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Speaker 1: Welcome to Behind the Bastards, the podcast that I continually

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Speaker 1: failed to introduce like a professional, which is particularly shameful

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Speaker 1: this week because our guest is a very professional voice artist,

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Speaker 1: Mr Paul F. Tom Good. Thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. Paul Um. You are the

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Speaker 1: voice of a lot of characters that that that a

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Speaker 1: lot of people enjoy. Uh. I think most famously to

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Speaker 1: me at least, UH is Mr Peanut butter Um to

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Speaker 1: the voice of a lot of characters that people hate.

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Speaker 1: That's true. That's true because if you're really achieving as

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Speaker 1: an artist, a lot of people are going to hate

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Speaker 1: anything that you do. That's the you're doing it right exactly.

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Speaker 1: And today we're talking about a truly historical success of

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Speaker 1: a creative mind. A man hated py tens of millions

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Speaker 1: of people and who should be hated by billions, a

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Speaker 1: man who has done, I would say, in calculable harm

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Speaker 1: to the future of human life and all life on

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Speaker 1: this planet. Mr rush Limbaugh. Yeah, Paul, what do you

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Speaker 1: have any kind of history with Rush Limbaugh, like in

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Speaker 1: terms of your upbringing and stuff. I don't know much

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Speaker 1: about how you grew up. Yeah, do you know what

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Speaker 1: I forgot. Uh that I forgot. First of all, I

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Speaker 1: forgot how long he's been around. And I remember watching

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Speaker 1: him in his earliest days on TV UM and watching

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Speaker 1: that show like as a goof the way, I would watch,

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Speaker 1: you know, the Morton Downey Junior Show or a little

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Speaker 1: Wally George or whatever, and just like, who is this clown?

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Speaker 1: And he's like doing this this sort of you know

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Speaker 1: what seemed like a character you know at the time,

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Speaker 1: because he I think he fancied himself an entertainer and

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Speaker 1: had a show that had little skits in it and

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Speaker 1: stuff like that, and I I thought he was just ridiculous,

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Speaker 1: and so uh, I watched him ironically and um, and

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Speaker 1: then things just got worse. Like I I sort of

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Speaker 1: got tired of it. I remember getting tired of it

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Speaker 1: and like, Okay, this is just like the same thing

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Speaker 1: over and over again, and it's not, um, it's not

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Speaker 1: pushing that uh that button in my ironic pleasure center anymore.

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Speaker 1: So I just stopped watching. But he, um, despite despite

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Speaker 1: my my jumping ship and you to do what he

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Speaker 1: was doing. He lost the Paul left Topkins demographic, but

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Speaker 1: he kept the my parents and everyone that raised me demographics.

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Speaker 1: So what was your upbringing particularly political? Would you say not,

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Speaker 1: you know what, not super political. I was raised, Uh.

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Speaker 1: My family was a um uh lower middle class, uh,

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Speaker 1: big Catholic family, UM in Philadelphia, in in a sort

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Speaker 1: of suburb called mount Airy, and we were both of

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Speaker 1: my My family was like lifelong Democrats, you know, Philadelphia Democrats.

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Speaker 1: And so that was kind of it, Like we were

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Speaker 1: just sort of um you know, uh like a conservative

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Speaker 1: liberal family. Uh and um, yeah, I I we we

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Speaker 1: didn't talk a lot about politics in the house growing up. Um,

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Speaker 1: and that was kind of it. But I knew that

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Speaker 1: we were. We were liberal Democrats, you know, who were

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Speaker 1: weirdly enough, guided by guided by I'm not even gonna

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Speaker 1: say faith. I think we were guided by my parents,

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Speaker 1: um sort of morals where they were greatest generation Depression babies. Um.

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Speaker 1: And uh they voted straight Democrat um. But they were

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Speaker 1: not like even though we were Catholic, it was like

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Speaker 1: we were not single issue voters, you know. Um, but

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Speaker 1: they but my family was my parents were brought up

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Speaker 1: with the same sort of um prejudices that people of

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Speaker 1: their generation were brought up with, you know. But but yeah,

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Speaker 1: politics did not figure in it. What it was like

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Speaker 1: when I got when I got uh, you know, a

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Speaker 1: little older and out of the house and everything, that's

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Speaker 1: when I started, um, you know, investigating my own politics.

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Speaker 1: And it was like a long a journey. You know.

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Speaker 1: That is very exciting to me. Um, just because you're

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Speaker 1: you're you, you came from kind of more of a

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Speaker 1: you know, a liberally background, and your introduction to Russia

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Speaker 1: Limbaugh was kind of watching it as a character, right. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I grew up very conservative. Um My parents were also

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Speaker 1: lower middle class, verging on poor. And when I was

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Speaker 1: like kind of little, a lot of economic anxiety, but

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Speaker 1: extremely conservative. I would say like our family religion was conservatism,

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Speaker 1: and so Russia Limbaugh was caught. Whenever I was driving

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Speaker 1: with my mom or my dad, Rush was on. We would,

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Speaker 1: we would, we listened to him. My parents talked about him.

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Speaker 1: So my upbringing with him was that this guy is

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Speaker 1: like the profit of of what's what's right, you know,

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Speaker 1: both in the political sense and in a moral sense. Um.

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Speaker 1: So I'm very excited about this, and I'm excited that

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Speaker 1: you know who Morton Downey Jr. Is because we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be talking about him a bit too. So yeah, Um,

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Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh is it's hard to oversell this guy's influence

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Speaker 1: on our current state of Like, I think it would

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Speaker 1: be fair to say we're kind of like verging on

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Speaker 1: civil conflict right now between the right and left in

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Speaker 1: the United States. Yeah, for sure. Um so yeah, And

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Speaker 1: I think Rush Limbaugh has a huge might be the

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Speaker 1: man most responsible for that. I totally agree that his

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Speaker 1: influence cannot be Uh is it overestimated, like cannotated? It's

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Speaker 1: like I the day he died, I tweeted, I tweeted, Uh,

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Speaker 1: if I had to say something positive, I guess if

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Speaker 1: I had to say something positive, I'm glad Rush Limbaugh

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Speaker 1: lived long enough to get cancer and die. Um. And

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Speaker 1: then that got that got picked up by uh fox

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Speaker 1: news dot com. They did a round up of you know,

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Speaker 1: uh liberals celebrated Rush Limbaugh's death, which really was just like, Hey,

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Speaker 1: if you want to harass some people, here's here's pseudo rass.

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Speaker 1: And I had people, I had people in my mentions

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Speaker 1: on Twitter like saying things like, uh, you better pray

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Speaker 1: you never meet me, like like people implying violence because

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Speaker 1: I said I'm glad Rush Limbaugh is dead. I had

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Speaker 1: somebody call my call my house and say Rush Limbaugh

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Speaker 1: contributed far more good to society than you ever will

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Speaker 1: find for Rush Limbaugh. This guy, but I mean, this

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Speaker 1: guy had a show. He had a show. He wasn't

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Speaker 1: a legislator. He wasn't he wasn't like some some sort

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Speaker 1: of freedom fighter. This guy just had a show where

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Speaker 1: he said mean things, where where he repeatedly celebrated the

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Speaker 1: deaths of his enemies and made half a billion dollars

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Speaker 1: doing it. Okay, let's let's get into Russia's life. So

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Speaker 1: the first thing I learned about him when I started

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Speaker 1: digging him into him, that might be the thing I

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Speaker 1: learned about him that surprised me the most. Russia is

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Speaker 1: not short for anything. Russia is a full a full

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Speaker 1: first name, and in fact, Rush Limbaugh is the third

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Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh in his family line. They are very proud

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Speaker 1: of that name. His grandpa, Rush Senior was born and

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Speaker 1: raised in Bollinger County, Missouri, so he and I are

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Speaker 1: both Missouri babies. He grew up into a world that

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Speaker 1: was changing rapidly. Rush Senior saw an electric light for

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Speaker 1: the first time when he was twelve. He took his

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Speaker 1: first railroad trip in nineteen o four. He always thought

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Speaker 1: that was one of those things. It was like, I

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Speaker 1: choose that. That is the most shocking thing about him.

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Speaker 1: He rushed Limba is not only his full name, it

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Speaker 1: is the only name his family seems to give their

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Speaker 1: firstborn sons. If he broke uh So Russia Rush Senior

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Speaker 1: became a lawyer. He opened an office in Cape are

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Speaker 1: do Um, Missouri, and he basically never left the town again.

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Speaker 1: He retired in nineteen ninety four at the age of

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Speaker 1: a hundred and two, which I mentioned because it suggests

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Speaker 1: that all those cigars rush us are Rush Limbaugh smoked

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Speaker 1: saved us about thirty two years more of his show.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, did you say he retired auto in nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety four? Yeah? And then how long did he live

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Speaker 1: after that? I think he died. I think he died

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Speaker 1: immediately from what YE like. He's one of those guys

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Speaker 1: who worked until he died. Basically, some people are like that.

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Speaker 1: You know, his grandson was like that. Uh So Rush

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Speaker 1: Senior was elected to the Missouri House of Representatives when

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Speaker 1: he was forty. His main political issue was fighting FDR

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Speaker 1: and the New Deal, which shouldn't be surprising to anybody, right,

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Speaker 1: This is deeply deeply embedded in the Rush limball line.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty six, Rush Limbas Sr. Was a Republican

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Speaker 1: delicate at the Republican National Convention, where he helped nominate

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Speaker 1: Alf Landon for the noble job of losing to Franklin

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Speaker 1: del Roosevelt in an election. You don't nobody, nobody was

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Speaker 1: better at campaigning than FDR. It was never a successful

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Speaker 1: thing to run against that. I know, somebody had to

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Speaker 1: be his Washington generals, Yeah, Outland and the Washington generals

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Speaker 1: of Republican politics. Uh So, my main source for the

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Speaker 1: early life and family history of Rush Limbaugh is a

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Speaker 1: fairly comprehensive, if I would say, kind of fawning biography

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Speaker 1: of Limbaugh by Zev chaffits uh and Zev it's a

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Speaker 1: weird first named ze apostrophe e v. Chaff It's uh.

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Speaker 1: He notes that over the course of decades of lawyering,

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Speaker 1: Rush Senior quote quietly but inevitably became well to do um,

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Speaker 1: which is an interesting way of phrasing it. Just like

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Speaker 1: there was no stopping and he just got it. Was

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Speaker 1: kind of a way of making it seem like he

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Speaker 1: just he didn't really want to become rich. He just

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Speaker 1: became rich. You know, that is the most suspicious sounding phrase. Inevitably,

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Speaker 1: quietly and inevitably got rich. Sinister, God, it is very sinister. Um.

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Speaker 1: So Rush Junior, who is our Rush Limball's father, was

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Speaker 1: born at some point Quick Google obviously he had been born.

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Speaker 1: Quick Googling didn't return a date. He's the only Rush

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Speaker 1: Limball without a Wikipedia page, which I guess kind of

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Speaker 1: a kind of a shot to him. Um. I could

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Speaker 1: have probably found it out if I'd really dug into it.

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Speaker 1: But it doesn't really matter that much for our purposes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he did what he had to do. He gave us Rush.

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Speaker 1: He gave us our rush. Y O U R Rush.

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Speaker 1: So Rush Junior is only important for the impact that

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Speaker 1: he had on our rush. He was a World War

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Speaker 1: two combat pilot, which is undeniably rad. You gotta give

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Speaker 1: him that, um, and his biography notes that he maintained

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Speaker 1: a military crew cut for his entire life. He was

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Speaker 1: heavy set and top data out at about three hundred pounds,

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Speaker 1: which earned him the nickname Big Rush, Big Rush, one

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Speaker 1: of those names. And you you cannot combat like your

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Speaker 1: Big Rush, sorry, Big Rush us. You can ask politely,

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Speaker 1: it's not gonna happen. Why are you in a big rush? Uh?

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Speaker 1: So Big Rush became an attorney because I'm always rushing around.

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Speaker 1: I'm always rushing around. So Big Rush became an attorney

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Speaker 1: like his dad and his brother, who eventually went on

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Speaker 1: to become a federal judge. Big Rush was a powerful

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Speaker 1: orator and often gave speeches in the town of Cape Girardo,

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Speaker 1: doing during holidays. His very conservative politics influenced these speeches,

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Speaker 1: and his most famous one was a tearful hagiographic speech

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Speaker 1: about our nations saintly founding fathers. Again, you can see

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Speaker 1: he clearly had kind of the same gift of gab

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Speaker 1: that our Rush has. And I you have to admit,

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Speaker 1: if you know anything about our Rush Limbaugh, he was

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Speaker 1: an undeniably talented broadcaster. He was very good at what

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Speaker 1: he did. That's why he had the impact that absolutely Yeah, now,

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Speaker 1: our Rush Limbaugh A Rush Hudson Limbaugh, the third to

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Speaker 1: give his full name, was born in Cape Girardo, Mississippi,

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Speaker 1: on January or Missouri sorry, January twelfth, nineteen fifty one.

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Speaker 1: By all accounts, he had a financially comfortable upbringing with

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Speaker 1: a brother and the parents who loved him. Baby Rush

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Speaker 1: spent his childhood and bubing a steady diet of his

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Speaker 1: dad's rants about scummy liberals and evil, conniving communists. One

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Speaker 1: of our Russia's childhood friends recalls of Big Rush of

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Speaker 1: his dad quote, We'd go over to his house sometimes

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Speaker 1: just to watch him watch the six o'clock news. He'd

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Speaker 1: sit in front of the television, drinking black cherry pop,

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Speaker 1: eating popcorn, and just railing at the anchorman and the reporters.

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Speaker 1: He'd yell at Dan Rather, they're all typical liberals, and

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Speaker 1: Rather's the worst one of the bunch. And we'd try

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Speaker 1: to keep him going. You know, Mr Rush, what do

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Speaker 1: you think about this? Mr? Rush? What do you think

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Speaker 1: about that? Sometimes he'd say Kender, that was this friend's name.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna be the first Dutchman on the moon. I

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Speaker 1: don't know exactly what he meant by that, but he

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Speaker 1: was trying to be friendly. I liked him, but he

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Speaker 1: was a harsh taskmaster with his sons. An odd comment.

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Speaker 1: So Rush has a has a brother or Russia and

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Speaker 1: a brother. He has a brother, David Um who was

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Speaker 1: his younger brother. No, no, no, I think it's the oldest,

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Speaker 1: the oldest son as the Rush gets the Rush name.

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Speaker 1: They didn't do a George for David becomes like a lawyer,

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Speaker 1: doesn't really leave Cape Gerardo and is like, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: he's he's he unlike his brother has a family, has

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Speaker 1: like a wife that he's you know, stays with and

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Speaker 1: all that stuff. Did he quietly but inevitably become wealthy.

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Speaker 1: I think yeah, I think he was bored wealthy. He

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Speaker 1: and his brother were both born rich as hell. Um

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Speaker 1: so and and our Russia's brother David provided an even

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Speaker 1: more telling glimpse of kind of what their childhood was

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Speaker 1: like under Big Rush. My dad stood out. Sometimes he

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Speaker 1: provoked people who didn't agree with him to violence. Once,

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Speaker 1: for example, he was in a bar slamming FDR and

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Speaker 1: a couple of guys jumped him and beat him up.

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Speaker 1: I never did ask him the details of that one,

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Speaker 1: but it was a couple of guys, not a fair fight.

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Speaker 1: I know that much. I have to assume he deserved

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Speaker 1: to get the ship kicked out of I'm gonna guess

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Speaker 1: he was saying something like, the people who got screwed

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Speaker 1: over in the Great Depression deserve to starve to death.

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Speaker 1: We shouldn't be helping that that's gonna be my guest.

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Speaker 1: And he got the ship kicked out of him by

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Speaker 1: some w p A guys something like that. If your

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Speaker 1: name is if your name is Big Rush and two

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Speaker 1: guys go after you, I think that's a fair fight.

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Speaker 1: That's a fair fight. You're big, you know. Yeah, he's

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Speaker 1: a little Rush, he's three hundred pounds. They're probably each

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Speaker 1: about a buck fifty. You know, their fight exactly, they're

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Speaker 1: fight by mass being poor. Yeah, that's so. Our Rush

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Speaker 1: was born into the Eisenhower Years, which will probably always

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Speaker 1: be remembered as like the high point of both capitalism

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Speaker 1: and the United States. This period of peak American exceptionalism

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Speaker 1: imprinted itself deeply on Russia's growing brain. His father was

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Speaker 1: made a special ambassador to India's legal system, Their family

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Speaker 1: got their first television. Um, yeah, yeah, he was. I

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Speaker 1: think it means you know, India's was newly independent in

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Speaker 1: the Eisenhower years, right, they had just the UK had

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Speaker 1: just left, they had just partitioned with Pakistan. They're developing

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Speaker 1: their own independent legal system, and they're a democracy that

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Speaker 1: was heavily based at least initially on the US. So

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Speaker 1: the president like kicked guys who were established lawyers like

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Speaker 1: Big Rush and also established Republicans to be a kind

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Speaker 1: of help set up the Indian legal system. Um, that's

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Speaker 1: kind of what happened. So yeah, his his father's a

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Speaker 1: big man in Republican politics. Rush grows up seeing in

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Speaker 1: the period where America is undeniably like like literally is

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Speaker 1: half of the global economy. Right, that's a very significant

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Speaker 1: thing for him. Um. So the family in the fifties

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Speaker 1: gets their first TV, but radio is still the dominant

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Speaker 1: method of entertainment in those days, and Russia's childhood and

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Speaker 1: earlier adolescence coincided with the birth of rock and roll

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Speaker 1: and the absolute peak of cultural relevance for DJs. Um

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Speaker 1: My dad grew up at a pretty similar period of time.

