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Friday Fellowship Ep. 5 - The Prayer Vigil Photobomb w/ Aaron of Pilgrim‘s Digress
58 Plays3 years ago
On this episode of Friday Fellowship, we're joined by history teacher and host of the Pilgrim's Digress podcast Aaron! If you've been listening for a while, you might remember a story about Sam's friend who pumped his couch full of seasonal beerfest vomit... That's our buddy, Aaron. We touch on his youth group crusade against Catholicism, the untouchable status of Taylor Swift, Cold War reptilian rulers, and how birds are actually just government surveillance drones. It was a lot of fun, and we hope you enjoy it! If you're interested in New England history, you should definitely check out Pilgrim's Digress wherever you listen to podcasts!
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Transcript
Humorous Beer Festival Anecdote
00:00:00
Speaker
Yeah, I don't remember what episode we covered it in, but I told this story about my friend puking face down in my couch after getting drunk at a beer festival that we went. You filled his couch like an eclair? I have alternative facts.
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome to another special episode very special episode get serious on our very special episodes like TV land No TV land, what is that? Dang, you don't know TV land. No, what is it? It was like a
00:01:02
Speaker
It's like that channel with old TV shows, but they have old TV shows always had very special episodes and they were always tackling serious subjects.
Nostalgia for Classic TV Shows
00:01:11
Speaker
My first introduction to a very special episode was different strokes where they deal with the children getting
00:01:20
Speaker
molested by a guy who owns a bike shop. So anyway, we should put a trigger warning on the top of this one. Welcome. Our guest with us today is a good friend of mine, Aaron Minton, and also the host of the pilgrims digress podcast, fellow podcaster, fellow friend, fellow fellow shipper.
00:01:39
Speaker
Fellow, fellow shipper. Good evening, gentlemen. I like to point out that Sam's TV land references clearly prove that he is a homeschooler while the rest of us were watching MTV. He was, he was relegated to TV land beyond eight o'clock PM. I was watching Beaver Cleaver try not to get in trouble for saying a bad word in school. Thanks for having me this Friday.
00:02:05
Speaker
Yeah, this Wednesday night. Did anybody watch Leave It to Beaver? I feel like maybe I did once or twice. I did watch Andy Griffith, though. OK. Andy Griffith, that's good. I feel like there was a lot. I watched, let's see what I watched. We're going to do a little breakdown of TV Land in my day, back in my day. I watched a shitload of Dragnet for a while.
00:02:36
Speaker
All right. Okay. No one knows dragnet. Well, I know it. Only reason I know it's from, um, the PBS like version of it was math net and they would go around solving math problems and that would solve the community's issues. We're using a math as well as learning instead of being PBS always brought it, brought it hard. Was Samford and son on there? Yes, dude. I love Samford and son along with all in the family.
00:03:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And which didn't age well, but I feel like it was doing a thing at the time. And the thing is still relevant, but the execution is just does not. It doesn't work today. That's a good point. Like, let's make racism funny, right? That's good.
00:03:25
Speaker
It's not it. It's just it was about people that are totally different, like being forced to reconcile with each other. An old curmudgeon who has survived being a turd his entire life, and now all of a sudden, like he can't hide from different people anymore.
Impact of 'The Cosby Show' on the Black Community
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's kind of what they're going for. I even though it doesn't have the same. It aged better than The Cosby Show, so that's good.
00:03:54
Speaker
thought. I know. That shows such a stand on end. You really thought it sucked. I did not like the Cosby. There's just some shows I feel like at the time that they either hit for you or they didn't. I think I watched that for a minute. Aaron.
00:04:14
Speaker
I gotta, The Cosby Show did a lot for the black community. I hate to be that guy. If you talk to people of that age, they'll tell you The Cosby Show meant a lot. I don't remember it being funny.
00:04:32
Speaker
by any means. I remember there was a doctor and there's a they were they were depicting a functional family. Right. And so I don't remember necessarily funny. I didn't watch it on purpose, but I do remember it being good. But honestly, like, do we need the Cosby show if we have family matters? That's what I was thinking. You ride on track.
00:04:55
Speaker
Not that. Yeah, I have lined right up now. Yeah. Screw the Cosby's. I want to live with the Winslow's.
Music and TV Show Theme Songs
00:05:02
Speaker
Thank you. Back. What was the back? The blue theme song. I feel like that because the guy who did that had did like the theme song for like a bunch of shows of that time because it was the same dude in full house. And I can't really get like that. Brian Adams.
Harry Mack and Online Platforms
00:05:21
Speaker
They blend in my head. I cannot separate the two in my head. Yes, true.
00:05:25
Speaker
Whatever happened to predictability, even in TV. Uh, is that full house? I can't remember. Ah, balls. What, what's family matters. It was another one like that though. It was like, it's like Star Wars and Jaws and Indiana Jones. They're all the same. What?
00:05:49
Speaker
Like you're gonna have to do can you do Indiana Jones in Star Wars like back to back right now? Oh You guys really wanted me to beat box the yep the Imperial March Just take it away Casey do our what what's what's the do Oh Harry Mack I'm sure he could make his way through it. Oh
00:06:17
Speaker
Oh my God. That's like a life goal list. I need to just spend some more time on Omega. Uh, if anyone doesn't know, Harry Mack is probably, I mean the most incredible freestyler I've ever seen. He, but he spends time. Well, he used to just go out in the streets and freestyle for people and just whatever he saw, I was like, they'd say words and he would just freestyle off of it. But then over the pandemic, he started just doing it on Omega.
00:06:41
Speaker
And I just need to spend probably a few hours a day. I'm sure I can squeeze that in on Omega until I find Harry Mack. Sam, I sent you the Kermit from Omega, right? Yes. Yo, have you seen that, Casey? No. Oh my gosh. I thought Omega was kind of like an adult website. Exactly.
00:07:06
Speaker
It's like chat roulette where sometimes you would see a nice family friendly 12 year old just want to Make a connection with a random stranger and then other times you'd see somebody masturbating or sometimes three out of eight Did you guys ever use chat roulette hell I never even gave it a shot Well, we did a couple time April and I did a couple times. It was always like disturbing and
00:07:31
Speaker
Yeah? Oh man. That went downhill quickly. Imagine. It's hard to believe something like that could have gone downhill so quickly. It's anonymous. No one can find you. My first instinct is people pulling their pants off.
00:07:46
Speaker
I think you can see IP addresses on it because the Kermit dude, we'll talk about where that person is, like, how's it going in Netherlands? And then people are like, oh, how'd you know? And I think he looks up their IP or some bullshit like that. You'll have to get out.
Exploring Religious Beliefs and Education
00:08:03
Speaker
What's the thing that makes your IP untraceable? Yeah, VPN. Yeah, VPN.
00:08:09
Speaker
use the promo code, uh, GUC for 20% off express VPN. If you want, if you want 30, use the promo code pilgrims. Yeah. We will stack rebates together. So Aaron, why don't we, uh, learn a little bit about you? Why do you hate Catholics so much? All right. Let's start with Catholicism for a second.
00:08:33
Speaker
Besides my innate innate anger towards all merry statues and I want to topple them all just because of the hundred years of Protestantism that's within me. What would you rather topple? Merry statues or Robert Ely statues? That's a great question for a waspy guy like me. There's only one right answer. And if you choose wrong, Sam's about to give us a speech about history and how we have to respect it. Yes. To the history teacher.
00:09:04
Speaker
The answer is Robert E. Lee, a traitor. At least Virgin Mary didn't betray her own country. But the thing about Catholicism is, let me tell you, I was thinking about this today. I'm glad you asked.
00:09:17
Speaker
Um, I, I'm not sure I'm sure I am, but that's fine. I'm on the, I'm on the right podcast. Cause I would never, I was just thinking about, I had a conversation with another teacher today and we were talking about a class that we both teach that were, or at least I'm going to teach that he's teaching now. And it's called the theory of knowledge. And it's like this ethereal epistemological class for high schoolers. And we're talking about how to tackle all that. And we were talking about how, uh,
00:09:43
Speaker
people act from a basement or a foundation of their beliefs. I was trying to explain to him that if you honestly believe that Donald Trump got the election stolen from him, the only rational and reasonable reaction is to show up at the Capitol and stop it. Isn't it?
