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Ep. 105 - The Devil Wears Balenciaga & Mordecai: Pole-to-Hole in Persia
81 Plays2 years ago
This week Sam, Casey, and Jeremiah take a hard look at the recent Balenciaga scandal involving kids with S&M teddy bears, unsettling court documents used as photo props, and the resulting backlash and its effects. It’s a lot of weird. Some would argue it’s too much weird.
Of course, we wouldn’t feel right without spending some time in the Word with you folks, so we’re going back to the book of Mordecai… Oops I mean the book of Esther! Maybe you remember the parts of this story that they covered in Sunday school, but I’ll bet they skipped some of the more gruesome details. So take a break from whittling your favorite impaling pole (it’s sharp enough, man), and enjoy the show!
Pssst… if you like the show, we’d sure appreciate it if you’d leave us a review wherever you listen to it, and share it with a friend or 10. Long days and pleasant nights, traveler 🤠
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Transcript
Intrigue in the Kingdom
00:00:00
Speaker
Actually Hamid says he will give the king 10,000 talents basically to let him kill all the Jews.
00:00:05
Speaker
I mean, I'm still looking for one talent. That's dope. The king tells him to keep him, so maybe he knew his talents weren't that desirable. You can do math good. Lots of talents, man. The best talents. His talents weren't that exciting. It was like Heyman had won a couple of those stick pony competitions. Hobby horse competitions. You will fuck an air guitar, dude. You can keep your talents, all right? Just go kill the juice for me.
Sam's Career Transition
00:00:55
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another episode of Grown Up Christian. I'm Casey. I'm Sam. I'm Jeremiah. And we owe a big deal of congratulations to Sam this week for starting his new job. Yeah, dude.
00:01:12
Speaker
It's been a trip. So 10 years in the retail world, uh, I was a fulfillment, a fulfillment manager for I think six years. Um, and then, uh, also fulfillment is something that people didn't really, I feel like you would like tell people what that is. And they were like, what fulfillment explain that. And then, uh, Amazon prime was just became the biggest thing of all time.
00:01:36
Speaker
And it was like, everybody knew, everyone knows what fulfillment is now, fulfillment by Amazon. But yeah, anyway, who cares? So I did that for like six years. And then I've just been in like, whatever logistics operations kind of bullshit. And you sit in a cube, you look at a computer and you hate your life. And
00:01:58
Speaker
I've only been in a school for two days because, uh, I did, I worked Monday and Tuesday and then it was Thanksgiving break. So it was like, first of all, that's dope. Like I'm already really into the school schedule thing. You work in two days and having a five day weekend was really cool. Uh, but it is a, it feels so different. It's very strange to like, I mean, one, it's, it's so new and I, I,
00:02:25
Speaker
My whole intention of doing this was like working with older kids and I'm in an elementary school for the time being. So it's like, it's different than what I was intending to do, but it is in my field and there is a lot of overlap. So I am, I do really like it and I'm really excited about it. Um, not a whole lot to report after just two days other than like, it's just though working in a school is such a completely different world than corporate retail. It's kind of mind boggling. Uh,
00:02:55
Speaker
you know, incorporate, I feel like any corporate job you get, you're like, okay, here's your training period. We train you and, and then we'll slowly give you more and more work, whatever. It's like, there's no, like my boss is the principal. Uh,
00:03:10
Speaker
There's no like real training. It's just like, so here's where you'll sit. All right. Well, guess we'll see you later. Okay. So like, you know, there's one other adjustment counselor there. So I like talk to him and try to get a good idea of like, what's going on. Why don't you take a test slap with this kid? Nobody likes him anyway. Yeah. Well, that's what it's like. That's what it's like. They're like, they, I
00:03:32
Speaker
at the end of my first day, I went down to talk to the principal and was just like, just to, you know, talk about how my first day went. And it was great. Like she seems amazing. Uh, we talked for like 45 minutes and she kind of just went through a list of kids to keep on my radar.
00:03:49
Speaker
It's like here's the kid. This is the issue sort of a red flag list. Yeah, right. It's like this is what's going on with the families. I mean, it's also crazy because, you know, you're dealing with five, six, seven year olds and it's like some dark shit, too. It's like so this kid, their their mom just, you know, they're all in a homeless shelter now. So they're trying to figure out how to get to school. And it's just like it's really fucked up stuff that some of these kids are going through and really tough to figure out, like how to
00:04:19
Speaker
handle, uh, kids who are going through these, who are having behavioral issues due to some of these extreme circumstances that some of them are going through. But either way, like it was cool. Like you had that good conversation, got an idea. So the next day it was like, I sat in their classrooms, talked to their teachers. Um, but dude, it's really like corporate world is like, you don't know what you're like. This is, they kind of grow you into the position they want you to do, at least in my experience and what I've done. And this is like, you're just kind of like,
00:04:49
Speaker
I don't know, you fucking parachute into the middle of a battlefield. It's like fucking Fortnite. You just drop right into it. Oh man, you're already relating to the kids, good job. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, do the dance, the floss or whatever. I heard the youth pastor turned on your head. See kids, it's a lot like Fortnite.
00:05:09
Speaker
Uh, I don't know, but I love it. Um, so tomorrow, you know, I'll wake up and, uh, get to my first day of a full week and we'll see, but it's really like, uh, you kind of get to make a lot of it yourself. Uh, as an adjustment counselor, my role is to do a lot of direct services. So they're like, here are some kids you could work potentially work with. Uh, but you know, it's a lot of working with teachers and kind of get an idea of like, which kids really need the direct services. So.
00:05:36
Speaker
I was the phone that's on my desk is what someone else was using for a while and the woman who was there was like using they would call her if they're having issues in their classroom like hey we're have this kids acting up we kind of need some help with that and
00:05:54
Speaker
That won't be my role generally, but while I'm trying to get to know students, get to know teachers, I would just, the phone would ring, I'd pick it up and be like, look, I'm happy to help. So that was helpful. You know, get to know a lot of the students already that I'll probably be working with and, uh, gets to know some of the teachers, but it's going to be like, Oh, I guess I kind of have to carve my own path and.
00:06:17
Speaker
people just are expecting that. And then you just tell people what you're doing and they're like, okay, cool. Good. Like, let's hope it works. Cause these are disrupting the class and do that less than you're doing a job. If they're not, we question your validity. Okay.
Parenting Styles Debate
00:06:34
Speaker
Well, you know, I mean,
00:06:37
Speaker
I'm glad to hear that there's not a real formal outline for how we handle people's children. What's crazy? You can't hit them anymore, I guess? I don't know, man. Once they told me that, I'm like, well, how do you expect me to get them to fucking listen?
00:06:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think you're going to have to experiment with like other forms of punishment psychological force feedings. Yeah, I was thinking that might be helpful. How about the pokey? Like, you know, the trench ball.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah. This trenchable. It's just like a sharp closet that you lock them in. Sort of like the Iron Maiden. The spikes don't touch though. Like there's some gap in between, but you just got to stand real still. Exactly. They got to not move. Yeah. Some ideas. Yeah, I know. I think there's a lot of good ideas. It's funny because I was late to getting on this recording here because I've
00:07:38
Speaker
trying to get my kids to bed and sometimes children don't listen. And I was talking to my wife and I'm like, these are the times that I think, I didn't get out of bed when I was seven years old because I knew I would get spanked if I did. The fear of violence kept me in bed. I don't do that to my kids, so they walk all over me fairly. Yeah, it sounds ineffective. But I just think about how like, oh my God.
00:08:07
Speaker
It's, you get why parents resort to that. Like it, I don't, I don't personally believe in it, but it, it's effective in the short term. It fucking works. And, uh, you know, you can argue how that might affect your relationship with your parents long-term. Maybe I could be a case study for that. I don't know, but otherwise.
00:08:27
Speaker
Well, you and every child up until what, 1996? Up until now? Like millennials are like the first generation that already don't spank their kids, I'm guessing. We'll see how it works out. We will. I can tell you, I don't like a lot of their kids. Well, that's because their name's Doug Declan and... Declan. Fern.
00:08:55
Speaker
Sorry to anyone who named their child Declan. Sorry for you. We lost a fan or two. I'm guessing there's probably two people who listen to the podcast with a child named Declan. And I guess this is our farewell episode to you. But there's 16 kids named Riley, but it's spelled with like 12 letters. Yeah. Somehow. R R I L E O U G I E H or something.
00:09:20
Speaker
R-Y-E dash L-E-I-G-H. His name is Peyton and the X is silent. I'm happy for you, man. That is a lot of kids. I know that's what you want to do. I'm not sure that I wouldn't rather be sprinting around an Amazon warehouse with a full diaper. I think I'm on Casey's side. Very good bottle.
00:09:51
Speaker
Oh, man. Incidentally, that's how you treat your boys. Yeah, right. Don't leave your van until you get to a dealer. So my dad always used to say that you weren't a true salesman for the company until you had taken a dump in the back of your van in a box in a traffic jam. Nice. So you know things about your dad that I don't know about mine.
00:10:20
Speaker
Your dad has definitely pooped in a box before. Everything I know about your dad, I would say that that's probably a factor, but my dad definitely has yet. I have, I mean show of hands, I have- I have a- I can't relate to this, I'm sorry. Yeah, I can. I pooped in the woods once.
00:10:40
Speaker
Once? Only once, yeah. Well, Jeremiah, you had to poop in the woods a whole bunch, because weren't you like a junior squirrel trooper or whatever? Right, right. And Royal Rangers, now you have to dig the poop hole. When we lived in the camper- Tread shovels for a reason. Yeah, that was always pretty adorable. When we lived in the camper for a couple of years, I did pee outside probably 80% of the time, though.
00:11:02
Speaker
Dude is a lazy kid in the truth, like dig a shallow grave for his third and then somebody steps it. It's like five feet outside of camp, just stupid a little trout. They ripped the latrine badge off of his vest. I don't think there's a latrine badge. How do you get that? What's the latrine badge, Casey? Digging good? Well, I mean, there is a lot that goes into digging a good latrine. You could bake a latrine badge. I just don't think anyone would.
00:11:32
Speaker
It's more of a, you know, boo if you don't find if you do like you don't get recognized for digging a good latrine I think is
00:11:41
Speaker
is the standard of service, right? I think there's absolutely no chance that I would have dug a deep enough hole if I was doing that. Why would you have just given up midway through because it's all dumb? No, because I would have waited. I'd be like, oh, I really have to go. Let me start digging. Fuck it. Too late. Just barely get it underground level. He just poops on the trail. You sprinkle a little dirt on top of it afterwards.
00:12:05
Speaker
You're that kid. You're that kid who like shows up to the camping trip with like just a backpack and like two bags of Cheetos is so unprepared for everything. Absolutely. Wait, we need a tent. I thought someone
Packing Habits for Travel
00:12:15
Speaker
else had that. He's digging his shelter right next to the little train. The kid that's like just laying just like on the floor of the tent with nothing because his parents didn't realize they had to sit in with a sleeping bag. So he's just like covering himself with his backpack.
00:12:27
Speaker
He's using his jeans rolled up as a pillow. And meanwhile, I'm like, I just like roughing it. I mean, I did this on purpose. I would have a great time until like, I feel like young me would have a great time until like 11 o'clock and then I probably would have freaked out and like demanded to go home. I kind of went through a stage where I did that. Yeah. There were kids who did that. Yeah. I feel like I still am like,
00:12:58
Speaker
I mean, up until late age, if I was going somewhere, I would still under pack and just be like, this is, yeah, I'm fine. I'll be fine. I'll just, I'll sleep on the floor somewhere. And at some point in my life, I realized that sleeping on the floor at my age is like awful. It like fucks you up for weeks on end. But I made that choice consciously for a while. I went to a LAN party a couple of times where
00:13:21
Speaker
like in Pennsylvania, drive like eight hours and go to a LAN party with my friend. And it was like a free for all on sleeping arrangements. And it's just like, ah, fuck it. I'll just sleep on the floor. Like you throw a flannel over you and you play out prostrate like, and you wake up the next morning feeling like absolute shit. Like what am I doing? I'm not 17 anymore. I can't do this. And this was still like probably
00:13:45
Speaker
almost 10 years ago. I can't go ahead. Jeremiah, I can't relate to that so hard. I don't think I've ever been on a trip where I've worn everything I've packed. Like I always overpack on everything, like backup versions of everything. Like we can go for a weekend and there's like four duffel bags going in the truck. I'm like, what happens? I'm going to be fine. But yeah, it really sucks when you're trying to like pack light for like a flight or something. Can't do it.
