Speaker 1: Also media welcome to buy the Bastards Q and a
Speaker 1: special Happy New Year. I am Sophie Litterman and I'm
Speaker 1: here with my business partner, Robert Evans.
Speaker 2: Robert, how are you a you know, bracing for the
Speaker 2: new year, getting ready to really take twenty twenty six on?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: Somebody asked the last time you ate inside in Arby's?
Speaker 1: Is that their lord of that or is that just
Speaker 1: somebody else?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't have a history with arby
Speaker 2: I don't know you. As a kid, I loved Hardy's. Why.
Speaker 1: I think because Hardy's is Carls Junior, though, isn't it.
Speaker 2: I know they're owned by the same people, I swear
Speaker 2: to God. As a kid, I felt like the curly
Speaker 2: fries were different. Like that's what I loved about Hardy's
Speaker 2: as a kid, because I was born in Saint Louis
Speaker 2: and I have a couple of memories from there before
Speaker 2: we moved to the farm in Oklahoma, and one of
Speaker 2: them is eating at Hardy's and them having the best
Speaker 2: curly fries and then they're not being hearties around and
Speaker 2: I felt like, as a kid, all of the other
Speaker 2: curly fries were inferior to Hardy's Curly Fries. Now, this
Speaker 2: is like a six or a seven year old me,
Speaker 2: So I'm not speaking up for modern hearties. I'm not
Speaker 2: even speaking up for the quality of Hardy's Curly fries
Speaker 2: back then I was a child. But I don't have
Speaker 2: any Arby's lore is I guess where I'm.
Speaker 1: I have Arby's Anger because it was like one of
Speaker 1: the last fast foods I ate before I stopped being
Speaker 1: able to eat gluten, and it was terrible.
Speaker 2: It was not good.
Speaker 1: I would have liked, you know, any almost anything else.
Speaker 1: So fuck you Arby's. Unless you want to sponsor us,
Speaker 1: then I love you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you want to sponsor us Arby's, I'll tell
Speaker 2: people never to eat any other food. I'll tell them
Speaker 2: that their lettuce is killing them. You know, I'll spread
Speaker 2: whatever lies you want. There's lead in fucking Chick fil A.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't care.
Speaker 1: Of all the bastards you've covered, have any surprised you
Speaker 1: by how awful they were? Uh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's definitely. I mean Georgia Tan would
Speaker 2: be a great one where I wasn't aware of this person,
Speaker 2: and then I read the summary that like, yeah, she
Speaker 2: basically created modern adoption. But she was also really abusive
Speaker 2: to kids. And I was like, okay, so this will
Speaker 2: be pretty bad, and I was still shocked by how
Speaker 2: bad it was.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, it is she. That story is fucked.
Speaker 2: And then you know the one episodes we just did
Speaker 2: on the slave owner in Jamaica whose name is escaping
Speaker 2: me right now, but the guy who kept like a
Speaker 2: diary of all of the times he raped enslaved women.
Speaker 2: I knew rape was a massive part of slavery. I've
Speaker 2: known that for a long time. You know, in the
Speaker 2: United States and everywhere else the slave trade was pratt
Speaker 2: the Atlantic trade was and obviously every time people have
Speaker 2: been able to enslave other people, sexual violence has been
Speaker 2: a part of that. I was aware as a particular
Speaker 2: aspect of the plantation system, all of all that stuff
Speaker 2: like this was not But even so, the details and
Speaker 2: the details of stuff like pickling, like rubbing pickle spices
Speaker 2: into open wounds, making people shit in each other's mouths
Speaker 2: as a form of punishment. The just what that said
Speaker 2: about the mix of laziness and cruelty that was a
Speaker 2: major driving force.
Speaker 3: It was these.
Speaker 2: People who were not respected elsewhere in society had in
Speaker 2: a lot of cases kind of failed out of other
Speaker 2: parts of society or just didn't weren't ever going to
Speaker 2: fit in within like the high society back home. You
Speaker 2: get this sense of both like frustration and this lazy
Speaker 2: kind of cruelty where it's clearly like you were just
Speaker 2: fucking around trying to like figure out what you can
Speaker 2: get away with.
Speaker 3: Like there's not even I don't know how.