00:10:02
Speaker
We're trying to figure out like how to get kids to kind of see that, but still see how those people are wrong. So he brought up, he said, you're making your case for the crusades right now. I can, I'm seeing a buildup. Go ahead.
00:10:16
Speaker
Finally, another reasonable take on the Crusades. Balance. That's what I like. And so he said the word evangelical and I was like, oh, my God. I thought I thought to myself, I do not consider myself that any anymore for the same reason I don't consider myself or I would never consider myself Catholic because of the institution and the name that it's put out there and the weird shit that it's done. I would never associate myself with either one of them. Thank you for coming to my talk.
00:10:45
Speaker
Yes. Catholics got an increasing amount. Catholicism's got an increasing amount of dog poop on its shoe.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yeah to the point where like it's either you're gonna throw the shoe away or you're just gonna clear a room every time you show up The house eventually it's not on your shoe anymore And then you you just go off and do your thing until you step in more shit and track it through somebody else's house That's fine, too, right? It's like you want to you want to reconcile the Catholic Church
00:11:15
Speaker
We need the Spanish Inquisition, the entire leadership team. I mean, Pope on down to like local level bishops or pontiffs or potentates or whatever they call them democratizing. So it's all like voting your own leadership. And you're talking about his Protestantism.
00:11:39
Speaker
I think there's a solution that's already been offered. I'll let them keep their merry statues. Not a prude. It's funny, Casey, so to provide a little context to me and Aaron's friendship and how far back it goes, he was a youth leader when I was in high school. Yes, sir.
00:12:04
Speaker
And probably just by seeing, I think by the time you moved here from Maryland, well, 2007, Virginia, it was, uh, yeah, it was, so that was like by end of my senior year. Um, or might've just been my senior year, but then I go to community college, stay in the area. And Aaron was the, uh, was the dude who hosted the community college. Like he did not community college.
00:12:26
Speaker
Did the church college group thing. One of my proudest things about that is the fact that we just named it college group. They come up with some cheesy ass. That's what it was called, right? We didn't call it like any sort of like bullshit, like the fucking gathering or whatever. The gathering of the people. Hey, are you going to college group? Yes. And that was that.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, it was just college group. He one of those leaders that was like every class was like a weekly dissertation on why you shouldn't drink or bang. No, kind of what they went like that. No, not not these ones. He encouraged it all there. It was this weird or I don't know. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, it was cool and everything. Nobody drank it, though. No fun.
00:13:17
Speaker
It was, uh, I don't even, I, it's just funny cause, uh, there's, you know what, Aaron, I'm gonna, uh, I will publicly blow some smoke up your ass. I feel like you were the, so as a young evangelical, uh,
00:13:33
Speaker
You're just told what's true. You listen to sermons, you read the little pamphlets, the book, whatever. I mean, you're just always told that what's true, and when you go seeking answers, everyone gives them to you. Oh, perfect. He's asking. This is the kind of guy that I can just tell the right things to and don't have to worry about these people. That's what they like about question-askers there, is that it just means they can further indoctrinate. But Aaron was the first friend who, or leader at that point,
00:14:02
Speaker
I don't know when to transition from leader, college group leader to friendship, but he was the first person to just ask me questions, like ask questions of people and make you have to say some shit. And that was my first introduction to question asking. So maybe you're responsible for where I'm at today, Aaron. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I was asking questions like, what's up with the Virgin Mary?
00:14:28
Speaker
You know, questions like that. No, but he did a whole same always talks about how I was on this like crusade about how like I was hell bent on making sure that everybody in the group.
00:14:40
Speaker
realized that Catholicism was bad for you and you should not do it. It's the worst, which I regret because my friends are Catholic. I do remember that I make fun of that a lot. Well, whenever it comes up, but I do also remember not thinking that at the time. Now, I'm sure you get to look back on that and say that was very what you just explained it as.
00:15:07
Speaker
for me who had only received the information about Catholics as though they weren't real Christians. You got to be skeptical of them. I would actually argue that that was the first time someone told you why they were in those words. Yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
Gave it a little bit more of a fair shake. Yeah, I mean, I mean, what it was is I had taken a class at the most exciting university in the world. I was a missions major, Casey. He's a Liberty alum. But it was called, it wasn't called missions, it was called something to like hide it. How long were you a missions major? Not major, minor, my bad. Oh.
00:15:52
Speaker
And so I took a class, I took a class on Islam. I took a class on Roman Catholicism and it was just like, and it was, there were both just some missionaries that had went to those places. That's all it was telling crazy missionary stories about all this. And straight to the source. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, the best thing I can show you the book. I wonder if I have it back here.
00:16:12
Speaker
The best thing about it, you probably can't hear me anymore here. This is, um, the, the book that they gave me and then, right. It was just, you know, it's from the evangelical perspective, blah, blah, blah. But I mean, I ran, I ran all those, I, all those things past all my hope you can hear me, uh, ran past all those things by your Catholic friends and the books, right. And they believe on all that stuff. I even interviewed a Catholic priest. And so I was on this like weird, like.
00:16:35
Speaker
You know how you get on these weird intellectual soap boxes or things that you want to tell other people? Like when you first stop believing in hell, you just want to say that. That's the best. It's like the most annoying type of thing. When you hear people go off on that, you're like, okay, I know where you're at. I know where you're at. I get it, and it's fine. That's so funny. I never heard anyone make that case. I didn't even know that existed out there. That there was no hell?
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, but that was a group of people that believed that. Almost definitely since like the year 100. That there wasn't anywhere a group of people who believed that? I had no idea that there was a whole wing of theology that was that. You weren't allowed to do that. But you knew some people didn't believe in it, like people who weren't Christians. Yeah, like people who show up on Easter and Christmas. Those people. You did know it...
00:17:32
Speaker
that there were people who just like you knew about atheists, right? Did you know about atheists at that time? Yeah, what I'm saying is I didn't know there were people who were at all serious about their like Christian faith who didn't okay in hell. Like I'd never even heard that case made. I didn't know that was a thing.
Mormon Temple Visit and Mormonism Stories
00:17:48
Speaker
It's like, yeah, I don't think I would have just thought like, that's not an organized viewpoint. That's like a few people who just want to believe what they want to believe. I'm kind of like you guys.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah, lukewarm getting spit out, you know
00:18:04
Speaker
It's it's an ancient thing. It's been around for a while and they all thought about it in the ancient times. And then, you know, the hell guys won. So, you know, power. Yeah. Stuff. Yeah. History is told by the victor and very much so in the case of Christianity. Very much so. So we did that. I remember saying I had like a packet. I was like, hang out, fucking packets of shit about how Catholicism is whack. Yeah. Whoa. Page four.
00:18:33
Speaker
You know, there was a long, there was a lot of print. What's, what's funny is I still have those printouts with me, Aaron. We're going to go through those notes right now. Point by point. What we did, Casey's, we went through, instead of telling everybody they were dirty centers, I let Romans do it for me. And we just like.
00:18:48
Speaker
Red Romans the whole time, which is it'd be interesting to do again right now with some people and kind of figure out because me and Sam were I'm a very much like fuck Paul kind of guy where every time I read all I'm just like, who are you? Who says you're in charge? What's going on? And even I'm like reading like I'm reading like this comic book Bible to my kid and my kids are like, who's Paul? He's eight. He's just like, why is this guy insane?
00:19:17
Speaker
Paul has a lot of feelings. Paul's so like, he's just so Greek. It is. It is so funny how because I mean, obviously if you like the history of how the whole thing was put together is interesting.
00:19:35
Speaker
in a long process and it's not like at the time when Paul was saying all that stuff, everyone universally recognized that as any sort of script. That would be like 30 years from now, everyone recognizing what their pastor said is like, we should put that in called part of the Bible. He's just a guy saying some stuff.
00:19:56
Speaker
or Billy Graham, Billy Graham. The Romans are now scripture, which arguably people act like that to some degree, which it is. Go. What's interesting about Paul is he has the same kind of storyline as the Buddha, Jesus and even Muhammad. He has an encounter. He has a divine encounter that nobody else sees. He runs away for a while and then he comes back with all the good news.
00:20:21
Speaker
It's just the same kind of thing that happens all the time. It's so funny how you shit on that as growing up when you hear it in any other religion. You're like, oh, Mormonism. Joseph Smith and those goddamn silly ass tablets. And then you're like, I was going to say. Well, you got to tell my Mormon story. Mormon story. You can tell it. This is your time to show it, Aaron.
