Speaker 1: I have to, like, I have to turn all the
Speaker 1: way off, and I tell my partner, like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to watch a movie that's smart. I don't want
Speaker 1: to watch a movie that is challenging or difficult for me.
Speaker 2: I got a good one for you, The Union, starring
Speaker 2: Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry.
Speaker 1: Oh, America's greatest actor, Mark Wahlberg.
Speaker 2: Yeah, America's greatest patriot, America's greatest actor. Would have gone
Speaker 2: down a lot different if he had been there for
Speaker 2: literally any of the horrible attacks in American history.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I should I should include some alternate histories of
Speaker 1: the terrorist events in my show where Mark Wahlberg stopped.
Speaker 2: Them Pearl Harbor. That sh would have gone down a
Speaker 2: lot different if I had been there, Bro.
Speaker 3: I would have told, Hey, keep your head on a swibble, Bro,
Speaker 3: keep your head on a swibble. Bro. I think literally
Speaker 3: they're sending it. They're sending messages that they're gonna attack Bro.
Speaker 1: But anyway, Yeah, if Mark Wahlberg had been in the
Speaker 1: radio tower, he would have said something, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely clear, eyes, warm heart, Hello the Internet, and
Speaker 2: welcome to season three point fifty one, episode two of.
Speaker 4: Dr Day's iisting production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast
Speaker 4: where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness.
Speaker 4: And it is Tuesday, August twentieth, twenty four eight.
Speaker 3: Twenty two four mm hmm, which means National Accessible Air
Speaker 3: Travel Day, is National Chocolate pecan pie Day, National radio Day.
Speaker 3: Don't care about that because this is podcasting. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: that's it for today. Just three three things, just the
Speaker 3: three menu.
Speaker 2: Damn, just three on the menu down out here, and
Speaker 2: pick can pie? You a fan?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah? Oh fuck yeah, even not even in a
Speaker 3: pie like in like the roasted in a bag. I
Speaker 3: could fucking dust a bag fucking seconds straight. It's just
Speaker 3: something so delicious about it. I think.
Speaker 2: Are they like greasy?
Speaker 3: Is that why? Yeah, they got a little greasy.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I didn't fuck with them before,
Speaker 2: but yeah now I'm a I'm up the cam bitch
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: My name is Jack O'Brien aka the the cam Bitch
Speaker 2: aka sit in on the trash, eating garbage, ripping them
Speaker 2: crows into in the half with my mind on a
Speaker 2: murderer and a murder on my mind. That is courtesy
Speaker 2: of m P L M D nine seven four four
Speaker 2: six seven of course that's just going off off the dome.
Speaker 2: I just that name, I just sticks in my brain. MP.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm always worried that I'm like mispronouncing or like missing
Speaker 2: something in the screen name, Like.
Speaker 3: Is M P L M D?
Speaker 2: Is that like maple doctor or something? You know, like
Speaker 2: is ninety seven four four sixty seven like some code
Speaker 2: that I should know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know? Wow? Or nine? What happened September seventh,
Speaker 3: thineteen forty four? There's so many ways to break that down.
Speaker 2: September forty four through nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, seven or four? Yeah, yeah, my golden era.
Speaker 1: It's the last six of his social that's yeah.
Speaker 2: Which, yeah, that shit doesn't matter anymore. Ye, every single
Speaker 2: one of them. So we can stop fucking worrying. I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna go go ahead and say mine right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah, I think a couple episodes back.
Speaker 2: Did you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're brave, brave, don't give I see them unredacted
Speaker 3: in court documents all the time.
Speaker 1: They're not careful.
Speaker 3: Yeah right, that's wow.
Speaker 2: They're just like, yeah, it doesn't anymore. Whatever, Like we
Speaker 2: have to build a new system. We haven't done it yet.
Speaker 2: But that we need to build a new system because
Speaker 2: everything is for free on the internet everywhere. Well, speaking
Speaker 2: of for free on the internet, I'm thrilled to be
Speaker 2: joined as always by my co host mister Miles Gray.
Speaker 3: Yes he's back, the bee boy champion of North Hollywood
Speaker 3: who missed my flight to Paris for the Olympics, the
Speaker 3: original bee boy Gray Gun in the building. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for having me. Uh you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of my moves were premiered in ray Gun's actual breakdancing
Speaker 3: battle set, inspired that one, the human scissor, the rub
Speaker 3: my head on the ground like a mop. These are
Speaker 3: awesome seminoles.
Speaker 2: I know so specifically too, the she really did.
Speaker 3: I was like, get that, ray Gun, go ahead, go ahead,
Speaker 3: make a mockery of it.
Speaker 1: The organ Zoo had a great TikTok sound like my mother.
Speaker 1: I saw a lovely TikTok that you would enjoy. But
Speaker 1: the organ Zoo took Zoo clips of her Olympic breakdancing performance,
Speaker 1: and so obviously she did the kangaroo move, but they
Speaker 1: took each move from the performance and showed a kangaroo
Speaker 1: doing a very similar operation wow, and just sort of
Speaker 1: cut them together back and forth like Raygun the kangaroo.
Speaker 1: Raygun the Kangaroo is beautiful. I would give the kangaroo
Speaker 1: a ten out of ten.
Speaker 2: I like the end of Usual Suspects where it's all
Speaker 2: coming together and ray Gun was like cooling things, but
Speaker 2: it was all just from kangaroos.
Speaker 1: I mean, he thinks about it. She should get extra
Speaker 1: points for it being you know, Australian nationalism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Like, oh, my moves are mark I
Speaker 3: do Marsupial based movements and I think that's what people
Speaker 3: need to look at through that lens and analyze my
Speaker 3: dancing from there.
Speaker 1: Talking about the culture of break dancing, it's unique to
Speaker 1: the to the area where the dancing is occurring. So
Speaker 1: in Australia, just kangaroo moves.
Speaker 3: That's exactly.
Speaker 1: That's like, is a culturally bound Yeah, right right.
Speaker 2: You would think so the break dancing community has come
Speaker 2: together to be like, leave ray Gun alone. The kangaroo community,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, are like, she's making us look
Speaker 2: fucking stupid. Drag her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so exactly, you don't want to fuck with the kangaroo.
Speaker 3: That's a different KHive on Twitter. You don't want to have.
Speaker 2: Ever seen them trying to drown another animal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but then you also see those videos are like
Speaker 3: in a they're like they're trying to fuck with a dog,
Speaker 3: and then they're like adult like human comes around, like
Speaker 3: just pushes them over and like the fuck out of here, kangaroo.
Speaker 3: And I always thought they could. I mean, I hear
Speaker 3: you don't want to fight them, but cartoons have conditioned
Speaker 3: me to believe you do not want to box one
Speaker 3: of these motherfuckers.
Speaker 2: Ever, watch out for the kicks, because they've got rid
Speaker 2: of toenails like me, like me, exactly, Miles. We are
Speaker 2: thrilled to be joined in our third seats by a
Speaker 2: journalist who's been published in plays like The Guardian Enslaved.
Speaker 2: You probably already follow her on Twitter at Socialist dog
Speaker 2: Mom for her in depth investigative work on white supremacist,
Speaker 2: neo Nazis and hate groups in the US. Her new
Speaker 2: podcast for cool Zone is Weird Little Guys, Please welcome.
Speaker 1: Molly can't glad to be here.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was weird to do that when we were
Speaker 3: just talking, so let's well pretend I didn't just scream
Speaker 3: my way, But anyway, what's up? Thank you for joining us. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm pumped about it.
Speaker 2: The show is so good. Weird little guys, Well, yeah,
Speaker 2: well we're gonna get into it. That the timing, Like
Speaker 2: I'm just curious to hear how it felt as the
Speaker 2: entire Democratic Party kind of coalesced around the messaging of
Speaker 2: like what if we called these guys weird? Like as
Speaker 2: your podcast is about to come out basically making that point.
Speaker 1: I mean like cynically, that's marketing you couldn't engineer, right,
Speaker 1: that's the SEO on that is beautiful. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, like you know, people are like, oh, you're
Speaker 1: just aping democratic messaging. It's like I don't. First of all,
Speaker 1: this is this is my first job in you know,
Speaker 1: in audio media. But so maybe people don't know. But
Speaker 1: the production cycle on this show, like if we could
Speaker 1: turn around a whole show from the day Tim Waltz
Speaker 1: called him weird, Like the trailer came out like two
Speaker 1: days later, Like do you think right, do you think
Speaker 1: the art department mocked us up yesterday?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like take like two three hours is out here.
Speaker 3: And nobody could have thought of like that way to
Speaker 3: describe these weird dudes.
