Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,
Speaker 2: your new weekly podcast that talks about recording things sometimes. Actually,
Speaker 2: this is the only episode that I'm aware of that
Speaker 2: is about recording things, but it is one. This is
Speaker 2: an episode. I never know whether to say one episode
Speaker 2: or two episodes when I have two episodes a week.
Speaker 2: But I know what I do have on this podcast,
Speaker 2: which is a guest named Bridgett. Hi.
Speaker 3: Hi, Margaret, thank you so much for having me. I
Speaker 3: am thrilled to be back.
Speaker 2: Yay, welcome back five minutes later, I mean two days later.
Speaker 2: Sophie is our producer. Hello, Sophie.
Speaker 4: This is our second time starting this podcast because the
Speaker 4: first time failed. We got so distracted that we went
Speaker 4: on a like personal stories chat for like fifteen minutes,
Speaker 4: and now we're back to restarting the podcast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had to complain about beauty standards.
Speaker 3: Yeah, girl talk, just some off the record girl talk.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nothing for you sickos.
Speaker 2: But right, anyway, this episode or two episodes, or however
Speaker 2: we define things, I changed the way to find it
Speaker 2: all the time is part two of a two parter
Speaker 2: about Alan Lomax, and part one was mostly complaining about
Speaker 2: his dad. But where we last left our hero, he
Speaker 2: was traveling with his dad and had led belly in
Speaker 2: toe I think, guess where we're at, and he was
Speaker 2: up to no good. It was up to no good. Eventually,
Speaker 2: Honey led better breaks free of the Lomaxes, and eventually
Speaker 2: Alan breaks free of his father and builds his own
Speaker 2: career doing the same work, but hopefully in a less
Speaker 2: exploitive way. Almost certainly in a less exploitive way. It
Speaker 2: would be hard to do it as exploitavely. And also
Speaker 2: it's kind of cool that these two people are very similar,
Speaker 2: have these two ways of going about this. And the
Speaker 2: person who changed the world and is remembered and is
Speaker 2: like everyone's like, what a guy is the one who
Speaker 2: did it without fucking people over?
Speaker 3: The cool one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so soon enough, at about twenty, he's like,
Speaker 2: instead of teaming up with Dad, what if I team
Speaker 2: up with two women in their forties. So one of
Speaker 2: them is the still famous black writer Zola Neil Hurston,
Speaker 2: who is most famous for the book Their Eyes Were
Speaker 2: Watching God, And the other is a folklorist, a white
Speaker 2: professor named Mary Elizabeth Barnacle. Barnacle's not spelled the same,
Speaker 2: but it's still I think it's kind of a cool name.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, you're probably like Scottish sailors name, like
Speaker 2: Mary Elizabeth Barnacle. The only one of them with a
Speaker 2: real job is the professor Mary Elizabeth Barnacle. So they're
Speaker 2: working off of Barnacle's salary and they travel around the
Speaker 2: South and they're recording folk music. And this time they're
Speaker 2: less detached from their subjects, even when the Lomaxes had
Speaker 2: led better with them, Like the Lomaxes were like sleeping
Speaker 2: in white hotels and like not really mingling, you know.
Speaker 2: So with Hirston, they're staying in black communities, and in
Speaker 2: the process, the three of them produced the first I
Speaker 2: kind of can't believe this, but it was presented to
Speaker 2: me as fact. They produced the first audio recorded account
Speaker 2: of someone talking about their time being enslaved. Wow, it
Speaker 2: was a ninety two year old man.
Speaker 3: It seems wild to me that that would. I mean,
Speaker 3: I believe you, but I share your that that seems
Speaker 3: unbelievable to me.
Speaker 2: I know. But one of the things that's interesting Alan
Speaker 2: Lomax is going to kind of invent oral history while
Speaker 2: trying to record folk music. So I think it didn't
Speaker 2: occur to anyone when they started recording out of wax
Speaker 2: cylinders that instead of just playing songs, they could be like,
Speaker 2: what was your life like? And famously say famously no
Speaker 2: and gave a shit about inside people. But actually there's
Speaker 2: an incredible amount of literature and stuff produced and especially
Speaker 2: by formally enslaved people to try and record their experiences.
Speaker 2: And they're hanging out in the South and they're specifically
Speaker 2: studying a lot of like Creole and Haitian music, and
Speaker 2: that's what Herston's history background of like academic study and
Speaker 2: stuff is, And they started to do the work to
Speaker 2: show which dance and musical styles had no European origins.
Speaker 2: So like the idea of being like, oh, what is
Speaker 2: African dance from a diasporic point of view was worked
Speaker 2: that the three of them did, including a musical dance
Speaker 2: style called Jurrey, which I hadn't heard of before. But
Speaker 2: you can watch modern folks still accessing those songs because
Speaker 2: of that work, and this goes on to influence Zydeco
Speaker 2: music is the one that I had heard of. So
Speaker 2: while these two white people are driving around the black
Speaker 2: person and hanging out in black communities. Do you know
Speaker 2: what they did stay safe? That doesn't sound good in retrospect.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I cannot even imagine.
Speaker 2: Tell me they did blackface. Ah, of course, but not
Speaker 2: in the way you'd think.
Speaker 3: I'm so scared.
Speaker 2: I know. So at Zora's insistence, they put walnut oil
Speaker 2: on their skin to appear darker. Alan was like, black
Speaker 2: people will know we're not black. This is not gonna
Speaker 2: fool anybody. Yeah, and Zora's like, no, shit, it's not
Speaker 2: to fool black people into thinking that you're black. It's
Speaker 2: to fool white people so that they don't get mad
Speaker 2: at you for hanging out with black people.
Speaker 3: Uh, so I have to step in.
Speaker 2: Please do I love this?
Speaker 3: I love Zora Nolhurston the way when you read her writing,
Speaker 3: she really had such a savvy way of bridging the
Speaker 3: gap between black and white. This is so like I
Speaker 3: had never heard this anecdote, but this is so spot
Speaker 3: on for her.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I only know a little bit about her.
Speaker 3: She seems fucking cool, such a fascinating Like I said.
Speaker 2: She's going to be her own subject at some point.
Speaker 2: Please tell me, Oh my god, please.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So all of her work was like funded by
Speaker 3: wealthy white pace, which is pretty common at the time,
Speaker 3: and she subsequently she was so good at navigating sort
Speaker 3: of black white relations and how you like keep white
Speaker 3: people feeling good while being authentic to the black voice.
Speaker 3: This so like what you're saying totally tracks for something
Speaker 3: that herson would have done. And she was also funny
Speaker 3: about it. So her being like, no, shit is not
Speaker 3: gonna full black people. It's supposed to make white people
Speaker 3: feel good. That is classic person. I love this.
Speaker 2: No, I love it because like as soon as they
Speaker 2: read like oh fuck, because I was reading a line
Speaker 2: it was like, and then they put Waldo oil on
Speaker 2: their skin. I was like, oh God. And then I'm like, ah,
Speaker 2: I'm not mad, Like I'm not mad.
Speaker 3: That's the thing is like it actually.
Speaker 2: Is kind of like it's not minstrelism or whatever the fuck.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like kind of just makes sense.
Speaker 2: Like I get it, I get it.
Speaker 3: It's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Also, Alan got arrested multiple times on this trip for
Speaker 2: being a white person hanging out with black people. We did,
Speaker 2: so it's like it was it was necessary.
Speaker 3: She knew what she was talking about.
Speaker 2: Basically, every time the police saw this guy, they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: he's an instigator. He's gonna give them ideas, and so
Speaker 2: this is true even when he travels in poor white areas,
Speaker 2: he's seen as an instigator because the only out of
Speaker 2: towners that are usually coming into these areas are labor
Speaker 2: organizers and police don't like white unions or black unions,
Speaker 2: or especially integrated unions. So it's worse when he's like
Speaker 2: the white person hana with black people. But even when
Speaker 2: he's the like out of towner, like we like to
Speaker 2: imagine we have like free travel in this country. Obviously
Speaker 2: we certainly didn't then, but like it's just interesting to
Speaker 2: think of all of the ways people are like you're
Speaker 2: not from around here can go really badly. So he
Speaker 2: gets arrested like twice, and this time the three of
Speaker 2: them tried to help people build their careers and not
Speaker 2: just exploit them, like they would help people find contacts
Speaker 2: and get shows. And later Alan is going to spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time helping people copyright their own music.
Speaker 2: And that's where it's like crucial from my point of view,
Speaker 2: it's like who owns this? Like something that we've had
Speaker 2: to cover on the show a lot, is that the
Speaker 2: most resilient to Jim Crow. Black people in the South
Speaker 2: during the Jim Crow periods with people who owned land.
Speaker 2: So the work that happened during reconstruction to get land
Speaker 2: into black farmers hands was some of the most essential work.
Speaker 2: And so to me like ownership, like, oh, the copyright
Speaker 2: is with the musician, fucking matters. But the two white
Speaker 2: academics in the nineteen thirties were still not exactly good
Speaker 2: at this, still not perfect. The two women began to
Speaker 2: argue in the cars they drove. We also, I only
Speaker 2: have this one biographer. I don't trust on this. But
Speaker 2: the two women began to argue in the cars they drove.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly. Oh, that's funny. I put in
Speaker 2: my own script that I should mention I don't trust source,
Speaker 2: but I already said that you must.
