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Ep. 219 – Kirk Cameron Presents: Rubber Butt Scavenger Hunt w/ Burt Miller
298 Plays13 days ago
This week we’re joined by comedian and writer Burt Miller! Burt grew up outside of Las Vegas, splitting time between his parents and their very different Evangelical churches. We discuss his upbringing, the strange divulgence of the two youth groups he spent time in, coming to grips with his sexuality, and finding a big ol’ bag of adult items on a church trip through the desert. Burt is preparing to embark on a summer tour with his all new one man show, The 40 Year Old Burton! He describes it as “a comedy debut four decades in the making. It’s a reflection on a deeply religious small-town upbringing, a whiplash career in public service, and the all-too-common and often absurd journey we all need to take to find the road back to ourselves.” We had a great time hanging out with Burt, and encourage you to follow him on IG(@burtola) and check out his website www.the40yearoldburton.com!
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of the Show
00:00:00
Speaker
Today, you have a very special chance to stop the Hollywood groomers who are turning our children and grandchildren against us and the godly values we love.
00:00:12
Speaker
Today, i'm inviting you to be a founding supporter of the very first children's television show that actively fights back against groomers in Hollywood and reinforces the traditional biblical values that made America great.
00:00:26
Speaker
Introducing ka den you pointo red and producing adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk. Mr. Kirk. the Does he tout it as the first children's show to use the F-slur?
00:00:41
Speaker
Ha ha ha ha
00:01:00
Speaker
everybody.
Meet the Guest: Burton Miller
00:01:01
Speaker
We are back with another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Sam. I'm Casey. And today we are joined by an old friend of mine, Burton Miller. What's up, Burt?
00:01:12
Speaker
Hey, everybody. Thanks for having me. Dude, I'm...
Vegas Adventures and Fast-Food Discussions
00:01:15
Speaker
Very. So i I actually think I talked about you on the podcast for briefly after my Vegas trip, because you showed me around ah the the best parts of the city. We had a we had a pretty amazing tour, I have to say.
00:01:30
Speaker
I and I knew it was going to be good because, you know, there are people who are like, I got to show you all. like To me, if someone ever said I need to show you the best parts of Vegas, I would be like, I know I'm in for zero fun. Like this is going to be all the things I don't care about.
00:01:45
Speaker
Based on the type of person who generally likes the best quote unquote parts of Vegas. um But instead we saw the abandoned strip malls. Yes. at Only the best for you, Sam. yeah it Took some pictures in front of dumpsters with lots of cool graffiti on them.
00:02:02
Speaker
I was looking back through our our photo shoot and those those were some mighty fine moments. We created some fine art that day. We did. ah We got the breakdown from the ah heart was at the Heart Attack Cafe. Attack Grill.
00:02:14
Speaker
heart attack the heart attack real Heart attack grill. i I mentioned that one to Casey. I, cause my God, that was ah alarming. ah But yeah. ah And then we finished our, pretty much finished our travels with some in and out.
00:02:29
Speaker
Was that what it was in and out? Yeah, we had in and out. And I think that was your first time having in and out. It was, and it might be, I don't know. It could possibly be my last. We'll see what happens if it killed hope it's not your last.
00:02:40
Speaker
But I actually always confuse In-N-Out and Cookout. I'm getting it straight now. Cookout is like the Southern, you know, that's the Southern one. I've never heard of that. No? Yeah. no I've only ever seen that in like Massachusetts.
00:02:56
Speaker
Or maybe it was Virginia. is that where Where do they even have Cookout? Cookout is South. it's definite We didn't have it in Massachusetts. Yeah, we had it in Mass. Cookout is South. It's another one of those limited menu fast food places.
00:03:08
Speaker
um i think I think you would potentially love it, Bert. I think this would be right up your alley. Well, I do love fast food. Yeah, it is of those. You've got to know. You got to know what to order. And like, I I'm always over like what I liked about in and out is I didn't feel overwhelmed.
00:03:24
Speaker
I didn't have to like, Oh, there's like three choices. Yeah. I didn't have to think about it. I hate having to think it. And that's why like, if I go to McDonald's, I haven't ordered something different than what I ordered from McDonald's in four or five years.
00:03:38
Speaker
A McDouble. A McDouble. Yep. A fry. And a pot. Occasionally I like, I dabble in McChickens. Well, you could you could get the $5 McDouble combo now and get the four chicken nuggets with it.
00:03:52
Speaker
That is true. though everything. and Of course. I mean, i kind of I do live for fast food deals. I have my Sonic right here. Yes. I like to go to Raising Cane's and I just order skin and sauce.
00:04:04
Speaker
Just the skin? Just the skin. But you still have to pay for all the healthy donuts.
00:04:13
Speaker
The ones that fell off. Yeah. You just have to get them with that little pool skimmer. yeah
00:04:23
Speaker
It's like you're ice fishing. You get the little chunks out. And they they drizzle the sauce on top like a little culinary art.
00:04:34
Speaker
It actually looks like fine dining because of how small the portions are. yeah that If you get just the skin, they plate it for you romantically. Small plates at Cane's. It's extremely efficient calories because, you know, there's not much to chew and your body can instantly convert it to diarrhea. Yeah.
00:04:55
Speaker
yeah You don't waste any time digesting your food. Yeah.
Life in Boston: Housing and Financial Struggles
00:05:01
Speaker
Oh my God. So, uh, for the listeners, another thing about Bert, um, we, I met Bert when we, my wife and i moved to Boston. So just after graduating from Liberty university, we had our site set on Boston.
00:05:19
Speaker
We had a mutual friend. Um, I, I remember having a, um, I remember when we first met, we had a little, like, let's set some set the rules, set the boundaries, get to get get to know each other a bit. And it was like a very...
00:05:36
Speaker
It was the closest I've ever come to a blind date. Yeah. Knowing we were going to live together. it was kind of an arranged marriage. Yeah, exactly. One way or another, we were moving it together. i know. Like there the things were already in motion and we didn't.
00:05:52
Speaker
It's not like we had the finances to be like, well, maybe not. Like you just kind of like roll with what's going to work for you financially at that time. um it It helped that we were like, yeah, I think that was fine.
00:06:03
Speaker
I don't think we'll hate each other. we probably won't kill each other. So this will be good. ah No, honestly, we had a great living situation. I loved living in that house together. i know it was awesome. um And it was, we had so many people come in and out of it for just the year that we were there. We did. Yeah.
00:06:20
Speaker
It's weird that it was was like a hostel basically. Yeah. ah There was sounds like you guys were living like a, ah like some sort of alternate version of that one episode of the last of us.
00:06:33
Speaker
Except instead of like ah fungus zombies, it was crushing debt. Yeah, I mean... Well, there were fungus zombies as well. I think pretty much the entire interior walls of the house from the basement to the rafters were full of black mold.
00:06:46
Speaker
it There was a lot that was wanting there. ah But honestly, no our mutual friend is just moving out from there now. But the landlord didn't like go nuts on the rent either. in for but No, we had a good deal. It was a good neighborhood. It was a whole house. Yeah.
00:07:04
Speaker
Yeah. ah So, but we had, I mean, it wasn't, but it was technically a one. two three It was technically a three bedroom, but there was this tiny little like office that functioned as like a transient bedroom for people um who needed it.
00:07:19
Speaker
And it helped us save. ah you know Then all of us saving 80 bucks each was like, oh, it was a huge deal. This huge deal. Yeah. we Well, we could save up for the winter when the heating bill was like $900. I know. when The heating bill was the exact was actually as much as our rent was.
00:07:37
Speaker
Because all of us liked the heat. I was from the desert and you all just liked it hot. So we would just have it like 85 degrees inside the house for five months. and But yeah, so then like we had this one bedroom and within the year that we lived there, it was um I think we had four different people live there.
00:07:59
Speaker
Um, so every couple months it was just like someone crashing.
Burton's Religious Upbringing and Youth Group Memories
00:08:02
Speaker
Uh, and then my buddy who I'm no longer friends with, uh, so I don't feel like I care if I just name drop a first name, Zach, he was a Liberty university guy that I was really close with.
00:08:14
Speaker
And, uh, he crashed on my couch for our couch for a couple months for a month before he moved in with another mutual friend. That was the weirdest pairing of people living together. ever I don't know how they did not kill each other.
00:08:28
Speaker
um Well, I mean, at that age, you kind of just have to do what you have to do. If you're, when you're in your, your mid twenties and you don't have a lot of money and you're trying to figure it out in the city, you kind of just have to, you have to roll with it and make it work.
00:08:41
Speaker
Yeah. And ironically, um, this old friend of mine who was, so the guy that he lived with was kind of just a very conservative, this, we all went to church together. I've talked about the church that we went to, uh, uh,
00:08:54
Speaker
but not for a while. Um, and so we all went to church together and my friend who was crashing on my couch moved in with a very like pastoral type, conservative Christian guy. And, um, the irony is my buddy, Zach, I apparently, I haven't talked to him in probably 10 years, but he's a missionary or some shit. Oh, he's, I did not know that. It was just so wild that that's the direction he took. I'm like, ah, some people are just late bloomers for bad theology. It's okay.
00:09:20
Speaker
Yeah. The Lord works in mysterious ways. He still does. Well, unresolved, uh, like feelings towards this guy. Oh, I certainly do. I could get into that, but that maybe we don't need to. I do have some unresolved feelings. I, uh,
00:09:35
Speaker
of
00:09:38
Speaker
It's fine. Anyway, All right. ah All right. Let's get into your story. um Let's get the let's we'll start with where you grew up. Obviously, we'll lead into how you ended up in Boston. And but wi what area of the country do you grow up and what brand of Christianity did you grow up in?
00:09:57
Speaker
Yeah, so I grew up in Nevada. um My sister and I were born in California. And when I was still pretty young, our family relocated to a small town in Nevada outside Las Vegas. It's called Boulder City, not to be confused with Boulder, Colorado, which a lot of people think that's what I'm referring to even after I say the words Boulder City, Nevada.
00:10:19
Speaker
and It's not Boulder, Colorado. It's the town that built Hoover Dam, a very small town that was built from the ground up for the workers. to do Small town, big dam, and they won't let you forget it.
00:10:32
Speaker
But that's where all the workers lived who built the dam. um And it was actually built to be a temporary town. It was built to be torn down after the project was done. But after all these people had moved there and relocated, brought their families, they just said we kind of liked it and they all wanted to stay. So the town ended up just sticking around, but even though it's was pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
00:10:54
Speaker
what What was the they built a temporary town to build the dam? What's the point of a temporary town? ah To put all the people in that were that needed to be in close proximity to the dam while they were building it.
00:11:06
Speaker
Pretty novel. kind So all the all the houses were I mean, they were very like cheap, like basically cardboard houses. ah um And then they built like a a movie theater and other services. But it was just I mean, it was so much in the middle of nowhere that it was it was really designed to just be temporary.
00:11:23
Speaker
was a perfect plan because when the reservoir flooded, everybody drowned and they just got to start fresh with. Nice, clean real estate. Exactly. And there actually was a town that was flooded when they built the dam and and filled in the lake. um All those people had to relocate.
00:11:39
Speaker
And that city, that town has since resurfaced because the lake level is so low, Lake Mead. But anyway, i digress. We could talk about the history of Hoover Dam forever, but that's probably a different podcast.
00:11:52
Speaker
um And those podcasts are out there for those who are interested. um But anyway, so we moved to Boulder City, but shortly after we moved to Boulder City, um our parents got divorced. And so our dad left Boulder City and went more into the Las Vegas side, which was kind of over the hill and about 30 minutes to an hour away, depending on what part of town. And so we my sister and I went back and forth. We spent the weekdays and went to school out in Boulder City.
00:12:20
Speaker
And then on weekends, we went out to our dad's house. um My dad remarried, and so... My dad and stepmom were the two who who kind of pushed to keep raising us in the church. So on weekends, we went to church.
00:12:33
Speaker
um And then in high school, I started going to ah youth group in Boulder City during the weekdays when I was home um at our mom's house, just because that youth group had you know more of the friends from the school that I went to and just the town that I lived in.
00:12:50
Speaker
But your mom wasn't particularly religious? she didn't She didn't really keep going to church too much after the divorce. and So your father truly was the spiritual leader of the family is what you're saying?
00:13:01
Speaker
Well, yeah yes. so Really, though, I mean, my stepmom was was ah a big catalyst. So when they got remarried... It was within a few months that you know I was going to sleep one night and she came into my bedroom and so I was like six years old and she said, all right, it's time to get on your knees and accept Jesus into your heart.