Speaker 1: Like now I've been saying that for literal years and
Speaker 1: that's that's why the show's called that, Right. He's like
Speaker 1: in a meeting months ago, I was, you know, we're
Speaker 1: sort of talking about production of the show. Is like
Speaker 1: a regular like work business meeting, and I just can't
Speaker 1: help myself. I'm always looking at a weird little guy.
Speaker 1: So I'm you know, interjecting, you know, how is everybody's
Speaker 1: day going whatever he's doing, And I'm like, you, guys,
Speaker 1: I just found the weirdest little guy. And so if
Speaker 1: you wrote it down her little notebook, and that's why
Speaker 1: it's the name of the show.
Speaker 3: Because like I always like, yeah, yeah, the only way
Speaker 3: to only way to describe it, only way to describe
Speaker 3: it amazing.
Speaker 2: All right, We're going to get into the show, the
Speaker 2: weird little guys, all of it, but first we do
Speaker 2: like to get to know you a little bit better
Speaker 2: by asking you questions such as, Molly Conger, what is
Speaker 2: something from your search history that is revealing about who
Speaker 2: you are besides your Social Security number?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so my search history is sort of a land
Speaker 1: of troubling contrasts. Right, Like, So, in the course of
Speaker 1: writing my show and doing my research in my day
Speaker 1: to day work, the things I'm googling are disgusting and
Speaker 1: upsetting and weird, like you know, like this week, I've
Speaker 1: been googling a lot about like the Rhodesian Bush War
Speaker 1: and like war crimes in colonial Africa. That's not fun,
Speaker 1: that's not about me. Spoiler for this week's episode of
Speaker 1: the show, I had to look at a lot of
Speaker 1: websites about like a particular genre of like really degrading
Speaker 1: an abusive fetish porn. That was for work, let's be clear, right.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 1: Oh god, this one's grows. I threw up, like threw up?
Speaker 2: Wow, Oh God? Is that are you? Is that usual?
Speaker 2: Is this the first that has made you throw?
Speaker 5: It?
Speaker 2: Was?
Speaker 1: What I saw was not good.
Speaker 3: It's not okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, but in terms of in terms of things that
Speaker 1: I'm googling.
Speaker 2: Them have to tune in.
Speaker 5: But no.
Speaker 1: I've also recently done some in depth research about the
Speaker 1: best kind of small hats you can get for a dog,
Speaker 1: because my dogs have their birthday recently and this you know,
Speaker 1: they have birthday hats. They have cowboy hats, and they
Speaker 1: have like a little pink princess hat. But I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, this year, I need crowns and I don't
Speaker 1: want some flimsy piece of shit plastic dog crowns. So
Speaker 1: I really dug in and did some googling about small
Speaker 1: princess crowns for dogs, and I got ready.
Speaker 3: Ones made of precious metals and stones.
Speaker 1: Oh it's made out of like cheap metal, but it's
Speaker 1: better than plastic, you know. Yeah, it's durable, fake pearls,
Speaker 1: you know, very different.
Speaker 3: You have dogs that yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and they
Speaker 3: and they're like I've I've had pets but that I've
Speaker 3: tried to dress in the past, and some just will
Speaker 3: not have it. They are patient with the headwear.
Speaker 1: They don't love the hats, but an outfit they love
Speaker 1: an outfit.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, right, once they see themselves in the mirror,
Speaker 2: they're like worth it.
Speaker 1: Right, I think because they know, like, whatever is happening
Speaker 1: to me, everyone around me is loving it. I'm being
Speaker 1: pretty much everyone is so into what's happening right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1: Like a couple of years ago, we did something I
Speaker 1: called dog Tober where every day of October I took
Speaker 1: pictures of them in different costumes. So I do own
Speaker 1: like forty dog costumes.
Speaker 3: What's the weirdest one you got?
Speaker 1: Well, the lobster is my favorite because they just look
Speaker 1: so crazed with the little lobster antennas, like right right, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they have those long bodies, they do look like lobster.
Speaker 1: I love the lobster.
Speaker 3: Wow, I need to look that up. Lobster Wiener dog costumes.
Speaker 1: Buck looks great. And his lion costume the Panda bear.
Speaker 1: I don't love the purple octopus a classic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lion costume is the most that
Speaker 2: my dog, dearly departed Finny ever communicated that like fuck
Speaker 2: you to me. He was so furious, he was like
Speaker 2: shaking it off his head and it was just a
Speaker 2: battle of wills.
Speaker 1: Sometimes find it very degrading.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just like I think he rolled
Speaker 2: his eyes at me, right, and then you're like, bro, without.
Speaker 3: This, you're fucking naked.
Speaker 2: You look ridiculous. What is something, Molly that you think
Speaker 2: is underrated?
Speaker 1: Okay, wait for it, having a little treat. I subscribe
Speaker 1: to something I call the little treat lifestyle. You know,
Speaker 1: like people like, oh, you know what we should should
Speaker 1: know if if you can afford it and it's reasonable
Speaker 1: and the treat is available, you should always have a
Speaker 1: little treat. And sometimes it's like you know, an actual
Speaker 1: treat that you eat, or like a little thing that
Speaker 1: you get for yourself, Like I just got myself a
Speaker 1: really nice new pencil.
Speaker 3: I saw that. That's a Japanese that's a Uni.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I did some googling about Japanese pencils.
Speaker 3: What is that point five millimeter or point?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, point five point five?
Speaker 2: Wait?
Speaker 3: Just checking, just checking, just checking.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna annotate these Nazi memoir with something precise.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, as someone who grew up going to
Speaker 3: Japan like for summer vacation and coming back with just
Speaker 3: the dopest mechanical pencils, like I would stunt on my classmates.
Speaker 3: I'm like, bro, it's nice, cheap ass plastic bic. Bro,
Speaker 3: look at this shit. It's heavier than a police baton
Speaker 3: and I'm writing with it.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean the engineering is tysnically.
Speaker 3: A murder weapon.
Speaker 2: You are you guys are able to use like I
Speaker 2: can't use a regular mechanical pencil without snapping that ship
Speaker 2: in half, Like, not not in half, but snapping the lead.
Speaker 3: And you're able to use finer? How many times you
Speaker 3: clicking that thing? Like how much is the lead out
Speaker 3: when you're like like, damn it fourteen times, Jack, I don't.
Speaker 1: Think you understand the engineering that goes into the Korutoga
Speaker 1: Elite mechanical pencil.
Speaker 2: Okay, you got, you got are elite.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it comes with a diamond infused graphite. Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's not breaking off Holy shit, no way is it
Speaker 1: marketed like that, that's what it says.
Speaker 3: Wow. I thought it was just my pre roll joints
Speaker 3: that were diamond infused, and now we're talking about fucking
Speaker 3: pencil led to Okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I mean if you're struggling with your with
Speaker 1: your horrible little cheat mechanical pencil, try the Coga wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, I'll be like, I mean I have
Speaker 2: also snapped like plastic where in half, like I.
Speaker 6: Just because you're just too strong or right, just incredible yeah,
Speaker 6: where like I'm just thinking about something stressful and then
Speaker 6: suddenly a thing snaps in my hand.
Speaker 1: Is back door bragging about your incredible grip strength, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: And then like the pencil speaking of diamonds turns into
Speaker 2: a fucking diamond in my hand. It's crazy.
Speaker 3: Is handwriting analysis like that forensic? Is that an action?
Speaker 3: Is that a pseudo science? It's fake, right, Yeah, But
Speaker 3: I feel like the one time they're like, yo, this dude,
Speaker 3: look just looking at this handwriting, he is gripping that
Speaker 3: shit way too hard and Brendon Now, way do we
Speaker 3: know that based off this light handwriting and.
Speaker 2: All the just sweat pouring all over over the page.
Speaker 2: Oh no, he's got a lot going on, a lot
Speaker 2: of internal churn, a lot.
Speaker 3: Wait, what's another kind of treat? What's another Like, what's
Speaker 3: your sort of the framework to determine whether or not
Speaker 3: it's treat time for you?
Speaker 1: It's fives based, man, you know it's Yeah, when the
Speaker 1: opportunity for a treat arises, naturally, just go with it.
Speaker 1: Let it happen, Let the treat be part of your life.
Speaker 1: Like it was shopping at Costco recently and they had
Speaker 1: the Kirkland signature brand sweatshirt that I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: for a long.
Speaker 2: Logo blast on the front.
Speaker 3: Yeah baby wow, and they got that black black color tone.
Speaker 1: Black on black, Like I didn't need this, I didn't
Speaker 1: need this, but it's on sale and it was a
Speaker 1: treat and it was yeah, and now it's mine.
Speaker 3: And in a way like impossible to detect, like to
Speaker 3: be like we got to find someone in a Kirkland
Speaker 3: signature hoodie. They're like, good luck, motherfucker, that's countrys. Yeah exactly.