Speaker 2: To describe it, but like it's it was upsetting to
Speaker 2: me in a way that I kind of was surprised by,
Speaker 2: like the boredom parent to a lot of the cruelty
Speaker 2: in the slave the slave trade and in the way
Speaker 2: slavery worked.
Speaker 3: That really did take me by surprise.
Speaker 1: That and I think for me the episodes that you
Speaker 1: You've done a variety different episodes about this, but you know,
Speaker 1: like the Elon School and the wilderness camps and survival
Speaker 1: schools and just like that nobody, uh, nobody said, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe like don't abuse those kids.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And just how common child abuse is, you know.
Speaker 2: That. That's also like another thing that really wears on
Speaker 2: me is how central abuse of children is in every
Speaker 2: bad movement, bad political and cultural movement in certainly Western history,
Speaker 2: and not to limit it just to the West, but
Speaker 2: and and the fact that violence to the ability to
Speaker 2: abuse children is the center of the conservative project today,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a core pillar of fascism. Children are
Speaker 2: the property of their parents. And so if kids become
Speaker 2: aware of ideas that are uncomfortable to their parents, or
Speaker 2: become inspired to be a kind of person that is
Speaker 2: not in line with what their parents want them to be,
Speaker 2: that's not an example of human beings being human beings.
Speaker 2: That's a problem, right, That's like, that's an injustice that's
Speaker 2: been done to that parent that they have to see
Speaker 2: their child not become a carbon copy of them. And
Speaker 2: the fact that so many people that that's like a
Speaker 2: dominant political belief for a lot of the country, it's
Speaker 2: upsetting and it's difficult because like, kids can't just be
Speaker 2: independent people immediately, They can't just have the same rights
Speaker 2: as an adult immediately because they don't understand the world.
Speaker 2: We do, in fact, have to teach them things and
Speaker 2: guide them. And that's going to mean sometimes saying no,
Speaker 2: you can't do this thing you want because you can't
Speaker 2: just have chocolate for every meal, you can't stay up
Speaker 2: till two in the morning every night. You have school
Speaker 2: to go, right, Like, there's there are things you have
Speaker 2: to There's like discipline. Kids do need discipline. Kids need
Speaker 2: to be punished. Sometimes you don't need to be hit,
Speaker 2: but they need to like they That's the only way
Speaker 2: I know of to make people understand the world they're
Speaker 2: coming into. It's like you have to raise them, and
Speaker 2: that means that you are going to be invested with
Speaker 2: a degree of power over them. But I don't think
Speaker 2: that that should translate to ownership, And I think the
Speaker 2: fact that it so often does is like one of
Speaker 2: the root evils of our society that makes fixing anything
Speaker 2: major very difficult, because unless you fix the way children
Speaker 2: are treated and educated and how we as a society
Speaker 2: see like what we see the rights of a parent
Speaker 2: as being, you can't fix a lot of the other problems.
Speaker 1: Somebody asked a question. They asked me, They said, what
Speaker 1: are you up to during the recording of an episode?
Speaker 1: And then they want to know, like why it looks
Speaker 1: like I'm messing on my phone. I'm following the script,
Speaker 1: you guys scripts on my phone, following the script. We
Speaker 1: use the different platforms. Also, like the camera is like
Speaker 1: above my head, so I'd be looking up like this,
Speaker 1: which is not great. So I'm just doing my job
Speaker 1: my friends, believe it or not. That question has come
Speaker 1: up many times in my DMS. Doing my job anyways, Robert,
Speaker 1: do you have any Australian Bastards planned for the future?
Speaker 3: Uh, well, we did one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, last year we did. We did do one late
Speaker 2: in the year that I felt was a really strong
Speaker 2: episode about the the island of Ghari and you know,
Speaker 2: the bastardy inherent to that, and like the myth that
Speaker 2: got spread about the brutality of the the natives that
Speaker 2: was not really accurate or fair and how it led
Speaker 2: to justified a lot of violence in days afterwards. And yeah, like,
Speaker 2: there's definitely more Aussie's I want to cover. I am
Speaker 2: not as knowledgeable about. There's two things that have pulled
Speaker 2: me back from doing more in the past. Is number one,
Speaker 2: I just don't know a lot about Australia, and number two,
Speaker 2: the Dollop guys have done a lot of Australia episodes
Speaker 2: and several times I found myself and obviously we have
Speaker 2: overlap with the Dollop. There's some episodes I've covered first.
