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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff, which

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Speaker 1: is a podcast that has some people on it. One

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Speaker 1: of them is me. I'm Margaret Kiljoy. One of them

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Speaker 1: is prop h prop.

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Speaker 2: Hey kill Joy continue to.

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Speaker 1: Body The worst part is this is several days later

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Speaker 1: and we've stayed on zoom and prop has just been

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Speaker 1: body rolling.

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Speaker 2: My back is killing me. Yeah, but I want to

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Speaker 2: be known for committing to the bit. Yeah, you just

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Speaker 2: you commit.

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Speaker 1: That's true, Sophie. Should I commit to the bit of

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Speaker 1: pretending like your last name is podcast, It's not as

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Speaker 1: good of a bit. Maybe it's not worth committing to.

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Speaker 1: Sophie is our producer? What about produce Well? You could

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Speaker 1: be produced well prod Well. How do well sounds like

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Speaker 1: a name, Sophie Prodwell? That sounds sexual. I take it back,

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Speaker 1: it does. Was sorry, she's cleaning her.

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Speaker 2: You're out right now right? Ian?

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Speaker 1: Your our fate is in your hands. It's up to

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Speaker 1: you whether you leave that or cut that out. It's

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Speaker 1: just Sophie, all right, Sophie. Uh yeah, Sophie's a producer.

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Speaker 1: Ian is our audio engineer on woman song Hi end

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Speaker 1: I almost.

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Speaker 2: Forgot and the body Roller. I'm not currently d the

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Speaker 2: body Roll Prop the body roller, don't stop the body roll.

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Speaker 1: You can get body roll tattooed on your knuckles if

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Speaker 1: you want.

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Speaker 2: Dog that's whatever.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, favorite things to do is to tell you what

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Speaker 3: you could get tattooed on your knuckles.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, especially if it's four letters, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, perfect, Yeah, perfect, Yeah, hilarious. On Woman

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Speaker 1: has the person who wrote a theme song on Woman

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Speaker 1: has an album coming out. New album coming out called

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Speaker 1: Desire Paths out September twenty second. Prop has a new

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Speaker 1: album that came out in June. I can't remember the

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Speaker 1: name off the top of my head.

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Speaker 2: Terrorform the possibility that's right, is that the third in

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Speaker 2: the trilogy? That was the fourth, the fourth four.

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Speaker 4: The trilogy in the quadrus something Yeah, yeah, the fourth

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Speaker 4: and final man the opis the final, the opus minimis

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Speaker 4: magnus the magnum p I.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool. People don't really do that much anymore.

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Speaker 1: Like we're in a very like single culture let alone

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Speaker 1: album culture let alone, a like arc.

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Speaker 2: Like this was a book and then the book had

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Speaker 2: four EPs and a cold Brew. Yeah, you know, this

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Speaker 2: was a four year process. I like that.

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Speaker 1: The cold Brew is the same name. It's good.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, man, same world.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you gonna start a new killed terraform.

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Speaker 2: I mean I might as well.

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Speaker 3: Yeah that's what you need more more projects.

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Speaker 2: I absolutely need more. Yeah, so I do need more money.

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Speaker 2: So does y'all subscribe to Cooler Zone Media?

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Speaker 1: That's sure? And where we last left off, this is Wednesday.

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Speaker 1: If you've started, if you've been listening to the show,

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Speaker 1: if this is your very first episode of the show, congratulations,

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Speaker 1: you should go back one. For everyone else, Wednesday means

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Speaker 1: it's the second part of a topic, and the topic

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Speaker 1: we're talking about today is the fact that John Henry

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Speaker 1: was a real last person, and he was a cool

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Speaker 1: last person, and his legacy is cool as shit, although

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Speaker 1: some of it's really messy, but not because of him,

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Speaker 1: but because of shitty people. So where we last left

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Speaker 1: our hero he is convicted and he's been sent off

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Speaker 1: to the Alleghany Mountains to dig through them. Will actually

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Speaker 1: not dig through them, actually just a haul mud and

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Speaker 1: shit away. But and they're running into this thing. They're

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Speaker 1: able to automate everything except the drilling, or they're able

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Speaker 1: to speed up everything except the drilling. And you know,

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Speaker 1: they have dynamite. They have railroad cars now they just

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Speaker 1: need a better drill, enter the steam drill. The problem

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Speaker 1: with steam engines for drilling and just kind of in

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Speaker 1: general actually is that you need they're really big and

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Speaker 1: convoluted and complicated. You need a boiler and you need

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Speaker 1: an engine. They need to be near each other, and

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Speaker 1: they need to be near where you need the power.

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Speaker 1: You can't just strap an engine to a big old drill,

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Speaker 1: as much people kind of tried, but not easy. You

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Speaker 1: have to transfer that power. Eventually, folks figure out how

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Speaker 1: to use pipes to transfer the pressure using compressed air

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Speaker 1: to power a drill. Basically, someone else made a diamond

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Speaker 1: coded drill where the drill itself was like part of

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Speaker 1: the engine. I don't know. Nineteenth century technology is wacky.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Both it sounds so difficult, yeah, and both broke down constantly.

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Speaker 1: And you've got these old timey sales people running around

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Speaker 1: being like, Hi, I'm an old timey salesperson. Would you

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Speaker 1: like to purchase the latest technological marvel that'll increase your

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Speaker 1: profits lately and murder just the absolute most workers possible.

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Speaker 2: It's the greatest, the latest and greatest.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And then the robber barons are like, yes,

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Speaker 1: that sounds like two birds with one stone and sign

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Speaker 1: me up. I would like to both drill into this

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Speaker 1: mountain and kill these people.

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Speaker 2: If this dude dies, there's more people, right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's fine, we get more, right, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. The amount of American history that is like literally

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Speaker 1: tied into like quote unquote we hate immigrants, just kidding.

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Speaker 1: We need immigrants so that they can die doing the

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Speaker 1: following labor that no one who was born here wants

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Speaker 1: to do, like.

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Speaker 2: The most bizarre, the just the most toxic, and just

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Speaker 2: if we could just give the country a therapist, like

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Speaker 2: just the most y'all just need therapy. It's so bizarre.

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Speaker 2: And also like I mean speak yeah, I mean it's

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Speaker 2: it's an obvious tangent that none of us need to

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Speaker 2: go on because we already know. But I'm just like,

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Speaker 2: and then the nerve, just the psychological malady of thinking

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Speaker 2: that it's the immigrant's fault. Yeah, that you know what

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Speaker 2: I'm saying, Rather like you mad at the immigrant because

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Speaker 2: you can't get a job because the people are willing

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Speaker 2: are down to pay pennies. Yeah, you're not mad at

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Speaker 2: the person that says that's gonna that wouldn't gonna pay

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Speaker 2: you a livable wage in the first place. That's not

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Speaker 2: the problem. The problem is the person that's willing to

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Speaker 2: work for non livable I just don't understand, y'all. Math

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Speaker 2: ain't math in.

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Speaker 1: No, and it's you were seeing that cartoon there's like

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Speaker 1: the capitalists. He's sitting in front of a huge plate

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Speaker 1: of cookies, and then there's like a white worker who

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Speaker 1: has one cookie, and then there's a you know, a

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Speaker 1: brown worker on the other side has no cookies, and

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Speaker 1: the boss is like, careful, that man's trying to steal

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Speaker 1: your cookie.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like that. Yeah, that's just exactly that. It's exactly that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So before steam drills, when you tunnel through a mountain,

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Speaker 1: you do it with humans and you do a dynamite well,

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Speaker 1: originally black powder, but you have two man teams. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: it's three men teams. It's a hammerman and then one

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Speaker 1: shaker who holds the chisel in place, shifting the chisel

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Speaker 1: between every blow to make sure it has a good

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Speaker 1: bite into the rock.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 1: That is called rolling. That is where rock and roll

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Speaker 1: comes from. Almost certainly. I mean there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: different people claiming different etymologies, but the argument I read

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Speaker 1: in this history book is very convincing.

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Speaker 2: That is called body rolling. That's right, this whole time.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, you're the roller, Sophie is the hammerman, and I

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Speaker 1: am the third person. Actually, the third person on the

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Speaker 1: team actually just sings. You actually don't want me to sing?

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Speaker 1: You keep the rhythm. Yeah, no, that is what you do.

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Speaker 1: That is what they sang to time everything involved, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes there's a third man on the team literally just

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Speaker 1: to sing.

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Speaker 2: That's interesting about rock and roll, man, Yeah, you said

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Speaker 2: it was pretty convincing.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, because I'm going to talk about how all of

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Speaker 1: this ties into two blues, right, which obviously comes before

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Speaker 1: rock and roll. You know, it doesn't go straight from

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Speaker 1: these hammer songs to rock and roll, But I know

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Speaker 1: more about the blues at as a more known and

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Speaker 1: totally rock and roll. If you look up the etymology,

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Speaker 1: most of the etymologies that people say are actually more

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Speaker 1: recent or they'll be like, oh, it comes back to

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Speaker 1: sailors and they're like ships that are rolling or whatever.

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Speaker 1: But honestly, this is more convincing because this is because

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Speaker 1: this is black culture. Yeah, like that, It's just much

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Speaker 1: more convincing to me. So they chisel or drill holes

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Speaker 1: then they pack them with gunpowder dynamite, and then they

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Speaker 1: set it off. A lot of the digging actually in

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Speaker 1: these tunnels was actually vertical because you drop shafts in

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Speaker 1: from the top of the mountain, so you can dig

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Speaker 1: from more than one or I guess two spots at once. Right,

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Speaker 1: you want as many different places to dig from as

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Speaker 1: possible so that you can get it done fast. So

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Speaker 1: they'll do like three, They'll drop three shafts and then

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Speaker 1: dig all directions the conditions. Well, okay, so but when

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Speaker 1: John Henry is first shipped out, he starts as a mucker.

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Speaker 1: His job is loading broken rock and muck into railway cars.

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Speaker 1: We know this because all of the people who were

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Speaker 1: sent out that is their job, right, That is what

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Speaker 1: the prison laborers were doing. The convicts weren't used for

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Speaker 1: the actual specialized hammering yet, and the conditions were This

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Speaker 1: is going to shock you, they weren't very good.

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Speaker 2: Huh.