00:20:51
Speaker
I'm going to see that. See that. See that bigotry line. I'm going to walk right up to it. Here we go. We went and this was kind of like underhanded by me because I'm just like obsessed with Mormonism. I think it's the coolest thing ever, but also the worst.
00:21:12
Speaker
I'm obsessed with it because in grad school, what class was this? It was like an early or mid-American history class. And I read this book, I forgot his name, Harold something, but he's like this classic American writer or whatever. And he just goes out of his way and writes his book about Mormonism. And I was just like enthralled by it. I had already known
00:21:31
Speaker
A lot of the beliefs of Mormonism, but the way he puts it together as like the quintessential American religion just blew me away. And so I was like, when we got married, I was right out of grad school when I was in, uh, we were trying to find a place to go to on honeymoon. And lucky for me, my wife doesn't just doesn't like beaches or anything like that. I don't mind. I don't care. I like beaches. I don't, whatever. So we find a place in Utah and, um, park city, whatever, right? So it's a, it's a ski lodge in park city, but we're there in the summer, so it's cheaper.
00:21:58
Speaker
And we get to do some hiking, some waterfall stuff. That place is rad. Yeah. And then we even stay close to that place where all the famous people stay, the deer park, something, I don't know. But we got to go to a arts festival. We did a lot of hiking. But I demanded and this is why I married her. I demanded that we go to the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City. We spent an entire day in Salt Lake City.
00:22:26
Speaker
So we did a couple of my favorite things that day in Salt Lake City, we played around a disc golf. And then we know we did that second before that we went to the Mormon temple in that place is freaking weird. We get there. And like on the outside of you don't go into the temple. They have a whole like visitor center because I'm not worthy enough to go into the temple. Right. So we get there and like there's like these international students greeting you.
00:22:52
Speaker
Right? Hi, I'm so-and-so from Argentina. Hi, I'm so-and-so from Nigeria, right? Because they've got that global outreach. Weird Mormon thing number one. And so we're walking around, and they take you down this escalator, and they got these huge murals of white Jesus talking to Native Americans and, you know, like sailing. They got Levi sailing across. You mean the other Jews?
00:23:14
Speaker
Yes, the other Jews. Levi's bailing across the thing, and I'm just enthralled by all this. And so we're walking around. We have a guide. And we walked by. In the glass case, she says, this is a replication of the golden tablets that Joseph Smith found. And I out loud said, gee, where are the originals? And the Christie was so mad. She said, shop. Stop it. I was like, no, I got to say it.
00:23:44
Speaker
I don't know what they look like. How do you make a rebel go something nobody fucking saw there? Well, 15 people saw them or however many and signed a document, you know, five of them are Joseph Smith's family. So we keep walking. I'm making all these comments. I'm being an asshole about it walking around because I just love it.
00:24:02
Speaker
But the coup de gras is we're sitting down. They take you. It's just like scare mayor from Liberty. Remember scare mayor where they take you through the thing and then you get to sit down with a person and they get to talk to you for a while. So we're sitting down from this girl from Argentina about something. She's like, so what do you guys think about blah, blah, blah, blah? And we're like, you know, we're already Christians. And this is when, this is when I was doing, uh, this is almost during or right after college, that college group stuff. And, uh, we're like, we're already Christians, but we just got married, blah, blah, blah.
00:24:32
Speaker
And she says to us, she says, um, she says, don't you think it's sad that you won't be married in heaven? And so after all my assholery, Christie, the wife says, I mean, she had the word bitch in, you know, in there somewhere, but she didn't say, oh, she goes, no, we aren't Christians so we can be married in heaven. We're Christians so we can spend eternity with God. And I was like, wife is the best. The girl was just like, ah,
00:25:02
Speaker
So regardless of whatever, whatever we believe now, that was awesome. And it still is to me and I love her for it. I feel like even though I haven't gotten to do the Mormon temple pitch, I did go through a blue green, blue green vacation, Reynolds timeshare pitch. And I think it's probably the same. It's very close. It's mirror techniques, different sales pitch, but very similar.
00:25:24
Speaker
very similar. Can't you just see it? I had a I only just remember this with you telling your story like but but Jill knew someone in in high school who was Mormon and he oh yeah he had asked them to go I don't know if Chris maybe maybe Christy was part of that. Our wives. Okay yeah yeah but I don't know if she was like they went to the church for everyone listening me and Erin's wives were
00:25:49
Speaker
We're friends in high school too. We, uh, we,
Music Celebrities and TikTok Culture
00:25:52
Speaker
but they're not friends anymore. They hate each other. Really awkward. Whenever we want to hang out. Oh, I don't know. They're hanging out this Friday. Um, but they went through the, I mean, it was at the, whatever. Do they call all their churches temples or is that just the, is that just church? They go to one in on 67 in Northworth field.
00:26:15
Speaker
Probably. Probably. I think they're all considered temples. That's what they call them because they use the term like going to temple, I think. They use that too. I think Janger said that. It's from the Jews. But anyway, so she went to like the youth group type thing that they had and sat through the whole like history of the Mormon church and the whole witnessing tactics. Basically, their equivalent of the Romans road is all
00:26:43
Speaker
And they do it with puppets. Yeah. Well, I don't know about that. Maybe felt boards, possibly those puppets, but then they asked, they did the whole thing and then asked if they wanted to become Mormons. And it's like, no, we're good.
00:27:01
Speaker
Like, that's funny, dude. Mormonism has like, I feel like I might've like come across wrong when we were talking to existential ginger. I wasn't trying to call Mormonism a call. I was saying that Mormonism has like these offshoot cults that are the craziest. Like they have the craziest cold options. Like if you're bored one day, look up the children of thunder wrestling group. Yeah.
00:27:30
Speaker
I'm trying to remember the details but it's like basically this guy with the God complex that thought he was called to lead the Mormon Church even though he had left. He also thought that he should have a harem of a thousand women that only he gets to sleep with and so he started like. Sounds reasonable.
00:27:50
Speaker
He started like gathering followers, you know, and he like forcing the women into prostitution and stuff. And then they ended up killing. I don't remember how many people, a couple of people, I feel like it's just a wild. There's like so many of those cult leaders. Yeah. Well, you know, he wasn't good at it. He got caught early on. Dude, what else can we shit on tonight? We've, uh, Catholics, Mormons. Um, what's next?
00:28:19
Speaker
So, okay, so is that Republicans, Democrats, Taylor Swift. Shut up. Yeah, we have to give you a double shut up on that one. You pick the wrong people to say that in front of the bear.
00:28:34
Speaker
Well, the, the new, the new, um, back and forth in my family is Justin Bieber versus Taylor Swift. And so I'll, I'll pump her. Oh yeah, I do. I'll pump Bieber in the car. Bullshit conversation. And the kids be singing it. Do I got to be singing Justin Bieber to herself and stuff? I got, she doesn't know, but I'm working. I'm working on it like that.
00:28:53
Speaker
I don't know. I feel like the conversation was Kanye versus Taylor for a long time and Kanye has not weathered the years very well. Apparently him and Drake have beef. I just learned that every second. I don't know about that. Anyone listen to Donda yet? I started it. Donda.
00:29:12
Speaker
That's his mother's name. Is that Kanye's new album? No, I can't with that guy. The man's a genius. I feel like everything that Kanye says about himself, you can cut and paste and apply it to Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick Lamar is what Kanye calls himself. Or thinks he is. Yeah, exactly.
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah. Mine is all the showboating. Like, what do you hear from Kendrick? I mean, outside of like the outside of his music where he might do some Kendrick needs to come out with something. I know. I know he is working on. He is working on an album. Apparently it's going to be his last one, whatever. I don't pay a lot of attention to up and coming releases. So I don't know. Anyway, Drake Kanye, do you know the beef, Aaron? You're going to give us a scoop on the beef.
00:30:02
Speaker
Uh, there was one of them, just, um, somebody else, a third party just released the track, uh, this track with, yeah. Like Drake leaked a Kanye track. I'm like, why is Drake half Kanye's track? This all feels fabricated to me. Yeah, of course. I'm not buying it. I'm not buying one through selling. Have you heard the, um, the conversation?