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Speaker 1: He's like seven or eight years younger than Rush. Um,

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Speaker 1: and he he grew up the only thing my dad

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Speaker 1: ever wanted to be was a DJ, and he wasn't

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Speaker 1: a radio DJ for like twenty thirty years. You know,

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Speaker 1: that was like the coolest thing that you could do, right.

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Speaker 1: You didn't have Spotify, you didn't have the Internet. People

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Speaker 1: learned about new music from DJs who were kind of

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Speaker 1: like pick what they were going to play on the radio.

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Speaker 1: It was the like the absolute rattus thing you could be,

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Speaker 1: and that's what Rush like. He he idolizes these big

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Speaker 1: DJs of the time, and that's all he wants to be.

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Speaker 1: For Basically, his entire young life is a DJ. Now,

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Speaker 1: when Rush was three Brown versus the Board of Education

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Speaker 1: was ruled on by the Supreme Court, which led to

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Speaker 1: the integration of U S schools now Zeve Chaffittz doesn't

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Speaker 1: write anything specific in the biography about how Rush Senior

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Speaker 1: talked about race to his son. I have not We

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Speaker 1: don't get any of that information. And I'm not necessarily

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Speaker 1: blaming Chappits for that because I think the Rush family

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Speaker 1: is very pr savvy. They don't talk about it. You know.

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Speaker 1: I don't know who he would have gotten that info from, um,

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Speaker 1: but our Rush would have definitely picked up on the

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Speaker 1: great deal of conflict in Cape Gerardo over racial matters. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Missouri is an odd state and that it is both

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Speaker 1: Midwestern and Southern. During the Civil War, it was split

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Speaker 1: between Yankee and Confederate sympathizers, and the town that Rush

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Speaker 1: grew up in had monuments to the dead of both sides.

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Speaker 1: There was tremendous resistance to the idea of integration of

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Speaker 1: schools in Missouri and in Cape Gerardo, and Zeve Chappitts,

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Speaker 1: to his credit, writes about this quote. In nineteen fifty two,

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Speaker 1: Kate built its white students a new school, Central High.

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Speaker 1: Blacks continued to attend Cobb High School, but the supreme

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Speaker 1: court and basketball changed that. Cape Gerardou took its high

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Speaker 1: school basketball very seriously and sometimes contended for the state title.

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Speaker 1: The nineteen fifty three team was expected to be a powerhouse,

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Speaker 1: but word got around that the kids from Cobb were

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Speaker 1: even better. An informal game was arranged between Central and

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Speaker 1: Cob High, says historian Frank Nichol cob one. Shortly thereafter,

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Speaker 1: Cob mysteriously burned down. Black students went to school and

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Speaker 1: churches and private homes that year. But a more permanent

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Speaker 1: solution was, yeah, they that's the kind of town. He

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Speaker 1: grows up and the black kids win at basketball and

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Speaker 1: they burned their school down. Wow. Yeah, Cape Gerardo is

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Speaker 1: a very racist town. Um and kind of more to

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Speaker 1: the point, like, we don't know exactly what what Russia's

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Speaker 1: dad would have said about any of this. We don't

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Speaker 1: know that he would have supported the burning down of

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Speaker 1: the black school. We don't know that he wouldn't though,

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Speaker 1: that's right. Um, and you know, the the conservatives were

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Speaker 1: definitely more on the don't integrate side of things, right. Uh. Now,

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Speaker 1: a compromise, a compromise was eventually reached in Cape Girardo,

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Speaker 1: and the compromise was that black kids would be allowed

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Speaker 1: to attend Central High but they would be put in

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Speaker 1: special classes that were taught by former teachers of Cobb,

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Speaker 1: the school that had been burned down. Um. This was

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Speaker 1: kind of integrating by not integrating. So there were black

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Speaker 1: and white kids in the same school, but not in

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Speaker 1: the same classes. And this is the way things were

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Speaker 1: in Cape Girardo when Russia Limballs started school. Um. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's you can infer from that what you will based

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Speaker 1: on some of the things Rush Limbaugh says and does

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Speaker 1: later in life. I think we're missing some important information

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Speaker 1: about what his dad thought about black people. Um. I

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Speaker 1: don't remember, if ever being concerned as to the investigation

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Speaker 1: of that fire. I don't think he would burn high school.

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Speaker 1: He might have done it like that is rampant an

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Speaker 1: irresponsible speculation on my part, but also uh, the only

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Speaker 1: reason I think he wouldn't have is that he wouldn't

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Speaker 1: have been able to run away from it. In mind,

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Speaker 1: from what I can tell, um, he didn't do well

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Speaker 1: in that fight, is all I'm saying. So Russia had

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Speaker 1: an upbringing that would have been fairly standard for a

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Speaker 1: rich kid of his era. He played basketball, he did shores,

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Speaker 1: He had plenty of friends. He was not an overly

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Speaker 1: active kid. He did not like sports. He hated his

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Speaker 1: one year in the cub Scouts. Russia the ball hates

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Speaker 1: the outdoors his entire life. Um, he did not like school,

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Speaker 1: but he was popular, largely because his family was rich

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Speaker 1: and had a huge basement with a pool table and

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Speaker 1: a bunch of other luxuries. The kids rush hung out

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Speaker 1: with during this time give us some of our best

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Speaker 1: hints about the darker elements of his childhood. One of

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Speaker 1: them told Zeve Chaffits quote, Russia's dad didn't suffer fools lightly.

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Speaker 1: He was always very disapproving of Russia his ambitions to

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Speaker 1: have a career in radio. Russia's mom was a kind,

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Speaker 1: gentle person, but his dad could be pretty rough. He

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Speaker 1: was not above calling down Russian David in front of

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Speaker 1: their friends, and when he did it, there was a

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Speaker 1: string of expletives attached. I saw that happen many times.

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Speaker 1: So kind of abusive, not I don't think, by the

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Speaker 1: standards of the time, and I haven't heard any of

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Speaker 1: that he was like leading his kids or anything, but

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Speaker 1: kind of mentally abusive. Again, probably more or less in

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Speaker 1: line with what most most men of his social class

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Speaker 1: would have been like to their kids. You know, I

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Speaker 1: don't think this was abnormal. I mean, how many how

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Speaker 1: many of these guys were born out of the the

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Speaker 1: the sort of ritual humiliation by their fathers in front

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Speaker 1: of an audience. Yeah, I think most of them. You know.

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Speaker 1: It's it's such a it's such a common thing that

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Speaker 1: I'm I guess I'm just glad my dad was a

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Speaker 1: guy who didn't say anything. Ever, Yeah, it's better than

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Speaker 1: humiliating you in front of your friends when you say

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Speaker 1: something he disagrees with. So every one of Russia's early

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Speaker 1: friends that I've seen interviewed is very consistent about the

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Speaker 1: fact that he was not political. From an early age.

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Speaker 1: He rarely, if ever talked politics, and he did not

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Speaker 1: express strong beliefs. One of his friends even remembers him

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Speaker 1: as a particularly good debater in school because quote. He

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Speaker 1: could argue either side of a proposition without missing a beat.

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Speaker 1: When he did express political opinions, they were generally conservative.

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Speaker 1: One friend noted that the only time he saw child

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Speaker 1: Rush express a strong political sentiment was after the nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty presidential election when Rush was nine. Quote Rush wrote

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Speaker 1: wrote on a drywall, Kennedy one darn Nixon lost. Shucks.

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Speaker 1: So grows up conservative because his dad is conservative. But

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Speaker 1: it's clearly politics is not a big part of his

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Speaker 1: life from an early age. He's not like been Shapiro right,

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Speaker 1: where from the get go he's being sort of um

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Speaker 1: like focused into becoming a political commentator. That does not

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Speaker 1: happen with Rush Limbaugh. He's more from the darn shucks

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Speaker 1: school of the darn shucks school political commentary. Yeah. So

399
00:22:01,480 --> 00:22:04,040
Speaker 1: Rush got his first gig at age thirteen, working at

400
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Speaker 1: a downtown barber shop. He later told his biographer that

401
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Speaker 1: he liked the gig because it gave him a chance

402
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Speaker 1: to talk to adults, who he preferred to his peers

403
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Speaker 1: because I didn't think kids were interesting. When it came

404
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Speaker 1: to girls, Rush was as awkward as you'd expect. He

405
00:22:17,720 --> 00:22:20,400
Speaker 1: was bad at sports, heavy set, and not at all smooth.

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Speaker 1: In his biography The Rush Limball Story, biographer Paul Colford

407
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Speaker 1: recalls one particularly embarrassing incident during a game of spin

408
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Speaker 1: the bottle when Rush was a teenager. He spun the

409
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Speaker 1: bottle and it stopped at and it stopped pointing at

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Speaker 1: the prettiest girl at the party, which is how she's

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Speaker 1: described in this anecdote quote. She looked at him and gasped,

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Speaker 1: couldn't do it, not with him, that is, And everyone

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Speaker 1: in the room witnessed this humiliation. It was a wound

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Speaker 1: he would nurse forever. Uh, that's nice, thank you Bogher

415
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Speaker 1: for that. And it's one of those things, you know,

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Speaker 1: I think there's I'm sure this has an impact on

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Speaker 1: the kind of man he becomes, But also I think

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Speaker 1: most of us have a moment like that where we

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Speaker 1: have a crush on some person of the opposite or

420
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Speaker 1: the same sex and they're not into us, and it's

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Speaker 1: horribly embarrassing. It's a pretty and most of us don't

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Speaker 1: grow up to destroy civil society in the environment. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we've all been there, and Rush was there too. Obviously

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Speaker 1: this is a part of whatever toxic stew gets cooked

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Speaker 1: up at him. Um, But I don't know how Like

426
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:29,640
Speaker 1: it's one of those things I think you can kind

427
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:31,679
Speaker 1: of lean too much on. Oh, this is why he

428
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: was always forever humiliated by this thing, and that's why

429
00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:36,240
Speaker 1: he became the man. He was like, well, we all

430
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:37,760
Speaker 1: have that in our past, and we all don't do

431
00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:40,880
Speaker 1: this ship. It's very much like the the original origin

432
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 1: story of Lex Luthor that uh yeah, Superman blew out

433
00:23:45,359 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 1: his hair. Superman Superman was responsible for him going prematurely bald,

434
00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:55,720
Speaker 1: and he became a supervillain because of this. Yeah, and

435
00:23:55,760 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: you know there are a lot of other bald men

436
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:02,440
Speaker 1: in that world who don't become Superman. Yeah. Uh so,

437
00:24:02,640 --> 00:24:04,879
Speaker 1: Big Rush wanted his son to become a lawyer or

438
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:07,439
Speaker 1: to do something else with a similar sort of gravitas. Right,

439
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:10,399
Speaker 1: The Limbaughs were big men in Cape Girardo. They were

440
00:24:10,440 --> 00:24:13,440
Speaker 1: kind of like the the the primary, like the most

441
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 1: prominent men in the entire town. Um, and he Big

442
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: Rush wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and

443
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:21,639
Speaker 1: do something respectable. Didn't have to be a lawyer, going

444
00:24:21,680 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 1: too politics, do something important, right, do something that he

445
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 1: can brag about to the other rich guys. Now, the

446
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: fact that young Rush only ever wanted to be on

447
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 1: the radio, infuriated his father. For his part, Rush seems

448
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: to suspect that his love of radio was born in

449
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: part from his hatred of school. Quote. My mother would

450
00:24:38,960 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 1: be fixing me breakfast and I'd be listening to the

451
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: guy on the radio. He'd be having fun, and I

452
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 1: was preparing to go to prison. I mean joined the

453
00:24:49,640 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: club Rush. Yeah, we all hate school. It's tradish everybody.

454
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:56,920
Speaker 1: It never occurred to me to related to the guy

455
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 1: on the radio, like, how come he gets to have fun,

456
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: this grown adult, and I have to go to school? Yeah,

457
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of kids. Let's I'll take

458
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:09,160
Speaker 1: my adopted hometown Portland for example, a lot of kids

459
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: there who hate school. They don't destroy the entire planet.

460
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 1: They just break Starbucks windows on the weekends. And that's

461
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 1: much healthier. Rush. You can just buck up a Starbucks

462
00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:22,320
Speaker 1: if you're if you're nursing some rage at the educational

463
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 1: industrial complex or whatever. So despite his irritation, Big Rush

464
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:29,200
Speaker 1: clearly did love his son, and when little Rush was sixteen,

465
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,680
Speaker 1: his dad used some of his local clout to get

466
00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:34,359
Speaker 1: his son a part time job at the local radio station.

467
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:38,320
Speaker 1: Rush started doing what you today call internship, you know,

468
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:41,480
Speaker 1: fetching coffee, cleaning up, handling odd tasks here and there,

469
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: and eventually he was allowed to actually introduce and play

470
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 1: records on air. The summer before his senior year of

471
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 1: high school, Big Rush paid for his son to attend

472
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:53,200
Speaker 1: a six week radio engineering course in Dallas. This was

473
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: a big moment for Rush. He was away from home

474
00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: for the first time, living in a boarding house. He

475
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: started smoking cigarettes, thank god, and he got a license

476
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:05,439
Speaker 1: that allowed him to actually and he got a license

477
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:08,679
Speaker 1: that allowed him to actually run the radio without adult supervision.

478
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,560
Speaker 1: Once he had this, station management let him hang out

479
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:15,159
Speaker 1: alone all weekend and weekdays after school, playing records and

480
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: for the first time, presenting himself to an audience on air.

481
00:26:19,160 --> 00:26:20,880
Speaker 1: So he gets started. And this is one of those

482
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 1: things his dad. Clearly there are some abusive elements of

483
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:27,639
Speaker 1: their relationship. His dad is not supportive of Russia's radio career,

484
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:30,680
Speaker 1: but also is like his dad is, doesn't think it's

485
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 1: a good idea, but also enables him right like, not

486
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 1: just gets him a job, but pays for him to

487
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,160
Speaker 1: get educated. So we get this is not a guy.

488
00:26:38,640 --> 00:26:41,199
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know he had his frustra strations with

489
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:43,159
Speaker 1: his father. This is not a guy who grows up

490
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,200
Speaker 1: with a dad who just doesn't get him and refuses

491
00:26:45,240 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: to support him. This is a very supportive upbringing this

492
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: kid has, even though his father's not yeah exactly. Um yeah.

493
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 1: So Rush you know, becomes kind of famous within his

494
00:26:57,160 --> 00:26:59,520
Speaker 1: you know, the team set at his town because he's

495
00:26:59,520 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: the guy with a radio show and in high school

496
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:04,200
Speaker 1: and he was not at all political at this point.

497
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: His most well known bit involved reading the daily beauty

498
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 1: tips that the Associated Press sent out back then, UM,

499
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:12,400
Speaker 1: which he like, and he would like kind of mock

500
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:14,480
Speaker 1: the beauty tips because he thought it was silly that

501
00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:17,520
Speaker 1: the AP was sending out daily beauty tips. Which is fair,

502
00:27:17,560 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 1: it is that has a silly thing for the AP

503
00:27:19,440 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 1: to do. Um now. Russia's professional idol at this point

504
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 1: was a guy named Larry lue Jack lu Jack as

505
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 1: Chicago DJ, who was famous for his sense of humor

506
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: and comedic stylings. Rush Leader called him the only person

507
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:36,119
Speaker 1: I ever copied. Lue Jack was known for audibly shuffling

508
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: papers during his monologues and different bits, a tactic Limbaugh

509
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 1: copied and used repeatedly through his decades on air. UM

510
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 1: and as a kind of like it significant bit. No, no, no,

511
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: it wasn't a bit, but it was like a thing

512
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:52,560
Speaker 1: he would do to emphasize that, like I've got evidence

513
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: or I've got information here. You know. It was a

514
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 1: thing Rush, and it was a big Rush Limbaugh thing.

515
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:00,280
Speaker 1: You know. It's it's how you convince people who maybe

516
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:03,600
Speaker 1: aren't that credible that you you have good information. Right,

517
00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:09,480
Speaker 1: he's been handed, He's been handed that has information on it,

518
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: so it's true. But but lu Jack was not a

519
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 1: political guy, right, he was just he was not, and

520
00:28:14,280 --> 00:28:17,280
Speaker 1: he fucking hated Rush Limbaugh because when Rush got famous

521
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 1: in the early nineties, Rush was like, yeah, Larry lu

522
00:28:19,880 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 1: Jack is the only man I ever copied. And they

523
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:23,960
Speaker 1: asked lu Jack about it, in his response is basically,

524
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 1: fuck that guy good Man. Yeah. Yeah, you can't. You

525
00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: can't pick who finds you influentially, you know. Yeah. Um

526
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:40,720
Speaker 1: So back in those days, again, being a radio DJ

527
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: was pretty much the coolest thing you could do, and

528
00:28:42,680 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: Russia's side job made him very popular at high school.

529
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:48,440
Speaker 1: He even signed autographs on a few occasions. The work

530
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: was intoxicating, and Rush seemed to know at once that

531
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: this was what he wanted to dedicate his life to doing. Obviously,

532
00:28:54,480 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: his ambitions did not make his father happy, and during

533
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: Russia's last year of childhood, his dad would constantly yell

534
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 1: at him for wanting to waste his life on the radio.