Speaker 2: There's a number that they covered first. That's unavoidable. It
Speaker 2: happens with lions led by donkeys. I don't It's not
Speaker 2: a big deal, right, it's history. We're all allowed to
Speaker 2: talk about history. But I try to avoid it happening
Speaker 2: too much. And I have had several times where I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is an interesting Australian bastard and like, oh no, dollup,
Speaker 2: guys just covered it. And a lot of times it's
Speaker 2: recent enough that I'm like, well, I don't want to
Speaker 2: just immediately, you know, hop onto the same thing, but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I do, I definitely will cover or Assy's please do
Speaker 2: post on the subreddit. You know, I've been meaning for
Speaker 2: a while to ask the moderators to have like a
Speaker 2: stickied thread that's just episode suggestions. I do actually find
Speaker 2: it really helpful when people suggest bastards, because like the
Speaker 2: big effortful episodes, the bastards, I know, like Nixon. I
Speaker 2: know I'm going to get to Nixon. I know it's
Speaker 2: going to take a lot of time. I don't need
Speaker 2: help with that, but it is really helpful when, like
Speaker 2: periodically someone will just like, oh, here's an article that
Speaker 2: leads me to like reading for ten hours about a
Speaker 2: piece of shit, and then I can write an episode
Speaker 2: about it, and it's something that happened to the news,
Speaker 2: or it's something that like I don't need to do
Speaker 2: as crazy an amount of research on I'm not reading
Speaker 2: three books or whatever. I'm not spending four or five days,
Speaker 2: you know, full time reading about this. I can do
Speaker 2: my research in one or two work days and then
Speaker 2: write the episode. It's really helpful when people suggest stuff
Speaker 2: like that, so you know, if you've got some ausy
Speaker 2: pieces of shit you want to hear about, so just them.
Speaker 1: We got the same question about bastards from Mexico. I'm
Speaker 1: assuming it's the same answer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will add I've been wanting to do the
Speaker 2: Pancho Villa episodes for a while. I'm not fully certain
Speaker 2: if I'll come down on him more in the bastard
Speaker 2: or freedom fighter category. I think he's probably he's some
Speaker 2: A and some B. I'm not super knowledgeable about him
Speaker 2: yet other than like the broad strokes, but I've always
Speaker 2: found that period of time interesting and wanted to report.
Speaker 2: And it's also really important for like the evolution of
Speaker 2: modern counterinsurgency tactics and doctrine, and just.
Speaker 3: Like armored doctrine.
Speaker 2: Right, it's arguably like the first use of armored vehicles
Speaker 2: in in combat, or at least one of it's on
Speaker 2: the it's one of the one of the conflicts that's
Speaker 2: sort of like you can make a case. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm interested in doing more Mexican bastards.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: Sure, we're back.
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite bastard topic of twenty twenty five?
Speaker 1: Was there somebody you covered or something you covered that
Speaker 1: was your favorite?
Speaker 2: I mean in terms of what I've felt was like
Speaker 2: the best work I did and the most useful things.
Speaker 2: Because there was a really good article about the Zizians
Speaker 2: that was in depth, but it didn't really it was
Speaker 2: more an in depth article about their crimes as opposed
Speaker 2: to how they got from A to B. You know,
Speaker 2: how the belief system started, how ziz really evolved into
Speaker 2: a cult leader, and how they wound up being what
Speaker 2: they became, right, like, how they wound up believing all
Speaker 2: the things, because you get even in that I believe
Speaker 2: it was a wired piece that was very good or
Speaker 2: rolling stone. It's in the episode, you know, I quote
Speaker 2: I cited the sources and whatnot, But there was a
Speaker 2: really good long form piece, but it's still a lot
Speaker 2: of it came out as like, and here's what's a
Speaker 2: crazy thing they believed.
Speaker 3: They believed you know this.