00:30:22
Speaker
Is it Taylor Swift talking to Kanye or Kim about the music video? Have you heard this? Oh, that sounds awful. Google it right now. Like the really the old thing where they recorded a phone call with her. Yeah. She like calls him. And remember cause he made that video with, and there's supposed to be like a double of her in the bed with him. And she's like, yeah, I gave him. Yeah. She was really, really good about it.
00:30:48
Speaker
And, uh, I forget who she was talking to, Cameron Kanye about it, but it was just so weird. Like you could, I feel like it would, the whole, that whole thing was fabricated too. Like, let's, let's set up a phone call where I look good and you look good and everybody's good. Yeah.
00:31:02
Speaker
Who knows? Who knows? There's a video floating around. I don't remember who's doing the interview, but they're interviewing Ninja from Die Antward. Are you guys familiar with them? Nope. What, Ninja the Twitch stream? I don't know any of the words you just said. No, no, no. There's a group called Die Antward that's like a South African rap duo. It's this big gangly dude and this little
00:31:29
Speaker
little gal and they he got on there and told this story about going to I feel like it was Drake's house. And he was like, let's play, let's play some basketball. He's got like a full scale basketball court in the backyard. Like, okay, so they go out and he comes out in like, custom head to toe matching basketball, warm up gear and stuff.
00:31:54
Speaker
that says Drake on the back. It is the funniest story. You just got to look it up. It's Ninja from Die Antwoord. I feel like they've had some bad publicity in the past couple of years too. I don't know. I can't keep up with all the Hollywood beef. Then there's TikTok streamer beef, which is by far the dumbest. It is the dumbest. This is happening more and more. It's really awful. I don't even know how to describe what makes it feel so much
00:32:25
Speaker
worse. It has like people who are 15. Yeah, it's like 15 year olds being like you said you didn't like so and so but then you so you told them that you did like them and they're all they also have so many followers that they're giving them like Hulu shows and stuff and
00:32:41
Speaker
Oh my god and they're trying to win first place in the woke Olympics like anytime someone says something that could be interpreted poorly they like they'll do a full video about why this person said it and how that probably means they're a racist or
00:32:57
Speaker
I don't
Teaching Philosophy and Teenage Engagement
00:32:58
Speaker
know. It's like you said, they're 15. So yeah, let's see. I'm sure they have a real well-established worldview that's not going to shift at all. Can you imagine being locked in to your worldview at 15 like that? When you have like, like, I mean, I was confident. I think every 15 year old is locked into their worldview. Right. They just haven't realized how dumb it is.
00:33:21
Speaker
Yeah, well, we were all there. So at 15, I was super confident. If I had 1.2 million followers believing everything I said to God damn, I would have been the worst. It's like all teenagers are narcissists that think the world is as obsessed with them as they are with themselves. Like every one of us was that.
00:33:42
Speaker
You know, but then you add on top of that like social media fame. I was listening to Tim Dillon's podcast this morning and he was talking about Charlie D'Amelio or something like that has her own show on Hulu. And he's talking about the show and watching it and stuff. And he's like, he's like, the conclusion that I've come to is that this is a boring show because children are stupid and boring.
00:34:11
Speaker
He went on a pretty good rant about it. That's pretty funny. That's cute. Aaron, you believe children are stupid and boring, and that's why you became a history teacher, right? Dude, they're wicked stupid, so...
00:34:25
Speaker
So I'm trying to shift the conversation so we can all learn a little bit more about Aaron. And these are some. Yeah, they're wicked. I tell them that they're stupid too. So like, like a good teacher. Yeah. And I tell them the problem is with kids is that they, um, they're always seeking approval, uh, whether it's good or bad, I guess socially or academically. And so they're always afraid to like answer questions in class.
00:34:53
Speaker
even if it's like on paper privately, there's I'm just like, just write something. It's a simple question. Just write it. And if you're wrong, I'll tell you that you're wrong. And then you'll be right. And I just can't
00:35:03
Speaker
Um, and so I tell them that my job is to get them to make them smarter. I mean, you could learn anything you want on the internet. My job is to make you smarter and how to do that. And I tell them the stuff we do is intellectual weightlifting. Your job is to help. Yeah, it's to help them, uh, not use the internet the way that the baby boomer generation. Exactly.
00:35:25
Speaker
Exactly. Well, even today, man, even today we were talking about prohibition and I had to read some speech by some quote unquote doctor who said that, you know, seven out of 20 fathers who drink their children end up deformed. Like he just like made up stats on the spot and somebody wrote it down and the kids were like, this guy sounds legit because he has numbers. That's what they're telling me. I'm like, Oh my gosh, what?
00:35:51
Speaker
So yes, they are very dumb. So when people ask me what I do, if you say history teacher, people say, okay, whatever. There's no explanation. Do you teach critical race theory? That's the next question, yes. So Casey, whenever Sam tells me what you do, I have no clue what that is and I have to ask more questions. It's really annoying.
00:36:12
Speaker
when people ask me sometimes I'll say I don't know it. It's like Chandler from friends. People ask me what I do. Sometimes I say adolescent intelligence enhancer. That's always a fun way to put that where I try to make kids smarter. They're definitely definitely every 15 year old.
00:36:31
Speaker
even if they say they're, they don't know, they think they do. And most of the time here, look, teenagers, I've been around them for 10 years. They want to fight, F U C K, or eat, or food. That's what they want to do. No, no, eat. Right.
00:36:48
Speaker
That too, because they're in, I mean, think about it. 20,000 years ago, anybody that was 13 or 14, their number one job was find food for the rest of the clan, you know, and because you were at tip top shape and that's, I feel so bad for these boys sitting in these classrooms who are just like amped, you know, with all, with all those three energies and just trying to like do all that. And I, and my job is to reign that in and somehow get them to sit down for an hour and listen to these boring stories. I got to tell.
00:37:14
Speaker
It's not that we are living in. Isn't it kind of wild for these boys? Yeah, it seems really. Yeah, I think I'm having a bit of a I'm having a slight delay here. We don't have to edit that out. I'm just calling it out because apparently I'm jumping in and you guys are hearing me a little bit later than I think you are. Fellowship Friday. The idea that like all these
00:37:37
Speaker
I mean, we were what, 22, three, four, by the time you like start your quote unquote life, that seems super late. Like the older you get and the more you realize like, oh, we just let these kids just bob around for fucking.
00:37:52
Speaker
18 years before we finally go, you're ready to learn some real stuff. And then the first year of that is them literally repeating everything they fucking learned in high school. It's crazy. When I went to community college, I was terrified. I was going to just fail because I was homeschooled and I had no idea where I was in like the educational standing of my peers. But I was convinced that I was dumb.
00:38:19
Speaker
Then I go to community college, and like, the fail rate was like 50% in the easiest class I ever took in my life. And I was like, what? This is what college is? This is wild. And I don't know. It's after that experience. I was like, there is absolutely because then you meet kids homeschool. This is big and homeschooling too.
00:38:40
Speaker
maybe in your weird Christian schools too, I don't know, but like kids, when they go into their junior year of high school, we'll start college classes. And they do it at the community college and shit. So by the time they, it's like dual enrollment. What do they call that? Dual enrollment. Yeah. Okay. So then they graduate high school within associates and then they go straight to
00:39:00
Speaker
Whatever, four-year university, they're out in two. The fact that anyone who wanted to could do that. Every kid who's doing fine in high school would be successful in those programs. We'll just keep you here. We'll just let you sit here on your phone for eight hours a day, sharing the nudes that somebody sent you so that way you can ruin their life and make them have to move and relocate their family. It's like, Jesus Christ.
Impact of 9/11 on American Culture
00:39:30
Speaker
I really want to meet 15 year old public school to Sam. He's just biff from home alone. You know what I would have done? I would have joined the, if there was some sort of like, I would have joined a Christian group for sure. And we would have focused on evangelism, whatever college crusade for Christ, campus crusade for Christ, the high school equivalent. I would have visibly carried his Bible.
00:39:59
Speaker
Yes, I would have been at CU at the Pole for dude. I prayed to see you a pole in public schools, baby. I'm the real Christian here. I'm going to pray. What's up? What was that in 10th or 11th grade? My history teacher was a Christian. I knew he had worked at the Grace Brethren. You heard of a Grace Brethren church before.