00:13:21
Speaker
Repeat this prayer after me. I mean, and it was just like clockwork. Like we said the prayer and we all started going back to church and um and and that was kind of that. So. both of the churches, the one that we primarily went to out in Vegas, that was a ah kind of a big Baptist church. And then back in Boulder City, when I started going to youth group in Boulder City, that was also a Baptist church, um both you know of the conservative leaning. I don't think I really had like a ah concept of types of churches at the time besides like the names on them. I didn't have any kind of grasp of theology. It was just
00:13:57
Speaker
where we went or where my friends went. yeah um But ever since, you know, we started going and went to Sunday school every week, ah pretty much all the way through, i was there all the time.
00:14:09
Speaker
Church camp, Sunday school, youth group, everything. I pretty much did it all. When you started, when you started finding a church, um when you were with your, like, was your mom like, oh what he oh, okay. I guess that's good for you.
00:14:24
Speaker
Like, was there any weirdness about that? No, um no, she was supportive of whatever we wanted to do. My sister had started going to that church um prior. It was, you know, they had like a Sunday night and a weeknight youth group and sometimes they met in people's houses. So she had friends there and,
00:14:44
Speaker
um You know, even though it was a conservative church, that one in Boulder City, um we had a really great youth pastor who ah most of what I remember, the sermons and the preaching was a lot about, you know, relationships, having good relationships, having positive friendships. We did trips together.
00:15:04
Speaker
the The more like conservative messaging that I remember came from the church out in Vegas,
Conservative Culture: Teachings and Influences
00:15:11
Speaker
um our my youth group in Boulder City. I have a lot of very positive memories from um and fun and wild youth hurt memories as well.
00:15:20
Speaker
It's nice and all, but like, how did you, how, how's a guy supposed to know what he should feel ashamed of? Well, the the feelings of shame came from the Dr. Dobson cassette tapes that my dad would play me.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah. we love dobson b We love Dr. Dobson. We took a we took a ah family road trip to the Focus on the Family Headquarters in Colorado Springs when they...
00:15:48
Speaker
just built the new facility with, you know, Adventures in Odyssey. And they had this big slide and I participated in the name, the slide contest, even though I didn't win.
00:15:59
Speaker
o was name Well, I named, i wanted to name the slide, the Canyon blaster, because it was like, you had to go through all this rock work to get to like the entrance to the slide.
00:16:09
Speaker
um Like this fake kind of Disney like rock work, but the Canyon blaster was also the name of this rocker. roller coaster in Vegas at the adventure dome at circus circus. So it was like a subtle nod to like my hometown and one of my favorite roller coasters.
00:16:25
Speaker
um And I thought it was fitting for this, you know, slide in this Canyon that you come blasting out of and Colorado Springs. But, um but no, they didn't choose that name.
00:16:36
Speaker
They went with the nut blaster instead. It went with the nut blaster. it went with the sin blaster. What? It's wits bell end. why said wis bell end Exactly. Yes, exactly.
00:16:49
Speaker
So yeah, we would take, we would take my, um my dad would take me on drives and we would put in a Dr. Dobson cassette tape about, you know, puberty or some other topic and just literally sit in silence and listen to Dr. Dobson.
00:17:03
Speaker
Yeah. Blow the shame on. Yeah. Preparing for adolescence. That was the book that my, my parents gave me. It probably was just the audio version of that. That's the only thing that could make that book more uncomfortable is having to listen to it on a car trip with your dad.
00:17:20
Speaker
yeah Listening to Dobson talk about how the feet of young girls might start making you hard. is ah ah So weird.
00:17:31
Speaker
yeah And there's a little side topic. so Listening to you talk about wet dreams. now There's a little side topic called homosexuality. Now it's very rare and probably won't happen to you, but that's the really bad one.
00:17:51
Speaker
The word, it probably won't happen to you. But beware, that one's the worst. They talked about homosexuality the way they would talk about AIDS.
00:18:02
Speaker
It was just synonymous for them. Oh, yeah. well yeah i mean Very synonymous for this certain generation. This horrible thing could happen, but if you follow these like couple simple rules, you should hopefully you can avoid it.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah, and that simple rule is just be miserable. Yeah.
00:18:22
Speaker
let's ah So I don't remember. um I've only perused that book. I thankfully didn't get it. um I think, Casey, I think it was, you i think you said your parents just kind of like threw it to you and moved on, right? Was that you?
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. They did just a handoff like like ah Russian spies in like the It was like, burn this after reading it. He did this awkward handshake where he placed it, tried to place it in your hand, like unnoticeably. palmed it to me. This is for you, son.
00:18:58
Speaker
Use wisely. we will never speak of this again. Pretty much. That's about it. i And then there's, a you know, i did you guys watch... um Why am I blanking on the name?
00:19:11
Speaker
the that ah That Netflix cartoon about going through puberty. um Oh, Big Mouth? Yeah, Big Mouth. I didn't watch that. Well, the dad it's like that the dad one of the dads and is just the opposite of everything we grew up in. When he's just like, well, now we'll just talk about everything. Let's be super open about it. It's Fred Armisen plays him. And he's just like, we'll talk to him about sex and masturbation and all this stuff. And you're just like...
00:19:38
Speaker
it's the It's the equally uncomfortable opposite of what we grew up with, where you're like, that's absolutely not the direction that I want. But that's the direction I'm going with my children. That's why I'm bringing it up.
00:19:48
Speaker
I'm going to Just doors wide open. yeah I'm going to literally when you two are, you know. Yeah. No, ah we we we ever since I heard about shla ba Shia Shia LaBeouf, I feel like he said something about his parents would just kind of like have sex around the house whenever they wanted.
00:20:07
Speaker
And he would just have to deal with it. That's not a red flag. I heard that and I go, that sounds like great parenting. And I really took that to heart. That's why he's such a stable individual now. Yes, right. That that worked out very well.
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah. yeah But our, um so our, our I was trying to think through like some memories to share from kind of the different church flavors of growing up. And and you had two flavors. I did. had two flavors. Just shy of Neapolitan.
00:20:37
Speaker
um yeah what's the what's the what's a two flavor ice cream i don't know like a strawberries vanilla twist yeah it's exactly it it's ah it's a it's a it's a twist it's a twirl or a creamsicle dude you got that creamsicle i i got i got that creamsicle right here baby you ready that's terrifying um so for the church in vegas um between my my fifth grade and my sixth grade, and in Nevada, sixth grade is middle school. So like fifth to sixth is kind of your your bridge summer where you graduate from like elementary to middle school.
00:21:15
Speaker
And so after your fifth grade school year ends is when you get to go to the middle school, Sunday school class. And so I was 10 years old starting off my birthdays later on in the summer. was 10 years old starting off in the middle school, Sunday school class and the summer Bible series that summer was the book of Revelation, which was absolute classic for 10 years old. That's so good. that's And so so they brought in like a guest speaker for this for that summer series.
Youth Group Dramatics and Evangelical Music
00:21:46
Speaker
And it was like our friend's dad. Casey loves church guest speakers more than anything.
00:21:51
Speaker
It was our, it was like our, our friend's dad who was like, like, ah like a fire and brimstone in his eyes, like excited about the rapture. And so the, the first day of the revelation study, he comes into class with a boom box on his shoulder and it's,
00:22:11
Speaker
playing the DC talk song, I wish we'd all been ready. he like struts around the classroom with the boom box, like looking at everybody as the song is playing.
00:22:22
Speaker
And he had like this kind of like Orange County, like surfer vibe. Like he had like, you know, like cool, like couple tattoos, like he's the cool guy. um and so we were listening to this song, like what the hell is this? Like, you know, do you do two know that song?
00:22:41
Speaker
I'm trying to replay. I know I know it. you You know DC Talk, right? Of course. Yes. so I wasn't familiar with it. actually i missed them. I know them better now from doing this over the past four years than I ever did growing up.
00:22:55
Speaker
Oh, so I was. So they some of their songs, like I still sometimes go back. And listen to the Jesus freak album just for the nostalgia of it. Because what I've listened to really liked that album, even though it's, it's like from that era of a certain brand of Christianity. too.
00:23:11
Speaker
um But they they had this other song. I don't know what album it was from, but it was called, I wish we'd all been ready. And it was about the rapture.
00:23:22
Speaker
And it was just like going through all these vignettes of people who, you know, one was a Christian and so they got raptured and then the other person didn't. So it's like, you know, a man and wife asleep in bed. She hears a noise and turns her head. He's gone.
00:23:38
Speaker
I wish we'd all been ready. um And then it gets into like the tribulations, like a piece of bread is worth a bag of gold. Like, so I'm like sitting there. I'm like, what the hell? Like, okay, so people are going to disappear.
00:23:52
Speaker
We can't afford food, whatever. And so anyway, that was kind of the start of that. I'm going to go back to listening to Youth of the Nation by P.O.D. P.O.D. can go wrong. Rocking out to some P.O.D., Sam. Oh, I definitely did.
00:24:07
Speaker
It's like that has that same narrative vibe, but instead they leave with things a little more open ended. So there's still some room for like some thought activity. Yeah, they put the onus on the individual to think through it in a way.
00:24:20
Speaker
that So that's somewhat non-evangelical if you think about it. It's not. It was bold. It was brave of them, really. And it was actually my dad's biggest criticism when he decided to listen to the music that I had.
00:24:32
Speaker
It was like, oh, I don't. he I remember my dad. A little little too liberal here. I remember him pointing out that he was like disappointed. Well, they don't really tell you what the, they don't really tell you what the hope or the reason is.
00:24:44
Speaker
And I'm like, it's kind of. It's implied. Being implied is not enough. It's not enough. has It's never enough. that There's never been a more on the nose group of people than evangelical. The gospel message must be made clear.
00:24:57
Speaker
And, uh, but I'm like, well, if you listen to the rest of the album, it's like, well, but what if what, what if that person only hears that one song? I'm like, what if that person only reads one Bible verse? Was that Bible verse on the nose enough?
00:25:10
Speaker
we first have that We used to have that argument in ah and my first year at Liberty. it was like like, what book could get you saved if you lived on a desert island and never heard the gospel and it washed up? like Could you be saved if you got Lamentations?
00:25:26
Speaker
I don't know. is that enough? would It would have to be one of the gospels, I think. It would have to be. Otherwise, you are fucked. I think most of the books in the Bible you throw back into the ocean. Yeah.
00:25:39
Speaker
So... that That same summer, though, after the book well coinciding with our Book of Revelation Sunday school experience, ah my dad went to the church video library and checked out the 1970s versions of A Thief in the Night and a Distant Thunder, which were the the rapture movies from the 70s. Have you either of you two seen those?
00:26:02
Speaker
I've only seen clips. We actually haven't sat down to watch them. i the The clips I've seen, it's like the campiest shit. honor Well, it's very campy and also insane. And so what happens is when they don't take the mark of the beast, there's this huge reveal and it's a giant bloody guillotine.
00:26:21
Speaker
And so people start to get their heads chopped off. And so keep in mind, like I'm still 10 years old here, like watching this is our summer movie series at the house to follow up with our, you know, our summer, um,
00:26:34
Speaker
Sunday school series at church. So that was pretty well traumatizing for me. I didn't i couldn't even like open the book of Revelation for another 10 years. It wasn't until my sophomore year in college where I even would open the book of Revelation and look at it again. And then I finally reread it Um, but I mean that, that stuff
Evangelical Culture and Modern Parallels
00:26:53
Speaker
scarred me. Um, and I still, to this day, I don't know why they thought teaching 10 year olds, that book was, you know, the move, but anyway, have scare young cause that's where you get the best level of compliance and it worked on me. Exactly. It's that like scared straight mentality.
00:27:08
Speaker
Absolutely. It's basically like, uh, like that guy uh, Like he got into that in the same way that people there's like those people that like, I like horror movies is their entire personality.
00:27:23
Speaker
Like they've got a, they've got an old school Frankenstein and, and ah you know, mummy tattoo on their arm. And they tell you all the time about how they love black and white horror movies or whatever. And you're like, I just, I'm happy for you. I don't care.
00:27:37
Speaker
ah Maybe, and they maybe don't thrust that upon 10 year olds. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you keep the the topic, the topic, you know, in mind. it It is weird that like that's what like there is a big segment of people and in church like during our like our time period there that.
00:27:57
Speaker
End time stuff was like what they lived for. That was like all they wanted to talk about and they couldn't shut up about it. Like they wanted that all the time. Every Sunday school class had to tie into it. Like every message had to have something about that that wrapped back into it.