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Speaker 1: I know, you think that these people doing a dangerous job,

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Speaker 1: we would hold them as a probably, I mean, they're

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Speaker 1: doing a more dangerous job than the CEO, so they're

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Speaker 1: probably getting paid more, right, But it actually wasn't the case.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it's pretty valuable to have you have a company. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you would think that most important part of the company

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Speaker 2: is the people doing the work.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd think that their overseer was a guy named

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Speaker 1: Claiborne Mason who had previously built railroads overseeing shadow slaves,

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Speaker 1: and now he's using oversee prison slaves. During the war,

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Speaker 1: he'd been a slave master who worked to build bridges

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Speaker 1: for the Confederate military. But he had a hobby. His

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Speaker 1: hobby was hanging Confederate deserters and anyone suspected of helping them.

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Speaker 1: He sucks. Okay, fuck this guy.

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Speaker 2: Imagine like that's the overseer from your old plantation. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Like you you're like, this is a ship job, but

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Speaker 2: at least I'm not a slave. And then you get

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Speaker 2: there and you're just like, what.

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Speaker 1: The Yeah, it's still the same guy.

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Speaker 2: Man ain't dead. How his man ain't dead. We went

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Speaker 2: through the old last ward. His man ain't dead ship.

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Speaker 1: Because he did fight in the front lines. He did

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Speaker 1: the safest work impossible in the war.

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Speaker 2: Why didn't you die slow?

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Speaker 1: Yeah. The tunnelers, who at this point are black and

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Speaker 1: Irish and free, both sides are you know, free folks.

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Speaker 1: They drink together and they swap songs at illegal Irish

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Speaker 1: run whiskey shops in the evenings. The convict labor wasn't

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Speaker 1: allowed to drink at except at the grog shop, which

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Speaker 1: was owned by Claiborne Mason, the racist asshole. And is

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Speaker 1: a way to get all basically a way to get

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Speaker 1: all your money back, right, You drink away all your

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Speaker 1: wages and then it goes straight back to your boss. Now,

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Speaker 1: I mean everyone else is drinking away their wages too,

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Speaker 1: but at least it goes to another worker. You know.

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Speaker 1: They built a bunch of railway tunnels. Historians used to

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Speaker 1: think John Henry's tunnel was this one called big Ben Tunnel,

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Speaker 1: and actually the nearby town there's a statue of him,

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Speaker 1: which is cool, But it wasn't this tunnel, but I

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Speaker 1: don't care. It's close enough. The rock there at big

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Speaker 1: Ben Tunnel is fairly soft, and there's no evidence that

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Speaker 1: steam drills were ever used. There's actually specific evidence that

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Speaker 1: they weren't used. The holes weren't big enough and shit.

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Speaker 1: So Lewis Tunnel is the one that John Henry haunts.

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Speaker 1: It is the second longest tunnel on the route. It

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Speaker 1: is forty three hundred feet long, which is most of

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Speaker 1: a mile. It goes through the hardest stone of any

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Speaker 1: of the tunnels on that route, So it's where the

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Speaker 1: owners decided to try out these new steam drills. Hand

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Speaker 1: labor was at the time digging about one point five

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Speaker 1: feet of tunnel a day, and old i Amy salespeople

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Speaker 1: were promising seven feet a day from the newest and

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Speaker 1: greatest steam drill. So they got themselves some steam drills,

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Speaker 1: and they were very prone to breaking down, and they

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Speaker 1: weren't usable in all conditions, like if the tunnel was flooded,

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Speaker 1: you can still make people go dig, but you can't

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Speaker 1: make a machine go dig, you know.

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Speaker 2: Sheesh.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, parts were hard to source. They actually had to

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Speaker 1: build entire boom towns devoted to their upkeep sometimes right

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Speaker 1: like yeah, you need like boiler factories basically, and the

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Speaker 1: bosses had a hard time keeping workers. The bosses I

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Speaker 1: think they subcontracted a lot. They passed a rule that

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Speaker 1: their contractors couldn't pay the employees more than a dollar

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Speaker 1: a day. So both the Irish workers and the free

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Speaker 1: black workers, who were friends because they spent all their

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Speaker 1: evenings drinking together, they were like, fuck, no, we demand

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Speaker 1: two dollars a day. Which is all of like fifty dollars,

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Speaker 1: that's what they were asking for. They're working ten to

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Speaker 1: twelve hours of a day at like murder work, and

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Speaker 1: they're like, yeah, we want fifty dollars.

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Speaker 2: To take that man. First of all, like just again,

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Speaker 2: living in any other century had to be awful because

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Speaker 2: I'm just thinking smell, I'm thinking temperature, and it's not

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Speaker 2: like you had, like, you know, any sort of radar

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Speaker 2: technology to when you just you're just gonna drop some

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Speaker 2: dynamite into a rock that you standing on like this

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Speaker 2: just this is just all of that sounds stupid to me,

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Speaker 2: you know, and like and then secondly, I just I

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Speaker 2: am continually fascinated by. Me and my wife were just

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Speaker 2: talking about this, like there's a like at the school

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Speaker 2: that one of my children go to. Uh, there's a

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Speaker 2: as an Irish lady there, and me and my wife

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Speaker 2: are like, when you when you see an Irish, we

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Speaker 2: see an Irish person, they kind of get it pass already,

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Speaker 2: you know what I mean. It's like how you gotta

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Speaker 2: pass like you get it, you know, I mean, like

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Speaker 2: you just kind of already feel like well you I mean,

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Speaker 2: y'all kind of our cousins you know, and like so

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Speaker 2: you just kind of like I just I've been just

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Speaker 2: so fascinated by and I know that that like connection

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Speaker 2: has been weaponized and has been used against us. But

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Speaker 2: at the same time, like, but the lived experience, I

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Speaker 2: just be like, like we talked about in the in

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Speaker 2: the this last week so or that's this week's politics.

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Speaker 2: It's like yo, like Nat O'Connor, like y'all, she's squad,

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Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Like you just look at him,

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Speaker 2: like y'all kind of y'all man, y'all should have never

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Speaker 2: been white people like y'all should have just y'all should

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Speaker 2: have stayed one of us, you know.

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Speaker 1: And like it's funny because like overall, I would say

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Speaker 1: that Irish people living in Ireland did performed way better

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Speaker 1: about this than like Irish people in the US, especially

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Speaker 1: local generations. But yeah, but yeah no, I I yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The ones on the ones back home

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Speaker 2: for y'all like really get it and like they're like,

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Speaker 2: oh nah man man, yeah fuck all that we would chill.

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Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, there.

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Speaker 1: Was an article, there's an episode we did recently about

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Speaker 1: some ties between Irish resistance and Palestinian resistance, and like

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Speaker 1: Palestinian folks would talk about like, oh, I go to

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Speaker 1: Ireland and it's like I see Palestinian flags on the street,

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Speaker 1: and like it is like a place where people actually

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Speaker 1: respect me. And obviously Ireland is also struggling with all

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Speaker 1: these like nativist fucks who are trying to get rid

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Speaker 1: of a comorans wore right wing and yeah, you know

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Speaker 1: there's like fucking Nazis everywhere these days. But of course,

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Speaker 1: but yeah, no, I I keep thinking about how how

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Speaker 1: much right the history of the creational whiteness is the

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Speaker 1: history of like trying to separate the working class from

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Speaker 1: itself absolutely be like, hey, that guy's trying to do

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Speaker 1: at your cookie and yeah, but the thing that I

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Speaker 1: keep running across more and more is all obviously there's

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Speaker 1: so many times where this worked, right. There's so many

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Speaker 1: times where poor white people immediately turned around. We're like

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Speaker 1: I'm better than someone fuck fuck yeah you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but there's all of these times when they didn't right, Like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: these folks they just walked off. Yeah, they they quit together,

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Speaker 1: like you know, they didn't even have There's often this

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Speaker 1: moment where like the white workers leave and so they

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Speaker 1: or go on strikes, so they bring in black strike

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Speaker 1: breakers in order to use race to try and divide

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Speaker 1: the work with us. And then often actually those then

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Speaker 1: the same black people come are like, oh, actually we're joining.

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Speaker 2: The strike, right, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: And not always right, but but this time, I think,

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Speaker 1: I think this is like kind of a it's almost

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Speaker 1: this like throwaway line in the book I'm reading, but

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Speaker 1: it's like one of the one of my favorite parts

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Speaker 1: of this whole story that I wish I knew more about.

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Speaker 1: They like, so they demand that something be done about

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Speaker 1: the bad air in the tunnel. Yeah, And I'm not

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Speaker 1: certain that they wanted two dollars a day, and I

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Speaker 1: don't think it was a strike. I think that they're like,

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Speaker 1: all right, well, we're we're just gonna quit and go

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Speaker 1: work somewhere else, like.

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Speaker 2: Like you, we don't, we don't have to do this,

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Speaker 2: like yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: And the air and the Lewest Tunnel was bad because specifically,

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Speaker 1: certain types of rock, if you blast into them with

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Speaker 1: a steam drill, even more than hand drilling and even

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Speaker 1: more than blowing it up, it creates silica dust. And

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Speaker 1: this killed hundreds or thousands of railroad workers in West

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Speaker 1: Virginia over the course of like sixty seventy years. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't kill you quickly. It's kind of closer to like

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Speaker 1: something like black lung or something like that, and or

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Speaker 1: asbestos or you know, basically anything you breathe in that

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Speaker 1: you really shouldn't breathe in. It slowly destroys your lungs

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Speaker 1: and then you're more prone to infection than you die.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of people died of miner's consumption, which

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Speaker 1: was tuberculosis. But also like, oh, specifically related to all

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Speaker 1: this shit, When drilling was done by hand, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: put out as much dust. And also people weren't near

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Speaker 1: the explodey bits because you tend not to stand next

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Speaker 1: to an explosion as a general rule. Right, But the

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Speaker 1: steam drills they just spit out dust, and so the

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Speaker 1: tunnels had bad air, and the workers were right. They

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Speaker 1: didn't know why they were right yet. They hadn't figured

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Speaker 1: this out yet, right. Hunting actually tried to higher indentured

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Speaker 1: Chinese labor once all of his workers left, but it

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Speaker 1: wasn't available that far east. He just couldn't get it,

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Speaker 1: and he like was like trying to figure it out.