Speaker 3: Have really not trusted the source that you were, Like
Speaker 3: I said it and I wrote it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been ten minutes in the first episode talking
Speaker 2: about I'm gonna hear from that author and they're gonna
Speaker 2: be like, here's all my sources, and I'd be like,
Speaker 2: I guess I was wrong. I don't know whatever. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Barnacle took a photo of a black kid eating watermelon,
Speaker 2: and Zora was like, what the fuck? And I don't
Speaker 2: know exact this is as much information as I have
Speaker 2: on that. And also I'm paraphrasing when I say what
Speaker 2: the fuck? And Alan defended Barnacle and was like, oh,
Speaker 2: what's the big deal? And Zora was you know it said, Zora,
Speaker 2: you're being unreasonable, which never happened again in the history.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, well, meeting white person has ever told a
Speaker 3: black woman that we were being unreasonable. Ever again, this
Speaker 3: was beginning and end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't say that because I'm anti racist, so
Speaker 2: I can't. You have to be the unreasonable one. So
Speaker 2: Zora left and the two white ethnographers they continued on.
Speaker 2: And you won't be shocked to know the two white
Speaker 2: folklorsts were met with way less success now that they've
Speaker 2: driven off the black author.
Speaker 3: Surprise, surprise.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they went onto the Bahamas, the two white folklorists.
Speaker 2: They went onto the Bahamas, and folks trusted them more.
Speaker 2: I just assume different race relations, you know, the South
Speaker 2: being a particularly hard time place. Whatever. Anyway, they go
Speaker 2: onto the Bahamas and the people the recording tend to
Speaker 2: trust them, for better or worse. The officials, however, decide
Speaker 2: they're probably labor agitators and drove them out of the country.
Speaker 2: So they didn't last there. They drifted back up to
Speaker 2: New York and they started going through the endless hours
Speaker 2: of recordings, and I think at this point Hurston is
Speaker 2: back to participating in this. I don't think it was,
Speaker 2: because certainly Alan is going to continue to work with Herston.
Speaker 2: Later they go back to New York and they're going
Speaker 2: through endless hours of recordings and they're hanging out with
Speaker 2: all the bohemians and folks in New York were working
Speaker 2: really hard to try and figure out what American less
Speaker 2: music should be because if you ever heard like European
Speaker 2: leftist music, it's classical international, everyone's gonna be mad at me,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: I know the vibe you're going for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is before Belachow, so people hadn't realized
Speaker 2: there's folk music in Italy too, and you could just
Speaker 2: use that. But I love the song I'll ave Beticotas
Speaker 2: and it's fucking classical music.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was good. Was good.
Speaker 2: I liked that, And so American workers were like, yay,
Speaker 2: let's sing me international. No, They're like, we want songs
Speaker 2: that sound like American music, and so all these folk musicians,
Speaker 2: labor organizers, not just New York City residents sat down
Speaker 2: to be like, there's a conscious thing. They were like,
Speaker 2: what does our folk music look like? And this is
Speaker 2: how you start getting like Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie
Speaker 2: are part of these scenes, and you end up with
Speaker 2: songs like dump the Bosses off Your Back. I have
Speaker 2: to admit I like Alice beticottas more than dump the
Speaker 2: Bosses off your Back, but I like led Belly more
Speaker 2: than I like either of them. So and this ended
Speaker 2: up tying into this caught me by surprise. It ties
Speaker 2: into the larger project of trying to build American cultural identity.
Speaker 2: So it wasn't just like what does the leftist American
Speaker 2: cultural identity look like? Leftists were some of the first
Speaker 2: people saying, what does American cultural identity look like? If
Speaker 2: we're not England, you know, And we're like, what does
Speaker 2: it look like to try and have? And I have
Speaker 2: When I say I have mixed feelings about the American project,
Speaker 2: that's a lie. I have negative feelings about the American project.
Speaker 3: They're not mixed, they're just purely negative.
Speaker 2: I see why some of the things that they said
Speaker 2: that they believed in are interesting. I see why people
Speaker 2: coming were interested in democracy as a concept. We just whatever,
Speaker 2: and people heard me talk about this a million times.
Speaker 2: I'm just very aware of it right now because we're
Speaker 2: recording on the second of July, right before America the
Speaker 2: stage falls apart, and everyone realized the metaphor of it.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry we have to do this tangent today. Right
Speaker 2: before we recorded in Washington, DC, where Bridgetot I believe
Speaker 2: you sometimes keep track of the news. Yeah, the stage
Speaker 2: that people were practicing for America's fucking anniversary party. You
Speaker 2: w know this story. You can tell me this stort.
Speaker 3: Better bell apart before our very eyes in the one
Speaker 3: hundred and four degree DC heat. Truly, I cannot imagine
Speaker 3: a more apt metaphor for our democracy and the way
Speaker 3: that it feels right now than watching this like hastily
Speaker 3: erected shabby stage fall apart before our eyes, a stage
Speaker 3: that was meant was erected to celebrate America to fifty
Speaker 3: watching it crumble.
Speaker 2: I know, I like to imagine that those all those
Speaker 2: shirts that say America seventeen seventy six of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: six is just birth and death dates.
Speaker 3: Anyway, it does look like that, doesn't it. Yeah, totally rip,
Speaker 3: Like somebody needs to make the like bootleg funeral shirt
Speaker 3: for America.
Speaker 2: It's like rip, like yeah, America seventy seventy six, twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six. It was good while it lasted fast for
Speaker 2: some people some places.
Speaker 3: I would buy that. I would buy that. Make that
Speaker 3: so I can buy it. If you're a bootlegger or
Speaker 3: an airbrusher, make that t like I will buy you.
Speaker 3: Got one customer, I'll buy it.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, don't sell them on the street in DC.
Speaker 2: I worry for your safety. No bootlegger, airbrusher. So anything homegrown,
Speaker 2: anything bootleg in America, even white stuff wasn't taken seriously
Speaker 2: as art. This is starting to change in the early
Speaker 2: twentieth century. This surprised me, so I kind of want
Speaker 2: to like see more sources talking about this, but I
Speaker 2: believe it that it was certainly at least ongoing, if
Speaker 2: not really starting at this point. And there's this whole
Speaker 2: big fight all the record companies. Everyone's fighting for authenticity,
Speaker 2: and this is going to tie into shit today just
Speaker 2: so completely race music, black music was authentic, hillbilly music
Speaker 2: was authentic. White people music. How dare anyone do both?
Speaker 2: Of course, Led Belly kept getting told he couldn't play
Speaker 2: cowboy songs despite being literally a cowboy. Charles Seeger, one
Speaker 2: of the musicians and theorist who's doing this work, father
Speaker 2: of the more famous Pete Seeger, wrote about how it
Speaker 2: was all about constructing yourself as folk to sell yourself
Speaker 2: to the non folk. I remember when I was like younger,
Speaker 2: being like, what the fuck does folk mean? And the
Speaker 2: answer is, what the fuck does folk mean? Like that's
Speaker 2: the answer to the question, is like folk is a
Speaker 2: morphoist concept, you know. And so Charles Seger wrote that
Speaker 2: since the folk and nonfolk quote has now exploited the
Speaker 2: other for a couple of decades, in the large frame
Speaker 2: of the United States, there must exist few, if any
Speaker 2: person's left ratable as one hundred percent either folk or
Speaker 2: non folk. The vast population lies between these limits, each
Speaker 2: individual made up of varying proportions or inhabited or released
Speaker 2: folkness or nonfolkness. And so kind of just like making
Speaker 2: fun of how everyone's obsessed with like fucking authenticity.
Speaker 3: I don't want to take us on a tangent, but
Speaker 3: what's your thought on this era? Of folk music is
Speaker 3: this Are you down with this?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I like this era folk music, And actually
Speaker 2: I like it more now after doing these episodes, because
Speaker 2: when I was like, okay, so if I'm going to
Speaker 2: be an asshole about folk music, when people are like
Speaker 2: I'm a folk musician and they put on Pete Seeger
Speaker 2: and I'm like, this is a guy with a guitar,
Speaker 2: a singer songwriter. I want accordions, I want like fiddles,
Speaker 2: I want people who are really good at instruments. I
Speaker 2: want you know, this other shit, right. But I think
Speaker 2: I was actually, in a weird way a bias against
Speaker 2: kind of American music because I like blues and shit,
Speaker 2: but I didn't consider it folk, although in this context
Speaker 2: it sort of is considered folk, right because it's like
Speaker 2: authentic American music from the working clas I'm making lots
Speaker 2: of air quotes gestures that nobody can see, whereas like
Speaker 2: European folk or like Irish folker, you know, Balkan folk music,
Speaker 2: or you know, even like traditional music from not Europe.
Speaker 2: Like I was like, this shit's amazing and complicated. I
Speaker 2: just don't want to hear a man who doesn't know
Speaker 2: how to sing named Bob Dylan sing things. You know,
Speaker 2: not to pick on anyone in particular named Bob Dylan,
Speaker 2: but if like the general Bob Dylan's yeah, and like
Speaker 2: I actually never really liked that. Okay, that's a lie.