Speaker 2: About AI, right, or they believe this about you know,
Speaker 2: like you would just kind of get the broad strokes
Speaker 2: of like the game theory shit that they they believed about,
Speaker 2: Like here's why you have to murder people in all
Speaker 2: of these instances because otherwise this like cascading chain of
Speaker 2: logic will happen. But you didn't get like a, here's
Speaker 2: the thought process that led them to that? And I
Speaker 2: thought that was really interesting. I thought that was the
Speaker 2: most interesting part of the zizzy And story is how
Speaker 2: you end up You start from like some fairly basic
Speaker 2: logical arguments that lead you to this completely unhinged and
Speaker 2: murderous worldview in a fairly short span of time, just
Speaker 2: by never looking back or really questioning where your previous
Speaker 2: conclusions have taken you. I found that really interesting and
Speaker 2: so I was definitely like most satisfied with how those
Speaker 2: episodes came together.
Speaker 1: Which bastard, do you wish you'd spend more time on
Speaker 1: Slash would revisit if you could m I mean, we
Speaker 1: didn't finish Shimmler.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't finish Himler. There's more Himler to do.
Speaker 2: There's always more, you know. It struck me this year
Speaker 2: that I still have never done just like Hitler Hitler episodes. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we've done a lot of Hitler episodes, but they're all
Speaker 2: because there's so much to say about him. We've done
Speaker 2: likely here's two parter on his sex life. Right, here's
Speaker 2: like some weird facts that you don't know about the man.
Speaker 3: Here's like some you know, a.
Speaker 2: Two parter on his history with like drugs and substances. Right,
Speaker 2: and he shows up as like the b character and
Speaker 2: a lot of other bastardy stories. But I haven't just
Speaker 2: done a here was Hitler's childhood, right, Here's here's here's
Speaker 2: where he came from. And I, yeah, I should do that.
Speaker 2: I'll make sure that happens in twenty twenty six. I
Speaker 2: wish I could do more LRH episodes. I think I've
Speaker 2: just covered everything Hubbard really did. I don't know that
Speaker 2: there's that anything else to say about him, but I
Speaker 2: do miss talking about him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just missed that guy.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: He's your special boy, do you have a dream guest
Speaker 1: on the podcast that we haven't had on yet.
Speaker 3: I mean, Paul F.
Speaker 2: Tompkins is a dream guest and we'd have had him on.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping to get him on. He gave us a
Speaker 2: very nice shout out as Santa Claus on a podcast recently,
Speaker 2: and I would love to have him back your future.
Speaker 2: I just I'm always with Paul. I'm always. I really
Speaker 2: not that all of our guests are great. I appreciate
Speaker 2: everybody who comes on the show. With someone like Paul.
Speaker 2: I really want to make sure it's like the perfect
Speaker 2: episode for him. Yeah right, And so I'm very like
Speaker 2: discriminating as to like what I want to.
Speaker 3: Pitch in that regard.
Speaker 2: I there's some guys that like part of me thinks
Speaker 2: would be a dream to have on that I know
Speaker 2: it probably wouldn't be great.
Speaker 3: Like to help me your heroes.
Speaker 2: I would just love to hang out with Werner Herzog
Speaker 2: more than doing a podcast with him. If I had
Speaker 2: the opportunity to do anything with Berner herzag would be
Speaker 2: like cook an elaborate dinner together, try to like cook
Speaker 2: with him, because I feel like that would be the
Speaker 2: best way to like get to know that guy. He
Speaker 2: could be a it could be a fun guest. I
Speaker 2: don't know that that would actually is actually how that
Speaker 2: would shake out.
Speaker 1: I want you to I want you to read a crazy,
Speaker 1: crazy script to Shaquille O'Neil.
Speaker 2: I don't know much about shaq Shack. Why would Shack
Speaker 2: be a good guest?
Speaker 1: Because he would? He would, because he would one hundred
Speaker 1: percent would he's a good time, he'd be up for it.
Speaker 1: Which historical era would you say, couldad's the most bastards
Speaker 1: per capita?
Speaker 3: Hard to beat?
Speaker 2: The early twentieth century, late nineteenth early twentieth century. That's
Speaker 2: like the from like eighteen fifty to nineteen fifty, we
Speaker 2: are in just prime bastard teary. And I don't know
Speaker 2: entirely if it's I'm sure a big chunk of it is,
Speaker 2: just that that was the first era in which modern
Speaker 2: historiography and modern journalism were really firing on all cylinders,
Speaker 2: and so you had a lot of detail about all
Speaker 2: of these pieces of shit, and a lot was explored
Speaker 2: and investigated, and guys who in an earlier era might
Speaker 2: not have been covered because while they were doing terrible things,
Speaker 2: they weren't one of the big names have we know
Speaker 2: about guys like Iikman, right, Whereas if Eikman is helping
Speaker 2: to orchestrate a genocide in the sixteen hundreds, maybe we
Speaker 2: don't get nearly as much about him, right. Maybe we
Speaker 2: get his name a couple of times, but there's not
Speaker 2: even agreement about like what he did. Just because of
Speaker 2: how the media worked, we had a lot more detail.