535
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:04,960
Speaker 1: No amount of paternal ill will was enough to pull

536
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:07,880
Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh away from his dream, though he was miserable

537
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:10,720
Speaker 1: at home and his father. After with his father, after graduating,

538
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 1: he enrolled in a local college just to please the

539
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: old man, but he couldn't actually bring himself to go

540
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:18,600
Speaker 1: to school very often. Sometimes his mother would drive him

541
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: to college just to make sure that he went. Rush

542
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: came of age during one of the most exciting and

543
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: tumultuous periods in US history. I mean, he's he's literally

544
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: becoming an adult in like nineteen sixty eight. I think, um,

545
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: like some ship went down that year. You know, there's

546
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:35,400
Speaker 1: a lot of teenagers doing some exciting things. Um. Now,

547
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: given how Rush turned out, you might have expect him

548
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 1: to have been active and involved in the politics of

549
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:42,760
Speaker 1: his time. But he was not. And to hear him

550
00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 1: tell it now, or to hear him tell it when

551
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 1: he related this to his biographer, the civil rights movement

552
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 1: in the Vietnam years basically all passed him by. He

553
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: never attended political rallies. He only dimly remembers hearing of

554
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:57,320
Speaker 1: Bobby Kennedy's death. When Martin Luther King Jr. Was assassinated,

555
00:29:57,560 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 1: his radio station asked him to help send out news

556
00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:02,239
Speaker 1: or ports for the local NBC affiliate because there were

557
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: uprisings all around the country, and Rush did this, but

558
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: he didn't actually engage with the news. He was not

559
00:30:06,960 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: actually interested in what was happening. He was just interested

560
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: in kind of the business of how news was disseminated.

561
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: Quote this is what he said later. I remember talking

562
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: to them about the broadcast business NBC. I was seventeen,

563
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 1: playing records on the radio, not commenting on news. I

564
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 1: don't recall feeling any concern. So that is how again

565
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: a lot of privilege. There are massive race based uprisings

566
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:31,560
Speaker 1: and the number of US cities, hundreds of thousands of

567
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:34,480
Speaker 1: National Guard troops are called up as after the civil

568
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:38,080
Speaker 1: rights leader is is assassinated, the country is on the

569
00:30:38,120 --> 00:30:40,479
Speaker 1: brink of open conflict in Russia, limbol, I don't give

570
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: a funk, like I just want to play a record,

571
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 1: So you know, Wow, he's just a rich white kid,

572
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: you know, in the middle of Mazara. He doesn't give

573
00:30:45,920 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 1: a shit. It's so wild to think about someone being

574
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:53,440
Speaker 1: alive at that time and not having a strong feeling

575
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 1: either way about anything. Yeah, he's not doesn't even have

576
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 1: strong hard right sympathies. He just doesn't give a about it.

577
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 1: That is like a kind of privilege that I can't

578
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 1: even begin to fathom. Yeah, and it is important that,

579
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: like he's not just taking the right wing side of things.

580
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: Were like, well have Martin Luther King? He was a comedy.

581
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:13,840
Speaker 1: He just doesn't care, Like none of this even makes

582
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: it into his mind. Like the idea that you would say,

583
00:31:16,800 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 1: Martin King, who is that again? That which guy Bobby

584
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: who got killed? Kind of what demly aware that assassinated? Yeah,

585
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: it's it's quite a thing. Uh So I'm going to

586
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: quote now from a right up in the New York

587
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 1: Times that ably summarizes Rush Limbaugh's early twenties. Quote. Love

588
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: of radio eventually one out over formal education, and he

589
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: dropped out of a local college after a year, appalling

590
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 1: his parents. Then began a long, checkered odyssey typical of radio.

591
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 1: Limbaugh held and lost jobs in several cities working under

592
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 1: different names and broadcast styles. He was Rusty Sharp and

593
00:31:56,480 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 1: Jeff Christie. He was a DJ, a newsreader, a talk host.

594
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 1: In each place he developed components of what would later

595
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:05,520
Speaker 1: emerge as the Limball style. In Pittsburgh, he was a prankster,

596
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 1: convincing listeners that he could see them through a new

597
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: experimental picture phone. So he's kind of like a drivetime

598
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,080
Speaker 1: morning DJ, like, yeah, we're gonna I don't know, I

599
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 1: can't do the DJ voice, but like playing like sound

600
00:32:19,760 --> 00:32:23,000
Speaker 1: bits and doing doing gags. Like he's very like not

601
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: even really a shock jock yet because he's not like

602
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:28,120
Speaker 1: combat that has that's like starting to evolve in this

603
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: period of UM. I did find some audio from Run

604
00:32:32,360 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: of Russia's very first broadcast in nineteen seventy four, while

605
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 1: he was still in Pittsburgh, and I think it's interesting

606
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: because in it you can hear Rush in mid transition

607
00:32:41,280 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: from that drive time DJ voice to the voice of

608
00:32:44,160 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: the Rush Limball who would help breed a modern American

609
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:50,200
Speaker 1: fascist movement. So here he is on w x z's

610
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:53,680
Speaker 1: Solid Rock and Gold show. So without further ado, here

611
00:32:53,760 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: is Rush Limbaugh in nineteen seventy four Billy Cook's rights

612
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,640
Speaker 1: and gypsies. See the exciting the Dolphin rated p G

613
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:05,479
Speaker 1: and now showing at the Ark Moore Drive in Bellevue.

614
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: Bethel said him a camp Horn drive in Carnegie said,

615
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,280
Speaker 1: and send him a world. They have the Dolphin offs

616
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 1: showing in the Hampton plasack hen Hills region and run

617
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: the leader Sea of the Dolphin now at these the

618
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 1: Wiggly South Hills South Park Drive in the South Hills

619
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: Drive in and Subset Drive. And I certainly hope you

620
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: people are writing all of this down. Don't miss a

621
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 1: Day of the Dolphin. It is now showing so very

622
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: silly as all radio from the nineteen seventies sounds today, right,

623
00:33:33,960 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: his most radio today sounds. But also like there's you

624
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 1: would never have guessed based on his early performances that

625
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:42,560
Speaker 1: he was going to become what he became. Right, No,

626
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: I mean, look, he has undeniably great voice, very good

627
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 1: at parting information like the actual factual information in this

628
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: movie is for short playing here at this time, Day

629
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 1: of the Dolphin. Yeah, I can't wait to see it. Yeah,

630
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: it's the exciting movie. Day of the Elphen. But that

631
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: he's just straight reading things that you cannot misinterpret in

632
00:34:05,880 --> 00:34:08,879
Speaker 1: any way, um, if if only he's stuck to that.

633
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, I I it's so, I guess I. I

634
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: I don't want to get ahead of us, get ahead

635
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:19,680
Speaker 1: of ourselves. But the idea that this guy would not

636
00:34:19,800 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: be content doing just this, UM is like what when

637
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 1: does it the idea that it turns like I don't know,

638
00:34:29,280 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm sorry, we'll we'll get to that.

639
00:34:31,880 --> 00:34:35,719
Speaker 1: But I think it's fair to say this is what

640
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: he loved and he would have been perfectly happy if

641
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: he could have made a good we're getting to kind

642
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 1: of like a Hitler at art school story where like, yeah,

643
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:45,640
Speaker 1: maybe if he'd gotten to keep being a drivetime radio DJA,

644
00:34:45,800 --> 00:34:47,840
Speaker 1: things would have been better, you know, I had. I

645
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:50,440
Speaker 1: had a conversation with a friend of mine, um who

646
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: who also does podcasts and radio and for neither of

647
00:34:55,760 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 1: us it is our thing, our first thing, but we shared, ah.

648
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:03,520
Speaker 1: We we had a conversation where we we shared our

649
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:07,600
Speaker 1: love of being good at reading copy, like when you

650
00:35:07,640 --> 00:35:10,759
Speaker 1: have to do ads, there is something that's weirdly satisfying

651
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:13,840
Speaker 1: about like, oh, I sound like a guy on the radio,

652
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: like doing a good job at reading this and making

653
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:19,279
Speaker 1: it sound natural and whatever and it's like there's like

654
00:35:19,360 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: there's isn't that enough is enough that there's there's it

655
00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:26,680
Speaker 1: is a good feeling when you nail an ad read. Yeah,

656
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 1: it's I mean, I think I think everyone who does

657
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: a who who who does a job? That like, I

658
00:35:33,440 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 1: think it pretty much everyone who has worked. There's a

659
00:35:35,680 --> 00:35:39,080
Speaker 1: joy in professional competence of any time you know you're working.

660
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:41,800
Speaker 1: You know, if you're like if you're if you're running

661
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: like the cash cashier the grocery store, right when you

662
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: get really good at bagging, like it's this, oh, the

663
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: the the kind of ecstasy of competence, right where you

664
00:35:49,760 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 1: can kind of lose yourself in a task, you know,

665
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:53,640
Speaker 1: and be, like him as good at this thing as

666
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 1: I can be, even if you don't like the job.

667
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: There's a satisfaction in that. And I think Rush was

668
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 1: happy in this area doing He wasn't rich, he wasn't influential,

669
00:36:02,280 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 1: but he was doing a thing he loved well and

670
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: he was happy in this in the in this period

671
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:10,320
Speaker 1: in the early seventies, um so his early material in Pittsburgh.

672
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 1: It is interesting to me because it's exactly the opposite

673
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 1: of what you'd expect from him. One of his reoccurring

674
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:18,879
Speaker 1: bits was the Friar Shuck Radio Ministry of the air,

675
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: where he relentlessly mocked the radio preachers that he saw

676
00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: coming into the station on Sundays. He thought these guys

677
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:27,920
Speaker 1: were grifters and he hated them. The center of this

678
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:30,720
Speaker 1: bit was that no matter your problem, God would solve

679
00:36:30,719 --> 00:36:34,320
Speaker 1: it if you'd send the radio preacher a hundred dollars um.

680
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:36,680
Speaker 1: That's interesting to me, and this is like a real

681
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 1: like running theme in his early careers. He made fun

682
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: of preachers all the time, of the exact kind of

683
00:36:42,560 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 1: religious grifters that later helped make him a wealthy man.

684
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 1: It's very interesting to me. Um. Yeah, there's also He

685
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 1: also would read letters from fans h and at one

686
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 1: point he read a letter that he said was from

687
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 1: a young woman who wanted to be a DJ and

688
00:36:58,400 --> 00:37:01,040
Speaker 1: was worried that her gender would hold her back. Here's

689
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:03,320
Speaker 1: what he told her on the air. This is interesting

690
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 1: to me too. You just have to master two techniques,

691
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 1: and I'm going to explain them right now. Number one,

692
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:11,279
Speaker 1: the use of microphone. To use it, simply turn the

693
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:14,320
Speaker 1: microphone to the on position and talk into it. The second,

694
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:16,600
Speaker 1: which is the biggie, is queuing up the record, get

695
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:18,080
Speaker 1: the record you want to play, take it out of

696
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 1: the appropriate shuck, slap it onto the turntable, take the

697
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: arm in the needle, placed it on the outside editor

698
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: of the record. Then turn the record until you hit

699
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: here the beginning of the record. Back it up a

700
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:28,600
Speaker 1: quarter of a turn, and when you get through talking,

701
00:37:28,640 --> 00:37:31,560
Speaker 1: the record will start. After you have mastered those two techniques,

702
00:37:31,600 --> 00:37:35,920
Speaker 1: girls change your sex, And you can interpret that a

703
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:38,600
Speaker 1: couple of ways. That about the man splaining about how

704
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:40,960
Speaker 1: to turn on a microphone and then he goes, oh, wait,

705
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:44,359
Speaker 1: you can't do it. Well that that. I think there's

706
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:45,960
Speaker 1: two ways to interpret this. One of them is what

707
00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:48,280
Speaker 1: you've said, Sovie, that he was just being incredibly sexist.

708
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:49,759
Speaker 1: One of them is that he might he might have

709
00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:52,600
Speaker 1: been acknowledging anyone could do this job, but you won't

710
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 1: be able to as a woman because of sexism in

711
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: the industry. And I'm really not sure which one he

712
00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 1: was going for. Their Yeah, could be both. There is

713
00:38:02,200 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: a kind of lording it over, like you know, this

714
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 1: is a dumb job, but you're still not allowed to

715
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:09,839
Speaker 1: do it. You're still not allowed to do it, ladies. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

716
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:12,840
Speaker 1: that that's probably probably accurate. It's probably a bit of

717
00:38:13,360 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: you know what, all ladies are allowed to do products?

718
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:21,080
Speaker 1: Is it at Sophie? Is it participate in capitalism as consumers? Yes,

719
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:26,320
Speaker 1: it is participating. Well, ladies, stick it to Rush Limbaugh

720
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:30,280
Speaker 1: by engaging positively with the system. He spent his life

721
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:33,239
Speaker 1: propping all right, ship. You know I didn't like the

722
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: phrase to stick it to Rush Limbab very much. Neither

723
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:46,120
Speaker 1: did I, Sophie. There's some mats ah, we're back. We're

724
00:38:46,160 --> 00:38:48,880
Speaker 1: back from those ads. And Paul, I can see the

725
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:51,320
Speaker 1: glow on your face that only comes upon a man's

726
00:38:51,360 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: face the first time that he gets to help advertise

727
00:38:54,560 --> 00:38:56,880
Speaker 1: the fine products and surfaces brought to us by the

728
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:00,279
Speaker 1: people at Raytheon. Are you feeling good Paul about now?

729
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,000
Speaker 1: Now you are inextricably tied to wonderful products like the

730
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 1: RN I and X knife missile. I Yeah. As a

731
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:14,240
Speaker 1: boy growing up in Philadelphia, I dreamed of advertising from missiles.

732
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:19,400
Speaker 1: That's that's what everyone wants to do, right since Caveman

733
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:22,879
Speaker 1: painted on walls. They dreamed of Raytheon. And now we

734
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:25,680
Speaker 1: are in the privileged position of getting to sell their products.

735
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:28,240
Speaker 1: And I couldn't be happier. Here's what sucks. Ray Theon

736
00:39:28,440 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: is such a cool name, so good. Yeah, I mean

737
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:36,680
Speaker 1: this in this ongoing bit I do. I often like

738
00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: the RNA and X missile. I think it is made

739
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: by Lockheed Raytheon's chips. I believe in it, to be fair.

740
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:44,880
Speaker 1: It's just the name Ray Theon. It's such a good,

741
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:48,680
Speaker 1: shady defense industry. Like it's the name of a company

742
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:51,400
Speaker 1: that ends the world right, like you're talking about like

743
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 1: like a you know, they're going to make a sky

744
00:39:53,680 --> 00:39:55,640
Speaker 1: net that kills us all at some point. Their name

745
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:59,760
Speaker 1: is just too on point to not be Yeah. Um

746
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:03,280
Speaker 1: so back to back to Limbaugh. Rush was popular in Pittsburgh,

747
00:40:03,360 --> 00:40:06,759
Speaker 1: and his busses appreciated everything but his long windedness. They

748
00:40:06,800 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 1: repeatedly sent him memos that stated it shut up and

749
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:12,800
Speaker 1: play the records, and for a while he was content

750
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 1: to mostly just do that. But in nineteen seventy four,

751
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 1: the economy took a nose dive and Rush was fired.

752
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 1: He had to move back home with his family, where

753
00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 1: he lived for seven miserable months. His dad repeatedly badgered

754
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 1: him to move on and start a real career, but

755
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:29,840
Speaker 1: Rush was committed to radio and eventually he landed a

756
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: new gig in Kansas City, where he started taking listener

757
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:35,840
Speaker 1: phone calls for the first time. This was the dawn

758
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:38,359
Speaker 1: of the era of insult comedy, a sort of mean

759
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: spirited comedy based on pranks and you know, primarily executed

760
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:45,399
Speaker 1: by shock jocks. Guy's Body by Howard Stern really who

761
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: entertained via ostentatious cruelty hungry and I don't know if

762
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, if you'll if you'll know or not?

763
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:58,080
Speaker 1: Like talk talk radio, how much of a thing is

764
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: it at this point of people calling into radio stations

765
00:41:01,760 --> 00:41:06,480
Speaker 1: to have conversations with broadcasters. It's starting at this point, right,

766
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: This is really kind of the birth of talk radio,

767
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:11,279
Speaker 1: and and rushes on the ground floor of that. Right,

768
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: does it does it start with sports or does it

769
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: start with with issues? I think it starts with issues.

770
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: It starts with their Before what we know is talk radio,

771
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:21,759
Speaker 1: you had had people who would take calls and talk

772
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:24,839
Speaker 1: about politics, both on TV and on the radio. And

773
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:26,919
Speaker 1: one of the things that Rush changes to skip ahead

774
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: a little bit is that those guys had mostly been interchangeable, right,

775
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:32,280
Speaker 1: They were just sort of fielding calls and engaging with

776
00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:36,520
Speaker 1: with callers Rush and that kind of turns into with

777
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 1: these shock jocks more of kind of a comedy based entertainment.

778
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: You have these pranks, you have insults, you have all

779
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: this stuff. So it kind of it it evolves out

780
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:47,720
Speaker 1: of a thing that had been going on for much longer. Um.

781
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:51,240
Speaker 1: It's an extension of the idea of the The original

782
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: idea of the DJ was maybe a personality, but his

783
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:57,800
Speaker 1: main thrust was I'm giving you this music that you crave,

784
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:00,959
Speaker 1: and that's why you like me is because I'm gonna

785
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:03,720
Speaker 1: maybe get I'm gonna maybe get tracks before other people

786
00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: get them, and you're gonna hear You're gonna hear this

787
00:42:06,000 --> 00:42:09,840
Speaker 1: stuff first. But there's still a thing of it's not

788
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:13,680
Speaker 1: about my personality necessarily. It's mainly about I am the

789
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:17,399
Speaker 1: i I'm I'm, I'm, I'm the Santa clause of music.