Speaker 3: Damn I got to get one of those.
Speaker 1: I know, I got this. I got the matching sweatpants
Speaker 1: too fucking rocks.
Speaker 2: And they got a logo too cool. Oh yeah down
Speaker 2: the leg baby is wow, all the way up and
Speaker 2: down the lake like one leg is consumed by the
Speaker 2: kirk ciggy logo.
Speaker 1: They have that one, but I couldn't find it, so
Speaker 1: mine just has like the small logo like near the heads.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but I mean I got the Kirkland.
Speaker 3: Fit Yeah, yeah, yeah, damn, okay.
Speaker 1: All right right sponsored me Costco?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see you, but only as related to fashion
Speaker 2: items the Kirkland fashion line. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like now that I am a professional podcaster, I just
Speaker 1: I feel so much more at home, Like I can't
Speaker 1: go to a office, I can't go to a job,
Speaker 1: Like no, I buy all my clothes at Costco. Right,
Speaker 1: So like, thank god I'm a podcaster now. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: you fit right in and you're you look the part.
Speaker 1: You look the part.
Speaker 2: When my friends talk about going into an office, I
Speaker 2: spit on the ground. I can't I can't even conceive
Speaker 2: of it. We'll that even be like they're like.
Speaker 3: I don't even have clothes I can wear in bubbling.
Speaker 1: I'm not wearing pants right now.
Speaker 3: No, none of us are. I'm wearing I'm wearing one
Speaker 3: third of a T shirt. If I actually stood up,
Speaker 3: you'd see it just covers my shoulders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this isn't.
Speaker 1: This isn't from the mid chest up profession.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it looks like those like like how like someone
Speaker 3: would wear on like the like a linebacker and football
Speaker 3: in the eighties.
Speaker 1: Just h oh yeah, the little chop top.
Speaker 2: Yeah. If my belly button can't breathe, neither can I.
Speaker 2: All right, what is Molly something you think is overrated?
Speaker 1: Oh so I am. I'm my struggle right now, so
Speaker 1: overrated wedding venues. I am trying to plan a wedding
Speaker 1: right now. And I don't know if you guys have
Speaker 1: spent any time in the American South, every wedding venue
Speaker 1: used to be a fucking plantation, every single one of them.
Speaker 1: And they don't tell you it's not on the website.
Speaker 1: They're not honest about it. So I'm digging through like
Speaker 1: land use archives and the history of the building like,
Speaker 1: I need you to tell me, shit, did slaves build this?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Because they will tell you and everything is a fucking barn.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get married in a barn.
Speaker 2: Question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the was this the venue for unspeakable atrocities.
Speaker 2: That will haunt my marriage?
Speaker 1: For professional portraits made of my entire family? Like in
Speaker 1: front of the lynching tree? That's not the vibe.
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, wait, so have you like I'm guessing like
Speaker 3: some places been like and we're just an old traditional
Speaker 3: house like here in Virginia, and then you've actually had
Speaker 3: to go through like old records and like, hold on,
Speaker 3: I just found the thing that basically it bears all
Speaker 3: truths that this was an actual plant, a working plantation.
Speaker 1: I mean, thankfully, you know, doing the research, getting weird,
Speaker 1: getting deep into the archives. That's my wheelhouse. So I'm set.
Speaker 1: I'm worried about everybody.
Speaker 3: Else, right right, right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I need to know the providence of these bricks, okay, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah. Further, it's like, are these conflict bricks because we
Speaker 3: can't have that, we can't have you don't.
Speaker 1: Want to like child they had children make the bricks
Speaker 1: because their hands were small.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I don't want any part of that, right,
Speaker 3: It's like, how do you think they got the intricate thing?
Speaker 1: A little thinky prints, Like the nail factory that used
Speaker 1: to be here in town was like staffed by enslaved children.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, well then so so no Blake Lively plantation
Speaker 3: wedding for you, that's what that's what we're getting at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I just I don't want there to be
Speaker 1: a horse there. I didn't invite a horse. I'm not
Speaker 1: getting married in a barn.
Speaker 3: So what are your options? You don't want a barn,
Speaker 3: you don't want a plantation.
Speaker 2: Were even an incidental horse, You're like, get that motherfucker
Speaker 2: out of here.
Speaker 1: There's no hay. There's no hay in this in this situation. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: but guys overrated, you know, like, oh for twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, you can come to our barn, get fucked.
Speaker 3: No, sure, no, no, it's like, but the horses do
Speaker 3: stay if you want the horses out, that's thirty.
Speaker 1: Grand Oh that's extra, that's extra, yeah right right right, right.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Now yeah, I don't I don't horse hotel.
Speaker 3: I don't envy those. I know a few people who
Speaker 3: are trying to get wedding things together, and just remembering
Speaker 3: my own distress I encountered. I was like, no, no,
Speaker 3: I don't I don't miss that. I don't miss that.
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to plan my own birthday party.
Speaker 1: Why why is this my problem so overread? The entire
Speaker 1: industry a disaster?
Speaker 2: Don't want to Is that because people used to be
Speaker 2: into the idea that it was like a plantation, and
Speaker 2: so that's like a remnant from an older time or
Speaker 2: it's just like everything with plantations back then.
Speaker 1: So they're just like, I mean, it's for Virginia. So
Speaker 1: a lot of our large, beautiful old buildings, right didn't
Speaker 1: get constructed ethically, But I think that's part of it too,
Speaker 1: where there was that sort of like mid twentieth century
Speaker 1: fascination with Antebellum Southern culture.
Speaker 3: Right, so that was to draw yeah, right exactly, it's like,
Speaker 3: well ignore, just just focus on like the glitz and
Speaker 3: glamour of it, and then we can have a good time.
Speaker 1: It was a farm, Oh who was farming.
Speaker 2: Farm?
Speaker 3: They like cotton or something? Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think like the king was cotton or something. I
Speaker 3: don't know. I can't I didn't read the whole thing,
Speaker 3: but kind of murky, move.
Speaker 2: It along, move it along. All right, let's take a
Speaker 2: quick break and we're going to come back and talk
Speaker 2: some weird little guys. We'll be right back.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, and we're back.
Speaker 2: We're back and yeah. So just to kind of give
Speaker 2: people an introduction, although everybody should just go listen to
Speaker 2: episode zero, where you do a beautiful job of giving
Speaker 2: an introduction to the premise of the show. But one
Speaker 2: of the ideas is that these people who you know,
Speaker 2: organize the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, stage domestic terrorism,
Speaker 2: storm the Capitol on January sixth, They are associated with
Speaker 2: these big ideas and huge historical trends, but ultimately they
Speaker 2: often turn out to be just some guy you compared
Speaker 2: to the end of a Scooby Doo episode, except Scooby
Speaker 2: Doo doesn't have the courage or run time to then
Speaker 2: like spend an hour digging into the weird backstories of
Speaker 2: the people under the masks.
Speaker 3: But you do.
Speaker 2: You tell us what the fuck is going on with
Speaker 2: these people, and it's it's endlessly entertaining. Is there an
Speaker 2: example that you use to explain the premise of your
Speaker 2: show to someone who asks, like what your podcast is about?
Speaker 1: Oh man, they should have prepared me better for this marketing.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: No, but like you said, the idea is that they're
Speaker 1: all just these kind of sad little freaks, and they
Speaker 1: want us to believe that they're like the second coming
Speaker 1: of Hitler, right, that they're mighty and powerful and impressive
Speaker 1: and you should be very scared of them.
Speaker 2: And that is a compliment that gets like thrown around
Speaker 2: or like people are like this person might be the
Speaker 2: second coming of Hitler, like, and that's good, and that's
Speaker 2: what he wants.
Speaker 1: He wants you to think like, oh, it's this powerful monster.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that. Like the things that they
Speaker 1: did are not serious, right, Like you know the end
Speaker 1: of an episode of Scooby Doo when they unmask the
Speaker 1: you know, the caretaker who's been haunting the mansion, like
Speaker 1: he still did what they think the monster did. He said,
Speaker 1: a monster. He's just the weird old caretaker, right.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: So, I mean I don't want to spoil any future episodes,
Speaker 1: but for the two episodes that are out now, you know,
Speaker 1: the first one was an exploration of Kevin Strome. He
Speaker 1: was a member of the Neo Nazi group National Alliance.
Speaker 1: And you know, he thinks of himself as this sort
Speaker 1: of learned intellectual of race science and race purity, and
Speaker 1: he mixed this little show every week since the nineties.
Speaker 1: And he's pedophile, right, he has been to Britain for childborn,
Speaker 1: and he's his commitment to racial purity is so extreme
Speaker 1: that he won't let the foods on his plate intermingle
Speaker 1: because that's too much like race mixing.