00:14:12
Speaker
I packed light for a while. I feel like now I'm at a point where I over pack a bit now. Now when I went to visit you Casey, I didn't because I'm like, I'm only paying for, I'm not paying for checked luggage. So I under packed that weekend. But generally if I'm like, if it's driving distance and I'm like, I can.
00:14:35
Speaker
Whatever, like who cares? Might as well just fill a suitcase with everything I own so I can decide what I want to wear that day and not be stuck on what I packed like a total loser.
00:14:47
Speaker
I overpack so hard, and April and I both do. We take so much luggage with us whenever we go anywhere. And I constantly overthink the things that we could possibly fit into a trip. So the amount of times that I've packed- Yeah, I might need a bow and arrow. Who knows? If we're driving, I probably have a shovel and an axe in the car.
00:15:14
Speaker
Because I was just like, I don't know. I mean, what if we got stuck somewhere? It's like we're going to Kansas City. Like, where would we get another guy trying to cross the road? We need to bury the body. I mean, a lot of possibilities here that could go wrong and you never know what you need. Well, OK, so.
00:15:35
Speaker
Speaking of packing a bag, there was a big controversy this past week. You guys have heard of Balenciaga, the luxury clothing brand. That is all I know about it. I don't I didn't even know what the clothing you had just asked me about it. And I didn't know what it was. So I googled it and realized it was a clothing brand.
00:16:01
Speaker
but that was the first I heard of it. And then I saw some weird goofy shit come up and then we decided to save that. So I don't really know anything about this. I didn't even know there were clothes. You guys don't know. Jeremiah, you said you guys don't either of you know any other thing about this? No, I had never heard of this before. I know that Balenciaga is a clothing brand, like one of those uppity luxury fashion brands. That's all I know. I have no idea what's going on. Recently dissolved their partnership with Kanye West. Okay.
The Balenciaga Controversy
00:16:26
Speaker
That makes sense. We literally can't go an episode without mentioning him.
00:16:30
Speaker
He fits into every story somehow. Almost like it's a conspiracy.
00:16:40
Speaker
Well, conspiracy-wise, Balenciaga, I feel like the name rang a bell when I first heard about it. I would have guessed that it was something in that luxury fashion brand or something, but in the past week or so here, they unveiled their 2023 spring line of clothes and accessories and stuff like that.
00:17:07
Speaker
And in one of the ads for their object lines, they had several pictures of like young kids, maybe like four or five holding these bears. They're like teddy bears, neon colored teddy bears dressed in like BDSM.
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's strange. Wait, how is this related to clothing? Well, so the bears are actually like handbags that they sell. It's like a teddy bear with a strap on it that you can carry around. With a strap on it. Very close. Yeah. Everything except the stud, you know?
00:17:45
Speaker
They had like, they were like in like leather daddy outfits. Like they had the collars on and the straps and there was some fishnet involved. Mr. Stahr. The pictures. It's not it's not great. It definitely somebody should have known when they were proving these photos. What I couldn't figure out. How do they relate this back to Epstein is my question.
00:18:07
Speaker
I'll just give it a second. So, uh, yeah, so it's like a couple of pictures. It's really only two pictures that this popped up in, but it's like two young kids. I think they're both little girls and they're holding these bare bags that are in this weird sort of gear. Like it's a sort of thing that like, I don't know. I mean, if you would have done the pictures with an adult,
00:18:36
Speaker
It's just another weird designer fashion thing that's kind of stupid that no one would ever use in real life. Yeah, what is this stuff? I mean, I feel like when you see like when you look at even Kanye stuff where he has like the giant boots or like, have you seen the one? What was the Napoleon Dynamite boots? Yeah. Or the outfit where he's like in a completely silver, like it looks like he's in like a silver space blanket.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, I really don't get this like high fashion stuff. I think it's supposed to be like celebrities wear the really out there fashion stuff and then that trickles down like styling elements into their more normal clothes like their regular high end mass produced stuff and then that trickles down like into fast fashion. Somebody watched the Devil Wears Prada within Hathaway. I actually hinted for the first time I think this year or late last year. Wow, knowledge is fresh.
00:19:30
Speaker
But yeah, but I mean, I had never understood either until I don't think it was that movie. I think I read it somewhere and it made sense after that of like, oh, well, obviously only like a celebrity would wear this to the Met Gala, but then you might see that pattern show up somewhere else. I don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, I think you're the guy that wears black t-shirts every time I've talked to you. So I started to know what I mean. I used to dress very stylishly and then I started working from home and gained weight. So.
00:19:59
Speaker
Yeah, I found a black t-shirt that fit me really well and I got 10 of them and I've been really comfortable. He's rocking that bank been free drip. Given your background, your dark background, you basically look like a floating head. I don't know for sure if you have a body. I guess I'm gathering that you do, but I don't know for sure. It's called fashion, look it up.
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I guess a lot of this stuff, I mean, a big part of it I think is just like weird collector's item garbage, like, I don't know ugly sneakers or weird handbags or whatever else, you know, I, but it's, I guess it'd be almost considered like an art piece of some sort.
00:20:45
Speaker
depending on who's talking about it. Would like it comes with like the that's how it is, right? Like you buy it as this bear with the leather shit on it. Like that's how they sell it. I think the toddlers put that on. Do you dress them up? Is it like a build a bear? You go in and you pick out outfits for your bag. I don't think they got that far into explaining it because that probably would have been when someone would have been like, wait a second. Build again. Well, I mean, I when I brought my son when he turned five into a build a bear workshop, he was
00:21:15
Speaker
very pissed that we made him get the Pikachu and not the Leather Daddy outfit. He had a preference. I was like, no, that's too much. You're just too young for that. Wait till you're six. Oh, repressive parenting. Yeah. At least you didn't hit him, I guess. Yeah.
00:21:35
Speaker
So yeah, there's these pictures of kids with these teddy bears, which I don't know, it's weird. It's especially at first glance, you're like, why? For the argument against the leftists, the liberals, I don't know anything about Balenciaga, but the liberals are grooming the children. That's one of those we look at, you're like, guys, this isn't a good look.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah, don't add fuel to the fire. Yeah, I think it's not what it looks like. Right, but they're going to eat good off of those two images for a really long time. Is Valencia part of the liberal elite? I don't know. I'm sure. Sure. They're kind of right-wing capitalists that use child labor to sew their clothes, but I could be wrong.
00:22:16
Speaker
I'd imagine you're not. I don't know. I imagine that there's a pretty low crossover between Silverado owners and Balenciaga enthusiasts. That Venn diagram is just two separate circles. Yeah. Well, until recently, there wasn't much of a crossover between literally anything Kanye did and people who also own Silverados until, I don't know, a handful of sentences dropped down. Otherwise... Jesus brings people together. I think that's what you're saying.
00:22:45
Speaker
maybe probably couldn't name a single song from his back catalog. And at some point told people that that's the problem with music. Well, I think personally, OK, so this this woman that April and I watch on YouTube, she's super funny. She goes by shoe on head. Oh, yeah, she's great. Yeah, she she has some like hilarious videos. We always watch whatever she puts out, but
00:23:13
Speaker
She's been pretty outspoken about like, I don't know, the weird mainstreaming pedophilia stuff, which really isn't mainstream. I guess that's not a good word for it. But like, you know, there's like this small group of people who are trying to kind of like, de-stigmatify pedophilia and minor, you know, they call themselves maps, minor attracted persons. Oh, it's like nambla shit. Yeah, yeah. But she's gone pretty hard against them.
00:23:43
Speaker
I didn't realize that that was even a thing that people were. Well, it's a very, very small thing like Casey said. The only thing I've seen that's a little bit bigger is the people who are like, well, we need to study and help these people who don't want to offend, which that gets into like a more complicated moral discussion. But like there is that group of people that very much is pedophilia is, of course, wrong. The whole point of studying this would be to prevent people from offending. And then there's I guess I'm not as familiar with what Casey is talking about, but a group of people that
00:24:11
Speaker
Wanna just reclassify? Celebrate offending? Yeah. It's like niche 8chan stuff. Yeah. Okay. So it may or may not actually all be trolling. But if it's... Yeah. You're saying it's niche 8chan stuff and I typically associate that with like weird conspiracy alt-right kind of shit. So are these people from an alt-right perspective? I was just throwing it out there. I was just looking for a weird internet subset to throw out. Okay.
00:24:39
Speaker
So don't get too in the weeds about trying to make connections here is what you're saying. Don't attach too much to my, my, uh, analogies here. I mean, I usually don't. So I'm sorry. I did this one time. So she won head tweets about the bear thing, right? Which is kind of like what breaks the whole thing. It was a great show. So I'm not, it was the problem is the bear.
00:25:05
Speaker
But the restaurant show? Anyway. It's a great show. You should watch it. We'll talk about it later. Sorry. Jeremiah got it. You're railing me. I got notes here. Keep going. Sorry. Hit the notes. Hit the notes. Keep talking while I talk over you. It's not worth stopping. So she mentions the bears, right? But then in the post, talks about another factor of this. Like I said, the bears are kind of whatever. It's weird. Wasn't a good choice. Whatever. But the second part of this thing is where
00:25:34
Speaker
it really kind of made me take a second look at all this stuff. So in another one of their photoshoot pictures, it's like a little handbag that's kind of shaped like a bow tie and it's laying on top of a bunch of like papers and stuff kind of like on a desk.
00:25:52
Speaker
So one of the papers that's visible under the handbag is an excerpt from a Supreme Court case called the U.S. versus Williams of 2008. It already feels like this feels bad. This is like the set up to Matt Damon thriller. Well, so this court case is all about like virtual child pornography.
00:26:21
Speaker
It's a very weird story. It makes no sense as set dressing for a handbag, I'll tell you that, and pieced together with the teddy bears and then one other thing, which I'll get to in a second here, it just made it all the more like, what is going on? What are you guys doing? So the US versus Williams, I'll give you the quick background of the case here.
00:26:47
Speaker
So child porn is not protected under the Second Amendment. Make a note of that if you need to. The First Amendment?
00:26:54
Speaker
First, you know, does not count as the right to bear right to bear arms and your kids. There's a few people not to be in the southern United States, protecting it with the Second Amendment, I think, but that's, that's another niche group, you know, not to be confused with the right to bear bags, which is what we're talking about.
00:27:22
Speaker
So right on the line tonight right on the line. So child porn not protected under the First Amendment. Also, I feel like we ought to just say also not good. That's not good, right? Okay, now we can keep making legal distinction. Where things get shifty is when you're talking about like, artwork,
00:27:44
Speaker
computer generated images, or adults that are purposely, you know, dressing or acting and stuff to look like children, right? So that is still allowed. But actual if the if a child is being harmed, that's where the line is drawn, right? So there's this guy named Michael Williams, he's some jerk off. And he's in a chat room online.
00:28:10
Speaker
He starts talking to a guy who he thinks is just another pervert, but it turns out it's a secret service agent. And he says, hey, I got pictures of my daughter being molested. Would you like to trade them for some other trial pornography, please? And that's a CIA agent saying that to like to a secret service agent. It's like how bold how like on the nose can you be?
00:28:39
Speaker
I'm sure there was probably some preamble to the conversation, but this is this Michael Williams guy saying this to someone he believes is another person on there. It turns out it's a secret service agent. He then sends a link to a website that has, it's like a photo album or something like that, that has seven images of children engaged in sexual activity. It says between the ages of five and 15.
00:29:06
Speaker
Jesus Christ. The Secret Service frowns upon that. They decide that they're going to go after this guy. They get a search warrant. They go to his house, wherever it is. I didn't catch where this guy lived, but they turn his house upside down and find two hard drives. On those hard drives are 22 images of child exploitation material.