790
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 1: I'm giving you these things and that's why you like me. Yes,

791
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 1: and I have access to them first and all this stuff.

792
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: So Rush kind of as this, you know, he kind

793
00:42:28,000 --> 00:42:29,720
Speaker 1: of sees the writing on the wall white. He loses

794
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:32,360
Speaker 1: his gig as a traditional DJ because that is starting

795
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,400
Speaker 1: to become less profitable, right, and there's you know, in general,

796
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:40,239
Speaker 1: the economies taking a shitter. Um so he he he

797
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,000
Speaker 1: realizes that kind of the way things are going is

798
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: more based around personalities and and comedy and entertaining people,

799
00:42:46,719 --> 00:42:49,399
Speaker 1: and he starts to pivot to that. Um so this

800
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:53,400
Speaker 1: is uh. There's a well, an interesting quote that Rush

801
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:56,200
Speaker 1: himself wrote in one of his many interminable books about

802
00:42:56,280 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: how he felt about kind of pivoting to insult comedy. Quote.

803
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:03,840
Speaker 1: I found out something about myself, something that was quite disturbing.

804
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:07,400
Speaker 1: I found out I was really really good at insulting people.

805
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:10,399
Speaker 1: For example, the topic one day was when you die,

806
00:43:10,480 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 1: how do you want to go? I want to go

807
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 1: the cheapest and most natural way I can. One nice

808
00:43:15,040 --> 00:43:18,920
Speaker 1: lady caller from Independence, Missouri said. My response was easy,

809
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 1: have your husband throw you in a trash bag and

810
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:23,040
Speaker 1: then in the Missouri River with the rest of the garbage.

811
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 1: When I went home after it, after a day of this,

812
00:43:25,400 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 1: I didn't like myself. Is that being I don't know

813
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 1: if that's being good at insulting people. Yeah, that's not

814
00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:36,520
Speaker 1: really so, that's just that's just ready to insult people. Yeah,

815
00:43:37,080 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: it is, though. One of the things people will state

816
00:43:39,160 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 1: and I can't categorically say this, but it seems accurate

817
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:44,000
Speaker 1: based on my recollections of the show. Is even when

818
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:46,760
Speaker 1: people would disagree with Rush on the air, he wasn't

819
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:49,760
Speaker 1: an asshole to them, Like he was not cruel to

820
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,799
Speaker 1: to his callers to their faces. Right, he would say

821
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: cruel things about liberals, but when people would call in,

822
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: he would not like call them monsters. He would not

823
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 1: like he he seems who have genuinely not liked insulting

824
00:44:02,600 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: people to their faces or at least over like directly

825
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:09,640
Speaker 1: insulting people over over the phone or whatever. Um. While

826
00:44:09,680 --> 00:44:13,120
Speaker 1: he was disturbed by this, he was not disturbed by racism,

827
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:19,960
Speaker 1: mainly racism against black people. Yeah, yeah, here's where we're going. Um.

828
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 1: At one point during his call in show, he claimed

829
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 1: he had a black collar, and he came claimed to

830
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,520
Speaker 1: not be able to understand the man's accent. Limbaugh hung

831
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:32,000
Speaker 1: up on this black man after saying, take that bone

832
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: out of your nose and call me back, Which is

833
00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 1: I mean? He says it was, Well, we'll get to that.

834
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:45,439
Speaker 1: At another point, he asked his audience, have you ever

835
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:51,600
Speaker 1: noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson? UM? Now,

836
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:54,439
Speaker 1: during a nineteen interview, after he had kind of risen

837
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:57,440
Speaker 1: to political prominence, Newsweek asked Limbaugh if he thought these

838
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:00,960
Speaker 1: statements had been racist. He replied, you may interpret it

839
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 1: as that, but I know, honest to God, that's not

840
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:05,840
Speaker 1: how I intended it at all. Gee, don't get me

841
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 1: on in this one. I am the least racist host

842
00:45:08,120 --> 00:45:11,160
Speaker 1: you'll ever find. Now, if we're going to try to

843
00:45:11,200 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 1: analyze Rush from the length of his career, I think

844
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: we can say two things. He's probably being honest when

845
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:19,120
Speaker 1: he said that he felt bad about insulting colors because

846
00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: he did not continue to do that. He is probably

847
00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:25,200
Speaker 1: being dishonest when he says that he's not racist, because

848
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,239
Speaker 1: he continued to say incredibly fucking racist things about black

849
00:45:28,280 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: people consistently throughout his entire career. Yeah. I mean, the

850
00:45:31,680 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: the the number one indication that someone is racist when

851
00:45:36,160 --> 00:45:39,399
Speaker 1: they say that the least racist I has that ever

852
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:43,640
Speaker 1: been said by him by a non racist person. Usually

853
00:45:43,680 --> 00:45:46,759
Speaker 1: with somebody, it's always got to be. It's always gotta be.

854
00:45:46,960 --> 00:45:49,480
Speaker 1: Not only am I not racist, I am the least

855
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:51,879
Speaker 1: racist person you're ever gonna meet. It's like you don't

856
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:57,240
Speaker 1: maybe don't go that far. Because it's so easily disproved,

857
00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:00,560
Speaker 1: also followed by the I don't see color people, I

858
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:03,200
Speaker 1: don't see color. I would say I think most of

859
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:05,839
Speaker 1: the people I think I don't see color. People tend

860
00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:08,879
Speaker 1: to be performative Obama voters, the I am the least

861
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: racist person in the world. People tend to have strong

862
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: opinions on why they should be able to say the

863
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: N word, like that would be the split between the

864
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: right and the left version. Yeah yeah, and both of

865
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 1: you are fucking racist, so shut up. Yes, yes, she's

866
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 1: she's found out about our opinions on Lichtenstein, which I

867
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:35,840
Speaker 1: refused to apologize for. In the fucking Swedes, my god,

868
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 1: the sweet yeah you do have is shoes with the Swedes.

869
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:43,080
Speaker 1: I have huge issue particularly blue sweet. Um, what did

870
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:45,560
Speaker 1: uga chackamin? Why did you say that at the start

871
00:46:45,560 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 1: of that song? Okay? Sorry? Rush was Rush was still,

872
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: at this point in his career, completely a political His

873
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 1: roommate and close friend at the time later told an

874
00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:59,959
Speaker 1: interviewer he was scary smart about everything, but I can't

875
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 1: recall us take talking much about current events. He was funny, though.

876
00:47:03,640 --> 00:47:06,800
Speaker 1: I was an audience of one uh Limbaugh's years in

877
00:47:06,880 --> 00:47:09,880
Speaker 1: Kansas City were not super successful, and he seems to

878
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:13,319
Speaker 1: have recalled them somewhat sourly. As The New York Times summarized,

879
00:47:13,719 --> 00:47:16,479
Speaker 1: Limbaugh likes to say, everything I did in Kansas City,

880
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:18,799
Speaker 1: I failed at He got fired from the station and

881
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:21,440
Speaker 1: quit radio forever to become an executive with the Kansas

882
00:47:21,480 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: City Royals baseball team. Five years later, he quit the

883
00:47:24,560 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: Royals convinced his career there was stymied, and went back

884
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 1: to radio, this time as a news commentator. Again, he

885
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:33,399
Speaker 1: got fired for being too controversial. Also in Kansas City,

886
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 1: he married twice, both marriages eventually ending in divorce. What

887
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:38,640
Speaker 1: are the do we know what the sources of the

888
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 1: what the what the type of controversies? Yes, we're about

889
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 1: to get into that. Okay, yeah, we're about to get

890
00:47:43,719 --> 00:47:50,399
Speaker 1: into come on. So it was in Kansas City where

891
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:54,959
Speaker 1: Rush Limbaugh, conservative commentator, made his first public appearance after

892
00:47:54,960 --> 00:47:57,239
Speaker 1: getting pushed out of the Royals. No one really liked

893
00:47:57,280 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: him there. He had one friend who was on the

894
00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 1: team and that's why he to keep the job. And

895
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:03,399
Speaker 1: when that guy got traded, they pushed him out because

896
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 1: they all hated him. Um So, after getting pushed out

897
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:08,320
Speaker 1: of the Royals. He got a gig at k m

898
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 1: b Z, a local station. He started satirizing what he

899
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 1: considered to be a left wing caricature of a right

900
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 1: wing political commentator. Right the initial right wing rush. Limbaugh

901
00:48:20,160 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 1: was satire um, and he was being purposefully controversial and

902
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 1: unreasonably extreme in order to make a comedic point. This

903
00:48:28,120 --> 00:48:30,960
Speaker 1: was a joke. Initially this did not go over well

904
00:48:30,960 --> 00:48:33,759
Speaker 1: with his middle of the road Mormon station manager, but

905
00:48:33,800 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 1: it made Limball popular with his audience. See, Limbaugh had

906
00:48:37,640 --> 00:48:39,719
Speaker 1: caught onto the fact that radio was in the middle

907
00:48:39,719 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 1: of a revolution. This was the era where the first

908
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 1: big shock jocks, men like Don Imus and Howard Stern,

909
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: began their a sense to start them. I found a

910
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:50,839
Speaker 1: wonderful write up about this era on long Reads which

911
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:53,479
Speaker 1: argues that the first radio shock jock was a talk

912
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:56,600
Speaker 1: radio star named Joel Pine in the nineteen fifties, and

913
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:58,200
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from this now. We might do an

914
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 1: episode on Pine at some point. His unconventional style, dressed

915
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:05,120
Speaker 1: up to dress down pinko's and women's libbers and riff

916
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:08,759
Speaker 1: on rather than read reports, was neither news nor entertainment.

917
00:49:08,960 --> 00:49:11,239
Speaker 1: It seemed to be best described well The New York

918
00:49:11,239 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: Times and Time both did Anyway as an electronic peep show.

919
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: The personality free press of the time considered Walter Cronkite

920
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 1: the most trusted man in America and Johnny Carson the funniest,

921
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:23,520
Speaker 1: but Pine, with a syndicated show on more than two

922
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 1: radio outlets, was the most machiavellian when it comes to

923
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:31,040
Speaker 1: manipulating media Icons of Talk author Donna Holper told Smithsonian

924
00:49:31,080 --> 00:49:35,000
Speaker 1: Magazine he was the father of them all. Pine briefly

925
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:37,360
Speaker 1: descended from his soapbox in the mid sixties for a

926
00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 1: week's vacation after bringing a gun to his show during

927
00:49:40,120 --> 00:49:43,040
Speaker 1: the Watts Riots, suggesting the world wasn't quite ready for

928
00:49:43,120 --> 00:49:47,279
Speaker 1: his kind of conservative appeal. So Pine is doing the

929
00:49:47,360 --> 00:49:50,640
Speaker 1: Rush limbob bit in the fifties and early sixties, but

930
00:49:50,719 --> 00:49:53,640
Speaker 1: America is not ready for that yet. Right, he can

931
00:49:53,680 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: get even fifties Americans like this guy's racist into like

932
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: and a fucking lunatic. Yeah. So, now, just so I

933
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:06,600
Speaker 1: understand Rush's this satire that he was doing. Yeah, the

934
00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:11,760
Speaker 1: idea was here is what uh left wing people think

935
00:50:12,520 --> 00:50:16,840
Speaker 1: right wing people are like? And yeah, the point he

936
00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:19,439
Speaker 1: is trying to make is they see us as they

937
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,600
Speaker 1: see the left wing sees the right wing as uh,

938
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: extreme and hateful and um, you know, racist and closed minded, Like,

939
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:33,919
Speaker 1: is that is that the point I was trying to make.

940
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:37,360
Speaker 1: I think so, because he he he even says like

941
00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 1: it was a satire right Like, That's how it's portrayed

942
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 1: in his biography that he was kind of his personality

943
00:50:42,120 --> 00:50:45,360
Speaker 1: was satiric in nature. Um and and that's kind of

944
00:50:45,400 --> 00:50:47,000
Speaker 1: the only way I can interpret it is that he

945
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:50,280
Speaker 1: was trying to satirize what like kind of the loony

946
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:54,480
Speaker 1: right winger, you know, but through the through the lens

947
00:50:54,640 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 1: of here's how the left sees them. I that's that

948
00:50:58,719 --> 00:51:01,440
Speaker 1: was never said direct Yeah, it sounds like it's a

949
00:51:01,560 --> 00:51:06,800
Speaker 1: it's a protective phrase of like, I was not satirizing

950
00:51:06,880 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 1: these guys directly. I was not satirizing right wing people.

951
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 1: I was satirizing how left wing people see right wing. Yes,

952
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 1: that is how I have interpreted what I've read. Yeah, okay,

953
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:22,320
Speaker 1: yeah that does sound like a base covering kind of thing. Yeah,

954
00:51:22,360 --> 00:51:25,359
Speaker 1: it a bit. I I do think he started not

955
00:51:25,560 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 1: believing everything he said. It started as a joke and

956
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 1: him intentionally to provoke controversy, because controversy brings in listeners

957
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 1: and gets gets attention, gets word of mouth. That's why

958
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 1: he was doing it. And the story of Rush Limbaugh

959
00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 1: is these these kind of purposefully absurdly extreme satire becomes

960
00:51:43,719 --> 00:51:46,680
Speaker 1: what he really believes and is you know, so he's

961
00:51:46,719 --> 00:51:48,839
Speaker 1: he's an a political guy who's like this is what

962
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:51,680
Speaker 1: this is, what this is what politics sounds like to me.

963
00:51:51,719 --> 00:51:55,279
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, I think so, and I yeah that

964
00:51:55,280 --> 00:51:57,239
Speaker 1: that's how I interpreted. Well, we'll go we'll go over

965
00:51:57,239 --> 00:52:00,359
Speaker 1: that more so. Obviously, Pine kind of the fur right

966
00:52:00,400 --> 00:52:03,279
Speaker 1: wing radio shock jock had peaked too early and kind

967
00:52:03,280 --> 00:52:05,880
Speaker 1: of I guess to steal a phrase from the Nazis

968
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:08,880
Speaker 1: shown his power level to early during the Watts Riots,

969
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:12,080
Speaker 1: and he got kicked off the air. Rush, though, started

970
00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:15,719
Speaker 1: getting political at exactly the perfect time. This was the

971
00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties. Howard Stern came onto the scene in

972
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:21,680
Speaker 1: eight four. Don Imus had risen to prominence in the

973
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies. I Miss was another guy my dad listened

974
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:27,319
Speaker 1: to a lot growing up. Um, I Miss in the

975
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:29,520
Speaker 1: morning was like a big part of getting ready for school.

976
00:52:29,560 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 1: Don Imus is going to be in the fucking TV

977
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 1: and you were like, this guy's having so much fun

978
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:35,319
Speaker 1: and I have to go to prison. I have to

979
00:52:35,320 --> 00:52:37,959
Speaker 1: go to prison. This guy's having fun. He's talking about

980
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:40,600
Speaker 1: nappy headed hose, which was like the phrase that he

981
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:42,480
Speaker 1: I forget what it was in reference to, but like

982
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:44,880
Speaker 1: that's what got him in trouble. Um. It was a

983
00:52:44,920 --> 00:52:47,799
Speaker 1: women's basketball too. It was a women's basketball team because

984
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:51,360
Speaker 1: don Imus was also very rasist um. So yeah, the

985
00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:53,720
Speaker 1: world was still not quite ready for the rush Limball.

986
00:52:53,760 --> 00:52:56,520
Speaker 1: We knew uh during while he was like starting to

987
00:52:56,520 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 1: be political at k m b Z, but a diet

988
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:02,960
Speaker 1: version of what he would become was now acceptable. And

989
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:06,360
Speaker 1: one man who recognized the potential of limbosh Stick was

990
00:53:06,480 --> 00:53:09,359
Speaker 1: Norm Woodruff, a consultant to the station who became the

991
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:13,760
Speaker 1: acting program director at Sacramento's k f b K network.

992
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:17,120
Speaker 1: Kf b K needed a new right wing talk radio

993
00:53:17,200 --> 00:53:20,080
Speaker 1: host after firing their previous one, a guy you mentioned

994
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:23,280
Speaker 1: at the start of this episode named Morton Downey Jr.

995
00:53:23,760 --> 00:53:27,759
Speaker 1: Morton was extremely popular and he was very extreme in

996
00:53:27,840 --> 00:53:31,279
Speaker 1: his antics. This had allowed his local station in Sacramento

997
00:53:31,480 --> 00:53:34,799
Speaker 1: to repeatedly draw national attention because he would say purposefully

998
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 1: controversial things. This did backfire on Morton Eventually, when he

999
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 1: told a racist on air joke about a Chinaman, which

1000
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:45,240
Speaker 1: was a thinly veiled attack on a local city councilman

1001
00:53:45,320 --> 00:53:48,919
Speaker 1: named Tom Chen, Downey Jr. Was fired and went into

1002
00:53:48,960 --> 00:53:52,240
Speaker 1: the world of television, where he would somehow say simultaneously

1003
00:53:52,320 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 1: blaze a trail for both Tucker Carlson and Jerry Springer.

