook on Christianity as a young guy was a lot different than ours, and we had a great time talking to him!
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Casey, you and April are on vacation. Okay. It's strapping. Wait, you be the pool boy? Upside, yeah, yeah. Okay, let's see how this is. Yeah, I'd be like, boy! Boy! Can you take your order? My cup is nearly empty. Let me go get, what were you drinking? Were you drinking pool water? Give me that top shelf wild turkey or I'll fire your dad.
00:00:37
Speaker
I know you work here and all, but have you ever seen the view from the third floor from the tops balcony?
Introduction and Audience Engagement
00:01:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Casey. And I'm Sam. And we have to start today by, you know, when, here's the thing. Like, we're here to talk about ourselves, you know, like most people, we're narcissists.
00:01:24
Speaker
But when you, the people reach out to us, we take that very seriously. Audience feedback is a big deal to us. And just to show you how big of a deal it is, we wanted to address
00:01:39
Speaker
one particular email that that caught our attention.
Humorous Email Exchange
00:01:44
Speaker
And well, do you want to just go ahead and read it? Sure. Yeah. So we got this this afternoon. We are recording this on a Sunday before this comes out. So we got it Sunday afternoon, checked, you know, casually checked my email like any adult does. And I see this email come in from a name I don't recognize with the subject title.
00:02:06
Speaker
Joshua Harris. And the email says, look, no formal introduction, no dear whosoever. He gets straight to the point. Are you going to go into the homosexual lifestyle now that you were apologizing to the gay community? Question mark sent from my iPhone. End of email. Yeah, that's a
00:02:30
Speaker
That's a question that gets you thinking. I mean, have we been that transparent about our motives? I don't think we've been transparent enough. I don't see, I thought we had come out episodes ago, but I guess it wasn't obvious. So I might, I don't know. So I'm thinking of how I can respond to this guy because I don't want to mislead our listeners. I don't want, you know, he obviously, he must have been, I don't know, guy probably lives under a rock.
00:02:58
Speaker
and goes, you know, I wonder what Joshua Harris is up to. I wonder if he's written any more really good books on abstinence until marriage. And then our podcast episode pops up. He listens to the whole thing, thinks he's going to get real nuggets of truth that he can use to bring glory and honor and praise to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Satirical Role-Playing
00:03:17
Speaker
And he doesn't get what he was looking for. So I don't know, I crafted an email response.
00:03:25
Speaker
that I think really gets to the heart of where we're at now and kind of what we're up to and how we feel about the whole situation. So I'll go ahead and read that response.
00:03:39
Speaker
Oh yeah dude, going full blown homo. Been practicing my deep throat skills and using traffic cones to practice anal stretching. It's euphoric. It's like fucking the angels in Sodom and Gomorrah. It's so good. My favorite role play is The Passion of the Christ, where I get tied to a cross and scream, crucify me daddy, while I get my nuts slapped with an equestrian crop. That's my favorite part.
00:04:06
Speaker
So, I don't know, I don't know if that was, I don't know, we'll see how that lands. I don't, I think that's what he's looking for, the truth.
Audience Expectations and Biblical Humor
00:04:15
Speaker
And I don't want to, I just, I don't hide my truth under a bushel, you know? I think this will give him the closure that he needs in the conversation, because at that point he can say, I did my part. I reached out, I witnessed, I confronted them about their,
00:04:35
Speaker
their behavior and it just looks like they're not gonna turn away from their wickedness. Yeah, I guess he can, I don't know. I guess he's probably gonna wait for us to, you know, have fire cast down upon us and our wives will look back on the town from once we came and be turned into pillars of salt, just like his favorite Bible story.
Social Media Speculations
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Hit us with some fire and brimstone like Nineveh or something like that.
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I really hope he has a good, I hope he has a word from the Lord for me. I would like to hear what the Lord is telling him in regards to that. What do you picture this person looking like? Oh, well, I don't have to picture it because I found him on Facebook. Yes. Okay. Yeah, that is true. Um, he doesn't look like a particularly stable individual, but I'm just trying to like get a, get a mental profile together for this guy.
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, I can tell you, oh man, where's this? I had it pulled up. You keep talking. I'm pulling this thing back up. This is important. Well, I had the picture that you sent of his. Oh, no, no, no. There it is. There it is. He definitely looks like everyone's least favorite uncle.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yep, that's a good description. I'm trying to plug in his last name because I wanted to actually scroll through his Facebook, whatever. I'll just find the pictures of it. This is annoying. I thought I had more to go off of right now. He looks like the kind of guy, like I could envision him working at a music store, but like really only wanting to sell like brass instruments.
Email Sender's Imagined Life
00:06:15
Speaker
And he gets angry when people come in and ask for guitars.
00:06:19
Speaker
He looks like a, I don't know, I picture him as starting like an, yeah, music. I can see that that's his thing, but he's into niche stuff. And he caters particularly to a particular group of churchgoers that really want to be in the band, but don't really have any particular skillset. So he sells kazoos and shaker eggs and those little chimey things that you go from one end to the other to maybe intro or outro a song, maybe.
00:06:49
Speaker
You can see in his eye that he is a reverence for the organ. Yeah, you can see in his eyes that they're practically bulging out of his skull. Pretty off putting. Yeah, it is. So the reason I really made the connection that this might be the guy, because plenty of people have the same name. This is a particularly unique name, I think. But a lot of people, you know, more than one person has the same name on Facebook. But I didn't have to scroll far before I saw a meme and it was a picture of a rainbow.
00:07:20
Speaker
A double rainbow, by the way, that brings really, that brings some people to tears. And the meme says, I may lose friends over this already. Love this kind of a guy.
00:07:30
Speaker
That's my favorite way for people to start anything off. Just that approach of like, look, I'm the kind of guy that tells it like it is and some people just don't like it. Like, love those
Boomer Memes and Symbolism
00:07:40
Speaker
guys. Generally my favorite people. True boomer meme material. Yeah. But it says, I may lose friends over this, but the rainbow is a symbol of God's promise to never flood the whole earth again. It is not a symbol of some of the sins that provoked the flood.
00:07:57
Speaker
That's a mic drop moment. Wow. So he cares more about rainbows than friends.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah, more about rainbows and friends, more about, I mean, he definitely enjoys the idea that the whole earth was flooded by his
Religious Symbolism Critique
00:08:14
Speaker
God. That is really taking some liberties with the scant amount of scripture that talks about life before the flood, because I don't particularly remember them talking about any individual sins that caused God to flood the earth, but he has assumed that it was homosexuality.
00:08:33
Speaker
You know, it's funny now that I'm thinking about it. My assumptions is that he's assuming homosexuality because it's just a picture of a rainbow. And so I'm obviously making that connection. Right. So I guess he has to be making that connection. Yeah, he doesn't say it specifically here either. He seems like a on the nose kind of a guy. So I'm impressed by the subtlety, isn't it?
00:08:57
Speaker
It was polite of him. He doesn't care if he loses friends, but he's not going to be in your face about it. He did reach that stage in adolescence during cognitive development where he learned to understand nuance. So I think that that's something I wasn't expecting. I feel like this guy probably, like if I had to guess some things about other memes that he posts, I'm sure he's a big fan of minion memes.
00:09:21
Speaker
You know, yeah, I'm sure he likes to post like something like some memes about how, um, you know, people under the age of 30, aren't men anymore. And it's got a picture of like silly and Murphy from, uh, Peaky blinders, something about how they dress or, you know, I don't know, staying true to your word or betraying a friend, like some stupid.
00:09:45
Speaker
ambiguous thing that, you know, doesn't really relate to him at all. But it's a real statement about the generational difference. Yeah, I mean, he definitely would probably have some strong stances on masculinity, despite the fact that his entire wardrobe is like 80% pleated khakis in bland, solid colored polos.
00:10:08
Speaker
Christian nightmares posted like a TikTok from somebody today and it was like something along the lines of like,
00:10:18
Speaker
you know, masculinity and is in decline. Women are replacing men and this and that and the other and stuff. And it was like, is it any wonder that? I love it. It was it was there was two things that he mentioned. It was like one of them was Satanism. One of the biggest threats to our democracy, if you ask me. Yeah, it was like, is it any is it any wonder that fatherless homes and Satanism are on the rise?
Conspiracy Theories Discussion
00:10:49
Speaker
It wasn't exactly that. What's the connection between the two? Let's bridge that gap. You don't have to. You do. You do. I'm just putting the dots together here. I've seen the documents. What is Satanism? There's a slight infatuation with certain types of people on the idea that Satanism is growing. Now, if it's been growing since the 70s, but you never see it and you never really hear from it,
00:11:18
Speaker
It seems an awful lot like a tree that's falling in the middle of the woods that nobody...
00:11:24
Speaker
It's like they would talk about like there's okay. So there's a video that goes around and it gets kind of like A couple extra minutes tacked on to it every once in a while, but it's like the same video It's been going around since the dawn of like YouTube, but it's this guy Who is like I used to be a part of Hollywood. I was a stuntman. I was successful I was in all these movies and stuff but like then I got saved and I couldn't turn a blind eye to what was happening around me anymore and
00:11:53
Speaker
And then it's this long video about Satanism, like satanic symbolism and things like that that are just like shoved into movies and advertisements and all of these things that you see every day, how nefarious it is. And like, you know, implying that every ill in society is the result of like Satan slowly like brainwashing us with symbolism from Hollywood.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah, I don't do I don't understand that I because I mean, I guess you can find what you're looking for, right? There's enough satanic symbols, I guess that you can, you know, link anything you want to them. I mean, you if you put the dollar bill in
00:12:32
Speaker
a movie, you can be like, they only showed this dollar bill because it has the all seeing eye on it. And you know what that means. You're like, okay, now we're doing some like national treasure type shit and we're going to end up breaking into the fucking Pentagon to prove your conspiracy theory.
00:12:47
Speaker
It's so funny because it's just a job. There's this mystique to Hollywood for people. I think that's what's interesting about even through this talking to some people who are adjacent to it or involved in it in some way. I even have some friends that they're very behind the scenes. Someone that I grew up with lives out in
00:13:18
Speaker
in Ellis. Well, she did for a while. I forget what she's up to now. But either way, lived out in L.A. and, you know, had her name pop up on some movie credits because she did shit in whatever department of something. I mean, if you if you watch the credits to movies, there's so many fucking people involved. So many. Almost none of them filled it in active grip and the whip and the best boy.
00:13:39
Speaker
There's just a lot of things. And someone that Jill and I were friends with in college, she married somebody who does set work shit. I don't know how he got set up with this, but if they need to do rain on a set, he works with a company that just does rain when they need rain in movies or something.
00:14:00
Speaker
weird like that. It's so particular, but like every little thing that happens in a movie, they have the part. So like most people working on these sets are, they're people like us and they're making like moderate, like very modest salaries just showing up doing the work. Like, and then you have like the celebrities that, you know, you act and you film and that happens over a period of time and then they disappear and then
00:14:24
Speaker
over a thousand other people were responsible for making that movie happen. Yeah, but not everyone is a part of the inner circle, like a B-movie stuntman who can only stand in for post 50-year-old Steven Seagal.
00:14:39
Speaker
I love it. That's what I love that shit, because they act like they do have that in and they always do a next year role. It's like when that, you know, I got sent videos about this is after Covid started really ramping up and shit was going south in New York really fast, really bad. And there is this like nurse who infiltrated
Misinformation on COVID-19
00:15:00
Speaker
some facilities and we're like, look, you know, I'm a nurse. So I know everything there is to know about the medical. Oh, yeah. And
00:15:08
Speaker
I'm here right now filming and it's not, it's what they're saying is happening. Isn't really happening. And this is all a coverup and elaborate ruse and what like you, you, you, you're not even from New York. You just went there. You showed up to fucking New York and with a camcorder, like some found footage psychopath who about to get murdered by some 500 foot monster that you're not going to surprisingly see until the end of the movie.
00:15:34
Speaker
I got one of those and it was this guy like, I'm a doctor and blah, blah, blah. The only thing that you need in order to.
00:15:42
Speaker
prevent and beat COVID is, it was something that was in like club soda. It was like a mineral or something like that. It's in club soda and then sink and that was it. Like that's all you need to beat and defeat COVID. And it was just continually like, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor, I'm a doctor. Then you look the guy up and he's a chiropractor in like a tiny town in Indiana.