00:29:28
Speaker
And I'm guessing that there was probably a lot of stuff on these hard drives, but there was 22 images that are without a doubt against the law, right? So they charged this guy with one count of possession of child pornography and one count of pandering child pornography. He's lucky he got, I don't even want to say lucky. How do you get one count? I thought every image was a count.
00:29:51
Speaker
I don't know how any of our legal system works. It doesn't, it never makes sense and nothing adds up. I think that's what makes it the best in the world, right? I think so. And choose your own adventure for legal antics. Hey, second only to our healthcare system, right? Which is second to nothing. Working great for me right now. So, pandering.
00:30:13
Speaker
Basically, the definition of pandering in this context is knowingly offering or soliciting content believed to contain child exploitation material. The simple act of asking for it or telling someone that you have it is considered a crime. Interesting. This guy pleads guilty to both charges, but he reserves the right to dispute the pandering charge.
00:30:40
Speaker
on the grounds that it violates his first amendment rights because it's too broad and it's too vague which violates his fifth amendment rights which is like due process or whatever.
00:30:50
Speaker
And then he takes it higher, right? So he goes to the district court, loses there, takes it up a notch, and goes to the appeals court where it's reversed. He wins that case. And this thing – this jerk-off makes it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States arguing about pandering. This was 2008 when it made it to the Supreme Court.
00:31:14
Speaker
So his whole thing was like, hey, this pandering as a charge is ridiculous and it shouldn't be the case. This guy had child pornography and he's documented on there asking for it and bragging about having it.
00:31:30
Speaker
Right. So this all comes down to this thing called the Protect Act, which is stands for the prosecutor prosecutorial remedies and other tools to end the exploitation of children today. Shout out to the Federal Bureau of acronyms. Yeah. Which is like this sweeping act that like the longer those acronyms are, the more like on the edge of your seat you are when someone starts explaining it. You're like, oh, are they going to sink it?
00:32:01
Speaker
There's a lot of articles in there that didn't make it into the acronym. Exactly. It's like this sweeping act that just gave law enforcement a lot more leeway to go after people who are hurting children. One of which is it gave them a lot more freedom to prosecute the solicitation and distribution of child pornography. The Supreme Court hears this guy's case.
00:32:25
Speaker
And they vote seven to two to uphold the Protect Act and basically slap this guy's case down, basically citing that pandering doesn't violate the First Amendment and counts even if the person doesn't possess child pornography. So just saying that you do or asking for it, Supreme Court says, not crime. You want to guess who the two judges were that voted against it?
00:32:53
Speaker
Oh my God. I feel like I can't remember. Of course. Of course, she'd be one. Bingo. Wait, are you serious? Yeah. Oh, I was joking.
00:33:06
Speaker
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David H. Souter, which he doesn't get a lot of media hype, I guess. I don't know who he is. Is he still one? I don't know. Maybe he's dead. Let's hope he's dead. Just to clarify, to make sure I understand, Ruth Bader Ginsburg voted against upholding the Protect Act? Yeah, she's concerned about the slippery slope that it presented. Ooh, that sounds a good look. And like, I don't
00:33:33
Speaker
have a great picture of like what the alternate argument to this is. But I think it was like along the lines of like, Okay, does this apply to all media? Like, well, he writes a story which includes like descriptions of two teenagers having sex or something like is could that be considered, you know, against the law or whatever? Because they were specifically Alito and his like,
00:33:58
Speaker
retort to the whole thing mentioned like Romeo and Juliet and how like, the chances of something like that being disputed under this clause or are, you know, minimal, so it doesn't. Basically, it was dismissed on those grounds. Unlike everyone will use common sense and know the difference between actual child exploitation and Romeo and Juliet. Right. Okay, that is exactly. Yes, I can see that argument at least.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah. Right. Cause it's not saying that under all circumstances, quote unquote pandering will result in a criminal charge because we know that pandering is used for like to catch a predator type shit. Like that shit's done regularly. So it's not saying that by upholding that, that you can, or you will always prosecute any form of pandering. It's just that you have the ability to at your discretion.
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah. It seems to make sense. I mean, sorry, RBG. You've done fucked up. I'm peeling the bumper sticker off my window right now. Maybe you should have retired before that one.
00:35:09
Speaker
Not this again. Okay, so interesting case, right? Yeah. I'm not sure where this connects to the BDSM teddy bears yet, but I'm on the edge of my seat. The edge of my seat. Why would a person include a printed version of this Supreme Court decision in a photo shoot for a handbag? To argue that this is free speech that shouldn't be censored, I'm guessing.
00:35:38
Speaker
I guess, maybe. Yeah, I thought you had more after this. It's literally just like a page of the Supreme Court decision was positioned under the handbag in the photo shoot that Balenciaga did. It's definitely a real photo shoot, like real photo from the shoot, not something that's been doctored. No, it's a real photo. And it's been taken down now. They've taken down like all of this stuff. And they actually deleted all of their social media.
00:36:07
Speaker
Really? They deleted their Twitter. They deleted their Instagram. They took their social media manager out back shot them but for real. So like, it's okay. It's a weird idea to put kids with bondage bears on your in your ad campaign. I mean, I'll go as far as saying that that does seem a little perverted. I'll err on the side of perversion until I hear otherwise.
00:36:32
Speaker
But then you pair it with the fact that, okay, we've got a Supreme Court case from 15 years ago about child pornography online, and you have it printed out and put under your purse and your foot. Why do you have that? Why is that there?
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's like is there any obvious sensible reason for it? No. Is there a direct good theory about like it's there? I mean, I guess it's somebody's idea of art. I think that's what's fun about art is you can do really fucked up stuff and then be like, guys, it's art. I mean, don't go overboard here. What was it with
00:37:15
Speaker
God, Casey, you're going to have to help me out here. Was it with the Epstein shit where there was someone who had all that really fucked up art of like people being mutilated and shit like that? Yes. Okay. So if this is at all interesting to you,
00:37:32
Speaker
You're going to want to go to the Martyr made podcast and listen to listen to the whole Epstein series, but listen to episode three of his three part series on Epstein. And in it, one of the things that that Darryl Cooper hosts, it does a really good job of as he really like goes the extra mile and trying to like fully understand the viewpoints of the people he's discussing.
00:37:59
Speaker
Right. So in episode three of this Epstein thing, he breaks down like the whole Pizzagate conspiracy, which, you know, at a glance.
00:38:10
Speaker
Like there's nothing to relate to there. And you're like, these people are insane. They think people are holding children in a pizza parlour. So it is insane. Right. But during that whole process, like mapping that all out, he kind of lays out like what people latched on to that, like, led them to those dumps. You're a man sitting in your basement. None of your children will talk to you anymore because you've gone so far off the wall. You're looking for meaning in your life and you've
00:38:35
Speaker
had a lot to drink. You make you you find some stuff and it doesn't sound so unreasonable. Yeah, I won't trace out the whole thing because it's. But basically, it started with the leaked emails from Hillary Clinton's leaked emails during the 16 campaign. There was this weird connection to this comic pizza, comic pizza and ping pong in D.C.
00:38:59
Speaker
People started looking at like several different people that were in the emails or named in the emails or part of that whole thread and like the Pedestas who have been like Washington insiders forever Came up a lot during this whole thing and they're like big campaigners for Hillary Clinton I forget they run like a super PAC or something like that, but they have this art collection and
00:39:21
Speaker
It's like such deviant shit. It's really unsettling. Yeah, it's insane. And it's like so much of it involves like children in dangerous, violent or sexual situations. It's bizarre, unsettling. I think one of the artists said that in an interview with one of the artists, she said that she was abused as a kid. And like a lot of that has to do with her like re-representing
00:39:50
Speaker
the feelings of being abused. Now, whatever as an artist in your outlet, you do what you want. But when you're when you're drawing really Tony Podesta, like unsettling it and then posing next to it in like the New Yorker or whatever like
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah. I enjoy this piece. Like, shut up, Tony. Yeah, exactly. It's like that you can get it. Like, I feel like I don't I don't know what the market is. Like, I don't know what the market should be for that. But if you're just a guy who has a lot of money, you're like, I just like white guy. And it's all they're always white name. If I want to buy this expression of this poor abused woman's pain and hang it on my wall so I can talk about it during my like wine mixers.
00:40:35
Speaker
Because I'm a silver spoon piece of shit who's never had real adversity in their lives and I'd like to just revel in other people's. Now is he shoving babies into his Breville food processor? That might be a stretch.
00:41:06
Speaker
Why didn't somebody spread that theory? Like the adrenochromes are in the diary. Well, because they don't want to make it too accessible. So like, you know, Q idiots living in their trailer in the middle of nowhere could be like, wait, we have plenty of baby diarrhea. Like that doesn't hurt the baby. It doesn't hurt the baby and it buys the baby formula. Well, so, okay. So Balenciaga, like the internet freaks out at Balenciaga. They take down these photos and stuff. Um,
00:41:15
Speaker
But is he buying baby diarrhea and rubbing it on his face? Absolutely. He is. We can verify that. It's a fact.
00:41:36
Speaker
post some new photos of some of the items that in the collection and stuff. And this is where like, it's like the Pizzagate thing where people just take stuff and run with it. Like one weird thing and it's like, God, there it is.
00:41:51
Speaker
But one of the images that they posted was a lady. She's in kind of like business attire. She's got her feet up on a desk full of papers. And in the background, there's like a stack of books. And there's two books sitting there that are both from, they're from two different artists.
00:42:10
Speaker
One of them is named Michael Boromans and the book is called Fire from the Sun. And it's a series of pictures of toddlers holding severed limbs and playing with dead bodies and in piles of blood. Jesus. Again, weird. What country is Valencia stationed in? Like what? Spain, I think.
00:42:37
Speaker
Okay. It doesn't really help. I'm just wondering, like, is there some cultural divide we're not understanding? Like it was French. I might be like, okay, well, is this a weird French thing? The Spanish got pretty weird a few hundred years ago, Central America and stuff. They're capable. They're capable of it.
00:42:59
Speaker
But yeah, so the description for Fire From The Sun says, Fire From The Sun includes small and large scale works that feature toddlers engaged in playful but mysterious acts with sinister overtones and insinuations of violence. Somebody needs to write that description and then look at it and be like, wait, that's a red flag. Everything I just said is a giant red flag.
00:43:24
Speaker
mysterious and sinister situations. Is that what they said? But you can't write that about a child and be like, Wait a second, I might be on the wrong side of this one. So the second book is by this art artist named Matthew Barney. And it's called the Kremaster circle. I don't know if I'm pronouncing Kremaster. Correct. Doesn't sound good. Like there's the
00:43:46
Speaker
I don't know, one of the images, the title image or whatever is like this guy, he's in white paint head to toe. His mouth is just covered in blood and he's eating what looks like a piece of raw meat. And apparently the cremaster muscle is what he's supposed to be eating, which is the muscle that retracts a man's testicles back up into his body.
00:44:13
Speaker
Oh, you don't say. It's just too much weird. It's just too weird. Like, just give it a break for a second. I feel like I've heard of people having injuries. Was there a chromaster? Yeah, I didn't know what the word for that. I didn't know the word but where that muscle tightens up and it actually will retract like your testicle into your body and you actually have to have
00:44:39
Speaker
like a surgery to get that to like release. You have to, your, your coin purse are all over heat. I mean, it's a sidebar. I mean, it has nothing to do. It doesn't really matter. I just, I'm learning and I'm connecting what I'm learning. Like if you pass knowledge, peanut M&Ms on your dash in the summertime, that's what happens.