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, he was anything about him. He was there just like, I don't know what it is just like an offshoot or something. But he was nice enough. But he was, we were all probably 50 of us at school was about 1600 people, kids, and by 50, I stand around the pole and he's just like, Aaron, I was like, Oh, and I look, I remember now that I'm talking about I remember looking around going, Okay, good. None of the popular people here.
00:40:48
Speaker
I don't remember like when it was, it wasn't like a regular thing. But I do remember them taking us to the public school at some point to go to see us. Yeah, it was like, we're gonna stand in solidarity with our public school friends. But you had to stand on the sidewalk because you weren't legally allowed on their campus.
00:41:14
Speaker
I was like a caged animal at that. Like anywhere where I had to be around normal kids that weren't like my tiny little friend group was just like just just nervous like a chihuahua just shivering and wanting to go back in his hole. You just scour the scene for the first hat you could steal off the cool kid. How I like how typical is it that the big
00:41:41
Speaker
national evangelical public school prayer program involved them standing around an American flag. Yeah. I'm just glad I graduated high school before 2001. Yeah. Yeah. I guess things changed after that. What happened in 2001? Just kidding. Remember that Congressman? I'd like kidnap somebody.
00:42:04
Speaker
We're speaking of what do you guys all do? It's we're three days away from it as of now. Oh, Friday is Saturday. This is. Oh, it's Saturday. Why do you hate America? Because it's 20 done anything for me. But how do you guys feel about 9 11?
00:42:25
Speaker
Oh my god. No? Okay, we don't need to... I have to take the day to just celebrate our triumph over terrorism. I think... Are you guys gonna post on Facebook?
00:42:36
Speaker
I have, Sam, I have a whole bulletin board of like, uh, original nine, 12 newspapers up on my, my, uh, bulletin board in class. No kid has said anything about it yet. I'm waiting for the math. I had, dude, I had to go through, I had to stack them. Some other teacher had given to me. I had to like filter them for like trigger warnings and stuff. Like one of them had like the picture of the dude fallen from the thing. Remember he was like, remember he was like, had this like,
00:43:01
Speaker
Yeah, I remember picturesque like almost like bow like ballet type form when he was falling. I just hit me hard even looking through it. I was like, Oh, you remember it. But I had to filter it out. And so it was just like, there was a really good one from New York. No, not your New York Times of people looking at it, which is really cool. But that's about all I got on this point.
00:43:24
Speaker
Do you remember at one point, one of the things that the Fox News conservatives were really angry about is that they weren't playing footage of the buildings falling anymore on TV.
00:43:39
Speaker
Like I remember that being like, I'm thinking that they were like, really, that was like a Toby Keith song or something like that. They want you to forget and we'll never forget. Always be mad. Robert E. Lee statue being torn down. I get it. There's always something that the media is trying to pull over on the American people. Did I have I told you my 911 Liberty story?
00:44:07
Speaker
Uh, I don't think so. So 9 11. I want to just point out real quick that it's weird. Like thinking about how none of, I mean, all the kids that you teach anyone in high school was not alive for that. Yeah. Yeah. That happened a couple of years ago. It's like when people talk about the Vietnam war. Yeah. Like.
00:44:26
Speaker
to me. I just like, yeah, that was the thing that happened. I have no emotional connection to it. I don't think about it. It seems bad. And then you're like, I'll probably do something. In the past, I've had other teachers come into my room and tell their what happened like on that day, what they went through, you know, just as of like a historical exercise or whatever in oral history. So here's my funny 911 story.
00:44:54
Speaker
So I'm at the most exciting university in the world. It's a month in, right? Uh, it's a Tuesday and somebody has to wake me up at 8 46 AM. Right. So wake up and there's like five guys in my dorm. Somebody just flew playing into the New York tower, right? So I'm watching and watching it and it's like, Oh shit, this is crazy. And so it turns Sam, do you remember what time the Tuesday morning classes were? It was 8 AM. And then what? 9 20 9 15.
00:45:22
Speaker
I forget. I remember because, you know, you never forget. You'll never forget. So 915 comes around and I got a youth, youth 201 class or something bullshit like that. So I'm like, do I go to class? I don't understand what to do. And I'm in Virginia, right? So
00:45:38
Speaker
So I kind of hiked the class. I'm like by myself. It was like nice weather. I'm just like, I guess I go to class and show up. Nobody's there. Of course, there's like a sign out or something. So I truck it back. And I think it was a Tuesday. So there was no convo, right? Convocation Monday, Wednesday, Friday, it was back then.
00:45:55
Speaker
But they call an emergency one right in the afternoon. So we go there. It's like everybody on campus. We're having a convocation. Of course, we've got to sing songs and talk about how God chose America and also stuff. I mean, it's somber, whatever. So they make they say, if you want to pray for America, come on down to the gym floor or whatever. So I go down there because, you know, you got to.
00:46:16
Speaker
And I'm down there and there's like, I'm not kidding. There's like a thousand people on their knees praying to God. And I was like, so I get bored, right? I've been diagnosed. I get bored. I'm looking around and getting bored. It's like, okay, whatever. And I look and I'm on my knees, my ass is in the air and I look, I turn around like this and I look and there's a dude with a camera and I look directly in the lens. Didn't think anything of it for like two or three years. It's like my junior senior year, I'm walking through the hallways 2003, 2004.
00:46:45
Speaker
And I look over and there's a picture of a bunch of people with their asses in the air. And there's my dumb ass eyes looking straight into the cameras. Perfect. I mean, it's like in the provost office hallway was just like perfectly. It's just so somber. And I was and I'm looking at God was everyone's face down at that. Yeah. And I said, this is 9-11. I was here for that. I'm looking at and I go, oh, my God.
00:47:13
Speaker
I'm in the middle of the fucking picture looking dead at that because I thought it was going to be funny when I did it. I was like, this is going to be hilarious. On 9-11. It's going to be hilarious. Were you looking to the side or were you looking like straight through your legs at the guy? That would have been even better. Just right to the side like this. Oh, man. Grabbing your ankle. That's 9-11 for you.
00:47:38
Speaker
That is such a is weird to think that like, there's just a whole generation that didn't experience that. I mean, what a crazy that like, did that event was that a turning point for our country in a totally different direction? Or was it just like another notable event on the timeline of where we were headed as a whole?
00:48:04
Speaker
Take it in the direction you want, history teacher. A book came out, I don't have it, but about the absolute fuck up the CIA and the FBI did. And there was like some really bad, they had tracks on the guy. A good example is this. I think it was 98, 99 or so. I was talking to a friend of mine who had graduated college, and this is in Maryland, DC, and he was working in DC.
00:48:29
Speaker
And I said to him, I said, what's going on with wherever you're working? He said, dude, he said the number one priority right now is like 1998. There's this guy named Osama bin Laden we're looking for. And so it was already on the radar. And this book had talked about it a lot too. They were tracking these guys all over the world. They're in Singapore and all the other places. Just a huge, huge fuck up. But I mean, the biggest thing is the Taliban itself
00:48:53
Speaker
The Taliban itself, if you if you go back in time and necessarily into the 80s, they were the guys that fought off the communists, the Russian communists in the 80s in the Afghan war there. I mean, and they're shooting down commie Russian tanks and helicopters with American made cannons and then they got bored with that. And then in the 90s, they kind of figured we'd turn these on on on the Americans. I argue that it's a it's an extension of the Cold War. It's just like a what's the word for it when you have casualties that you didn't mean to have what's that called collateral?
00:49:23
Speaker
collateral damage of the Cold War. I think that's exactly what it is where the you know, the enemy of our enemies becomes our enemy or the friend of our enemies. I don't know how it works out. But eventually they just get what Osama was part of the Taliban. There's a whole movement. It begins with a W. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not Wakanda. Oh, good wasabi. No.
00:49:45
Speaker
What kind of the fictional city and hobby. Thank you. Very good. Uh, it's a whole movement. Osama bin Laden was part of his Osama bin Laden's father's like super rich that a huge family. He helped build like this big extension on the Kaba and Mecca and all this other stuff. Dudas is, is like entrenched in Saudi Arabia politics and all this other stuff. And see, he ends up fighting with the Mu hadeen against the communist in Afghanistan in the eighties. And he just kind of.