00:16:09
Speaker
It's like, I guess. Absolutely not a doctor. The person who said it to me was like, well, you know, I thought it was kind of interesting because I mean, it's not like he's selling anything or anything. And I'm like, he is selling something. He's selling himself. Like he's getting plays. He's getting, you know, YouTube prominence. Like his videos going all over. He was on YouTube. He was on YouTube.
00:16:39
Speaker
And he had them by the shortened curlies. But that's a thing that I get so frustrated with. And it's not one side or the other. Both sides do this. But I hate that everyone, it's one thing to have a different opinion about something. It's one thing to disagree completely. But why do you have to turn the other thing into a nefarious plot?
00:17:08
Speaker
Like, it's not just that you don't believe that COVID is a serious illness or that you think it's not a big deal to catch it or whatever.
Conspiracy Thinking in Politics
00:17:16
Speaker
Like, it eventually turns into like COVID was a, you know, a conspiracy to destroy our Constitution or COVID is actually a bioweapon meant to kill off a portion of the population and sterilize young people.
00:17:32
Speaker
Like, it's it's always that and it's like the the the left side of the aisle does it to where it's like, you know, somebody, I don't know, it's the same sorts of things.
00:17:43
Speaker
where you're talking about good old boy people from a backwater town who are against, I don't know, whatever, gay marriage or something like that. And then it eventually turns into like, well, they want them euthanized or deported or they want the right to discriminate against them in hospitals.
00:18:08
Speaker
I hate that. It drives me crazy. Whenever I hear somebody doing that, and it's like everything that gets clicks is that. And it's so stupid. Yeah. I feel like there's decidedly less at this point on the left than on the right to be...
Myth of Clean Eating
00:18:24
Speaker
as truthful as I can be. But, you know, one of the things. The same level of of hysteria. It's not the same level like conspiracy, end of the world, good and evil, whatever that, yeah, at the right side of house. Yeah, it's usually a little bit different. I don't know if this is fair to say, but, you know, I remember when I there was this article going around
00:18:50
Speaker
This is years ago. The only timestamp I have for it is one of the three times I lived in my in-laws basement. But it was this article that had basically was all about how clean eating can cure cancer. And
00:19:08
Speaker
You know, a lot of, I would say that that, that, I guess that one's like an equal offender. Um, the whole clean eating kind of thing. It hits different groups of both the left and the right. And I think that's interesting because it's like,
00:19:24
Speaker
If you were going to stereotype them, liberal hippies might be like vegetarians and shit like that. Conservatives would be like, oh, a bunch of liberal vegetarians, whatever. But then the left would think of the right as liking to hunt for sport and not use the animal and just bear some shit, which is not really what's generally happening anywhere, I don't think. But with, of course, the exception of some outliers and some multimillionaire asshole who wants to go shoot an elephant in Africa.
00:19:52
Speaker
Um, but this article was like clean eating. Basically it'll, you know, if you follow this kind of diet, uh, as God intended, you won't die of cancer. Your cancer will go away because cancer is mutated cells. And this helps restore them. It was like, whatever it sounded, you know, it's one of those things that you read it. You're like, I know this is wrong, but because I don't know anything about science and the, and how, you know, uh, medicines and shit affects the body. I'm like.
00:20:22
Speaker
It sounds reasonable, even though you know it's wrong, just from your own experiences as an adult in the world. And you look into it and it says, a study from John Hopkins University. You're like, okay, red flag number one, it's Johns Hopkins University. So they left the S off of John, which is like,
00:20:45
Speaker
that I mean, this article got shared a fucking shitload of times. And I saw it posted by so many different people being like, Holy shit, look at this article, like it was really put together in a way that sounded very smart, they would cite studies, they might not link to it, but that much of a scam, like they literally, I mean, that was a purpose
00:21:05
Speaker
purposeful misprint I don't know I think it might have been a miss it's possible it was a misprint but like something wouldn't really get like it would only get someone would only publish that rock like improperly if they didn't actually know what Johns Hopkins University
00:21:23
Speaker
That's not a peer-reviewed article that's getting published. That's someone's blog post that went viral. And they're misrepresenting the studies out of these different universities. But that shit makes me mad because then people will try that. People will turn down actual cancer treatments to be like, well, I saw this article that talked about just eating a lot of asparagus.
00:21:47
Speaker
Jesus Christ, that's not going to do anything. Yeah. Yeah, that's like a it's it's an example in the other direction in that like, you know, cleaning up your diet and cutting out certain things and stuff seems to be a part of what doctors prescribe for for cancer treatment, you know, in addition to med actual medical treatment.
00:22:09
Speaker
And a lot of that helps like if helps like eat less processed foods, less carcinogens, like all that shit helps, like reduce your chances for cancer, but it was not going to do is fight it after you have it. Like, so it was just a misrepresentation of what the science has told us about, you know, how to help prevent yourself from getting cancer. How, I mean, of course it is a part of it. Like any doctor would recommend, Hey, oh, you have
00:22:35
Speaker
Like, oh, let's not smoke. Like, there's obvious things that are like good for you and bad for you. Eating certain ways, I'm sure contributes to it. I don't know. I don't have any information in front of me to say exactly what you should do. But it was just that I just remember that one, like sweeping the conversation, because I had some friends that shared it.
Misinformation's Emotional Toll
00:22:54
Speaker
I think that was, I want to say it was around the time that my wife's grandmother was battling cancer. And that's why it got spread around like our family because they're like, has Graham tried this? It's like, nope. And if she does, I'm going to fucking punch you in the fucking face because you're contributing to killing her. It's like that shit made me so mad at that time.
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah, I think that there's an impulse to always look for an easier way to process a problem. And you see it with different sorts of spiritualism and stuff like that where people point to things going wrong in their life and they're like, well, since I had this shrine in the corner of my house and since I took it down,
00:23:48
Speaker
like i got a bill in the mail and i got this and i got that which is a ridiculous example but like i've recently heard something along those lines from from a friend and you know i'm thinking like
00:24:02
Speaker
You can't possibly think that that's a contributing factor, right? There's a sacred object that somehow blocks you from trouble in different parts of your life. And from the outside, you can look at it and be like, absolutely not. This was coming either way. There's nothing to do with it. But does it help you process
00:24:25
Speaker
what's going on in your life right now. And that's such a weird thing because it's like on the one hand, that can be really bad if it causes you to ignore the problem or to ignore the simple things that you could do to correct your course or avoid those situations entirely, you know, whether it's financial in nature or health related or whatever it is, right?
Belief in Spiritual Objects
00:24:51
Speaker
Right. That's exactly what it's like. It's like the same sort of thing is like the prosperity gospel stuff. But if, if you are taking responsibility for what's going on in your life, and that's part of how you keep a good attitude about the situation, and it helps you pull yourself out of that whole like, you know, emotionally and mentally and stuff like that, then I it's
00:25:15
Speaker
It's not such a bad thing. It's not really a harmful thing. It's just when it, when you take those things that, that, you know, all of it, I mean, well, you're a, you're a slender fella, but all of us who are chubby have done that 300 times.
00:25:33
Speaker
where you're like, uh, really sick of the way you look or feel and someone comes up to you like, okay, there was this documentary going around a while ago about this guy who was overweight and he had all these health problems and stuff like that. It's an Australian guy. And he goes on this like, like three month juice diet.
00:25:56
Speaker
where he just runs fruits and vegetables through a food processor, looks at some basic macros and stuff like that, and he just lived off of juice for months.
00:26:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's like food processor stuff. So there's vitamins and all that stuff in it. But it's extreme. That's an extreme thing to do, to just live off of juice for months at a time. And he lost weight. And some of his health problems got better and subsided a little bit and stuff like that. And you're watching this documentary, and you're like, wow, that's incredible. Well, I could do that. That's so simple. I could do that.
00:26:36
Speaker
run fruits and vegetables through a wood chaper and suck the pulp out. I did that at one point because I was in a bad spot. I was doing everything wrong health-wise. I was looking for these one-stop shop things that were just going to cure all of those issues for me.
00:26:58
Speaker
When what I really needed was some diet and exercise and some discipline and like to take care of myself a little better. But like, that's so easy to do when you're that far away from where you want to be is just like, well, one of my salesman the other day.
00:27:15
Speaker
He's, uh, he's always talking about weight loss and I'm like, well, you know, here's some simple things that you can do, you know, and he doesn't.
Extreme Diet Plans and Quick Fixes
00:27:23
Speaker
It's not drastic enough to say, don't eat a bag of chips when you're not drunk on your couch at 11 PM at night. That sounds like recent experience talking, but dude, we're talking about this stuff, which comes up all the time. And he goes.
00:27:39
Speaker
Well, my friend told me I should do the tropical smoothie diet and I'm like, dude, what is the tropical smoothie diet? And he's like, well, you go to tropical smoothie cafe and you order a meal and they're like pre-portioned, you know, they all kind of have like certain amount of calories and stuff. And, and then you get a smoothie and you're supposed to get like the good for you ones, but you know, I mean, whatever, it's a smoothie either way.
00:28:03
Speaker
and uh and you just do that for your meals and that way like you know you're you're losing weight but you also are just getting to eat some real food and i'm like okay that is insane that is insane yeah it's like jared it's like uh like the jared uh subway diet but he's telling me this i'm like dude just do anything but that like it's so expensive that gets so expensive like look how about this
00:28:31
Speaker
I don't know what his lifestyle is like, but just cut out 500 calories, just cut out 500 calories a day, empty calories. Like, dude, you want to eat, you want to eat five ounces of chips? That's like, that's what's so hard about it is like about health and shit like that is the amount of food you can just go to that your body is just like, yeah, give me some, give me more.
00:28:56
Speaker
It's like chips is like the amount of calories and chips that you ingest and don't feel full afterwards. How many chips do you eat on a daily basis? I just love chips. I don't eat a lot. It keeps coming up. Because we have chips in the house for the first time in a while and it's making me horny. I don't know what to tell you. What is your go-to chip? Well, of course, for brand or are you talking style?
00:29:24
Speaker
I do flavor. Oh, flavor. Mm. I fuck with barbecue. Variations of barbecue, dog. OK. You salt and vinegar guy, aren't you? Uh, I like Doritos. Oh, I like about any flavor of Doritos. You know, you like Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Oh, yeah. Once in a while. Once in a while. All right. That's like a staple of being in high school is also being addicted to Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Yeah, I don't like orange fingers. That's my problem with them.
00:29:55
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, you like everything else that comes with being in high school, like monster energy drinks and
Diet Advice Relatability
00:30:00
Speaker
shit like that. But once you shut up. I also think we should end this conversation with just letting everybody know that we have absolutely zero authority to speak on diet and exercise. All right. We're not credible sources for what you should or shouldn't do. Well, and the point of all of that that you like that are stupid if you want.
00:30:24
Speaker
The point of all that is that every one of us has done that probably recently where we've had a problem that we didn't really want to address and we found a Cut and paste solution from a salesperson that was guaranteed to fix it all overnight and we've like rather than addressing what needs to be done we we've said Well, I'll just assume that like I don't have to pay taxes this year
Jerry Falwell Jr. Controversies
00:30:58
Speaker
But speaking of bad choices We got a talk about an article that came out this week in Vanity Fair About our buddy Jerry Falwell jr
00:31:10
Speaker
who you'll be hearing from shortly. He's our guest, no. Yeah, so basically what? This article came out with Vanity Fair, and it was a lot of stuff we already knew. I don't know if anyone's read it. You can just Google Jerry Jr., and after you get past Wikipedia, the Vanity Fair articles will come up. Just to be safe, Google Jerry Jr., Vanity Fair, and you'll get it. It's interesting. I'm not all the way through it yet.
00:31:38
Speaker
But I think there's some of it that provides some context as to like why he is the way he is. And then there's also some of it that's like this is their story that they've been concocting at their dinner table over the last like eight months. Yeah, this was vetted by a lawyer. Well, he is a lawyer, but it's it definitely a real lawyer.
00:32:02
Speaker
Yeah, but they have so they get into the whole grande story where there's Jean Carlo grande, the pool boy that they fucked allegedly. And it's it's so far after the fact that for them to be like, OK, you can come and have a sit down interview and we'll tell you everything. It's like, you know, you know, you this is rehearsed. You've planned it out. Nothing about this is going to seem genuine, but
00:32:28
Speaker
There was some bombshells in it. And there were some things that were slightly revelatory. So like, you know, the first being that I don't really actually know much about Jerry Junior's life. Prior to becoming his my first year at Liberty was his first year. So because I got there the year after you. So you had one year of Jerry fall senior. Yep.