1004
00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:58,239
Speaker 1: We will do an episode on him someday because he's

1005
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:03,400
Speaker 1: a very um but his for today he matters because

1006
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:07,399
Speaker 1: his firing number one, his success proved that being a

1007
00:54:07,440 --> 00:54:12,400
Speaker 1: purposefully controversial right wing bigot was really profitable for radio station,

1008
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:15,640
Speaker 1: and because when he got fired, Sacramento had a hole

1009
00:54:15,680 --> 00:54:18,319
Speaker 1: in the station's roster that they needed to fill with

1010
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:21,279
Speaker 1: another racist right wing shiphead, just one who was not

1011
00:54:21,440 --> 00:54:25,920
Speaker 1: quite as racist as Morton Downey Jr. Rush limboss stepped

1012
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:28,319
Speaker 1: up and said, not being quite as racist as that

1013
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 1: guy is my middle name for now, for now, Eventually

1014
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:41,480
Speaker 1: I will be much worse. So Rush Limbaugh moved to Sacramento.

1015
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:44,040
Speaker 1: When he started at the station, his new boss Would

1016
00:54:44,120 --> 00:54:47,160
Speaker 1: Ruff told him, we want controversy, but don't make it up.

1017
00:54:47,200 --> 00:54:50,239
Speaker 1: If you actually think something, if you actually believe it,

1018
00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:53,400
Speaker 1: you can tell people why. We'll back you up. But

1019
00:54:53,600 --> 00:54:55,799
Speaker 1: if you're going to say stuff just to make people mad,

1020
00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 1: if all you want to do is rabble rouse, if

1021
00:54:57,520 --> 00:54:59,160
Speaker 1: all you want to do is a find and get noticed,

1022
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:01,480
Speaker 1: that's not what we interested in, and we won't back

1023
00:55:01,560 --> 00:55:04,040
Speaker 1: you up. He was clearly lying. I think this was

1024
00:55:04,120 --> 00:55:09,600
Speaker 1: asked covering by the station, right, Yeah, but they would

1025
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:13,040
Speaker 1: never would never ever push back on his bigotry. But

1026
00:55:13,160 --> 00:55:17,280
Speaker 1: you know who does push back on bigotry. Paul adds

1027
00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:28,480
Speaker 1: the products and services that support this podcast. So we're back. Uh.

1028
00:55:28,520 --> 00:55:31,560
Speaker 1: And at this point, Rush Limbaugh has launched himself as

1029
00:55:31,640 --> 00:55:34,520
Speaker 1: a a right wing shock jock, and he is an

1030
00:55:34,560 --> 00:55:38,799
Speaker 1: instant hit zeve Chaffit's rights quote. The station let him

1031
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:42,040
Speaker 1: go on the air solo, unencumbered by sidekicks or guests,

1032
00:55:42,239 --> 00:55:45,440
Speaker 1: and encouraged his highly personal right wing monologues. For the

1033
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:48,879
Speaker 1: first time in his career, he was marketed heavily and aggressively.

1034
00:55:49,239 --> 00:55:51,960
Speaker 1: There were billboards around town showing a finger hitting a

1035
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:55,280
Speaker 1: button captioned how would you like to punch Rush Limbaugh?

1036
00:55:55,640 --> 00:55:57,840
Speaker 1: Rush was so pleased by these that he sent Brian

1037
00:55:57,880 --> 00:56:00,919
Speaker 1: a snapshot. Morton Downey Jr. Had been a big star

1038
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:03,600
Speaker 1: in Sacramento with a five share of the market five

1039
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:05,680
Speaker 1: percent of people listening to the radio in a given

1040
00:56:05,680 --> 00:56:09,520
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes segment. Limbaugh tripled that he was sharp edged

1041
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:12,400
Speaker 1: but good humored. The new morning host espouses many of

1042
00:56:12,440 --> 00:56:15,400
Speaker 1: the same beliefs of his predecessor, Morton Downey Jr. Reported

1043
00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:18,080
Speaker 1: the Sacramento b but he skates a little further from

1044
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:20,400
Speaker 1: the edge of the hole in the ice. Rush was

1045
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:23,040
Speaker 1: rewarded for his success with a six figure salary, an

1046
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:25,719
Speaker 1: estimable income in the mid nineteen eighties, even by his

1047
00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:28,640
Speaker 1: father's standards. More important, for the first time in his life,

1048
00:56:28,719 --> 00:56:31,799
Speaker 1: he really mattered. He was invited to deliver speeches just

1049
00:56:31,880 --> 00:56:35,280
Speaker 1: like Big Rush. He was an occasional commentator on television

1050
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:38,759
Speaker 1: and wrote newspaper collumps. Politicians and celebrities sought him out.

1051
00:56:39,000 --> 00:56:40,799
Speaker 1: He and Michelle, his wife at the time, bought a

1052
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:43,160
Speaker 1: new house and furnished it with products he had he

1053
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:46,920
Speaker 1: endorsed on air. So he's a hit. You know, this

1054
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:50,000
Speaker 1: is the start of and it's really just almost straight

1055
00:56:50,080 --> 00:56:52,560
Speaker 1: up from there for the rest of his career. He

1056
00:56:52,640 --> 00:56:55,799
Speaker 1: finds his niche and he runs with it again. He's

1057
00:56:55,920 --> 00:56:59,439
Speaker 1: he's a very intelligent, talented man. Anybody else will find

1058
00:56:59,440 --> 00:57:03,239
Speaker 1: the big ru part really funny. It is very funny.

1059
00:57:02,680 --> 00:57:09,439
Speaker 1: It's very funny. It's still funny now. I have long

1060
00:57:09,560 --> 00:57:12,560
Speaker 1: argued that Sacramento is the very mouth of Hell itself,

1061
00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:15,040
Speaker 1: and the fact that Russia Limbaugh first saw success as

1062
00:57:15,080 --> 00:57:19,000
Speaker 1: a right wing firebrand there serves to support my hypothesis. Again,

1063
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 1: his conscious decision as an entertainer was to be a

1064
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:26,000
Speaker 1: satirical version of a right wing polemicist, deliberately exaggerating the

1065
00:57:26,040 --> 00:57:29,160
Speaker 1: things he did believe for comedic effect. The audience thought

1066
00:57:29,440 --> 00:57:32,000
Speaker 1: he was funny, but I don't think they got the joke.

1067
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:34,840
Speaker 1: And there is some evidence for this, when an Ohio

1068
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:41,800
Speaker 1: evangelist a lot of evidence. Yeah, so I think the

1069
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:43,960
Speaker 1: earliest evidence for this, I should say, is when an

1070
00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:47,840
Speaker 1: Ohio evangelist very publicly claimed that the theme song from Mr.

1071
00:57:48,040 --> 00:57:50,520
Speaker 1: Ed held a Satanic message when played backwards. You know,

1072
00:57:50,560 --> 00:57:52,840
Speaker 1: we're kind of talking about the Satanic Panic period during

1073
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:55,840
Speaker 1: this Rush found this ridiculous, and again, he had a

1074
00:57:55,880 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 1: long history of mocking the evangelical religious right, so when

1075
00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:03,080
Speaker 1: he heard this, he told his listeners that a Slim

1076
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:06,680
Speaker 1: Whitman recording also contained a backwards message of from satan

1077
00:58:07,120 --> 00:58:10,880
Speaker 1: Zeve Chaffitz writes that to his delight, many Limbaugh listeners

1078
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:13,880
Speaker 1: took Limbaugh at his word and flooded the station with

1079
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:17,040
Speaker 1: phone calls promising to destroy their Slim Whitman albums to

1080
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:20,760
Speaker 1: keep the Devil out of the house. Rush considered this

1081
00:58:20,840 --> 00:58:24,280
Speaker 1: a hilarious plank, prank. He did not apologize or as

1082
00:58:24,280 --> 00:58:26,320
Speaker 1: far as I know, correct the record. So we see

1083
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:29,760
Speaker 1: in this he's joking, right, he is not. Again, his

1084
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:32,880
Speaker 1: whole history is mocking these people. He does not believe this,

1085
00:58:33,400 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 1: but he doesn't correct people because it gets he realizes, Oh,

1086
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:40,160
Speaker 1: they're engaged, they're destroying stuff. That means I have power, right.

1087
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:41,760
Speaker 1: I think he even found it kind of. It might

1088
00:58:41,760 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 1: have been something that kind of addicted him to this,

1089
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:47,080
Speaker 1: This idea that like I can make even if I'm

1090
00:58:47,520 --> 00:58:50,400
Speaker 1: deliberately being absurd and lying, I can make people take

1091
00:58:50,440 --> 00:58:53,400
Speaker 1: action based on those absurdities. That's got to be addictive,

1092
00:58:53,440 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 1: and I think it is for him, is absolutely undeniable,

1093
00:58:56,800 --> 00:58:59,680
Speaker 1: and especially like if you spend time on Twitter, and

1094
00:58:59,680 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 1: if you've ever been like I have on occasion, deliberately

1095
00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:07,560
Speaker 1: stupid on Twitter and gotten sincere replies to something that

1096
00:59:07,680 --> 00:59:12,080
Speaker 1: is so obviously a joke, So obviously a joke. It

1097
00:59:12,440 --> 00:59:17,240
Speaker 1: absolutely is fun. There's nowhere around that. There's nowhere around

1098
00:59:17,280 --> 00:59:19,760
Speaker 1: that seeing people take you at your word when you

1099
00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:25,400
Speaker 1: say something that's so patently absurd is it's joyful. It

1100
00:59:25,440 --> 00:59:29,040
Speaker 1: does give you a real jolt, And there's a This

1101
00:59:29,080 --> 00:59:30,480
Speaker 1: is a bit of a different case, but I think

1102
00:59:30,480 --> 00:59:33,240
Speaker 1: there's some similarity. So last summer, you know, I was

1103
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:36,080
Speaker 1: covering a lot of the protests in Portland, Oregon, including

1104
00:59:36,120 --> 00:59:38,320
Speaker 1: doing a lot of live streaming, and very early on,

1105
00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:41,320
Speaker 1: the police put a fence up around the police station

1106
00:59:41,800 --> 00:59:43,720
Speaker 1: and there would be marches where like a couple of

1107
00:59:43,760 --> 00:59:46,520
Speaker 1: thousand people would march to the fence and somebody would

1108
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: like touch the fence and the police would tear gas

1109
00:59:49,240 --> 00:59:52,320
Speaker 1: like six square blocks of traffic. And I started calling

1110
00:59:52,360 --> 00:59:54,720
Speaker 1: it the sacred Fence, and the joke, like the comment

1111
00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:58,040
Speaker 1: that I was making is that the police are endangering

1112
00:59:58,080 --> 01:00:01,040
Speaker 1: the lives of thousands of citizens to protect a a

1113
01:00:01,200 --> 01:00:05,040
Speaker 1: fence because it's sacred to them, right. That went viral

1114
01:00:05,120 --> 01:00:08,480
Speaker 1: within the city and there were dozens of protests at

1115
01:00:08,520 --> 01:00:11,480
Speaker 1: the sacred Fence, as everyone called it, including numerous attempts

1116
01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 1: to tear it down and I know that the way

1117
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:17,000
Speaker 1: that I framed it had a significant impact on a

1118
01:00:17,040 --> 01:00:21,840
Speaker 1: lot of people, um, Getting hurt, damaging, defense, getting arrested. Uh.

1119
01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:25,400
Speaker 1: And it it was both kind of intoxicating and it

1120
01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:27,000
Speaker 1: also scared the hell out of me. It was one

1121
01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:29,400
Speaker 1: of the reasons why I pulled back to some extent

1122
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:31,479
Speaker 1: on some aspects of my coverage because I got really

1123
01:00:31,480 --> 01:00:34,440
Speaker 1: worried about the kind of impact that you can have

1124
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 1: on people by doing that sort of thing. I didn't

1125
01:00:36,520 --> 01:00:39,120
Speaker 1: want to be It was very concerning to me. But

1126
01:00:39,200 --> 01:00:41,280
Speaker 1: it was also I'd be lying if I said there

1127
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:43,280
Speaker 1: wasn't an element of it that I wanted to do

1128
01:00:43,360 --> 01:00:46,840
Speaker 1: more stuff like that. And I didn't, but I wanted to,

1129
01:00:47,040 --> 01:00:48,840
Speaker 1: you know. But and that's that that is the key,

1130
01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:53,960
Speaker 1: the key difference of uh, you know you seeing something that, um,

1131
01:00:54,400 --> 01:00:57,920
Speaker 1: catch just catch, just fire in a forgive the phrasing,

1132
01:00:57,960 --> 01:01:01,880
Speaker 1: but catch fire in a in a charge situation. Um.

1133
01:01:01,920 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 1: And how easily people can glom onto something when everything

1134
01:01:06,720 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 1: is so churned up. UM, And then realizing like, oh,

1135
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:12,800
Speaker 1: words have power, I have to be careful rather than

1136
01:01:13,040 --> 01:01:17,479
Speaker 1: words have power. Here we go, here we go, Let's

1137
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:26,720
Speaker 1: use it to sell gold. Uh. So Russia's domestic life

1138
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:30,000
Speaker 1: while he's enduring all this professional success. His domestic life

1139
01:01:30,240 --> 01:01:32,160
Speaker 1: life with his I think she was his second I

1140
01:01:32,160 --> 01:01:35,000
Speaker 1: think she was his third wife. Actually, um, I don't know.

1141
01:01:35,200 --> 01:01:36,720
Speaker 1: He had a couple. He had a lot of wives.

1142
01:01:36,880 --> 01:01:38,520
Speaker 1: I think actually, no, this was his second wife. His

1143
01:01:38,560 --> 01:01:40,760
Speaker 1: domestic wife life with his second life at this period

1144
01:01:41,040 --> 01:01:44,320
Speaker 1: was less than joyful. He was famous and popular, constantly

1145
01:01:44,360 --> 01:01:47,320
Speaker 1: fitted for dinners and invited to big events. And his wife,

1146
01:01:47,680 --> 01:01:51,160
Speaker 1: Michelle was much less successful. Um. She quit her job

1147
01:01:51,240 --> 01:01:55,320
Speaker 1: to be as assistant, but she hated the work. It's

1148
01:01:55,360 --> 01:02:00,600
Speaker 1: a nightmare that they were not a good it. Michelle

1149
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:04,520
Speaker 1: loved the outdoors. Rush Limbaugh despise them. Um. Two of

1150
01:02:04,560 --> 01:02:06,840
Speaker 1: his colleagues tell a story from around this time of

1151
01:02:06,880 --> 01:02:09,280
Speaker 1: how they convinced him to go rafting once that I

1152
01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:13,000
Speaker 1: think is telling about Russia Limball's personality. So this is

1153
01:02:13,040 --> 01:02:14,960
Speaker 1: one of Russia's friends talking about at the time they

1154
01:02:15,000 --> 01:02:17,400
Speaker 1: took Rush Limbaugh on a on a rafting trip in

1155
01:02:17,560 --> 01:02:20,960
Speaker 1: whatever river it is that goes through Sacramento. Quote, it's

1156
01:02:21,000 --> 01:02:24,000
Speaker 1: a very very mild ride. Bob gave Russian oar and

1157
01:02:24,040 --> 01:02:29,320
Speaker 1: told him to abide. You're gonna really love this if

1158
01:02:32,720 --> 01:02:34,560
Speaker 1: you have to know before I start the story, you

1159
01:02:34,600 --> 01:02:40,280
Speaker 1: have to know we're on a Yeah, Bob gave Russian

1160
01:02:40,320 --> 01:02:42,560
Speaker 1: oar and told him to absorb the blow of the

1161
01:02:42,640 --> 01:02:44,919
Speaker 1: canyon wall to give us a little spring back into

1162
01:02:44,960 --> 01:02:48,040
Speaker 1: the current. Rush Panicked stuck the oar out his arms

1163
01:02:48,040 --> 01:02:50,640
Speaker 1: stiff as a board, and upon impact he fell overboard.

1164
01:02:50,920 --> 01:02:52,840
Speaker 1: We got rushed back in the raft and the next

1165
01:02:52,920 --> 01:02:55,200
Speaker 1: day he spent the entire three hours of his show

1166
01:02:55,280 --> 01:02:58,520
Speaker 1: talking about his horrendous whitewater grapple with the Grim Reaper.

1167
01:03:01,240 --> 01:03:06,520
Speaker 1: What a fucking baby. I've had people fucking shoot at me,

1168
01:03:06,560 --> 01:03:09,240
Speaker 1: and I've people showed me with artillery. I've never spent

1169
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:16,880
Speaker 1: three hours talking about it, le fucking baby. Uh So,

1170
01:03:17,280 --> 01:03:20,720
Speaker 1: Sacramento is where Limbos started picking up what would become

1171
01:03:20,800 --> 01:03:24,560
Speaker 1: a voluminous list of mostly self inflicted nicknames. He was

1172
01:03:25,080 --> 01:03:28,160
Speaker 1: l Rushbo, the all knowing, all caring, all sense of

1173
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:32,200
Speaker 1: sensing Maha Rushie. He was also a harmless little fuzzball

1174
01:03:32,280 --> 01:03:36,080
Speaker 1: and the epitome of morality and virtue. He started claiming

1175
01:03:36,080 --> 01:03:38,080
Speaker 1: that his show was hosted by the E I B

1176
01:03:38,560 --> 01:03:42,480
Speaker 1: or Excellence in Broadcasting Network, which did not exist. This

1177
01:03:42,680 --> 01:03:45,480
Speaker 1: joke mainly served as a vehicle for Rush to express

1178
01:03:45,520 --> 01:03:49,480
Speaker 1: his grandiosity, he declared himself on the cutting edge edge

1179
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:53,600
Speaker 1: of societal evolution, swore that he was serving humanity, and

1180
01:03:53,760 --> 01:03:57,680
Speaker 1: had himself introduced as having talent on loan from God.