Speaker 2: I like Bob Dylan in high school because I was
Speaker 2: desperately trying to find an identity, not because I actually
Speaker 2: enjoyed his music. See also when I like Smashing Pumpkins
Speaker 2: in middle school, you know, yeah, yeah, what's your opinion
Speaker 2: of folk music?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm kind of similar to you. I'm only coming
Speaker 3: to appreciate it now because I feel like, for most
Speaker 3: of my life as a black person, it's like I
Speaker 3: imagine it sort of being this like in opposition to
Speaker 3: my own identity. But then learning more about the roots
Speaker 3: and how it came to be only and honestly used
Speaker 3: to be a out of your work, Like learning about
Speaker 3: the roots has made me realize how much more in
Speaker 3: common we had. I hate the fact that when you
Speaker 3: think about folk music, people have been so successful at
Speaker 3: being like, oh, this is about you know, like it's
Speaker 3: supposed to be about like white identity. When I actually
Speaker 3: learned about the roots, it really I've only now come
Speaker 3: to really appreciate it more. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: No, it makes complete sense to me. That is like
Speaker 2: it's so complicated because then you're like, ah, yes, all
Speaker 2: of this stuff was basically stolen from black people. And
Speaker 2: then it's awkward because some of it you go back
Speaker 2: far enough and John is just stealing it from black people. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: but Alan is like trying to do an anti racist
Speaker 2: cultural exchange exactly, which leads to it being stolen by
Speaker 2: like and it it just makes me sad, you know,
Speaker 2: because like I would love to live in a culture
Speaker 2: of cultural appreciation instead of appropriation, but we live under
Speaker 2: capitalism and white supremacy, so we don't get to have
Speaker 2: that because we have to destroy those things.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I think listening to led Belly makes me like Woody
Speaker 2: Guthrie Moore. And also the fact that led Belly literally
Speaker 2: mentored what he got three like it wasn't a like
Speaker 2: in opposition to each other thing, you know. And their
Speaker 2: whole thing was that they they tried, they made this
Speaker 2: fantastic gamble to try and create a culture that was
Speaker 2: actually diverse, you know.
Speaker 3: And I have to say the first guy I was
Speaker 3: ever deeply, deeply like infatuated with had a, uh, this
Speaker 3: machine kills fascist tattoo. And I know it's a cliche,
Speaker 3: but it's still like when I hell I see that tattoo,
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah it.
Speaker 2: No totally and like and even like anti warship, like
Speaker 2: anti fascism. It wasn't just white folk musicians, you know,
Speaker 2: like fucking yes, Led Belly sings a song called mister
Speaker 2: Hitler and that's like We're gonna bring you down, you know,
Speaker 2: like yeah, ah, I like that tattoo too. But then
Speaker 2: there's the people who write this machine mixed folk music
Speaker 2: on guns.
Speaker 3: Oh I have not seen that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I live in a horrible niche So all right,
Speaker 2: back to our heroes, our anti hear our people. After
Speaker 2: he had another wild summer, Alan is back to Texas
Speaker 2: for his junior year of college because he is still
Speaker 2: twenty years old. That's the other thing to remember about
Speaker 2: all of this. He is a legally distinct from child.
Speaker 2: He is a child, you know, he's doing all this
Speaker 2: crazy shit. And then the next summer he bums around
Speaker 2: Mexico with no money, busking with a guitar, and he
Speaker 2: starts dating a Jewish communist, a card carrying communist named
Speaker 2: Elizabeth and he's pretty happy about it. But do you
Speaker 2: know what I'm happy about?
Speaker 3: Is it the good folks who sponsor of this podcast.
Speaker 2: I am very happy about the ability that I have
Speaker 2: to feed my dog and myself. I actually have some
Speaker 2: appreciation for the people who help me do that. Who
Speaker 2: you if you want to appreciate even though they don't
Speaker 2: feed your dog, you can choose to listen to Andrew back.
Speaker 2: But instead of going back to college, Alan gets the
Speaker 2: Library of Congress to send him to Haiti to record
Speaker 2: music with Zorahurston.
Speaker 3: Awesome.
Speaker 2: It almost made you do a spittake.
Speaker 3: I know, I was drinking water when she was saying that,
Speaker 3: and I was not expecting it. Getting sent by the
Speaker 3: Library of Congress to Haiti.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, Yeah. And Haiti in the nineteen thirties was
Speaker 2: we're going to go with not exactly a tourist destination,
Speaker 2: but the locals were glad to have the pair because
Speaker 2: they considered documenting in preserving their traditions to be part
Speaker 2: of how they would resist colonization in europeanization. And soon
Speaker 2: he's there on his own, and he's just buried by possibility.
Speaker 2: He's like everything is folk in America. You don't know
Speaker 2: what's authentic When you're in Haiti in nineteen thirty and
Speaker 2: you're a white guy from Texas, You're like, oh.
Speaker 3: Fuck, it's all authentic to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And everything around him is folk because there is
Speaker 2: a very strict class thing where that schools don't teach
Speaker 2: creole and the constitution for bids vodu. But that's what
Speaker 2: everyone speaks, and that's what everyone lives. That's Everyone's not everyone,
Speaker 2: but it's most people's language and religion and so everything
Speaker 2: it's not just folk, cause is different. It's folk because
Speaker 2: it's like not allowed, you know, so there's like an
Speaker 2: inherent rebelness to it. Yeah, and he is, i believe,
Speaker 2: along with Hurston, the first to record these things, which
Speaker 2: makes his recordings essential for modern folks who are trying
Speaker 2: to understand their own culture. Right, So it's not this
Speaker 2: is actually watching a bunch of YouTube videos of like
Speaker 2: modern people using Lomax recordings to be able to continue
Speaker 2: their own culture. That was like an interesting moment where
Speaker 2: it's like not always just about a pipeline for your
Speaker 2: shit to be exposed to the white world and sold
Speaker 2: off Elizabeth the card caring communist. He's excited about joins
Speaker 2: him in Haiti with the intention of getting married in
Speaker 2: this exotic locale, but actually specifically one they liked it there,
Speaker 2: and two they had to get away from his family
Speaker 2: because John Loma, not a big fan of the card
Speaker 2: carrying Communist that his son wants to marry.
Speaker 3: Didn't love it, didn't Was it what he was expecting
Speaker 3: for his son.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now he's not into it. But they're not old enough.
Speaker 2: I actually it's funny. I ended up covering the age
Speaker 2: of consent and how America is really backwards about this
Speaker 2: in recent episodes. God, what a fucking weird job I have.
Speaker 2: But they weren't old enough to get married in Haiti
Speaker 2: because they weren't twenty three.
Speaker 3: Oh, in Haiti, the age of consent to marry is
Speaker 3: twenty three.
Speaker 2: Without parental permission in nineteen thirties. I cannot tell you
Speaker 2: about what's happening currently, okay, And so he wrote his
Speaker 2: dad to get permission, and it's like the whole letter
Speaker 2: I read it, it's like he's very like, I don't
Speaker 2: want to write this, You're not gonna like it. Can
Speaker 2: you please fill out the following form and send it
Speaker 2: with the following identification. So that I can get married,
Speaker 2: and I don't think his dad responds. So instead, it's
Speaker 2: easier they get the president of Haiti to waive the
Speaker 2: age laws. She's like twenties, like twenty two, so that
Speaker 2: they can get married in Haiti. It was easier to
Speaker 2: get the fucking president of Haiti than John fucking Lomax
Speaker 2: to approve of their.
Speaker 3: You know how much your dad has to so super
Speaker 3: fucking not approve to be like, we just got to
Speaker 3: go to them. My dad's a non starter. We gotta
Speaker 3: go to the President of Haiti.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, anyone could just do that. And so they
Speaker 2: stay there. They live there for a little while, and
Speaker 2: they live in a dirt floorhouse with leaves for a roof,
Speaker 2: and it's all very exotic for them. And the two
Speaker 2: of them get back to their work and soon they
Speaker 2: are initiated into vodu, which at the time included being
Speaker 2: buried alive briefly. And they're both soon sick with malaria,
Speaker 2: and they're broke and they're having a hard time. And
Speaker 2: Alan wrote, quote in Haiti, it is not a good
Speaker 2: policy to grow weak and helpless and be broke. I
Speaker 2: love that line. My formerly effective arguments could bring no singers.
Speaker 2: Before the microphone, I had just enough money to buy
Speaker 2: a little for the crowds that gathered each night at
Speaker 2: the house to listen to the records being made, but
Speaker 2: not enough to make them all respectful or consider it
Speaker 2: invited into my house. They took possession of it. They
Speaker 2: camped on all the chairs and refused to be moved.
Speaker 2: They laughed and talked while the records were being made,
Speaker 2: and no threats or wheedling reasons could stop their mouths.
Speaker 2: Occasionally the gendarmes would descend from the bouquet and pretend
Speaker 2: to clear the house, but it was only to occupy
Speaker 2: the chairs themselves and add more undisciplined to the already
Speaker 2: boisterous audience. I love this because it's so visceral, and
Speaker 2: people are treating them like people and giving them some respect,
Speaker 2: and their work was accepted. They're like, yeah, you can
Speaker 2: do this. But people did not kiss their asses. People
Speaker 2: are like, oh, you got nice shit. Fuck. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna hang out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna lay on That'll put my feet on
Speaker 3: this couch. I don't give a fuck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh what are you gonna do? Sick white boy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I will not be moved.
Speaker 1: Altho.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, I like appreciate that way that they were
Speaker 2: handled by people. It feels I.
Speaker 3: Don't know, yeah, And I bet they were thinking, oh,
Speaker 3: these people are going to be so thrilled that we
Speaker 3: even want anything to do with us, or there's going
Speaker 3: to be automatic, like they're going to be differential, and
Speaker 3: it's like, actually, no, yeah, they're gonna make themselves right
Speaker 3: at home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally sorry. They're folk, not non folk. You know.