00:32:50
Speaker
And so they get into Jerry Jr's life a bit. He never really took to the whole evangelical fundamentalist Christianity thing. He was out, he wanted to go out and party and drink. It just didn't hit him at all, which is a feeling some of us can really resonate with growing up with religious parents. And so some of the things that came out, I feel like some of what he tries to do in this article is dismiss his behavior
00:33:19
Speaker
because he never really gravitated. Oh, well, you know, I never really gravitated towards it to begin with. And now it's just like, let me just look to the past to make excuses for my behavior today. And it doesn't cover it. It does not nullify it. It doesn't change the fact that you took a job at an evangelical university where you were supposed to be a certain type of person and hold up, hold yourself to a certain level of standard. And then to just be like, after you've burnt the whole fucking thing to the ground, pretend like
00:33:47
Speaker
Well you know I was never actually that guy. No fucking shit dude. Everyone knew you weren't that guy. You spent all that time fucking lying about him. And now that you have nothing to show for it, you're like,
00:33:58
Speaker
Listen, I just wasn't that guy. I almost, so like one of the first quotes about it is like the guy who wrote the article asked him or who interviewed him and then wrote the article asked him if like, what the fuck kind of happened? Like it almost feels like you tried to burn this shit. He's like, subconsciously, I think that that's true. And he said, it's almost like I didn't have a choice because of my last name. People think I'm a religious person, but I'm not.
00:34:24
Speaker
My goal was to make them realize I was not my dad. It's like, you didn't have to make you could have just told the fucking truth. And they would be like, Oh, I guess he's not like his dad. But instead, you just played the long con and then fucked off for the last five fucking years of it and acted like
00:34:39
Speaker
I have to show these people I'm not like my dad all the while still telling everybody that you're like your dad almost like my dad's this great man introduced Donald Trump Donald Trump is one of the most Christ like people I've ever met like all this shit that he's done like pretending to be in it is like it was convenient
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah, so when his actions don't line up to look back and say, I guess I was like, just trying to show people I wasn't like my dad. It's like, no, that's not what was happening at all. That is what you that's what people say to like, cover their tracks. And I don't know, he's obviously like,
00:35:15
Speaker
There's some of it that so it does humanize him in a way because look as as fun as it is to make fun of Jerry Jr. and as easy as it is to look back at Jerry Falwell and the things that he did and said and think like how he must be an evil ogre and stuff. These are just people from a different world like they are they are just not
00:35:41
Speaker
a part of the same planet that we live on now, you know, and like, it makes it feel like some real righteous gemstones type shit, you know? Yeah, yeah. And so in the article, you know, he kind of spells out like part of how he's
00:35:57
Speaker
reintroducing himself in this, you know, quote unquote, more honest way is he talks about like his relationship with his dad and, you know, kind of share some thoughts about his dad that I was surprised. I mean, I think he kind of burned the family to the ground in this article to try to like humanize himself, because for one, he craps on his brother like crazy. Jonathan Volwell, who runs Thomas Road Baptist Church,
00:36:27
Speaker
who's kind of more of the typical religious poster boy. It made sense for him to be the pastor and for Jerry to be some behind the scenes business guy that handled real estate deals and stuff like that for the college.
00:36:43
Speaker
And Jonathan always like I went to his church for a bit when I was at Lynchburg and it's Southern Baptist, right? It's just cut and paste Southern Baptist. But I don't know. I'm sure there's some skeletons in that guy's closet too. But at the end of the day, he always did seem kind of like a mild mannered, just regular decent kind of guy. Nothing overly special or
00:37:08
Speaker
Nothing, no real big dark secrets or anything. Yeah, he seemed fine. Like he was nothing really remarkable about him. But he also wasn't out front with a TV camera trying to be like the firebrand that his dad had been in the past. He probably could have tried more because he came into his dad's church. He probably could have tried to get on TV. I'm sure there's things he could have done. Like he could have sold his soul a little bit.
00:37:33
Speaker
and, you know, just gone towards some prosperity shit with a Southern Baptist twist. And he could have done whatever he wanted and used his name to make himself more prominent. And I really don't think he did. And this article in the shade that Jerry Jr. throws at him
00:37:52
Speaker
uh actually validates that it makes because jerry i mean jonathan refuses to comment on anything because if any shade that jerry jr through they reached out to jonathan for comment and he just didn't like he seems like he's uninterested in playing this game and getting involved in this bullshit good for him as i respect i you know he stayed out of it uh i know when i was there at liberty there was like i
00:38:16
Speaker
You would hear whispers of conflict between the two. And like one of the days I tried to go park with, you know, Liberty people used to, employees used to always park in the Thomas Road Baptist Church parking lot.
00:38:31
Speaker
because they were attached. Like it was a road that went from Liberty to Thomas Road. It was like a back road that connected the two and there were the gates that were shut. You could no longer park there. I'm like, what the fuck's going on? I guess like the rumor was there was some like feuding going on and I don't know. It just turned into like, it was like always that kind of like sibling rivalry bullshit. You got the feeling being there that there was some bullshit between. And like Jared Jr.
00:38:57
Speaker
You know, part of the gripe with him is that he did exactly the opposite of everything we just said about Jonathan. Like Jerry Jerry's problem in this role and the reason he eventually like fell apart was not because he's not a.
00:39:15
Speaker
traditional fundamentalist baptist christian like it's not the reason that he's fallen apart yes the reason that he's fallen apart is because he assumed that identity because it was useful to him and then he did try to build a brand for himself off of it like he wanted to be the connected political right-wing evangelicalist you know that's
Falwell's Religious Hypocrisy
00:39:40
Speaker
gonna
00:39:40
Speaker
rally the conservative base around the country and throw him behind, you know, his whatever strongman we're talking about this week, you know? Yeah. He wanted the power that came with the opportunity. Exactly. And what he says, and this is what's really, this is what he says in the article, and this is what just screams bullshit, is he says that being on the receiving end of evangelicals moral
00:40:07
Speaker
Oprobrium? Jesus, I don't even know. Jerry Jr. coming in hot with the big words. Oof. Google it. Google it for me. Well, I'm reading. He slurred that. I guarantee it. Oprobrium. Can you look it up? Yes. Use your typey little thingies. What does this start with? Use your little sausages. It's O-P-P. O-P-P-R-O-B-R-I-U-M. Harsh criticism or censure?
00:40:34
Speaker
Okay, does it give you a pronunciation? Let's see. Aprobrium. Aprobrium. Ooh, she said that sexy. Probrium. Probrium. Aprobrium. Okay, great. I learned something new today, and I'm definitely going to use that as a sentence. From Jerry Falwell Jr. Yeah, I'm using that as a sentence at some point. All right. He said he was sick of basically being on the receiving end of Evangelical's aprobrium.
00:41:00
Speaker
that fundamentally turned him away from the movement. He believes in Christ, he said, but not the church. And now here's a quote from him. Nothing in history has done more to turn people away from Christianity than organized religion. The religious elite has got this idea that somehow their sins aren't as bad as everyone else's. This is Jerry saying this.
00:41:22
Speaker
Yeah, like that is his identity for the past like decade has been that it's been.
00:41:31
Speaker
whatever thing he wants to highlight while also making himself a representative of the moral majority group of people throughout the country. I mean, it is cut and paste exactly what he's been. He is organized religion, and that's the gripe here, and that's why people can't stand the hypocrisy is because he's done that. He's wielded this political power
00:42:00
Speaker
as a result of like the, you know, yeah. And what makes it all the more bullshit was I think this is another poignant part that correlates with that. That was the kind of the closing statement is like, well, I guess I'm done with it. I'm sick of all these evangelicals giving me shit about my life. Like what shit did they you know what shit they gave him about his life in his like not a lot. Let's be honest. Like not a lot. It took.
00:42:29
Speaker
No one cared about the whole, I shouldn't say nobody, but we already know that at least 81% of evangelical Christians weren't bothered by his love of Trump and his full-blown endorsement. So that wasn't the problem. There were students that didn't like that and there were people who pushed against that. There were faculty that pushed against that and found themselves shown the door.
00:42:52
Speaker
because they don't give anyone tenure in that school. So, you know, he ran that, like, I mean, he loved the control that he got there, like father, like son, I suppose, because, you know, there is another, there's a fun quote from his dad talking about drinking. It was like, why, oh, they said, why don't you drink? He asked his, hey, Jerry Jr. asked Jerry Sr. why he didn't drink, because Jesus drank wine. So like, why wouldn't you?
00:43:20
Speaker
Jerry Senior said, I just like to be in control. I don't like to be drunk. It wasn't because of any religious issues. That was his dad's reasoning for it. Also, they do reveal that he
00:43:33
Speaker
allegedly drank a bottle of Nyquil every night because Jerry Senior's wife didn't allow alcohol in the house. It seems Jerry paints this picture that that his mom was like the fundamentalist in the family. And Jerry Senior, like, you know, he got married to her, he was infatuated with her, apparently she was engaged.
00:43:52
Speaker
This is actually pretty wild. What's her name? Maisel was Jerry Senior's wife's name. So she was engaged to this guy who was at some, you know, Baptist college, whatever, seminary, whatever.
00:44:08
Speaker
Jerry senior is like, I really liked this person. So he went to, he started going to church and got like involved and baptized and became basically because of that. I mean, I mean, everybody knows a guy who did that. Like, oh, that girl's hot. I like her. I'm going to just start going to church with her, I guess. So, so then he goes to the, he ends up enrolling in the college that Maisel's fiance was at and becomes his roommate.
00:44:36
Speaker
and then says, Hey, I'll mail all your letters to her and then puts them in the trash and basically like sabotage their relationship. I don't know. It's so sensational. It sounds like a story that an old blowhard would tell.
00:44:54
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah, but that's part of the strategy with how he talks about all this stuff too, is that like my dad led a double life and so did I. My mom was a strict fundamentalist nitpicker like Jonathan and that's why we don't get along.
Critique of Organized Religion
00:45:08
Speaker
That's why my dad and my grandma or my mom had such a bad relationship and he was trying to escape her.
00:45:15
Speaker
Like, I mean, he just literally lights the whole family on fire. He really does distance himself from this and like reconcile his his actions. So his his point about, you know, I just don't like being troubled by these evangelicals and their moral superiority. Like, that's all he's touted. All he touted was moral superiority. Yeah. Conservative religion. But that this I think what's really fascinating about it. And I think this is what sheds a lot of light on him and his character.
00:45:45
Speaker
This is a quote from the article. I'm just going to read it verbatim because I think it's, you know, he's a journalist and writes good and I don't say things sometimes.
00:45:56
Speaker
This Jerry was at a spiritual crossroads. He didn't want to be a fundamentalist, but he wasn't an atheist either. Jerry said he majored in religious studies at Liberty so he could figure out what he really believed. Also, side note, if you want to figure out what you really believe, religious studies at Liberty, not the place for that. Trust me. It's not super helpful. It was during a course on apologetics, the study of defending Christianity to non-believers
00:46:24
Speaker
that Jerry said he was persuaded it was rational to believe Jesus was literally the Son of God and the miracles of the Bible happened. I became a true Christian in college. Newly confident in his faith, Jerry decided believing in Christ didn't mean he had to follow the evangelical rules. I think that's true. That's me saying that. Sidebar. Sam Shipman thinks that's true.
00:46:48
Speaker
Back to the quote, Jerry says, organized religion says you have to earn your way to heaven. What Jesus said was, you just have to believe. There's the rub. He thinks that this is rational and it makes sense. And Jesus says, all I have to do is believe. To what? Get your ticket to heaven. And guess what? Now you can do whatever the fuck you want. And that's his religion. Yeah, and I think that
00:47:16
Speaker
Jerry's got some psychopathic tendencies. He probably really doesn't have any moral concerns about any of the things that he did, or how he wielded power, or used university resources, or even through his wife under the bus when all of this affair stuff came out. I think all of this just shows that this is a guy who wanted to do what he wanted to do,
00:47:42
Speaker
He didn't care what the rules said, and he had justified it in whatever ways necessary. Christianity was a belief of convenience for him because it gave him access to the resources that his dad had. And a paycheck. He was making $800,000 a year by the time he had to leave that school. In this article, he admits that the reason he turned down, because remember he was asked to be
00:48:07
Speaker
What was he, he was asked, I have to pull it up in order to remember fully. He was asked to be on, by Trump, something to do with education. I don't know if it was what Marjorie Taylor Greene ended up getting, whatever. But basically he could have had a seat in that cabinet and, but he turned it down and he specifically says it's because he would have been taking a pay cut from his $800,000 a year job.