1181
01:03:58,200 --> 01:04:01,240
Speaker 1: His opinions were quote dot meanted to be almost always

1182
01:04:01,360 --> 01:04:04,080
Speaker 1: right nineties seven point nine percent of the time by

1183
01:04:04,080 --> 01:04:08,000
Speaker 1: the Sullivan Group, which also did not exist. And again

1184
01:04:08,080 --> 01:04:11,440
Speaker 1: he's joking. And also at a certain point he starts

1185
01:04:11,720 --> 01:04:15,920
Speaker 1: meaning all of this very literally, right, Like that's kind

1186
01:04:15,960 --> 01:04:20,240
Speaker 1: of how narcissists were. So it may surprise people to

1187
01:04:20,600 --> 01:04:23,040
Speaker 1: know that Russia to hear that Russi Lumba's career was

1188
01:04:23,120 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 1: launched into the stratosphere in Sacramento, because California is, to

1189
01:04:27,600 --> 01:04:31,040
Speaker 1: most people outside of California at least, a bastion of

1190
01:04:31,120 --> 01:04:33,520
Speaker 1: liberal politics. Now, if you actually live and spend time

1191
01:04:33,560 --> 01:04:35,720
Speaker 1: in the state, you know, like, for example, if you've

1192
01:04:35,720 --> 01:04:37,480
Speaker 1: ever been to fucking uh, I don't know, what is

1193
01:04:37,520 --> 01:04:40,360
Speaker 1: that uh, Orange County right where if you've been up

1194
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:43,120
Speaker 1: near Reading there's a ship. Look like, there are more

1195
01:04:43,200 --> 01:04:46,240
Speaker 1: right wing Californians than there are right wingers than there

1196
01:04:46,240 --> 01:04:48,920
Speaker 1: are in like a number of US states. Right Like,

1197
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:51,760
Speaker 1: California has a ton of right wingers, and it has

1198
01:04:51,800 --> 01:04:55,920
Speaker 1: a long powerful conservative political tradition. California gave us Ronald Reagan.

1199
01:04:56,080 --> 01:04:58,920
Speaker 1: It gave us Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, in one of

1200
01:04:58,920 --> 01:05:03,200
Speaker 1: the most surreal turns and political history, is now among

1201
01:05:03,320 --> 01:05:06,440
Speaker 1: the only rational voices on the right in the United States.

1202
01:05:07,680 --> 01:05:11,040
Speaker 1: Um so, yeah, California has a powerful right wing and

1203
01:05:11,160 --> 01:05:14,520
Speaker 1: yes they are, especially in the last twenty something years,

1204
01:05:14,600 --> 01:05:18,240
Speaker 1: overwhelmed by the much more numerous liberals and leftists. But

1205
01:05:18,480 --> 01:05:20,760
Speaker 1: in this fact is one of the hints to Russia

1206
01:05:20,760 --> 01:05:24,080
Speaker 1: Limballs rise. You see, Sacramento is located kind of north

1207
01:05:24,160 --> 01:05:26,960
Speaker 1: of the center of California, not far from some of

1208
01:05:27,000 --> 01:05:30,120
Speaker 1: the most productive farmland in the country. It is also

1209
01:05:30,240 --> 01:05:33,640
Speaker 1: not far from north central California places like Reading, which

1210
01:05:33,640 --> 01:05:37,200
Speaker 1: are right wing strongholds. The conservatives who live in these

1211
01:05:37,240 --> 01:05:39,920
Speaker 1: areas tend to be very extreme in their beliefs, and

1212
01:05:39,920 --> 01:05:42,480
Speaker 1: that's partly a response to the liberal and left wing

1213
01:05:42,720 --> 01:05:45,960
Speaker 1: like government that they live under. They see and this

1214
01:05:46,040 --> 01:05:49,120
Speaker 1: is not they are not entirely or even largely wrong

1215
01:05:49,200 --> 01:05:52,240
Speaker 1: in seeing this. They see themselves oppressed by many of

1216
01:05:52,280 --> 01:05:54,840
Speaker 1: the rules liberals in the cities put in terms of

1217
01:05:54,840 --> 01:05:57,600
Speaker 1: things like gas taxes, right you're living in if you're

1218
01:05:57,640 --> 01:06:00,480
Speaker 1: a farmer, you know in central or northern California. A

1219
01:06:00,480 --> 01:06:02,760
Speaker 1: gas tax that is reasonable for people in l A,

1220
01:06:02,880 --> 01:06:07,000
Speaker 1: San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento is a a hardship on you,

1221
01:06:07,320 --> 01:06:10,120
Speaker 1: and you're not contributing to the kind of pollution in

1222
01:06:10,160 --> 01:06:12,040
Speaker 1: the cities that the gas taxes are meant to fight.

1223
01:06:12,360 --> 01:06:14,960
Speaker 1: You know, the strict gun laws and stuff. There's a

1224
01:06:14,960 --> 01:06:18,160
Speaker 1: lot of things reasons these people have to be angry,

1225
01:06:18,760 --> 01:06:23,520
Speaker 1: and Rush Limbaugh became their voice. Um so these these

1226
01:06:23,800 --> 01:06:28,120
Speaker 1: this kind of infuriated very radical right wing who hates

1227
01:06:28,240 --> 01:06:31,320
Speaker 1: the liberals and left that governed California have a voice

1228
01:06:31,360 --> 01:06:35,040
Speaker 1: in Rush Limbaugh. He obliges their sensibilities with a ceaseless

1229
01:06:35,080 --> 01:06:38,240
Speaker 1: stream of attacks on liberal California. And that's what makes

1230
01:06:38,280 --> 01:06:41,600
Speaker 1: him huge is because there's millions of right wingers in

1231
01:06:41,640 --> 01:06:44,520
Speaker 1: California and Rush limbab becomes like, yeah, he's their voice.

1232
01:06:44,560 --> 01:06:48,160
Speaker 1: You know, um you could you might even be able

1233
01:06:48,200 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 1: to argue that nowhere but California could have produced Rush

1234
01:06:51,480 --> 01:06:55,960
Speaker 1: Limbaugh as he became uh yeah, so I'm gonna quote

1235
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:58,000
Speaker 1: from the book Rush Limbaugh an army of one here

1236
01:06:58,400 --> 01:07:01,560
Speaker 1: he mocked the multicultural style of California by proposing to

1237
01:07:01,640 --> 01:07:06,600
Speaker 1: keep uglow Americans off the streets. Militant feminists became feminazis.

1238
01:07:06,840 --> 01:07:10,440
Speaker 1: The green movement was full of environmental wackos. The American

1239
01:07:10,520 --> 01:07:14,520
Speaker 1: left became comie Pinko. Liberals and the residents of Rio Linda, California,

1240
01:07:14,560 --> 01:07:19,400
Speaker 1: were synonymous with stupidity. A ringing Debtalate Detalate. Detalate introduced

1241
01:07:19,440 --> 01:07:22,280
Speaker 1: news updates on what he regarded as the absurdities of

1242
01:07:22,280 --> 01:07:26,320
Speaker 1: liberal activism. Liberals, of course, hated him, which he found inspiring.

1243
01:07:26,560 --> 01:07:28,960
Speaker 1: When they attacked him as a dim wit, he responded

1244
01:07:28,960 --> 01:07:30,880
Speaker 1: by claiming that he was so much smarter than his

1245
01:07:30,920 --> 01:07:33,480
Speaker 1: critics that he could vanquish them with half my brain

1246
01:07:33,560 --> 01:07:37,280
Speaker 1: tied behind my back. Just to make it fair. Before long,

1247
01:07:37,560 --> 01:07:40,000
Speaker 1: Rush was too big to stay in Sacramento, which is

1248
01:07:40,040 --> 01:07:42,600
Speaker 1: again the very mouth of Hell itself. He was introduced

1249
01:07:42,600 --> 01:07:45,440
Speaker 1: to Ed McLaughlin, the former head of ABC Radio who

1250
01:07:45,440 --> 01:07:47,880
Speaker 1: had started his own big radio company based out of

1251
01:07:47,880 --> 01:07:50,920
Speaker 1: New York City. McLaughlin had listened to Russia's show and

1252
01:07:50,960 --> 01:07:54,040
Speaker 1: decided it had the potential to go national. He offered

1253
01:07:54,120 --> 01:07:57,920
Speaker 1: Russia partnership, and after some haggling, Russia agreed, He moved

1254
01:07:57,920 --> 01:08:00,400
Speaker 1: to New York and made the E. I B Network

1255
01:08:00,480 --> 01:08:04,520
Speaker 1: a reality. Rush was thirty seven years old at this point,

1256
01:08:04,600 --> 01:08:07,840
Speaker 1: in twenty one years into a career of doing almost

1257
01:08:07,880 --> 01:08:11,080
Speaker 1: nothing but broadcasting on the radio. Again, the voice of

1258
01:08:11,120 --> 01:08:14,840
Speaker 1: the so called populoust American right. Never did anything but radio,

1259
01:08:14,920 --> 01:08:18,840
Speaker 1: really um In nineteen eight he launched a new version

1260
01:08:18,840 --> 01:08:21,400
Speaker 1: of The Rush Limbaugh Show, this time for an audience

1261
01:08:21,400 --> 01:08:24,040
Speaker 1: across the nation. It's sort of hard to find his

1262
01:08:24,080 --> 01:08:26,280
Speaker 1: stuff from the late nineteen eighties, but I found this

1263
01:08:26,320 --> 01:08:29,720
Speaker 1: guest appearance he did not long after in nineteen on

1264
01:08:29,800 --> 01:08:32,880
Speaker 1: another colleague show for the same network. It gives you

1265
01:08:32,920 --> 01:08:36,360
Speaker 1: an idea of where his radio personality was by this point,

1266
01:08:36,760 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: and of how he presented himself right, of how he

1267
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:41,479
Speaker 1: kind of introduced himself anytime he was coming on the air.

1268
01:08:41,520 --> 01:08:43,800
Speaker 1: So that's that's we're gonna play this now. This is

1269
01:08:43,880 --> 01:08:47,719
Speaker 1: kind of the birth of the Rush Limbaugh. We all know, uh,

1270
01:08:47,760 --> 01:08:50,760
Speaker 1: we all know now one of radios and great broadcasters,

1271
01:08:50,960 --> 01:08:52,479
Speaker 1: and he's with us today in this studio. We invited

1272
01:08:52,680 --> 01:08:57,880
Speaker 1: Rush thrill. It's my time. You know. I smoked a

1273
01:08:57,880 --> 01:08:59,439
Speaker 1: little dope to get ready for this in here and

1274
01:08:59,479 --> 01:09:04,360
Speaker 1: I'm ready to go, man to time. One brain behind you,

1275
01:09:04,720 --> 01:09:06,840
Speaker 1: half my brain tied behind my back. Just to make

1276
01:09:06,880 --> 01:09:09,400
Speaker 1: it fair, well, I'll tell you one thing. I use

1277
01:09:09,520 --> 01:09:12,960
Speaker 1: my talents on loan from God. Man. I heard you

1278
01:09:13,080 --> 01:09:15,640
Speaker 1: get a little loan from ABC Catas when you renegotiating

1279
01:09:15,640 --> 01:09:18,040
Speaker 1: a new contract. No, I loaned Limb some money and

1280
01:09:18,160 --> 01:09:23,519
Speaker 1: I brought you a gift Los Angeles Times. Great, they

1281
01:09:23,520 --> 01:09:27,439
Speaker 1: were saying, well, I wowed him there, didn't as nice?

1282
01:09:27,479 --> 01:09:29,400
Speaker 1: Have a big article on how you flopped in the

1283
01:09:29,400 --> 01:09:32,519
Speaker 1: New York Times six minutes before nine. It's like you

1284
01:09:32,520 --> 01:09:34,840
Speaker 1: started out with just as like a small group of

1285
01:09:34,880 --> 01:09:37,120
Speaker 1: stations on your start with fifty six and our three

1286
01:09:37,479 --> 01:09:40,400
Speaker 1: and thirty seven, with the weekly audience about six and

1287
01:09:40,400 --> 01:09:42,360
Speaker 1: a half million, an average quarter r of a million.

1288
01:09:42,439 --> 01:09:47,360
Speaker 1: Seven must listen to radio talk show in America. Universe.

1289
01:09:48,080 --> 01:09:52,679
Speaker 1: That's that's Rush Limbaugh at kind of when he goes

1290
01:09:52,800 --> 01:09:54,800
Speaker 1: viral to them. What do you think about that? About

1291
01:09:54,840 --> 01:09:56,920
Speaker 1: that how he presents himself on here, What does that

1292
01:09:56,960 --> 01:10:02,439
Speaker 1: say to you? It's so um, it's so the the

1293
01:10:02,520 --> 01:10:07,000
Speaker 1: fully formed version of him that that I first experienced,

1294
01:10:07,479 --> 01:10:10,200
Speaker 1: and like he's really going for it, like he's really

1295
01:10:10,680 --> 01:10:15,719
Speaker 1: he's really uh, like he's so aggressive in it and

1296
01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:19,200
Speaker 1: and like saying I'm gonna come Like clearly the the

1297
01:10:19,240 --> 01:10:21,800
Speaker 1: intention is I'm gonna come on your show and I'm

1298
01:10:21,800 --> 01:10:24,439
Speaker 1: gonna take it over, and I'm gonna I'm gonna be

1299
01:10:24,479 --> 01:10:28,080
Speaker 1: the the the the I'm gonna be the alpha here.

1300
01:10:28,080 --> 01:10:31,559
Speaker 1: I'm gonna dominate you, um with this. The the l

1301
01:10:31,600 --> 01:10:33,680
Speaker 1: A the present presentation of The l A Times is

1302
01:10:33,720 --> 01:10:38,000
Speaker 1: because why that guy got fired from the l A Times. No.

1303
01:10:38,080 --> 01:10:40,320
Speaker 1: I think he'd been in Los Angeles and they savaged

1304
01:10:40,360 --> 01:10:45,640
Speaker 1: him in a review. Okay, so it's it's um, you know,

1305
01:10:45,800 --> 01:10:48,400
Speaker 1: it's that Frankly, it's like it's all the ship that

1306
01:10:48,439 --> 01:10:54,280
Speaker 1: I hate. Yeah, it's it's so, it's it's aggressive, it's mean,

1307
01:10:54,520 --> 01:10:59,320
Speaker 1: it's um, you know, it's he's also correcting him on

1308
01:10:59,320 --> 01:11:03,080
Speaker 1: one of his you know, uh eight catch phrases. You

1309
01:11:03,120 --> 01:11:05,280
Speaker 1: know you have to get a ride. I say it

1310
01:11:05,320 --> 01:11:08,160
Speaker 1: like this every time. This is the way it goes. Um,

1311
01:11:08,200 --> 01:11:11,360
Speaker 1: you know, it's just, uh, it's a drag. It's it's

1312
01:11:11,640 --> 01:11:14,080
Speaker 1: it's a drag. It's also I think there's a thing

1313
01:11:14,120 --> 01:11:16,280
Speaker 1: that he's doing here. When we talk about all these phrases,

1314
01:11:16,400 --> 01:11:19,120
Speaker 1: half my brain tied behind my back. Uh, you know

1315
01:11:19,240 --> 01:11:23,160
Speaker 1: the god, all these different phrases that were that he

1316
01:11:23,720 --> 01:11:27,200
Speaker 1: continuously used for decades. I I don't want to. I

1317
01:11:27,360 --> 01:11:29,080
Speaker 1: don't know. I hope this doesn't seem a little pompous,

1318
01:11:29,080 --> 01:11:31,120
Speaker 1: but I kind of make a comparison between that and

1319
01:11:31,160 --> 01:11:33,120
Speaker 1: like the Iliad and the Odyssey. Right, this like the

1320
01:11:33,160 --> 01:11:35,679
Speaker 1: way that anytime you've got home or introducing it's always

1321
01:11:35,720 --> 01:11:39,280
Speaker 1: like you know, the there's certain phrases. Anytime Achilles comes up,

1322
01:11:39,280 --> 01:11:41,400
Speaker 1: he uses the same kind of phrases, same couple of

1323
01:11:41,439 --> 01:11:45,280
Speaker 1: phrases to introduce him. These descriptive phrases, um to introduce

1324
01:11:45,320 --> 01:11:48,880
Speaker 1: a character that are repeated constantly throughout the because it's

1325
01:11:48,920 --> 01:11:51,519
Speaker 1: a because it was a spoken story, right, Like that's

1326
01:11:51,520 --> 01:11:53,840
Speaker 1: where you're supposed to deliver it. That works. It gets

1327
01:11:53,840 --> 01:11:57,120
Speaker 1: in people's heads. They associate those phrases with those characters.

1328
01:11:57,200 --> 01:11:59,200
Speaker 1: Russia is kind of doing. This is an old tactic,

1329
01:11:59,280 --> 01:12:01,800
Speaker 1: but it works. Um. It's the same thing Trump does

1330
01:12:01,840 --> 01:12:06,000
Speaker 1: with his impulse and insults Crooked Hillary, right, sleepy Joe. Um.