Speaker 2: After about four months, they just ran out of money
Speaker 2: and they had to return to America, and they had
Speaker 2: about fifty hours of audio recordings three hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: feet of eight millimeter film, which I do not know
Speaker 2: how much time that is, but that film shows day
Speaker 2: to day life. It shows like people like how they
Speaker 2: made their drums and how they did a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 2: And it was like some of the first recordings of
Speaker 2: this stuff. And he took a job at the Library
Speaker 2: of Congress as assistant in charge of the Archive of
Speaker 2: American Folk Song, and he and Elizabeth kept wandering recording songs,
Speaker 2: and they were watching folk music disappear in front of
Speaker 2: their eyes with the advent of radio right and recording.
Speaker 2: And they went to a full folk festival in Ohio,
Speaker 2: only to find it commercial hillbilly music. He complained about it,
Speaker 2: as I love this never changes. Shit. This is also
Speaker 2: like when people are like, oh, what styles of music
Speaker 2: do you like? And I'm like, I like all styles
Speaker 2: of music, So I don't really listen to radio country.
Speaker 2: I say radio country on purpose because I like some
Speaker 2: country music, you know. And so he complained about the
Speaker 2: Ohio Hillbilly Music Festival as quote a huge drove of yodling, crooning,
Speaker 2: Alabama mooning Kentuckians and quote the most horrible exhibition of
Speaker 2: Anglo American blonde, blue eyed sentimentalism and musical gashery. I
Speaker 2: have ever endured what a fucking burn totally, And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's just that's radio country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, now some radio country got interesting again because
Speaker 2: once again it's stole some shit from black people.
Speaker 3: But the few times I've listened to radio country, it does.
Speaker 3: I mean, like, and I really don't know. I would
Speaker 3: love somebody to explain the difference. To me. It's sounds
Speaker 3: like rap music. It just sounds like, oh, it's the
Speaker 3: same thing, but like we're talking about country girl shaking
Speaker 3: that butt on the hood. Of a Truck, which is
Speaker 3: a real song by the way I heard. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm curious, like what's the difference.
Speaker 2: Really, I guess I should clarify when I say radio country,
Speaker 2: I mean in the nineties and oughts, when I was
Speaker 2: like younger, when it wasn't as much influenced by rap
Speaker 2: and hip hop. And that's what I was saying, is
Speaker 2: like some of it's actually are right now because they
Speaker 2: stole more shit from black people. Yeah yeah, but like
Speaker 2: I would also need someone to explain to me what
Speaker 2: I mean. It kind of gets into like the audience
Speaker 2: is often what creates the difference. Like everything is a
Speaker 2: social construct, Like one of my favorite ways to be
Speaker 2: like everything is a social construct. People like, nah, things
Speaker 2: are really physical and specific, and I'm like, how many
Speaker 2: fucking continents are there, Like, oh yeah, Europe, Asia, Uh huh,
Speaker 2: it's different culture. It is a social construct, so right,
Speaker 2: it would make sense to me that like country music
Speaker 2: is a social construct. Oh God, I'm gonna get it wrong.
Speaker 2: So one of the first originators of modern country music
Speaker 2: was a white racist in the South who had like
Speaker 2: started off friends with black people and then they were
Speaker 2: like mean to him at work and so then he
Speaker 2: went off and started his racist career and now I
Speaker 2: can't remember. So now I'm just talking shit in an
Speaker 2: entire genre that so many of my friends, like so
Speaker 2: many of my friends are into country music.
Speaker 3: Well, I know this is not who you meant, but
Speaker 3: that's essentially the origin story of one mister kid Rock
Speaker 3: who started as a rap artist. Literally, that is his
Speaker 3: origin story.
Speaker 2: That doesn't surprise me at all. Fuck that guy. So
Speaker 2: one of the next things that he does is he
Speaker 2: helps and emphasism helps invent oral history as a concept
Speaker 2: I promised you. And he does this with a singer
Speaker 2: named jelly Roll Morton Jazz is first a ranger, like
Speaker 2: the first person who actually wrote the notes down, and
Speaker 2: he also possibly takes credit well he certainly he was
Speaker 2: willing to take and possibly deserves to take credit for
Speaker 2: inventing jazz swing and stomp and is one of the
Speaker 2: first people to call a song blues and so Alan
Speaker 2: Lomax and Jelly Roll is like no longer like important
Speaker 2: at this time, and he's very bitter about it. As
Speaker 2: a club that he runs by himself, and they do
Speaker 2: eight hour sessions of music and talking and it's like
Speaker 2: kind of like explaining jazz, and so it becomes oral history.
Speaker 2: It starts off as a music recording, but it naturally
Speaker 2: becomes a talking about what's happening. And some of these
Speaker 2: sessions were so explicit that the Library of Congress didn't
Speaker 2: make them public until two thousand and five, which is
Speaker 2: funny because I didn't know this jelly roll was slang
Speaker 2: at the time. For you know, pussy.
Speaker 3: I didn't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, famous country singer now that same jelly roll?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Really is he copying jelly roll Morton? Or is he?
Speaker 4: I don't care enough about him to know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I can look it up. Probably he's not.
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about this person. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to pine one way or the other about the modern
Speaker 2: jelly roll. But no, it was.
Speaker 4: He was given the name because he was a chubby
Speaker 4: kid with a fondness for donuts. His mother gave it
Speaker 4: to a boring Yeah, God, I like your version better.
Speaker 2: Alan also recorded the ethnic whites who were not being
Speaker 2: included in a lot of the cultural recordings at the time.
Speaker 2: He went to Irish communities and Polish communities. He recorded
Speaker 2: French balladiers, and his whole thing is he was like,
Speaker 2: I have to rush and record these people before all
Speaker 2: of their music is assimilated into playing American pop music,
Speaker 2: which at the time was jazz and square dance. And
Speaker 2: so like all of these musicians if you want to
Speaker 2: make a living or playing jazz and square dance music.
Speaker 2: And he's doing this for the Library of Congress, and
Speaker 2: he has to account for every penny he spends in
Speaker 2: the like when he's doing all of this stuff, it's
Speaker 2: shoestring budget, you know, it's like not technically DIY, but
Speaker 2: it's like shoe string in New York. The scene he's
Speaker 2: in throws festivals to support the Spanish anti fascists and
Speaker 2: Friend of the Pod the Spanish Civil War nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: six to nineteen thirty nine. Maybe people have heard of it.
Speaker 2: If not, they should check out more or less the
Speaker 2: entire first two years that they did this show.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask, like, the whole war is Friend
Speaker 3: of the Pod.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's just well one it comes up all
Speaker 2: the time because it's kind of interesting. Partly, I'm just
Speaker 2: really interested in it because it's the you know, high
Speaker 2: water mark. Unfortunately, to say, of the ideology that I'm
Speaker 2: most interested in, which is like anarchist communism where huge
Speaker 2: chunk of Catalonia was able to People have heard me
Speaker 2: give this rant a million times, but for about three years,
Speaker 2: workers organize themselves in a non hierarchical socialist fashion, and
Speaker 2: I'm very interested in it. But it specifically, it comes
Speaker 2: up all the time because even though it's like largely
Speaker 2: forgotten because it's over, World War two had a tendency
Speaker 2: to make people forget everything, you know, because it was
Speaker 2: kind of a big deal. But this was the anti
Speaker 2: fascist fight that had everyone, like everyone who's paying attention to, like, oh,
Speaker 2: fascism is on the rise. So the Spanish Civil War
Speaker 2: was like the cause celebrit I know how to spell it,
Speaker 2: but I don't want to pronounce it cause celebrity at
Speaker 2: the time. So he's raising money for it. He also
Speaker 2: plays union rallies and local bars, but he refuses he
Speaker 2: like is playing shows two but he's like, I am
Speaker 2: not a musician. That's not my thing. I refuse to
Speaker 2: get paid more than food or drink. He started going
Speaker 2: to grad school at Columbia, but he dropped out of
Speaker 2: college to help raise money for Howe, he led better
Speaker 2: after the guy got arrested again for knife fighting again,
Speaker 2: probably in self defense. But you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: He started working in radio, and he basically has like
Speaker 2: a which way do you want to go? Moment, like
Speaker 2: a little little meme with the two castles, you know.
Speaker 2: And he starts working in radio, teaching school children about
Speaker 2: folk music, and he's skeptical about the program, but he
Speaker 2: is glad for a chance to get to pay artists.
Speaker 2: And there's this whole thing. I had no idea that
Speaker 2: musician who was like, why would I let you record me?
Speaker 2: You'll just play that instead. The musicians' unions in the
Speaker 2: thirties and I think forties fought and successfully had for
Speaker 2: a while radio couldn't play recorded music. Radio played people
Speaker 2: playing music. Bands would come into the station and play
Speaker 2: I had no fucking idea.
Speaker 3: I didn't either. And if we're thinking about you know,
Speaker 3: I really resonated with this idea of someone saying, oh,
Speaker 3: why would I let you record me? You're just going
Speaker 3: to play that recording instead of paying me to play. Ye.
Speaker 3: This is very interesting. It's like we're still having the
Speaker 3: same conversations today as to pertain tech technology like AI.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, totally. And so even when he's playing folk
Speaker 2: music on the radio, he's literally playing it because he's
Speaker 2: gone around and collected all these songs and he learns
Speaker 2: these songs or whenever possible, and he does seem to
Speaker 2: do this as much as he can. He brings me
Speaker 2: psitions on and gives them the money, right, and so
Speaker 2: it's like folk music is meant to be played. Even
Speaker 2: his recordings, a lot of it is about transcription. And
Speaker 2: so there's like all of this stuff about that didn't
Speaker 2: end up in my script, but there's all these arguments
Speaker 2: about all of these different folklorists going through the Lomax recordings.