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Speaker 1: He was like trying to like talk with like the

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Speaker 1: assholes in mainland China who are selling people, and like

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Speaker 1: he was like, and he just couldn't get Chinese labor,

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Speaker 1: and he's like, fuck, what am I going to do?

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Speaker 1: Where can I find people that I can pay fucking

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Speaker 1: nothing and send to their deaths? Yeah, the reformer Quaker

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Speaker 1: guy had left the penitentiary and the new guy was

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Speaker 1: even more hyped about convict labor. No more showing up

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Speaker 1: to make sure the conditions are okay. So folks were

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Speaker 1: forced to come out from the penitentiary and they started

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Speaker 1: doing the actual drilling. And at this point probably is

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Speaker 1: when John Henry became a driller, right, a steel driving man.

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Speaker 1: And wouldn't it be great if they could just test

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Speaker 1: the steam drills, like compared to a human, like which

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Speaker 1: one's faster? Really? You know, is it really?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Is the juice really worth the squeeze? Because you know,

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Speaker 2: as you're as you explaining this story, that's the whole

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Speaker 2: thing I'm thinking about. I'm like, man, when don't you

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Speaker 2: just cut your losses? This just obviously we have, you know,

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Speaker 2: the hindsight of you know, two hundred years. But like

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Speaker 2: I feel like if I was in this situation, like man,

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Speaker 2: I don't know if this juice worth squeeze, yeah over

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Speaker 2: their yeah, you know. And and I'm like even as yeah,

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Speaker 2: like you said, like you're trying to find I would

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Speaker 2: be worried about the quality of work, especially if it's

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Speaker 2: like you got these like you got just prison labor.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, yes, people don't want to be here. They

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Speaker 2: not paying attention. I'm just burning money, you know what

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Speaker 2: I mean. I'm like, I'm just burning money here, Like so,

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Speaker 2: I don't know that would.

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Speaker 1: Be but you're burning the state's money, not your money,

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Speaker 1: to shade and they just keep providing it.

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Speaker 2: I was the piece I was missing. Oh well, if

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Speaker 2: it's not my money, then I guess it's fine.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly, Like the South is bankrupting itself in

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Speaker 1: order to finance this kind of work and actually yeah,

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Speaker 1: and actually they they don't shore it up right right,

390
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Speaker 1: and eventually it like collapses and kills But this is

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Speaker 1: like decades later, collapses kills most people, so now it's

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Speaker 1: all bricked up. I might be conflating the other tunnel,

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Speaker 1: Big ben Tunnel with Lewis Tunnel. I read about them both,

394
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Speaker 1: but the same.

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Speaker 2: Point is it's obvious that at some point this is

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Speaker 2: going to happen.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. So John Henry was never like

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Speaker 1: I'm faster than any machine. An evil empire was like, hey,

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Speaker 1: we want to run a cost benefit analysis, and you

400
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Speaker 1: are not a free person, so you're going to do

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Speaker 1: it for us.

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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.

403
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Speaker 1: And this tunnel was built by one hundred and fifty

404
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Speaker 1: men working day and night in three different shifts, cutting

405
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Speaker 1: into the hardest rock anyone had ever dealt with. Most convicts,

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Speaker 1: so it's mostly convicts now that everyone else was like,

407
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Speaker 1: oh hell no. And they were working right next to

408
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Speaker 1: the steam drill, so like in some versions of the

409
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Speaker 1: song they're like steam drill on the left, Henry on

410
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Speaker 1: the right. That's just true. There was like they were

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Speaker 1: side by side competing, so they're just breathing in all

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Speaker 1: of that dust right the entire time they're working. And

413
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Speaker 1: the hand drilling one it was more effective. New boilers

414
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Speaker 1: weren't easy to get and they kept failing. So in

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Speaker 1: eighteen seventy one, with the cost benefit analysis run, the

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Speaker 1: machines left and the work was finished by hand. The

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Speaker 1: twenty five cent a day convicts did the rest of

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Speaker 1: the work, continuing for years after the Lewis Tunnel gave

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Speaker 1: up on steam drills. Ten percent of the workers died

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Speaker 1: any given year during the years that they took to

421
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Speaker 1: build this tunnel. John Henry probably died in eighteen seventy three.

422
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Speaker 1: They didn't actually record as death. They literally wrote transferred.

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Speaker 1: But that's what they did for everyone who died, because

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Speaker 1: it was like transferred. I think it means like transferred out.

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Speaker 2: To the the work site. Passed.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, even those who moved off of the dot job

427
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Speaker 1: site often died from the silica dust that they had

428
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Speaker 1: already inhaled. Since they were convicts, they couldn't strike over

429
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Speaker 1: the bad air like others had, and almost all of

430
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Speaker 1: the workers who died were black men in their early twenties.

431
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Speaker 1: No one recorded as death or exactly how he died,

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Speaker 1: But yes, the race with the machine killed John Henry.

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Speaker 1: It took until nineteen sixty nine for the Coal Act

434
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,040
Speaker 1: to get past and for powered trills to be required

435
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:23,399
Speaker 1: of collars that limited the dust, and for workers to

436
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:30,560
Speaker 1: get masks. And there's a there's an old white building

437
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:32,720
Speaker 1: referenced in some of the songs. They took John Henry

438
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:34,359
Speaker 1: to the White House and buried him in the sand

439
00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:38,080
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two, before anyone had tracked down the

440
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 1: real John Henry, the real story, right, A white house

441
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:47,119
Speaker 1: on the penitentiary grounds was knocked down and they found

442
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:50,320
Speaker 1: three hundred Yeah, and they found three hundred skeletons that

443
00:22:50,359 --> 00:22:52,520
Speaker 1: had never been recorded of people whose death had never

444
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:53,120
Speaker 1: been recorded.

445
00:22:53,320 --> 00:22:54,480
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.

446
00:22:54,520 --> 00:22:56,639
Speaker 1: And they were all clearly prisoners who died somewhere in

447
00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 1: the latter half of the nineteenth century. So John Henry's

448
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:00,960
Speaker 1: body was almost certainly.

449
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:02,959
Speaker 2: Among them, most likely in there.

450
00:23:03,320 --> 00:23:14,960
Speaker 1: Yeah dang, But where his body wasn't was in advertisements.

451
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 1: Sophie's Okay, that's the best transition I've ever done. You're right, man,

452
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:21,639
Speaker 1: the best I'm.

453
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:25,440
Speaker 2: You're listen that, Yeah, ten points for finess.

454
00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:28,920
Speaker 1: I can get a machine. I can out podcast as AI.

455
00:23:29,680 --> 00:23:32,479
Speaker 2: Because look, I was locked in. I was like I

456
00:23:32,520 --> 00:23:35,640
Speaker 2: was hanging on your everywhere right now, Like that one

457
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 2: really got me most of the time, you know, when

458
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:39,920
Speaker 2: it's happening. I was like, I can't even go along

459
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:42,639
Speaker 2: with the bit I was locked in, Like where was

460
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:44,879
Speaker 2: his I was like, yeah, he's probably, Yeah, he's probably

461
00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:47,160
Speaker 2: in that tunnel, man, are you probably in that thing

462
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 2: under the white eyes? But you know, where he not

463
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:50,800
Speaker 2: though I was like, probably not in the it's like,

464
00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:51,199
Speaker 2: oh no.

465
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, well he's probably not in these ads, but here

466
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:58,880
Speaker 1: they are anyway, unless you were subscribed to coolers on media,

467
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:00,360
Speaker 1: in which case you just get the address.

468
00:24:00,720 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 2: And you just hear us go and we're back.

469
00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:11,840
Speaker 1: And we're back. So these deaths aren't mentioned anywhere else

470
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:16,120
Speaker 1: except the internal reports from the prison. There's no newspaper articles,

471
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: no company reports, no private letters, no politicians talking about

472
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:21,680
Speaker 1: it on the floor of the Senate or whatever the fuck.

473
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: Even though these reports were given to the Senate, right,

474
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: they just didn't look or care. And the thing that's

475
00:24:26,600 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: so interesting to me about this the no newspaper's bit.

476
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: It shows collusion between ostensibly competing companies because the competing

477
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:39,080
Speaker 1: railways had bought all of the newspapers in Richmond pretty

478
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:43,119
Speaker 1: much to talk shit on the CNO. Because CNO, like

479
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 1: the railroads are big fucking business, right, yes, and so

480
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:50,199
Speaker 1: they would have loved to have dirt on someone unless

481
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: it's something that they're like, no, there's nothing wrong with that.

482
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: We can't we can't have people like care about dead convicts.

483
00:24:58,920 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 2: Just so here's the thing we could we could talk

484
00:25:01,840 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 2: shit about them, Yeah, and how everybody that worked there'd

485
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 2: be dying. But counterpoint, Yeah, except yeah, that may make

486
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 2: them invest us investigate on us. Yeah yeah. Wow.

487
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:24,679
Speaker 1: So one thing that is cool though, a bunch of

488
00:25:24,680 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: folks managed to escape the work camps and go into

489
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 1: the mountains.

490
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm waiting on the cool people that did cool stuff. Part.

491
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:35,240
Speaker 1: It's of this, honestly, It's like it's kind of the

492
00:25:36,840 --> 00:25:39,120
Speaker 1: he his legacy is cool, like.

493
00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 2: What yeah yeah did with him?

494
00:25:42,280 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, and it's interesting because it's a less political

495
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: cool people and it's more about like all of this

496
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: stuff about music and all this other stuff that we'll

497
00:25:49,080 --> 00:25:52,719
Speaker 1: get to. But like but yeah, no, it's like people

498
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: got out and some people died. Like I don't know

499
00:25:56,119 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 1: what percent of the ten percent who died were people

500
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:00,679
Speaker 1: trying to get out, right, But it would make a

501
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 1: lot of sense to try and get free of this

502
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: fucking situation.

503
00:26:03,160 --> 00:26:03,320
Speaker 3: Yeah.

504
00:26:04,080 --> 00:26:06,159
Speaker 1: The first time I came to West Virginia as an adult,

505
00:26:06,680 --> 00:26:09,679
Speaker 1: I was doing flood relief work, mountaintop removal. Coal mining

506
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:12,720
Speaker 1: was trashing everything. It was causing whole towns to be

507
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: evacuated because of coal dust. So all this shit still happens,

508
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 1: you know, and the bare hills led to all these

509
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 1: flash floods that fucked up all these towns, right, And

510
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 1: so I went to one of these towns and was

511
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 1: just like literally helping muck out people's basements and shit.