1331
01:12:06,160 --> 01:12:08,559
Speaker 1: These are effective tactics, and that's what Russia is doing

1332
01:12:08,640 --> 01:12:11,680
Speaker 1: to to inculcate his followers, primarily with this idea that

1333
01:12:11,760 --> 01:12:15,919
Speaker 1: he is a genius, right, and it again he's joking,

1334
01:12:16,040 --> 01:12:19,120
Speaker 1: but he's also not because this ship buries itself in

1335
01:12:19,200 --> 01:12:22,599
Speaker 1: your brain. Um, he's he's he knows what he's doing.

1336
01:12:22,800 --> 01:12:25,720
Speaker 1: It's he's a very savvy person. Yeah, it's like when

1337
01:12:25,720 --> 01:12:29,280
Speaker 1: you when you people like that that that understand the

1338
01:12:29,439 --> 01:12:33,800
Speaker 1: importance of branding over having an actual thing to say.

1339
01:12:33,840 --> 01:12:37,799
Speaker 1: Like it honestly, the the what you what the content

1340
01:12:38,120 --> 01:12:42,679
Speaker 1: is secondary to the presentation of here's who I am.

1341
01:12:42,760 --> 01:12:45,160
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you through repetition, this is my

1342
01:12:45,240 --> 01:12:47,360
Speaker 1: whole thing. It's like they're they're you know, comics. That

1343
01:12:47,880 --> 01:12:49,880
Speaker 1: to me, it always makes me think of comedians that

1344
01:12:50,120 --> 01:12:55,320
Speaker 1: um majored in marketing in college. And then it's like, okay,

1345
01:12:55,320 --> 01:12:57,360
Speaker 1: but are they actually that funny or did they just

1346
01:12:57,520 --> 01:13:01,679
Speaker 1: are they able to really sell themselves so well that

1347
01:13:01,680 --> 01:13:06,040
Speaker 1: that the content is secondary to the image. You have

1348
01:13:06,160 --> 01:13:08,880
Speaker 1: two kinds of people who really are able to build

1349
01:13:08,960 --> 01:13:10,920
Speaker 1: a following. People who are able to build a following

1350
01:13:10,920 --> 01:13:13,280
Speaker 1: because folks genuinely just enjoy that the work that they're

1351
01:13:13,280 --> 01:13:15,400
Speaker 1: bringing into the world, they like their personality, they like

1352
01:13:15,439 --> 01:13:16,880
Speaker 1: what they're doing. And then you have folks who are

1353
01:13:16,920 --> 01:13:20,559
Speaker 1: able to build a following primarily because they do cult leadership. Right, Yeah,

1354
01:13:20,640 --> 01:13:23,040
Speaker 1: that's the that's what the marketing comedians, right, that's what

1355
01:13:23,479 --> 01:13:26,519
Speaker 1: this is cult leadership. This is how you do it. Um.

1356
01:13:26,640 --> 01:13:28,679
Speaker 1: We do a little bit of that here. Um. But

1357
01:13:29,240 --> 01:13:31,800
Speaker 1: we're all guilty a little We're all guilty a little bit.

1358
01:13:32,120 --> 01:13:34,240
Speaker 1: And I'll be guiltier when I get I don't know,

1359
01:13:34,280 --> 01:13:36,320
Speaker 1: a couple of hundred people killed by the FDA in

1360
01:13:36,400 --> 01:13:39,240
Speaker 1: my mountain top compounds, which I you know is always

1361
01:13:39,240 --> 01:13:41,320
Speaker 1: the goal. Paul, You're very welcome if you would like

1362
01:13:41,360 --> 01:13:43,280
Speaker 1: to have an armed standoff with thes How you know

1363
01:13:43,320 --> 01:13:45,920
Speaker 1: you're successful. That's how you know you're successful when a

1364
01:13:45,960 --> 01:13:50,080
Speaker 1: three letter agency burns you down. By anyway, I don't

1365
01:13:50,080 --> 01:13:55,840
Speaker 1: need to Waco this time, UM want to that's a

1366
01:13:55,880 --> 01:13:59,760
Speaker 1: good one. Yeah, Well I took an almost an hour

1367
01:13:59,800 --> 01:14:03,240
Speaker 1: to Wanny for Robert to mention Waco, good job. I'm

1368
01:14:03,280 --> 01:14:06,559
Speaker 1: getting you know, I I realized I was wacoing a lot,

1369
01:14:07,400 --> 01:14:14,000
Speaker 1: trying to cut back. You know, here is first wake up.

1370
01:14:14,320 --> 01:14:17,639
Speaker 1: But we'll we'll talk off air, Paul about synergizing our

1371
01:14:17,680 --> 01:14:21,519
Speaker 1: cults in the near future. Anyway, So Rush did not

1372
01:14:21,640 --> 01:14:24,719
Speaker 1: tone himself down at all after he went mainstream. In fact,

1373
01:14:24,760 --> 01:14:27,200
Speaker 1: he grew more extreme, and he seems to have quickly

1374
01:14:27,240 --> 01:14:31,800
Speaker 1: forgotten that he was ever practicing satire. At the very

1375
01:14:31,880 --> 01:14:35,000
Speaker 1: height of the AIDS crisis, rush launched a new segment

1376
01:14:35,080 --> 01:14:38,080
Speaker 1: on his show, the AIDS Update. And I find it

1377
01:14:38,160 --> 01:14:41,679
Speaker 1: interesting how different sources report on this. When Limbaugh died,

1378
01:14:41,760 --> 01:14:43,960
Speaker 1: it was obviously a big story, the fact that he'd

1379
01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:46,400
Speaker 1: done this AIDS update. Uh. And it was in fact,

1380
01:14:46,600 --> 01:14:48,880
Speaker 1: limbaugh AIDS Update was like the second or third most

1381
01:14:48,880 --> 01:14:51,920
Speaker 1: googled term alongside his name the day he died. Snopes

1382
01:14:51,920 --> 01:14:55,000
Speaker 1: and Newsweek both published prominent fact checks on this story.

1383
01:14:55,320 --> 01:14:58,160
Speaker 1: But Zeep Chaffitz's biography of Limbaugh came out well before

1384
01:14:58,240 --> 01:15:00,719
Speaker 1: Rusha's death, and before the AIDS up dates were really

1385
01:15:00,760 --> 01:15:02,720
Speaker 1: talked about all that much outside of, you know, the

1386
01:15:02,720 --> 01:15:05,680
Speaker 1: community they most impacted, uh and not. I think it's

1387
01:15:05,680 --> 01:15:07,960
Speaker 1: interesting how Zev wrote about it, not knowing that this

1388
01:15:08,080 --> 01:15:10,519
Speaker 1: was one going, one day, going to become a significant story.

1389
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:12,960
Speaker 1: So this is how Zev wrote about the AIDS Update.

1390
01:15:13,800 --> 01:15:17,000
Speaker 1: After an ACT UP demonstration at St. Patrick's Cathedral in

1391
01:15:17,000 --> 01:15:20,559
Speaker 1: New York City that disrupted a mass, Limbaugh chastised militant

1392
01:15:20,640 --> 01:15:25,000
Speaker 1: homosexuals for their disrespectful behavior, and shortly thereafter began broadcasting

1393
01:15:25,000 --> 01:15:28,920
Speaker 1: irreverend and tasteless AIDS update segments produced introduced by Dion

1394
01:15:29,040 --> 01:15:32,200
Speaker 1: Warwick's I'll Never Love This Way Again in his traveling

1395
01:15:32,240 --> 01:15:35,120
Speaker 1: stage show The Excellence and Broadcasting Tour. He did a

1396
01:15:35,120 --> 01:15:37,400
Speaker 1: bit when he put a condemn over the microphone to

1397
01:15:37,439 --> 01:15:41,200
Speaker 1: illustrate safe speech. So that's how the AIDS update was

1398
01:15:41,240 --> 01:15:43,719
Speaker 1: kind of framed by Zev before it was a big story.

1399
01:15:43,880 --> 01:15:46,559
Speaker 1: Now here's how Snop's characterized it in their fact check

1400
01:15:46,600 --> 01:15:49,320
Speaker 1: after Limbaugh died. And I think and before that, like

1401
01:15:49,400 --> 01:15:52,960
Speaker 1: already that doesn't sound good that. No, I don't think

1402
01:15:53,040 --> 01:15:55,760
Speaker 1: zev is trying to whitewash it. I think that he

1403
01:15:55,880 --> 01:15:59,640
Speaker 1: just doesn't see it story even just plainly stated that

1404
01:16:00,200 --> 01:16:03,439
Speaker 1: it's terrible. Yeah, it's terrible, and it sounds worse when

1405
01:16:03,439 --> 01:16:06,920
Speaker 1: Snopes goes into more detail on this quote. At the

1406
01:16:06,960 --> 01:16:09,519
Speaker 1: height of the HIV AIDS crisis, The Rush Limbaugh Show

1407
01:16:09,560 --> 01:16:12,240
Speaker 1: featured an AIDS update in which Limbaugh joked about an

1408
01:16:12,240 --> 01:16:14,920
Speaker 1: epidemic that had claimed more than a hundred thousand lives

1409
01:16:15,120 --> 01:16:19,000
Speaker 1: between nineteen one and nineteen ninety. Specifically, Limbaugh targeted gay

1410
01:16:19,080 --> 01:16:21,800
Speaker 1: men who had died. In addition to joking about their deaths,

1411
01:16:21,840 --> 01:16:25,439
Speaker 1: Limbaugh reportedly played songs during the segment, including kiss Him Goodbye,

1412
01:16:25,520 --> 01:16:27,680
Speaker 1: I'll Never Love This Way Again, and Looking for Love

1413
01:16:27,720 --> 01:16:30,640
Speaker 1: and All the Wrong Places. Snopes dot Com uncovered an

1414
01:16:30,640 --> 01:16:33,080
Speaker 1: interview when The Cedar Gazette from nineteen ninety in which

1415
01:16:33,120 --> 01:16:36,360
Speaker 1: Limbaugh said the segment was politically oriented and based upon

1416
01:16:36,439 --> 01:16:38,840
Speaker 1: my reaction to what I considered to be extremism in

1417
01:16:38,880 --> 01:16:41,599
Speaker 1: the political mainstream by a group of people. Per The

1418
01:16:41,600 --> 01:16:44,719
Speaker 1: Cedar Gazette, Limbaugh said his target is not AIDS victims,

1419
01:16:44,720 --> 01:16:47,720
Speaker 1: but militant homosexuals who blamed church and government officials for

1420
01:16:47,720 --> 01:16:51,240
Speaker 1: the epidemic. The AIDS update is meant to offend them,

1421
01:16:51,360 --> 01:16:55,000
Speaker 1: Limbaugh said, damn right. According to a nineteen nine Los

1422
01:16:55,000 --> 01:16:57,680
Speaker 1: Angeles Times article, it was a popular segment, but it

1423
01:16:57,720 --> 01:17:01,120
Speaker 1: also created outrage among AIDS activists, something not helped by

1424
01:17:01,160 --> 01:17:05,600
Speaker 1: Limbaugh repeat reportedly saying gays deserved their fate. Mocking the

1425
01:17:05,640 --> 01:17:07,880
Speaker 1: horrific deaths of gay people isn't something that will get

1426
01:17:07,920 --> 01:17:11,080
Speaker 1: a conservative radio host fired today, So obviously this was

1427
01:17:11,120 --> 01:17:13,720
Speaker 1: never more than a mild bump in Limbo's career. Back

1428
01:17:13,760 --> 01:17:16,439
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety and it says a lot about where

1429
01:17:16,479 --> 01:17:19,960
Speaker 1: the right would go that a segment dedicated to mocking

1430
01:17:20,120 --> 01:17:23,560
Speaker 1: joyfully the deaths of people he disagreed with was popular,

1431
01:17:23,720 --> 01:17:26,880
Speaker 1: right that would become the mainstream for Republicans. Now, in

1432
01:17:27,000 --> 01:17:29,439
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, it was still a thing he had to

1433
01:17:29,479 --> 01:17:32,800
Speaker 1: apologize for. Uh. And that year is the year he

1434
01:17:32,840 --> 01:17:35,320
Speaker 1: became officially famous. Nineteen ninety. He had his first live

1435
01:17:35,400 --> 01:17:37,840
Speaker 1: TV appearance on June two, when c SPAN did a

1436
01:17:37,840 --> 01:17:41,479
Speaker 1: special on talk radio. Um and yeah, so this is

1437
01:17:41,520 --> 01:17:43,479
Speaker 1: like he he does kind of have to sort of

1438
01:17:43,640 --> 01:17:46,679
Speaker 1: say that he regretted uh doing this, that he felt

1439
01:17:46,680 --> 01:17:50,200
Speaker 1: like he was kind of attacking people who um um

1440
01:17:50,320 --> 01:17:52,240
Speaker 1: like he he was like, I didn't mean to be

1441
01:17:52,360 --> 01:17:54,400
Speaker 1: mocking people who had died. I was trying to attack

1442
01:17:54,400 --> 01:17:59,599
Speaker 1: these militant activists and so I stopped. Yeah, who are

1443
01:17:59,640 --> 01:18:03,920
Speaker 1: so far are still alive? Yeah? Um? Anyway, that so

1444
01:18:04,320 --> 01:18:06,479
Speaker 1: he does a TV appearance on c SPAN in nineteen

1445
01:18:06,560 --> 01:18:08,760
Speaker 1: nine on June second, which is kind of his first

1446
01:18:08,760 --> 01:18:11,479
Speaker 1: big TV appearance. Um. And then The New York Times

1447
01:18:11,600 --> 01:18:14,479
Speaker 1: is a big profile on him. Uh. From that quote,

1448
01:18:14,720 --> 01:18:17,759
Speaker 1: with its characteristic attention to production values, the network simply

1449
01:18:17,760 --> 01:18:19,960
Speaker 1: set up a camera inside a spare w a b

1450
01:18:20,040 --> 01:18:22,120
Speaker 1: C seventy seven studio in New York and let the

1451
01:18:22,160 --> 01:18:25,559
Speaker 1: self proclaimed most dangerous man in America roll cut to

1452
01:18:25,600 --> 01:18:27,760
Speaker 1: a shlub in a cheap white dress, shirt, black tie

1453
01:18:27,840 --> 01:18:30,960
Speaker 1: and hastily barber shopped helmet of hair, already wiping sweat

1454
01:18:31,000 --> 01:18:33,559
Speaker 1: and grumbling about the TV lights planted behind his desk,

1455
01:18:33,600 --> 01:18:37,479
Speaker 1: and Mike interrupting the station's young newscaster, Kathleen Mahoney. She's

1456
01:18:37,520 --> 01:18:39,160
Speaker 1: trying to do her five minute top of the Hour

1457
01:18:39,320 --> 01:18:42,320
Speaker 1: update oddly for nineteen ninety while wearing a mask because,

1458
01:18:42,360 --> 01:18:44,720
Speaker 1: as she explains, the host had warned her, it could

1459
01:18:44,720 --> 01:18:47,160
Speaker 1: be dangerous to let his listeners identify her on TV

1460
01:18:47,280 --> 01:18:50,400
Speaker 1: as a liberal feminist. He was only joking. Limbaugh insists,

1461
01:18:50,640 --> 01:18:53,439
Speaker 1: you said wear a bag over my head. Maloney says.

1462
01:18:53,720 --> 01:18:56,519
Speaker 1: Limbaugh keeps threatening to yank her mask off, complimenting her

1463
01:18:56,520 --> 01:19:00,200
Speaker 1: beauty and interjecting impatiently, the news just holds up everything here.

1464
01:19:00,280 --> 01:19:03,360
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make the news worthwhile. There's a lot

1465
01:19:03,400 --> 01:19:07,599
Speaker 1: in there. Jesus, that's his that's a New York Times

1466
01:19:07,600 --> 01:19:10,840
Speaker 1: important a Span appearance. Yeah, he's like both saying you

1467
01:19:10,840 --> 01:19:13,519
Speaker 1: should cover your face because my listeners will harass you

1468
01:19:13,560 --> 01:19:16,040
Speaker 1: for being a liberal feminist and also take off that

1469
01:19:16,120 --> 01:19:19,520
Speaker 1: mask let everyone see your pretty face. Like he's simultaneously

1470
01:19:19,560 --> 01:19:25,640
Speaker 1: both threatening her and um and sexually harassing her. It's

1471
01:19:25,680 --> 01:19:29,519
Speaker 1: it's good. It seems there's something about that that seems

1472
01:19:29,560 --> 01:19:35,400
Speaker 1: so modern. What mean? Yes, I feel that he's because

1473
01:19:35,400 --> 01:19:40,320
Speaker 1: he brought, he created the right, you know, so you

1474
01:19:40,360 --> 01:19:44,720
Speaker 1: can see it, you know, in nineteen that's what he's doing. Yeah, now,

1475
01:19:44,880 --> 01:19:47,360
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, As I said, also when The Gray Lady

1476
01:19:47,360 --> 01:19:50,519
Speaker 1: published their first full feature dedicated to l. Rush Bow.

1477
01:19:50,840 --> 01:19:53,720
Speaker 1: The article is fascinating and valuable since it seems like

1478
01:19:53,840 --> 01:19:58,640
Speaker 1: few copies of his early nineteen two episodes exist, So

1479
01:19:58,680 --> 01:20:01,160
Speaker 1: this New York Times right. It provides with several fascinating

1480
01:20:01,160 --> 01:20:04,680
Speaker 1: insights into how Russia's show evolved during this period, and

1481
01:20:04,800 --> 01:20:08,000
Speaker 1: more to the point, into where American conservatism was about

1482
01:20:08,000 --> 01:20:10,799
Speaker 1: to follow in his wake. At one point, a critic

1483
01:20:10,840 --> 01:20:12,960
Speaker 1: calls in, This is again the New York Times writing

1484
01:20:12,960 --> 01:20:15,599
Speaker 1: about his show from an episode we don't have anymore.