00:45:06
Speaker
Very David spade move of you So that's that's kind of the longest short of like the Controversy the internet's exploded like several times over it. They're like calling on stars and stuff to Denounce Balenciaga like the Kardashians have a really close relationship with Balenciaga apparently and people are like
00:45:32
Speaker
Do not stop, drop your contracts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know? And so far it hasn't- Not until they say something anti-Semitic, come on. We have standards in this country. But Balenciaga, I mean, like I said, they had deleted all their social media and everything. That is absolutely wild to delete- It's like the most unbelievable part. Yeah, yeah. It feels like you're either 13 years old and you just like,
00:45:59
Speaker
got caught doing something really embarrassing or your Balenciaga. Like, I don't really know who else is deleting all their social media accounts. That's like the cyanide pill in your tooth. They have filed a $25 million lawsuit against the producers of the ads, which is NorthSinks. NorthSinks, Incorporated is the studio that did the photo shoots and stuff. And then the set designer's name is Nicholas DeJarden.
00:46:30
Speaker
And so I like looked up both, both that set designer and the, uh, the company that did the ads looked through a bunch of their content and stuff. And there's like nothing. There's nothing in any of their other stuff that's even remotely like controversial or weird or even involves kids. So is suing.
00:46:51
Speaker
them you're saying so they're like we hired these people to do these ads this is what they came up with and they signed off on it yeah yeah they signed off on it but what they're saying is we didn't realize all this other weird shit they did essentially they're just trying to find a fall guy and not take responsibility for it
00:47:11
Speaker
Basically, yeah. I mean, it's interesting. Like the fact that they like farm out all of their creative content. I mean, I don't know if they do it farm all of it out. But I guess when you got a big collection of luxury items, it's almost like an art piece. The
00:47:30
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that's weird. Hiring an outside agency to produce marketing materials. I think that part's pretty normal. Oh, for sure. Them not having any issues of what was produced, it would feel weird for them to backtrack now and be like, how could you make those images? Presumably you approved them, or you approved the concepts, then approved the finals, and then approved the distribution, including in your ads.
00:47:52
Speaker
Yeah, no one's looking at all the other stuff that's in them, too. Like, of course, just on face value, you would think someone be like red flag kids holding BDSM and BDSM bears. But even looking past that and then it's like the additional layers of like the the Supreme Court document or the the books that are in the background, it's like, look, whenever I watch movies,
00:48:21
Speaker
Now, like I didn't when I was like 17, 18 years old, but if I watch a movie and you see books in the background, I'm always interested in what they are because somebody put them there on purpose. And it's like, if you're doing that with an ad and there's something there, it's like, of course you want to look at that. Like if, if your job is to sign off on advertisements, you hired a company to do this for you. And you're like, yeah, we should.
00:48:49
Speaker
like we have we have final say and you're just going to ignore everything that's in there in the background like I don't know all that is weird like to say that they actually to think that they actually have a lawsuit on their hands where they can like recover from that it feels trying to shift blame yeah that's like we're taking this seriously and we want retribution we're as angry as you are
00:49:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think like so I saw the only like reasonable explanation that I saw for for why Dave all of Becky from full house No, but like somebody had somebody had tweeted something along lines of like
00:49:32
Speaker
Like, I know what this is. This is what, you know, this is a company like purposely soliciting negative feedback in order to get promotion out of it. And I could definitely see that for the bears. The Supreme Court documents, the books, I don't think so. I feel like that's, those are minor details. The books I could see is like,
00:49:52
Speaker
You know, some artsy photographer wanting to kind of like give a nod to some artists that he likes, you know, it's like, it's like he snuck a cannibal corpse song into Ace Ventura. The Supreme Court document is the only one that I'm like.
00:50:09
Speaker
Why? What is this? That's way too on the nose for any explanation, at least we can think of. And that's also the most easily, you know, like, that's the one that I could see sneaking past the censors within the company. So, you know, thinking about it. So the Supreme Court thing is saying that pandering will continue to be something you can prosecute, right? Yes. So maybe, I mean, are they going for?
00:50:37
Speaker
This is just me trying to think of an advertiser's perspective. Are they going for the shocking with the ironic? Like that seems plausible. Like here we have these kids with these BDSM bears and that's shocking and it's a problem. And then we also have like, ironically, we're going to also put this thing here, which is that you could prosecute pandering. Are we pandering? We're not, but is it a juxtaposition? Certainly.
00:51:07
Speaker
Maybe somebody should have made that case for them already. They definitely have not made that case for themselves. I've gone back. I know I career shifted into adjustment counseling, but I am career shifting into law. So I plan on being the lawyer for the advertisement company that Balenciaga, whatever the fuck they're called, hired. So I came up with that idea.
00:51:37
Speaker
Clearly I'm doing a better job than whoever's handling their case right now. So well, I hope you get it I'm guessing that you won't be working with many children you all Always always default to irony if you just say it was a Iran Oh, we were being ironic then they go. Okay, and then the judge has to agree with you. Yeah parody law
00:52:00
Speaker
Yeah, parody law. Elon Musk knows a lot about that. As long as you put parody in your profile name, you're good until you're not because Elon doesn't like you said about him and then he squanders all of Twitter. Now we're where we're at. So yeah, exactly. Just another example of a rich person making the rules up as they go and it working out really well for them is what I'm trying to say.
00:52:26
Speaker
Yeah, so that's the Balenciaga controversy. Final thoughts? Any ideas? I definitely won't buy their products now. I think, uh, I think going Maxwell is somehow involved. Did I say her name right? She probably had some Balenciaga gear. Definitely. She seemed like a, uh, like a Chico's shopper.
00:52:53
Speaker
I don't know what Chico's is. Whatever high-end Chico's. She had an oyster rack look to her, if you ask me.
00:53:04
Speaker
What are your final thoughts, Casey? Piece this together for us. Paint the big picture. I know you've got a giant conspiracy welling up inside you. It seems to me like at least the court document part. I don't know if it's the photographer or if it's the set designer or if it was Balenciaga themselves. It does seem like some sort of a wink and a nod to me.
00:53:26
Speaker
But what would be the point of it? I don't know. I mean, it feels a little like, like, hey, you know, if you, uh, play Metallica's record backwards, it says to smoke weed. What's the point? What would be the point of that? It's just crazy. It's to like condition you to accept such and such. Like, I don't see how any of that could work or be possible or useful in any way to anyone. So I don't know what the motivation would be here.
00:53:56
Speaker
It feels brazen for the sake of being brazen on all fronts. Well, if that was their plan, they are definitely doing a bad job of explaining it to the world. So, um, maybe they were expecting people to pick up on new ones. And I don't know. I don't know what your personal experience has been with humanity over the past four or five years.
00:54:21
Speaker
I don't know that they're great at that. That's her next photo shoots with Casey Anthony. Wait, isn't she getting something? Hold on. Is something happening with her right now? I heard something about that. She's starting OnlyFans or something. Jesus. Probably. That's how she's going to pay her court bills. There was something. Oh, yeah. She's got a trailer for Casey Anthony, Where the Truth Lies streaming on Peacock.
00:54:51
Speaker
Okay. Is it just like a documentary series about her thing? It looks like it. Yeah. But with her participation. This is going to work out super well for her. And I'm sure it's going to paint her in exactly the light she wants to be painted in. I would say exactly like the way it worked out for Jean Carlo. Yeah. Oh, man.
00:55:15
Speaker
At some point, we got to talk about that. Have you guys watched? I haven't. I actually have been. I have not watched God forbid yet. You know, I don't know if the episodes out yet. It might have been when we talked to Barrett. I forget when I mentioned it. But a conversation about it did come up. And I was like, I feel like I have.
00:55:35
Speaker
I might be remembering wrong, but I feel like I mentioned not being overly interested in it. Um, well, okay. So when I, I didn't, I don't think I realized entirely what it was, but then I saw the trailer for it and was like, Oh, now I'm going to have to eat my hat on this one because it does seem interesting. But then I did talk to a friend, another Liberty graduate.
00:55:58
Speaker
who said he didn't feel like it brought a lot of new anything to the table compared to what, like, gangster capitalism had already talked about. So, I don't really know. Well, I mean, it's like two hours long.
00:56:15
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I thought it was going to be a serious investigation. Yeah, yeah. But it's the first time, I guess, that like Giancarlo really sat down and gave any of his take. Yeah, it's Giancarlo's side of the story and, you know, backed up by a bunch of experts. You know, the thing with it is I feel like, you know, that Billy Corbin or I think it's Billy Corbin that made it. Billy. Cocaine Cowboys, the greatest documentary of all time.
00:56:45
Speaker
But I think what he did was put this all together in a package for people who maybe saw it peripherally or or read some stuff about it initially when it first came out, but then like lost track of it during the course of things. Yeah, people haven't followed it as closely as some of us have. I think what's interesting about it, what I thought was really interesting about it was that it painted a much deeper picture of what his relationship to the Falwells was actually like. OK.
00:57:16
Speaker
And it's weird. It's like very straight. You should just watch it. Let's save this conversation. I'll watch it. Watch it and then we'll talk about it because it's good. It's worth watching, I think.
00:57:27
Speaker
Yeah, I'll give it a watch for sure. I definitely want to. My semester is wrapping up in the next week and a half for me. You can just quit school now, right? I could. You got what you wanted. Now, what I'm deliberating on is whether or not I slow down my schooling at all is because now that I'm in the field that I want to be in,
00:57:52
Speaker
I'll get a provisional license and that'll probably give me about five years to be able to graduate. And I was on a three year track and I've already done one year. I'm finishing up my first year now. So I could really like extend this out, give myself a little bit more free time. I don't know. I'm on the fence about it. Cause I kind of just want to finish it, but God free time sounds really great. I'd love to have some of that again. We'll see. Yeah. I don't blame me there. Okay. So.
00:58:22
Speaker
Uh, I am going for an unofficial Bible degree. And in doing so, I have done a lot of Bible study over the past few months, probably more Bible study over the past few months than I did in like the past 15 years, all of your years, I would say.
00:58:43
Speaker
all 30 plus of them. I'm definitely paying much closer attention now as an adult. So the other day when we had April on, we talked about Esther and the story of how Esther became queen, the royal beauty pageant.
Mordecai's Discovery and Esther's Courage
00:59:00
Speaker
Right. And me, you know, like I said in that episode, like I didn't really know the story of Esther anymore. And I figured that that part was the interesting part of the book. And the rest of the book is absolutely nuts. And I've had a lot of fun sketching this out. So
00:59:23
Speaker
We're going to kind of pick up the story right where we left off, you know, Persia's next talks, concubine, Esther wins. The king makes her the queen. They throw a big party in her honor and declare, I don't know, January 6th, Esther day.
00:59:44
Speaker
So, so in chapter two, like that's the chapter two midway through ends right there and talking about Esther becoming queen. And then it talks about Mordecai. And so reading this, the rest of this book, it seems very clear to me that Mordecai wrote this book.
01:00:05
Speaker
He had to because this is like a fan fiction of his life as written by him and it seems like the whole book is You know, it's it's about Esther, but it's really the whole book is just there to jerk off Mordecai. Okay It starts right here I feel like I want to say no, no, I won't say anything you go ahead and
01:00:30
Speaker
So Mordecai works the gate at the palace, right? One day he's working the gate and he overhears these two guys that are like the king's officers. They're gossiping. Their names are Bigthana and Teresh and they were super mad at King Xerxes.
01:00:49
Speaker
throughout this whole, and King Xerxes throughout this whole book just seems like a total moron. Like everything he does is stupid. He can just be like whoever walks into, we're joking about that new Lord of the Rings show. Like every time, every scene in that Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power show, every episode has a scene where the townspeople are all gathered up and they're listening to someone give a speech. And it's like whoever's giving the speech has full authority over the townspeople.
01:01:18
Speaker
Like they'll be all revved up about going to war and fighting the orcs and stuff like that. And then one guy will speak up and be like, I don't think we should do that. And all the crown's people are like whispering to each other like, uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's kind of how King Xerxes is in this story. So these two guys very mad at him. And they're talking about how they're going to assassinate him.
01:01:40
Speaker
So Mordecai goes and tells Esther, or delivers a message to Esther that this is going down and these two guys are planning to kill the king. Esther goes to the king, tells him that Mordecai, your servant, overheard this assassination plot.