00:28:16
Speaker
When finding out that like the whole idea of like the rapture is like 150 years old is yeah oh so jarring. Right. Crazy to me that that's the case because that was just fact, you know, well, every younger it's that same kind of motivation of like QAnon stuff where it's just this desire for insider information. And you think that you've been given some key for special interpretation that you're special and other people didn't get. And you now are the one that have, have the eyes to see, you know, and that is very, very exciting for, for people, you know, and, and it, it co-ops a certain type of mind.
00:28:57
Speaker
um and and it's, a I mean, even, even now, I mean, even people, I remember when, You know, in the 2016 election, seeing people tie that to end time stuff and saying this is a prophecy that must come true. This is exciting.
00:29:11
Speaker
He's like a ah Daniel, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, it's just it's it's crazy. He who has an ear, let him hear about the kennels underneath Comet Ping Pong.
00:29:23
Speaker
yeah yes Yes. Yes. It's just, it's, it's interesting to see the direction of, of things given the world that we grew up in and how susceptible the people are to it. Like it, because like once you're primed for magical thinking like that, it's just like, I mean, our entire lives were like, well, we know that's what science says, but science is wrong. Science says that the earth is billions of years. old Like we've literally, we were primed we to believe that,
00:29:52
Speaker
that you can only trust people within your in group that somehow have the correct knowledge. Right. Despite the fact that we never heard like the sources or information that they're grappling with and why we should trust those as well. It just like, well, they're on stage.
00:30:09
Speaker
Right. They're just exactly. They're on stage. Oh yeah. That guy's right. Well, my pastor says, I understand that this guy would 17 PhDs is telling me that they're Cape Cod, Massachusetts is going to be underwater in a decade. But this guy over here who went to Bible college and has been a Christian since he was two.
00:30:28
Speaker
And, you know, i kind of believe that guy. It's like we're just... what else? mean, yeah, you're just given that, that paradigm of just like, oh yeah, we can't trust these people who do know things. So we're going to just, you know, if you sit here on a Sunday morning and your pastor says that you're like, oh, cool cool cool, cool, cool, cool. This is great. Yeah. Well, I mean, if, if you set like the, the number one most important thing is that scripture is the inerrant infallible word of God, like that that becomes the the biggest litmus test for anything. So if science doesn't fit with that, then you throw out the science, you know, and and you just keep reiterating that it doesn't matter what comes our way.
00:31:10
Speaker
We are going to say that scripture is the infallible and inerrant word of God. And so it doesn't really matter what else happens. Insofar as we understand it too, which is the hilarious. 100%, 100%. an entire self-referential cycle. Yes, yeah.
00:31:27
Speaker
Because circulatory reasoning works because circulatory reasoning works because circulatory reasoning works. Because it works. Yeah. You think, uh, it, It is interesting that like that, that end times cycle that like frantic, you know, obsessing over end time stuff.
00:31:46
Speaker
It has, it does have so many parallels to like Q and on conspiracy theory circles and stuff, because like, I mean, what it comes down to is because it's, it's way more entertaining than, know, reading the sermon on the mountain or thinking about, you know, how this would affect your relationship with your brother you know or youre Or your mom or whatever.
00:32:08
Speaker
And I wonder if anybody ever like confronts these people, like anybody close to them ever confronts them with the idea that like, you know, why is it that you can't find anything meaningful to dwell on in like these like less...
00:32:23
Speaker
you know, bizarre and like outlandish portions of scripture that have more to do with your daily life. Like, is this too boring for you that you have to, you have to be watching the sci-fi channel all the time. Like there's gotta be some dopamine rewarding going on there too.
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. It's, it's, a yeah, the, but it must light up the brain and some pleasure center. When we think of the Mark of the Beast that they're that we're all so worried about.
00:32:54
Speaker
Speaking of lighting up the brain. Yeah. And our current zeitgeist. I'm fizzling right now. there's this I was recently presented with, let's call it a ah comedic form of irony by my father when he brought up Neuralink. Yeah.
00:33:15
Speaker
And how like, oh, they want to put, but they want to put computer chips in people's brains to do X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, they it' so I love, I love where we're at now in the discourse with right-wing evangelicals, because on one hand, they're like, the they really like this Musk guy.
00:33:32
Speaker
And on the other hand, the thing that he's also doing is what they've conflated with the Mark of the Beast for the last 20 years of my life. It's like if if John the Baptist wanted to carve 666 into your forehead.
00:33:44
Speaker
Right. Exactly.
00:33:50
Speaker
But so this guy comes in with the boom box and all this where you like it ah playing, a playing some DC
Positive Social Aspects of Youth Groups
00:33:56
Speaker
talk. You become an instant DC talk fan. ah You're now worried about your whether or not you have the potential to be demon possessed or go through the worst tribulation of 10 years old. Wondering where your next meal is coming from.
00:34:10
Speaker
if you Whether or not i'm going to get the guillotine. Yeah. Wondering whether or not maybe like a lot of us, like if you'll die a virgin, um you know, all these things come into your mind.
00:34:22
Speaker
How does that how does it impact you? I mean, i was such an anxious kid already. I mean, this just added more into the mix of things for me to be worried about, um you know, but I I still liked church. I mean, there there wasn't really a moment in my childhood where I was ever thinking consciously that I don't like this, you know, I enjoyed it. i I loved having my church friends, my youth group friends.
00:34:50
Speaker
I loved having, you know, getting to go. I didn't like, I didn't like going to big church of course, and sitting through the boring ass sermons, but I liked going to Sunday school. I liked going to camp.
00:35:01
Speaker
Um, And then once, you know, ah a couple years later, once I found my my youth group um back in Boulder City with, you know, it was a much smaller church. were only about 10 of us in the youth group.
00:35:13
Speaker
that That was really, you know, a lot more exciting for me. And it it kind of became one of my, like, social hubs. um Yeah. You know, where it was, I mean, are our youth leader, you know, he did sermons and we did Bible studies.
00:35:29
Speaker
um But I don't remember us sitting around talking about like traumatizing theology, you know, like I do from from the other church or then, you know, later on in in college years. And at that point, I wasn't really open about my sexuality. I hadn't really figured much of that out yet.
00:35:45
Speaker
So that wasn't really in the mix. So, you know, throughout high school, it was just enjoying the social life and, you know, feeling connected to the church and the youth group.
00:35:57
Speaker
And our our youth leader, he did basically all of our camps and stuff in-house. So he planned all of our own trips. So in the summer, we would go to California and we would do like Disneyland or we would do um the San Diego Zoo.
00:36:13
Speaker
we would do a mission trip down to Mexico. And we weren't like preaching and doing street evangelism. We were like, we had a church that we partnered with and we did like painting and projects and just, it was a really fun trip.
00:36:25
Speaker
um And then we also did, like an annual road trip, which was called Destination Unknown, where it was like a scavenger hunt and it was two nights long and we would get in the church van and we would have to follow these clues.
00:36:38
Speaker
And his wife would go ahead and like plant the clues. This was like hundreds of miles long. We were like out in the middle of nowhere doing these crazy um scavenger hunts. And one of, I think the most hilarious things that happened now at the time it was,
00:36:55
Speaker
a bit jarring, but um one of the years that kind of just went in like one direction from town, like north or east or whatever, and figuring out the clues from there. And he would plan it all. But this one particular year, we went more towards l LA, which is I-15, if anyone's ever driven between Vegas and LA. I currently live in Vegas. And um at the time that's where we were living um out in Boulder city. And so basically it's just the interstate and then a series of like exits that go down like dirt roads by dilapidated ranches and stuff like that.
00:37:31
Speaker
And so, you know, the clues would lead to like different roads. And so, we were following this one clue and we went down this road off of the interstate and it was a dirt road that was lined with like all of these like tires that were like halfway buried.
00:37:48
Speaker
So they kind of created just like this, this like, road tire barrier. It's like very middle of nowhere, like someone's ranch driveway architecture, you know what I mean? Like making it out of old tires.
00:38:01
Speaker
And so we were convinced that the next clue was hidden inside one of these tires. And so my friend and I jumped out of the van and We were like, okay, you take that side of the road, you take that side of the road, and we'll check inside each of these tires. So we're <unk> running down the road, looking in each one, and I reach inside one of these ah tires, and i I feel this paper bag, and I'm like, okay, this has to be our next clue. So I pull out this like paper grocery bag, and i run it back to the van.
00:38:29
Speaker
Um, and I, everyone's like crowding around the van. I put it like in, inside the, um, you know, the double doors and like, I, my youth pastors giving this look like, okay, what is in this bag? Like, i don't if this is a clue, but I'm like, well, I found it where the clue is supposed to be.
00:38:46
Speaker
I rip it open and it's like a full stack of gay porn magazines. and It's Christmas morning. and and, ah and, ah and a plug in vagina.
00:39:02
Speaker
And so I just look up and like everyone's, everyone was just looking in shock and I just close the bag immediately. And I slowly back away and like shove it back up in one of the tires.
00:39:14
Speaker
And we keep looking. new Nobody ever spoke of it again. We never discussed it. And it was like, but for me, it was like, whoa what are these that was at the beginning of your sexual awakening that oh that that was the beginning and the end that is incredible i mean of all the odds if if you if you're a christian the only possible plausible option is that god was leading you to those magazines that that really was the that's the will of the god that i believe in yeah
00:39:47
Speaker
okay That God's like this guy. Look, he's not going to get here on his own. He's not going to. So like yeah we're going to help him out. It's dude. That is, I mean, of all the tires in the end of of all the time of all the miles.
00:40:03
Speaker
ah That's incredible. Bless the broken road.
00:40:12
Speaker
So that was that was some good family wholesome fun. Did you did you tell anybody about that? Was that like a thing that you brought up or was that like not until not until like years, years later? I mean, i like I couldn't speak those words like gay porn magazine, like those three words like those could not come out of my mouth, you know, for years. Have you ever thought about going back to that tire to see if it's still there?
00:40:37
Speaker
I have. yeah Because i've I drive that all all the time. Because when I was working back and forth between California, I mean, I drove that stretch of road 20 times a year. But thanks to global warming, the desert heat is so unbearable now. You can't even be outside in it. So it's never even been worth it for me to try to you know tolerate the temperatures.
00:40:57
Speaker
It's like 125 degrees out there. and also, I don't have to go through those lengths anymore to access those types of resources. So... I just want to know, like, if like, because at that point, like, it it probably stands to reason that whoever was hiding them there was hiding them for a good reason.
00:41:20
Speaker
Maybe he didn't want to get ostracized from his family and community. um You know, it could have been a woman who just, you know, maybe she liked gay porn. A lot of options, but i want I want to know the person behind the bag of gay porn.
00:41:36
Speaker
Oh yeah. What would she do? at Maybe. Yeah, you that's true. i forgot about the plug and vagina. um Don't forget about that. That's what or can you explain explain story? what How big was this plug in vagina?
00:41:48
Speaker
It was like, did it look like a torso? Well, it was a brown bag. It wasn't a full, it wasn't a good flesh or so because it, no, it was bigger than that. It was like a, like a brown bag from the grocery store, not like a lunch bag.
00:42:01
Speaker
Okay. A grocery store bag, but it wasn't a torso. It was like, just like, like, you know, cheeks and hole. Okay. know, 12, 12 inches wide.
00:42:12
Speaker
so you know twelve twelve inches wide ah I never got that. Not sure how those sell. Like somebody's just got like a little tiny butt that they have in their bedroom. I know the rubber butts is, uh, I remember it's all too.
00:42:31
Speaker
A buddy of mine when I, when I was at Liberty, um, He talked about, he was with a ah Liberty group. I cannot remember the name of it.
00:42:42
Speaker
But it was like a traveling singing group. um And he but I remember him telling ah a story about how they stayed at a place where they were, you know, nosy teenagers, whatever, or 18 19 years old and they found they found a like a rubber butt in somebody's closet and it's just so you oh shit and you put it back and you're like we're not talking about this awkward but um but yeah it's like what what I I wish I could have had something that special I feel like when you find i know when you and you were a youth you wish you could have a plug-in awkward yes of course um that could have changed my life
00:43:22
Speaker
So how long is the cord on this plugin? I mean, like, do I to do a full examination? Yeah, I didn't do a full examination. Like I said, I ripped open the bag. I saw the goods. I looked up at the 12 faces of shock and awe, closed the bag and ran it back to the tires.
00:43:41
Speaker
It was a hope it was just long enough to engage in autoerotic asphyxiation with the, uh, 12 kids self strangled in the desert.