Speaker 3: I know that's a big chunk of it.
Speaker 2: But I also just think it was also opportunity, Like
Speaker 2: the technology was moving so fast and there was so
Speaker 2: much political disruption option that there was an incredible amount
Speaker 2: of opportunity for a bunch of people to seize and
Speaker 2: grab positions of power and influence that they wouldn't have
Speaker 2: had access to earlier or later in more settled times.
Speaker 2: And you know, those are like the poem said, it's
Speaker 2: those are the times of monsters, right, like that, that's when,
Speaker 2: And we're unfortunately in a similar time now where I
Speaker 2: don't know, I don't think I would say that there's
Speaker 2: a higher percentage of bastards now than at any other
Speaker 2: time in history, But they've never been so visible. There's
Speaker 2: so many of them that have and because they are
Speaker 2: running the entire media, ecosystem, not just like news outlets
Speaker 2: and television and whatnot, but like social media, Like all
Speaker 2: of the big social media apps are run by some
Speaker 2: of the monsters who have tailored their algorithms to support
Speaker 2: other of the monsters. So it's never been it's I
Speaker 2: don't know if i'd say there's more bastards now than ever,
Speaker 2: but it's never been so hard to avoid hearing from them. Right,
Speaker 2: they have the biggest microphone that they've ever been given.
Speaker 2: And also it's a time of you've had a bunch
Speaker 2: of different governments over the last twenty years collapse or
Speaker 2: reach you know, moments of near collapse. You have economic turmoil,
Speaker 2: you have social turmoil, and a bunch of new technologies
Speaker 2: that have given a lot of these assholes an opportunity
Speaker 2: to get the one thing they want, which is power.
Speaker 2: And they are all scrambling to position themselves as highly
Speaker 2: as possible, and ideally they're trying to become a permanent overclass, right,
Speaker 2: a permanent They're trying to make themselves into the new
Speaker 2: aristocracy on a global scale. And that I think it's
Speaker 2: had a tendency to activate a lot of people, including
Speaker 2: a lot of people who maybe in a different era
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been bastards like, not that they would have
Speaker 2: been good people, but they wouldn't have had seen an
Speaker 2: opportunity to reach out and grab in being a monster
Speaker 2: to other people. Like I wonder in a different era,
Speaker 2: if JK. Rowling, you know, has incredible success in the
Speaker 2: early eighteen hundreds, right, she probably never gets known for
Speaker 2: anything else it. You know, maybe people would have come
Speaker 2: found her letters, you know, decades after her death and
Speaker 2: been like, oh, she harbored some really bigoted views, you know,
Speaker 2: but it would have been more like HP. Lovecraft right
Speaker 2: where you've got this guy who people really like their writing,
Speaker 2: they've become very popular, I mean Lovecraft was after his death.
Speaker 2: But and then also, oh yeah, and they was like
Speaker 2: super racist in like a lot of their private correspondence.
Speaker 2: You can see some hints of it and some signs
Speaker 2: of it in there in some of their stories, like
Speaker 2: as opposed to what Rowling is, where this is not
Speaker 2: just a person who wrote some books people liked and
Speaker 2: also has some bigoted opinions that people became aware of later.
Speaker 2: And oh you can kind of see bits of it
Speaker 2: in her writing. No, this is a person who has
Speaker 2: turned themselves into an activist and is dedicating their time
Speaker 2: and their money to hurting a specific group of people
Speaker 2: as much a she possibly can. A group of people
Speaker 2: who have no like organized systemic power or wealth to
Speaker 2: even begin, you know, fighting on at the level she
Speaker 2: is fighting on in like financial terms, it simply doesn't exist.
Speaker 2: And you know, what she's doing is deeply cruel and unhinged.
Speaker 2: And I don't think something someone in her, someone would
Speaker 2: have been like her, would have been in a position to.