00:50:13
Speaker
He got mad about the Gulf War and Americans stepping all over Saudi Arabia and holy, holy ground over there. And he just kept that grudge until the 90s. Remember in 98, they blew up that battleship in the Gulf. Remember that? What was it? Yeah, USS Cole. A dude that graduated from high school was on that and he got injured and there was a whole parade in our town. Oh my god. I do. I never forget. I remember what that kid looked like. He was wicked hairy, but because he was in my gym class.
00:50:42
Speaker
And it come around where he had been on the, he joined the Navy and also stuff. He ended up getting injured on it. And then so I have this like thing in my head where the coal happened. And then they, they tried to blow it up again. The, that bottom part of it in 98 with the van, remember that they drove the van into it.
00:50:58
Speaker
And so it's, it's both like, it is the turning point, but it's just kind of like, well, they finally got it right. I hate to say it that way. Well, there's, there's so many different things that are just like aftermath of like the Cold War era. Because I mean, North Korea's app, that's collateral damage from the Cold War. Right. You know, so be it's back in one side and us back in the other. And I mean, I guess the Korean War, I mean, that was also communist China that
00:51:28
Speaker
that was involved in that one, right? Yep. The the Cambodian genocide, Pol Pot. Mm hmm. That was a part of the Cold War, you know, the fighting that was going on in, oh, God, country right next to him. Vietnam.
00:51:45
Speaker
Vietnam Vietnam because it was pouring over the border into Cambodia and that was a big part of how that guy rose to power and There's so many things like that. There's like so many bodies that you can lay at the feet of the the West versus the Red Menace after World War two
00:52:05
Speaker
It's like pretty much every bad thing that's happened since the mid-40s has been a result of what happened during the Cold War. And the farther we get away from it, the more disconnected we get from it. And so it's hard to pin that on it. And so instead of hating the Reds, we now have to hate terrorists, you know, or the Afghans or whatever. And so we keep getting away from away from it and then eventually just kind of just a big mess.
00:52:31
Speaker
I mean, what are you even doing if you don't have a thing to collectively hate a group of people, you know? It's true. I feel like Americans would be lost if we didn't have someone we could all collectively hate. It's our jam. After 9-11 too, obviously there was a, not that terrorism hadn't been on the radar, but, you know, I never really heard people talking about it beforehand. It wasn't, not that I was old enough to remember much, but it really
00:53:01
Speaker
I mean, that became the cultural, the common enemy that united the nation for the next decade. And they, we got, we did a lot of stuff in the name of that fight. I mean, obviously we're, that's in the zeitgeist again with us leaving Afghanistan, but it is, I don't know, I feel like that, I feel like 9-11 was a catalyst for,
00:53:28
Speaker
things being the way they are now also there i know there's been conspiracy theories all there's always been conspiracy theories um but i feel like 9 11 like really donned a new era of conspiracy theory as long especially after um you know the patriot act and the age of information and like having the internet at your fingertips like every literally you know enough stuff had happened in our past enough
00:53:57
Speaker
shit had been declassified over time. You know, now people learned about like MKUltra and you're like, that shit gets declassified. And you're like, oh, we did, we tried experimental LSD shit on people and it resulted in some people dying. Like we tried mind control experiments and like, oh, as shit becomes declassified, along with having internet access, along with being able to like make
00:54:22
Speaker
a mythified terrorism, our common enemy, which, what, Matt? They're like everywhere. Terrorists are everywhere. Oh, anywhere in the Middle East, you're like, there's a terrorist cell, you know? It's not like you're fighting a nation state or anything like that. I just, I feel like that was just, I mean, throw that all into a pressure cooker and then you get the fucking shit we're in now where nobody can agree on. Like, you can't even just take like, there's no such thing. Like, no one agrees on even what general facts are anymore.
00:54:51
Speaker
And I feel like that I feel like 9 11 was a catalyst. Definitely. It's definitely part of it. Yeah. I mean, there's just so many things that like, it's continually, like there's continually examples of where the government wasn't truthful with the American people.
Conspiracy Theories and Government Perception
00:55:07
Speaker
And so it's, I mean, what that's, what's going to happen. It's hard to have faith in an institution that tells you left and right that they're not spying on you. And then you come to find out, Oh, they are there.
00:55:18
Speaker
you know, tracking your internet data and listening to phone calls without warrants and all that stuff. I was like, trying to watch. I just couldn't really get into it. I wasn't.
00:55:29
Speaker
engaged enough, but I was trying to watch The Wire because everybody always talks about The Wire being such a great show. I need to get back on it, but there's a plot point in the first season that I was watching where they're trying to put a pinch on this drug operation, and they're using these payphones within these neighborhoods to run the whole thing. They go and they get a warrant for
00:55:57
Speaker
tapping the payphone, but they're like, you can only listen when it's one of these people using the payphone. You can't blanket just tap this payphone. So they had to sit on the roof for days on end, watching to see who was using the payphone so they could track it. I was thinking like, well, this doesn't work anymore. We know that this isn't real.
00:56:20
Speaker
Like all of those different things are like, you know, the Chicago PD having black sites where they take, you know, people under arrest and interrogate them and stuff. There's just so many things like that where, you know, whether it's widespread or not, like learning about that stuff makes you just look at the whole institution and be like,
00:56:39
Speaker
I mean, I don't know. I hope that that's not happening, but obviously it is some places. Do you guys think that the majority of the outrage about all this spying was mostly mostly boomer dads who didn't want their their internet history being released to the public? No, it's a really bad thing. It's a terrible thing that we just can't put a stop to so the outrage doesn't go anywhere.
00:57:08
Speaker
The internet, the technology outpaced the government and it's hard to say. So people's understanding of the technology.
00:57:19
Speaker
didn't catch up. It's like this weird pace between the government keeping up with it, people's understanding of the technology, keeping up with it. I'm sure the minute the internet was, quote unquote, invented or really mainstream in the 90s, some government dude was just like, oh shit, we can really get some info from this. And if you're looking at it from 1994,
00:57:41
Speaker
And you know that the Mujahideen and now the Taliban are out there trying to get us, you think women that they might try to use this internet thing. And so you're on top of it. So I don't know. It's a tough thing. You ever see that? What movie is it? Where I think it's Samuel Jackson. He's just like, spy kids.
00:58:02
Speaker
where he's just like, if you knew the things I had to do to keep you safe at night, what movie is that? Is it Pelican brief or some shit like that? Oh, man. Yeah. Something like that.
00:58:15
Speaker
And it's Jack Nicholson. Oh, I think you're right. I think it is Jack Nicholson. If you knew this, you can't handle the truth. But it's something like that. And I that's what I think of. I mean, coming from I mean, I grew up around DC area. And I asked my pop once who works at a federal agency. I said, Do you think the government is inept, more inept than we think it is? Or do you think it knows a lot more than we think it is? He goes, Oh, you have no idea how much government knows.
00:58:42
Speaker
I was like, oh, okay. Very efficient. I feel like the mistake is thinking of the government as this single institution with moving parts that all work together and stuff. I feel like it's like all these little microcosms that are doing their own thing. As a whole, it's
00:59:01
Speaker
pretty clunky and clumsy and with a lot of things, but I don't know. Not the nefarious cabal that people make it out to be. I think you could make that case about the CIA. Yes, you could make a case about the CIA and the NSA especially. Yeah, those two, not great.
00:59:22
Speaker
So you sent us a link here. Yeah, yes, the birds aren't real movement I saw someone a couple of months ago and a birds aren't real t-shirt really I was so excited that I recognized it because it was just like a like a Silhouette of a seagull with a big like circle with an X through it and I like elbow and April I'm like, oh my gosh, it's a bird's not real sure
00:59:49
Speaker
I can't figure out, and I guess that's part of the thing with this one. It's people who don't believe it. They think that all birds are government surveillance drones. No, no, no, no, no. I thought this was a joke. Well, that's what I can't figure out if it's a joke or not because you watch interviews and stuff.
01:00:09
Speaker
They look like interviews with people who are out, you know. If it flies, it spies. They have clever slogans, good design. We might ought to hire their people.
01:00:22
Speaker
Right? That's funny. I thought that, I mean, it seems like it's got to be a joke. Like, like they make the website out to be look real, but that has to be a joke. This is a good one. The reptilian lizard people run the government. I like that one. That's fun. Now that one's definitely serious. There's a lot of people that believe that that's absolutely true.