Speaker 2: Because he kind of gets all the credit, but there's
Speaker 2: all these women who helped do all the transcriptions, and
Speaker 2: I didn't include them in the script. Fuck me, But
Speaker 2: that's because I wasn't as interested in as transcriptions. But
Speaker 2: maybe that's the problem because it's behind the scenes where
Speaker 2: and they're arguing about how they transcribe music that does
Speaker 2: not meet Western ideas, right, Like you're like, oh, is
Speaker 2: this twelve bars or twelve and a half bars? And
Speaker 2: the person's like, man, I don't know, I play guitar.
Speaker 2: What do you want you know? And then he gets
Speaker 2: to play a show that I don't know anyone else
Speaker 2: who's ever played. He played for the Roosevelts and the
Speaker 2: King and Queen of England at one show at the
Speaker 2: White House at twenty four years old. Wah, but remember
Speaker 2: how he's kind of a communist. He's actually not a
Speaker 2: card carrying communist. He no longer capitalizes the sea and
Speaker 2: draws flames spitting out of the letters.
Speaker 3: You know he's not doing this, does the s anymore? Yeah,
Speaker 3: the communist.
Speaker 2: That's the real way to know someone's in the Communist
Speaker 2: Party is they use the cool less in the Communism,
Speaker 2: whatever the ideology. If the Essenism is a cool less,
Speaker 2: you know they're fucking down for the cause they're down. Yeah. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: the FBI is like they get a tip and one
Speaker 2: version is that like it was a friend of the
Speaker 2: family who over heard him talking to his dad. Another
Speaker 2: version is it was his dad. They get a tip
Speaker 2: that he's a communist, So the FBI detains him and
Speaker 2: searches him in a stairwell. Like they it's not even
Speaker 2: like searched on the way in. He's like going through
Speaker 2: a stairwell and two plane clothes officers come up behind
Speaker 2: and in front of him and like search him and
Speaker 2: inquisite and inquisitate him, ask him questions, Oh no, that
Speaker 2: is a bad vibe I do right before or he
Speaker 2: has to go play for the fucking King and Queen
Speaker 2: of England. So he's he's shaken and he's so nervous
Speaker 2: while he's playing that. Eleanor Roosevelt mentioned it in her autobiography,
Speaker 2: and for the next thirty years the FBI is going
Speaker 2: to be investigating him. And no one who the FBI
Speaker 2: interviews about him ever admits he's a communist, is what
Speaker 2: one thing said. Another thing said that his dad did,
Speaker 2: or his uncle, but whatever. People keep being like this
Speaker 2: guy communists. People are like, nah, not really, it's fine,
Speaker 2: and so no insnitcheing on him. And he's also like
Speaker 2: not in the Communist Party because it is a huge
Speaker 2: and complicated difference because at the time the Communist Party
Speaker 2: was literally takes direction from the Soviet Union, right, and
Speaker 2: so saying I am a Communist at the Capital C
Speaker 2: means like, I am part of a hierarchical structure that
Speaker 2: takes orders from the Soviet Union, whereas he being like,
Speaker 2: I believe in communism from each accordion to ability to
Speaker 2: each accordion, a need and maybe have mixed feelings about
Speaker 2: the Communist Party. It's a very common sentiment, and I
Speaker 2: feel like, got to play for the King and Queen,
Speaker 2: but it was also detained by the FBI for being
Speaker 2: a Communist while doing it. Pretty much encapsulates so much
Speaker 2: about this man's life. Yes, he was something of a
Speaker 2: sensation at this point as a radio personality. He was
Speaker 2: offered the chance to retreat into academia. This is his
Speaker 2: two Castle's moment. But he's He's like, I actually don't
Speaker 2: just want to be a folklorist. I'm not just interested
Speaker 2: in the academic study of folk music. Basically, someone's like, hey,
Speaker 2: come to Brazil and study indigenous people with me, and
Speaker 2: he's like, what if instead I want to be involved
Speaker 2: with communicating with people about folk music. And he's like,
Speaker 2: much more interested in radio and TV in popular education.
Speaker 2: I like him, But do you know what else I like?
Speaker 2: Tell me, I like all of the products and services
Speaker 2: that support this show, even the ones that I don't like.
Speaker 3: Great, let's hear more about them.
Speaker 2: All right. I'm glad you asked, And we're back during
Speaker 2: World War Two. First, on his own time, he helps
Speaker 2: design musical propaganda and songbooks for the troops all tied
Speaker 2: into national folk heroes. So he like because he's always
Speaker 2: been interested in anti fascism and now it's like a
Speaker 2: government run project and he's like, yeah, okay, whatever, whatever
Speaker 2: fucking takes. And so he's doing all of this work
Speaker 2: to connect with different like ethnic enclaves in America and
Speaker 2: finding folk heroes that they're going to like resonate with
Speaker 2: and tie it into anti fascism propaganda is so weird.
Speaker 2: So like the white people get Davy Crockett and the
Speaker 2: black people get John Henry, and he's like going through
Speaker 2: and like finding all the songs and being like, here's
Speaker 2: the songs and how they tie into America hates fascists,
Speaker 2: and he's writing patriotic songbooks about killing Nazis while also
Speaker 2: organizing singing groups called like the Union Boys sick name
Speaker 2: for a band, I'll fa yeah. And in the process
Speaker 2: during all of this, he ends up in a screaming
Speaker 2: match with his father. He's like talking to his dad
Speaker 2: about the same shit he's always his dad's probably has
Speaker 2: your life, and he's like, black people haven't really bad
Speaker 2: in the South, dad, and this drives his father into
Speaker 2: a screaming rage, who yells you have disgraced the South,
Speaker 2: not the whole South, the whole South.
Speaker 3: I love how much father issues are a thread through
Speaker 3: his story.
Speaker 2: I know, because his father is just like, how dare
Speaker 2: you say that? Like white Southerners are racist?
Speaker 3: You all have disgraced the South.
Speaker 2: Even though his father once wrote a fake autobiography by
Speaker 2: Lead Belly and that used I'm gonna get the numbers
Speaker 2: exactly wrong because it's not script. I don't really care
Speaker 2: what his dad thinks. His dad sucks, his dad raises
Speaker 2: a shit, but his dad like like son says something
Speaker 2: on the radio about like, oh, this one black man
Speaker 2: was pulled over for being black. So dad goes in
Speaker 2: and investigates. It's like, actually, this man was pulled up
Speaker 2: for this other reason. It just happened to be black
Speaker 2: in this one particular case. Your whole argument is invalid.
Speaker 2: And he probably sounded exactly like that at the time.
Speaker 3: I'm sure people listening are like, oh, that sounds I
Speaker 3: can relate to sitting with my dad at a dinner table,
Speaker 3: and that's exactly how my dad sounds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really won the family lottery. I don't talking
Speaker 2: about my family on air, but I really won that lottery.
Speaker 2: I'm real happy. So he has like really mixed feelings
Speaker 2: about his personal involvement in the war, which is reasonable,
Speaker 2: Like he spends a while finding jobs that'll defer him
Speaker 2: from going to the front because he's like, I like
Speaker 2: being alive. That's like a thing. But every now and
Speaker 2: then he's like, no, fuck it, I should just join
Speaker 2: up and kill fascists. But in nineteen forty two, while
Speaker 2: he's working his ass off for the war effort, the
Speaker 2: FBI starts questioning him directly about whether he's a member
Speaker 2: of the Communist Party, which he wasn't, So he said
Speaker 2: he wasn't, and he wound up on a list of
Speaker 2: alleged communists for the Committee investigating on American activities. But
Speaker 2: the FBI, what they wrote about him is really interesting
Speaker 2: because the FBI kind of actually had his number in
Speaker 2: a weird way. But they think it's bad. Whatever, I'll
Speaker 2: just read it. He was possessed of an artistic temperament,
Speaker 2: a bohemian, single mindedly devoted to folk music, ornery. He
Speaker 2: was not discreet in his choice of words and was
Speaker 2: slovenly in his appearance. He was intensely interested in negro
Speaker 2: and underprivileged classes. Was sometimes slow to pay his rent,
Speaker 2: had several arguments with his father on the Negro question,
Speaker 2: wherein he termed his father as a fascist and himself
Speaker 2: as a communist on this question, his father being anti
Speaker 2: Negro minded, and he was known to associate with a
Speaker 2: Negro by the name of Leadbelly who was released from
Speaker 2: a Southern penitentiary. He I'm no longer quoting. He had
Speaker 2: a suspicious number of books. But they decided in the end,
Speaker 2: this is why I think they had his number, that
Speaker 2: he was too undisciplined and independent to be loyal to
Speaker 2: a political party, So instead of arresting him, they just
Speaker 2: tailed him for yeah, thirty years.
Speaker 3: It does kind of sound like they had his number. Also,
Speaker 3: that's a pretty lit description of somebody lots of books. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, very slovenly didn't always pay his rent on time,
Speaker 3: you know how it is. I was like, oh shit,
Speaker 3: all right, all right.
Speaker 2: Like we both know this man. You know I've dated this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I know the guy totally.
Speaker 3: You're right. It does sound like the FBI had his number.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's so interesting to me that like genuinely
Speaker 2: they were like, well he probably is like kind of
Speaker 2: a socialist or whatever. But he's like clearly not actually organized.
Speaker 2: It's like fine and not fine all at once.
Speaker 3: You know, he's not gonna get it together to actually
Speaker 3: do anything.