01:02:00
Speaker
It says that there was an investigation. Put that in quotes because something tells me that it wasn't super thorough and they impaled these two dudes on-
01:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, it's like Liberty investigating a sexual assault or something. Oh, what's if, yeah, we had a solid- Solid title night investigation, guys. And turns out, we did awesome. It's like if they did that, but they just immediately impaled everyone that got accused.
01:02:31
Speaker
So they impale these two guys on big long poles. A lot of people get impaled in the book of Esther. It's kind of like a recurring theme. Very Assyrian. I like it. So Mordecai kind of gets the credit for it, but that was about it. Like nothing real big done in his honor afterwards.
01:02:53
Speaker
So there's this guy that comes into the story that's kind of like the villain of the story at this point, and his name's Hayman. Remember this from the- Hayman? His name's Hayman. Okay. And Hayman is just like this wicked, vile douchebag that just hates the Jews. And he's second in command in the kingdom. He's kind of like- Is it a purity metaphor? I don't really like where this is going.
01:03:19
Speaker
I think they would. If that was the case, they would make Hymen the purest and most untouched person, wouldn't they? But breaking the Hymen. Mordecai breaks the Hymen. Exactly. It's okay, Sam. If you're making this joke work, keep going. You're going to dig out of this. You can do it. I can't. I can make it with a loose connection. That's it.
01:03:47
Speaker
Well, Heyman is big on titles and adoration and the King makes him second in command. Yes. He's the hand of the King, just to translate this into modern Game of Thrones terms for the audience. Exactly. Yeah. He's Tyrion.
01:04:03
Speaker
So he's prancing around in his like new second in command, Kingly duds, and he goes through the gate and he and Mordecai must just like hate each other. It's kind of like office, uh, rivalry sort of thing between him and Mordecai, who's just like this guy working the gate.
01:04:21
Speaker
But he says, everybody has been commanded to bow down and show respect to me when I walk up. By the King's command, and Mordecai will not do it. He's like, I bow down to no one but my God. Takes a courageous stand.
01:04:39
Speaker
Sounds a lot like not my president. I like this. Yeah. Which I keep thinking, like, did Mordecai bow to Xerxes? That never really comes up in this story, but you think it would. No, Xerxes just respected his faith. I'm sure that's what the implication is. Xerxes is like a hot headed doofus that was pretty cool with Mordecai just doing whatever he wanted to.
01:05:09
Speaker
But he wouldn't bow to Haman, kind of makes a thing out of it. And he decides like he just hates Mordecai. And he hates him so much he wants to kill him. But then he thinks about it and he's like, you know what? I don't want to kill just Mordecai. I want to kill all the Jews. And here we are today.
01:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's really about all the explanation it gives for why Haman wanted to kill all the Jews. It was like Mordecai wouldn't fist bump him, and so he's like, nah, genocide. I feel like it's been basically that since then. I mean, it's just like, oh, you didn't give me, you didn't give me that spot or that television series I wanted. Well, let me piece together conspiracy theory for you.
01:05:55
Speaker
Boy, hot take. Well, look at Kanye. I mean, that's literally his take. Yeah. Yeah. You guys are two peas in a pod. I think you're misunderstanding from coming from here. Yeah, that would be the interpretation for sure. I'm just, I'm trying to give the
01:06:18
Speaker
Uh, new interpreters translation. I don't know. I think new interpreters is actually a translation. I'm probably, I think it's good translation. Oh, I'm looking at it. I mean, commonly accepted translations. Let me guess. Let me guess. Let me guess. Uh, 1500. Are we doing like just in English or they're in the entire world? Oh, just in English. Let's do English. And let me change that. The only real language.
01:06:47
Speaker
Uh, 600, uh, more than a hundred. Uh, no, I mean, that's just the answer is more than a hundred. Not helpful. What there's gotta be guys walking around, like running around pitching their translation of the Bible, right? Like I've been doing it for years and whatnot, like a hot new translation startup.
01:07:09
Speaker
Yeah, or like a lunatic that, you know, shows up at the farmer's market and tries to sell like his bootleg translation of the New Testament. Okay, so you're saying just like unauthorized, like live bootleg recordings, like who's to say that these aren't also treasured translations that we should also be considering as a part of the complete catalog? Right.
01:07:30
Speaker
Yeah, like I went to a gun show yesterday and it's like the guy who's downloading and printing the Turner diaries from his home computer and then selling it at the gun show, you know, but he's selling a Bibles. I haven't been to a gun show in many years since before The Troubles. Has the tone shifted in the way that I'm imagining that it has?
01:07:57
Speaker
It's a lot of like if Biden Trump 2024 merch. OK. It sucks, honestly, like they suck. They're terrible. It's bad branding. I mean, if you're going to if your entire thing is to associate associate gun culture with everything. Trump. It's like you got to understand, Sam, so longevity.
01:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, but so much of of like gun culture when it comes to merchandising is based around like the wink, wink. You'll definitely need to kill somebody who will definitely break into your house one day. Wink, wink. It's like wink, wink, Calvin, peeing on somebody's name. You don't like wink, wink culture. I get it. Exactly. So like that's the only way you convince people that it's worth spending so many thousands of dollars on stupid accessories. Yeah. Well, it's the wildest gun you saw at the gun showcase. They had some cool shit.
01:08:50
Speaker
Uh, there was like a decommissioned RPG in there. Okay. Decommissioned though. Yeah, that's, that's to me, that's still cool. That's fine. Okay. So I'm looking at all these patches you sent me. Yeah. Wait, that's a, that's a, that's a patch for the empire from Star Wars. That's the empire's logo. Jeremiah and Sam, I, Sam, I said it too yesterday, but there was a table that was just nothing but like patches. And I took a picture of half of it. This is half of it.
01:09:20
Speaker
But, uh, it's just like patches that you can have your grandma sew onto your body armor vest, you know? Patches of hula hand. So it says there's like a skeleton hand holding up the middle finger next, and it says your sensitivities.
01:09:38
Speaker
I get it. What is no quarter given mean? It's like no survivors or yeah. No, no prisoners. No. So when pirates like what they'd run up a flag, say no quarter. Basically that if you don't surrender, we'll kill everybody. Like kill them all. Like God, sort them out. Exactly. OK. So what's quarter? What is that? What is quarter is mercy? OK. Like taking you prisoner slash mercy.
01:10:03
Speaker
Yeah. I like, um, shall not be infringed. I liked that one. That's a good one. This one is really fucked up and I appreciate it. Uh, when it comes to brazenness, uh, it says infidel. And then what I imagine is Arabic for infidel underneath it. So they're just asking to be killed. So that's cool.
01:10:25
Speaker
wouldn't it be amazing if it was like like you see those pictures of people in t-shirts like in China or something that have American sayings on them but they're wrong or they say something like awful would it be great if somebody did that infidel patch but in Arabic they wrote like douchebag or something the guy strutting around with it on his uh his his jeep seat cover
01:10:47
Speaker
I gotta say one of my least favorites is the, um, the we the people ones, like. Or the ones that just say 1776, like it's some vague, like, yeah, patriotism. Yeah. Till the current president patriotism. That's dumb too.
01:11:06
Speaker
Oh, here's one. It's a picture of a mask and also a cat on it. And I'm not sure. I don't understand that one. Yeah. What does this mean? I will say, well, whatever. He put it on his truck, so he's proud to have it. I like C-1984. So it's like COVID-1984. Oh, wow. Deep. It's pretty cool. There's one that says 2020. I can now see clearly.
01:11:34
Speaker
I really also need is there's all those joke ones in there about like Bigfoot and stuff, because this is how Casey you've probably gotten ads for these stupid clothing companies that are all like grunt tactical. And, you know, it's got a bunch of like
01:11:50
Speaker
you know, Bigfoot jokes in 1776. And then obviously a hard right turn at some point where it goes into like, and rise up and kill the liberals like, Oh, cool. So that's the type of like, we're all about sportsman, not conduct and training for readiness brothers readiness to do what? Yeah. Oh, I've definitely gotten a bunch of ads for those. Yeah. I can't believe you snowflake, but, um, I,
01:12:18
Speaker
I don't know. I don't think it's a surprise, but my, um, my dad's an info wars guy and he, I was over there this weekend for Thor this week for Thanksgiving. And there was a, he's got info war. He gets the bumper stickers and he puts them all in the back of his truck. And one of them was, um, I'm trying to remember exactly what it was, but it was like masks are for slaves and something else. And I don't remember this and I'm like,
01:12:48
Speaker
Slaves and criminals.
01:12:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it is. Thank you. Was it? Yes. Oh, dang. I'm way too tuned into these. So I got the criminals one, because criminals will wear masks. But like, slaves? I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't have to make sense. It doesn't have to. I think that's the moral of the story. I also want to be like, and also for doctors and also like, there's plenty of people who wear masks for a lot of reasons. Not your dad. Not your dad.
01:13:18
Speaker
I would I should I want to buy your dad the patch that says thought criminal yeah you'd probably love it probably I saw that and I had just it's just one of those you see that you're like god we've really
01:13:36
Speaker
Like I'm cut from that cloth and I don't know how all four of your children ended up thinking so radically different. Yeah. All four children line up with each other and not your dad or everyone go in way different directions.
01:13:50
Speaker
all four of us are reality based. Yeah, we might, we could probably find plenty of things we disagree on, ideologically or maybe morally based on where we, I don't know how we define or where we get our morality from. But generally, like, I have a lot in common, ideologically with my siblings, I think. And
01:14:17
Speaker
it's generally a point of contention. Like we've all at various times, sometimes separate, sometimes together gotten very heated arguments with my dad, uh, that end poorly. And then I feel bad for my mom because she's just like left hearing us be like, Oh my God, like losing her shit. And
01:14:40
Speaker
She's like, ah, I don't know. I know. I get it. But they, she's not like on the same page as, my mom's a very conservative person, but I've never had any real contention with it. Like, you know, we could even, we could talk about anything at all and just have a very human to human conversation about why we feel the way we feel about it. And so that's, that's great. So even,
01:15:06
Speaker
Even though probably had a lot of issues she might align with my dad and the way that they would vote, she probably doesn't align with him on how he got to his conclusions as he's like in the conspiracy theory, Alex Jones camp.
01:15:21
Speaker
And then, and she's, she's very much not. So, and she thinks there's issues on that. It seems to me like she thinks there's issues on that side. Like she doesn't agree with it, but either way, she does see that the, the rift that it causes between me and my siblings and our dad. And so I don't think she likes it for that reason, because again, all of us in our mom have been able to, we're all
01:15:49
Speaker
even though we know we don't agree on stuff and that we could have those conversations. Um, so I think she just sees it as a way that like causes strife in the family in, in limits, conversational ability. So I don't know. It, I think all that is what's interesting about it is even though she's probably, if you're talking about like down ballot voting, she probably aligns
01:16:16
Speaker
her vote would look a lot more like my dad's on everything. When it comes to having real conversations, I think it's a lot different. Yeah. You can be conservative and vote for Trump without thinking that the CIA
01:16:35
Speaker
She activated Steven Paddock in order to take guns away from people. Like my mom's conservative. She has probably very clear ideas about abortion. She probably likes the way that the Supreme Court
01:16:52
Speaker
ruled she probably voted for trump based on hoping to get more supreme court conservative supreme court justices like she got everything she wanted out of voting for trump but she would be like i think trump's an asshole so like i don't know she doesn't think he's putting uh
01:17:10
Speaker
aborted fetus stem cells in their drinks.
01:17:29
Speaker
She's coming from a good place and there isn't a topic that I wouldn't approach with her if it came up. I would be happy to sit and talk with my mom calmly about why we think the way we do. It doesn't always work out that way with my dad. I probably had more conversations with him about things and then usually it's on the arc. It really ramps up.
01:17:56
Speaker
And then it crashes and we settle and then we're able to like maybe talk more rationally. But I don't know. What's crazy is I guess I see some similarities between my dad and I that I wouldn't have thought because I never thought that we were that similar. And then as we get older.
01:18:14
Speaker
I'm like, Oh, I can see, I can see myself feeling those feelings the way he does. Uh, but just to push him down and you're like, well, Lindsay Aga just made a weird marketing choice. Like it's fine. But from a different perspective. So I don't know. It's all weird. I think just family dynamics get weirder and weirder the older you get. Anyway, we don't need to talk about this anymore. So Esther, she gets to the kingdom. Yeah.