00:48:29
Speaker
Yeah. Which is a funny sidebar that came up this week. I've been watching a lot of news coverage about the debate around whether or not senators and congressmen should be able to invest while they're in office.
00:48:49
Speaker
Because there's a huge number of senators that have outperformed the S&P index and all of that stuff. They're clearly just dominating when it comes to investments and stuff. One of which is Republican Senator from Texas, Dan Crenshaw, who's kind of a favorite of the less religious right right now.
00:49:16
Speaker
Whatever. I think he's still like a showboating grandstander like so many other ones, but, uh, Dan Crenshaw made a ton of money investing last year and when cornered on it, uh, whether or not he thought that there should be a ban on investments from senators and congressmen and stuff, he basically said like, no, I mean, how are you even supposed to better yourself when you're only making, you know, whatever it is, 150 or whatever it is that senators and stuff make.
00:49:44
Speaker
And I don't know. It was just funny. It was telling. Yeah. Not a one side thing. Like they're all on it together. Yeah. So that before we before we dip here, we got to talk about the Giancarlo Grande situation.
00:50:03
Speaker
Yeah, because we've been hearing like Gian Carlos version of the story on John. Is that what it is? Is it John? John? I think so. I think it's when you're jumping down my throat. I think it's guy. And I just hear it say that way. And John doesn't sound like doesn't sound right to me. GC John Carlos sounds like a juggalo name. Absolutely. Let's just call him Daddy G. Daddy. Big Daddy G steps.
00:50:33
Speaker
But, you know, he's been like pretty public about his, you know, his take on the story and like he tells it until recently because he has a book coming out and a Hulu series in the works. So he's not really saying much right now. Falwells wouldn't pay, so he had to go the other route.
00:50:51
Speaker
But Daddy G's version of this story makes so much more sense than the following. Oh my god. So much more sense. Dude, listening, reading through this in the way that they're telling the story was
00:51:09
Speaker
Unbelievable. Like, it doesn't make any sense at all. It's like we met him, but then we had an affair. But Jerry didn't know about it until after he said like till like a year or so after he decided to have a business deal with a college kid who knows absolutely nothing. Who's first pitch. His first pitch. I have the quote because it's so fucking funny.
00:51:37
Speaker
It's a, one afternoon at the pool, Granda struck up a conversation with Jerry and Becky while taking their food order. Granda mentioned he was working to pay for courses at Florida International University. Jerry thought Granda seemed like an ambitious college kid and wished him luck. Very ambitious. He took, I've, listen, I've had a lot of people take my food order and you know when they're ambitious and when they're not. So I, I feel like Jerry and I have a lot in common when it comes to picking up on these cues.
00:52:05
Speaker
Oh, you have a lot of common, that's for sure. He says, according to Becky, Granda slipped her his cell phone number. The next day she invited him up to see the view from their room. She said Jerry was present when Granda visited. You know, as people do. Yeah, so normal. Jerry said he didn't know then that Becky and Granda began speaking constantly.
00:52:29
Speaker
Okay, a little bit of role reversal or role play here. Casey, you and April are on vacation. Okay. It's strapping. Wait, you be the pool boy? Upside, yeah, yeah. Okay, let's see how this will play out. I'd be like, boy, boy. Did you drink an order? My cup is nearly empty. Let me go get, what were you drinking? Were you drinking pool water?
00:53:01
Speaker
Give me that top shelf wild turkey or I'll fire your dad. I know you work here and all, but have you ever seen the view from the third floor from the tops balcony?
00:53:22
Speaker
You and April at the pool. This guy rolls up. Dude, I'm talking. He's got he's got short shorts on for a bathing suit. He's a Miami tan and tone of my side down triangle. He is an upside down triangle on sticks. And this guy fucks. You know, he fucks like a motherfucker. And he goes, can I take you guys? And you're over there simping in the corner like a bitch, right? You're like, I'll have the chicken fingers.
00:53:52
Speaker
Right. Yep. I'm with you so far. Do you have ranch dressing? Do you have something like ranch dressing? So April places a nice drink order, makes eye contact, smiles a lot. And then, I don't know, somehow without you knowing, slips him a piece of paper.
00:54:14
Speaker
A few hours later, you guys are up in the hotel room. You're like, you want to fool around? And she's like, no, not right now, Casey's. And then you have a knock on the door. And this guy, I'm talking like, do broad shoulders, six pack packs for days, right, comes in. And she's like, oh, that's the guy who took our order early. Do you remember him? You're like, how could I forget a chiseled body that makes me so insecure like that? And you're like, she just takes him over to the window and like, look at this.
00:54:44
Speaker
This could all be yours if you just work hard in college, young man. And in all the while you're like, this is so normal. I've never, I would never expect anything's going on between these two. Think about what a lunatic he would have to be to slip someone's wife his number.
00:55:02
Speaker
Like right in front of them. A lunatic. A lunatic. Also, all these pictures, like the pictures came out, right? That's what Cohen was supposedly covering up was topless pictures of Becky. And then there's like the sex tapes. It's like Jerry was taking those and filming those. That's what makes sense. It doesn't make sense that they set up a tripod and figured this out so that way they could have this for later. Like this is a three-part participation game.
00:55:31
Speaker
Yeah. And the details of the business deal were so ridiculous. Like basically saying that like they couldn't pull out of the hotel purchase after it was started. So like even based on business ethics, this guy has done.
00:55:50
Speaker
Even though Jerry had just learned like two days beforehand that they were supposedly having and this is all allegedly, even though he had allegedly learned like two days beforehand, that this young stud Daddy G was banging his wife behind his back.
00:56:05
Speaker
He was like, well, I don't think we should let that get in the way of our business relationship. Let's buy this one and a half million dollar hotel together. Come on up for my daughter's wedding. You invited the guy who's banging your wife behind your back to your daughter's wedding? I think it was his son's wedding, Trey Falwell's. OK. Wonder if you're forgettable children's wedding. Dude, here's what's crazy about this, though. I think it was after the wedding.
00:56:35
Speaker
This is probably the worst part about the whole article is I'm going to read verbatim from this because I don't want to stumble over in April, 2012, a month after. No, I'm on the wrong spot. Motherfucker.
00:56:52
Speaker
Hold up, here we go. Granda drove from Miami to Washington DC in late August 2019. He was going with his family for some reason. So this was after the affair. Oh, they're just business partners, goes to the wedding. If you listen to Granda's side of the story, there's a lot of calls and texts exchanged in between this that are very volatile. Clearly not the type of people you just invite into your life and to do shit.
00:57:21
Speaker
So, Granda drove from Miami to Washington D.C. in late August 2018. Jerry even offered to let Granda, his mom, and his sister stay on the farm to break up the trip. To break up the trip, you drive from Miami to Washington D.C. You're only like, what, three hours from Washington D.C.? Like, if you're gonna break up the trip, you get a hotel in the middle. Pretty sure after this business deal, Granda could afford it.
00:57:45
Speaker
Talk about Fox and the hen house too. Yeah. So, well, that morning, the morning after Granda and his family arrived at the farm, Becky said Granda texted her that the wifi and the guest house wasn't working. Becky said moments later, she found Granda in her daughter Caroline's bedroom.
00:58:03
Speaker
He explained he wanted to stay there because there was internet service. Becky said the next thing she knew, Granda pushed her onto the bed. They hadn't slept together since 2014. It's been four years. She said she didn't want to start again. He said he wanted to have sex, and I said, no, no, no, Becky recalled. Jerry was in the shower down the hall and couldn't hear what was happening. Becky said Granda kept pressuring her. I kept saying- Jerry was sitting in the shower drunk.
00:58:31
Speaker
I kept saying no, I didn't want to do it, but I was scared to death of him too because he was willing, because he was still holding everything over me. So you're still in business mutually with a guy who's supposedly holding everything over you.
00:58:46
Speaker
So he was still holding everything over me. So we had sex. Becky said it was over quickly. He left and I went into the room and just cried. Granda declined to comment. Becky said she didn't report the traumatic experience at the time because she knew from personal experience working at Liberty University that nobody takes those claims seriously. Just kidding. That's not what she said. She said because she felt guilty about the affair. I know. Oh my God.
00:59:15
Speaker
It's so true, but it's terrible But I mean it's true that's awful, but this is what's awful about this situation is
00:59:24
Speaker
Look, a lot of shits happen to liberty. A lot of people have made complaints about sexual assault and harassment on campus from people who very clearly are sexually assaulty. You hear the stories and the corroboration, you're like, absolutely, I would not trust these people alone in a room with anybody. So when you hear, part of me feels like, even though you're not supposed to not believe people,
00:59:50
Speaker
with everything going on, with all the shade they've faced from their title nine dealings at Liberty. After all this time, despite any credible reason to believe their stories to begin with, to come out swinging with an accusation of rape does not feel believable. Yeah. Yeah. If this is your grand plan to discredit Daddy G, I don't think it's going where you need it to go.
01:00:18
Speaker
You're not going to get the mileage out of this that you were hoping for, especially this late in the storytelling game. Yeah, that's what it feels like. And, you know, like you could I mean, they could reasonably make the argument that there was an affair or whether Jerry was involved or not and.
01:00:36
Speaker
Granda blackmailed them and kept them, you know, interacting with him and stuff like there. You could concoct a story like that. They would at least make some sense. What doesn't make sense is the fact that like you guys keep banging this dude long afterwards and you keep introducing new things like you keep. I mean, at one point, they're like. I invited him to Liberty to meet Trump when they had him speak on campus like.
01:01:03
Speaker
They're like talking about him getting a picture with Trump while Jerry like smiles and beams in the background. It's like they had the same dynamic whether Becky was there or not.
01:01:18
Speaker
Turns out Jerry Jr. just loves to watch Giancarlo do just regular things too. He's like, hey, do you want to go have a grab a bite to eat at the rot? And then Giancarlo sits down to take a bite of that dried out cardboardy like hamburger that he squeezed a little too much ketchup and mayo on. He takes a bite. The mayo drips down the side of his cheek. Jerry Jr. beams glowingly.
01:01:41
Speaker
And then he commands one of his underlings like Ron Godwin. He's like, wipe it off his face, wipe his face for him and use your goatee. Yeah, so there's so much more in this article that we could go on and on about. It's it really is ridiculous. Like it's of course, you know.
01:02:04
Speaker
Vanity Fair didn't go there to do a puff piece for the fall wells, you know, so there is some stuff in there that I think shed some light on the situation. I think Jerry shares some things that make it, you know, you can understand a little bit how he gets to where he is. But overall, there is just no coming back from this scandal.
01:02:27
Speaker
it lets you understand that like a little bit better about why he may maybe why assuming anything he says is true but maybe why he's kind of shitty but i there is like there was some backlash to them right into the piece on him um
Falwell's Influence on Trump
01:02:43
Speaker
I don't know how big. I just know people are like, why are you guys still giving this person the time of day? Like, which I guess is an interesting story. Who cares? And I and I do get it because just because some people are like, I mean, our lives are wrapped up in in it. You know, we went there like he he I mean, the fact that he was basically told that after his his endorsement of Trump effectively won them
01:03:08
Speaker
won Trump the presidency. I don't necessarily buy that. I think that was some, you know, I think that's some hyperbole for sure. Because one of the things he talks about is like, oh, I didn't want to be a Christian celebrity, but what choice did I have? I had to take the job. My dad died and I wasn't ready for that. I thought I had more time. It's like, fuck you, dude. You weren't a Christian celebrity. Jerry Jr. died. I mean, Jerry Sr. died and everyone goes, holy shit, Jerry's dead.
01:03:36
Speaker
Oh, his son's taking over crickets for a while crickets for years until he started being a shithead. Like no one fucking cared about him or his opinions or his spirituality. He could have easily never said anything to indicate that he was an evangelical Christian. He could have just been not that there's a whole lot of delineation between evangelicals and just like your typical like conservatives like him. He would have blended in just fine. He could have just showed up at convo every once in a while.
01:04:06
Speaker
talked about whatever he needed to and introduced Trump when he had to. He didn't have to do that. There was zero requirement from him to portray himself as any more spiritual than he actually was.