Speaker 2: We don't think, Yeah, which is funny because he's working
Speaker 2: for the government. He's part of why he's being investigated
Speaker 2: so much, probably, but like he writes patriotic songbooks for
Speaker 2: a living. At this point about how like you know,
Speaker 2: Davy Crockett wants you to join the war effort and
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty four, and I actually really appreciate this
Speaker 2: if you're going to write propaganda, but how you should
Speaker 2: go to war? In nineteen forty four, he decided to
Speaker 2: have his employer cancel his draft deferment and so he
Speaker 2: was drafted into the army. He had a bit of
Speaker 2: a rough time socially because he joins the army, it's
Speaker 2: a segregated army, and he has the habit of punching
Speaker 2: every white soldier who says the N word.
Speaker 3: Ah the forties, probably like all of them, and.
Speaker 2: So like there's like a story where he's like I
Speaker 2: was watching him at a cafe and he physically threw
Speaker 2: a man out of the cafe into the street, and
Speaker 2: the man came back and said sorry, sorry, sorry, but
Speaker 2: I just don't like sitting next to black people. Didn't
Speaker 2: say that, and so he gets punched for that, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, the man he just threw out apologizes to
Speaker 2: him that keeps being racist. So he attacks him a
Speaker 2: second time.
Speaker 3: That is like, the could skit? I just I just
Speaker 3: kept going at him. He wouldn't stab.
Speaker 2: You'd be like, I don't get it. You're a white soldier.
Speaker 2: Why can't I say racist shit in front of you?
Speaker 3: Punch? Yeah.
Speaker 2: I and a friend who used to kick people in
Speaker 2: the nuts when they call people packets.
Speaker 3: They probably learned though eventually.
Speaker 2: I know it was sort of like it wasn't even
Speaker 2: I mean, it was homophobic, but it was like not like,
Speaker 2: oh that gos you know, for the record, I only
Speaker 2: say slurs that have been said at me by people
Speaker 2: who want to kill me. If anyone's curious why I
Speaker 2: use that word, yeah, no. Anyway, that particular person was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I probably shouldn't say that.
Speaker 3: Sounds like it was an effective deterrent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to be honest, totally. And he wanted to go
Speaker 2: to Europe because he wanted to fight Nazis, but instead
Speaker 2: they made him make radio content. He fucking podcasted his
Speaker 2: way through the war and he didn't want to. And
Speaker 2: he is the guy for Better or Worse who brought okay,
Speaker 2: So like marching Cadence songs, they're like, I don't know
Speaker 2: what I've been told, but I like cliches in my
Speaker 2: movies that comes from black culture. This is probably not
Speaker 2: gonna surprise you.
Speaker 3: What did surprise me was your little version of it,
Speaker 3: which I appreciate it. Yeah, that was that was pretty.
Speaker 2: Thank you, real good at rhyming off the top of
Speaker 2: my head. So black regiments were singing that way, and
Speaker 2: eventually Alo Max was like, look, that's clearly better. They're
Speaker 2: actually better at marching. You should stop making everyone be
Speaker 2: dour all the time and let them sing and they
Speaker 2: will do better at this. So for Better or Worse,
Speaker 2: that's his fault. He did radio. They made him a corporal,
Speaker 2: and they kept him around for a year after the
Speaker 2: end of the war. I think they were like, I
Speaker 2: don't know what if it pops off again, I'm not
Speaker 2: actually sure. And then they let him go and he
Speaker 2: goes back to New York and New York is on
Speaker 2: fire with the radical possibility of song and folklore. Pete
Speaker 2: Seeger was like, We're going to change the world, and
Speaker 2: this is where have you heard of da Von Ronk? No,
Speaker 2: he's another one of these white folk singers in the
Speaker 2: New York scene, but he's mostly If people know him today,
Speaker 2: it's largely because he was like one of Bob Dylan's
Speaker 2: main influences. Again, for Better or Worse, this is the
Speaker 2: thing that well, I feel like for Better or Worse
Speaker 2: is like the main thing with like disseminated stuff to
Speaker 2: the masses, and you're like, oh, how'd that go in
Speaker 2: the end once the mass has had it? But like,
Speaker 2: I also do believe it's fucking complicated. Anyway. The reason
Speaker 2: I knew Davon Ronk and I got really excited when
Speaker 2: he popped up in this story is that Davon Ronk
Speaker 2: is famous in my world because he's a straight guy, right,
Speaker 2: and he's sitting at a cafe and oh my god,
Speaker 2: I remember its nineteen sixty or nineteen sixty nine, whenever
Speaker 2: Stonewall was Everyone's gonna be mad at me now I'm
Speaker 2: a fake gay. But Stonewall Riot pops off, Davon Ronk
Speaker 2: is like shit, people are fighting cops, and so he
Speaker 2: runs out of the restaurants are throwing bricks at cops.
Speaker 2: He gets arrested.
Speaker 3: He's like, I don't need I'll find out later what
Speaker 3: the cause is. If we're throwing rocks at cops, I'm
Speaker 3: in I know which side I'm on exactly?
Speaker 2: Is the George Orwell quote that's like, I'm gonna do
Speaker 2: terrible mis justice this quote. I don't have much of
Speaker 2: a appreciation for the idealized worker that exists in the
Speaker 2: bourgeois communist member's mind. But when I see a flesh
Speaker 2: and blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman,
Speaker 2: I do not have to ask myself which side I
Speaker 2: am on.
Speaker 3: There you go, actually a good like axiom to live.
Speaker 2: By, genuinely. Yeah. Every now and then you'll be like, oh, like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't mind that kind was like, that's a NASTI
Speaker 2: fighting a cop. I don't know, man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are a few times where you're like, oh no,
Speaker 3: But for the most part, I feel like it will
Speaker 3: work out totally.
Speaker 2: The New York City scene tried to sell unions on
Speaker 2: folk music in the late forties. They're like, we gotta
Speaker 2: figure it out. This is our leftist music. But by
Speaker 2: that point, folk music that they were doing was already
Speaker 2: seen as hokey and out of touch, so some thing's
Speaker 2: never change. And they formed People's Songs, which was an
Speaker 2: advocacy group, and they backed the Progressives in the nineteen
Speaker 2: forty eight election, which didn't work, and they kept going.
Speaker 2: And the whole time, he's sleeping with other women, and
Speaker 2: I only learned that almost all the way through the
Speaker 2: why would anyone mention that? Eventually, nineteen forty nine, Elizabeth
Speaker 2: is like, I'm kind of done. Need to just keep
Speaker 2: cheating on me? So she leaves him. He deserves it.
Speaker 2: The Feds are still after him. He used his name
Speaker 2: to sponsor a fundraiser that, okay, so this is how
Speaker 2: many steps of separation will get you in trouble. He
Speaker 2: used his name to sponsor a fundraiser to defend lawyers
Speaker 2: who defended someone that people accused of being communists, and
Speaker 2: that was too close to being a communist, so the
Speaker 2: FEDS were after him again.
Speaker 3: I feel like that Winona Ryder meme where she's trying
Speaker 3: to it looks like she's trying to do a math
Speaker 3: equation in her head on stage. I'm like, that's so
Speaker 3: many degrees removed.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't arrest lawyers for defending people who are accused
Speaker 2: of being communists, and because I'm going to raise the
Speaker 2: money for the lawyers who are defending the people accused
Speaker 2: of the communists. He literally has to leave the country
Speaker 2: at this point. And a report came out on the
Speaker 2: radio personalities who were secret reds and he was on
Speaker 2: there alongside Orson Wells and Langston Hughes and Pete Seeger,
Speaker 2: and that FBI started investigating everyone wh knew him, and
Speaker 2: he was like, you know what Europe is folk music,
Speaker 2: Maybe I should go there. And that means ditching his
Speaker 2: kid with his ex wife, despite the fact that he'd
Speaker 2: agreed to help raise his daughter. He did offer double
Speaker 2: the child support she asked for. When he was like,
Speaker 2: I'm not helping, she was like, I one hundred bucks
Speaker 2: a month. He was like, I'm giving you two hundred.
Speaker 2: This is a crumbs thing. Everyone involved on this zoom
Speaker 2: call is making roughly the same face.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had a nickel for every like very cool guy.
Speaker 3: He was like, oh, I did kind of abandon my
Speaker 3: kid and let somebody else raise them. That is a
Speaker 3: common thing, unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Which is funny because his philandry, cheating whatever it's called
Speaker 2: barely mentioned ever. Led Belly, famous for being a womanizer,
Speaker 2: constantly like this is the number of kids he had
Speaker 2: out of wedlock. Led Belly had a lot of kids
Speaker 2: out of wedlock. What led Belly did not do is
Speaker 2: a band in those kids. He was like, that is
Speaker 2: my kid. I actually don't know whether you paid child support.
Speaker 2: I just like literally don't know one way or the other.
Speaker 2: But like a lot of his kids took the name
Speaker 2: led Better because they're like, yeah, that's my dad. My
Speaker 2: dad's cool. Anyway, I wonder what the difference between Alan
Speaker 2: Lomax and Haughty Ledbetter is.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, it's interesting, who's philandering and having
Speaker 3: a lot of kids is like a big part of
Speaker 3: their story, even though they were there for their kids.
Speaker 3: It sounds like and who's It's just like it's not
Speaker 3: part of it's like a footnote if mentioned at all.
Speaker 2: Right. One of the things that we talked about in
Speaker 2: the Honey led Better episodes is that consciously John Lomax,
Speaker 2: the Terrible Man, was building an idea of the black
Speaker 2: man as the like dangerous man but who can sing,
Speaker 2: you know, and like created this fucking racist stereotype and
Speaker 2: like used led belly to do it.