Speaker 3: Do in an earlier era.
Speaker 2: Right, Not that she would have been a better person,
Speaker 2: She just wouldn't have made her bigotry everyone else's problem
Speaker 2: to the extent that she can. And I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot of that too. I think there's a lot
Speaker 2: of guys and girls out there who are major figures
Speaker 2: of shittiness to all of us that we know that
Speaker 2: in a different era, they probably just would have kept
Speaker 2: that shit to themselves.
Speaker 1: Take a quick break.
Speaker 3: We're back, sure, and we're back.
Speaker 1: Robert, has doing the show changed your views on anything?
Speaker 3: Hmmm?
Speaker 1: How could it not? Though? Like knowledge is knowledge is power.
Speaker 2: I guess like it depends on what you mean by
Speaker 2: changed my views in like a fundamental sense. It hasn't
Speaker 2: changed anything big in that. Coming into the show, I
Speaker 2: thought it was probably a bad idea to give people power, uh,
Speaker 2: And I felt like it's probably a bad idea to
Speaker 2: give people huge amounts of money. And both of those
Speaker 2: things put together damage people in ways that makes them
Speaker 2: harmful to themselves and others. Right that, I came into
Speaker 2: the show believing all that sure, and all of that
Speaker 2: has only been reinforced. I believe it more strongly than
Speaker 2: I did before. I think one of the things I
Speaker 2: have come around on I have a much darker idea
Speaker 2: of what needs to be done to people who are
Speaker 2: trying to destroy civil society, trying to destroy the lives
Speaker 2: of millions or billions of other people for their own
Speaker 2: power and wealth.
Speaker 3: I am not a.
Speaker 2: Rehabilitation person when it comes to those people. I am
Speaker 2: not a forgive and forget. I'm not a reconcile person
Speaker 2: like I am a. If anyone progressive or liberal takes
Speaker 2: power again in this country, the responsible thing to do
Speaker 2: is a reckoning, and a reckoning that will end very
Speaker 2: badly for a decent number of people. Like A, I
Speaker 2: am a believer in punishing the folks who are doing
Speaker 2: this Right now, and I simply don't see any other
Speaker 2: way that this country can move forward and have any
Speaker 2: hope of a better future without going through a period
Speaker 2: of extreme ugliness. And that is not something I really
Speaker 2: believed in the same way prior to doing this. But
Speaker 2: I have become convinced that one of the great I mean,
Speaker 2: one of the great catastrophes of the twentieth century was
Speaker 2: that we really botched the Nuremberg Trials. We botched a
Speaker 2: lot of aspects of the peace after World War Two, right,
Speaker 2: we did not punish nearly enough Nazis, and we didn't
Speaker 2: punish them with the brutality that they deserved based on
Speaker 2: what they had done. And as a result this, that's
Speaker 2: the only thing I think might have made some of
Speaker 2: the people sticking their heads up now so boldly less
Speaker 2: willing to do that. Right, And the same thing is
Speaker 2: true with like the Confederacy after the Civil War. We
Speaker 2: should have hung a lot of those guys. I mean,
Speaker 2: every elected leader in the Confederacy should have been hung,
Speaker 2: and I think most of their military officers as well.
Speaker 2: You know, I wouldn't I wouldn't have been against just
Speaker 2: hanging all of the slave owners. Quite frankly, you know
Speaker 2: by that point, and I think if we'd done that,
Speaker 2: there wouldn't have been a law cause narrative. We wouldn't
Speaker 2: be dealing with a lot of the problems that we're
Speaker 2: having in the United States at this point now that
Speaker 2: there wouldn't be other problems. Not that we'd be a utopia,
Speaker 2: but I just don't think it's ethical to let people
Speaker 2: who do stuff like that go live their lives peacefully afterwards.
Speaker 1: What do you have any gardening plans for twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: Anything you're excited to grow this year?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Not really, I kind of half asked it. This year
Speaker 2: on the gardening, I didn't grow nearly as many potatoes.
Speaker 2: I just got kind of lazy and exhausted, I did.