00:43:52
Speaker
If you had to guess out of all those kids, you saw the shock and awe that, that, that full George Bush campaign. Did they, uh, was there one of them where you would have been like, if you could think back on their faces, were like, Oh, I bet he might've been a little gay. Yeah.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah, the one who ripped open the bag. Tearing it apart. No, that was me. Then the little boy was me um No, but actually on that on that note, I do have a funny story because not not too far from that dirt road where the tire gate happened was the um was the agricultural check stand between California and Nevada. And every time that you drove and you still do, you have to pass through the agricultural check stand. And if there's any you know insects that they're trying to mitigate the spread of or any any other potential
00:44:49
Speaker
agricultural issues, they stop and they'll search your vehicles or whatever. um Trucks have to get searched. And they don't really stop you anymore. But back in the day, they would stop you every single car.
00:45:00
Speaker
And they would say, do you have any fruit? And our youth pastor would always turn around and say, just Josh. And Point this kid named Josh. That is such a classic youth pastor gay joke. Yes.
00:45:16
Speaker
um And yeah, he's a cop now. Oh, good. ah The youth pastor or Josh? Josh. i think I think he's a cop. I think he's still a cop. It's been a while since I had any any communication with him.
00:45:31
Speaker
I wonder if that's how the rubber butt ended up in the tire. A was like, ah guy was like Maybe with these avocados, but there's no way i'm smuggling this butt through customs. right Yeah, right. Exactly. They're like, ah yeah, I'll disclose my fruit, but I cannot disclose this.
00:45:50
Speaker
Dude, or like having to shove a rubber butt into your butt to sneak it past the border. right Right. Border patrol. Fruit borders. Yeah. Yeah, the ultimate irony. i I fucked my ass with a vagina to get this over. Anal inception.
00:46:12
Speaker
And inside the vagina were the avocados. The horoborus. Wow. wow Okay, this really took a turn. it sure did. ah So, you enjoyed your youth group days. Yeah. Oh, yeah. stories. I was such a youth group kid. I loved it.
00:46:29
Speaker
You were like a... ah like I mean, you were all in as um as a youth group lad, like we were. ah Your college years start approaching. Are you considering Christian college?
College Life and Christian Club Experience
00:46:43
Speaker
No. um I really didn't... I didn't really... Think of many options besides state school. I went to a public state school in Nevada. We have two schools, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and then Reno.
00:46:56
Speaker
um There's a few more smaller ones now, but at the time, that's pretty much what we had. And if you wanted to... have the like leaving home experience. You had to go to the one that wasn't in your town. So if you wanted to leave Vegas, you had to go to Reno. If you wanted to leave Reno, you had to go to Vegas. And those are like the only two cities in Nevada besides like the small towns.
00:47:16
Speaker
So I went to Reno. how far is Reno from Vegas? It's an eight hour drive. Okay. And there's still, you know, four more hours north in Reno um ah Nevada. What are you laughing at, Casey? Yeah.
00:47:30
Speaker
I just can't. Every time I think of Reno, there's this clip from top here where James May's like walking out of a casino at like four in the morning in Reno. And he just like, he just goes, Reno, what a toilet.
00:47:47
Speaker
Well, and Reno is an interesting place. It's very interesting place. It's gone through, you know, different phases over the years. Um, But it was a good place to go to college. But, you know, that's that's where i I really, really went all in I joined very, very conservative Christian club pretty much on day one of college. And, you know, the rest was history.
00:48:10
Speaker
You know, that was... What was the... Was there name for it? It was InterVarsity. was the club that I was that's right i remember it too you know there's I'm trying to remember that the conservative Christian club there's also like crusade oh that's what I did yeah I joined I started that I joined in with the campus crusade um it turned out the guy who was leading our campus crusade ended up having serious uh drug addiction problems oh geez things went South ah pretty quickly. And then I think they approached my brother to head it up for a minute, which was hilarious because I think he was like um some sort of sleeper agent with it because he I don't think he did.
00:48:55
Speaker
I don't think he was even really a Christian at the time, but I think he was just like, I'll do it. And I think he spent... Oh, he I think he spent... i have to often check in with him. I don't know why I haven't had my brother on the podcast yet. I feel like that doesn't even make sense. it's We talked about it forever ago, but there's enough where I like...
00:49:11
Speaker
ah that I don't even know about some of his interactions with the faith because I was in denial. that was I was so conservative, like an in it that I'm like, as soon as he started, I started but thinking he might not be. I like, I went full denial. I was like, yep Oh, like,
00:49:28
Speaker
No, that's probably not. I remember trying to talk to him about it And like, I would little, you know, you, when you drop those little like quips to see how they respond. So that way you can confirm for yourself that yeah things are still good.
00:49:42
Speaker
Yep. um I did that all the time with him. And, but yeah, I think he did. like I think he did it for a semester. That would be an interesting conversation. ah While he wasn't really a Christian, but they thought he was. Yeah.
00:49:55
Speaker
But he he is such an interesting interesting he's an interesting guy to the point where, like, he just wants people to intellectually engage with their thoughts to the point where, like, he probably would have done it well and not antagonistically. I think he would have yeah approached it from a Christian perspective and just tried to get people to fucking have like some cognition about it.
00:50:18
Speaker
Yeah. or some meaningful conversation. yeah But navigators. um Oh, yes, that's another one. navigate it what and you and you did yeah intervarsity intervarsity yep um what was it was that uh was that so you said it was really conservative was that not as fun as the uh youth group you came out of no it it was very fun i mean i was still very much all in and and in college that was a huge part of my social life. Um, I mean, part of it also is that, you know, these are organizations that give you a fully pre-packaged social life and that's really attractive and appealing.
Struggles with Sexuality and Faith
00:51:00
Speaker
that's such a huge, dude, that, I mean, that's a huge point. Yeah. You get friends, you, you get like the culture is kind of prescribed for you. So, you know, you know, kind of how to like behave, not in like a negative way, but it's,
00:51:15
Speaker
you know, it it it's like a whole prepackaged deal. And so, you know, if even though there are like, there is like this kind of behavior contract side, but you have trips that you take together, you have annual traditions that you do together, you have ways of relating to each other, you know, that can you can build upon and grow. So there are a lot of things about it that are very powerful and meaningful.
00:51:39
Speaker
um But you know, my freshman year of college was when I was also starting to um you know, grapple with my own sexuality in any, you know, meaningful way and really trying to figure that out. And so I had come out to some of my high school friends ah that, you know, weren't really in my youth group and had just up until that point, really kind of just compartmentalized.
00:52:01
Speaker
yeah I had my friends who knew that I was gay. I had my youth group and and I was kind of fine to leave it at that. But going to college and, you know, now being more away from home and out on my own, I wanted to try to start to figure some of that out. And so i started to share with some of my Christian club leaders about that, but it was more in like the confessional type way. Like I want to confess this thing about me. I i think it's bad probably, you know, and so they kind of sourced some books and gave those to me.
00:52:32
Speaker
um And this is early 2000s where, you know, it was like the Exodus kind of movement, the ex-gay type. ministries were really big and publishing a lot of books. Now, 20 something years later, a lot of those people have since either, you know, resigned in disgrace or have gone back to having, you know, being in gay relationships and all, most of those ministries have dissolved.
00:52:55
Speaker
But at the time, you know, the literature, you know, had these very oversimplified um and in some ways, like dangerous lines of thinking about how to understand homosexuality, basically saying,
00:53:09
Speaker
you know, well, this happened to you because of, you know, broken relationships with, you know, your same sex. And so now you're seeking that out in an unhealthy way with people.
00:53:21
Speaker
um You know, such an irony to that, too, because like how many of us had great relationships with our dad? Exactly. Right. Exactly. There's people there are gay people who have fantastic relationships with their with their same sex parents or you know, whatever, you have every possible combination. it it doesn't, it doesn't dictate what's going to happen later on down the road. But, you know, then these books also would say things like, you know, it's thematically related to cannibalism, where homosexuality is like trying to like ingest the characteristics of your same sex. I've never heard You don't feel like,
00:53:58
Speaker
you have. So you're trying to fill a hole or avoid inside yourself. So a lot of this stuff was really fucked up literature. Also, I bet all those dudes like getting blowjobs from women. So what's the cannibalistic side of it?
00:54:10
Speaker
but Exactly. um Exactly. um I mean, all all of it is is total nonsense. That's crazy. um But, you know, the other thing was a lot of the Christian leaders who who weren't gay and who were just the ministry leaders or the church leaders, they weren't reading these books. They just had these books on the shelves and they just gave them to people when that was the topic that came up.
00:54:35
Speaker
And so a lot of really crazy shit was spreading around. and And a lot of that took me a long time to unpack. But anyway, but at the time, you know, being like an 18, 19 and 20 year old, and that's when, you know, your brain is still brain still has the capacity to absorb information. Like it it it did provide a lens for me that even though i believe is the wrong lens now, like at the time, it was kind of this, again, like insider information. It was a new type of interpretation for me that I felt like helped me. And so it kind of like reignited my faith. I had ah something to be excited about. Like, okay, the gospel can now...
00:55:15
Speaker
fulfill in me what you know homosexuality never could, because that is a path of emptiness, whereas the gospel is a path of fulfillness. And I'm saying this just as a way to describe what the theology was at the time, not to say what I think it actually is.
00:55:32
Speaker
um So anyway, so i i kind of and got really, like again, reinvigorated and intervarsity. I kind of became like in our our campus ministry, like a poster child for this issue. I was propped up a lot to kind of share my testimony publicly, churches, things like that, different, ah have multiple churches that had me to like speak about it.
00:55:56
Speaker
um oh And so I was like getting a lot of like, quote unquote, attention for it, which was exciting. And so all of this positive reinforcement in this very conservative bubble, um you know, just, it felt like the right thing at the time.
00:56:12
Speaker
But deep down, I mean, i i all of my friends were having romantic relationships, having partners, getting married, starting their lives. And I wasn't. And I was just the one you know who had this this secret story or whatever. And i don't know. that That kind of dried up.
00:56:30
Speaker
it gets It's weird when like... When you become like once you become the guy for that thing, too. Right. Like, yes, you have to like keep playing into a narrative that even if you like even if you didn't change your mind and you're like, I just don't want to be this excited about my celibacy for the rest of my life. Like, I don't want to just write be that guy like I love.
00:56:54
Speaker
not love talking about not doing this yeah it's like to have to show up and do that all the time like you it uh once you start like becoming the representation for that it's like uh how do i just like be how do i just have a fucking normal life um and just not not because it puts you on a sort of pedestal where you have to do this like above like the classic christian language of like above reproach life right yeah Like, you know, I don't think anyone would think this ah intentionally. Maybe maybe they could subconsciously. But like, you know, every other Christian has that has the ability to be able to fuck up and apologize.
00:57:35
Speaker
And you right you weren't really afforded that being when you're the. Yeah, I mean, later, later. Well, and and even though it did, it did kind of dry up. I mean, that wasn't.
00:57:46
Speaker
till a while down down the road. i mean, I continued to double down multiple times. um But at this, because eventually went to seminary and at the seminary, I mean, if you engaged in a homosexual activity, quote unquote, and it came to light either by someone telling about that or, you know, you confessing it. I mean, you were out, you packed your bags and that happened to people at the school, um you know, but I mean, but if you had sex with your girlfriend, exactly right. You were fine.
00:58:17
Speaker
And right. That or, or worse, I mean, financial crimes, like in churches, all this different stuff, like mismanagement, you know, all these different things, all of that was fine. But well, because we all grew up being told all sin was equal.
00:58:32
Speaker
We all did that. That is a conservative Christian thing, brother. You can make more money. All right. But you can't have your purity back. Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly.
00:58:44
Speaker
Exactly. That's it. Time heals all things except for your, your sleazy scar. But it's just crazy because I, every, the amount of, every guy that I was friends with was like, oh, I got to confess something to you. I had sex, this or that. And you're like, oh man, try not to again, i guess. Right, exactly. guess try not to.
00:59:05
Speaker
But, and we were all told all sin is equal. Like, oh God views it all the same. If you do one thing, that's why it's all filthy rags and this and that and Paul and bullshit and buth blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, Where like, and your situation was the the difference was not truth of that.
00:59:20
Speaker
Well, right. And the difference is, is because, you know, to, to quote unquote, be gay or to embrace homosexuality is to embody a competing identity.
00:59:30
Speaker
And that's where the that's the bad part, because Christianity is your identity. You've been made new in Christ. And so you can't also be homosexual. You know, if you're straight, yeah that's not a competing identity. You know, ah being a sex haver isn't an identity. It was an action that you did For, you know, a moment in time, you know, accidentally, oops, repent, but you're not, you're not perpetually, you know, having that identity identity is correct. Your actions were a misstep, but exactly. So to your identity was entirely false and incompatible with the gospel.
01:00:08
Speaker
Right. And you're Jeffrey Dahmer.