Speaker 3: That persists. It's wild how this still lingers?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 2: No, absolutely, So he goes, he leaves country, and he
Speaker 2: spends eight years out of the country recording folk music
Speaker 2: everywhere he could. He comes back to the States in
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight, and there in New York City he
Speaker 2: saw a folk scene musicians playing in Washington Square Park,
Speaker 2: largely because of his recording work. And if you're like, well,
Speaker 2: We've been talking about this the whole time, but I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna read it because of my script. If you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: great white city kids discover folk music from rural and
Speaker 2: black people, well, Lomax would agree with you. He wrote
Speaker 2: about it. Quote. Some of the young folknicks who dominated
Speaker 2: the New York scene asserted that there was more folk
Speaker 2: music in Washington Square on Sunday afternoon than there was
Speaker 2: an all of rural America. Apparently it made them feel
Speaker 2: like heroes to believe that they were keeping a dying
Speaker 2: tradition alive. The idea that these nice young people who
Speaker 2: were only just beginning to learn how to play and
Speaker 2: sing in good style might replace the glories of the
Speaker 2: real thing frankly horrified me. So he'd kind of hate
Speaker 2: what folk music came to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like that.
Speaker 2: And he went on to record a lot of music
Speaker 2: that went on to have big white bands cover them,
Speaker 2: The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, all of those people. Even
Speaker 2: with the best intentions, the colonization continued. He believed in
Speaker 2: what he called cultural equity, he said in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: He lived for a pretty long time, he said, quote,
Speaker 2: cultural equity should join all the other important principles of
Speaker 2: human dignity, freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom to
Speaker 2: work and live and enjoy yourself, and freedom for your
Speaker 2: culture to express itself. So basically he's saying, like, you
Speaker 2: can't have cultural superiority. That's his argument. He's like that
Speaker 2: needs to be up there with everything else, is that
Speaker 2: you can't suppress people's culture. His biographer, John Sweed wrote
Speaker 2: about him. The biographer who only in like one sentence
Speaker 2: mentioned the fact that he was cheating on his wife
Speaker 2: and loved his kidding.
Speaker 3: This is the one that you don't trust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, is the one that I don't trust, said
Speaker 2: about him. Quote. His enthusiasm was boundless and seemed to
Speaker 2: grow with age. His drive to celebrate life in all
Speaker 2: its diversity and to see, taste and hear everything was astonishing,
Speaker 2: and he kept his Texas accent despite decades of living
Speaker 2: in New York and steadfastedly refuse to let anyone give
Speaker 2: him shit about it. Basically, his argument was like, this
Speaker 2: doesn't make me a bad person. This is just where
Speaker 2: I'm from. You know, the fact that this is a
Speaker 2: bad person is unrelated. I'm just like bitter. I'm so
Speaker 2: bitter about the number of times I have written entire
Speaker 2: things about subjects and then gotten to the end and
Speaker 2: been like, why can't respecting women be part of being radical?
Speaker 3: Misogyny is eternal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, God, I read essays not by a good person.
Speaker 2: I read essays by Dwarkin, my second wave feminist that
Speaker 2: I was influential on me. And then I have to
Speaker 2: admit that where she was complaining about the free love movement,
Speaker 2: where she was like, you know, so that all the
Speaker 2: free love people are like all the men were feminists
Speaker 2: until they got birth control and then they stopped because
Speaker 2: all they cared about was access to sex. That was
Speaker 2: what they were in the fight for.
Speaker 3: Oh, Margaret, this is like I would talk all day
Speaker 3: how many leftist progressive men and then you're in the
Speaker 3: movement with them, and it's like, we expect the women
Speaker 3: to make food and clean up, and we're gonna be
Speaker 3: the leaders of this whole thing. We're gonna be the face.
Speaker 2: Like totally, it is taialeless all this time. Totally. Oh god,
Speaker 2: I remember which episode it was. It might have been
Speaker 2: when I was talking about the Young Lords. I didn't
Speaker 2: know that Chauven's pig like calling men pigs comes from
Speaker 2: late sixties. I can't remember if it's panthers or young Lords,
Speaker 2: but it's calling them cops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because like it is cop shit totally, like policing
Speaker 3: what women do and what women can't do, that's cop shit.
Speaker 3: Kill the cop in your mind, especially the misogynistic one
Speaker 3: if you are a leftist.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely, well okay. And then the final things I
Speaker 2: have to say about Alan, I talked with my friend's father.
Speaker 2: I did some original research for this episode. My friend's father,
Speaker 2: Andy Cohen, was part of the folk scene that Alan
Speaker 2: and let Belly helped create, and I asked him about Alan.
Speaker 4: Not that Andy Cohen Bridget, I feel.
Speaker 3: Like you saw my face be like, what are we
Speaker 3: talking about? Bravo for a minute, Yes, this is.
Speaker 2: Are we talking about? This, say, Andy Cohen, Or is
Speaker 2: the different.
Speaker 3: A different beloved Andy Cohen.
Speaker 4: It is a celebrity that Margaret has no idea.
Speaker 2: No, I don't know.
Speaker 3: You're not in this world at all.
Speaker 2: I was willing to accept that you are hot for
Speaker 2: my friend's dad.
Speaker 3: Like, tell me more about this con.
Speaker 2: I asked him about Alan and Abouff folk He told
Speaker 2: me quote folklore is a bottom up view of history
Speaker 2: of working people, many of whom are known to be
Speaker 2: as conservative as the people who control their fates from
Speaker 2: the top. Well, my guess is is that lomaxa an
Speaker 2: opportunity to change attitudes about things like race relations and
Speaker 2: union movements, peace struggles, and even gender roles by bringing
Speaker 2: people from different turfs together on the same stage to
Speaker 2: show how much they have in common. In some detail,
Speaker 2: the tune Flop Eared Mule has Russian cognate tunes that
Speaker 2: play to the same melody and rhythm. How did this
Speaker 2: Slavic tune end up in Tennessee? In any case, he
Speaker 2: was using pragmatic cultural language to get different neighborhoods to
Speaker 2: speak to one another across turf lines, a mechanism for
Speaker 2: uniting the working class broadly across those same turns, you
Speaker 2: name them. They were there each against all, dog eat dog,
Speaker 2: especially in urban areas, tribalism rather than cooperation. Pulling the
Speaker 2: musicians together had the effect, along with multi ethnic labor unions,
Speaker 2: ongoing civil rights battles, and so forth, of erasing some
Speaker 2: of those turf lines. He was teaching first principles using
Speaker 2: commonly known songs instead of emotionally charged rhetoric. So that's
Speaker 2: what folk music tried to do. Tried to bring everyone together,
Speaker 2: tried to say we're all folk versus those non folk. Did,
Speaker 2: try to unite the working class. Oh also created Bob Dylan.
Speaker 2: So give it. Someone here really likes Bob Dylan. It's fine,
Speaker 2: you can like Bob Dylan. I'm not mad at you.
Speaker 2: This is a bit sort of.
Speaker 3: I like how much you are not down with Bob Dylan.
Speaker 4: You ambiguous, lady.
Speaker 2: There are some Bob Dylan songs I like. It's fine,
Speaker 2: it's followed. I was always confused for a long time
Speaker 2: why singer songwriter was called folk music when there was
Speaker 2: things with accordions in the world, and you know, banjo's
Speaker 2: and like people stomping and clapping and just way more
Speaker 2: interesting things. But now I understand the lineage better.
Speaker 3: I'm dating myself a little bit here, but have y'all
Speaker 3: ever heard that Moby album play? It's like full of
Speaker 3: Alan Lomax's recordings. That was one of my first Oh shit,
Speaker 3: that's him. Yeah, And I don't know if he ever
Speaker 3: heard it, but Alan. My understanding is that Moby's Play
Speaker 3: came out in ninety nine. I think what Max did
Speaker 3: in like the two.
Speaker 2: Thousands, yeah, two thousand and two, Yeah, so he might have.
Speaker 3: Heard this album that was, like, you know, very popular.
Speaker 3: I have my feelings about Moby, but I'm so curious,
Speaker 3: like what he thought to hear this album that was
Speaker 3: like recontextualizing these recordings that he was responsible for.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: I genuinely wonder too. And I bet someone even knows
Speaker 2: even mentioning Lomax on last week's recording, I've had a
Speaker 2: bunch of people reach out. That makes so much sense
Speaker 2: to that album was that I loved Moby as a
Speaker 2: teenager me too. Woo. I was like the idea of
Speaker 2: being like you made all of the music, well, not
Speaker 2: that album where he is sampling really heavily, but like
Speaker 2: you could be the entire band was so interesting to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yo, you're not gonna get me. I know Moby
Speaker 3: is problematic, y'all are not gonna get me to talk
Speaker 3: badly about Moby because it was such a big part
Speaker 3: of my musical awakening as a youth. And you know,
Speaker 3: when you first heard music like that, it did open
Speaker 3: at least for me, it opened up the whole world
Speaker 3: of what was possible. And so yeah, I am right
Speaker 3: there with you. And it is interesting that like he
Speaker 3: was hearing the same Lomax recordings and wondering like, oh,
Speaker 3: could I recontextualize this?