512
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:29,960
Speaker 1: And I talked with all these old miners and they

513
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:32,520
Speaker 1: told me with pride that the history of West Virginia,

514
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 1: of the mountaineers, they probably said Hillbillies, was the place

515
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: where enslaved people, poor white people and indigenous people like

516
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:44,119
Speaker 1: where everyone ran to, you know, and that their like

517
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: heritage was that they had swapped cultures and fucked.

518
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:48,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

519
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: And there's some myth making there, and there's like some hyperbole, right,

520
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:55,679
Speaker 1: but only some the mountains are where people go to

521
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: be free.

522
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, And.

523
00:27:00,600 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 1: So some of the tunnelers escaped in the mountains and

524
00:27:02,840 --> 00:27:03,840
Speaker 1: it makes me fucking happy.

525
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 2: That's kind of rad.

526
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:10,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Immediately, John Henry became John Henry

527
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: became a symbol and was immortalized in song. And he

528
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 1: was imortalized in three different ways. And none of these

529
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,640
Speaker 1: are written yet. It's going to be decades of forty

530
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:22,760
Speaker 1: almost fifty years before it gets written down. There's miner song,

531
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: there's prison labor song, and there's railroad workers song, and

532
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:30,640
Speaker 1: they're all different and they're all really cool. Roughly, this

533
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: era is when coal mining really takes off in Appalacha,

534
00:27:33,480 --> 00:27:37,040
Speaker 1: especially in West Virginia. Steam engines have been recently shifted

535
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:39,160
Speaker 1: from wood to coal, and so all these new steam

536
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,320
Speaker 1: engines were powering the modern world, and they need coal.

537
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:44,919
Speaker 1: The Welsh coal miners had a tradition of singing ballads

538
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 1: while working, like everyone sings song, yeah, time work right,

539
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,360
Speaker 1: but does so differently with very different styles of song,

540
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:57,240
Speaker 1: very different rhythm, like you know. And so a lot

541
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 1: of black rail workers stuck around the area after you know,

542
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 1: all these tunnels and joined them in the minds. And

543
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: so the two cultures bled into one another, and John

544
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 1: Henry became a ballad. And the Welsh ballads were not

545
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,640
Speaker 1: happy songs. They were songs about death. They were songs

546
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 1: about dying, and they were songs about premonitions of death.

547
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: So in this version of John Henry, it's a mournful

548
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:21,399
Speaker 1: song of a man who knows his sad destiny to

549
00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:23,400
Speaker 1: die with a hammer in his hand. That's the line

550
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:26,120
Speaker 1: from this part that stays in the modern versions, right,

551
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:28,399
Speaker 1: And it was set to a tune from the fifteen

552
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:31,399
Speaker 1: hundreds from Across the Ocean, and it was a slow

553
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,240
Speaker 1: song because the moral of the story of this song

554
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,119
Speaker 1: is don't work yourself to death over you know, like,

555
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 1: don't let the word bullshit. Yeah, since work is done

556
00:28:41,000 --> 00:28:43,320
Speaker 1: to the pace of the songs, singing a slow song

557
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: kept people working at an even measured pace, right really yeah, yeah,

558
00:28:47,680 --> 00:28:49,320
Speaker 1: people are fucking smart, you know.

559
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

560
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 1: Like minor songs were also songs about how evil bosses

561
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 1: were and about how women are cheat or bad. This

562
00:28:56,280 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: is going to tie into some blue shit too, although

563
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:01,240
Speaker 1: that's less from the Welsh ballad stuff. That's more from

564
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: what we'll talk about later with the anyway, with the

565
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: hammer songs, these are songs about how everything hurts and

566
00:29:06,920 --> 00:29:09,840
Speaker 1: then you die. The earliest John Henry songs are about

567
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 1: a man who struggled and died a horrible death, about

568
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: how he still was alive underground, haunting the living. Basically,

569
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 1: the earliest John Henry songs are creepy full car songs,

570
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:23,800
Speaker 1: which is coolest shit. I really liked all that shit. Yeah.

571
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 1: Up until the nineteen thirties, a lot of black workers

572
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 1: wouldn't go near the Cno Canals tunnels at night because

573
00:29:29,320 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: of his ghost, and supposedly this possibly goes back to

574
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 1: West African especially Igbo traditions about those who die suddenly

575
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 1: or terribly often like live underground, and their spirits have

576
00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: to be warded off, right, Yeah, Singing is one of

577
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 1: the best ways to ward off these spirits. And I

578
00:29:49,960 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: think that's coolest shit because singing is one of the

579
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 1: best ways to conquer fear. So the idea of like

580
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: baking that into your culture where you're.

581
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, it's Igbo, Yeah, okay, cool, it is ego.

582
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so John Henry exists in this sense and

583
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:05,840
Speaker 1: like I'll actually just literally believe it. There's no part

584
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: of me that's like, well, no, he doesn't haunt these tunnels,

585
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: Like no, like literally, these songs are proof that he

586
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 1: haunts these tunnels. Everyone remembers that these yeah, exactly, Yeah,

587
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: totally okay. So then convict laborers picked this song up

588
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 1: too as a hammer song. Hammer songs tended to be

589
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:26,200
Speaker 1: less narrative. They instead had short lines punctuated by a hunh,

590
00:30:26,280 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: which was for swinging the hammer right at the end

591
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 1: of each line, and one of the themes of the

592
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 1: John Brown one, the John Brown Hammer Song, is you

593
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:38,760
Speaker 1: know how like racist white people are terrified of the

594
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 1: black man as like physically powerful. Yeah, this is a

595
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:46,560
Speaker 1: song about a black man killed for his physical might.

596
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: And it is a black power song but like black

597
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: power and a raw physical athletic power song, and how

598
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: it terrified white men. The other way that prisoners were

599
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: using it was it got picked up as a fiddle

600
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:05,240
Speaker 1: song for hodowns in like Kentucky and shit in the

601
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: Hills of Kentucky where go? Yeah, black and white, black

602
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:11,440
Speaker 1: and white kids in the at least the town that

603
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: I'm reading this particular story about black and white kids

604
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:16,880
Speaker 1: went to school together until it was outlawed, Like segregation

605
00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 1: was like forced into this part of Appalachia in nineteen

606
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:23,680
Speaker 1: oh four. So before that, and kids who grew up

607
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 1: doing this, white and black ex convicts would play versions

608
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: of John Henry John Henry on banjo, and they would

609
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: do it right outside of jails so that prisoners could

610
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:34,000
Speaker 1: sing it too.

611
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 2: That's dope.

612
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:37,200
Speaker 1: You have a fucking hodoun outside the prison.

613
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, ban Joe just unite in us.

614
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, both of these styles are songs are still around,

615
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 1: and there's still John Henry songs in those styles, right,

616
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: But the themes of John Henry that we currently have.

617
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 1: When I first learned the story, I was convinced that,

618
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: like John Henry is like a hard worker who you know,

619
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 1: was like proud and shit. I was like, I was

620
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: convinced I was gonna be like some shit some capitalists

621
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: try to sell people on uh huh, it actually isn't okay.

622
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,520
Speaker 1: The third version of these songs comes from another yet

623
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:13,400
Speaker 1: another black culture, or another culture of black workers, the

624
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: track liners.

625
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 2: Okay.

626
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that the South lost to the

627
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: Civil War was that their supply lines were shit because

628
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: their railroads were shit. They were all different gauges, nothing

629
00:32:25,600 --> 00:32:29,600
Speaker 1: was standardized. They didn't have much industry, so building the

630
00:32:29,680 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: railways in post Civil War South took an awful lot

631
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 1: of work. Some of that was convict labor, but an

632
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: awful lot of that was free black labor called the

633
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:43,720
Speaker 1: track liners. These were roving gangs of workers, mostly young,

634
00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: single black men. The crews were actually racially integrated. I

635
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: don't think like white workers were in the minority, but

636
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 1: I don't believe that it was like, oh, you have

637
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:53,640
Speaker 1: like a white gang and a black gang, and most

638
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 1: of the gangs are black. I believe it was actually

639
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: Most of the gangs were mostly black, but had white

640
00:32:58,160 --> 00:33:04,400
Speaker 1: makers in them as well. And so these gangs, right,

641
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: the rail gangs, they're proud only the strongest men could

642
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 1: track line. And they seem to be freelance crews. They

643
00:33:12,400 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: weren't incredibly well paid. They were paid better than a

644
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 1: lot of other people, right, but they were freelance crews

645
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: of eight to fourteen men. They got paid cash instead

646
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 1: of script like so many other workers. Right, And so

647
00:33:24,600 --> 00:33:26,720
Speaker 1: you could go do this job and then come back

648
00:33:26,760 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: and be like.

649
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:29,240
Speaker 2: I'm home with some money. Yeah.

650
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: And so it's incredibly hard, physically demanding work that paid

651
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 1: better than other jobs. It was still shit compared to

652
00:33:34,680 --> 00:33:37,760
Speaker 1: what you know, rich people get, but it was livable

653
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: rather than starvation wages. One person's job on the gang.

654
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 1: I hope they rotated, but maybe they didn't. I don't know.

655
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: Maybe one person is just a good singer. One person's

656
00:33:46,120 --> 00:33:49,560
Speaker 1: job is the caller who sings, and they time everything

657
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:53,239
Speaker 1: as they're like digging up railroad tracks. Yah. Yeah, and

658
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:55,880
Speaker 1: it literally, like, I mean, it prevents physical injury to

659
00:33:56,280 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: have everyone pull at the same time. Right of their

660
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: songs are like literally just like you know, women are

661
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: hot in their underwear, Am I right? You know?

662
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, And.

663
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: A lot of their songs are like, hey, we're strong

664
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:14,839
Speaker 1: and proud. This rules their Their nickname besides the track

665
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:19,040
Speaker 1: Liners was the Gandy Dancers, since their work looked almost

666
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:21,880
Speaker 1: like dancing, and Gandy was the manufacturer of lots of

667
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: their tools. The work wore you down. Most track Liners

668
00:34:26,920 --> 00:34:28,920
Speaker 1: retired in their early thirties to go take up and

669
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:33,359
Speaker 1: you know that like classic, easy, not physically demanding job

670
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:39,000
Speaker 1: like farming. That's how are these motherfuckers were?