01:00:47
Speaker
are you kidding the lizard people you don't know about this no i know about it i've been hearing i mean i've been joking about it since college i just don't i don't reason i didn't know that people i had
01:00:59
Speaker
It's hard to believe that people like even people who say they really believe it. I don't believe that they really believe. I can't buy it. I think this is like people believe it. It feels like fun. Alex Jones is your gateway drug to reptilians. It basically if you if you make it through Alex Jones,
01:01:19
Speaker
The next step is for you to believe in interdimensional lizard people controlling our government, and you got no choice. You're going to be super anti-Semitic. That's just an obvious next step.
01:01:32
Speaker
It sounds like maybe the lizard people are mostly Jewish. Is that what you're getting? That could be the argument. I don't know. And you know, like Zionism is like a historic movement and there's a lot of history tied to it and stuff. But anytime a white boomer from the middle of the country says the word Zionism, I'm like, oh, OK, I'm out. Yeah, I know. For that reason, I'm out.
01:01:59
Speaker
Everyone they don't like is Jewish, like every single person, anyone who contradicts the narrative or votes the wrong way on a bill and stuff, it's like, wow, Zionist shill. Yeah. That's so true. Oh my God. Well, I don't know what's next on the list. We need to recap the Rapskelion story. I need to say my piece about that.
01:02:23
Speaker
Yes, that's right. That's right. So, uh, everyone this is who listened, uh, to the end, keep them listening. Yeah, I don't know what covered it in, but I told that story about my friend puking face down in my couch and forgetting drunk at a beer festival that we went to. And this is, uh, you filled his couch like an Eclair. I have alternative facts.
01:02:50
Speaker
The alternative facts. All right, Aaron, tell your side of the story. Please, I cannot guarantee that I will not interrupt you. Yeah, let us know how the Zionists were involved.
01:03:03
Speaker
So we go to a craft beer festival. Good millennials. Come on. Right. So for whatever reason, I don't remember why. Of course you don't. I skip breakfast. And so I'm on my way. We're doing we're doing well. We're doing good. We're with his brothers and brothers in laws and
01:03:32
Speaker
There was a couple factors. There's factors here, Sam.
01:03:36
Speaker
Factor number one, 86 degrees, right? You remember that? Did you hook up the temperature? On that day, I should. You went back and looked up the weather on that day. 86 degrees, 78% humidity. I had started new medication, and I just started the keto diet. So I got nothing in my stomach, no starches, and everyone there can attest to my four-beer count, which I've drank many more at once beyond that.
01:04:05
Speaker
to this day quit bragging. Uh, and it, whatever it was just hit me. I think I had heat stroke, bro. I think it was, I don't even think it had anything to do with the beer. I think I had straight up like, cause I didn't drink any water that day. I barely didn't have lunch or breakfast. I don't know what was going on. Cause you get, you get two or three deep and you're like, I don't need food. I'm going to make bad decisions now.
01:04:28
Speaker
Yeah, I've definitely been there before. That's just enough to get there. And then I remember thinking, I'll just fall asleep in the car and I'll be all right. You ever feel that? I always fall asleep there. And then the best part about what you, I think, I don't think you told about this part is when we were in the yard and I puked in the yard. You remember that? Yeah, obviously. Did you tell that part in the first?
01:04:52
Speaker
I think I did in my neighbor. It's like out there recording. Right. So Sam's neighbors also your neighbor's Puerto Rican, right? Yes. So he's super nice to me, right? He's just like, you okay, bro? And so like to this day in my memory bank, I have a legit, like an espanol conversation with this man while I'm like having a heat stroke and speaking Spanish to him.
01:05:24
Speaker
And so Sam eventually gets me in and bless the man, speaking of blowing smoke, he takes care of me all night, feeds me, takes, you know, make sure I sleep all right and everything. And it turned out all right. And I've never, I've never, ever felt that way, no matter how much, whatever I've
Food Truck Adventures
01:05:42
Speaker
done.
01:05:42
Speaker
that way again I felt like I was gonna die it was weird man I was actually afraid I was going I'm like I think I might have to bring him to the hospital like all night I woke up every few hours to check on making sure he wasn't drowning in his own father saint bro you're a saint
01:05:59
Speaker
I don't want to point out, I left this out. I want to point this out. One of the points I went in there, I put you into, what is my son's room, when he slept in our room. And so I put him, I put Aaron in the bed, I take his shoes off, and he goes, hold my hand, hold my hand. And I, I just, it's like, that tear.
01:06:26
Speaker
That's the cry of a man who is afraid. Very afraid. I will be with the Lord one day. The biggest thing was just straight up like embarrassment. It was funny because I...
01:06:39
Speaker
I didn't really feel like I was going to die or anything. Well, I'm the angriest I've ever seen her. It was just mostly like embarrassment. And I remember thinking like, I didn't like, I didn't go overboard. I remember just being like, I wasn't thinking like, this isn't my fault. But I would just remember thinking like, what went wrong? I remember everybody around me was just like, dude, you only have like four beers, like regular four craft beers. It's just I just I had what it is is I'm on the ADHD medication. I just started it.
01:07:09
Speaker
like that month. And what it does is it it dumbs down any alcohol you're drinking. So you got to drink like, at least 50% more to get anything you want out of it as far as alcohol goes. And you're not supposed to drink on the first place, which I didn't listen to. But
01:07:23
Speaker
And so between that and the, and the diet I was on, it was just a big old, you know, concoction of disaster. It's like a mixed bag of everything. Yeah. And it turned into a disaster and it will be one of my favorite stories. What's funny is that my wife doesn't, I mean, saint, she doesn't hold it. She did that barely brings it up. Remember Sam, I texted you the other night, let's go to Rashkali. And Christie goes, Oh geez, not that place again. That's all she said. And so, yeah,
01:07:51
Speaker
So this was a, this was a, there was nothing in your stomach. So this was liquid puke. This was like a real runny puke that you put into his couch. So the next, this was a Saturday, right? So the Sunday and then, so what am I going to call out at work on Monday and say, I'm sick. I don't know. Dude, I went to work and I had my blood vessels in my eyes had popped and I had like red ass blood vessels. And so, um,
01:08:18
Speaker
I forgot what I did. I think I did take a day off. I think I took that Monday off and then I went back to work and I just told kids I had food poisoning or something. I was going to say probably good as a teacher, you know. The next week was when we had my daughter's birthday party and you guys came over and you had your son, you were like hanging out outside with your sunglasses on. Right. That's how it is. And I remember you were like, yeah, like my eyes are super fucked up. The whites of your eyes were like... Yeah, it was crazy. Every blood, that's a little bit boring. Because there was nothing in my stomach to like...
01:08:47
Speaker
It was just like, it was legit alcohol point. Like that was a serious level of, I was like, legit alcohol poison. But I didn't drink that much alcohol. It doesn't matter. You had nothing to soak it up. Nothing. Like you that, I mean, I don't know what else that is. I mean, there was food there too, but it was like wicked expensive. So I was being a cheapo.
01:09:09
Speaker
You know how it is, fruit trucks at the fucking beer places. You're like, I'll spend $8 on the beer, but, you know, fuck your barbecue sandwich. I know. 12 bucks for that sandwich with a ripoff. I'll just throw up. $60 on beer later.
01:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like most of the time food trucks sound a whole lot better than they are. It's true. And like, for me, like the delivery method for food plays into how good it is. Like you can give me like, the best sandwich ever. But if it falls apart, while I'm trying to put it into my face, I hate that sandwich. I don't want anything to do with it. Like, it could be the greatest meal ever. If I have to stand up and eat it, I don't want it. I would rather throw it on the ground.
01:09:55
Speaker
Dude, this is, uh, the best burger I've, I feel like possibly the best burger I've ever had comes from right down the street for me. And I don't know. I'm gonna, I think I'm going to hold to that. You're talking about the place. Do you want my place in my town? The new place? No. What are you talking about? My town. Brookies dog. Where's that at? It's right across from, uh, this is some geography here for people. There's right across from the, uh, Barnes, the, uh,
01:10:23
Speaker
Dealership. Casey, you should sell them some stuff. I'm sure somebody does.
Podcast Promotion and Gun Control Discussion
01:10:30
Speaker
Okay. Aaron, why don't you plug your podcast, dude? I would love to. My podcast is all about New England. People from New England, things about New England. I just started a new teaching job, so I've been kind of here and there with it, if you know what I mean.