Speaker 3: Oh wait for yeah, okay, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Like you can't book Gravey on mashed potatoes because that's
Speaker 1: a missagenation of flavors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, the freaks. I do the normal thing. I
Speaker 3: put in a little teacup and I and I sip
Speaker 3: it while I have a one bite after I fully
Speaker 3: swallowed the mashed potatoes. But I mean, like to your point, right,
Speaker 3: Like whenever we hear about these like violent plots or
Speaker 3: these groups that have like you know, acted out like
Speaker 3: all kinds of wild violence in physical space, like we
Speaker 3: create this image in our mind of like some fucking
Speaker 3: master criminal like with no soul that if like we
Speaker 3: saw on the street, we would immediately be like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, run in the opposite direction. This person is
Speaker 3: fucking scary and they're dangerous, and like, clearly it's clear
Speaker 3: that all these guys are like not even close to
Speaker 3: being some kind of cloaked Marvel super villain, and like
Speaker 3: we would run in the opposite direction if we saw
Speaker 3: them on the street because they're literal just fucking creeps.
Speaker 3: What do you think is like the like, obviously there's
Speaker 3: a power to demystifying our sort of like reflexive tendency
Speaker 3: to be like, oh, this person, because like what they're
Speaker 3: into is so odious and dangerous that they themselves it
Speaker 3: must be dangerous. But like it's clear that you find
Speaker 3: there's a way to sort of by taking the curtain back,
Speaker 3: we're able to just sort of reckon with these kinds
Speaker 3: of characters or you know, not characters, human beings and
Speaker 3: like a much more objective but while also being like, look,
Speaker 3: these aren't the kinds of people who are like absolute
Speaker 3: like these masterminds that we do need to fear. Is
Speaker 3: that sort of part of it? I know at one
Speaker 3: point you said, it's not about it's about understanding the creeps,
Speaker 3: like in every facet of our lives that they do exist, right.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, on a broadle broader social level,
Speaker 1: just you know, emotionally understanding that this isn't some sort
Speaker 1: of amorphous onto logical evil is empowering, right because like, right,
Speaker 1: you can't fight a monster. That's disempowering. It feels like, well,
Speaker 1: this is just this is something we can't change. There
Speaker 1: there are monsters in the world, and it's just a guy.
Speaker 1: It's just a guy who's afraid to.
Speaker 3: Talk to women, right, right, It's a guy who got
Speaker 3: a free sex doll head because he complained to the
Speaker 3: fucking customer support. And you're like, oh, okay, huh, that's weird.
Speaker 3: But he's making bombs too, Yeah, well yeah he.
Speaker 1: Is, right, like he knows how to make a pipe bomb,
Speaker 1: but like he's fucking a used sex to all.
Speaker 3: Right, Right, You're like, yeah, not now, it's now it's
Speaker 3: giving me the creeps in a completely different way for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The episode about the Civil War reenactment false flag
Speaker 2: is so wild. But before before we get into the
Speaker 2: details of that, I do just want to talk about
Speaker 2: this idea of weirdness because it has become the focus
Speaker 2: for the Democrats and the presidential campaign, and it happened
Speaker 2: as you're preparing to launch a show focused on the
Speaker 2: weirdness of right wing fascists, their policies, their personalities. What
Speaker 2: was it that made you focus in on weirdness, like
Speaker 2: based on the content and it feels like it just
Speaker 2: naturally took you in that direction. But first of all,
Speaker 2: what was it like to have that emerge as like
Speaker 2: a central Democrat talking point? And do you have an
Speaker 2: opinion on like how they're doing with regards to calling
Speaker 2: it out?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think arriving at the idea that you know,
Speaker 1: talking about these guys in the context of their idiosyncrasies
Speaker 1: and their their weirdness, the fact that they're out of
Speaker 1: step with the world arose naturally for me, right, Like
Speaker 1: I'm researching these guys in the context of domestic terrorism
Speaker 1: and trying to understand that, and something I keep coming
Speaker 1: across is like everything about the way they engage with
Speaker 1: the world is weird, right, Like, it's not just their
Speaker 1: ideas about race, their ideas about the Jews, or their
Speaker 1: ideas about how political power should be achieved mainly through violence.
Speaker 1: That's not separate from the fact that they're just weird
Speaker 1: on a personal level. These things are intertwined, like they
Speaker 1: have all these ideas about, you know, whether women should
Speaker 1: be able to vote because they just have weird ideas
Speaker 1: about how the world works, and so that was sort
Speaker 1: of a natural progression for me, and I think, you know, separately,
Speaker 1: the Democrats have recently arrived at the same place that
Speaker 1: like their weird personal lives and the weird shit they
Speaker 1: want to do to your personal life are obviously related.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It feels like for the longest time, like prior to this,
Speaker 3: like we were using very like academic terms to like
Speaker 3: accurately describe like their ideologies. So it's like, well, there
Speaker 3: these are ethno nationalists, these are proto fascist mode, but
Speaker 3: like you know what I mean, And like it does
Speaker 3: in a way it clearly identifies like where their you know,
Speaker 3: political might how like where their ideologies lie in terms
Speaker 3: of like a political spectrum. But the weird sort of
Speaker 3: cuts through that to not only be like, well it
Speaker 3: is weird to already be so like ant like like
Speaker 3: the race mixing is terrible. It's like what are you
Speaker 3: a fucking civil war ghost? Like what the fuck are
Speaker 3: we talking about? But the weirdness it does sort of
Speaker 3: in a way help sort of cut through I think
Speaker 3: a lot of these like sort of very academic terms
Speaker 3: that are used to accurately describe them and really sort
Speaker 3: of remind people of like maybe what is sort of
Speaker 3: what we consider normal for the most part in terms
Speaker 3: of like it's not being obsessed with people's genitals, it's
Speaker 3: not being obsessed with like children's genitals, it's not a
Speaker 3: being obsessed with like, you know, miscegenation or whatever these
Speaker 3: things are, that these are all like all of these
Speaker 3: things that they believe are weird are actually normal, and
Speaker 3: now it's it is actually them now that has crossed
Speaker 3: over into this space. So I feel like that was
Speaker 3: sort of like the one thing that I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: I think it's it's able to connect in a much
Speaker 3: easier way for people because it's much more conversational. But
Speaker 3: it does feel like a little bit I'm sure you're
Speaker 3: a bit frustrated to someone who's been reporting on this
Speaker 3: for a long time not to be not necessarily that
Speaker 3: it's like the Democrats, but that the warnings about being
Speaker 3: like these people are dangerous wasn't sort of enough until
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, wait, they're weird.
Speaker 1: We're we're getting a ratings bump from being interested in
Speaker 1: this like, yeah, you know, betterly than never not complaining. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's a weird CoInc But I think the reason it
Speaker 1: cuts to the quick so badly for them, the reason
Speaker 1: it's like so shockingly hurtful to them to be called weird,
Speaker 1: is because their whole ethos is that we are the
Speaker 1: arbiters of what is acceptable and what is normal, and
Speaker 1: we want to return to this nineteen fifties Norman Rockwell
Speaker 1: painting of imagined American life, and that's what's normal. And
Speaker 1: so you're the ones that are weird for you know,
Speaker 1: continuing to move forward in a society that progresses with time, right,
Speaker 1: and so saying like, actually that that's not normal, you're
Speaker 1: the weird one. You're the weird one. It undercuts their
Speaker 1: their belief about, you know, their reason to exist.
Speaker 2: And their personal lives so often fall completely out of
Speaker 2: line with that ethos that they claim to like they are.
Speaker 2: It's in line with it, but it's just like a
Speaker 2: weird When you first encounter they're like, well, all I
Speaker 2: care about is families, and then you see like the
Speaker 2: strange directions that spins off into and then look at
Speaker 2: their personal lives. It's I don't know, I guess. I
Speaker 2: guess it's unexpected at first, and then it's like totally
Speaker 2: expected once you take the time to think about it.