671
00:34:39,080 --> 00:34:40,879
Speaker 2: You are tougher men than I am.

672
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:48,479
Speaker 1: That's your's your that's your retirement. Yeaheah, Early, I'm gonna

673
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: go be a farmer. Yeah, because these days farming is

674
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:53,920
Speaker 1: like the definition of hard work.

675
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing harder than this. Yeah.

676
00:34:57,239 --> 00:35:00,799
Speaker 1: Uh. Fortunately they had a new and mention the track

677
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:05,200
Speaker 1: Liners to help them cope with the pain drug cocaine.

678
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, at least we can get.

679
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:16,359
Speaker 1: And so they saw sang John Henry too, and they

680
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: sang it as a ballad like the miners, but to

681
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 1: them it was an inspiring story about the kind of

682
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: stuff they were into, being strong as fuck and being

683
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,839
Speaker 1: better than any fucking machine. It was an inspiring story

684
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 1: about a giant, strong black man who could work hard

685
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:32,200
Speaker 1: as fuck, just like they were working hard as fuck.

686
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 1: So this is the hustle culture John Henry or the

687
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:39,919
Speaker 1: Tall Tail Hall John Henry. These were guys who at night,

688
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 1: they you know, they've been working all day, so they

689
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: get together and do physical feats of strength as their

690
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 1: main like competition. And I would call that a pissing contest,

691
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:49,279
Speaker 1: except they also had literal pissing.

692
00:35:49,440 --> 00:35:54,120
Speaker 2: They also had those. Yeah, Doug, these guys are insufferable, man,

693
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:55,319
Speaker 2: I know, like the.

694
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 1: Probably I don't want to be one, but you know

695
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: at all.

696
00:36:00,960 --> 00:36:03,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, like you can have it, buddy, Yeah, you can

697
00:36:03,320 --> 00:36:05,719
Speaker 2: have it. Yeah, I'm just going I'm just going to

698
00:36:05,840 --> 00:36:08,879
Speaker 2: rail this cocaine and yeah, watch you guys lift shit.

699
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 1: Hey, I'll be the singer again. Yeah, I'll just sing, Yeah,

700
00:36:12,680 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 1: I keep rhythm. Yeah, oh crap, I can't do it.

701
00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 1: So there's three versions of the song now, right, there's

702
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: the minor song, the convict song, in the track liner song.

703
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: With all these subversions of the song. Already, this is

704
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 1: what folk culture does, which fucking cool. Yeah, folklorists like

705
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 1: conscious academic folkloress. So I'm not trying to talk shit

706
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 1: on but they conflated them all back together in the

707
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds. Then these songs kind of started all

708
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 1: the genres, or at least were present at the start

709
00:36:43,920 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: of all the genres. It's less that they hooks up,

710
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: we'll get okay. So white America has always been hungry

711
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: for black culture, especially music.

712
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:53,359
Speaker 3: Yeah.

713
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 2: Yeah.

714
00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:57,120
Speaker 1: In the eighteen forties, about twenty percent of free black

715
00:36:57,160 --> 00:37:00,399
Speaker 1: men in the northern cities, like who had that were

716
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: written on official shit whatever their jobs were, like musicianear

717
00:37:06,120 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 1: as their job description, and so often like you know,

718
00:37:10,680 --> 00:37:13,560
Speaker 1: traveling folks doing songs, and also comedy was a big

719
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:17,440
Speaker 1: part of that too, And so the late eighteen hundreds

720
00:37:17,440 --> 00:37:19,240
Speaker 1: and early nineteen hundred saw a lot of these people

721
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 1: as wandering musicians. By the eighteen nineties, white medicine show

722
00:37:24,000 --> 00:37:26,760
Speaker 1: people like people did medicine shows who were white, figured

723
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 1: out that black songs were how you draw customers white

724
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 1: and black into your tent to sell them snake oil.

725
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 1: By the nineteen twenties, the proto blues musicians black street

726
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 1: performers were recording versions of John Henry Hammer songs became

727
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 1: the blues when the home was dropped out of the song,

728
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 1: replaced with an unvocalized pause, which is I guess called

729
00:37:48,080 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: a a say zura. And yeah, I realize I'm now

730
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 1: probably getting in the territory have at least as much knowledge.

731
00:37:56,080 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get I know a little bit. But this

732
00:37:57,960 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 2: stuff's dope, dude, Like if you just enjoy music, just

733
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 2: the musicality of it, because like, yeah, the hammer song,

734
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:08,200
Speaker 2: like and you guys, like a listener is like you

735
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 2: have you actually have more of a picture. You have

736
00:38:11,440 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 2: an idea of how this sounds already, you know, just

737
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 2: to even just you remember, for this kid, that's the

738
00:38:16,600 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 2: sound of a man working on a chain, huh, you

739
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 2: know what I mean. So when you remove that and

740
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 2: it's just m m m. Yeah. Now now it's in

741
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:32,719
Speaker 2: the blues because you took out the huh, it's just

742
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:34,680
Speaker 2: the downbeat of the of the bass.

743
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, burn burn.

744
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's dope. I love it. Yeah.

745
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:41,880
Speaker 1: No, And they like you know, they replaced like a

746
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:44,120
Speaker 1: thump on the body of the guitar instead of the

747
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: hammer and like yeah, and these were first played in

748
00:38:47,480 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: the juke joints and roadhouses of the rail workers. Then

749
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,759
Speaker 1: it found its way into cities for rent parties, which

750
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 1: were basically benefit shows and potlucks for people falling behind

751
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: on rent. And John Henry was an early classic of

752
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 1: this stuff. These are almost exclusively a black audience. White folks,

753
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,239
Speaker 1: even working class white folks at this point, were like

754
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: walking around humming operas, still in like the Tenets. Yeah,

755
00:39:10,239 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 1: and this doesn't last long. It it's the Blues. It's

756
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: kind of better. Yeah, like, yeah, just sorry, survival of

757
00:39:18,719 --> 00:39:24,720
Speaker 1: the fittest here. But yeah, yeah, so it's white leftist

758
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 1: picking up on the Blues and John Henry that gives

759
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:28,720
Speaker 1: us Superman. But we'll get to that later.

760
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:30,359
Speaker 2: Okay, okay.

761
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:35,239
Speaker 1: For sort of double the weird white fetishization of black

762
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 1: suffering blind black men in particular were all the rage.

763
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: Most of these blind musicians only recorded a song or

764
00:39:42,040 --> 00:39:46,280
Speaker 1: two and then died in poverty. They in particular, started

765
00:39:46,360 --> 00:39:49,240
Speaker 1: tying John Henry to the story of Samson from the Bible,

766
00:39:49,840 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: the strong Man. Yes, he was blinded and enslaved by

767
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: the Philistines, and he prayed to God for one final

768
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 1: feat of strength, then collapse the empathy that he was

769
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 1: chained in killing his slavers alongside of him. It's not

770
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:07,920
Speaker 1: hard to imagine why, Yeah, people make this connection. This

771
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 1: is how I get into the Like you're like, well,

772
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: how is this story about cool people did cool stuff?

773
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it's like Samson was cool, right, Samson's

774
00:40:15,040 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 1: pretty rad.

775
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:16,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like John.

776
00:40:16,480 --> 00:40:20,240
Speaker 1: Henry was cool even though it yeah, even though involved

777
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: as death.

778
00:40:21,200 --> 00:40:24,839
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, I'm seeing it now. Once as we're

779
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 2: getting into this part, I'm like, oh I get it.

780
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. And black soldiers in France in World War

781
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,200
Speaker 1: One brought the blues and jazz with them. They were

782
00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 1: also treated better than they were at home because France

783
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:40,320
Speaker 1: passed a law that even on US army basis, no

784
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:42,400
Speaker 1: one was allowed to be racist pieces of shit in France,

785
00:40:42,440 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 1: Like you're in our fucking country now, which is funny

786
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:47,880
Speaker 1: even now that race. France is like a perfect racism

787
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:50,959
Speaker 1: free society. But like it's not hard to be better

788
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: than the US.

789
00:40:52,120 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 2: No, it was like the bar, the bars, the bars

790
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:57,800
Speaker 2: in hell, like the bar couldn't be lower. Yeah, but yeah,

791
00:40:57,840 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 2: like my who I feel like my patriots saying is

792
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:04,359
Speaker 2: James Baldwin. Is him talking about going to France and

793
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:09,200
Speaker 2: being like, yeah, oh I'm a human here, like yeah,

794
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:12,319
Speaker 2: just like that simple, Like well, I mean I feel

795
00:41:12,360 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 2: like a human. Yeah, didn't he stayed there, right, he

796
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:17,320
Speaker 2: was like yes, yeah, he was like, why hear what?

797
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 2: I go back?

798
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so so France now certainly has

799
00:41:25,239 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 1: a lot of this black culture stuff, but you know

800
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: what else is trying to sell probably black culture to

801
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:34,240
Speaker 1: absolutely today's advertisers.

802
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:38,360
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yes, I was ready for this one.

803
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:49,360
Speaker 1: And we're back. So internationalists and leftists in Europe starts

804
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:54,239
Speaker 1: spreading US black culture across the country continent Europe. It

805
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:58,839
Speaker 1: starts spreading across across Europe. Hobo's in the US pick

806
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:01,200
Speaker 1: up John Henry songs of course too, and from there

807
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:03,640
Speaker 1: it entered the growing folk music tradition of the United

808
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 1: States and cultural appreciation. Appreciation and appropriation are hard to

809
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 1: sort out. But there are times where it's obviously the

810
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:16,759
Speaker 1: bad one. Yeah, some of these ones, I'm like, I

811
00:42:16,760 --> 00:42:18,120
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm not really in a good position.

812
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, jud sometimes you really got to Sometimes it's like

813
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 2: you really got to be there because there's like a

814
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:26,040
Speaker 2: lot of like a nuance about the moment that maybe

815
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 2: you're not catching. And then there's other times, yeah, like

816
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 2: if you're in the situation to where like it just

817
00:42:32,719 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 2: don't it just don't feel right, Like this just don't

818
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:38,319
Speaker 2: don't feel right? Yeah, but yeah, go ahead.