01:18:40
Speaker
Yeah okay I'll give you the cliff notes on some of the stuff that everybody's heard or knows at some point. So Haman goes in his intent on getting rid of the Jews so he makes this big pitch to King Xerxes that they're like this separate group living amongst his people that are plotting and conspiring against him and they don't honor his commandments and all of this stuff.
01:19:01
Speaker
And basically, they need to be wiped out. So the king, you know, like I said, he's kind of an idiot. So he's like, hey, you said it.
01:19:12
Speaker
I'm like, I'm kind of busy right now. I'm going to give you my ring, which the king's ring seems to be like the key to the kingdom. It's like his signal. How do you say that word? Is it signet? Signet. Signet. Yeah. His signet ring. Homeschoolers unite. We go. Actually, Hamid says he will give the king 10,000 talents basically to let him kill all the Jews. I mean, I'm still looking for one talent. That's dope. The king tells him to keep them. So maybe he knew.
01:19:40
Speaker
It's like you'll be good at guitar. You can do math good. Lots of talent, man. The best talent. His talent's worth it exciting. It was like Heyman had won a couple of those stick pony competitions. Hobby horse competition. You will. Fuck it, air guitar dude. You can keep your talents, all right? Just go kill the juice for me.
01:20:07
Speaker
So yeah, he got his wish. And I guess Haman like cast lots to determine what day they were going to kill all the Jews. It falls on this certain day, which is sometime in the future. And he sends out the word, which is kind of weird. It's kind of like everybody seems to know that he's about to kill all the Jews on, you know, Tuesday, the 14th. And everybody's just kind of waiting around to get murdered. Hmm.
01:20:35
Speaker
Mordecai finds out and he panics puts on sackcloth and ashes and he goes and like screams outside the palace walls. Mordecai comes across and like is what he's trying to do isn't always like a bad thing by any means but like he definitely uses Esther as kind of like his foot in the door at the palace.
01:20:59
Speaker
So he goes in front of the palace, screams and yells. She's like, whoa, what is he doing? Maybe she's embarrassed or something. So she sends her servants out there to try to clothe him and stuff. And he like refuses. Finally, he tells one of her servants, like, I'm screaming because we're about to all be murdered and you have to do something about it. All right. You need to go before the king and tell him that, you know, this is that he needs to to not do this.
01:21:30
Speaker
But if you remember like all the drama with Queen Vashti when she wouldn't show up and stuff, he kind of set forth some new rules at that point. One of which was basically like- Bill Maher approach. I see where he's coming from. New rule. Don't come before the king unless you're called. And if you do, I'm going to kill you. So she's like real nervous about just bursting into the throne room.
01:21:56
Speaker
And as it turns out it says that she hadn't been called before the king in a month so I'm guessing the honeymoon period was over I think I so I looked at some timelines and it looked like there was about four years between.
01:22:11
Speaker
when she became queen and when this actually happened. That's what's supposedly the timeline, right? So Mordecai says,
01:22:28
Speaker
Relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?" Which is a weird pitch, right? It's like, hey, if you choose to be quiet, we're still going to get delivered by some other means, but you're going to die.
01:22:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's like, look, if they're coming for us, you think you're going to go away with this? You won't. Why? Because we're a bunch of rats and we're going to tell on you. You can risk death now or you can wait for God to kill you. So she agrees to do it. She says, everybody, you know, go talk to all the Jews, tell them to fast and pray for three days. I'll have all my servants fast and pray, and then I'll go do it.
01:23:14
Speaker
So she gets on a royal duds, she goes and stands outside the king's throne room, and then at some point she enters without being called in, right? And at this point, the only thing that can save your life— I remember that from YouTube. Right. The only thing that can save your life at that point is if the king holds out his golden scepter and touches you with it. The only thing that can save you from the rule that the king made is the king.
01:23:42
Speaker
The king is much like God in that he is very bound by his own arbitrary rules that he made up. Now, I saw an animated version of this once, and I do believe that the king did not touch her with the staff, but instead he held it out sideways and his decision was based on the direction that he tilted the staff either up or down, I think. The Joaquin Phoenix.
01:24:09
Speaker
approach. From gladiator? Yeah. Yeah. Was that in gladiator? Yeah. What if I'm making the whole thing up and that's all that I'm thinking of? Does the thumb in front of the crowd? Should the gladiator live or die? Is that what you're thinking, Sam? I don't think that's what I'm thinking, but who knows? Memories aren't trustworthy. Yeah. He says to kill the man in the tiger mask and Russell Crowe says, screw you, Commodus, I'm not doing it.
01:24:34
Speaker
Yeah, well, I had we had all these animated Bible stories on VHS. Oh, I've watched that one twice in the last two days. So have you really? You know, it's on. It's on. Right. Was it the staff to the side and do that at one point? Like, yeah, I know. You nailed it. Thank God. You got to watch that. I I'm excited to watch some more of them because they're pretty funny. Actually, I got to go through my parents VHS's because I feel like there's so much gold there from what like there's so much.
01:25:05
Speaker
Dude, remember last time we talked about the kings of eunuchs and we had like, you know, probably you can't help but envision them as like kind of like, you know, God, I can't think of what the word is I'm looking for, but you know, like a happy go lucky gay dude. Okay. That is exactly how they put him in the cartoon too. She goes in before the eunuch and he's like, let's put you in silk.
01:25:34
Speaker
Oh my god, literally how they wrote it. It's unreal. He's one of the best characters in it though, I mean. So, uh, she goes before the King and she says, Hey, I want to throw you and Heyman a banquet. And I don't know if that, if there was a reason for that, I guess it's just timing. I don't know. There's a lot of overlapping timelines here that all kind of work out for Mordecai's best interest.
01:26:02
Speaker
So he's like, cool name. I've always found it cool. Ever since I played the first border lanes game and there was a character named Mordecai. He's cool in that. You're right. Cool. But even when I heard that, I was like Mordecai, it's a name I know.
01:26:18
Speaker
It's a cool name. You can't name your kid that. It's still not the right name for a kid these days, despite our cultural shifts towards interesting names. I like it too. I've been thinking that the whole time is like Mordecai is such a cool name to name somebody. It really is cool.
01:26:37
Speaker
So I want to throw you another Mordecai party. He says, yes, we'll do that. She says, okay, I'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow night, we'll have this big party, right? So Haman is stoked because he's like the only person being honored at the queen's banquet. He's in all of his royal robes and everything, walks out the gate and guess who's there? That prick Mordecai. And he doesn't stand up. He doesn't fist bump him. He doesn't Hyle Hitler him. Nothing.
01:27:07
Speaker
And he's like, all my riches and titles and everything. I had all this good stuff going for me and this prick mortal guy won't salute me and I hate him and it ruins it all for me. He's talking to his wife at this point. And his wife and friends are like, you should erect a pole 50 cubits high.
01:27:29
Speaker
And when we went over this, the qubit is a unit of measurement that is the distance between your navel and the bottom of your flaccid penis. 50 of those, it's a tall pole. No, that's short, depending on who you're talking about. 50 of anything's pretty long.
01:27:53
Speaker
It's like 10, 11 feet. I didn't get Mordecai's legs off the ground when you impaled him. Would the cubit be dangling? So for real though, a cubit is elbow to fingertip. Yes. And I feel like a cubit is maybe similar length to your thigh.
01:28:15
Speaker
Yeah, probably about. Yeah, that's pretty close. And now I'm wondering if, universally, are cubits similar to thighs? Well, I guess I'll do that while we keep going. I need everyone listening to hold out your hand. Look up cubits, Jay. Place it against your thigh.
01:28:38
Speaker
And then leave a review for this podcast. I'm furiously googling cubit and thighs and it's just not getting the information that we need. Send Sam your cubits. But yeah, so 50 cubits high, they're going to impale Mordecai on it. They're like giddy with excitement thinking about it. That night.
01:28:58
Speaker
The king goes to his chambers and he can't sleep. He's had a hard day of making contradictory decisions and he cannot sleep. So he calls one of his servants to come in and read him the story of his own rule. He's like Kenny Powers rolling around listening to his own audio.
01:29:25
Speaker
Amazing. Does he tell him to go back multiple years? Or he's like, tell me, what have you cooked up for last week? What are my exploits? Well, this isn't done being edited yet. This is all pretty fresh. He's like, no, I want to hear it. I want to hear it. It's like I'm a low IQ drunk. I don't remember.
01:29:40
Speaker
It's mostly off the dome. The guy's just like, and then you did that thing that you did that degree. The glorious King decided to take the afternoon off to go play golf. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Everyone was impressed. So the next day.
01:29:58
Speaker
Remember when you stole every virgin in the kingdom? That was cool. Very Trumpian. You have the best, the decrees. Your decrees are amazing. The best of the best decrees. So while he's reading back the history, he talks about that the servant read the part about when Mordecai warned him of the assassination plot. And he's like, huh. It's like an inception. He got all about that.
01:30:27
Speaker
And he's like, did we do anything for Mordecai? Did we give him like a cool shirt or a gift certificate or anything and service it? No, we didn't do anything for him. And he's like, huh. So he's thinking about that the next day and Haman goes into this King's throne room and he's talking to him and he's like,
01:30:47
Speaker
Basically like, hey, what would you do for somebody? If someone was at home crying alone on the bedroom floor, because it's hungry. And the only way to feed them is to sleep with a man for a little bit of money. Is that, did I get that right? Yeah. No? I mean, pretty close. Because his daddy's gone somewhere smoking rock now, and he had a lockdown. I ain't got a job now.
01:31:12
Speaker
So the king asked Haman, he says, what should be done for the man that the king delights to honor? And Haman's like, this is about me. He's going to honor me. Who else would he pick but me? I'm me. And he's like, for the man that the king delights to honor, have them bring a royal robe. The king is worn and a horse the king has ridden. So he really wants to smell like him.
01:31:38
Speaker
one with a royal crest placed upon its head, so give the horse a cool hat. Then let the robe and horse be entrusted to one of the king's most noble princes. Let them robe the man the king delights to honor and lead him on the horse through the city streets, proclaiming before him, this is what is done for the man the king delights to honor.
01:32:02
Speaker
And the King's like, sure, that sounds good. It really sounds like he's a stereotypical wife trying to lead her husband into planning to get a anniversary dinner. And then maybe it would be cool to go somewhere like, I'm a size medium. I'm a medium. And it'd be cool to go maybe to a clothing store where there'd be some medium clothes that I could try on. That's what it sounds like this guy is doing. Dropping some on-the-nose hints for sure. Yeah.
01:32:29
Speaker
I really like horse riding. I also do have when you eat your plate of food at lunch, if it's not done, I will take the rest of that, like maybe in a to go box. I mean, the man that you want to honor, you give him a to go box of lunch. Maybe something smells like you, maybe a lock of your hair. The king says, go at once, get the robe and the horse and do just as you suggested all of that for Mordecai the Jew.
01:33:00
Speaker
That's what it says it's Mordecai the Jew and Goddamn, it's like 3,000 years later. They're still dealing with the same fucking shit
01:33:12
Speaker
This is the NIV version, so probably not in God's inspired word. But yeah, so Heyman is upset. So he has to like dress Mordecai and then walk through the streets with a bullhorn telling everybody how cool he is. And he hates it. He hates it a lot.
01:33:33
Speaker
So he gets home and he's just fuming. And he's telling his wife about doing this and how much he hated it and everything. And she says, since Mordecai, before whom your downfall has started, is of Jewish origin, you cannot stand against him. You will surely come to ruin. While they were talking with him, the King's eunuchs arrived and hurried Haman away to the banquet Esther had prepared. There again.
01:34:04
Speaker
This feels very written by Mordecai. That everyone clapped and stood up and clapped because Haman got embarrassed and no one ever heard from him again and he felt dumb. Not Mordecai though. Mordecai just goes on the horse ride forever and gets more cloaks at his best friends with the king who's evil but still cool that he's best friends kind of if you think about it.