Speaker 1: I mean, like the it's you know, it's spoiler for
Speaker 1: this week's episode, but like, you know, these guys who
Speaker 1: want to talk about you know, traditional white values and
Speaker 1: Western civilization and you know, restructuring society so that we
Speaker 1: have you know, traditional Western values. One of the guys
Speaker 1: in this terror cell was making degrading hardcore pornography and
Speaker 1: it's like, that's not that's not the world you're talking
Speaker 1: about building, right right?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean from your perspective, from like looking
Speaker 3: at all these people for years, and you know, even
Speaker 3: like this latest episode with the Civil War reenactor, Like,
Speaker 3: is it that they're just that they're sort of repressing
Speaker 3: some dimension of who they are and that's that's manifesting
Speaker 3: them in like this like externalized hatred of people that
Speaker 3: like might intersect with their own like weird interests or
Speaker 3: feelings or how do you sort of look at these
Speaker 3: people sort of through the prism of like what they're espousing,
Speaker 3: but also the context of like their personal lives, Like
Speaker 3: how like how do those things or interact like in
Speaker 3: terms of like how you've how you've looked at these people.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's that's a question for a psychologists. I mean
Speaker 1: sometimes these sometimes these manifestations are like a desire to control.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of fascists they want to control society
Speaker 1: just the way they want to control their wife or
Speaker 1: their children. And so for a lot of pedophiles, it's
Speaker 1: about the exertion of control over a powerless victim, and
Speaker 1: that's kind of what they want to do to society.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I don't think the cognitive dissonance
Speaker 1: matters to them at all. Like you see a lot
Speaker 1: of white supremacists with Latino wives like that cognitive dissonance
Speaker 1: is irrelevant to them, right, So, like there's no making
Speaker 1: sense of it as a psychological drive. It just the
Speaker 1: rules don't apply to me. I'm just going to do
Speaker 1: this to society, yeah.
Speaker 2: Because psychology is like not a thing. It's not even
Speaker 2: like concepts in their head. They're just like, yeah, this
Speaker 2: is what I do, Like my shadow self are you
Speaker 2: talking about? I mean, like maybe.
Speaker 1: Maybe we can like necromance Freud and get them to
Speaker 1: take a look at this. Like for years I had
Speaker 1: this Nazi cyberstalker who would send me these messages that
Speaker 1: were like really graphically about like sexual fantasies involving feces. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's like that that doesn't involve me, right, right,
Speaker 1: Maybe you should talk talk to Simon Freud about that,
Speaker 1: like you're stuck in the anal development stage or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know, so mixed bag, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: I mean, but I feel like historians, like or at
Speaker 2: least the History Channel like kind of does it with Hitler, right,
Speaker 2: Like Hitler behind Closed Doors is not this amorphous ontological evil, right,
Speaker 2: He's driven by very strange demons and a lot of
Speaker 2: scatological you know shit. And then but then I feel like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it popped in my head when you
Speaker 2: were talking about Richard Spencer, like when he first came
Speaker 2: on the scene years ago, and it felt like the
Speaker 2: mainstream media was like into him, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, They're like, oh, finally, like a handsome, well
Speaker 1: spoken Nazi and a guy we can put on TV, right.
Speaker 2: Because they want Yeah, they want a Nazi. That is
Speaker 2: like central casting of a fascist in a non comedy movie.
Speaker 2: But when you look at them, it's just doctor Strange
Speaker 2: loves all the way down right, just time after time.
Speaker 2: It's like, nah, they have like weird suppressed urges and
Speaker 2: repressed repressed ideas that are like bursting out of them
Speaker 2: in these strange ways. But it does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the real Richard Spencer is the Richard Spencer in
Speaker 1: that leaked audio from the evening of Unite the Rights,
Speaker 1: Like the rally got canceled they didn't get to give
Speaker 1: their speeches because there was a terrorist event, and he
Speaker 1: was so mad that he didn't get to give his speech.
Speaker 1: He's like purple in the face, screaming about how like
Speaker 1: they don't get to do this to me, they don't
Speaker 1: get to do this to me, and he starts busting
Speaker 1: racial slurs that you would have to look up in
Speaker 1: a dictionary, like I think he called someone an octoroon
Speaker 1: or something like.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, yeah wow, taking it all the way back, but.
Speaker 1: Just like that sort of petulant, childish rage, like you
Speaker 1: could put a suit and tie on a Nasi, but
Speaker 1: he's still just an angry little guy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, because I think so many
Speaker 3: of these people have like very similar, like the similar
Speaker 3: themes in their lives which are there operating in this
Speaker 3: bizarre parallel reality. But when they're like forced to reconcile
Speaker 3: their perceived world and the one they actually live in.
Speaker 3: They just go deeper into the into the void because
Speaker 3: it's just that like that reckon, like that sort of
Speaker 3: dissonance is like too much. So it's like no, no, no,
Speaker 3: And now they like sort of increasingly become more hell
Speaker 3: bent on bringing their fantasy world to life like upon
Speaker 3: the rest of us. And it's like when they inevitably
Speaker 3: fail and realize they don't have the power or means
Speaker 3: to create the world, they typically will just resort to
Speaker 3: violence or destruction because if I can can't make something
Speaker 3: that I can destroy it. And either way, like I think,
Speaker 3: there's just that feeling of powerlessness that has to be addressed,
Speaker 3: and this sort.
Speaker 1: Of direction construction of this alternate reality. It just keeps
Speaker 1: coming up sort of recurring theme in these stories that
Speaker 1: I'm telling, Like I think this guy left out of
Speaker 1: episode one, but after Kevin Strome was arrested for possession
Speaker 1: of child pornography. He so he was the webmaster for
Speaker 1: a neo Nazi group, so he knew how to use
Speaker 1: the internet, right he was he was an internet guy,
Speaker 1: you know, from the nineties, so early internet adopter, and
Speaker 1: he made a website that convincingly looked like an actual
Speaker 1: local news outlet, and he peppered in like real local
Speaker 1: news stories, stuff about the weather, stuff about you know,
Speaker 1: just like local goings on. But like every third article
Speaker 1: on this fake newspaper website was about how we actually
Speaker 1: Kevin Strome isn't a pervert.
Speaker 2: In other news, right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Like what like this guy really not bad.
Speaker 3: It's like, I mean, it's the exact same thing, like
Speaker 3: even with the Civil War reenactor guy like also creating
Speaker 3: fake news articles like that, but he was such a boomer.
Speaker 3: He's like cutting and pasting shit onto physical paper and
Speaker 3: then xeroxing it and be like you've seen in this
Speaker 3: article and it's like what sharing it with like a
Speaker 3: teenager he's working with. Yeah, he's like, okay, man this
Speaker 3: to me. Yeah, man, Sniper's got a bunch of people.
Speaker 3: It's like what newspapers. That doesn't matter, man, it happened.
Speaker 2: It happened to you too, huh.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but it but it is like this very
Speaker 3: weird and then like even like this the sex doll thing,
Speaker 3: like it's a like there's just a about creating like
Speaker 3: insulating themselves truly in like this world of half truths
Speaker 3: or total fabrications to kind of like, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's very they want.
Speaker 1: They want to live in a cigarette ad from a
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five issue of Good Housekeeping, Like the world
Speaker 1: you're imagining was never real, Like not only can you
Speaker 1: go back to it, it was never real, Like that
Speaker 1: was on queludes.
Speaker 2: Right, exactly, she's so high that mom serving that turkey,
Speaker 2: like that turkey is not Yeah, yeah, she is out
Speaker 2: of her mind. Yeah, let's take a quick break and
Speaker 2: we'll come back, and I just want to talk a
Speaker 2: few of the details about the subjects of your first
Speaker 2: couple episodes because they are absolute bangers. We'll be right back,
Speaker 2: and we're back.
Speaker 3: We're back.
Speaker 2: So I want to talk about the Civil War Reenact
Speaker 2: reenactment bomb threat, which was allegedly perpetrated by Antifa, which
Speaker 2: I always hear Antifa used as this like buzzword on
Speaker 2: the right and then like Fox News stories, Yeah they
Speaker 2: love it as a boogeyman. But I had never seen,
Speaker 2: like any the details of what they think Antifa is doing.
Speaker 2: And so this story is of a Civil War reenactor
Speaker 2: group that's being threatened, and it's like not even the
Speaker 2: biggest one in the area, but it's being like repeatedly
Speaker 2: threatened and told like they have to stop or they're
Speaker 2: going to like all be murdered. And it's signed ANTIFA,
Speaker 2: like with this like logo that you could not off. Yeah,
Speaker 2: unofficial ANTIFA letterheady. Yeah, yeah, absolutely absolutely, And the letters
Speaker 2: are very threatening, but they also have this juvenile tone
Speaker 2: of like make believe that reminded me of this story.
Speaker 2: It was very early days of this show during Hurricane
Speaker 2: Harvey in Houston where there were all these Facebook posts
Speaker 2: that were from the quote Harvey Loot crew, like hashtag
Speaker 2: Harvey Loute crew, and it would be like a picture
Speaker 2: of a store that had been you know, all the
Speaker 2: stuff was off the shelves, and it says we out
Speaker 2: here a Corpus Christy at the quickie store, you know,
Speaker 2: where cash and beer gone, but Munchie's left. Hashtag Hurricane Harvey,
Speaker 2: hashtag hurricane hashtag Harvey Luke crew. And it's like we
Speaker 2: just immediately were like, oh, that's these are like weird
Speaker 2: white people trying to write a character that they find scary,
Speaker 2: and you get the sense in these letters the same thing,
Speaker 2: like there's so much weird content, like some of us
Speaker 2: have dogs and we will even throw their feces at you,
Speaker 2: is like one of the things from one.