819
00:42:38,600 --> 00:42:42,600
Speaker 1: No, yeah, So this is the this is the most

820
00:42:42,640 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: obvious example of it being bad. How John Henry became

821
00:42:45,440 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: one of the first recorded country songs.

822
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:48,839
Speaker 2: Oh yep, there it is.

823
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, I heard of this guy. I hadn't heard of him.

824
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:54,239
Speaker 1: But I'm not a big country music fan. I try

825
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:56,759
Speaker 1: not to hate on any given genre, right, but there's

826
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,279
Speaker 1: like some genres where I okay, if I like the

827
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,439
Speaker 1: mediocre song in a genre, I like that genre.

828
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 2: Right, I like that. That's a good way to say it.

829
00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 1: And so I like the standout country songs, but I

830
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,279
Speaker 1: like the mediocre hip hop songs and I like the meat.

831
00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:12,720
Speaker 1: That's a good way to put it all songs.

832
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good way to put it, because, like

833
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:17,040
Speaker 2: you have like for a country song, if it's not

834
00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 2: like Ray Charles, like, it's gotta be like exceptional. Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,

835
00:43:22,520 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 2: go on.

836
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,719
Speaker 1: The first country singer widely considered the first country singer

837
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 1: is a man named Fidland John Carson.

838
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 2: Got me no clue. Never heard those words said together.

839
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 1: I almost wish I wasn't bringing him up. He is

840
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: a racist, piece of shit and a poser. He grew

841
00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:41,319
Speaker 1: up in black culture. His first job was as a

842
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: water boy to black workers on the railroad in Georgia,

843
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:46,279
Speaker 1: and so he was steeped in black worker music. He

844
00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:49,640
Speaker 1: went he learned to play fiddle in Atlanta, famously not

845
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 1: rural place.

846
00:43:51,360 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

847
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 1: He was one of the first members of the second

848
00:43:54,040 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 1: incarnation of the klu Klux Klan, the one that formed

849
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifteen, which was like whatever costplaying as the originals.

850
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:03,800
Speaker 2: Yeah they're not funny ones.

851
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:04,920
Speaker 1: Yeah.

852
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 2: Yeah.

853
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 1: He immediately started lying and saying that he was from

854
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:12,279
Speaker 1: some like white, whitest fuck place and that he's only

855
00:44:12,280 --> 00:44:14,400
Speaker 1: ever been into white shit any of these like rural

856
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 1: as fuck. That is like his thing now. And he

857
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,279
Speaker 1: goes around and he supports all the racist like politicians

858
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:22,520
Speaker 1: and shit. He's like, he's the guy who comes and

859
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: plays at your fucking you're a racist politician going around

860
00:44:25,800 --> 00:44:27,399
Speaker 1: on the stump or whatever. He's the guy who comes

861
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:33,360
Speaker 1: and plays for you. Fidland, John Carson, And so you

862
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:35,560
Speaker 1: know how we have this problem in modern pop music

863
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 1: where there's some piece of shit country stars who lie

864
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 1: about their origins and pretend to be all rural but

865
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:43,239
Speaker 1: are actually suburban and urban. And then are racist. Yeah, yeah,

866
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:44,879
Speaker 1: like the try it in a small town guy.

867
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah origin story.

868
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a that's a tradition that goes back

869
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 1: one hundred years.

870
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 2: Where your accent from bro, you from Cleveland Homeboys? Hilarious.

871
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 1: John Arson was the first person to press a record

872
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 1: that was called Country. He was also the first person

873
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: to press a record that was like released and publicly

874
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: available called John Henry. He stripped out the fact that

875
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:13,600
Speaker 1: John Henry was a black man. Also, at one point,

876
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,320
Speaker 1: with his music, he managed to lead to the lynching

877
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,200
Speaker 1: of a Jewish man because he wrote a song about

878
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 1: an accused Jewish murderer and who like killed a white woman,

879
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:25,319
Speaker 1: I mean was a white Jewish man. But you know, yes,

880
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:27,799
Speaker 1: got it, got to protect the white woman. And so

881
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: this this accused murderer was dragged out of jail before

882
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,880
Speaker 1: his trial and hanged. Sheesh great after he wrote a

883
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: song about After.

884
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 2: He wrote a song about it. Yeah, so he just

885
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:42,800
Speaker 2: so he front of Black grew with black people, learned

886
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 2: our music, got roped into the racist folks, pretending like

887
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 2: he ain't know nothing about it, gentrified John Henry. And

888
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:54,439
Speaker 2: then and he got somebody killed. Yeah wow, yeah, haven't

889
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 2: heard that before.

890
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:58,440
Speaker 1: No, so this initial country there is good and awesome

891
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,879
Speaker 1: country music. The first thing that called country music was

892
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:05,160
Speaker 1: wasn't by or for rural people. It was by and

893
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 1: for urban white people who wanted nostalgia about the rural

894
00:46:08,680 --> 00:46:11,799
Speaker 1: past that their parents or grandparents left behind, which is

895
00:46:11,840 --> 00:46:15,800
Speaker 1: not inherently wrong. You can, I like, living in the country,

896
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:19,759
Speaker 1: I could imagine tabbing whatever, but just fucking own it.

897
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, just be what you are. Yeah yeah, yeah. The

898
00:46:23,640 --> 00:46:27,160
Speaker 2: romantization like and that's something even even in modern country music,

899
00:46:27,239 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 2: Like that's something that I'm like, it's that doesn't bother me.

900
00:46:31,600 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 2: The romantization of romanticization. I don't know how to say this,

901
00:46:35,320 --> 00:46:38,120
Speaker 2: Like how you romanticize just like small town live urbans,

902
00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:40,359
Speaker 2: it is what it is, Like, I mean hip hop

903
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:43,160
Speaker 2: does that with like hood and gang life, like like

904
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 2: this is clearly you're clearly romanticizing. Yeah, you know what

905
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:48,880
Speaker 2: I mean, because if you was here, Yeah, you like,

906
00:46:50,120 --> 00:46:52,480
Speaker 2: there's there's certain things that you just like, I'm never

907
00:46:52,520 --> 00:46:55,959
Speaker 2: reliving this again, you know what I mean. But but yeah,

908
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 2: that but to know that like it was, and actually

909
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:05,240
Speaker 2: that's like to be like the first like recorded actual

910
00:47:05,360 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 2: like star Yeah, was a poser. Yeah, is like also

911
00:47:10,680 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 2: something that I mean that had happened today five two,

912
00:47:13,080 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. The first like Megastar was

913
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 2: like grand Master Caz wrote that, you.

914
00:47:19,640 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: Know anyway, Yeah, that doesn't surprise me.

915
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:25,960
Speaker 2: When the industry gets involved.

916
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:30,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, that is the Yeah, because that's the thing is,

917
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:32,840
Speaker 1: it's like he didn't invent that style of music or

918
00:47:32,880 --> 00:47:34,799
Speaker 1: anything like that. I I don't know that he claimed to,

919
00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:38,239
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, he became the first star of

920
00:47:38,239 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 1: at the first recorded and he managed to rip off

921
00:47:41,200 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 1: both black culture and rural white working class culture all

922
00:47:44,160 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 1: at once at that time and place skewed left wing,

923
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 1: not right wing, which is not always the case and

924
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:54,319
Speaker 1: not universal. True, that's part of my own I have

925
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:57,359
Speaker 1: to be careful about my own like romanticization of you know,

926
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:02,719
Speaker 1: the anyway whatever, So everyone wants a piece of John

927
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 1: Henry as a symbol, including surprise entry into conversation. The

928
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:13,920
Speaker 1: Communist Party, Okay, credit where it's due. In the Great Depression,

929
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:17,080
Speaker 1: the Communist Party was probably the most influential political organization

930
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:19,000
Speaker 1: involved in black civil rights that had lots of black

931
00:48:19,080 --> 00:48:24,440
Speaker 1: leadership that was not specifically a black civil rights organization. Yeah,

932
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 1: and the Communist Party started using John Henry as an

933
00:48:27,719 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 1: icon of working class black America. I don't know whether

934
00:48:31,239 --> 00:48:33,080
Speaker 1: this started with a white person or a black person

935
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 1: in the Communist Party deciding this. I know that there

936
00:48:35,560 --> 00:48:38,439
Speaker 1: was black leadership in the Communist Party, but it wasn't

937
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:42,120
Speaker 1: a majority of it. I don't think this also represented

938
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:44,600
Speaker 1: the sort of masculinization of the left, because he was

939
00:48:44,640 --> 00:48:51,120
Speaker 1: portrayed in this cartoonishly giant strong man way right, Yeah,

940
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: this is around this time. It's my best guess, is

941
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 1: when white socialists in the US move away from like

942
00:48:56,600 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 1: humming opera and towards American folk music and blues and

943
00:49:01,200 --> 00:49:04,560
Speaker 1: all this other stuff. One of the main people who

944
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:07,080
Speaker 1: drew John Henry for the Communist Party was a white

945
00:49:07,120 --> 00:49:09,359
Speaker 1: Jewish New Yorker whose name I forgot to write down.

946
00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:11,439
Speaker 1: And the worst part is I actually literally wrote into

947
00:49:11,440 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 1: the script a white Jewish New Yorker whose name I

948
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 1: forgot to write down because I made that addition at

949
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 1: the last minute, right before we recorded. And this particular man, yes, yeah,

950
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: this synonymous man. No one knows who he is. Now

951
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:25,960
Speaker 1: the book I read knows who he is.

952
00:49:26,600 --> 00:49:29,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, plenty of people know. Yes, yes, I just didn't

953
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 2: write it down.

954
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, drew him cartoonishly large and powerful, like almost a superhero.

955
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:41,560
Speaker 1: This has two direct impacts. The less last lasting impact

956
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: is that communist Jews were a understandably communist Jews were

957
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:47,239
Speaker 1: a huge part of the push against fascism in the

958
00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:49,360
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties because they had plenty of their skin in

959
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:50,360
Speaker 1: that game multiple ways.

960
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:50,600
Speaker 3: You know.

961
00:49:51,080 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 1: Yes, So when the US government was looking for icons

962
00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:58,680
Speaker 1: for a multi racial American industrial power, like we're this

963
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: multi racial industrial power, We're going to defeat Nazis, Right,

964
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:07,720
Speaker 1: there's John Henry. And so the images of the giant,

965
00:50:07,880 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 1: strong industrial man, whether he's white or black, in US

966
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:16,480
Speaker 1: propaganda from this time comes from John Henry as a communist.