01:04:19
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's it's part of the persona that he crafted for himself. He wanted to be like a mix of his dad and Rush Limbaugh. Yeah, that's what he did. And you know, he wasn't smart enough to manage that persona. Like that's part of what the problem is here is that he is not a well spoken charismatic character. He tried to be
01:04:42
Speaker
He really tried to portray himself as that, but he's not. He's a dull, slow-spoken doofus that has continually stuck his foot in his mouth at every opportunity. You know, it doesn't mean he's a business man. I mean, he did a lot of things that were really great for the college as a business, but like he is not going to be this voice on the national stage. That's what I can't figure out is like, what does he think is next for him?
01:05:09
Speaker
Because he doesn't have the pockets to buy his way into prominence with the Republican party. He's banking on that Trump win, dude. He's banking on it. Dude, nobody cares about him now that he doesn't control the university. The Falwell name doesn't mean much of anything anymore before all of this scandal. And now it really doesn't mean anything, especially since he's disgraced and he's no longer affiliated with the college.
01:05:36
Speaker
There is no place for him in the public spotlight in the conservative side. Because they don't get anything out of it. I think he thinks he got his seat at the table because he brought something to it on his own accord, or personally, or his brain. But it's like, no. He threw the weight of the college around.
01:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, your seat at the table has been taken away because you don't have the power left to make, you don't have the influence. That's all people want. That's what people are buying. That's why you were getting rich. Like, and he wasn't, like you said, he wasn't dumb before Jerry died. Jerry brought him.
01:06:14
Speaker
in to the school to help save it from bankruptcy. And Jerry did that. Jerry effectively made, you could argue unethically when it comes to the way he handled LU online, whatever. You could argue that Jerry's only job was to come in and try to save it financially. And that's what he was doing before Jerry died. And then he got the university and he did. He saved the university from financial ruin. There probably should have been some other people on the inside saying, look, if you're going to hire someone to come in and save the company financially,
01:06:43
Speaker
maybe you should have some other people to level that out and say, based on our Christian values that we purportedly have, we maybe shouldn't mislead people with LU online and take their money and not really give them the education they're asking for. Maybe you should have thought about some of those things, but at the end of the day, he was able to financially resurrect that school without having to have any Christian influence or put that hat on for the sake of anything.
01:07:11
Speaker
I don't know. It's not that he wasn't smart or he didn't have something to offer the school at that time, but he definitely has absolutely nothing to offer the Republican Party or evangelicals.
01:07:24
Speaker
No. So, that's Jerry. Not an evil person, not a smart person, not a prominent speaker within the future of the country. I mean, I think- I'll delineate between evil and bad. I don't think he's an evil person, maybe. I think he's a bad person. I think he's just shitty. Yeah. He's just a fucking- That's fair. Silver spoon asshole just fucking sucks.
01:07:52
Speaker
I want to do what I want to do without complaint or criticism from anyone. Like it's my birthright. I should be able to be whatever type of person I want while still claiming the moral high ground on everything and using it to my advantage. Yeah. I don't want that, but I want the money. So I'll do that. But pretend like I didn't want to the whole time and then cry about it when people hold me accountable for my actions. It's like, fuck you. You're such a little baby boy. Like he's just a silver spoon asshole. That's all.
01:08:22
Speaker
He is can i ask you a more more complicated question something tells me so it's not gonna be particularly
Giancarlo Granda's Motivations
01:08:30
Speaker
complicated what do you think of what's what's your read on jean carlo my read on them i don't know i mean i gotta say him like turning his shit into a book in a and.
01:08:44
Speaker
Hulu docu-series is like, I don't know. I'm like, all right, are you, I get wanting to profit off of things. Maybe I would too, if I was in this situation. But once people start, once people have the opportunity to turn a story into money instead of just truth for truth's sake, I instantly start trusting them. I don't trust Becky and Jerry more. That's for goddamn sure.
01:09:10
Speaker
I don't know if I feel that way necessarily like, you know, what's the last 10 years of his life has been an absolute disaster. 14 years of his life has been kind of a disaster because of the situation he was in. I also like the language that's used around him is that he was groomed by the Falwells.
01:09:29
Speaker
I don't know if I'm, I don't know if that's where I see Granda. I, you know, he's 20 years old. You know, if he was working for the fall wells and it had this like sense of, you know, he was younger into these situations. This started when it was like 15 or 16. I think the word grooming makes a little more sense.
01:09:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think he's an adult. He's a savvy, smart dude. He made the decision to get involved with these people, and there was obvious financial benefits for doing that. Getting out of the situation was a lot trickier, which I can understand. Maybe you don't realize the gravity of what you're taking on when you get involved with somebody like the Falwells.
01:10:17
Speaker
But yeah, I think painting him as a victim of sexual assault or grooming or whatever, I don't know that I think that's an accurate way to portray him. Yeah. I mean, depending on how it all played out, if they were like, hey, we're just a middle-aged couple and my wife likes to get tossed around the bedroom like a porn star, then you seem like you fit the bill to be able to handle that.
01:10:46
Speaker
Kind of a job. Are you here for that? He's like, yeah, I'm here for that. Have you ever had somebody watch? No, that's weird. I don't know if I'm into that. Let's find out. Like, I don't know. Who knows what he's done beforehand. I don't know what kind of experiences he had in college. Maybe he's had his threesomes and his foursomes.
01:11:01
Speaker
He was like, Oh, all I have to do is let someone sit in the corner and stroke themselves with a camcorder in their left hand. That's fine. That'd be tough for somebody who maybe had anxiety around blinking red lights, but I think he did just fine and was able to handle it. I'm interested to learn more about him because like my, my instinct is that he's a pretty smart guy that has, has figured out. I mean, Jerry picked up on how business savvy he was. Right.
01:11:30
Speaker
You're right. You know, his his organization for gaming addiction. We didn't say that. I got cut off. Yeah, that's. We're closing. We're closing with that because that shit was funny as fuck, dude. All right. It was. OK. Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. I took a lot of notes. OK. I cannot find it. We'll have to clean up some of this dead space. Hold up.
01:11:59
Speaker
Okay. In April 2012, a month after meeting Granda, Jerry and Becky vacationed at Chica Lodge, a luxury resort on Islamorada. I don't know. About 90 minutes south of Miami. Oh my God.
01:12:16
Speaker
Becky told Jerry that the young guy who worked at the Fontainebleau pool wanted to drive down. Don't give me words from other countries to say. Fontainebleau. What is this bullshit? Fontainebleau. Jerry said it didn't seem at all strange. I like that he says that. Becky was like, hey, remember that pool boy that I- You're still talking to the pool boy? Yeah. Remember that pool boy I invited up to our room just to get a really nice view of the pool that he works at?
01:12:45
Speaker
I invited him to tell you about his business idea. I know it's been a little while, but Jerry said that didn't seem weird. He was happy to help Granda. This is the best dude. This is the most fucking just pandery bullshit. Jerry said it didn't seem strange. He was happy to help Granda, the son of a first generation Cuban Mexican immigrants.
01:13:12
Speaker
Okay, I'm sure you would love to point out how happy you were to help. He just has a heart for immigrants. Over dinner, this is it. Okay. Granda told Jerry he wanted to start an organization to treat video game addiction. Granda explained he was a recovering gaming addict. In high school, the habit had cost Granda his place on the varsity baseball team.
01:13:37
Speaker
Gaming addiction is not a problem that needs any. OK, I believe the fall. Well, no, I didn't. But then after realizing that was the first pitch, I was like, oh, OK. I think the fall was a reasonable. I could just imagine the conversations that were had leading up to that with him and his buddies where he like he just thinks that he got into like a kinky sexual weekend with
01:14:04
Speaker
upper middle class couple from Virginia and then goes home and does some Google and he's like, oh man, these people have money. These people have money and she's still texting me a lot, an uncomfortable amount. I just love that. I absolutely think it's incredible that in light of this conversation, calling back to the first one they had from him taking their order, Jerry was like, he seems like a really smart guy. I'm going to wish him luck.
01:14:33
Speaker
So then he comes at him with a pitch for a business to help with gaming addiction. And Jerry's like, I don't think that's a good idea, dude. And he's like, oh, no. How about you invest in the CD hotel? And Jerry's like, that's more my kind of shit. Do you have an idea for me to build money out of you?
01:14:51
Speaker
The people that I want to hear from, they talk about Jesus Sr. and Jesus Jr., who were the ones that found the hostel that they eventually bought. It's funny because during the purchase, these two realize that they're not getting anything out of it. Oh, yeah.
01:15:11
Speaker
And that's where things started to go real sideways because they thought they had their own scam going. I know. And it got shut down. I would love to talk to Jesus Jr. and see what that was all about. Oh, my God. That would be unreal. Send the email, bro. It's all a joke. Oh, he seems really smart. Hey, remember that really smart guy who came to our room? He has a business idea. Show us up.
01:15:38
Speaker
I have a passion for helping people solve their gaming addictions. No, dude, that's dumb.
01:15:44
Speaker
But you still seem really smart. So what's your next idea? And I'll definitely go with that for sure. No questions asked. I imagine it was more like... Weird hostel. Okay. I'm in. I know a guy who works at a hotel that's for sale and he's like, that sounds real interesting, boy. Tell me about it with your pants off. Tell my wife and Becky about it with your pants off.
01:16:10
Speaker
Anyways, that was fun. So, uh, we're about to be joined by, uh, Anthony, who's a listener that has been with us for a long time. Basically since we started the discord, Anthony's been a part of it and we've gotten to talk quite a bit together. Um, he's going to be joining us here for the last bit of the episode to talk about his story and upbringing. And we're.
01:16:36
Speaker
Very excited to meet him, so we'll be right back with our buddy Anthony.
01:16:43
Speaker
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01:17:13
Speaker
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01:17:39
Speaker
That's CaptainCecil'sCoffee.com. Enter promo code GrowingUpChristian. And we're back with our buddy Anthony. Anthony, how you doing? Good, good. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. So you've been a part of the Discord, I think basically since we started it. So we've gotten a chat in there a little bit and stuff and really interested to hear about your Growing Up Christian story.
01:18:09
Speaker
Yeah, so I grew up in a pretty small town in northern Michigan, like 2,000 people. And then I went to a private Christian school within that town, from preschool to eighth grade. My family had been involved with the church for years. My grandma taught preschool there for like 35 years.
01:18:29
Speaker
Was she qualified? You know, I have no idea. I mean, it was three and four year old. She had cool toys, I remember. And we watched The Lion King and it was a good time. Everyone loved my grandma. Was your favorite toy Christ on a cross? Yeah, probably. Play morning at the foot of the cross. That's favorite game. Yeah, I would take it home to grandma and she'd have to bring it back. You gotta share this with the other kids.
01:18:55
Speaker
Like put the cross up and like toss dice underneath it You can't put this under your pillow and wake up with a dime, I'm sorry
01:19:08
Speaker
And so that was a, that was a Lutheran church. So they're pretty like, I don't know, familiar with Lutherans, but they're like Catholic light pretty much there. Yeah. They can go either way, man. I mean, shout out to anyone who knows this name, but
01:19:26
Speaker
One of the good Lutherans would be your Nadia Bolts-Webers. I don't know if anyone's with her name in this conversation, but she was a Lutheran minister and she's really dope. She's no longer a Lutheran minister. Either way. And you make fun of my references.
01:19:44
Speaker
Well, if she was a Star Wars character, I'd know who she was. My all my references have been properly ordained. Yeah, I have no idea. Not even both Weber could easily be a Star Wars character. Yeah. So was it like a Lutheran curriculum that they used at the school or?
Educational Challenges in the 90s
01:20:04
Speaker
Yeah, and you know, I feel like the curriculum wavered a lot in my time there. I feel like the school was kind of in shambles in the 90s, because no one really sent their kids there. So their tuition was going from their small like membership congregation base. And then when I was in middle school, they brought back this principal
01:20:23
Speaker
who had taught there in the 80s, like he had taught my dad and stuff. And he came back and like, we got, we definitely got science books that were this big. Like we said the word evolution, you know? Don't say it three times in a mirror though, because then evolution, slice your throat from behind you. You'll develop a gills. Ascending the heaven all on my own.
01:20:52
Speaker
Yeah, um the flip side of that though is like I feel like overall I did get a pretty good education there because it was small like I graduated eighth grade with four kids four or five kids So, you know, you got a lot of attention paid to you all the time, which was as a kid. It felt like a curse and
01:21:09
Speaker
but it was probably better for my education. I feel like I went into high school, I had failed math in seventh and eighth grade and I failed it again in ninth grade and I swear it was just the same math class. We were just a little ahead of them and so I just failed the same math class like three times.