Speaker 1: Of the letters, just not how I would make a threat.
Speaker 3: We are Antifa and we throw pea at people, and
Speaker 3: it's like, what, yes, one of us is a rapist,
Speaker 3: Like yeah, exactly, It's like we've got a rapist also
Speaker 3: on the team. It's like what what what is this?
Speaker 3: Like the fucking weird goon squad? But yeah, that is
Speaker 3: the version of like this organization. I guess they're trying
Speaker 3: to present to people, but I.
Speaker 2: Don't so eventually that it's revealed that this is in
Speaker 2: fact not Antifa, but it has because this audience that
Speaker 2: they're aiming at is so gullible and willing to believe
Speaker 2: anything like this feels like a danger that could get
Speaker 2: worse and worse as our inability to distinguish false information
Speaker 2: kind of grows more and more. Did the fact that
Speaker 2: this wasn't Antifa? Do you think that that like penetrated
Speaker 2: at all like that. I'm sure maybe the specific group
Speaker 2: that was being targeted eventually realized it was like one
Speaker 2: of their own, But like, in terms of the stories
Speaker 2: that are reported on Fox News. I'm sure like the
Speaker 2: most of the people who watch Fox News think Antifa
Speaker 2: planted a bomb at a Civil War reenactment, right right.
Speaker 1: And I think the average Fox News view were, even
Speaker 1: when confronted with the truthful resolution to the story, would say, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: but Antifa would do that, right, But like, it says
Speaker 1: a lot about Antifa that I believed it, But that's
Speaker 1: not what happened. Is not what happened at all. But
Speaker 1: I think you know, for for Gerald, the subject of
Speaker 1: that story, he was a Confederate reenactor, he is I
Speaker 1: could say comfortably a racist, Like I read all of
Speaker 1: his Reddit posts, like he is personally a racist. And
Speaker 1: so when he wanted to frighten his former friends, who
Speaker 1: he knew were mostly also racists, he was like, what's
Speaker 1: the scariest thing to us? What can I say to
Speaker 1: them that will be so scary? Like, Oh, we're being
Speaker 1: targeted for our beliefs, right right, We're being targeted by
Speaker 1: these left wing like scary monster people just because we
Speaker 1: love history so much. And also saying the N word.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, that's the exact big argument was that, like
Speaker 2: he wanted to be able to use the N word.
Speaker 2: He was like that's just what it would have been
Speaker 2: at the time, and we should be able to and
Speaker 2: the fact that they're not letting us is actually the
Speaker 2: real discrimination. Everything Like his the other Confederate reenactors were
Speaker 2: like I don't know, man, like even they.
Speaker 3: Were really helping us here, right, yeah, well, and I
Speaker 3: think just even the weird part two or like that
Speaker 3: you pointed out, like the Battle of Cedar Creek, like
Speaker 3: that was a Union victory too. It's like, wouldn't they
Speaker 3: be targeting a Confederate victory if it was truly about
Speaker 3: this like ideology, like ideological attack or like.
Speaker 1: A battle that anyone's heard of, like I've never heard
Speaker 1: the Battle of Creek and I live here right.
Speaker 2: Right, right, right right, But yeah, it's just there. There's
Speaker 2: this fascinating part where you just go through like his
Speaker 2: trip Advisor reviews, like so as he's doing all this stuff,
Speaker 2: he's taking trips to Euros.
Speaker 3: Yeah he does loves Europe.
Speaker 2: Huh, going to the finest dining establishments in Europe, like
Speaker 2: Burger King, five guys McDonald's, I think, and then just
Speaker 2: like leaving negative reviews for Nazi museums for being like
Speaker 2: two PC.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that's The interesting thing about Gerald, right,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know a lot of these guys are Nazis.
Speaker 1: Daryld's not like he has an interest in World War
Speaker 1: two history as like you know, a boomer American watching
Speaker 1: the History Channel. So like his problem with the Holocaust
Speaker 1: Museum in Amsterdam wasn't like that he loves Nazis. He
Speaker 1: just like wanted to see more atrocities.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, he just.
Speaker 1: Thought that the museum didn't show him enough atrocities, right,
Speaker 1: could have.
Speaker 3: Been more atrocity memorabilia there, but like nah, one story gore,
Speaker 3: Yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah, truly. But I guess that's
Speaker 3: what's like so interesting too, is like on some level, right,
Speaker 3: and this is something you talk about like when I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: this guy's this fucking weirdo. He's leaving like one agro
Speaker 3: reviews about Burger King or like the Nazi Museum, but
Speaker 3: he loves the Louver in Paris. That like, in a
Speaker 3: way it feels disarming because you're like, this, what the
Speaker 3: fuck is what's this fucking guy gonna do? But at
Speaker 3: the same time, it's not so dis You're not so
Speaker 3: dismissive of these people that you're like, these aren't people
Speaker 3: aren't dangerous, but it's also being like just understand where
Speaker 3: these people are operating from. It's not necessarily like because
Speaker 3: they have these like weird interests or just have these
Speaker 3: like weird proclivities doesn't mean that they aren't presenting a
Speaker 3: similar threat. But I think it does help melt away
Speaker 3: this idea that it's like, you know, fucking Thanos or
Speaker 3: some shit.
Speaker 1: Right, Like he's a silly little guy who got a
Speaker 1: poshmark account so he could buy women's panties for his
Speaker 1: sex stall, and he reviews the dunkin Donuts in his
Speaker 1: neighborhood once a month, Like he's definitely a weird little guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he did build an operational bomb that would have
Speaker 1: killed a bunch of children in the like gifts, Like
Speaker 1: the tent where the bomb was was where you buy
Speaker 1: like souvenirs and stuff, like there were kids around and
Speaker 1: like at the bomb had gone off, like it would
Speaker 1: have killed children, right, So, like what he did was
Speaker 1: was violent and frightening and evil, and like this campaign
Speaker 1: of terror against these people who wouldn't let him do
Speaker 1: civil war reenactment anymore, Like it's real and it's frightening,
Speaker 1: and you should take it seriously, but like he's not
Speaker 1: a criminal mastermind. Yeah right, he's a guy who pretends
Speaker 1: to be a cop on Reddit because it makes him
Speaker 1: feel powerful.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, that's what's like so not like infuriating, but
Speaker 3: you know, like we obviously the threat of like domestic
Speaker 3: terror and the like you know, white nationalist violence is
Speaker 3: it was real and super scary, but like there's also
Speaker 3: something kind of maddening when you're like and it's this
Speaker 3: fucking guy that's like we deserve a better enemy year, yeah,
Speaker 3: or like that you are causing so much, you're sewing
Speaker 3: so much chaos from your place of being so dissatisfied
Speaker 3: and unhappy and whatever sociopathic you know, psychopathic tendencies you have.
Speaker 3: But there's just some there's I don't know, like it's
Speaker 3: like every time I'm having a reckoning with like the
Speaker 3: actual what they're what they're trying to act out and
Speaker 3: who they are as people, and you're like, dude, this
Speaker 3: is this is the last person who probably roll up
Speaker 3: to you and try and say something to your face
Speaker 3: in public, yet they are still I don't know. I
Speaker 3: think that's where like the Internet truly like begins to
Speaker 3: olden people because they can have this one version that
Speaker 3: they present through their like digital avatar of themselves while
Speaker 3: also being like and then the real world version is like, yeah,
Speaker 3: like I shout out to sex Doll Queens dot COM's
Speaker 3: customer service department for being really understanding that my sex
Speaker 3: doll was damaged, and you.
Speaker 1: Know, Patrese is very responsive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was like the last that was his last
Speaker 2: post before being arrested.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like before the FBI like rated his house and
Speaker 1: took him away. He was just posting on a sex.
Speaker 2: All for him, right, being like with theaterrece fucking rocks.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Patrese for customer service. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: there are plenty of them. Oh yeah, monthly reviews of
Speaker 2: his local dunkin Donuts.
Speaker 3: That's so wild.
Speaker 1: He loves it. It's high quality update.
Speaker 3: But I mean, I guess does that do you like?
Speaker 3: Do you see that as like another version of like
Speaker 3: trying to at least exert some form of power, like
Speaker 3: because then it's like it's review through my review I
Speaker 3: can am from my eye. I'm doing one over, getting
Speaker 3: one over on this place that I felt wrong by.
Speaker 3: So like that's always like they're kind of look like
Speaker 3: it feels like it really goes hand.