01:34:31
Speaker
We are just, we've got a lot of back padding left for Mordecai here. Heyman goes to Queen Esther.
The Resolution of Esther's Story
01:34:43
Speaker
Officially who wrote the book of Esther? Maybe Mordecai. I think there was something in like the last chapter that said that like Mordecai recorded these events.
01:34:55
Speaker
tradition has it that the core of the book was written by Mordecai. It's main character, the cousin of Esther, the big Mordecai energy and Mordecai incidentally gives Hyman Heyman, uh, big 45 energy. Mordecai's book, the art of the forced marriage deal.
01:35:21
Speaker
so the court eunuchs rushmore or hayman off to the the white house where queen ester is prepared a banquet of mcdonalds
01:35:37
Speaker
All the college athletes. So they eat dinner, had a great time, and then the King's like, Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given to you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted to you. And Esther, at this point, she's going to approach the subject. She says,
01:36:01
Speaker
If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life. This is my petition. And spare my people. This is my request. For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed, and annihilated.
01:36:15
Speaker
If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet because no such distress would justify serving the king. That's basically that meme from community of like, I could excuse the slavery, but where I really draw the line is the forced extermination. And they're like, excuse the slavery.
01:36:35
Speaker
It was just like people being enslaved, I would have shut up because being queen is dope. But if you wipe them out, that's gonna, I'm gonna be the only Jew left. That's gonna be kind of weird. So... Yeah, if he was to send a servitude, I seriously, I wouldn't bother you with this.
01:36:51
Speaker
What if he's like, oh my god, wow That's a really good idea. I'll just I'll enslave them all She's like, oh fuck that's Shit, that's not what I wanted. He's like all right. We're negotiating now
01:37:08
Speaker
I feel like Xerxes was probably actually like, everybody's always complaining about something. That's the vibe he has throughout this whole book. He says, who is he? Where is he? The man who has dared to do such a thing. Esther said an adversary an enemy, this vile Haman.
01:37:28
Speaker
And Heyman is quaking in his boots. Nobody at this point knew that Esther was a Jew because Mordecai told her not to tell anybody. So she's kept that hidden like all the way from the beginning and only now revealed it to the king. It almost makes it feel like your ethnicity is unknowable if people don't know for sure, which makes it arbitrary, which is an interesting reason to kill people over.
01:37:53
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah, I was a towns person in Persia. I would just watch the wild thorn berries No, no, but I know what it is. Oh my god. Well, there was an episode of the wild thorn berries That's very relevant right now Eliza Thornberry can talk to animals. Do you guys know that? Okay, well wherever they are There's these monkeys
01:38:18
Speaker
There's two monkeys, sex of monkeys. There's this kind of monkey across the river and on the other side of the river is another kind of monkey. And the only difference is the length of their tails. Well, they hate each other, these monkeys. And she says, she kind of plays both sides, right? And she gives them these little armor sets, which is kind of like putting, I don't know, maybe they're coconuts around their bodies.
01:38:43
Speaker
but it hides their tails and these monkeys go to battle. And these monkeys don't realize which monkeys they're fighting. And at the end of the battle, they realize that they're all fighting each other because the only difference is just their tails. And I find that that episode of the wild thorn berries would have fallen well on the ears of Xerxes at this time. Did the monkey with the long tail get like straight piped to the 50 foot pole?
01:39:14
Speaker
No, he didn't. He gave his life to Christ. That might be where the comparisons end. He gave his life to Christ and all the other monkeys gave their life to Christ afterwards. And that is the reason we need to engage in missionary work. Oh my gosh. You are going in so many different directions tonight. I like it. I think it's going to be better just to know where.
01:39:42
Speaker
So Heyman is scared, naturally. He's bewildered. The king is angry. So he just like stomps out into the garden and he's like raging out fight dancing in the garden while Esther and Heyman are still in the room together.
01:39:59
Speaker
Uh, hey, exactly. Yeah. Hey man falls on Esther. She's like reclining on a couch and he like falls on top of her begging for his life. And the King walks back into the room at this point and he's exclaims. Will he even molest the Queen? It wasn't a good look. I was concerned. Felicky did a molest. Yeah.
01:40:28
Speaker
They put a hood over his head, and then Harbona. I'm pretty sure he appeared in the story earlier during the beauty pageant. One of the king's eunuchs attending the king said, a pole reaching to a height of 50 cubits stands by Haman's house. He had it set up for Mordecai, who spoke up to help the king. The king said, impale him on it. Hoist him on his own petard.
01:40:59
Speaker
You know, when your only tool is a is a giant pole, everything looks like a bottle. Sorry. So this is really a reference. I don't know. I got it, but too late. I didn't react. I'm sorry. OK, I just I need to clarify that for you. I don't think Casey was up on community, but I figured we'd go for the second one in a row here.
01:41:28
Speaker
Okay, well, this is where the book gets real fun. No, right now. Yeah. I've been having fun this whole time. Okay, so here's the fun part that I don't think I've... I feel like people don't really talk about the rest of this book. They kind of skim over it. But this is... Okay, so King Xerxes gave Queen Esther the estate of Haman, the enemy of the Jews.
01:41:55
Speaker
Mordecai came into the presence of the king, for Esther had told how he was related to her. The king took off his signet ring, which he had reclaimed from Haman, and presented it to Mordecai. And Esther appointed him over Haman's estate. So they kill Haman in a heinous way. I guess it's kind of like Highlander, where he just absorbs Haman's title since he got him murdered.
01:42:22
Speaker
There could only be one. That's how the promotion system works in Persia. They're just like, well, you're a dude. Here's his ring.
01:42:33
Speaker
So Esther pleads with the king to rescind the order about killing all the Jews. And the king's put in a long day at this point, so he's like exhausted. I'm bored of this. Here's my ring. Mordecai, do whatever you want. Take care of this.
01:42:55
Speaker
He kind of empowered it. Oh, 100%. And this is a fun twist, right? So he kind of gave Mordecai the, you know, the ability to like rescind the order that he had sent out to all the kingdoms, right? But Mordecai doesn't do that.
01:43:13
Speaker
So Mordecai writes a second order and has it shipped to all of the different kingdoms, basically saying that the Jews are able to arm themselves and kill all their enemies. That's a hard sell.
01:43:32
Speaker
And he's got the the ring so it says that basically like that's the You can rubber stamp about anything with the ring if you got it basically writes down like cancel student loan debt Let's find out who knows
01:43:53
Speaker
I'm trying to find the, uh, now we're at another decree in the King's name on behalf of the Jews as seems best to you and seal it with the King's signet ring, right? So Mordecai says, the King's edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves, to destroy, kill, and annihilate the armed men of any nationality or province who might attack them and their women and children, and to plunder the property of their enemies.
01:44:22
Speaker
So people are going to read this and be like, all right, so King Xerxes went from kill all the Jews to all the Jews get to kill anyone they want. They can take whatever they want. Every Wednesday is Jews day. If a Jew walks by your house, you have to feed them. And no one was like, everyone was like, all right, well, I mean, it is using his ring. So yeah, I guess this checks out. Not weird at all.
01:44:45
Speaker
Yeah, so there's some fun passages here. So the couriers get sent out in every direction, but the order goes into effect first in the Citadel of Susa, which is where they are, right?
01:44:59
Speaker
And it says, when Mordecai left the king's presence, he was wearing royal garments of blue and white, a large crown of gold and purple robe of fine linen. And the city of Susa held a joyous celebration. For the Jews, it was a time of happiness and joy, gladness and honor. In every province and in every city to which the edict of the king came, there was joy and gladness among the Jews with feasting and celebrating.
01:45:24
Speaker
And many people of other nationalities became Jews because fear of the Jews had ceased. So first in Sousa. It sounds a lot like people converted to Christianity during the Crusades. It sounds a lot like that, yes.
01:45:48
Speaker
except for the Crusades were actually people doing horrible things. And this was just based on a rumor in a sly little like this is one of the people, one dude who hates one dude. Why? Honestly, why on earth aren't people making these stories, movies? They're great fun. They're so fun. Dude, huge missed opportunity. I bet the biggest reason is Christian backlash.
01:46:17
Speaker
It would be hard to make some of these and help them translate into, you know, more Christians. It doesn't need to. Why? Because whose book is this? Not the Christians. The Christians stole it. Finders keepers. The Jews assembled in their cities in all the provinces of King Xerxes to attack those determined to destroy them.
01:46:44
Speaker
No one could stand against them because the people of all the other nationalities were afraid of them. And all the nobles of the provinces, the satraps, the governors, and the king's administrators helped the Jews because fear of Mordecai had seized them. Mordecai was prominent in the palace. His reputation spread throughout the provinces and he became more and more powerful. He was kind of like the Steve Bannon of Persia.
01:47:11
Speaker
the jews struck down all their enemies with the sword killing and destroying them and they did what they pleased to those who hated them so there's uh a lot of killing and impaling at this point yeah definitely this is the forgotten part i think
01:47:27
Speaker
Yes. So they kill 500 people in the Citadel first, right? Including Haman had 10 sons, which doesn't really say how old they were, if they had much of anything to do with him at this point, you know, whatever. But they kill all of his sons and take all their property, right? And then Esther- Good old days. What a king.
01:47:51
Speaker
And the king's like, so they killed 300 people in the Citadel like, what do you want now? And she says, give the Jews in Susa permission to carry out this day's edict tomorrow also and let Haman's 10 sons be impaled on poles. Oh shit.
01:48:12
Speaker
And it's funny cause like the Esther that's in the cartoon, you know, she's like the sweetest, kindest, most soft spoken like coy girl, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And this was like, you want to hate us for millennia. I'll give you a reason to hate us for millennia. Kelly's son. Esther's over here talking about the final solution for Haman's line.
01:48:37
Speaker
We're talking about mass crucifixion. You hear me? So they impale his 10 sons, Haman's 10 sons on poles and display them in the city. And then the Jews take another day to kill an extra 300 people in Susa.
01:48:55
Speaker
Meanwhile, the edicts are going out in every direction. The Pony Express has taken it to every corner of Persia and the Jews in all of these other provinces kill 75,000 people who, you know, in an act of self-defense. So they kill
01:49:18
Speaker
I don't know, everybody. And then it says that there was much rejoicing and feasting and amongst the Jews. Yeah. And they made a holiday out of it. The holiday is called Purim.
01:49:33
Speaker
Purr is like the lot that was cast, that Haman cast to determine what date to kill all the Jews and they kind of made a holiday out of it. Sort of reclaimed it. I don't know if that's still celebrated today or not. Mordecai finished writing it and was like, wow, the good guys definitely won this one. Perfect. No changes. Says they kind of feast and they give gifts to each other. So it's kind of like genocidal Christmas. Yeah.
01:50:01
Speaker
It's weird too, like how many versus will be devoted to like, and then they killed all, and then they killed everybody. Oh, that is so common. And then 800,000 people died. I'm like, here's how important it is to celebrate this holiday.
01:50:18
Speaker
Well, like the average Persians got to be like Haman who you got to kill 300 more like why like not this again, like just be some poor Persian villager be like every time it's the King's birthday. They got to go kill 500 like peasants every time. Okay, the Queen apparently she's from a different country and some guy did something bad. So we're going to kill a bunch of us again. Like what what's the point? It'd be hard to feel pretty loyal as a Persian peasant, I think.
01:50:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think it would be scary. It'd be scary to be like this subject to the whims of like one lunatic or maybe two, I guess, counting Mordecai. When was this story? Shortly before the events of 300?
01:51:08
Speaker
Which was when? I don't know. Hold on. I mean Xerxes, when was Xerxes? Was there only one Xerxes though? Yeah, there was more than one for sure. Yeah, so Xerxes the Great was the fourth king of kings ruled from 486 to 465 BC. Okay, because then there was Cy Xerxes the Great in 612. This is Xerxes the Simple. The only reason...