01:10:45
Speaker
Uh, but things are picking up and, um, check it out. It's pilgrims digress. I'm on all the podcast apps and on the Twitter's on pod. I'm on Instagram on pilgrims digress and the check me out there. You can catch him commenting on.
01:11:02
Speaker
Thank you. Except for, here I go. So I, uh, I did interview the democratic socialist of America in Worcester, but I tried to interview the socialist rifle association, but they didn't, they didn't like my name. They said it was too, uh, colonialism. They wouldn't talk to you because your name.
01:11:23
Speaker
Yeah, I was just like, man, I'm just trying to be New England. My tagline is I'm American by birth, southern or bright blood, New Englander by choice. So I'm excited. I was excited to be here because my podcast has nothing to do with growing up Christian, even though I did.
01:11:49
Speaker
But it's listen local is what I say. So it's a real good community of New England podcasters that that I deal with a lot and made a lot of good friends. And so you can find out all about them with all the people I've interviewed about their podcast as well. I want to take a quick second on the socialist right at the Socialist Rifle Association or whatever.
01:12:14
Speaker
Yeah. Um, they sound interesting. So, uh, Lennon himself, or was it Marx, uh, explicitly says the, the proletariat should be armed. Uh, so if you're going to consider yourself a Marxist or a socialist, that's, it's something worth considering is the arming of the proletariat. And I think,
01:12:33
Speaker
Even the Black Panther Party was into it. In case you probably noticed, the premature of gun control in California in the 1980s was your boy Ronald Reagan. The minute the Black Panther Party got a hold of some guns, Ronald Reagan went over to the bill and said, oh, we probably shouldn't have guns in public now.
01:12:51
Speaker
It was an open carry protest, if I remember correctly, and like, what was it, San Francisco or something? And they're like, no, we can't be having this. Yeah. So when people start walking up on the Capitol on January 6th and all we have is, you know, 50 Capitol Police and then some late, late coming Metro police happening, then something's going to happen. So.
01:13:13
Speaker
Yeah, I really wanted to talk to them, but they didn't want to have anything anything of me, but they they have a podcast. I'll plug their podcast right now. The Social Rifle Association. So I'm also I've been in touch with I'm trying to get all the sides. I've been in touch with goal, which is the the gun ownership Action League of Massachusetts.
01:13:37
Speaker
I decided my second year of podcasting that I wouldn't stray from politics. And that's the way I went. And I started out not wanting to do that.
01:13:47
Speaker
going forward. I'm, you know, I think I'm pretty balanced guy when it comes to that. So you can check me out there. What's great about my podcast is that it's not it's not timely, you can just jump right in. And my most listened to episode is my first. And so people, you know, just keep rolling through them. And there's no, like, timeline to it. You just interesting people throughout New England.
01:14:12
Speaker
I like so our most listened to as our first two and I like to think it's because they listened to the first one realize that they hate it. I was thinking about my hosting company. Let's I need to do this. It lets you put like a couple minutes in front of every episode that you have, like, positive missley, you know what I mean? And so I've been thinking about putting like a disclaimer on it, like,
01:14:39
Speaker
Hey, thanks for listening. If you're listening for the first time, this is my first episode. So if you're just listening now, I've learned a lot more about the Confederacy since I made this. It's like, because the first one you do is argue. I mean, it's just, it's just going to be your worst. Like you're only it. So like,
01:15:04
Speaker
Anytime I start a new podcast, I'm like, well, some of them have been going on for so long that you're definitely not going to go back on episode one. But that's the hard thing about having an podcast that doesn't have a ton of episodes yet is people are like, oh, I can start with episode one and see where things go from there.
01:15:24
Speaker
It's not the greatest place to start.
History Teacher's Journey and Communism Studies
01:15:27
Speaker
Maybe start with the most recent one and then decide if you want to check out the beginning. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to ask you, so being a history teacher, like do you have a specialization in history, like a certain time period that you teach or do you teach all of human history in like nine months out of the year? Great question. I've been teaching world history for a long time, like ancient and European history.
01:15:52
Speaker
And I just switched over to American history this just this year. So, but in my, it's funny because I went to Liberty for my undergrad and I just did a bachelor of science, which is like in general, there was a bachelor of arts where you could concentrate on something, but I didn't do that. I don't want to do that, but.
01:16:08
Speaker
Uh, and when then I went to UMass Amherst, which is like, you know, in the midst of the five colleges and liberal Haven. So that was fun. Um, and, uh, there, I, uh, there are three, you concentrate in three things. You have one, one of them is like a major and then you're like two minors.
01:16:25
Speaker
Uh, my two minors were, um, third world communist revolutions, Vietnam. Uh, a lot of people, a lot of people don't recognize that Vietnam was as way before the American war was a civil war. And it was a war of, um, independence from France. France had been in Vietnam for so long. And so the Vietnamese had already had all that practice of kicking people out of their lands.
01:16:50
Speaker
even from the late 1950s. And so I'd studied a lot of that. I did 20th century American evangelicalism. And so all these new podcasts that are coming out are telling me all about American evangelicalism. I'm just like, yeah, I know that. Yeah, I know that. Yeah, I know that. And then my last one was
01:17:12
Speaker
Puritan manhood, what it meant to be a Puritan back then, dude. So, uh, it's really concentrated. You know, I could go on and on about it, but that's what I did in grad school. And so it's funny cause I tell the kids all the time in my classes, they look, I don't have, I have like a one class of teaching how to teach behind me and I'm just running on talent. I'm running on talent here, guys. Let's go.
01:17:40
Speaker
And so I'm just kind of learning as I go, as far as teaching goes. And I mean, my first classroom was, I was a
01:17:45
Speaker
teacher assistant in grad school for college students. And so having to go from there to middle school to high school, it's been kind of weird. But right now, I should be teaching a like a globalization class next year. Next in the winter, I'm teaching like an epistemology class called Theory of Knowledge, which is fun, too.
01:18:10
Speaker
And I told him I already have some history with that and I told him I kind of majored or minored in philosophy So that got me in with the cool crew in that regard interesting
01:18:25
Speaker
Yeah, so the Vietnamese communist revolution was like the one that you concentrated on the most, or you studied all of them, and okay. What's some other ones then? I mean, because you have Cambodia, you've got China. I don't know if China would fall into that.
01:18:44
Speaker
People overlook South America a lot and the socialist movements in South America because it was immediately taken over by Europeans and labor was number one when the Europeans showed up. And so when they found the silver mines in Potosi, Colombia, Venezuela somewhere, that kind of builds on itself all the way from the 19th century up to the 20th. And so when socialism comes to South America,
01:19:14
Speaker
it lands real well, you know what I'm saying? The anecdote I usually tell is the word taco, you know, taco is originally from when
01:19:25
Speaker
Uh, miners used to take a stick of dynamite and, and put it in paper and stick it in the hole. And then they light it. That was called the taco back then turned into a food. Yeah. Geez. I learned something new today. That's not a job I want. No, it's absolutely horrible. It's just that the settlement of South America and the settlement of North America are very different. Um, and the settlement of South America really paved the way for, uh, for, you know, like socialist stuff like Venezuela, like that was able to take root.
01:19:53
Speaker
a lot more than North America. Look, you got me going. You got me going. We did. This could go on all night. I don't know. I think a couple of old dads like us. It's tough. It's tough to keep this going all night long, Casey. Yeah. Well, Eastern time, so we can close it down so you guys can go to bed. We got early mornings, kids off to school.
01:20:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm. That started this week. That sucks. I forgot. You get used to just chilling over the summer, having to, like, get up, get your kids ready, get them to school, then get to work. Then you have to stay at work later because you got there later, and now you're not home till fucking 6 o'clock. It's... God. It just... You should homeschool. It's an adjustment. I should. You should homeschool. I should homeschool him.
Podcasting Challenges and Life Balance
01:20:48
Speaker
All right, everyone. Great to meet you, Aaron. Hey, yeah. Great to meet you, Casey. I look forward to talking to you again.
01:20:53
Speaker
Absolutely. I'm closing us out, clunkies. Fuck. Hey, that's the theme tonight. That's your job, eh? You're not here. Casey, that's your job. You close us out. That's your skill. You get the skill set for, you're the closing. Okay, here we go. Thanks everybody for listening, and we will see you next time.