01:21:25
Speaker
But they still just pushed you on forward. Yeah. Actually, funny thing about that, we have to do confirmation in Lutherans. And it's like a class built into the school. It's like outside of religion. It's a whole other class. And, you know, I was definitely not really into it. And I went to my principal and I was like, hey, I don't think I should do confirmation because you're supposed to get up in front of everyone and like, you know, I believe and I'm part of this, you know, whatever.
01:21:53
Speaker
And he told me that since I had failed math, he would fail me in religion and catechism and would hold me back from the public high school. It's like, I'll do it, man. I'll do it. And another soul belongs to the Lord. Exactly. He goes over to his little tally board and just crosses out the four lines. He's like, not another one, Lord, you saved me. Yeah.
01:22:16
Speaker
Say you love Jesus or you can't be on the football team. Yeah It's like that shitty uncle who's like your tick that you're just getting tickled and like say uncle say uncle He just tickles your feet until you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior
01:22:33
Speaker
Yeah. And it's funny, too, because that that public high school was it was literally right up the road. I could see it from my classroom window. And we had a fence with barbed wire and spikes facing in, which is weird for a kid. Oh, my God. Yeah, I think it's gone now. I think I took a bunch of pictures and was going to put them in the discord, but I ended up not for some reason. But yeah, so the high school was just there and I was always looking at like one day, one day I'll be a part of that secular world.
01:23:03
Speaker
That's unbelievable. It was kind of a relief when you finally got to go to the high school then? Sort of. Since my dad was pretty evangelical and like a lot of secular media wasn't allowed or it was very like just I never understood how they picked what was good and what was bad.
01:23:21
Speaker
My idea of high school is based off of movies, like can't hardly wait and stuff. So I thought we were all just going to be having sex and doing drugs and stuff. And I
Family Social Standing and Upbringing
01:23:31
Speaker
didn't realize that I was in a small town and most of the kids at the high school were Christian too, just more of the laissez-faire type. And so I would talk some trash and they'd be like, can you not disrespect our religion? It's like, oh, okay. That is funny. I think about that when I was in school, when I was in college at Liberty,
01:23:50
Speaker
It's like, I remember talking, I got a job at a shoe store and I was working with a girl who went to one of the high schools.
01:23:58
Speaker
in town. And it was like, I was like, so what's, what was that like? Like, how is yours? It's like, I mean, it's almost like being in Christian school. Like, because it's such a, it's such an environmental thing. Like, everybody is, that's part of your environment. Everyone's kind of Christian in the South. Everyone's kind of Southern Baptist. Like, even when you go to school, and it's funny, because now, like, when you look at the way, like, you know, I guess one of like the big topics right now is,
01:24:24
Speaker
curriculum. That's always a topic. There's always something new that conservative states don't want to force their children to learn in public schools. Right now it's critical race theory, but those things always come. So when you look at like states like Texas, where it's like, everyone's like, I'm a Christian. Public school is like 98% Christian and the atheist to the outlier. The fact that Christian schools are thriving in Texas is pretty mind boggling.
01:24:49
Speaker
Mm-hmm. It's like there's a free option. There's a free almost a basically a free alternative to this which is Public school with all Christian teachers that will only teach you Christian things. So I don't don't want to do the free one kindergarten or put a condom on a banana Yeah, I don't know what
01:25:08
Speaker
I think my family was just so entrenched in the church school that that's like, I don't know why we- You said you were not one there? Yeah, my dad, my aunts and uncles, like my grandma taught there for a very long time. Yeah.
01:25:21
Speaker
Yeah, so it was, I mean, my family, I'm pretty sure in like the fifties had a little more clout going for them. They're upstanding members of the community. I think one of my uncles was like a state Senator. And then like my family, like, I just feel like we're kind of just white trash. Like we had a fall from grace somewhere along the way. Like we were just poor people. Like we didn't have nothing.
01:25:43
Speaker
You didn't, but they were trying to retake the throne. Yeah, well, definitely. I mean, I was the head of my generation, so I was the prototype. My parents are pretty young, so my aunts and uncles would all take me in, and everyone put a lot of stock in me. Everyone thought I was really smart because I could read, I guess. I can cheat on standardized tests. Yeah.
01:26:11
Speaker
It's easy to cheat on standardized tests when the proctor gives you all this. That is true. You want to be defunded. You talked about like your school just kind of being like a leech on the church because it doesn't support itself. Like that's exactly how my school was. It's like the church really just wanted to send all their money off to missionaries, but they had this like pesky school that like 10% of the church's children went to and it was just like,
01:26:41
Speaker
If only we didn't have to pay for this school, we could send another $50,000 a year to Papa New Guinea. Yeah. Is there a good souls for dollars metric that you guys had going there?
01:26:56
Speaker
for like $50,000 a year that school was like three or four, maybe five souls. I bet it cost at least $10,000. No one in the school could do a metric if there was one. I mean, the missionary work does pretty good over there, right? So it's paying off, right? They're getting a lot of souls that way. I guess the exchange rate over there is pretty good.
01:27:15
Speaker
I feel like when you put people, I feel like when you're like raising funds in your church for missionary stuff, they're like, we need $10,000 to build a school. And you're like, wow, that's $10,000 because obviously it costs so much more here. But that school then saves how many souls? I don't know. I'd like to, I just, I don't send my money anywhere unless they tell me exactly how many souls it's going to save. And that's my point. Makes sense.
01:27:41
Speaker
Yeah, there was actually when I was going there, there was a huge contentious debate because they were building a new church and school and the old people wanted to build the church and the young families wanted to build the school first at the new location. And I remember I was kind of too young to know what was going on, but there were these voters meetings with the congregation and people would come out just
01:27:59
Speaker
pissed
Pressure from Family Expectations
01:28:00
Speaker
and I found out recently talking to my uncle what happened is the elders of the church said okay we'll build the school first because that was the majority of the congregation at the time was young families and then just said fuck it built the church anyways and now they're all dead and the school just got built like six years ago or something. I'm surprised they didn't lose their youngest family. They lost a lot.
01:28:22
Speaker
Yeah. My original thought was that the church lot, the church vote lost because they had just lost Mary and Kathy two nights before the vote. And just like we scale. Yeah, it was going to be a 51 50. And now it's 49. So it will be three people who were technically members but had dementia to the point they didn't know where they were. You don't get pudding.
01:28:53
Speaker
I think their loan was pretty egregious too. It's like they're still paying it off because I go to church there with my grandma when I visit because she loves it. It's fun for me. But they still have the chart. It's a big thermometer and it's like $6 million or something like that. Oh my god. It's a thermometer.
01:29:09
Speaker
It's like you take a picture of that next time you go. Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. Dude, I think it's cool that you still go. Like, because a lot of people have a hard time continuing. Like, people feel almost like it's a triggering environment for them. They're like, Oh my God, get me out of here. But I think it's kind of cool that you can do that with your grandma and just as something for her and be like, Yeah, I don't care.
01:29:33
Speaker
I've moved on or I don't care enough about this at all anymore where I can just go and it's fine and it means something to her, so I'll do it. That's pretty sick. Yeah, I think it is a little easier for me because it's a toot my own horn a little. I don't remember a time when I believed. I'm sure there was, you know, when I was young enough, but I don't remember. So to me, it's always just been a place I had to go with Grandma anyways.
01:29:57
Speaker
When I go back now, like I said before, the whole prodigal son image that I have, she just eats it up. When we have a good day, we go make pierogies together and we go to church and I shake hands with these old people with dementia. I'm like, you're still alive? Oh my God. Pierogies is such a grandma food. Yeah. We ate them a lot. She's from Canada, so we had a lot of pierogies growing up.
01:30:27
Speaker
I'm interested to hear a little bit more about how it never resonated with you because it's it's hard for me to imagine growing up in it and never just instinctually believing in it because that was what you it was like kind of like bright into. So you really like you're talking like from when you were young you always were just like I don't
01:30:46
Speaker
I don't know about it. Did you have like a cognitive like I truly don't believe this or did you feel like it never resonated with you? Explain like kind of as best as you can, like what that experience was like and how you didn't believe in it. Yeah. So I think the, the cognitive awareness of it was I do know there was a period of time where I was struggling, feeling bad because I didn't believe in it. And I felt like everyone else did.
01:31:08
Speaker
And so I think that in a sense is kind of believing in it. Like I feel bad that I don't believe in you, Jesus. Like, you know, would you potentially forgive me if I ask permission one day? Just enough of it sunk in where you're like, the guilt is making you feel like it must be real. Otherwise I wouldn't feel guilty about it.
01:31:27
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I think a lot of where it stemmed from is just my mom met my dad who raised me when I was like two and him and I never got along and that was his thing. Like really was his thing. And so I felt like I was always in conflict with him. So I was always in conflict with God basically, which was dad at the same time, you know.
01:31:50
Speaker
So I think it stemmed from that. And then just as I got older, I never felt a pull back to it. I never really had doubts as an adult that I can remember. I think the most spiritual I ever got was I started reading about astrology and tarot for a while. But I never got pulled into anything spiritually. I always say, I don't think I have a spiritual bone in my body. I always just think someone's full of shit when they tell me anything special happened.
01:32:21
Speaker
I think yeah, I think that's I don't know that one's one that's tough for me too because people will tell you about like a spiritual experience they have and I think like I don't necessarily believe that what they think happened happened.
01:32:40
Speaker
But it's like you try not to be just a killjoy about it. Like, I mean, that's that's great. I mean, it's obviously that was a powerful thing for you. And you really enjoy thinking about it and dwelling on it and talking about it and reading about it. Like, that's great. But I don't think that's going to happen to me. You know, and I'm fine with that, too. You know, it's just I don't know, it's hard to find that balance between the two. Totally. What you think isn't happening isn't happening.
01:33:09
Speaker
Casey, have you thought about that? No, and I refuse to. OK. I like that approach. I feel like that's the approach I try and take. I feel like I
High School Social Struggles
01:33:20
Speaker
went through my snotty atheist phase pretty early. I read some hitchens and got all mad about it. And then I just stopped caring as I got older. I was like, let people be people. As long as no one's harming anyone else, they can believe that they just had a vision, I guess.
01:33:38
Speaker
Yeah, what's now going to a tiny little school like that? I went to two tiny little schools, one that I'd spent most of my undergrad years at, and then I went to another really small one before that. And I remember like, the really small one, there was not really anybody my age
01:34:00
Speaker
there were very few people and knowing that I really like I didn't really have any good friends there because there just wasn't many to pick from and I didn't hit it off with them. Like, were there cool people at your school or people that you you know, did you have good friends there? Or was it kind of a survival just, you know, coasting through it?
01:34:21
Speaker
Um, I'd say a little column A, a little column B. There was, like I said, four kids that I graduated with and I had known them forever and our families had known each other forever. Um, and I'm still really good friends with one of them. Um, but I'd say once we all went to high school, we all kind of just drifted apart from each other. None of those friendships seem to really last. And even though we had kind of this bonding experience together, you know, um, and I actually started talking.
01:34:49
Speaker
Sorry, go ahead. I just actually started talking to some of them now, you know, we're all like in our early 30s and reconnecting like, Oh man, remember like when Mr. Smith, blah, blah, blah, you know, and now we're bonding over it. That's cool. Did, um, did your school only go until eighth grade? Yes. Yeah. Wow. They really abandoned the high schoolers like that. That's incredible.
01:35:15
Speaker
There was actually a Christian high school there, and I think only two kids were in the whole high school. That's called home schooling at that point. Yeah, yeah, in a different building, just not at home.
01:35:29
Speaker
It's like, I mean, I had homeschool co-ops that were way bigger than that. It's funny because homeschoolers do that. That's what they have. They're like, once a week we go to homeschool co-op where someone who's qualified to teach a class actually teaches a class. Like, so when I'm in Spanish, you know, I took a Spanish class with someone who fluently spoke Spanish and that was kind of helped. That was actually really helpful for me because
01:35:54
Speaker
Not that it mattered. I never took Spanish in college and it didn't carry on. But prior to that, I would, there's this cool homeschooling movement where like everyone would get, it was like a satellite. It was like satellite TV, but strictly for homeschool curriculum. And you would subscribe to certain classes through it. So I remember when they drilled the hole through my wall to bring in the cable to set up
01:36:20
Speaker
to connect the satellite to whatever. I would sit down at the right time. Run the string through to the cup. I would put it to my ear and I would hear someone speak Spanish and have to figure it out. It's weird coming from a styrofoam dialect. That changes things a little bit. But it was at 10 AM is when my Spanish class was because it actually had times. Every morning at 10 AM, I would
01:36:48
Speaker
My day was like, I'd get up, go downstairs, eat my breakfast, go upstairs back into my room where the TV and stuff was that I would watch my class. And then I would sit down to watch Spanish and I would nap for 45 minutes while my Spanish class happened. And I'd wake up and go downstairs and be like, just had Spanish, mom. And that was my entire senior year. Doesn't sound so bad. No, it was fine. Buenos dias, mama. Spanish class was...