Speaker 2: I have a bunch of potatoes flowering in my front
Speaker 2: yard right now that I didn't plant. They're just endemic
Speaker 2: to the yard, which is nice. That's cool, Like I
Speaker 2: just kind of have a permanent community of potatoes always growing,
Speaker 2: so I'll grow more potatoes. I'm hoping I can really
Speaker 2: get back and into the swing of things there and
Speaker 2: grow more than I did last year. We're really trying
Speaker 2: to reduce the size of our of our herd of
Speaker 2: the sheep and goats this year, you know, giving some
Speaker 2: to friends. Uh, it's time to harvest some of the
Speaker 2: older ones.
Speaker 1: Don't get rid of don't get rid of Sophie.
Speaker 2: There's just there's just more animals that I want to
Speaker 2: be taking to get rid of him now. So I'm
Speaker 2: trying to find places, uh me wants some of them
Speaker 2: I'm going to keep. I want to keep like a
Speaker 2: you know three.
Speaker 1: Don't get rid of him.
Speaker 3: There's too many right now.
Speaker 1: But don't get rid of him. We've bonded.
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'll do with him, but we've bonded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's he's he's a good he's a good.
Speaker 2: Good at his main job, which is making more goats.
Speaker 2: So I may try to find someone who is looking
Speaker 2: at starting a herd of their own, because he's he's
Speaker 2: really he's hand trained, he's sweet. But I also may
Speaker 2: just you know, keep him with a couple of weathers,
Speaker 2: which are like males that have been castrated, and they
Speaker 2: can just be a little community for a while.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know what I'll do with them.
Speaker 3: I am, I'm I am.
Speaker 2: This year was a real like half ass on all
Speaker 2: of the guard I was just so tired and exhausted
Speaker 2: after twenty twenty four, the election, my dad died. I
Speaker 2: just I couldn't get my head around it to the
Speaker 2: extent that I usually do. And I guess I'm waiting
Speaker 2: to see. I don't fully know. Am I going to
Speaker 2: like wind up half assing it again this year? Am
Speaker 2: I going to get back into the swing of things?
Speaker 2: I don't actually know, So we'll see what Robert does
Speaker 2: in the new year.
Speaker 1: Sophie's gonna do some some spring gardening Sarah Sarah Marshall,
Speaker 1: my friend Sarah Marshall, the legendary Sarah. Sarah's a very
Speaker 1: very good gardener, and we are going to Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a good, good, good spot of dirt at my house
Speaker 1: that we're going to take advantage of, so we'll grow
Speaker 1: some things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, some goats.
Speaker 1: If you get rid of Sophie that go I will
Speaker 1: be so butt hurt. Anyways, last question, what brought you
Speaker 1: joy this year?
Speaker 3: Robert? Uh huh, great question.
Speaker 1: Your wonderful business partner.
Speaker 2: My wonderful business partner, Sophie brought me joy. I in general,
Speaker 2: like I feel I have a lot of satisfaction in
Speaker 2: what you and I have built here. And how many
Speaker 2: of our friends have jobs and health insurance and you know,
Speaker 2: can pay their mortgages or pay for kids or just
Speaker 2: like live. I feel good that we've been able to
Speaker 2: build basically like a little sanctuary for a small chunk
Speaker 2: of like weirdos that I love, and I'm proud of that.
Speaker 2: It's a good thing to be able to do. And
Speaker 2: I'm proud of the fact that we actually delivered news
Speaker 2: that I think is important to a million or so people,
Speaker 2: and it seems to matter to a lot of folks.
Speaker 2: We get a lot of messages from people talking about are.
Speaker 1: You talking about causes you talk about it could happen.
Speaker 2: Here, talk about all of our ship in general?
Speaker 1: A million? Yeah, that is it could happen to yourself
Speaker 1: gets Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I'm talking about in terms of actual people.
Speaker 2: I think we probably have somewhere around a million, you know,
Speaker 2: regular and semi regular listeners.
Speaker 1: I think it's more than that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, it's hard to tell with Internet numbers.
Speaker 2: You know, how many were like, well over five hundred
Speaker 2: million listens on behind the Bastards. How many people is there?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: What brought me joy was seeing you, And I mean
Speaker 1: I was there, but you and prop doing that live
Speaker 1: show we did.
Speaker 3: The live show was great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you guys were great that night.