967
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:19,880
Speaker 2: Wow. Okay.

968
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:21,839
Speaker 1: When I was reading this book, like once I got

969
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 1: to the part where like John Henry was dead, I

970
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: was like, all right, Like, I mean, like I most

971
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:26,200
Speaker 1: have done with this story, right, he was dead, and

972
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:30,200
Speaker 1: I'm like, holy shit, holy shit.

973
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 2: What is happening. Yeah, guys buried the lead here, guys,

974
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 2: I know. Yeah. Yeah.

975
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 1: The other lasting impact is that three Jewish leftist teenagers

976
00:50:38,680 --> 00:50:42,399
Speaker 1: in New York City, Jerry Siegel, Joe Schuster and Jack

977
00:50:42,480 --> 00:50:44,880
Speaker 1: Kirby or at least anti fascist, but coming from a

978
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:49,040
Speaker 1: leftist background, I believe they grew up seeing John Henry

979
00:50:49,120 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 1: as this larger than life muscle icon fighting for what's right.

980
00:50:53,280 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 1: So they grew up drawing comics. A lot of them

981
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 1: are like John Henry and Space and Shit Right are

982
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:04,319
Speaker 1: like the first comics. Eventually, his clothes get tighter, his

983
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:08,640
Speaker 1: skin gets lighter, and you get Superman and Captain America.

984
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:11,040
Speaker 1: Because that's the thing that these three kids make separately.

985
00:51:11,080 --> 00:51:13,359
Speaker 1: The first two make Superman, the last one yeah, yeah,

986
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:17,759
Speaker 1: Captain America or by the way, someone fuck, someone's gonna

987
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:18,640
Speaker 1: be real mad at me, Bohoka.

988
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:22,280
Speaker 2: Right, Hey guys, relax yea wherever you are relaxed, Yeah,

989
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:23,280
Speaker 2: this is relaxed.

990
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:25,799
Speaker 1: I couldn't afford I tried to buy a number one

991
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:28,360
Speaker 1: as research, but iHeart was like, we were not going

992
00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:28,719
Speaker 1: to do that.

993
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, We're not going to spend a million dollars. Yeah.

994
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:37,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. So many of the earliest superheroes that these folks

995
00:51:37,160 --> 00:51:40,279
Speaker 1: drew were actually were darker skin too, though soon the

996
00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:44,000
Speaker 1: industry stripped away both the politics and the melanin from

997
00:51:44,000 --> 00:51:47,600
Speaker 1: it really quick because these first heroes were like tracking

998
00:51:47,640 --> 00:51:49,799
Speaker 1: down capitalists who sent minors to their death.

999
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:52,680
Speaker 2: Let's go, let's go.

1000
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:57,919
Speaker 1: Yeah. So a five foot one black convict laborer guy

1001
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:01,680
Speaker 1: killed in an industrial accent accident is directly tied into

1002
00:52:01,680 --> 00:52:05,840
Speaker 1: the origins of blues, jazz, folk, country, and fucking comic

1003
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:11,799
Speaker 1: books and is the model for Superman and Captain America.

1004
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:14,480
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.

1005
00:52:14,520 --> 00:52:17,279
Speaker 1: And then to go full circle, the last paragraph I

1006
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:19,200
Speaker 1: have in my script, which is actually just ties into

1007
00:52:19,239 --> 00:52:22,640
Speaker 1: what you brought up. The very beginning. Black power activists

1008
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:25,359
Speaker 1: in the early seventies taught John Henry to as an

1009
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: icon of a strong black man who died because he

1010
00:52:28,040 --> 00:52:31,600
Speaker 1: worked for the white man, you know. And the use

1011
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:33,279
Speaker 1: of him as a black power icon seems to have

1012
00:52:33,280 --> 00:52:37,320
Speaker 1: peaked in the seventies, but that's mostly because repression destroyed

1013
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:40,880
Speaker 1: the black power movement in the seventies, and so he

1014
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:45,239
Speaker 1: lives on as two separate things, a weird folk tale

1015
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:48,160
Speaker 1: devoid of any political, cultural or racial analysis that's about

1016
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:52,319
Speaker 1: like how we're better than machines but will die, and

1017
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:54,520
Speaker 1: as a working class black Appalachian hero.

1018
00:52:55,280 --> 00:53:05,759
Speaker 2: Wow, man, I need a minute. That's you just you

1019
00:53:05,960 --> 00:53:08,759
Speaker 2: just made my brain a pretzel? What a what a

1020
00:53:08,800 --> 00:53:16,080
Speaker 2: brain pretzel? You know, I know, oh you forget you know,

1021
00:53:16,239 --> 00:53:24,799
Speaker 2: like it's hard to say, like use words prop like ja. Yes,

1022
00:53:25,800 --> 00:53:29,320
Speaker 2: history is not it's not dominoes. It's not linear where

1023
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:32,399
Speaker 2: this thing happened and then the air we call them

1024
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:39,279
Speaker 2: eras like much later. But everything's happening just like it's

1025
00:53:39,280 --> 00:53:43,759
Speaker 2: happening now, Like just everything's happening at once all the time. Yea,

1026
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:47,040
Speaker 2: you know, and of course because we're all on the

1027
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 2: same planet, it is all interconnected. It's just the only

1028
00:53:50,560 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 2: way for you to be able to focus on what's

1029
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:53,960
Speaker 2: happening is you have to take a piece by piece.

1030
00:53:53,960 --> 00:53:59,120
Speaker 2: But it's all it's all happening, you know. And but

1031
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:01,799
Speaker 2: since we don't and I don't know, how could you,

1032
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:05,040
Speaker 2: since we don't study history like that to where you're like, well, no,

1033
00:54:05,160 --> 00:54:09,400
Speaker 2: like this was what was all? It's all the time,

1034
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:13,239
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, Like, yeah, that the integration,

1035
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:18,920
Speaker 2: if you will, when someone ties it all together, it

1036
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:22,759
Speaker 2: it's so mind blowing. But it's also like, well, yeah, dumb,

1037
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 2: I mean I mean that's what was That's what people

1038
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,319
Speaker 2: because yeah, that's what people do. That's how life is now,

1039
00:54:28,480 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.

1040
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:33,280
Speaker 1: Like the ship you're doing can have that impact exactly.

1041
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:36,479
Speaker 2: You know, you got like all at the same time,

1042
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 2: Cali had a hurricane, Florida got a hurricane, while Russia

1043
00:54:40,000 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 2: and Ukraine are in war, while you know, Niche is

1044
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:46,000
Speaker 2: being overthrown, while there's a fire in Johannesburg, while you

1045
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:48,840
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, so like yet yeah, while China

1046
00:54:48,920 --> 00:54:52,279
Speaker 2: is still outpacing us. Like all of it's happening in

1047
00:54:52,360 --> 00:54:54,239
Speaker 2: fifty cent through a mic at a lady. You know,

1048
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:59,160
Speaker 2: like it's just it's all happening all right now, you know,

1049
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:00,760
Speaker 2: so of course it's all connected.

1050
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, Yeah, No, I there's this it's like meme

1051
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:08,360
Speaker 1: going around where people are like everyone's afraid to go

1052
00:55:08,360 --> 00:55:09,960
Speaker 1: back in time because they're afraid if they change one

1053
00:55:09,960 --> 00:55:12,239
Speaker 1: small thing, it'll change everything about the future. But no

1054
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:15,720
Speaker 1: one recognizes that that means that we can change the future.

1055
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 1: Like now, small things we do now could totally change

1056
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:23,920
Speaker 1: everything about the future. Like like would we have superheroes

1057
00:55:24,040 --> 00:55:27,319
Speaker 1: if John Henry hadn't been born. Probably, I don't know,

1058
00:55:27,440 --> 00:55:30,799
Speaker 1: you know, like yeah, but like we don't know, we

1059
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:34,480
Speaker 1: don't know whether they would have looked the same. Everything

1060
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:36,839
Speaker 1: about culture gets shaped by all of these things, these

1061
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 1: decisions that we make even if it's not you know,

1062
00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:42,960
Speaker 1: always conscious like I'm going to try and have the

1063
00:55:42,960 --> 00:55:47,640
Speaker 1: following effect. But yeah we can, fucking we can. Like

1064
00:55:47,719 --> 00:55:49,120
Speaker 1: gut shit done, we can't do and.

1065
00:55:49,120 --> 00:55:52,560
Speaker 2: Shit, yes we can. It's so pop, Yes we can,

1066
00:55:52,800 --> 00:56:02,839
Speaker 2: Yes we can. Imagining a better future, dude, Margaret, I mean,

1067
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:07,480
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go body roll to some blues hell.

1068
00:56:07,560 --> 00:56:12,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, gonna learn some pentatonic scales. That's what

1069
00:56:12,719 --> 00:56:13,200
Speaker 1: I gotta do.

1070
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:21,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, good luck, man, joints is difficult? What yeah? Yeah?

1071
00:56:21,920 --> 00:56:25,960
Speaker 2: And and then I don't know. I mean I feel

1072
00:56:26,000 --> 00:56:31,480
Speaker 2: like everybody does. You have these just like various like

1073
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:37,960
Speaker 2: lucid memories or like you know, disparate images from childhood

1074
00:56:38,080 --> 00:56:40,840
Speaker 2: or books or things, maybe your parents that are passing

1075
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:43,680
Speaker 2: or maybe you had to watch a video in school

1076
00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 2: or something, and like, but they're bits and pieces of information. Yeah,

1077
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 2: and and so when you said so even we opened

1078
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:53,400
Speaker 2: when we opened it up, that's what happened. When you

1079
00:56:53,440 --> 00:56:55,759
Speaker 2: say you heard of John Henry, it was like at

1080
00:56:55,920 --> 00:56:57,839
Speaker 2: bits and pieces of it. That's why I was like, yeah,

1081
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:00,560
Speaker 2: I know the story. And then I was like, wait, no,

1082
00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:01,840
Speaker 2: I don't wait, yeah.

1083
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:03,560
Speaker 1: I do, but you knew more of the story than

1084
00:57:03,600 --> 00:57:03,960
Speaker 1: I did.