01:37:18
Speaker
bueno. So, so there was there any sort of culture shock when you went to the high school? Or was it just, it was kind of business as usual, but at least you had some more classmates and stuff. It was complete culture shock. I mean, just changing classrooms, having a class schedule, I had no idea how to handle that.
01:37:45
Speaker
Like just being social in general, I definitely just turned into this little 14 year old edgelord because I didn't know how to like talk to people without being bombastic. I
Youth Group Tensions
01:37:55
Speaker
like to think I'm a retired edgelord now, but sometimes my girlfriend just rings with me.
01:38:04
Speaker
Yeah, I mean I did sports and stuff so that helped But yeah, I mean, I don't think I learned how to be social until I was like 24 You know, I feel like I was stunted for that long from knowing how to just have a conversation with somebody, you know
01:38:21
Speaker
how to talk to someone you think is pretty. I had no idea how to do any of this. You were in the same, every year, it was the same few kids in every class, never changing classrooms. You never stretched the social skills muscles, I guess.
01:38:40
Speaker
Understand that for sure. Did you do that? Oh, yeah, my my parents helped run our youth group actually for a while. Wow. I kind of forgot about that. That really sucked. Oh, my God. It's strange anyway. Never like I mean, I loved it. It was like my my way to be around people. That was my social practice. That's what's funny about like you and Casey is like you didn't have that practice because you went to school with the kids you went to youth group with. And you always say to people for me, it was like
01:39:10
Speaker
I don't get to practice my social skills until youth group. And by shine, I mean, I didn't shine, I did not fit in well. But every time someone new showed up, that was my first thought was, maybe, maybe I can be friends with this person.
01:39:29
Speaker
Yeah, our youth group was mostly just kids who were teenagers that were in the public high school, but still their family still went to the church. So I guess I got to do a little like socializing with the outside world, but they were still kids from there, you know. And your parents were like running the thing when it was happening?
01:39:48
Speaker
They did along with their like best friend couple or whatever. And they actually got kicked out for two reasons. They got kicked out from teaching youth group. You're pairing with your friends. Both, both at the same time. Yeah. So we went on a, you know, the national youth gathering.
01:40:07
Speaker
It's kind of like Acquire the Fire, similar to that. I know the name. Well, we went to that, and long story short, boys and girls weren't supposed to go back to their own rooms together. A girl had started her period and needed to go, but she didn't want to tell us that, obviously. So we all go back to the hotel room, and the youth group leader comes back and starts yelling at all of us. And I guess it turns out she told them, and then he made fun of her. They kind of made fun of her for it.
01:40:35
Speaker
And so they got trouble. What? Yeah. And I don't know what was said because they separated the girls and boys, you know, to have these conversations. They were in there for like two hours and my friend and I were just sitting the only two boys just like, oh, God, we're going to die, you know.
01:40:48
Speaker
And then that culminating with my dad speaking in tongues all the time that made Lutherans uncomfortable. Lutherans are pretty rigid. That had to be fun to have your dad just sounding awful during youth group. Yeah. Well, so he did quiet tongue speaking. He did it during prayer. It was more like private prayer language.
01:41:10
Speaker
Yeah, he was just like, I swear he was just like repeating our names or something, you know. But yeah, maybe we're really uncomfortable. Like, what is your dad doing? Dude, some one of sometimes those events where you're like away from home, you're with a couple of leaders and stuff. And when they start to like lose control over the group,
01:41:35
Speaker
and their instinct is to freak out and yell. It is awful. It's just so uncomfortable and I don't know. It would be really awful if it was your parents that were doing it. Yeah. I mean, a part of me, everyone knew.
01:41:53
Speaker
Like I said, I just had a bad attitude for a lot of my childhood. So everyone knew that I didn't get along with my parents at that time anyways. So there was kind of a little distance. Like I'm not like them, but it was also having them kind of helicopter around me while there was like more than one girl to talk to. That
College Life and Introspection
01:42:07
Speaker
really sucked.
01:42:11
Speaker
Uh, I mean, just being uncouth partying, telling jokes that I wouldn't tell now, you know, as a small white kid in a small town in northern Michigan and just kind of being a shithead, having zero respect for people's property. Like I just didn't care about people's stuff. I'd smash people's things. I was destructive for sure.
01:42:32
Speaker
It was mean, just mean. I was like a shitty bully. Like I'd try to bully someone and then everyone would go all in on me because I was just a little dork I was easy to make fun of. I was trying to be a big dog. I was just a little shitsu. Oh man. You think some of that almost like just lashing out, like pent up frustration from just like not feeling like you connected with the world you grew up in?
01:42:58
Speaker
Oh, definitely. I was mad at the world. I was really mad at the world for a long time. I mean, it felt unfair that I had to do all that stuff and everyone else got to have these normal lives. Now as an adult, it's like, oh, people have varied experiences all over the place, whether they go to Christian school or not. But back then I was like, are you kidding me? Why did I have to do that? Why did they get to have fun?
01:43:20
Speaker
it is tough. Like that's, I liked my bubble. And I was scared of leaving it. You know, but I had those same like, self conscious feelings when I was around people who weren't part of the group, you know, like going to college the first year was just kicked me out of my comfort zone so hard. And, you know, talking about like socialization, like I just realized that I was bad at it. I'd never had to do it, you know. And
01:43:51
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah, it's easy to like, especially when you're that age, it's easy to really think like, man, everyone here is comfortable about me. Other people are doing this and I'm stuck here, you know, everybody else has had a girlfriend and I've never had a girlfriend, you know, that whole deal.
01:44:09
Speaker
That's just teenager stuff. I mean, just going to parties and I was like, what do I do with myself? And I'd just be so neurotic about it. And then I'd be mad and jealous that everyone else is just seemingly casually having fun and talking and hanging out. And I'm just like, my palms are sweating. I don't know how to talk to people. I guess I'll just drink a lot. I can ask of myself.
01:44:33
Speaker
That's the opposite of me where I went to parties and I would be like, it's so sad that everyone's drinking so much. This is like the quintessential college house. It was like
01:44:48
Speaker
It was an old house where you walk in, there's a big foyer, there's big rooms on every side. What was that place called? We called it Yirdly. It was the house on Yirdly. Yirdly House. That's right. You walk into the right, it would be a sitting room, to the left would be another sitting room, and then in the back left would be whatever you wanted to be. Maybe a library in the back right was the kitchen. Then there's two or three stories of bedrooms above that.
01:45:16
Speaker
but every room was turned into a bedroom. So it was like 13 or 14 kids living in that house. And it was just, that was the party house. So you'd go, no matter what, you could go, and if you went there on a Friday night, like 50% of the house at least was drunk by 7 p.m. and throwing things out the window. Like it was gnarly. But I was friends with all those kids and they were all Liberty University students and we're all Christians. And they all would talk like that. And I just remember being like, Killjoy would be like, go there
01:45:46
Speaker
Have conversations about God on the front porch with the semi sober people. Everyone else is like just shit faced inside flashing the dick. Like it's, I don't know, before spectral assault was a problem. Yeah. Did you stop getting invites to parties after a while? I'll stand by this for whatever fucking reason. I, people never didn't like me. I don't know why I, people should have.
01:46:12
Speaker
Maybe they were drunk enough to not pick up on the vibe that you were throwing out like that. You know, it's really sad that I'm this much better than you guys. I would go over and they'd be like, like, and it was cool. Like we were we were all friends and I hung out with them when they were sober and they were like, man, I don't know. I don't really. That's what it was. I think is like the Christianity and everyone made people feel like the night, the next day when I'd see him like,
01:46:40
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like I need to stop drinking or something. I don't know if that's what God really wants for me. I'm like, no, it's okay. I'm not going to. God's great for proficient for thee, okay? I always imagined Christian colleges were no parties and very awkward sexual encounters that everyone regretted. No. There was that too. Sure.
01:47:06
Speaker
There is that. That was the plan I was on. And how much did that plan cost you? It was at least $12.99 a month. Yeah. It was for my parents. Yeah. A lot of people were just like, it was just regular. If you wanted to find parties and drugs and do whatever, that was always a phone call away. Didn't take
Post-College Life and Career Shift
01:47:33
Speaker
long to meet people who were like,
01:47:35
Speaker
Nudge, nudge, you know, there's something fun to do around here if you're into that kind. Yeah, I would almost guess maybe they would party even harder because they're not like in their homeschools and stuff anymore. So what happens at high school lands and what happens from there?
01:47:56
Speaker
Well, I tried to go to college and dropped out pretty quick because I definitely did exactly what we were talking about. I just started partying and eventually became a line cook and just screwed around for the most of my 20s. Now I'm 32 and in college and trying to have a
01:48:15
Speaker
Have a nice life. Did you go to school in Michigan? Yeah, totally. In Traverse City, actually. Oh, yeah. What is the name of that school? Northwestern Michigan University. It's a community college. Right, right, right. Yeah. I'm sure like most of the audience has no point of reference for this, but like Traverse City
01:48:36
Speaker
is like the coastal town vacation spot in Michigan. That's where everybody spends like their summer vacation is like up there on a lake house or something like that, right on Lake Michigan or the Traverse Bay or whatever. It's a pretty place. Yeah, a lot of celebrities too, because I think people just don't think about seeing celebrities in Northern Michigan. So a lot of them have houses up there and stuff.
01:49:02
Speaker
That makes sense. A nice place where you can get away and not be bothered when you go to a convenience store or something. Expensive place to live for a millennial with no college education, too. Yeah, for sure. I don't know why I went from Traverse City, which could be one of the most expensive places to live in Michigan. And now I live in Portland, Oregon, which is just insanely expensive to live in. So
Family Dynamics and Reconciliation
01:49:23
Speaker
I've never lived somewhere cheap. I'd really like to someday. So what did the family think when
01:49:30
Speaker
when you went to college and I mean, obviously they've, I'm sure they expressed their disapproval at everything. Yeah, there was a pretty big falling out. I dropped out of college and I moved to Oregon. This is my second time living here. And I just kind of didn't talk to anyone for a good year and a half or two years. And then when I came back, my parents, I got divorced and there was just kind of this upheaval that didn't involve me for once, which was kind of nice and refreshing, you know, I,
01:50:00
Speaker
Um, so now like, like I have a pretty good relationship with my mom and my siblings. One of my brothers is in the discord too. Uh, okay. And, uh, yeah, it's, it's more normal. Like I have a nice little normie family situation. I think that I always wanted, I mean, when I was a kid, I remember being like, why can't my parents just get divorced? Like everyone else is. I just want to. Funny. I have a friend who was like, I remember when he told me I was blown away by it, but he was like,
01:50:29
Speaker
Man, this is like high school. He's like, man, if my parents got divorced, I wouldn't care at all. I feel like I'd be happier. Like, it just doesn't even make sense that my parents are even together at this point.
01:50:40
Speaker
Holy shit. I've never heard anyone say anything like that. A divorce is sad and wrong and scary and against God's plan for everything. And then to say now his parents are getting divorced. He also has a podcast so he'll know who he is, but I'm not just like throwing his shit out there. Congrats on your parents' broken marriage, bro. He's like, everything's better now. Welcome to the club, man. It's almost like the
01:51:10
Speaker
thing in all superhero movies where like a young person gets superpowers and like eventually their best friend finds out and they're like, I can't believe you lied to me. I can't believe you've been doing this. Oh my god. It's like anyone would react like that. Like everyone would be like
01:51:29
Speaker
Holy crap, you're Spider-Man? That's insane. That's so cool. Like tell me all about it. I totally get why you would never want to tell anybody that ever. That's a crazy thing to tell people. Like, of course you wouldn't tell me. That Murdoch took the law into his own hands. That's vigilantism. It's like, shut up, Fauzi. That is a subplot in everything where superheroes get powers in the midst of having a best friend.
01:51:58
Speaker
Yeah, always angry. What about you? Did your dad, did he settle down off of the speaking in tongues and all of that? He's off the reservation. No one's talked to him in a long time. He tried to put that said brother in prison. It's some white trash shit, but for a tractor. There's this big falling out with the family.