01:00:13
Speaker
Honestly, what's crazy, though, is was it was it Dobson that interviewed Dahmer? Who did he interview? Wait, I don't know about this. other. Did Ryan Murphy not do that in the show?
01:00:24
Speaker
What was it, Casey? What's it? Well, Ted Bundy. bundy Oh my gosh. Dobson interviewed Bundy and was like, well, you know, I think he's actually a Christian and things are good now. So he there's more grace for Ted Bundy than there are for gays. so Oh wait, sorry. Dobson interviewed Bundy while he was in prison?
01:00:41
Speaker
Yes. The night before he got fried. oh Well, we got him we got to give those serial killers one last chance to get into heaven. ah he obviously didn't view and ah being a necrophile as a competing identity.
01:00:55
Speaker
Nope. Nope. Just an action that, you know, he took a few moments in time. made mistake couple times. We all stumble times, or more than a couple. Jeez.
01:01:07
Speaker
We all stumble into the vaginas of dead
Reconciling Identity and Faith in Boston
01:01:10
Speaker
corpses occasionally. Just get a plug in one. Things happen. It'll save you a lot of legal trouble.
01:01:18
Speaker
And you can make some youth group trip even better. Yeah.
01:01:29
Speaker
Yes. Yes. I don't remember how you ended up in Boston. um Yeah. So ah honestly, so I went to school in Reno. i went, I stayed in Reno for a few years. i was doing social work, working for the county.
01:01:44
Speaker
And I honestly moved just to move. And, you know, I think what it was is deep down, like, even though I couldn't admit it outwardly I knew that I needed to like have a change of scenery and a new horizon to kind of start the point, start the, the path of like getting to a point where I could like be out, be happy with myself and, and get there. um,
01:02:11
Speaker
um I knew it would probably be a bit of a long road, but to set that, that in motion, I had to get out of the very, very small bubble that I was in.
01:02:23
Speaker
had you come to terms with the fact that, had you come to terms with being okay with being gay by the time you moved to Boston? And that was like a reset to try to move into like gay Christian life that worked? No, it was still like, you know, it's still, yeah.
01:02:38
Speaker
Yeah. And even at that time, you know, the language used is, you know, you shouldn't say gay because that means that you've accepted the identity. You should say you struggle with same-sex attraction.
01:02:52
Speaker
You know, that was the lingo. So SSA, you know, same-sex attraction. um Later on in seminary... more S in essay. Later on in seminary, ah we we had a segment on... um sentence structure analysis where you're you know taking the sentences and you're in Greek or Hebrew and kind of analyzing how they're structured and how that structure relates to the priority of the words and whatnot.
01:03:21
Speaker
um But the title of one of the the articles we had to read was called Dipping Our Toes in SSA. And that always cracked me up. So, you know, I had quite a few years of dipping my toes in SSA. Callback to Dobson's foot fetish theories. Right, exactly.
01:03:38
Speaker
um But, you know, even even at the time when I left Reno, i was still very much, you know, i struggle with same-sex attraction. I'm committed to God. That's my number one priority.
01:03:49
Speaker
um And so, you know, this is my cross to bear. But I just think deep down, i knew that like, that was not going to be sustainable, even though like conscious, my conscious brain couldn't say that, but like deep down in my gut, like I think my, my, my soul was like trying to move me in that direction. So, you know, even after moving to Boston still found very conservative church, that's where you and i met and, and I'm very grateful for that and very grateful for the friends that, that I made through the church. um
01:04:22
Speaker
But, you know, at that time, I did start like very briefly seeing a guy. He had lived in Maine. We were kind of doing some back and forth stuff and then just realizing like, this is so bad. I i had to end that. And that was pretty devastating.
01:04:36
Speaker
um But, you know, just doubling, doubling back down on like, you know, put your whole foot in. It's not good. What's that case? Put your whole foot in. but yeah I had to, i I did put my, put my whole foot in and um you know,
01:04:51
Speaker
Anyway, it was it it was scary, though, because because doing that, you know, thinking back to the boombox, like, I'm not going to get raptured. If I do these things, like, I'm out, you know, that's the end.
01:05:02
Speaker
um So still a lot of just fear-based, you know, decision-making, which is not a good way to make decisions. um But still, you know, participated in the conservative church. And then at at that point, um I was still very connected to InterVarsity just through my friends who worked for the organization,
01:05:20
Speaker
And so I went back to volunteer at their ah conference, which is called Urbana. It happens every three years. So I went back as an adult volunteer. um And that conference was where I, you know, feel like I quote unquote, got the call to go into full-time ministry. And I mean, and this, I mean, this is the crazy part of it all is where you have people who are like struggling so deeply with these issues that really could like,
01:05:49
Speaker
truly mess up someone's life. I mean, if I got into a straight relationship, like I could really we ruin a woman if, if I chose that road emotionally.
01:06:00
Speaker
um ah really it's not fair, but you know, you, so you have these people who are having these deep struggles. And so it's like, well, the best solution then is to go into ministry. You know, I mean, that is just crazy. And then to like project your issues on hundreds or thousands of people, you know, that's rejection is the Christian way. You should have just become Catholic.
01:06:20
Speaker
Well, celibacy. Exactly. Exactly. um So anyway, so when when I was at Urbana, um you know, and David Platt was one of the headlining speakers that year. Oh, Again, it was like a reinvigoration moment for me. And on the final night, they were doing... In hindsight, isn't David Platt the most annoying person ever?
01:06:42
Speaker
um he's but For me, he's mid-tier. Mid-tier, okay. hyper Piper is at the top. Piper is at the top. I get that. I remember doing...
01:06:54
Speaker
yeah Dude, Mark Driscoll is at the top. Oh, for sure. Because that's just like total ba bro city nonsense. ah I remember when did I go to this?
01:07:05
Speaker
David did you go to Urbana David no was it David Platt and Francis Chan teamed up to do like a okay ah thing called like secret church it's like okay yes and they just tried to like align themselves as like underground church movement of like yeah radical radical it's radical yeah gotta gotta be secret because the world doesn't like it right it was just like it was the same theology exactly it was all the exact it was like we had to be secretive about all the stuff that you literally just wrote in a book cool bro i get it right exactly that you got a massive publishing deal for just francis chan and david blatt were the kings of of like uh it's it
01:07:53
Speaker
Early 2010s, cool Christianity. the lodge Yes, in like a ah ah manipulation through cadence. You know, that was like their move. they all They both had like this very specific calculated cadence. Yes, very, very slick, very cool, very like we're just a couple of guys. And ah like people, of course, i ended up getting copied, right? That's even, I mean, that's that's always what evangelicalism has been. Yeah. It's just been a series of guys wearing a new set of clothes, you know saying the same thing repackaged.
01:08:30
Speaker
For sure. And I mean, so for the David Platt night, I mean, I waited to be in like the front row of this. I think this was one of this one was in St. Louis at the, you know, Superdome or whatever the NFL dome was. And I sat in the front row.
01:08:43
Speaker
And I was so inspired. And then after that, I wrote, you know, all these blog posts about, you know, not being gay anymore. And Urbana published them on their site. And it was just another like reinvigoration moment for me.
01:08:55
Speaker
Um, you know, where again, I, I, you know, for many years, I just continued to double down because there was a lot of fear. um you know, I didn't have a lot of, I didn't let myself explore any other thought pathways or anything else. And so I, I stayed in it.
01:09:15
Speaker
I remember some of those, I'm not gay anymore posts, um, because I hate that I did this, but, uh, Did you reshare my content? Oh boy, did i And I remember that's when we lived together. Yeah. Yeah. I was getting out of me and going, go back to my buddy, Zach. We worked together and ah a retail company in Boston working in like the shipping department. And we worked with this girl who we loved. um She was Such a great person.
01:09:47
Speaker
um And that conversation came up because, know, we're still evangelical Christians. And oh it's she's like, yeah, I mean, one of my problems with it is like, blah, blah, blah.
01:09:59
Speaker
you guys don't like gays and we're like, Oh, on the contrary. Right. Yeah. We love gays. Walk and read this from a gay, from a gay. Exactly. Well, and exactly. And that, that's what happened. A lot of people sent that around, um you know, and there were other people writing similar things at the time. Yeah. um And, you know, it was, um it was exciting. And I mean, again, it was, you, you got a lot of attention for it.
01:10:23
Speaker
um And so, so then anyway, at also at that Urbana, um, you know, on the closing night, they they kind of sent around the buckets where you put in your pledge cards where it was like, I'm either pledging money or I'm pledging to follow Christ, you know, so they could tally up like how good their conference was that year. the classic numbers game of evangelicalism.
01:10:48
Speaker
Right. To report out to the donors. um And some of the boxes were like, I'm being called in to be a missionary. I'm being called to be you know, a full-time ministry, whatever. And, um you know, they sent they sent the bucket around and like my heart was beating and I was like, okay, like, you know, I checked, like I pledged to like follow God more closely or whatever. And so they did the whole bucket passing and then and then they did another round and they said, we feel like there are people out there that were gonna answer something else, but they didn't.
01:11:21
Speaker
So we're gonna give you another chance. And that must be me. So so i decided that to go master population so that's where I decided to go into full-time ministry and to find a seminary. I went into the exhibit hall the next morning and found a seminary and near Boston to go to. And I just straight up just decided
Pursuing Ministry and Seminary Life
01:11:45
Speaker
to go. And Along the way, I left like probably the coolest job I ever had in Boston when I was working at the youth nonprofit. I had a phenomenal job.
01:11:54
Speaker
I loved it. We did amazing youth programming, ski and snowboard programs, after school programs, rock climbing, summer trips. um And that this was like secular. This was not, you know, yeah churchy at all.
01:12:07
Speaker
So much fun. And I was, you know, the volunteer director. So I recruited and trained all the volunteers who, who, um were our ski and snowboard instructors and our, all of our outdoor activity instructors.
01:12:19
Speaker
And I walked away from that job to go back to go to seminary, you know, which again, I mean, I don't want to say I regret because in seminary I made some amazing friends and ultimately seminary is where I feel like I obtained some of the like thought tools to think my own way out of the bubble.
01:12:37
Speaker
And so I'm grateful for that. um But you know, how it all happened is, is honestly, it's just kind of wild to think back. That is ah is a wild trajectory. Because I mean, actually, real quick, ah what's funny is the ski thing that you were doing.
01:12:54
Speaker
I remember when um me and another guy at the church brought some kids that we were working with. One of them was my foster son now. Yes. This is before he was my foster son. And remember the night I lost my car?
01:13:06
Speaker
Yeah. was were with that it Was that at Blue Hills? Yeah, I like parked on a road and then yeah it was like a snowstorm and this and that. i Me and my foster son and a couple of the other kids and this other guy were like spent almost an hour looking for it.
01:13:23
Speaker
i honestly didn't remember about your lost car until now, but I do remember that night and it was fun. Turns out I just forgot the, yeah, actually I lost i lost Byron that night on the mountain.
01:13:37
Speaker
Yeah, but Blue Hills isn't very big. There's like three runs. He didn't know how to ski and he just got on the lift and went to the top. And I was like, yeaht remember I was literally running around shitting my fucking pants because I lost this kid the first night I took him out to do anything.
01:13:52
Speaker
that's I mean, that's good times right there. Yeah. ah And that's what youth programming should be. Exactly. That's the days of good youth group. Youth programming when horrible things could happen, but resolve themselves. But they don't. With like a sitcom style ending.
01:14:11
Speaker
Where we all laugh and have hot chocolate in the lodge. Yeah.
01:14:15
Speaker
Right. I mean, that could have been the last. I could have actually not been a foster parent had I lost him permanently that night. And Byron would still be out there in the Blue Hills Reservation in Milton, Massachusetts, living in one of those abandoned cabins.
01:14:33
Speaker
ah do So did you actually go somewhere and spend time as a missionary? No. So so my my calling from the Lord was full-time ministry. And so for me, that what I thought that meant was to become a pastor.
01:14:48
Speaker
And so I decided that I was going to find a seminary and get an MDiv. um And that's what I did. And then I... started um i started working for the church that Sam and i went to as like a ah mentored ministry student is what we called it.
01:15:05
Speaker
and then i did forget about that. I forgot that you guys started to... yeah On the books sort of work. on On the books, I got money in my pocket from the North American Mission Board from the Southern Baptist Convention.
01:15:18
Speaker
ah had to sign you know sign basically my rights away and sign my theology away saying all this crap to get that money. but that But that didn't last long because it was very, very soon after that where it was like, all right, a lot of this stuff is not tracking for me anymore. I mean, I was a bit older by then. you know i was...
01:15:36
Speaker
had been in Boston for a few years, met a lot more people. and And by that point, I was kind of like, okay, like, some of the sermons that were being preached, I just, it really was not landing for me.