1485
01:20:15,840 --> 01:20:18,840
Speaker 1: So at one point in the show, a critic calls

1486
01:20:18,880 --> 01:20:21,320
Speaker 1: in and tells Rush quote, I believe you are doing

1487
01:20:21,360 --> 01:20:24,000
Speaker 1: a great disservice by using the program to convince people

1488
01:20:24,000 --> 01:20:26,400
Speaker 1: that if poor people are not successful, it is their fault.

1489
01:20:26,600 --> 01:20:28,559
Speaker 1: You were just a paid advocate of the rich and

1490
01:20:28,640 --> 01:20:32,799
Speaker 1: you despise the poor. Now that's very accurate. The author

1491
01:20:32,800 --> 01:20:35,479
Speaker 1: of the New York Times article notes that, perhaps due

1492
01:20:35,520 --> 01:20:38,360
Speaker 1: to his guilt over his crueler shock jock days, Rush

1493
01:20:38,479 --> 01:20:41,040
Speaker 1: is very polite to his liberal callers, and this is

1494
01:20:41,160 --> 01:20:44,360
Speaker 1: what The New York Times writes as Russia's answer. You

1495
01:20:44,439 --> 01:20:47,120
Speaker 1: misunderstand my point. There is nothing wrong with being rich.

1496
01:20:47,240 --> 01:20:49,840
Speaker 1: It's not evil. Most rich people earned it by virtue

1497
01:20:49,840 --> 01:20:51,680
Speaker 1: of hard work. This has always been the country that

1498
01:20:51,760 --> 01:20:53,720
Speaker 1: people come to because there has always been a chance

1499
01:20:53,720 --> 01:20:56,519
Speaker 1: for opportunity. And if you start punishing the people who

1500
01:20:56,560 --> 01:20:58,559
Speaker 1: bust their tail to be prosperous, then you're going to

1501
01:20:58,640 --> 01:21:01,040
Speaker 1: unmotivate people to try that. I am not a paid

1502
01:21:01,040 --> 01:21:03,360
Speaker 1: defender of the rich. I'm a proud promoter of the

1503
01:21:03,400 --> 01:21:09,000
Speaker 1: American way of life. Yeah, what are the I guess

1504
01:21:09,000 --> 01:21:11,439
Speaker 1: that's a thing. You can just say that most rich

1505
01:21:11,479 --> 01:21:14,960
Speaker 1: people earned their money, Like, yeah, it's it's a it's

1506
01:21:15,000 --> 01:21:18,760
Speaker 1: objectively untrue. But yes, you can say that untrue. But

1507
01:21:18,840 --> 01:21:20,960
Speaker 1: I guess if you if you are born to wealth,

1508
01:21:21,080 --> 01:21:23,479
Speaker 1: but then you also get a job that makes you

1509
01:21:23,520 --> 01:21:27,400
Speaker 1: even wealth. Yeah, that's like work. I mean, look at

1510
01:21:27,760 --> 01:21:31,080
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, still Gates, all guys who were

1511
01:21:31,120 --> 01:21:33,840
Speaker 1: born to wealth, they were born crazy rich. They weren't

1512
01:21:33,840 --> 01:21:35,760
Speaker 1: born with fuck you money, but they were born into

1513
01:21:35,760 --> 01:21:37,960
Speaker 1: wealth and then they were able to get fuck you

1514
01:21:38,040 --> 01:21:40,920
Speaker 1: money because of the he And there's a lot written

1515
01:21:40,920 --> 01:21:42,640
Speaker 1: about that. You know, Bill Gates having access to a

1516
01:21:42,680 --> 01:21:45,639
Speaker 1: computer in an era when basically no one did. Uh

1517
01:21:45,760 --> 01:21:48,400
Speaker 1: Bezos being able to secure a huge loan from his

1518
01:21:48,479 --> 01:21:51,040
Speaker 1: parents in order to help start his first business. Uh.

1519
01:21:51,160 --> 01:21:53,400
Speaker 1: Elon Musk also getting a loan from his dad to

1520
01:21:53,439 --> 01:21:55,759
Speaker 1: start a business. You know, it's the way it always

1521
01:21:55,800 --> 01:21:58,240
Speaker 1: works for these people. And they they spend that as

1522
01:21:58,280 --> 01:22:02,080
Speaker 1: self made you know, um, yeah, because in their mind

1523
01:22:02,120 --> 01:22:04,000
Speaker 1: it's true. Because in their mind it's true, and they

1524
01:22:04,000 --> 01:22:06,160
Speaker 1: do work hard. And if you work hard, you can

1525
01:22:06,200 --> 01:22:08,479
Speaker 1: convince yourself that you've earned it, as opposed to like,

1526
01:22:08,560 --> 01:22:10,639
Speaker 1: I worked hard, but it only like I can say

1527
01:22:10,800 --> 01:22:13,200
Speaker 1: I worked hard, I can also say I am only

1528
01:22:13,680 --> 01:22:17,719
Speaker 1: financially successful because I got lucky. And I know other

1529
01:22:17,800 --> 01:22:19,600
Speaker 1: people who worked as hard as I did, who have

1530
01:22:19,680 --> 01:22:22,160
Speaker 1: not been nearly as financially successful. And it's not because

1531
01:22:22,200 --> 01:22:24,360
Speaker 1: of a lack of talent. It's because I got a

1532
01:22:24,360 --> 01:22:27,080
Speaker 1: break that they didn't, you know. That's and leaving leaving that,

1533
01:22:27,320 --> 01:22:29,120
Speaker 1: leaving that part out is how you were able to

1534
01:22:29,120 --> 01:22:34,120
Speaker 1: convince other people that that that the majority of people

1535
01:22:34,120 --> 01:22:37,800
Speaker 1: who are the majority of people are a wealthy through

1536
01:22:37,920 --> 01:22:42,759
Speaker 1: hard work. Yeah, it's nonsense. So that New York Times

1537
01:22:42,760 --> 01:22:45,959
Speaker 1: piece reveals that by nineteen ninety, Rush was already popular

1538
01:22:46,040 --> 01:22:48,880
Speaker 1: enough to draw massive in person crowds, and this was

1539
01:22:48,960 --> 01:22:52,479
Speaker 1: unheard of for a talk radio personality. Today we're well

1540
01:22:52,520 --> 01:22:55,320
Speaker 1: acquainted with right wing thought leaders who can draw thousands

1541
01:22:55,400 --> 01:22:59,360
Speaker 1: upon thousands of fanatically loyal followers to in person gatherings.

1542
01:22:59,560 --> 01:23:03,280
Speaker 1: But was really the first. From the Times quote, there

1543
01:23:03,280 --> 01:23:05,800
Speaker 1: are towns where he hasn't heard, unheard and unheard of,

1544
01:23:05,880 --> 01:23:07,959
Speaker 1: and then there are places like Tampa, where the announcement

1545
01:23:08,000 --> 01:23:11,040
Speaker 1: of a Rush Limbaugh stage show sold out the seat

1546
01:23:11,200 --> 01:23:14,320
Speaker 1: Ruth Eckert Hall in four days. The occupants of those

1547
01:23:14,360 --> 01:23:16,799
Speaker 1: seats are out of them and cheering when Limbaugh appears

1548
01:23:16,800 --> 01:23:19,400
Speaker 1: in a three piece tuxedo. They're like the crowd for

1549
01:23:19,439 --> 01:23:22,320
Speaker 1: a country western concert, says Dan Woollet. The halls director

1550
01:23:22,320 --> 01:23:24,599
Speaker 1: of operations. After sizing up the crowd in the lobby

1551
01:23:24,840 --> 01:23:28,200
Speaker 1: surprisingly youthful and more beer than wine drinkers. You're gonna

1552
01:23:28,240 --> 01:23:30,519
Speaker 1: have fun tonight, Limbaugh tells them. And at the same time,

1553
01:23:30,560 --> 01:23:33,400
Speaker 1: you're gonna learn some things. Pacing constantly, he does some

1554
01:23:33,520 --> 01:23:38,040
Speaker 1: jokes that poke fun at the Japanese and the liberal media.

1555
01:23:39,600 --> 01:23:41,880
Speaker 1: One of his jokes is that Judgment Day comes and

1556
01:23:41,880 --> 01:23:45,960
Speaker 1: the Washington Post article banner reads world ends tomorrow. Women

1557
01:23:46,080 --> 01:23:49,040
Speaker 1: minorities hardest hit. It's like that's the you know, you

1558
01:23:49,080 --> 01:23:52,200
Speaker 1: see what he's going for their Yeah, I see what

1559
01:23:52,200 --> 01:23:55,080
Speaker 1: he's going for. Yeah. Later in his live show, Russi

1560
01:23:55,120 --> 01:23:57,800
Speaker 1: engaged in a popular bit wherein he brings a piece

1561
01:23:57,800 --> 01:24:00,639
Speaker 1: of ship to a modern art gallery, and the joke

1562
01:24:00,800 --> 01:24:02,920
Speaker 1: is that, like, modern artists so dumb that if you

1563
01:24:02,960 --> 01:24:06,040
Speaker 1: like poop and take right, it's very obvious. This is it.

1564
01:24:06,120 --> 01:24:08,639
Speaker 1: You can find Ben Shapiro making the same basic joke

1565
01:24:08,760 --> 01:24:11,000
Speaker 1: decades later. And the gift of it is that just

1566
01:24:11,160 --> 01:24:12,760
Speaker 1: of it is that, you know, liberals are so dumb,

1567
01:24:12,760 --> 01:24:14,320
Speaker 1: they'll stare at ship if you tell them it's art.

1568
01:24:14,800 --> 01:24:17,120
Speaker 1: The Times introduces this bit and then moves on to

1569
01:24:17,280 --> 01:24:21,519
Speaker 1: something that I found chillingly relevant quote. Art criticism is

1570
01:24:21,560 --> 01:24:24,559
Speaker 1: a Limboss staple. He believes there is a culture war

1571
01:24:24,680 --> 01:24:28,000
Speaker 1: going on between those upholding decent values conservatives and the

1572
01:24:28,120 --> 01:24:31,639
Speaker 1: commie lib hordes trying to devalue human life and worst

1573
01:24:31,960 --> 01:24:35,760
Speaker 1: undermine private enterprise. Limbos sermon on art brings out the

1574
01:24:35,800 --> 01:24:40,040
Speaker 1: evenings only heckling a female cry of censorship. Oh no,

1575
01:24:40,160 --> 01:24:43,360
Speaker 1: Limbo protests he never spoke that word, but seconds later

1576
01:24:43,400 --> 01:24:46,439
Speaker 1: he allows that censorship isn't really so bad. It has

1577
01:24:46,479 --> 01:24:49,240
Speaker 1: been used throughout this nation's history as a means of

1578
01:24:49,280 --> 01:25:03,880
Speaker 1: maintaining standards. Means maintaining standards. Yeah, what the funk is

1579
01:25:03,920 --> 01:25:07,400
Speaker 1: he talking about? What he's talking about is spreading the

1580
01:25:07,439 --> 01:25:09,880
Speaker 1: needle that the right is now the sit like right,

1581
01:25:09,960 --> 01:25:12,200
Speaker 1: the main I went I was in fucking I took

1582
01:25:12,240 --> 01:25:14,600
Speaker 1: a concealed handgun course in Texas because I'm getting my

1583
01:25:14,640 --> 01:25:16,920
Speaker 1: out of state permits so I can be armed in

1584
01:25:17,000 --> 01:25:20,479
Speaker 1: more parts of the United States because of all that

1585
01:25:20,680 --> 01:25:23,360
Speaker 1: is like going to cooking school in Paris. Yeah. Well,

1586
01:25:23,439 --> 01:25:26,559
Speaker 1: and and the thing started with like a thirty minute

1587
01:25:26,640 --> 01:25:29,640
Speaker 1: lecture from the instructor on cancel culture, Like this is

1588
01:25:29,680 --> 01:25:32,360
Speaker 1: the big thing within the right. I know, I know,

1589
01:25:32,680 --> 01:25:36,920
Speaker 1: I know this is the big thing within the right

1590
01:25:36,960 --> 01:25:40,080
Speaker 1: now and it it Limbaugh is starting both like saying like, well,

1591
01:25:40,120 --> 01:25:42,760
Speaker 1: the liberals want to like censor us when I want

1592
01:25:42,760 --> 01:25:45,200
Speaker 1: to cut out all ideas they disagree with, and then

1593
01:25:45,240 --> 01:25:47,799
Speaker 1: he he moves on to saying, but also, it's okay

1594
01:25:47,800 --> 01:25:50,040
Speaker 1: to censor people sometimes, right, because this is what the

1595
01:25:50,120 --> 01:25:53,639
Speaker 1: right believes. It's cancel culture if you, if people don't

1596
01:25:53,680 --> 01:25:57,240
Speaker 1: like it and if they suffer financial consequences for being racist.

1597
01:25:57,520 --> 01:25:59,880
Speaker 1: But it's not cancel culture if they go out of

1598
01:26:00,000 --> 01:26:03,320
Speaker 1: their way to censor left wing and liberal voices, which

1599
01:26:03,360 --> 01:26:06,760
Speaker 1: they do through things like school books. Right, objectively true,

1600
01:26:06,800 --> 01:26:09,760
Speaker 1: well documented. This is how the right works. Um, I

1601
01:26:09,800 --> 01:26:12,480
Speaker 1: don't know when listening is going to disagree, but it's frustrating,

1602
01:26:12,720 --> 01:26:15,200
Speaker 1: but it is. It is absurd, the idea of of

1603
01:26:15,360 --> 01:26:19,320
Speaker 1: you know, like, it's it's cancel culture if you, if

1604
01:26:19,320 --> 01:26:25,760
Speaker 1: you compare being conservative to being a jew in late

1605
01:26:25,880 --> 01:26:30,200
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties Berlin to like it should be illegal to

1606
01:26:30,240 --> 01:26:36,920
Speaker 1: give the finger to the flag. It's amazing, And that,

1607
01:26:37,080 --> 01:26:40,240
Speaker 1: Paul is the end of part one of what is

1608
01:26:40,240 --> 01:26:42,599
Speaker 1: going to be like three hours of talking about rush

1609
01:26:42,720 --> 01:26:48,680
Speaker 1: Limballow deserves, but how to do it. I mean, he

1610
01:26:48,760 --> 01:26:51,320
Speaker 1: deserves this much time, not in a good way, but

1611
01:26:51,400 --> 01:26:53,800
Speaker 1: in a we need to understand what this man has

1612
01:26:53,880 --> 01:26:56,559
Speaker 1: done to us all. Absolutely. And it's also if you're

1613
01:26:56,600 --> 01:26:58,879
Speaker 1: if you're willing to go to bat for Rush Limbaugh

1614
01:26:58,920 --> 01:27:01,400
Speaker 1: because you think it's mean that somebody is glad that

1615
01:27:01,439 --> 01:27:04,960
Speaker 1: he's dead. Um, let's lay it all out and here's

1616
01:27:05,000 --> 01:27:13,080
Speaker 1: here's why some people might might not be so sad. Yeah,

1617
01:27:13,360 --> 01:27:16,080
Speaker 1: evidence both that he deserves to have his death cheered

1618
01:27:16,120 --> 01:27:19,400
Speaker 1: and also that he loved laughing at people's deaths. Ye,

1619
01:27:20,880 --> 01:27:23,400
Speaker 1: you're in a way, you are, you are. It's what

1620
01:27:23,439 --> 01:27:25,479
Speaker 1: he would have wanted. But you know what I want

1621
01:27:25,560 --> 01:27:28,519
Speaker 1: right now, Paul, I want you to plug your plug doubles. Well,

1622
01:27:28,600 --> 01:27:32,519
Speaker 1: let's see. Uh. You can find me um on social

1623
01:27:32,560 --> 01:27:36,800
Speaker 1: media at p F Tompkins on Twitter and Instagram. I

1624
01:27:37,000 --> 01:27:41,800
Speaker 1: have a bunch of podcasts going on at any Human Time,

1625
01:27:42,200 --> 01:27:46,719
Speaker 1: UM Freedom Uh, which I co host with Lauren Laftas

1626
01:27:46,760 --> 01:27:49,320
Speaker 1: and Scott Ackerman, and Stay of Homekins, which I co

1627
01:27:49,400 --> 01:27:52,040
Speaker 1: host with my wife. We started a podcast during the

1628
01:27:52,120 --> 01:27:57,880
Speaker 1: pandemic and unfortunately we are still doing it. Um uh

1629
01:27:57,880 --> 01:28:00,880
Speaker 1: and I do UH. I do shows. The first live

1630
01:28:00,960 --> 01:28:03,360
Speaker 1: streaming improv shows the first Monday of every month with

1631
01:28:03,400 --> 01:28:07,080
Speaker 1: my friend Lauren Laptus um and um that all those

1632
01:28:07,120 --> 01:28:09,320
Speaker 1: tickets can be found at Paul left thompkins dot com

1633
01:28:09,320 --> 01:28:14,599
Speaker 1: slash Live. Well, speaking of cancel culture, this episode is

1634
01:28:14,640 --> 01:28:19,120
Speaker 1: now over and thus canceled because of the lips. It's

1635
01:28:19,120 --> 01:28:29,439
Speaker 1: done by Bye m h.