1085
00:57:04,600 --> 00:57:09,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, so there there. Yeah, just those man,

1086
00:57:09,680 --> 00:57:12,560
Speaker 2: i I'm like as a just a fan of the

1087
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:16,560
Speaker 2: show and just a fan of learning like you. Just like, man,

1088
00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:19,600
Speaker 2: you just connect again. The birds just all came into

1089
00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:23,919
Speaker 2: all came into place right now. Hell yeah, I'm I'm

1090
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:26,360
Speaker 2: so thankful, like I feel gratitude.

1091
00:57:26,680 --> 00:57:29,439
Speaker 1: Oh no, I like having you on this show.

1092
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:34,120
Speaker 2: This is good, man, keep doing this. We're gonna we're

1093
00:57:34,120 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 2: gonna renew We're renewing Margaret's contract. Yeah, we're renewing my contract.

1094
00:57:43,160 --> 00:57:45,640
Speaker 3: As long as you guys want to do shows, there's

1095
00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:46,280
Speaker 3: a place for you.

1096
00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:47,960
Speaker 1: The heat Death of the Universe.

1097
00:57:48,360 --> 00:57:50,440
Speaker 2: So the heat Death of the Universe.

1098
00:57:51,040 --> 00:57:53,760
Speaker 1: Or are we breathing too much silica dust?

1099
00:57:54,000 --> 00:57:56,480
Speaker 2: You know, one of those things.

1100
00:57:56,960 --> 00:58:02,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, if people want to hear your podcast, please

1101
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:04,920
Speaker 1: hood Politics. What's your podcast podcast called?

1102
00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:12,040
Speaker 2: Yeah? Uh? Politics with Prop? Yeah, so the Politics with Prop.

1103
00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:17,520
Speaker 2: Matt and I are actually sitting on seven songs that

1104
00:58:18,040 --> 00:58:19,920
Speaker 2: we're gonna, you know, kind of put out as a

1105
00:58:19,920 --> 00:58:22,760
Speaker 2: mix tape do like some song exploders. But we're waiting

1106
00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:25,840
Speaker 2: for He's fools to figure out how to do the

1107
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:28,600
Speaker 2: cooler zone on Android, you know what I mean. So

1108
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:30,959
Speaker 2: we're kind of waiting on that. That's ready.

1109
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:34,800
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be a Cooler Zone mixtape. Yeah cool,

1110
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean.

1111
00:58:37,800 --> 00:58:40,440
Speaker 2: Cooler. Are we gonna make that? Are we gonna make

1112
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:41,439
Speaker 2: that a thing that's cool?

1113
00:58:41,720 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 1: Get us an actual cooler as the logo.

1114
00:58:46,640 --> 00:58:48,640
Speaker 2: Yo, I'm gonna trying. I'm gonna try to get my

1115
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:50,680
Speaker 2: trying to get my kids to say start saying cooler.

1116
00:58:51,120 --> 00:58:55,520
Speaker 2: It's cooler man. Yeah yeah, dad can't do it. I

1117
00:58:55,560 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 2: think we're too old to start slag. Yeah yeah, yeah,

1118
00:58:57,640 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I can't start slaying. I'm like, but your

1119
00:58:59,640 --> 00:59:00,360
Speaker 2: dad's a wrapper.

1120
00:59:00,840 --> 00:59:03,480
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, but you do like old man, your dad?

1121
00:59:04,160 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 5: Yeah you rap about dad shit? Yeah yeah. Now terrorform

1122
00:59:09,280 --> 00:59:13,960
Speaker 5: cold brew please use promo code hood get fifteen percent off.

1123
00:59:14,240 --> 00:59:15,360
Speaker 5: When we did this on the.

1124
00:59:16,840 --> 00:59:19,080
Speaker 2: I threw that out on it could happen here and

1125
00:59:19,520 --> 00:59:23,800
Speaker 2: sold war coffee did ibbly like y'all got a lot

1126
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:27,800
Speaker 2: of listeners. I like this, Yeah yeah so so yeah yeah,

1127
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:30,439
Speaker 2: do that and follow me on all the things prop

1128
00:59:30,520 --> 00:59:30,960
Speaker 2: hip hop.

1129
00:59:31,960 --> 00:59:36,840
Speaker 1: Hell yam. And if you are white person concerned about

1130
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:40,440
Speaker 1: what is cultural appreciation and not, one thing that is

1131
00:59:40,480 --> 00:59:42,400
Speaker 1: almost always safe to do is buy things from black

1132
00:59:42,400 --> 00:59:43,120
Speaker 1: owned businesses.

1133
00:59:43,440 --> 00:59:46,760
Speaker 2: Listen, you can't lose. Yeah, I will take your money,

1134
00:59:47,040 --> 00:59:53,680
Speaker 2: yeah and appropriate it. Well, I will allocate the funds.

1135
00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:59,720
Speaker 1: Yes, if you want to watch me at the end

1136
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:03,040
Speaker 1: of every single episode not remember what it is that

1137
01:00:03,120 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 1: I'm going to.

1138
01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:06,160
Speaker 2: I swear.

1139
01:00:06,240 --> 01:00:07,880
Speaker 1: I was like, I spent the whole break in between

1140
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:09,840
Speaker 1: being like, I'm gonna remember the thing that I'm supposed

1141
01:00:09,880 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 1: to plug and I don't know what it is.

1142
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:13,960
Speaker 2: Is it a live show? Do you have like I

1143
01:00:14,000 --> 01:00:15,080
Speaker 2: don't coming up?

1144
01:00:15,120 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 1: I think so, No, I.

1145
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:20,800
Speaker 2: But I have. Are you running for office?

1146
01:00:21,440 --> 01:00:24,840
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about it, but no, I probably won't.

1147
01:00:26,880 --> 01:00:29,280
Speaker 1: It gets distracted. Think you know what that would look like?

1148
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:31,520
Speaker 1: Vote Margaret anarchist for president?

1149
01:00:32,040 --> 01:00:32,680
Speaker 2: Amazing?

1150
01:00:33,800 --> 01:00:35,960
Speaker 1: Well, okay, it's all about music. I have a bunch

1151
01:00:35,960 --> 01:00:37,880
Speaker 1: of different music projects. This isn't what I was going

1152
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:41,200
Speaker 1: to pitch, but or promote or whatever. Plug that's the verb.

1153
01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:45,440
Speaker 1: My most recent whatever. My most recent is of a

1154
01:00:45,640 --> 01:00:48,480
Speaker 1: synthpop band called the Lathe and it is a We

1155
01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:52,400
Speaker 1: have an EP out on band camp and Spotify, and

1156
01:00:52,520 --> 01:00:56,680
Speaker 1: as Prop pointed out, even if Spotify pays garbage, people

1157
01:00:56,720 --> 01:00:59,560
Speaker 1: look at the Spotify numbers in order to determine how

1158
01:00:59,600 --> 01:01:02,480
Speaker 1: important someone is, whereas no one looks at band camp

1159
01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:04,280
Speaker 1: to say how important is this band because it doesn't

1160
01:01:04,280 --> 01:01:07,360
Speaker 1: have an immediate quantifiable number. So, however you choose to

1161
01:01:07,400 --> 01:01:09,920
Speaker 1: listen to it, I'm perfectly happy. I hope you enjoy it.

1162
01:01:10,000 --> 01:01:12,120
Speaker 1: I'm also in a black metal band called Feminine School,

1163
01:01:12,920 --> 01:01:16,760
Speaker 1: and I am not yet in a band with Sophie

1164
01:01:17,600 --> 01:01:19,680
Speaker 1: m be good thing.

1165
01:01:20,480 --> 01:01:22,720
Speaker 2: Oh oh man, it broke up. Would you say you're

1166
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:27,000
Speaker 2: not in a band with what Sophie me? Yeah? Did

1167
01:01:27,040 --> 01:01:28,360
Speaker 2: you imagine.

1168
01:01:31,240 --> 01:01:32,360
Speaker 3: Ruined Margaret's career?

1169
01:01:34,240 --> 01:01:34,600
Speaker 1: Talent?

1170
01:01:34,960 --> 01:01:36,680
Speaker 2: Is that? Is that your achilles heel? Is that the

1171
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:37,600
Speaker 2: one thing you can't do?

1172
01:01:38,840 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 1: Oh? No, I got, I got Midian auto tune. We're fine.

1173
01:01:43,800 --> 01:01:45,040
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna you just sing.

1174
01:01:46,160 --> 01:01:48,360
Speaker 2: Look, I don't know what I need to do to

1175
01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:52,600
Speaker 2: be in these like group texts or like party situations,

1176
01:01:52,680 --> 01:01:55,480
Speaker 2: because I feel like I can't wait, like we have

1177
01:01:55,640 --> 01:01:58,840
Speaker 2: yet to like party somewhere, like yeah, you know, and

1178
01:01:58,920 --> 01:02:00,880
Speaker 2: like I need to see y'all on it.

1179
01:02:01,280 --> 01:02:02,040
Speaker 1: I'm on the West Coast.

1180
01:02:02,440 --> 01:02:06,880
Speaker 3: DJ Daniel just remixed my voice onto the I've been

1181
01:02:06,920 --> 01:02:10,880
Speaker 3: asking for a cool Zone Media ending jingle since we

1182
01:02:10,960 --> 01:02:13,160
Speaker 3: decided we were going to do Cool Zone Media, and

1183
01:02:13,200 --> 01:02:16,400
Speaker 3: they just finalize that, so maybe I could be in

1184
01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:17,240
Speaker 3: a band.

1185
01:02:17,640 --> 01:02:20,960
Speaker 2: All right, Well, well that sounds dope to me.

1186
01:02:21,320 --> 01:02:23,640
Speaker 1: Is your plug that everyone should go listen to your band?

1187
01:02:24,720 --> 01:02:26,680
Speaker 3: No, my plug is that everyone should go listen to

1188
01:02:26,720 --> 01:02:28,880
Speaker 3: your band and go listen to Prop's new album.

1189
01:02:29,080 --> 01:02:34,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, bye.

1190
01:02:35,320 --> 01:02:37,840
Speaker 3: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1191
01:02:37,880 --> 01:02:40,960
Speaker 3: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,

1192
01:02:41,120 --> 01:02:44,400
Speaker 3: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out

1193
01:02:44,480 --> 01:02:47,840
Speaker 3: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

1194
01:02:47,880 --> 01:02:48,720
Speaker 3: your podcasts.