01:52:23
Speaker
And he got a new wife and there's been like, so we all lived on like the same plot of land, basically as like grandpa. And then he gave some to each of his sons. We're all like next door.
01:52:32
Speaker
And there's just like restraining orders and trespassing orders and all sorts of just fun stuff that flew back and forth. So I had no idea how he's doing. No one's talked to him every once in a while. He'll email my brother. All I know is I Googled him and he's a registered Democrat in Ohio, which blows my mind because he loved Ronald Reagan. But I'm guessing it's one of those Sean Hannity, like go to a swing state and fuck up their primary kind of things.
01:53:02
Speaker
There's no way he could be a Democrat. I mean, if he became a Democrat because Trump is not a godly man, I'll give him credit for that. Way to go, man. At least he's stuck to your guns with the Jesus thing. That is exactly what my mind would do is like he registered as a Democrat just to vote for like, what's what's the general that runs like every time it has no shot? Wesley something or other? I don't know.
01:53:31
Speaker
I don't know. That was the only off, like, non-prominent Democrat I could think of and the reference really fell flat.
Portland's Cultural Challenges
01:53:39
Speaker
I can't think of a general who runs on the left, honestly. Wesley Clark? Never mind, this wasn't unnecessary. Yes, it's General Lois and Clark. Ah, I see signs from all over out here.
01:53:57
Speaker
Man, so Portland is an interesting point on the map to move to, especially when you grow up in conservatism and stuff like that. How did that come about? Yeah. Like I mentioned, I had moved out here 10 years ago with an ex and I was young and dumb and it didn't work out, but I fell in love with Oregon, but I had never come to Portland.
01:54:22
Speaker
And then about five or six years later, there was just this massive migration of people into Portland. I think the average was like 100 people a day, which is why it's gotten so expensive here. It's like Boston. Yeah, well, they're pretty much the same. They have the same slogan, keep Austin weird, keep Portland weird. They fight about it, I think, on the internet. Give me a break, Austin. Oh, Austin?
01:54:44
Speaker
Yeah, Austin. Texas? No, I know we're fucking Austin, Texas. I thought you said Boston. I was like, no one says Boston weird. And then I realized I wasn't hearing it right. Carry on, friends. We just had a group of friends who were all like, screw it. We were all living in Traverse City. Like, screw it. Let's go to Portland. It's too expensive, not realizing how expensive it was here.
01:55:13
Speaker
I knew I liked the West Coast because I like to go camping and stuff. And I was like, yeah, let's go. Let's go to Portland. Now I'm pretty over Portland, honestly. I think I will. I'll look back on it with more love than I have for it right now. But six years in, I'm like, I just want to leave this place. It seems like one of those places kind of like like I've never been to New York City, but like you hear so many people who grew up in New York City or live there for long periods of time and it like they they love it.
01:55:43
Speaker
but they're like, man, I could never live there again. It's a crazy place, but it's also a great place, but I can't be there full time. Yeah, it's just another bubble. I grew up in a super conservative bubble and now I live in a super liberal bubble. It's interesting to see some of the similarities there, honestly, with just how dogmatic people can be without thinking. I'm just like, oh, what are you talking about?
01:56:10
Speaker
I'll call my more liberal friends sometimes when they're just getting a little too off the handle or a little too self-righteous. I'm like, you should go to church. I think you'd really like church. And they laugh and say, yeah, probably. Well, I don't know if I... Yeah, definitely not.
01:56:32
Speaker
There is I feel like maybe sometimes I'm too put off by it. But like, I just have, I think all of the church stuff just left me with like this disdain for ideology. Where it's like, this set viewpoint, and it explains everything and anything outside of it is wrong.
01:56:54
Speaker
Like I just really like put off by that. And it does, I mean, any type of thing like that. And I don't know, I think that's just a side effect of growing up in one.
01:57:06
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like that's why I essentially ended up developing a sort of anti theology, which is like anyone who's sitting down to systematically decide or write out how what they think God is, or how the Bible functions. I'm like, Okay, cool. Like, you don't know that, though. Like, nobody know, like, I not say you can't have your own personal ethos or like, you know, look at
01:57:31
Speaker
You know, whatever. Things can function as metaphors and move you into something compelling, but I'm just like, maybe it was liberty. But when you're like sitting in a class and they have a book that's like four inches thick, explaining at every possible point and turn how
Holistic Personal Growth
01:57:50
Speaker
Well, God's like this because X, Y, and Z. And then, okay, so we'll separate this out between, here's creation, here's the fall of man. And then when the fall of man, it's like, are you fucking serious? This is obvious. Like you literally just sat and wrote a fantasy novel and called it facts. Like how did you even get here? It's hard to sell it till you write it down. Yeah. Well, I mean, you can ask, ask Joseph Smith. I mean, he knows.
01:58:16
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like it turned me into like the ultimate centrist in how I like look at things because I just can't take anything at face value. And even if I hear something where it's like a flat out sounds like it's like bad or wrong. I like have to know before I even want to talk about it, you know, to somebody, they'll bring it up. I got to like, do some googling real quick or something, get a little more information. I can't just take this information for you. And you tell me
01:58:41
Speaker
so-and-so is a racist man or something. I got to look this up. I got to figure it out. Yeah. I hear that. Every time there's certain people in my life, they're like, did you know that? I'm like, oh, really? And then as soon as they get off, whatever, maybe I saw them or I was on the phone with them, I'm like, all right. I'm definitely looking that up and then telling them why. That's definitely not true. Everyone who's ever been on a respirator is dead.
01:59:06
Speaker
Wow. Damn. You just saved my life. Oh, you guys haven't wasted that one yet? Yeah. It's funny, too. You mentioned personal ethos. And I always feel like that's a good thing to work on for yourself. And it's good to have it. But all of a sudden, when someone's giving me their personal ethos, that's what I'm just like, I am being preached to right now. You need to go work on these ideas that you have. They really don't have anything to do with me right now.
01:59:35
Speaker
Yeah. And it's weird because I think there is that point, I think there are points in life where it's worth trying to compel people to live a different life. You know, we all can objectively agree that there are certain lifestyles that might be destructive or believe systems that are harmful or people who spiral. Like, I mean, we know those people who are like
01:59:57
Speaker
They're not anywhere good in life. They're where they're at sucks. They'd objectively tell you it sucks. And then you look at, you know, every conversation you've ever had with them is, well, you know, I'm only here because X, Y, and Z happen. And this person's a piece of shit. And oh, I got fucked over over there. And everybody knows people like that. We're like, at some point you need to do some like inner processing and like think about
02:00:20
Speaker
Maybe when you look at all these situations that have added up to you being where you're at, that you're a common denominator. We can all agree that there are healthy ways to live your life and better ways to live your life and beautiful ways to live your life.
02:00:35
Speaker
Christians often make the mistake of thinking you have to be Christian to be able to do that. But then there's also like on the other side of things, it's just like, well, who am I to tell people how to live their life? But you can't, like, you can't tell people, but you can like, there is a general invitation to live something that's more fulfilling. When you watch people
Pursuing a Career in Archiving
02:00:55
Speaker
suffering and making poor decisions, you don't go, that's good for you if that's what you want. Like,
02:01:00
Speaker
There are plenty of people who are making awful choices and suffering all the time and you don't want them to. You just wish that they could figure out how to make a better choice.
02:01:10
Speaker
self-actualize in any way at all. So I don't know, I think that's the push and the pull of it. It doesn't have to be under the name brand of Christianity, but the live and let live mindset I think is a little too reductive. I don't know that anyone really feels that way. If you care about people,
02:01:30
Speaker
You want to see them make good choices and be happy, you know? That's almost like, it almost feels like more to do with it sometimes is like, what's the purpose of this sermon? Is this so that you can get on a soapbox about you and talk about you and tell me all about you and what you think and why you're right? Or is this like you trying to coach me or somebody through something because you care about them, you want them to do better, you know? Definitely.
02:01:58
Speaker
That felt preachy. Amen. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Father Casey. No, but you're right. It's who is this about? Is it about you or is it about me? If it's about somebody else and I think great. If it's about that person trying to convince somebody. It's like what we were talking about earlier with Jerry Jr. We're just like,
02:02:17
Speaker
Oh, all I had to do was say, I believe in this and now everything's great and I can be a piece of shit. It's like, everybody knows that's like, that's fucking ridiculous. It's not a, so trying to convince somebody to just admit that what you believe is true is worthless. If they can't figure out how to like, I don't know, get out of bed after they've been like depressed for 60 days and get the help of, you know, like they need some people need something more than just like, but like belief in the right quote unquote thing is not.
02:02:45
Speaker
the solution to anybody's problems. It doesn't change your life. That felt ableist. Well, I'm an ableist piece of shit, so it's fine. I think able-bodied people are just, you know, more productive. That's my feeling about it. I'm going to regret this. Oh, man. So you're going through school now?
02:03:10
Speaker
Yeah, I started a year ago. I'm still in community college. It's my favorite joke right now whenever I'm worried about anything at work. Like, guys, I'm in community college. Let me check this out. So it's going to be a long path. I want to do archiving eventually, which is just fancy filing that maybe I'll get some information that no one else has, which is really what I'm after, is information. Freemasons! Yeah, yeah, something wild, yeah.
02:03:36
Speaker
Um, but that's, you know, that's going to be a, I'm guessing I'll be around 40 by the time I'm all finished up. So really I'm just kind of living my thirties. Like I'm just in my twenties going to college is kind of my goal. And we'll probably be dead by then and we'll be due for a new one. You know, if we can get you put into the NSA or something like that. I'm glad we had this conversation because I've never heard anyone in my entire life say they want to become an archivist.
02:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't know that's what I wanted until I, well, I wanted an anthropology degree and I was like, what the hell do I do with that? Like, I don't know what to do with that. And then I looked, you can work in museums. And then I looked at like, oh, archiving. That's where you get all the inside information. You know what's where. I don't know if you can see this. I'm holding up the screen. It's probably backwards, but I just googled archivist because I said it. I don't know if that's a word. Turns out it is and I'm proud of myself.
02:04:31
Speaker
It's definitely a gent band, too. No, that's cool. Like, I think there's like advantages in some ways to go into school like later in life, because like 18 year old me didn't know anything about what I wanted out of life, or what I could handle as a career, or what would make me happy and what I would absolutely hate. And 25 year old me didn't know that either. You know, I think I'm at a point now where I could say like,
02:05:02
Speaker
communications, probably not a great way to go because it's worthless. Like, let's at least get a skill out of this or, you know, something like that. That's why I'm back in school now at 33. I finally was like, you know what, I think I want to do. I know what I want to do now. Yeah, it feels way more driven. I understand the cost a lot more too. You know, I'm watching my moments pile up and I'm like, Oh God, I'm screwed.
02:05:29
Speaker
But also, I don't care if I die in debt, we're all gonna be in debt. I just want a decent job. You feel more committed to it. I remember in undergrad, I'm just sitting there, I'm like, oh my God, okay, everything's a chore. You're forced to do it. You're like, I just don't wanna, whatever. I feel so, even though I'm busier than I've ever been in my entire life, I feel invigorated by what I'm learning because I actually made a conscious decision to choose to learn this and pay for it. And I think understanding the value of a dollar which is costing really helps.
02:05:59
Speaker
It does, mate. Going back to school in your 30s, you're way more committed to it than you would have been ever in your life. Well, it helped that
Community and Podcast Involvement
02:06:07
Speaker
I started going during the main phase of the lockdown. My first term started March something, 2020. I had all the time to be committed to it. I had nothing better than to be able to play Warzone, smoke weed, and go to class.
02:06:24
Speaker
that does not sound as bad. Yeah, no, it was great. I didn't suck to go back to work. I was like, Oh, how I'm like, how the hell do people go to work in school and work full time? Like whoever does that, I applaud you. You're better at it than me. I can't handle it. Yeah, I respect that for sure. Well,
02:06:46
Speaker
Man, thanks for coming on and talking to us. Glad we got to hear your story, meet you in person and stuff. And we really appreciate you being a part of the Discord and just keeping the conversation going and stuff over the past almost a year now, I think.
02:07:03
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for having me. I like that discord a lot. It's one of the first discords I think I joined too. Same here. I found you guys through Christian Nightmares, the Instagram page. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know it was great. Thanks for having me. I feel honored. Thank you so much. Yeah, it was a good time, man. It was nice to meet you, Anthony. Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, thanks for listening. We will see you next time.
02:07:38
Speaker
you