Speaker 1: In hand, right, Like I do think for him specifically,
Speaker 1: it is this sort of manifestation of the idea that like,
Speaker 1: this world exists for me and it should meet my
Speaker 1: needs and it should be the way that I think
Speaker 1: it should be. And when it's not, that's, you know,
Speaker 1: a sign of a culture in decline. Like they put
Speaker 1: pickles on my whopper even though I said no, And
Speaker 1: that's because society is in decline. We no longer have
Speaker 1: traditional Western values or something right right, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Pickles and onions. Only in Europe can they get that
Speaker 2: order right? On the on the wapper he says no pickles,
Speaker 2: no onions, And every fucking time in the United States,
Speaker 2: his burger king gets it wrong. Meanwhile, Kevin is that
Speaker 2: his name, Kevin Kevin Strome. Strome disappears into the bathroom
Speaker 2: for hours at a time to take a bath and
Speaker 2: eat pickles.
Speaker 1: So I actually so his second ex wife is that
Speaker 1: ad next wife? No, his first, second, his first, his first,
Speaker 1: his first wife. After they got divorced, she wrote a
Speaker 1: memoir and it's been out of print for twenty years.
Speaker 1: You can't buy it. So I found a used copy
Speaker 1: of it on the internet and I was so excited
Speaker 1: and it came and so I read this. You know,
Speaker 1: this woman's memoir of her time being married to this
Speaker 1: famous Nazi, and you know she's been through a lot,
Speaker 1: respect to her. Not well written, a little deranged, but
Speaker 1: just the little kernels of like day to day life
Speaker 1: of being married to this man. Worth the twenty bucks,
Speaker 1: Worth the twenty bucks I spent on it, especially because
Speaker 1: it was signed. So when you when you buy this book,
Speaker 1: you never know what you're getting. It says, you know,
Speaker 1: like in decent condition. There's markings inside, and so I
Speaker 1: get it. It is the copy she gave to the
Speaker 1: woman who mentored her during her conversion to Catholicism.
Speaker 2: Woow, So is she in the book?
Speaker 3: The person she like like wrote this to, like inscribed
Speaker 3: the message to.
Speaker 1: I don't know if she's in there by name, but
Speaker 1: there is, you know, sort of a lot of discuss
Speaker 1: of like as she's leaving Kevin because the National Alliance
Speaker 1: is the what's called the Cosmotheist Church. It's just like
Speaker 1: a made up, like white people religion that doesn't involve
Speaker 1: God or Jesus and it's taxing. Sure, so she's leaving
Speaker 1: National Alliance. She's leaving Cosmotheism, she's leaving Kevin. She starts
Speaker 1: seeing apparitions of the Virgin Mary, so she converts to
Speaker 1: So she converted to Catholicism. And like just an incredible,
Speaker 1: an incredible memoir. And so the pickle thing was in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hours at a time, just eating pickles in the bathtub.
Speaker 2: Like I can kind of get behind that.
Speaker 1: Like you have three children and you're just gonna be
Speaker 1: in there for five hours eating a whole jar of pickles, right?
Speaker 3: And also how big is that jar of pickles for
Speaker 3: five hours? Or what's your eating?
Speaker 1: You're swelling?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you savor every bite of a pickle, so it
Speaker 3: takes you five I mean I could eat a jar
Speaker 3: of pickles I think in like twenty minutes easily.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's kidneys would enjoy that experience.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, the doctors, that's their opinion. But like
Speaker 3: I got heard from my friend Molly, I need a treat.
Speaker 2: I have to you need a treat, And like you
Speaker 2: heard from your friend Jack, do your own research. Okay,
Speaker 2: don't you trust the doctors? What do you you know?
Speaker 2: I don't look, what do you know?
Speaker 3: What do you Oh? Sorry, you're a specialist in renal issues.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what that means, man, but my
Speaker 3: side's hurt real bad in the back whenever I eat
Speaker 3: my Picki's help. I'm curious, like, Molly, is there what
Speaker 3: is sort of like a I guess a takeaway that
Speaker 3: you come with, take a takeaway that you arrive at
Speaker 3: after looking at these people, because you know, you've studied
Speaker 3: like really horrific shit and a lot of these events
Speaker 3: that have been at the hands of these types of people,
Speaker 3: But like, what what like what's the experience for you
Speaker 3: when you're like, of course they're a weird little guy?
Speaker 3: Is it more to not necessarily again, because it's not
Speaker 3: to sort of mitigate or minimize the threat that these
Speaker 3: people pose, but like, what is sort of the what
Speaker 3: is like the sort of message that you come away
Speaker 3: with from realizing time after time these people have such
Speaker 3: a similar kind of way of being.
Speaker 1: I think, as I've been doing nothing but writing for
Speaker 1: weeks now, kind of going insane, becoming my own weird
Speaker 1: little guy. What seems most important to me to take
Speaker 1: away from like trying to tell these sort of like
Speaker 1: brief biographical arcs of individuals is that, like they are weird,
Speaker 1: but they are not aberrations, right, Like they are not
Speaker 1: one off like random mutations of the human mind that like,
Speaker 1: you know, I think in recent years, you know, we
Speaker 1: see like, oh, there's like a groper who works for
Speaker 1: your congressman. Like, what a strange aberration. This is never
Speaker 1: this is unprecedented. No, it's not. It's super precedented, right,
Speaker 1: and so like trying to situate these things in historical
Speaker 1: context for the last hundred years or so, Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know. My plan is to sort of bounce back
Speaker 1: and forth between like a guy who just went to
Speaker 1: prison recently, sort of this modern weird guy, and then
Speaker 1: reached back and talk about a guy from the seventies
Speaker 1: or the eighties and sort of the Nazi group that
Speaker 1: would grow to be. Come, what's giving us today's weird guys?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: So, like, right, Marjorie Taylor Green, hiring some weird little
Speaker 1: Nazi from the internet is not unusual. If you know
Speaker 1: that there was a scandal in the forties where some congressmen.
Speaker 1: So congressmen can send free mail, they don't have to
Speaker 1: pay postage on stuff they send to their constituents. But
Speaker 1: you know, the franking systems.
Speaker 2: Erk of the job. That's why a lot of them
Speaker 2: get into it.
Speaker 1: Free mail, free mail. Maybe stamps are expensive.
Speaker 2: But there was the.
Speaker 1: Scandal in the forties where they were using their franking privileges.
Speaker 1: They would go on the house floor when nothing else
Speaker 1: was really happening. There's like not an important big day
Speaker 1: for bills, and they would give a speech that was
Speaker 1: Nazi propaganda. So then it's in the congressional record and
Speaker 1: then you can mail Nazi propaganda to all of your
Speaker 1: constituents for free.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Wow, because there was a weird, little fucking Nazi working
Speaker 1: for a congressman, Like this is not unprecedented. We've always
Speaker 1: been like this right just online now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and now like then, it sort of makes it
Speaker 3: more about like what do we do about these like
Speaker 3: these things, these shadow creatures have appeared on a nor
Speaker 3: It's like, no, it's like whack a mole. But like
Speaker 3: with the weirdos and no, wow, we got to.
Speaker 1: Get a fourth Clan act, Helyssi says, granted, not go
Speaker 1: far enough.
Speaker 3: Right exactly.
Speaker 2: Jesus Well, Molly Congress, I can't wait to listen to
Speaker 2: the next episode and just yeah, you know, future episodes.
Speaker 2: I particularly the Little Crumb, the Little nugget you gave
Speaker 2: us on Timothy McVeigh and the song Bad Company, he
Speaker 2: comes up a couple of different places, but yeah, he
Speaker 2: the obsessive way he only listened to that song is terrifying.
Speaker 2: It's like one of the strangest instances of human behavior
Speaker 2: where you just kind of have to be like, huh,
Speaker 2: how interesting, and.
Speaker 1: Like maybe it doesn't even mean anything, right, Like we
Speaker 1: all have our idiosyncrasies, and once you commit a major
Speaker 1: active domestic terror, they all look suspect in retrospect. But
Speaker 1: who knows. Maybe you just really love Bad Company by
Speaker 1: the band Bad Company from their album.
Speaker 2: From From the Bad Company.
Speaker 3: Maybe he's just loves like those He's like, I call
Speaker 3: that a trifecta. Man. If you've got a titular track
Speaker 3: with the band name from and it's on the album,
Speaker 3: that's what that's fucking.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the bass is like in a
Speaker 1: Sherman tank, like maybe it.
Speaker 3: Just felt good, yeah right, right right, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: Some of the other people who were in there with
Speaker 2: him must have. I can't imagine, although I can kind
Speaker 2: of emt like my kids are currently really into do
Speaker 2: you know who Perry Grip is? He's like from the
Speaker 2: band the Nerf Herders. It's like children the.