01:15:47
Speaker
and I would try to, like, have meetings to discuss that and bring it up what I thought was, you know, not okay. and And it was, it that didn't go anywhere. In the church?
01:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, in the church. Yeah. Yeah. And so by that time, I mean, the seminary was about an hour north of Boston and that's closer. That's where I was living. Also, I was living on the North shore. so I decided to find a church closer to where I was living and I left officially left the Southern Baptist. And then I joined American Baptist, which again, you know, all these little moments of me kind of like following the the intuition when I couldn't necessarily verbalize it, but feeling like I needed to be in a more open and welcoming space. I did find the American Baptist, um,
01:16:30
Speaker
I got warning a warning email from somebody from my church back in Reno about the American Baptist, you know, saying that they were dangerous, even though, you know, they, they split off from Southern Baptist over the issue of slavery. They were abolitionist and the SBC wasn't and the SBC doubled down on slavery and American Baptist said, you know, absolutely not. And so that they kind of had a ah tradition of trying to be on the side of the progress of our society.
01:16:58
Speaker
And within churches, you would you would see more diversity of of folks within the churches, at least in terms of theology. and that that was attractive to me. um So I was at that church for, I think, yeah maybe three or four years.
01:17:14
Speaker
So you it's so interesting to go back to school, because I mean, I remember me getting my undergrad in Bible. I got my Bible degree at Liberty and was like, I don't know what to do with this.
01:17:25
Speaker
um And then I did nothing with it. ah But you going back to school, to seminary, and then it how long after that were you like, Oh boy, I don't think I want to use this so much.
01:17:41
Speaker
Instant.
01:17:44
Speaker
So I, are you still paying that one off? Oh yeah. Nice. Seminary seminary. Yeah. Um, I deferred it for a while and and and then we had, um, you know, the pause and everything, but, um,
01:17:59
Speaker
i did I did have some good scholarships. They had um like ah almost like a fundraising type scholarship that you could get where people contributed, um which which was cool. um But I graduated in 2016 and I was working at the church part-time. I was preaching part-time, leading Sunday school.
01:18:17
Speaker
ah But in 2016, basically it was kind of like a one, two, three of a really good friend of mine from seminary coming out to me.
01:18:28
Speaker
And then um the we went to ah ah like the Gay Christian Network conference together where we started to um meet other gay Christians and learn about different positions you could have on the matter. And in a way, we were actually talking about it, not just like as some abstract thing that you couldn't ever you know actually discuss.
01:18:49
Speaker
um And then the election and the the election really was, was the nail, really the nail in the coffin. I mean, that, that blew the cap off for me. And I, I was preaching that Sunday after the election. I mean, that was one of the hardest days of my life, having to give a sermon to this church after that, that was really split. I mean, we, we had people on both sides of the aisle um giving that sermon that day. And then that's why really after that um started the ball rolling to move back to Nevada. Yeah.
01:19:18
Speaker
Okay. That's so crazy. I also, i mean, the whole situation for you is crazy. It's also crazy to think that it was, I mean, we're in 2025, 2060, nine years Nine years ago, I know. We did round one.
01:19:30
Speaker
Round one, and we're back. it And it sucks. I know. We have the full 12 plus years that that we have, like this cloud hanging over. oh my God. But yeah. Hit that pause button real quick.
01:19:43
Speaker
I have to go pee pee. All right. So you moved, you, you had that kind of immediate regret upon graduation, which must've been the biggest bummer of a feeling. No, it wasn't, it wasn't, a it wasn't a regret because i I loved seminary and I love, love the friends that I made. Many of them are still great friends. And I also think like just education is good no matter what you're learning how to think. So I don't regret seminary.
01:20:09
Speaker
i just decided like going into full-time ministry, like that's not going to happen. yeah which
Kirk Cameron's Children's Show Proposal
01:20:14
Speaker
summary was it again gordon conwell and i i'm i i find it's so wild when you mention that uh dude i definitely hit that oh no i'm sorry i definitely hit it when we when we started back up but do we need to rewind or just keep going my so uh sorry folks we uh We took off talking. I thought I had started the recording back up after we paused it, but apparently I didn't. Oh, my God. um I'm sorry, guys. eyes haven I just saw this happen to Meredith Marks and Seth on Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. ye
01:20:52
Speaker
It definitely started because I jumped back in after I saw the recording thing go up. So you're going to have to sift through this a little bit after the recording's done. Okay. Well, that is my favorite thing to do.
01:21:04
Speaker
Yeah, you do love that. You do love making more work for yourself in a time where you're already overworked. And a that's good. ah I, you know, I appreciate you even leave off. Who knows at this point, boy but it, it did move. It must've stopped at some point because I would not have started and the conversation again if ah that red light wasn't going. So we'll find out.
01:21:28
Speaker
Yeah. So let's just, so let's just Well, should we just should we just riff on something else, a little more exciting that I brought, a little fodder for conversation? ah Yeah, let's yeah just do that. Let's do that.
01:21:40
Speaker
What is that? What do you guys think I have here? Is that anime porn? Anime porn. Is this a play? Okay, Sam's guessing anime porn. Casey, what's your guess of what I brought for our fodder for conversation?
01:21:51
Speaker
I'm guessing that it's a script for a Christian pageant. You know what? Casey's closer. is... It is... it it is tangential to a script for a type of certain to a certain type of christian pageantry this is an email i got the other day from the one and only kirk cameron oh no way yes i don't know how i got on kirk cameron's email list Honestly, this is the highlight of my life for you. right I have tried to reach out to him so many times. on the mail and He didn't write me.
01:22:29
Speaker
he didn't write to me. This is a marketing email. It doesn't matter. you You at least... I don't even get those despite him having my email on so many different occasions. It's like one of those handwritten notes from the car insurance company. i Or the Jehovah's Witness.
01:22:45
Speaker
I don't know. My dealership sincerely does want to buy my... my ah daughter ah my ah What do I have? ah Sienna. but They want to buy my Sienna back. um I believe them when they tell Yeah, well, it's it's held its value, Sam, and they'd like to give you top dollar. I'd like to.
01:23:04
Speaker
So for the folks at home or for the folks who are listening to this on the AM radio out there on the super slab, um this email came... we we just had a We just had a very meaningful conversation about my trajectory outside of the conservative bubble.
01:23:21
Speaker
um It was lost due to technical issues. And we have simply just moved on to the email that I got from Kirk Cameron. He's emailing people via steadfastamericans.com. I don't know how I got on the steadfastamericans.com email list.
01:23:35
Speaker
I can only venture to guess that my dad signed me up.
01:23:40
Speaker
it But anyway, Kirk Cameron. Your dad's like, oh, he could be he needs a little bit more patriotism in his life.
01:23:51
Speaker
I'll just enter his email in Honestly, yes. So I don't know that I'm going to read all four pages of the email. the The back of it, um I did print on scrap paper. There are some sensitive tax documents.
01:24:04
Speaker
So please don't. Please don't look closely if I raise this to read the small print. But the title of the email is Turn America Back to Godly Values.
01:24:17
Speaker
Okay. Now that, like starting off, like that that's standard fare. I mean, that that could go in any direction. Yeah. Par for the question. Dear friend in faith, blah, blah, blah.
01:24:27
Speaker
Please, for the sake of all our families, take it from me as someone who's lived and worked in Hollywood my whole life. You are absolutely right if you think Hollywood is reaching right into your family living room with entertainment that grooms children.
01:24:47
Speaker
okay he goes the grooming line is also par for the course the grooming language right off the bat he goes on to reference some old tv shows that didn't groom such as dennis the menace and father knows best aka aka father touches best um yeah but ah today when children turn on the tv they see a drag queen leading the pride parade on Blue's Clues.
01:25:15
Speaker
What? Sesame Street using your tax dollars to normalize same-sex parents and men in dresses. Oh, that's what looking for. well, there we go.
01:25:26
Speaker
There's the evidence. That's the evidence that demands a verdict. That's Josh McDowell. Hell yeah. i never I knew I never liked Blue because I always thought it was Blue was male dog.
01:25:40
Speaker
And then I found out it was female. And it seemed like there was some... Maybe Blue transitioned. Well, point, point, case in point, right there.
01:25:53
Speaker
Okay, so anyway, so the email goes on about how bad Hollywood is today Today, you have a very special chance to stop the Hollywood groomers who are turning our children and grandchildren against us and the godly values we love.
01:26:09
Speaker
Today, I'm inviting you to be a founding supporter of the very first children's television show that actively fights back against groomers in Hollywood and reinforces the traditional biblical values that made America great.
01:26:24
Speaker
Introducing Caillou 2.0 Red Scrooge. Introducing Adventures with Iggy and Mr. Kirk. Mr. Kirk. the Does he tout it as the first children's show to use the F slur?
01:26:38
Speaker
ah What is Iggy? Is he a frog? it um Apparently. Okay. the adventures of Iggy and Mr. Kirk, um they need $125,000 an episode for it to be released on YouTube.
01:26:55
Speaker
guarantee this guy is... $125,000 for YouTube production, people.
01:27:00
Speaker
Per episode. Is it a GoFundMe? Well, I didn't click through the link because I feel like once I clicked through, like my algorithms are fucked for life. yeah So I didn't click any.
01:27:13
Speaker
um But here's what he had to say about the premiere because they they have already been doing some pre-production. He said, we premiered it recently to a small group of children and parents. And I wish you could have seen the smiles on those innocent little faces.
01:27:28
Speaker
I don't like the way he calls children innocent little faces. Children are not in a innocent. It's creepy. Children are terrible. And I wish you could have experienced the parents watching their children absorb the beautiful gospel messages.
01:27:45
Speaker
So he goes on to ask for money about 16 more times. The price tag for this advertising blitz of this magnitude is $250,000. That's just the advertising. That's not the one hundred and twenty five k per YouTube episode.
01:27:58
Speaker
By the way, I know that's a lot of money, but it's a fraction of what it would cost if we made our show with a major Hollywood studio. And obviously, we won't work with Hollywood. It's a fraction of the cost that we'd get working with them, and it's a fraction of the audience.
01:28:13
Speaker
hit A fraction of the audience and a fraction of the quality. What what is more ironic in this? it like Is it more ironic that Kirk Cameron is claiming he spent his entire life in Hollywood?
01:28:30
Speaker
right Right. Or the fact that he insists that ah that ah a frog puppet call him Mr. Kirk.
01:28:42
Speaker
The adventures of Iggy and Daddy Kirk. yeah i yeah Remember me from my hit show, Uncle Hugs the Longest.
01:28:54
Speaker
Yes, exactly. Introducing Captain Kirk and ah No Child Left Behind.
01:29:11
Speaker
so anyway, he wraps it up by saying, there's no time to waste. Hollywood groomers have destroyed America's culture. we must rebuild from the ashes.
01:29:22
Speaker
Please give me $125,000 my show. and then And then there's PS, which is still par for the course, but I do just find the language comical and I would love to share again because our the more meaningful parts of our conversation were lost to technical difficulties and this is probably more entertaining anyway.
01:29:43
Speaker
PS, the number one thing you can do today to stop the Hollywood groomers who are tearing families apart, maybe even yours, is to support the very first children's television show in history made possible by contributions from grandparents and seniors like you. ah PBS would like a word, by the way. Yeah, I was going to say that is a PBS...
01:30:11
Speaker
PBS rip off PBS would like a word I like that he corners the market though and it instead of just viewers like you he's like seniors and seniors who don't know what's actually going on it's parents seniors grandparents grandparents who will literally give their credit card information to telemarketing scams over the phone at all times all the all hours of the day i mean those are steadfast Americans yeah well he has to reach the segment of Christians from like you know 60 years ago where like living out your faith meant giving money and not just like posting a status.
01:30:48
Speaker
I feel like boomer Christians are probably not the type to pony up for stuff like this. They're more the ah snarky comment on social media sort of supporters.
01:30:59
Speaker
This is like this. This is like the silent generation. Like I'm surprised. I'm surprised there's even a click through link and not just a street address to mail your checks. Yeah. I'd like that he is very clear that like, look, we need to stop groomers.
01:31:16
Speaker
Even like, like he talks about how awful Hollywood, it might even be impacting your family, your family, your family, your living room. But, The living room. how you' head under living run Instead of like, he's like, the only way to counteract it is instead of just turning off your TV is letting, letting them keep watching it, but paying me to just be the opposite and try to pull them in the other direction.
01:31:42
Speaker
It's like the, it's like the eternal yin yang of Christian television. and Honestly, it's beautiful. and This, this email is honestly beautiful. I mean, the language,
01:31:53
Speaker
the The calls to action, the graphics, I mean, i gotta i gotta to give it to him. I mean, what's $125K times 10? That's like $1.25 million, dollars plus the $250,000 for the advertising blitz.