Speaker 2: You know, no, and totally in a world without white supremacy,
Speaker 2: i'd feel way. You know, It's like it makes me sad,
Speaker 2: but like, okay, wait, why is Moby problematic? I know
Speaker 2: that he I met people who went on days with
Speaker 2: him from Tinder who didn't like it, but not I'm
Speaker 2: not accusing anyone of any crime here.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I mean I don't know, but I
Speaker 3: know that, like my understanding is that he pursued a
Speaker 3: relationship with a very young Natalie Portmanu and she's written
Speaker 3: about how it like just wasn't a super chill vibe,
Speaker 3: and it's like, oh, you're talking about someone who was
Speaker 3: a lot older and someone was a lot younger. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it kind of goes back to what we were saying
Speaker 3: about how all people can be cool in a lot
Speaker 3: of ways, and then it's like, oh, when it comes
Speaker 3: to how you treat and see women, maybe.
Speaker 2: That's so cool. No, that makes sense because movie was
Speaker 2: an incredibly actively leftist in the nineties rave scene and stuff,
Speaker 2: and like has albums called Everything Really Long and another
Speaker 2: one called Animal Rights and like Moby Played.
Speaker 3: I mean I got my start in the reproductive justice movement.
Speaker 3: Has for free DJed many reproductive rights or like like
Speaker 3: events that I've been at.
Speaker 4: Like I remember the Natalie Portman thing, because he was
Speaker 4: like we briefly dated, and she was like he was
Speaker 4: an old weirdo and he.
Speaker 3: Creep on me and it was not good. So in
Speaker 3: a memoir, his version of it is like, oh, we dated,
Speaker 3: and then her version is like I was in college
Speaker 3: and this old guy creeped on me actually teenager.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the more famous you are as a man,
Speaker 2: the fewer people we should date.
Speaker 3: Agreed. Also, I read a excerpt of his memoir I'm
Speaker 3: really just like.
Speaker 2: Pulling off on Teah is the secret movie. If you've
Speaker 2: made it this far. You get the Secret movie, So.
Speaker 3: I know, yeah, he's hanging out with Lana del Rey
Speaker 3: and he has he's taking her to his apartment and
Speaker 3: it's one of those apartments where the elevator opens on
Speaker 3: in his apartment and she's according to him, She's like, wow,
Speaker 3: your apartment. You're a man. But then she's like, no,
Speaker 3: I met you're the man. Like you're not in a
Speaker 3: good way. Yeah, no, no, no, like the man like a cop,
Speaker 3: like yeah, like like not like in his mind. He's
Speaker 3: like complimentary and she's like, no, I meant it. Deron
Speaker 3: Thorley like the man.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, I probably somewhere have Moby's drumstick from
Speaker 2: when I was sixteen and went and saw him at
Speaker 2: the Black Cat in DC. Oh my god, I'm wondering
Speaker 2: whether you were at the show. Is the reason I'm mark.
Speaker 3: You have opened eight a little door in my brain
Speaker 3: like I might have been at that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, it this seems very possible. Well. Alan
Speaker 2: Lomax died July nineteenth, two thousand and two, and eighty
Speaker 2: seven years old, in Florida, and I wish I knew
Speaker 2: more about his personal life. I can't even say he
Speaker 2: was horrible to women. I don't know. All I know
Speaker 2: is one sentence, because why would anyone write about that,
Speaker 2: because that's not what matters anyway. Frustration noted. Yeah the music,
Speaker 2: powerful shit.
Speaker 3: Powerful shit.
Speaker 2: Well okay, wait, I want you to plug your podcast
Speaker 2: in your book, but I also want to find in
Speaker 2: my notes where I wrote this, Oh, that people should
Speaker 2: follow you on Instagram because I like your Instagram Bridget
Speaker 2: Marie in DC, because you do a weekly roundup of
Speaker 2: tech news and it's you're always like, I think it's
Speaker 2: like it's been a busy week. You might have missed
Speaker 2: it or something like that.
Speaker 3: That's right, Yeah, yeah, chaotic.
Speaker 2: Week and I always have missed it, and they're actually
Speaker 2: always really interesting.
Speaker 3: So oh that means so much coming from you. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I just feel like when it comes to tech in
Speaker 3: AI news, it moves so quickly, it's so chaotic, and
Speaker 3: then you see these stories that you don't necessarily click into,
Speaker 3: and I click into them and I read them, and
Speaker 3: I give you this the top lines, just fact based,
Speaker 3: here's what's going on, because we deserve just accessible, accurate
Speaker 3: news in a news climate that feels like it moves
Speaker 3: so quickly that it's just hard to keep up. So
Speaker 3: that means so much coming from you.
Speaker 2: Well, it's like, especially headline type news in a world
Speaker 2: of AI, it's about trust in the people who put
Speaker 2: it together, you know, So it's like, yes, it's easier
Speaker 2: for me. It's because I know your work that I
Speaker 2: see that and I'm like, oh fuck, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: So like yeah, and especially and I think in this
Speaker 3: world of AI, it's like I'm a real person, so
Speaker 3: you're gonna get these typos. You're gonna get. This is
Speaker 3: me just hand or reading and like using my eyes
Speaker 3: and brains and fingers to synthesize and process what I
Speaker 3: read and give it to you.
Speaker 2: Do you think that? Okay? Do you know how letterpress
Speaker 2: creates an indent when you print? But it's not supposed to.
Speaker 2: Have you heard this story, I know exactly what you're
Speaker 2: talking about. So if anyone's listening, letter pressing as a
Speaker 2: way of printing where you have like actual type that's
Speaker 2: like physical and has it's indented or whatever. It's opposite
Speaker 2: of indented, it's extented and it pushes into the paper
Speaker 2: with ink. And the way that people signal now that
Speaker 2: they're using letterpress is they overpress it. And it leaves
Speaker 2: an indentation in the paper. This was seen as like amateur, shoddy,
Speaker 2: terrible work for years and years and years, when letter
Speaker 2: press is the way to get ideas across and now
Speaker 2: letterpress is a way of being like cute. I love
Speaker 2: letterpress suit, but it's like a way of being like
Speaker 2: cute and kitchy and like proving that something's handmade in
Speaker 2: a world of automation. I'm thinking about how in my
Speaker 2: most recent Instagram story, it's like ten slides long, there's
Speaker 2: one typo and I'm like mad at myself, like I
Speaker 2: already fixed it in my substack newsletter.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: Yes, that typo is probably the fucking print mark.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm so glad that you're so like
Speaker 3: I am dyslexic. I cannot spell everything I write is
Speaker 3: my handwriting is elegible. In a world of AI, I
Speaker 3: almost feel like it's kind of an endearing I don't know,
Speaker 3: I've always been very self conscious about my inability to
Speaker 3: spell and my bad writing, and I'm a fucking writer.
Speaker 3: But in a world of AI, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: this was written by a human. Yeah, look at the punctuation.
Speaker 4: I had a very like this feels like the like
Speaker 4: Sophie Hobby version of this story. I was buying art
Speaker 4: from this woman who quit her job and decided that
Speaker 4: she was gonna sell art, like she was gonna go
Speaker 4: around and tell original art to other women on the
Speaker 4: internet and like turned her like apartment into like a
Speaker 4: cute little art gallery. And she was like, oh, like
Speaker 4: I'm gonna sell this, but like I want to fix
Speaker 4: up the frame and I was like, no.
Speaker 2: I'll buy it.
Speaker 3: I want the mistake.
Speaker 4: And then she was telling me about this piece, which
Speaker 4: was actually folk art at full circle, and she was
Speaker 4: showing it to me and she said, this looks like
Speaker 4: a mistake, but I kind of like and she was
Speaker 4: explaining that there was like a dot that was like
Speaker 4: different than the other parts of the section, and she's like,
Speaker 4: I like to think that she like was painting this
Speaker 4: and then like it dripped and she was like, no,
Speaker 4: I'm going to leave it, and I was like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: Wabbi Sabby and that's her fucking signature. That's how you
Speaker 4: know it's not fucking screen printing and it's not like
Speaker 4: a mass production. She left them and at the typos it.
Speaker 3: All comes back. It is the imperfections that make things
Speaker 3: beautiful and unique and most importantly human, like this is
Speaker 3: why we express ourselves exactly.
Speaker 4: Also, isn't it great that a woman was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: masel art and then she did Yeah, I had a
Speaker 4: great time.
Speaker 2: But bridget if people want to know more about AI
Speaker 2: and how it's not a person and how well do
Speaker 2: you even talk about how like even talk about I'm
Speaker 2: not accusing you having not talked about I'm just like
Speaker 2: suddenly thinking about do you talk about how one of
Speaker 2: the reasons is poisonous to be in a relationship with
Speaker 2: a robot is that the robot is perfect? Oh?
Speaker 3: Yes, I sure do.
Speaker 2: I chark you in a book maybe that's coming.
Speaker 3: Out if you want to know more about why as
Speaker 3: some of the problems involved in being in a relationship
Speaker 3: with a robot like AI. Check out my audiobook. It
Speaker 3: comes out on July fourteenth. It's called Love at First Prompt.
Speaker 3: You can check it out at Love at First Prompt
Speaker 3: dot AI. Spoiler alert, it is not a pro AI book.
Speaker 3: You might see it and think, oh, this is telling
Speaker 3: me I should be in a relationship with AI.
Speaker 2: Ah, all right, well you've changed my mind.
Speaker 3: Although there is a section of the book where I
Speaker 3: try to gaslight chat SHEETBT into having sex with me.
Speaker 3: It does not go very well.
Speaker 2: On that note, I will see you all next week.
Speaker 1: Amazing Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production
Speaker 1: of Zone Media. For more podcasts, Goo goole Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website
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