Speaker 2: Raising all of that money for the bail fund. I
Speaker 2: really felt good about. Yeah, me too, Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 2: just love I try not to do too many fundraisers
Speaker 2: are asked. I mean, thankfully, you know, ads and stuff
Speaker 2: we're support and we don't have to, you know, ask
Speaker 2: fans for like money to keep the lights on. Not
Speaker 2: that there's anything wrong with that. I've been misinterpreted in
Speaker 2: the past is saying I think it's like immoral to
Speaker 2: do a Patreon not at all, how I feel it'll
Speaker 2: be a very silly belief for me to hold. But
Speaker 2: I do feel good about the fact that I try
Speaker 2: to be like, really cautious about like when we do
Speaker 2: fundraisers in for Who, And I'm really proud of the
Speaker 2: fact that every time we do, we raise a lot
Speaker 2: of money, often tens of thousands of dollars, and we
Speaker 2: can do it in very short order, in a matter
Speaker 2: of days or like a week, you know, sometimes less
Speaker 2: our audience, I think, because we're fairly careful about when
Speaker 2: we do it. Our audience, you guys, listeners always do
Speaker 2: show up and I feel really good about that because
Speaker 2: we were able to We've really helped a lot of
Speaker 2: people doing that, and we've done it kind of with
Speaker 2: a lot of intention because I do I have a
Speaker 2: lot of respect for how hard it is to make
Speaker 2: money and the amount of work people put into having
Speaker 2: any and so I'm going to ask our listeners to donate.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be really careful about it because I do
Speaker 2: respect that a lot, and I want to be, you.
Speaker 3: Know, respectful.
Speaker 1: Any final thoughts, anyways, I feel good about that, huh.
Speaker 1: Any final thoughts, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Hang in there, everybody, you know, you're the you're all
Speaker 2: being All of us are being slammed face first with
Speaker 2: like all of the worst, most hopeless news that can
Speaker 2: be put in front of our faces every single day
Speaker 2: and every single night.
Speaker 3: That is.
Speaker 2: Just how life is right now. And it's miserable. Nobody
Speaker 2: likes being bombarded with bad news at all times, and
Speaker 2: it's it's it's meant to keep you angry and keep
Speaker 2: you wanting to fight, and keep you on those apps
Speaker 2: and like sharing and scrolling and raging. And I guess
Speaker 2: what I want to and I know that you all
Speaker 2: know this. We always talk everyone is always talking about
Speaker 2: how bad social media is for your mental health, and
Speaker 2: we all keep using it anyway, we all keep using
Speaker 2: the phones anyway. And I'm not you know, I spent
Speaker 2: an hour and a half this morning going between Reddit
Speaker 2: and fucking Blue Sky. I'm not coming at this from
Speaker 2: like a oh, I figured out how to you know,
Speaker 2: cleanse my life of these things.
Speaker 3: And I'm not looking down.
Speaker 2: On people for not but try to keep in mind
Speaker 2: when you feel like completely hopeless, everything's fucked, there's no
Speaker 2: way to fix anything that like. You are feeling that
Speaker 2: way because billions of dollars have been devoted, tens of
Speaker 2: billions of dollars have been devoted to making you feel
Speaker 2: that way because it's good for Mark Zuckerberg's bottom line,
Speaker 2: good for the bottom line of a couple of other assholes.
Speaker 3: Right, And.
Speaker 2: While we all live in this muck and you can't
Speaker 2: fully separate yourself from unless you have the money to
Speaker 2: just like buy a homestead and the mountains and not
Speaker 2: interact with the rest of the world, which most of
Speaker 2: us don't. You have to keep in mind, no matter
Speaker 2: how angry you get, no matter how justified the anger is,
Speaker 2: no matter what real problems you're looking at that your
Speaker 2: emotional state in that moment is not purely based on
Speaker 2: the reality of what you're reading about, of what's happening
Speaker 2: in the world. It is also the product of a
Speaker 2: concerted effort to make you hopeless and enraged at all times.
Speaker 2: So just keep that in mind.
Speaker 1: Find people that like the same weird shit as you
Speaker 1: and become friends with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what I did.
Speaker 1: Sure, I love all you weirdos. You know who you are.
Speaker 3: I love about forty percent.
Speaker 1: To be on statistically speaking, Bye bye. Behind the Bastards
Speaker 1: is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com or
Speaker 1: check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the Bastards is now
Speaker 1: available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday and Friday.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to our
Speaker 1: Channel YouTube dot com slash at Behind the Bastards.