01:32:10
Speaker
I mean, the blitz he's he's making more than any of any of us are, but through ventriloquism and puppetry. You'd think you could afford promo images that were more than like $250 by two fifty p and yeah and and it a screen grab from a blue uh blues clues youtube
01:32:31
Speaker
i do uh i do want to watch this i wonder if it's going to be available for free or if you're going to have to like subscribe you know it's all patreon no they're concerned about outreach you know can you limit well um youtube like if you put it on youtube can you have it behind a paywall I think people just do Patreon like pre-releases where their subscribers get it a week early or something like that.
01:32:57
Speaker
Yeah. But you guys should post the link when it goes live. Just like jump into the comments on every episode and be like, hey everyone, glad to be here. My pronouns are he, him. My pronouns are he, him.
01:33:10
Speaker
And I think Iggy's mouth was a little out of sync at six minutes and 42 seconds. is Is Iggy not real?
01:33:21
Speaker
My kids are watching, uh, have been on a full house, Fuller house binge. Oh my gosh. and i Fuller house is bad, right? It's not good.
01:33:32
Speaker
And they love it. And actually, yeah, that's why I brought up. Cause Cam Candace Cameron Burr, uh, another person I've tried to reach out to multiple times who have gotten a zero.
01:33:44
Speaker
She spent her whole life in Hollywood. She did. And I would just love for her to I don't, what I don't understand is all these people, right? Like they, they send out these campaigns to the people that they know, they think they can get support from.
01:34:00
Speaker
It's like, who are you making TV for? Who are you making content for people who already think the way you do, because you tell everybody that's giving you money that it's for, it's a, it's some witnessing tool. It's for the other, it's for people who need it.
01:34:16
Speaker
Well, that's how you get the money. And every time I've ever reached out to anybody who should want to communicate to our audience why they're right, they never get. i don't care if it's ah that Mormon that sent up, they slipped a letter under my front door or put it in my mailbox.
01:34:34
Speaker
Candace Cameron Burr. like i don't and Kirk. It doesn't matter. Every time I reach out to someone who's like hardcore in their lane of like, this is the truth.
01:34:45
Speaker
Everybody needs the gospel. I go, cool. Why don't you share that with our audience? Who's largely given up on it and is probably the most unreached people group you could find.
01:34:55
Speaker
And they go ah either complete radio silence or you could be Richie the barber and try to charge us $300. three hundred dollars Oh, for an appearance? Yeah. That's a smaller fee than mine. Yeah.
01:35:09
Speaker
It is funny. that like It's almost like they've accepted the notion that like, like hey, if we're being honest, we know we're not getting new followers here. Yeah. okay We know who this is about. we know what we're doing.
01:35:21
Speaker
we We need to scaremonger the flock that we have into staying. and ah One episode of that has to cost $25,000 to $50,000. I mean, he's pocketing $75,000, you know, and and that's that. I mean, it's brilliant.
01:35:35
Speaker
I mean, but what's crazy is like every other megachurch pastor who can justify... their hard work for their salary. It's like, he's like, no, I, I, ah I live in this world. I just, ah I, worked for that money. Like I, that he, he fully believes that he's justified in getting 50 grade an episode because he, yeah what, why, why,
01:35:58
Speaker
why Oh, because he was in Hollywood. And that's probably, in his mind, that's less than he would get if he went and did Growing Pains, Growinger Pains, or whatever. right What does he even spend his money on? Like...
01:36:14
Speaker
i I wonder if you if you went walking around the Cameron house with rubber butts. that you yeah mean you know You open a closet door and an avalanche of rubber butts just covers you. I was just i would do a Google search.
01:36:27
Speaker
like I would search for Kirk Cameron's house, but I had to unplug my keyboard to plug the microphone. I can't Google it. ah But it's probably big. I'm on it. oh It definitely is.
01:36:40
Speaker
I also like that we've I made a ah point about a kid I knew finding a rubber butt. And I like that that just totally took over the the electric vagina. And it's just we just say rubber butt now.
01:36:56
Speaker
I mean, rubber butt is such a funny word. It is. I love it. We're going in the episode title.
01:37:05
Speaker
I love any chance I get to make a joke about a rubber butt. It makes me laugh. Well, and there, and now that like my brain capacity has severely diminished over the decades. Like when I think back on that memory, I'm like, was it a butthole or was it a vagina? Like what was the orifice? Like it was definitely electrical.
01:37:26
Speaker
It was definitely like between legs, but was it a, was it a butt? I don't know. i think it was a vagina. I, um, the, at the, uh, risk of too much disclosure for a podcast.
01:37:42
Speaker
Um, I did, you you're familiar with Adam and Eve, the, uh, Yeah. The shop? Sex shop, retail. Or the historical figures. Yeah. Well, yeah. I know.
01:37:53
Speaker
Right? This is the wrong podcast to not mince words about that. The founding father. No, the sex shop. um I had at one time purchased something from their website. they Adam and Eve is like the T-Move sex stuff.
01:38:09
Speaker
Yeah. They're like, oh, you should like, you get this and then we'll give you 17,000 free toys every time you buy something. It's not like sweatshops and they give you rash. The emails you get are gnarly.
01:38:26
Speaker
It's you get seven a day and it's all of are the same. they're They're all the same, but they change the number of completion. yeah ah Speaking of completion, I've arrived at that several times.
01:38:40
Speaker
um ah
01:38:45
Speaker
it oh ah but so what did i don't i've i barely open any emails that I get ever, but i i opened one a couple weeks ago, and it was it was just the rubber torso.
01:38:58
Speaker
And it has the little... the little like puckered butthole and vagina you can enter into this um first of all my first thought was how do you clean this thing like there's no exit dish schwaham oh you there's probably part in like the severed torso and to like put a hose into to blow everything out the back end i'm guessing you're that's a generous guest sam that's a radiator flush they all say dishwasher safe that's cool the build-up is part of the fun
01:39:31
Speaker
Dude, it's got a little trap door on the side and it's got one of those water bottle brushes in there, you know, that you just kind of... Oh, God. ah Yeah, the has it has its own storage compartment. You gotta root around. have toilet bowl cleaner on it.
01:39:44
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. I just... It's so weird that those sell because it's like... i just imagine, like, some nut job opening it up and being like, Oh, finally, my favorite parts of the lady.
01:39:56
Speaker
my God. the only parts i like it's crazy when you look at it and you go i can't believe i can't believe this is a thing that that this is being made in a factory that someone making like seven dollars an hour is there just like oh not even filling the mold less filling the mold with silicone yeah yeah probably ah way less yeah overseas filling the mold with silicone And then the very long way at the net out the window. Sri Lankan like, like toddler labor, just injection molding your butt.
01:40:34
Speaker
Oh my gosh. It's dire times we live in. It's crazy. Do you want to hear about Kirk Cameron's house? I would love to hear about Kirk Cameron's house, please. This is on a website called urban splatter celebrity home design and construction.
01:40:49
Speaker
Um, Kirk Cameron lives in Agora Hills, California with his family. Agora Hills is a city in California state. ah House has four bedrooms and four bathrooms with over 2,900 square feet of space.
01:41:03
Speaker
The pretty single family home is in a lovely area. Yeah, modest. Yeah, but California numbers, that's pretty serious, isn't it? and well It's an expensive town. I know people from there, and I was in a ah wedding in that area, and it's... some It's pricey.
01:41:19
Speaker
It's on an acre of land, too. I'm not saying it's financially modest, but square footage wise for a lifetime Hollywooder is right under. I mean, it's still a bit Hollywood of him to have an acre home.
01:41:35
Speaker
If you're under 3000 square feet, I'd say that you are ah you're a Hollywood modest. he He bought it in 1988 $645,000. That's crazy. Whoa. Actually, that's crazy.
01:41:51
Speaker
So he doesn't even need Adventures of Iggy money. for a house. He should have paid off. With a 30-year mortgage, his shit's paid off. He's got to have more houses. He's got to have another house in Texas because they're producing this show in Texas. it's Oh, and these guys love going to Texas now. Yeah, he's got to have another house.
01:42:10
Speaker
So he's that that's his growing paint house. Yeah, that's a GP money.
01:42:16
Speaker
but the the the The rest of it he had that his parents didn't steal from him as a child actor. That was the most child actor thing in the 90s. I think if you were a child actor in the ninety s almost 100% of parents stole all of their kids' money. Oh, that's why they had to make that law.
01:42:35
Speaker
Do you want to... you want to He's got to hear this. So he left California. He actually sold that house, I guess, and moved to Tennessee.
01:42:46
Speaker
ah Cameron further told the outlet that he noticed the volunteer state attracts a lot of California refugees who want to be around like-minded people for safety and for security.
01:42:57
Speaker
Oh, safety and security. Yes. It's funny that he appreciates that. The unsafe, unsecure town of Agora Hills, California. I like how he appreciates unsafe, unsecure in being a refugee coming from California, but anywhere else, no thank you.
01:43:14
Speaker
He says, ah it's shocking how many californians are here when i see them in the grocery store i tell them don't california tennessee cameron told washington examiner if everything hits the fan and there's some serious economic problems and division going on they want to be around people like they think who are all about god family and country it's a really nice place to be tennessee's good wholesome values and good whiskey were also praised by cameron He's lived there for like, for like a year. And he's like, don't California, or Tennessee.
01:43:47
Speaker
Right. When he bought the land with cash and priced out a local who was like an old couple trying to retire. And ah I love the idea that he finds it so abhorrent that like, oh, don't don't California this area.
01:44:03
Speaker
And then right when he literally is a California refugee. Yeah. I mean, that's again, but it goes back to the projection. I mean, that's the whole entire thing is it's all this constant cycle of projection of screaming at people to not do what they all do.
01:44:19
Speaker
he He literally is California-ing Tennessee, and then he I'm sure he has some pretty strong opinions on immigrants. 100%. Who just want to be as American as possible. They're like trying so hard to be American. like I would love to to to share those values. No.
01:44:39
Speaker
he's such an off-putting douche about it too. Like he, he is that like mean spirited, ugly version of it. It's really not concerned. It's like, you have to meet me where I'm at.
01:44:51
Speaker
Like, yeah, oh you want it you want to be a, you want to, you know, we need to spread the gospel, but I'm of the, uh, you know, you can lead a horse to water sort of theological standpoint.
01:45:03
Speaker
Perfect for producing children's television programming. It's all about just, he he's like, i don't know. I made the watering hole. It's not my fault if none of these starving, um none of these dying of thirst creatures want to sip from it.
01:45:17
Speaker
Yeah. a Child eating, that's not going to save their soul. How about I listen to my fucking frog puppet for a few minutes? the The goal is to get them right before they die so they can't go back on their word.
01:45:29
Speaker
Right, exactly. As they're dying of starvation, stomach fully bloating, flies on their nostril. He comes into their hospital. They don't even have hospital rooms anymore because those are defunded. He comes into the tent.
01:45:41
Speaker
He's carrying Iggy. and he says... kids love puppets. he He says, Iggy has a little
Preparing for a Comedy Tour
01:45:49
Speaker
message for you. Now repeat after Iggy. ha ha ha.
01:45:54
Speaker
I have sinned. I have sinned. That's why my my town my my country does not have food because of my personal sin. My parents' failures.
01:46:06
Speaker
Now, ah just say these words. I accept Jesus Christ into my heart. Jeez. And then he watches the life leave their eyes right afterwards and probably jerks off on his way home.
01:46:17
Speaker
Yeah, and then he he turns around to like the i don't know the municipal people and says, that'll be $125K. It's crazy he won't do this podcast after all the things we've said about him.
01:46:29
Speaker
All the nice things. but Iggy, what do you think most Californians are going to get for Christmas? Gnashing of teeth!
01:46:42
Speaker
Oh, boy. Well, Bert, one of the things that ah but sparked us having a ah another conversation about you doing the podcast was you have decided to dip your toe.
01:46:56
Speaker
Into the comedy world. Yes. ah My wife and I already bought our tickets. Oh my gosh, i can't wait. Thank you. and the Here's how you know we're we're fully in. is ah That's the day my daughter gets back from being on a...
01:47:12
Speaker
trip with ah we ah close friends of ours. heard Their daughter is her best friend and they go to Pennsylvania and do all sorts of fun stuff. ah They've been taking my daughter the past couple years.