Speaker 1: Children's music. They did the Buffy theme song.
Speaker 2: Okay, well he does children's music. He does It's a cat,
Speaker 2: a post buffy cush a toilet, it's a cat, and
Speaker 2: they're singing to that. They're listening to that repeatedly and
Speaker 2: like over this weekend as I was like thinking about
Speaker 2: the Timothy mcveay thing from your show, So don't think
Speaker 2: about a bit, like Dad, what's wrong. It's a cat
Speaker 2: the toilet, it's a cat.
Speaker 1: Just thinking about Ellaheim City.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2: Well, Molly Conger, what a pleasure having you on the show.
Speaker 2: Where can people find you? Follow you, hear you all
Speaker 2: that good stuff?
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, my show's on cool Zone Media. It's on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio network and you can subscribe, subscribe to it
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, and I hope that you
Speaker 1: will do that. Maybe leave me a review that's not weird.
Speaker 1: I'm getting a lot of like race Science reviews.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: We need the reviews. We need the normal the normies
Speaker 2: out there reviewing. Someone start doing amazing some one star.
Speaker 1: Reviews from guys who think I'm being unfair to white men, which, yes,
Speaker 1: I hope to continue to do that, right, got some
Speaker 1: some cool weird guys coming up. But you can find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Socialist dog Mom and that's that's
Speaker 1: kind of it. Oh. I occasionally host episodes of It
Speaker 1: Could Happen here, also a Cool Zone show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just out here online out here. Is there
Speaker 2: a work of media that you've been enjoying a tweet
Speaker 2: or otherwise? Oh?
Speaker 1: Man, No, I've only been consuming newspaper articles from the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. Oh. I recently read some congressional testimony from
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, very intriguing. You'll have to wait two
Speaker 1: weeks to hear about that on my show though. So No,
Speaker 1: the media I'm consuming is not normal, and I would
Speaker 1: not recommend it.
Speaker 3: Stay a stay a.
Speaker 2: Miles. Where can people find you? Is there a working
Speaker 2: media you've been enjoying?
Speaker 3: Yeah, find me on Twitter, Instagram at Miles of Gray.
Speaker 3: You can find Jack and I on the basketball podcast
Speaker 3: Miles of jackot Mad Boosties. You can also find me
Speaker 3: on the latest episode of Black People Love Paramore, where
Speaker 3: I'm on there talking about rat beefs and just it's
Speaker 3: been a while I haven't really had an ability to
Speaker 3: really get through all of my feelings with different rat beefs.
Speaker 3: So this is a perfect opportunity for that. Check out
Speaker 3: that episode, the latest episode of Black People Love.
Speaker 1: Paramore, and there're more than one beef going on right now.
Speaker 3: I think we're just talking generally like we're going through
Speaker 3: some of them, from Bigie to jay Z and to
Speaker 3: you know, n w A and Iceke all of that
Speaker 3: up to Kendrick Lamark.
Speaker 1: I'm more that Kendrick is overshadowing some other current beef.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, it's yeah,
Speaker 3: the Kendrick Lamar. I don't know, man, that this that
Speaker 3: the beef though definitely took over my mind as someone
Speaker 3: who's from Los Angeles, I definitely spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time talking about that. But anyway, check me out there.
Speaker 3: I don't have a work of social media because I've
Speaker 3: been I was, I was out taking a break, so
Speaker 3: I don't like to look at the social media that
Speaker 3: often to give myself a bit of a brain reset.
Speaker 3: But you know what I did watch. I've just been
Speaker 3: watching that that that show Presumed Innocent, that Jake Jillenhall show,
Speaker 3: which is wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's again. You watch it all right, I'm the
Speaker 2: fourth recommendation.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm on the last episode of it, and
Speaker 3: it's it's pretty good. I would say. The one thing
Speaker 3: was like I was, I was amazed that it's just
Speaker 3: wild to see how many actors like who aren't from
Speaker 3: America that are playing Americans all the time. Like like
Speaker 3: one of the like the one of the black characters
Speaker 3: who plays the da is like from England. The judge
Speaker 3: who's a black woman is like from Switzerland. Ruth Nega
Speaker 3: who is plays Jillen Hall's wife, she's Irish. I was like,
Speaker 3: it's Irish.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's not in Trump's twenty twenty four platform, right,
Speaker 1: like bring back American jobs.
Speaker 2: These are these are black jobs.
Speaker 3: These are the black jobs I'm talking about. Even nothing's
Speaker 3: safe even for them. They were doing it. The Australians
Speaker 3: were taking the white people jobs and now the black
Speaker 3: people acting jobs are all gone. They're all gone. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I've just been watching that and it's Peter Sar's Guard
Speaker 3: will always make I will always be suspicious of Peter
Speaker 3: Sar's Guard whenever I see him on the screen. So
Speaker 3: there's that.
Speaker 2: It's got a very unnerving presence.
Speaker 3: He could because he's got like like Malcolvi, like Malkovich energy,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Dylan is looking Scars Guards.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, well yeah Stars, that's the only part
Speaker 3: Stars Guard that guy, not the Scars Guards. The thing
Speaker 3: different Scandinavian acting family. Yeah, the one that's married to
Speaker 3: Maggie Jillenhaller was married to I can't remember what.
Speaker 2: Or scarguard the thing that you put on a cut
Speaker 2: to make sure that it doesn't get scarred.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the SEO was all fucked up for them.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, so share. You can find me on Twitter
Speaker 2: at Jack Underscore Obrian. Somebody retweeted the reaction of Test
Speaker 2: audiences while watching the chest burster scene in Ridley Scott's Alien,
Speaker 2: and everybody's like, oh gross, like screaming, and then Robert
Speaker 2: Evans from Cool Zone zoomed in on this one guy,
Speaker 2: like guy with a beard and long hair, who's just
Speaker 2: got this facial expression that's like yeah, man, all right.
Speaker 2: He just tweeted, hell yeah, brother.
Speaker 3: This is from the eighties Test Audiences seventy nine Wow.
Speaker 1: Woweah, Well I just feel like receiving that, even knowing
Speaker 1: it's going to happen. We've got you're gonna react, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he's made a stronger stuff stronger.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: We're just like a seventies dish weed.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, rightah yeah, it's like yeah, it's like the
Speaker 3: movie version of like when you're listening to music and
Speaker 3: you're like, damn, this is like kind of a band,
Speaker 3: you know, like when you hear a band you didn't
Speaker 3: know you were trying to hear, and you hear and
Speaker 3: you're like all right, like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the special expression this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, chess burst.
Speaker 2: It finally feel seen.
Speaker 1: It awoke something in him.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyways, we will link off to that in the footnotes.
Speaker 2: The Daily Zeitgeist is a production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts.
Speaker 2: Wait no, I didn't do the thing anyways. You can
Speaker 2: find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore o Brian. You
Speaker 2: can find us on Twitter at daily Zeitgeist. We're at
Speaker 2: the Daily Zeitgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook fan
Speaker 2: page on a website, daily zeitgeist dot com, where we
Speaker 2: post our episodes and our footnotes. We link off to
Speaker 2: the information that we talked about in today's episode. Who
Speaker 2: is a song we think you might enjoy? Miles did
Speaker 2: you hear any music while you were off that you
Speaker 2: think the people might enjoy?
Speaker 3: I did? I mean? And it's I'm a bit behind
Speaker 3: on trends. This like music video was doing big numbers
Speaker 3: on YouTube. It's by this rapper from Kerala, India who
Speaker 3: goes by Hanumankind. The track is called Big Dogs awgs
Speaker 3: that's how they put a big dog. But the video
Speaker 3: is dope. The beat instrumental is fucking. It's it's way
Speaker 3: to go, it's fire, it's crazy. The wrapping, you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's fine. The production of the visuals were so good,
Speaker 3: you know, the wrapping. I could go either way on
Speaker 3: but I think it's a track we're listening to because
Speaker 3: it's just like. We'll just check the video out. It's
Speaker 3: super fun. It's Big Dogs by hanuman Kind. I know
Speaker 3: I'm late, or at least probably younger people in your
Speaker 3: life would be like, dude, you're so fucking late.
Speaker 2: Well guess what ten days old? What is wrong with you?
Speaker 2: My god?
Speaker 3: Dude? Are you dead?
Speaker 2: All right? We'll link off to the video on the footnotes.
Speaker 2: The day guys the production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
Speaker 2: for My Heart Radio, visit the Heart Radio app Apple
Speaker 2: Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. That's gonna do
Speaker 2: it for us this morning, back this afternoon to tell
Speaker 2: you what is trending and who will talk to you all.
Speaker 3: Then Bye bite bye,