01:51:31
Speaker
Xerxes they easily let around know the reason I was thinking about is because I know like Assyria was part of the like Persian Empire I think it might be the capital at some point but that was in like the 6th century BC and obviously the Assyrians were who were like notable for lots and lots of
01:51:54
Speaker
Brutal blood and gore and killing and murder. The person on display. So I'm like, maybe they learned that all from Esther. Maybe that's Esther's contribution. Actually, this is close to Syrians. Xerxes, the great Xerxes, one is supposedly the same Xerxes who invaded Greece and the same Xerxes from the Bible. But there is not consensus. So there's a lot of scholars apparently arguing that Xerxes is
01:52:22
Speaker
the King Ahusaurus. I'm not pronouncing that correctly. Yeah, it does. It does look like if the some of the consensus was correct and there isn't a consensus, then yes, the same Xerxes that Esther was married to and did all this stuff is the same Xerxes who was in three hundred.
01:52:41
Speaker
Another equally historical recounting of the very fact-based events. The thing about historical recounts is it's all based on who's telling it. The whole idea of like, historicity has changed significantly since that time. Which makes it even more incredible that Mordecai is the one writing this down. He's like, yeah, he was going to kill us, so you never guess what we did.
01:53:04
Speaker
I love it. The thing that we were accusing them of doing, we did that. To fewer of them though, so it's better. Except for sons. We did impale them. He was only going to impale me, but I for an eye, tooth for 10 of your teeth, and everything's even. Yeah. 75,800 people murdered and impaled on poles. Perfect.
01:53:27
Speaker
Numbers mean nothing in old books. They're just completely arbitrary. 75,000 people. Apparently, though, Xerxes' bad reputation is due to propaganda by Alexander the Great. That son of a bitch. The modern historian Richard Stoneman regards the portrayal of Xerxes as a more nuanced and tragic in the work of the contemporary Greek historian Herodotus.
01:53:51
Speaker
A lot of people think Herodotus was recording spurious information, so a lot of hot goss. Wow. Wow. It sounds like there just is no agreement on this dude. Almost like it's hard to know what happened 2,500 years ago, wild. Yeah. Well, you don't understand. There's not a consensus, but everything was passed down with a strong oral tradition where word-by-word accuracy was extremely important. We can trust these historical accounts.
01:54:17
Speaker
Yeah. From 450 BC. Oh, good, like a true homeschooler. I love it. The only historian that I care about is named Mordecai, and he has a very good send off for the book here. Chapter 10. Send us off for the solid... Oh, man. What's the word? Oh, I'm forgetting. What do pastors do before the end of the service? And all those people stay? No, not at all. Closing?
01:54:45
Speaker
What's the closing? God, benediction! Oh, I would not have guessed that. Yeah, me neither. Oh, y'all are shitty Christians. Good words. Casey, send us off with a solid benediction. It's called word of faith. At least it came back to me. At least the Lord reminded me of it in my time of need. Unlike you heathens. Much like Mordecai. Fuck off. The NIV version titles this three verse book or a chapter that ends the book, The Greatness of Mordecai.
01:55:18
Speaker
It says King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire to its distant shores and all his acts of power and might together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai
01:55:30
Speaker
whom the king had promoted. Are they not written in the book of the anals of the kings of media and Persia? Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews. Sign, love, Mordecai. Yeah, so,
01:55:59
Speaker
I don't know. This is basically the story of like a quarrel between two coworkers that resulted in, I don't know, 75,000 corpses. Sounds like a metal song, if you ask me. And you know, godly women should be like Esther.
01:56:20
Speaker
They should let their cousin tell them what to do and they should let their cousins arrange their marriages for them. And then they should make their husband a really good meal and then ask, was it a good enough meal that we won't be killed? And if not, can I ask for a favor? That's the takeaway. Ladies, are you baking good enough meals for your husband not to want to kill you, as is his right?
01:56:50
Speaker
There's so many good lessons to
Cultural and Religious Interpretations
01:56:52
Speaker
learn here. Yeah. But yeah, the lesson of Esther was supposed to be about her courage, right? Yeah, because she went before the king, even though it might have resulted in her death.
01:57:03
Speaker
Fun fact, I was going to mention earlier and then I withdrew my attempt at saying anything because I wanted to verify it first, but the book of Esther does not mention God at all. Yeah, it's one of like two, right? It's Esther and then, is it Ruth? I thought it was the only man. I feel like there's one more because I think I just heard this. I watched a couple of pastors spout off about
01:57:33
Speaker
What do the pastors have to say about that? What's their take? Well, just because God isn't mentioned by name doesn't mean that God isn't present throughout the whole thing. They said that it offers us a powerful idea of how Christians should behave around non-Christians. Christian takes on this stuff are the worst.
01:58:00
Speaker
You should be completely separate and disregard their customs. You should gain power over them and kill most of them. Subjugate before you can be subjugated. That's the takeaway. Wow, the jungle. That's the general feeling I'm getting even in today's world. Yeah, it does work the same.
01:58:27
Speaker
But yeah, there wasn't a lot of real good takes on what it meant other than like Esther obeyed God and she was, you know, saved her people because she was brave. That sort of thing.
01:58:40
Speaker
It definitely like the whole book to me definitely feels like this is Mordecai writing about how cool he is and like framing it as like, yeah, but you know, my my cousin Esther also brave. You know what? And I'll name the book after her. It seems like a very subtle way of distracting from how cool he is. I feel like it's let me show you how this big dick swings kind of book. Like the real power behind the throne.
01:59:10
Speaker
It does feel like the more, I feel like the longer I'm out of like the evangelical Christian world, the more like you see the disservice they've done to every single book in the Old Testament. Like no book goes unscathed. Like stop. Look, if you're still Christian, just don't listen to a single evangelical about what they have to say about the Old Testament. Just look at.
01:59:39
Speaker
but maybe some Jewish, what's some rabbis and some Jewish scholars have to say about it. Cause it's probably more interesting and you can probably glean more from it when it comes to your day to day life. But that's, that's my general takeaway so far on everything I've ever read about any of these books since shifting out of evangelicalism. It's like, it's always the worst, most like boiled down lowest common denominator takes.
02:00:08
Speaker
100 percent. Terrible. Yeah, that's that's absolutely what it feels like once you start diving into some of these is like, you know, you could make a lot of this story, like just like people make a lot of the Iliad, you know, or you name it. But like it always had to be like, and here's what this means. Do what your dad tells you. Yeah,
Bible Stories in Popular Media
02:00:30
Speaker
exactly. It's so dumb. It's awful. So well, everyone.
02:00:38
Speaker
We are closing the book of Esther now. And if you enjoyed it, well, first off, if you want to have some fun, go on YouTube and find the old Bible cartoon.
02:00:51
Speaker
I got to find the name. I forget what the name of these series were. You'll know the animation is very specific. Yeah, it's distinct. Because the minute I saw it, I'm like, oh, yes, I used to have this on VHS. The eyes have no color. They're just like black holes as part of it. Yep. Yeah, and they have kind of like long angular faces.
02:01:18
Speaker
It's budget animation, guys. Animation's expensive. What do you want them to do? They put a lot into that. I mean, how many of them are there in the series? 50? A bunch, yeah. There's a lot of them. I had like a whole bookshelf full of them, I feel like. Was there a Shadrach, Meshach, and a Bendigo one? Let's do that story. That's a good one. We should do that one next. Yeah.
02:01:39
Speaker
down and then at some point Sam is gonna like walk us through the book of not the book of Samson the story of Samson story of Samson in the book of judge I want to do like a I recently started skimming through judges and it's very like
02:01:55
Speaker
There's like a few judges that are really focused on, then a few that are like in passing. I want to do the cliff notes of the book of judges though, because it's cool. It's fucking cool shit. And then the ones that they really focus on are wild. And then the story of Samson is just, it's a wild story. It's so cool. I'll forever stand by that. All I want more than anything is for someone to make like a brutal,
02:02:20
Speaker
Like, bloody ass, R-rated. I think you want the Zack Snyder version of it, too. Like, to go back to 300. Like, there's a few directors that could do a good job of it, and I think he would do an awesome one. Like, a gladiator style of, like, Samson. Yes! Like, just fucking roll with it as a mythic story, and make it brutal as fuck.
02:02:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think it could be one of the greatest. Just don't cast Dwayne with the rock. Yes. God, please. No, just please not. He Jason Momoa. Guys, come on. I like us. I like a tall sinewy Clint Eastwood type Samson. You want to. What's the guy? Oh, man. Personally, I think Ben Affleck would be a good choice.
02:03:03
Speaker
Who's the really tall guy with the goofy face? Like, really tall. Adam Driver? Yes! I'm so glad all I needed was really tall guy with the goofy face. Do we want Adam Driver to play Samson? He looks like one of those, like, sphinx cats. I'd rather have Jason Momoa, I think. I don't want to see Jason Momoa in anything ever.
02:03:24
Speaker
Yeah. Or Dwayne The Rock Johnson. Both of them have made enough. Okay, that's why. His hair's too long, beard's too good, too handsome. Is that the problem? Yeah, and they just never have made a good movie ever. Also that. Mostly that actually. How do you guys feel about Colin Hanks as Samson? Who's Colin Hanks? Tom Hanks son.
02:03:51
Speaker
Orange County is like the first thing that comes to my mind. And then he did a show life in peace. You just Google them right now. Definitely not Samson. That's like he's not the Tom Hake son who's like a rapper and covered in tattoos. This is a chat. Right. I'll take Chet Hanks as Samson though.
02:04:12
Speaker
Not Tom Holland, please know Tom Holland to Samson. I know he's pretty hot right now. Okay, okay. Jack Black. Yeah. I take Jack Black. I mean, as long as Hollywood doesn't get woke and like cast a woman instead, you know, like I want my Samson's got to be a man. Yeah. Well. Well, like a Michael Cera. There you go.
02:04:32
Speaker
Why don't we start the movie with Michael Cera and then at some point we'll switch to Colin Hank and not acknowledge it. As he grows up, he just gets bigger. Expect the audience to sort it out. Before we do Samson, we'll have to come up with the full cast of the Samson movie.
02:04:49
Speaker
Dude, that should be a part of this is we should cast the people in the story. Yeah, casting our favorite Bible stories for movies. That sounds so much fun. Well, do we want to end with like a quick fan cast of just a couple of the main characters from the Esther story? Okay. I'm on the spot. Xerxes. I don't know, you think Xerxes is old or is he like middle age? I think this is before things got pretty hot, like before he sails to Greece and everything.
02:05:20
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah, some sharp hatchet face prick. Jason Statham. Not Jason Statham, no, no, no. It needs to be like one of those prissy British actors who's like the bad guy on a season of Downton Abbey. Hmm. Well, boy, this might be something we have to prepare for in advance. We're sitting there going like, man, good thing we're not a movie podcast. That's good radio.
02:05:47
Speaker
I don't know that we're all well versed in enough actors. I'm not, look, I don't think I have it in me to just like throw an actor's name on the spot. I've struggled, I struggled enough with Colin Hanks. Kasey didn't even know who he was. How about Michael Cera? That's just going to be my suggestion for everybody. Michael Cera as Mordecai, but like CGI am old. Michael Cera as Esther. If Michael Cera, if he gets yoked, like,
02:06:14
Speaker
I'll let him give take a shot at it. You know, I don't know. Why not? He's just forever George Michael to me. Yeah. Yeah, me too. But like, you know, Matthew McConaughey went through his little Renaissance who's to say Michael Sarah couldn't do. They seem pretty equal. Got to get that Jeff Bezos swell on.
02:06:34
Speaker
All right, folks, if you like the show, leave us a review wherever you listen to it and join our Discord. You can message us on Instagram. We'll send you a link to it. Jump on there. We're on all social media platforms except for Facebook because it sucks. I just made us a hive. You did. I was going to ask, are we on hive? Yeah, I haven't posted anything yet, but we're on hive. Well, Twitter is about to be destroyed.
02:07:04
Speaker
I know maybe the timing's right. Maybe we could just rise to the top on the new platform hive. That's the hope. Cue the Randy Savage soundbite. The cream is gonna rise. So hive it up, TikTok, you name it. Anyways, hello everybody. Thank you for listening and we will see you next time.