01:47:24
Speaker
that The day she gets back is the day that you're that the show is Beverly. Yep. And we're just, so we're going to be like, Hey, nice to see you. All right. We'll see you later. And then that's it. We're off. So we're, we're abandoning our daughter on their first day back after a week away from us. And that's, that's how much we believe in this. So, well, thank you, Sam. I mean, people buying tickets means a little bit to me, but people leaving their children unsupervised for longer periods of time, that means lot more to me.
01:48:00
Speaker
ah So and thank you for that.
01:48:04
Speaker
What's that, Casey? That's those Tennessee values. That is was Tennessee. You just give them a couple of guns. yeah They'll be fine for the fine for a few nights in a pecan log from Stucky's.
01:48:16
Speaker
They know to only turn the safety off when it's really important. Right. Yeah, exactly. um when they When they really want to get their message across. we have a fear We have a fear meter in our house, and when it surpasses eight, they can take the safety off.
01:48:30
Speaker
Eight out of ten. It's scary because it sounds too real. We're at threat level orange in here. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So yeah, so I'm, I am going on tour this summer.
01:48:45
Speaker
um It's kind of been a long time in the works, but I just went public with the promo. um The show was called the 40 year old Burton and going to five cities starting in New York, ending in l LA. And I am beyond excited. um It's a comedy show. There's some other surprises thrown in some ridiculousness And, um, it's kind of in, in celebration of, of my 40th, but also just wanting to do something new, something different, um, shake up, I don't know, my career kind of silos that I've been in for a while and just do something that is,
01:49:22
Speaker
On one hand, for me that I'm wanting to do and on the other hand, for other people put together something fun that they can enjoy, look forward to have on the calendar. I know it's been tough times. And so I just want to, you know, make something really fun that people can look forward to and have a good night out.
01:49:40
Speaker
dude when you When you mentioned that you've been working on this for like i mean what at least six months, quietly doing your thing. like Casey and I have talked so much about dipping our toe in like the stand-up world, right?
01:49:54
Speaker
And Casey has. um I've been too much of a coward. I'm also a pretty busy guy, and I feel like I don't have any free time in the evenings. But... Um, I am like, it's, it's, it's always in the back of my mind, um, to just try to like do a quick five.
01:50:10
Speaker
Yeah, you absolutely should. But like, you've been working on this, this thing, ah And normally when you dip your toe into a world like that, you're like, oh, let me sign up for an open mic. Let me do this or that.
01:50:22
Speaker
And you're like, you literally have been working on this and you managed to book several shows in different cities across the country. with and And this is you like your first time doing it.
01:50:35
Speaker
I mean, what did that look like for you trying to like find places to do shows? Yeah. Yeah. So they're buying. I mean, that's incredible because it's it's not like these the venues you're doing are nothing like these are legit comedy venues. It's not like you're just like, hey, here's this bar. Can I try and like maybe they'll give me a little bit of time. You have you worked on and have um ah what's do you have a time length for it? What's Time length for the, about 75 minutes. Like, that's crazy to work on that and to be like, hey, you might not know me.
01:51:07
Speaker
um Well, it was a five minutes. That's wild. or the For the venues that are booked, there are many that are not booked um because, you know, I i don't have a history of of all these tapes. and part of it is because, you know, i It wasn't that I wanted to just, you know, quote unquote, start doing comedy.
01:51:29
Speaker
um it was that I wanted to um kind of take on a fun endeavor. and it And it started off with um I knew I wanted to do something fun for my 40th birthday.
01:51:42
Speaker
I love birthdays and you know everyone that you hit that's on a decade is like a big one. And so always try to do something fun and exciting. The irony being that I live in Vegas, which is typically a fun place that people want to come for a party. And it could have been an easy sell to just have people come to Vegas.
01:52:00
Speaker
But... the image of like herding cats all around the Las Vegas strip from like shitty club to shitty club. Like that is not exciting to me at all.
01:52:11
Speaker
And I had thought about, well, what's the way that I can get out there and see friends, you know, because I have at this point now, like multiple life chapters around the country, you know, from the East coast to the West coast where I have friends in different places that I want to get to see in some kind of way.
01:52:28
Speaker
um But then there's also the point where, you know, just we're getting older. And so the appeal of coming to a party where you're just standing around small talking with random people, like that's, that feels less appealing and less exciting. And you're just eating some dumb finger foods, you know, or whatever. Like that there's that, that to me, like didn't fully sound it enticing. I mean, I do love parties, but again, and i was like, well, what if I like put on a show for people? Like I had, um,
01:52:59
Speaker
visited a ah ah friend and we had gone to this small town where there was like this town arena and it had like this history of like the Chautauqua movement where they would bring in speakers way back in the day and they would travel around and like share ideas. And it was always a big deal when like a speaker was coming to this small town. And like, there was something very like American about that of like the,
01:53:21
Speaker
the fun times of America where people enjoyed sharing thoughts, new thoughts with each other and enjoy talking about that and like hearing what different people had to say. And so this idea of like some kind of traveling show came to my mind.
01:53:36
Speaker
um I also had personally wanting, wanted to get back into writing. I used to write a lot more when I was little. And then when I, you know Through most of my career, all of my jobs I've been writing a lot, whether it was social work, writing court reports, writing educational curriculum, writing sermons, all of my writing professionally had been kind of for somebody else's goal or for a role or position that I was in.
01:54:00
Speaker
and I wanted to kind of get back to writing for myself. And so the show plus that, and then thinking about turning 40 is where the the title of the show came to my mind to title it The 40-Year-Old Burton.
01:54:12
Speaker
ah which just seemed fitting and a nice play. And then you had like the visuals were kind of already and ready to go. if I could just recreate the photos. Yeah. And so it just one but was just one thing after the other, where once I landed on the title and had like, had the picture in mind, the kind of the vision for the show came pretty quickly. And it just kind of had to follow that in terms of writing it out and writing out the structure.
01:54:37
Speaker
Um, but, you know, I, I think the bigger picture is, you know, i I love comedy. I love going to see comedians. I love comedy movies. I follow comedians on Instagram.
01:54:48
Speaker
Um, but I, you know, and I, but I wanted to create something that was like a full capsule. I wanted to, you know, at least for this first project, do something that like, yeah, was kind of a more full picture and that's, that's how it was born. And so started writing and then I started basically reaching out to venues that would allow me to self-produce.
01:55:13
Speaker
And so some of the venues, you know, I'm, I'm renting and putting up the show, But then others, a few of them just simply booked me. and And that's kind of just how the communications landed. And I was like, that's kind of crazy.
01:55:27
Speaker
yeah But, you know, I did my best to like in all my communications to be professional, to really share the vision for the show, to have resources available and and try to say like, hey, you know,
01:55:41
Speaker
if and like I believe I can put butts in seats and sell some tickets. like It will be beneficial for both of us. So let's give it a go. And booking for far enough out in advance that I wasn't really competing with a lot of other calendar events.
01:55:55
Speaker
So anyway, that's that's kind of how it all came together and then built out the website and launched Promo. And it's been it's been a big undertaking, but it's been really fun. I'm really excited. for the shows themselves. I'm excited to see people. I hope, you know, if anybody is listening that doesn't know me, you can check it out for the 40 year old Burton.com or check out my Instagram at Bertola.
01:56:15
Speaker
um And it's going to be a great time. i I honestly, I cannot wait for it. I it's go don so much i don't even, i know literally like outside of the description, I know nothing about it. I just know you and I know how it doesn't, I could just picture you being your full authentic self on a stage in front of other people, which is something that I've ah would struggle with significantly.
01:56:40
Speaker
When I think of your personality type and how, how good you are just the, being you in different places. Like I Jill and I talk about how like this I've like, even when I got back from Vegas, I was like, Bert just show me around Vegas knowing exactly like what would be fun. Yeah.
01:57:00
Speaker
And I literally showed you dumpsters. Yes. And I was, i but it huge. That's seared in my brain. and broken Broken escalators. Like when my friends would come visit Boston when I was living there they'd like, let's go. And they're like, what should we do? I'd be like, I have no fucking idea, dude. Just walk around. I don't know. What do you want me to do for you, dude? Just fucking do whatever you want. Like I am the worst person to show people around anything.
01:57:23
Speaker
um You have this like, let's, you have this itinerary thing. aspect to you of like here's what we're gonna do and then this is what's next and here's what it's always been awesome um jill and i talk about that all the time uh and how like just doing anything with you is always more fun because you have this idea of what could be fun for other people um and you translating that to a stage performance i just i know it's going to be amazing i honestly no doubt like i
01:57:55
Speaker
Do you know how many friends could tell me they, for the first time ever, were selling tickets to do a show? And I'd be I think I'm busy that night. Because I'm not, I would be like, I don't want to, I don't want to be embarrassed for them. I don't want to. really hope I don't secondhand embarrass people. You won't.
01:58:13
Speaker
and That's why I immediately bought tickets. I'm intentionally doing that. i was i The amount of people I would be like, i don't, I know it's going to be, i don't want to have to lie to you about it not being bad.
01:58:25
Speaker
But as soon you asked it, Jill and I were like, this is incredible. like Thank you for saying that. I do want to just say also, Sam, yeah i i do think you would be fantastic at stand-up and KCU as well. I think you both would absolutely be we fantastic at it. So I think it's full worth exploring and checking out and trying it Well, tell that to my wife who does not want to associate with me if I go in that direction. Just get a stage name. i know, that's what I said. And a little like mustache. like a little Or like a little you know little face disguise.
01:58:57
Speaker
Like a Charlie Chaplin mustache. And it could be like a bit. like Some ridiculous fake name. go a full prop comic. Yeah. This is like Santiago Verspucci. but It's like a little, little mustache.
01:59:17
Speaker
Neil Hamburg. that little one Right. um But yeah. So anyway, well, thank you. I appreciate you saying that. I'm, I'm, thrilled um And ah the other piece of it is, you know, i I did feel kind of stuck in a career silo. I've done social services on nonprofit work for almost 20 years, which has been fantastic, but felt like I wanted to do something different.
01:59:41
Speaker
different, ah you know, entering my forties, it's a whole new decade to explore. um But I needed to gain some new skills. And so producing the tour on my own lets me do the writing, the performance, the venue booking, the marketing, like all these different aspects of planning the tour that like I have to figure out and learn. And so that's been kind of the impetus behind it. And then the bigger picture of the show being, you know, i just feel like so many people ah have been stuck in these emotional and creative ruts. And part of that just being how difficult life and society have been over the last four, five, six, seven, eight plus years that, you know, i I want people to feel inspired to break out of, you know, ruts that they are in, whether it's emotional or creative and to try something different that maybe they've been thinking about for a while, but haven't taken that step. And so I'm like, if I can be an example of that from just,
02:00:41
Speaker
you know, pulling the ripcord and being as cringe as fuck to do this thing. Like you can do it too. um Because if we're not going to do these things, then what the hell are we all doing here?
02:00:53
Speaker
du I told you you're my you're my inspiration. As soon as you... I was like, oh my god. I've literally been talking... what what Casey, i mean we've been just going back and forth about it for five years.
02:01:06
Speaker
and then like And then my friend's like, I've been quietly writing this show for the past six plus months. And I booked a tour. So deal with that, pussy. no It's not it does not like that at all. it is not Well, I need that.
02:01:21
Speaker
To be motivated. That's how I'm perceiving it. So I can tell him he's not. worth yeah feel it Sam, feel shame. Call me a pussy right now. Feel shame for that. For that. And then many other things I'm sure that you've done that are bad. oh I've been so many bad things. Call me a bad boy.
02:01:38
Speaker
You're Sam. You are so bad.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
02:01:40
Speaker
Let Daddy Kirk Cameron shame you with this puppet.
02:01:47
Speaker
ah Man. Well, Bert, I'm so happy you joined us. Thank you so much. i Thank you guys for having me. This has been awesome. I don't know what we're going to get because of what may or may not have been recorded, but I'm excited to hear. It's a surprise. Who cares? Who cares?
02:02:03
Speaker
everyone who cares You'll have to come to the show to hear what you missed. What people don't know they didn't hear is, um I mean, it's irrelevant. As far as they know, we just edited this down to a two-hour podcast.
02:02:15
Speaker
It's just, they just missed my whole entire testimony. it wouldn't have worked anyways, because it was mostly just Sam doing Roman salutes, and we don't really do a lot with video. ah He was his full, authentic self for a few minutes. He got real musky with it.
02:02:33
Speaker
i got Sam, you could do a whole stand up bit just with historical salutes. Yeah. ah good I mean, with how flagged we are now as a culture, like people salutes is ah is such a good niche that you could start tapping into and really tickle a certain you know type of person. I'll have to I'll have to really look into that.
02:02:53
Speaker
You can find your audience. Yeah, I'm sure i could. All right, everybody. Well, thank you for listening and we will see you next time.